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Tuesday, April 26, 1977
University Daily Kansan
Comment
Opinions on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Kansas or the School of Journalism
Profit drives KUAC
The University of Kansas Athletic Corporation (KUAC) leads a charmed life. It directs a large sports program at a major state university, using state facilities and the services of state employees. Yet the KUAC is not allowed to accept or no one except its board members.
Led by this corporation, KU's athletic department has become a business venture, not a recreational outlet. In recent years, the KUAC's efforts have been a financial success story. An operating deficit of $250,000 has disappeared, Allen Field House has undergone an attractive face lift and the athletic program is firmly in the black.
BUT THE FIGHT to stage a successful sports program while keeping the books balanced has been so intense that the KUAC often has crossed the line into the area of shady practices. One of the KUAC's most irritating and questionable habits has been closing its athletic board meetings whenever touchy issues promise to crop up.
TO FALL UNDER Kansas' open meetings law, an agency must meet two requirements: It must be dispersing public funds and it must be a public agency. Schneider and an assistant said the KUAC failed to qualify on both counts.
Curt Schneider, Kansas attorney general, told the Kansan last week that, in his opinion, the Kansan had on solid legal ground issued leases (as he said) on solid ethical ground is another question.
The KUAC, Schneider explained, is a private corporation. It disperses no state money because its income is derived from ticket money and donations. Thus, it is neither a public agency nor a group handling public funds.
Yet the KUAC is directed by athletic director Clyde Walker, whose salary is paid by the state of Kansas. It also oversees the matches, three of whom are paid by the state.
THE TEAMS THE KUAC supports play their games in facilities built by the state of Kansas—often shutting out other, more "public" activities in the process.
Most importantly, the KUAC operates a sports program for students attending a state university. Those students pay for tickets in year and in year out, and they should get openness, not just balanced books, in return.
In part, the KUAC has provided that openness. Its meetings are, for the most part, open to the public. The KUAC is free to meet at unannounced times or to close its
meetings to the press whenever it wants to deal in secrecy.
THE KUAC REGULARLY has shut its doors to meet in "executive session" and discuss "sensitive" personnel matters and its budget.
The result can be—and has been—a remarkable lack of concern for the student body or anyone else that doesn't shovel large donations into the KUAC furnace each year.
Case in point: Earlier this school year, the KUAC quietly begin considering moving the KU-Missouri football game to Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo. Arrowhead would be either KU's or Missouri's stadium, so the move would have been financially attractive.
BUT FOR STUDENTS and Lawrence ticket holders, it would have been the sorrist kind of shortchanging. In addition to paying high season ticket prices, students would have been forced to drive to Kansas City and pay to park a car to watch a game they should have been able to walk down the street to see. Worse, some students who don't own cars might miss the game entirely.
Loyal Lawrence ticketholders would have been in the same shoes. Someone who flees his job at noon to get to Memorial Stadium in Kansas City, could be able to drive to Kansas City by kickoff time.
BUT NONE OF these arguments would have been aired hadn't a brave student member of the KUAC board made the plan public. The student knew what the reaction would be. More importantly, she knew that, regardless of the reaction, students and fans had a right to know what was being pondered in those field house offices.
The struggle to mesh college athletics' two worlds—competitive and the financial—into an attractive and worthwhile package always has been a bitter one. College athletics, the last bastion of purity in the sports world, have drifted and closer to their money-corrupted sisters in the professional ranks.
THE KUAC HAS had a hand in this trend. But the KUAC must someday awaken to the fact that it is not a corporation, in spite of what the law says. The KUAC has been given the duty of running an intercollegiate sports program at the largest school in Kansas.
Ultimately, the sports program exists for students—not for alumni benefactors, not for wealthy fans, not for the KUAC board. And students have a right to know what is happening to the sports program that exists for their benefit.
yet. When they adjourn for the 1977 session, it's possible that they will have sold the state down the river.
THERE ARE several possible reasons the appropriations bills were put off, some political and others legal. It does doubt that the legislature was ready to act on the bills.
Also, important decisions on several conference committee bills have yet to be made. In a recent increase in the state tax on liquor, Conference committee bills are those that have been passed by both the House and Senate but which were not yet agreed to by both bodies.
It remains unclear why the legislature's leaders decided to have a recess without having passed appropriations bill. The legislators abandoned a mountain of bills that make up 1978 fiscal year. Bills for a new medium security prison, school finance and a state minimum wage law are all awaiting final approval.
BY POSTPONING consideration of appropriations bills until this week, legislative leaders might be using a tactic that would put Gov. Bennett in a most unusual position.
One possible reason for the legislature's inaction might be its reluctance to send bills to Gov. Robert Bennett for a bill to reopen the government get. The governor has made it clear that he won't allow the state to spend more money than it has, a philosophy that the legislature, especially the newly elected House, refuses to accept.
If the legislature doesn't pass the state's appropriations bills quickly enough, it might adhere to the governor's chance to respond to a possible veto by the governor. Therefore, either the governor would be forced to sign a bill that includes the entire bill would die.
Knowing that the governor
To prevent spoiling, rap
the-rod, spoil-the-child philosophy.
Party politics slow bill funding
The Kansas state legislature reconvenes tomorrow without having spent any money at all
The new generation of teachers knows that studies of violence in the classroom indicate that the best way to turn a behavior problem into a bigger one is to help him up a bit. They know violence in the classroom begets violence outside it.
The Court ruled five-to-four that corporal punishment in U.S. public schools isn't a violation of a student's constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Good old Gertrude grertude is probably smiling down from Heaven now, applauding the governor of the U.S. Supreme Court.
would be extremely reluctant not to sign a major appropriations bill containing
AND SISTER Gertrude, a former teacher at St. John's elementary school in Orange, taught us any other way. She would be quick out that any one of her kindergarten students caught without galoshes on a snowy day, found smuggling candy from the cafeteria, did wolf speedily learn the wisdom of avoiding such heinous behavior; any student slapped around with a wooden paddle, tried to solidify his or possibly for the matter—or slugged across the face is fast to learn how it smarts to be knocked around. It needs to be right here; bestows have a certain educational value.
It didn't for me, however. I never really knew what it was I did that incurred the good Sister's wrath.
The case studied originated in Miami, where two 14-year-old students brought suit against a teacher who had spanned them in 1970 with a two-foot wooden chair. The court ruled the corporal punishment wasn't an interruption of the educational process, in effect giving the goahead to school administrators and teachers who feel that the students' lives miserable will do the students some good.
I still wonder what I did to deserve her smashing left cross. I remember running home about noon, and looking up in my catechism to find out whether "Foreign-Eye-Substance" was an offense God gave to Jesus. He started thinking it must have been something else. Maybe I winked at her; understandable,
Brent Anderson
Editorial Writer
MY KINDERGARTEN class was walking quietly down to the cafeteria. Good old Gertrude, she must have been 110 years old when he met me playing with my eyeball. I had something in it. She walked back to me to help, we took me in the tearful eye, then promptly belated me in the face. She next kid in line, who fell back into the kid behind him, and so on. The domino theory proved.
Bill Sniffen
Editorial Writer
To the students of such
fanatics, may I extend a warning:
much political mileage from the issue as they can, no doubt. The Senate and the governor will have to be satisfied in knowing that, at least this time, they must take an ominous trend towards deficit spending by the Kansas legislature.
Don't sneeze in your teacher's face.
considering the boulder in my eye. Perhaps I coughed in her face.
IN OTHER words, the recent Court ruling probably won't have that much effect on increasing student slappings and spanking ones one could consider a blessing for today's students. Of course, there always will be those who believe a good, swift kick in the posterior is the best way to control an unruly child. That's probably the reason they die. To them diehards, the laws of a breed, may I extend Sister Gertrude's posthumous support.
MAYBE I sneezed.
And now, the Supreme Court tells me Sister Gertrude was acting properly. Perhaps they, too, were schooled in the spare-
authorization for funds for several state programs, the legislature might be able to include expenditures that it knows the governor vehemently opposes.
The conflict between the governor and the legislature erupted when the legislature tries to override the governor's veto of a bill that would increase the state tax exemption from $600 to $750.
**THAT TACTIC, which is in direct conflict with the spirit of our state's check and balance governmental system, reeks of failure. We have come to be representative of the 1977 legislative session.**
Although it would be politically expedient for the governor to approve the increase, he has demonstrated
the legislature most likely will try to override the veto Thur- tuesday, and that the House, controlled by the Democrats, will override the veto, the Senate probably will override the exemption will remain at $800.
The Democrats will get as
that such an increase would put the state on the road to financial insolvency. The governor has held firm against the personal increase, even though he knows it would be the popular thing to do.
REFUSING TO worry about the state's financial situation.
HEW slip hurts doctors
A PRESS spokesman at HEW explained defensively that Secretary Joseph Califano didn't intend to embarrass anyone, and didn't release the figures voluntarily. It appears that the figures were Freedom of Information Act became effective on March 12. A number of reporters had asked for the figures on Medicare payments to doctors. Califano therefore had no questions about the hungry reporters the figures for release on March 14.
So it went, on down the incriminating list. The named doctors suffered immediate abuse. J. C. Prutt, St. Petersburg, Fla., sent the American Medical Association a sample of victims denounced him by a "medical parasite" and a "disruptive to the medical profession" who should make amends to "the those poor souls that you have robbed." Other doctors complained that the parents were also used data set them up as targets for usurpation and burglars.
syndrome Garbage In, Garbage Out. A corrected list is now being prepared, and will be released as soon as it is ready.
AS IT swiftly transpired, HEW's facts and figures were wrong. The errors weren't tew and small. The errors were numerous and massive. This was wholesale error -error on a grand scale -error to be copied by all of our artists, those identified with earnings of $250,000 or more, HEW had its facts wrong as to 14. That is an error rate of .875. A shortstop who muffen seven
I say effectively labeled as distinguished from actually labeled, for the doctors have no legal recourse against them. If Medicare spokesmen acted with reckless disregard for the facts, which they did, this is tough stuffy; sorry 'bout that. The government has a kind of sovereign immunity in these matters. The computers' errors divine, human they were also divine.
The release, to be sure, didn't use such verbs as "raked in" and "tipped off", but these were used in the data suggested I inevitably the data suggested that physicians and surgeons were profiling off a great, humanitarian program. This is not an interpretation. One cartoonist imagined two surgeons operating on a Medicare patient, "go on, Joe," said one, "down to the $5,000 layer."
Besides, said the HEW spokesman, the error wasn't exactly human error. This was "computer error." The input was wrong. This is diagnosed in computer practice as the GIOG
WASHINGTON - A month or so ago, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), released some patients with approximately 400 American physicians had ridden in more than $100,000 from Medicare payments in 1975, and 16 of the doctors had ripped off the insurances for upwards of $250,000.
IN MORE THEN 100 cases, the HEW disclosures dealt not with individual physicians, but with groups and clinics. Starring Dr. Ransom S. Larson of New York doctor as No. 1, with earnings of $412,757; the figure was for a group of physicians. The same result actually was a group of four internal medicine specialists. A doctor in Rhode Island reportedly raked in $807,436 this year, including a member of a hospital. His
The whole business is regrettable. The individual doctors are hurt. Their professions are broken again; nothing we unwitting conduits of error. HEW's reputation for credibility is damaged. Who will believe the next set of doctors to be wrong? It is sorry, but make no mistake about this; it will happen again.
grounders out of eight couldn't stay long even in the bush leagues
The American Medical Association managed to question 208 of the 407 identified physicians. It turned out that
James J. Kilpatrick
(c) 1977 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
personal Medicare earning:
amounted to $625 only
Gays' unhappiness self-imposed
To the editor:
Gay used to be a word meaning "happy." When the homosexual community adopted gay marriage, it was changed. It's now a label for some of the unhappiest people in the world and pull make them unhappy.
many homosexuals argue, of course, that guilt is caused by an arbitrary standard of behavior which their surrounding culture. They say that they needn't regard an arbitrary moral standards, and that in fact being homosexual is no worse than being left-handed.
It may be true that our society has many arbitrary moral standards, but our society draws its stance against homosexuality from an absolute moral standard—that everyone is equal. But the Bible not only says
that homosexuality is wrong, it also realizes that like anyone else, homosexuals have a conscience that to some degree will tell them when they are doing something that others feel guilty. Their own consciences and thoughts make them feel guilty.
The fears and doubts that homosexuals have within themselves, unless their consciences have already har-
the torch be removed from the hand of the Statue of Liberty as a symbolic measure in the spirit of the nation's energy-saving consciousness. What's more, I would like to have her right arm, the one that now carries the torch, removed at the shoulder as a symbolic message concerning our role joining in the nation's energy-saving consciousness into joining it.
ludicrous. We haven't been able to participate for 38 years, yet we don't know how long they have still grown tremendously. Does anyone seriously believe there is any danger of the Post milling? Or others being discontinued?
these people have of public employees. Granted, being public employees we do have common interests. But so do businessmen, businessmen, and every other group. Our self-interests are no more imminent to you than yours are to us. Why the paranoia? I think one should look askance at any argument, especially one so close to me that it is hard to deep people full participation in the democratic process.
Also, to compare civil servants to Chicago's public service department, a keeper keeps federal employees independent are the Civil Service
Readers Respond
Bob Rollins 140 Pawnee
dened, are perhaps the least of their bad experiences. Once someone becomes aware of the homosexual subculture, he learns that the homosexual community is notoriously brittle and unstable.
This isn't to say that homosexuals should be rejected. On the contrary, they need compassion more than most people. As a Christian, I haven't rejected anyone who life is now homosexuals, even though I dismay with their actions.
And I can't sanction a society prejudiced or unfair toward any person, even if they have homosexuals. Heterosexuals can even be unfair if they shun homosexuality, but turn around and consider adultery normal.
Homosexuals aren't the only people in the world who are unhappy, but they're the only ones convinced by other others that they're gay.
Doug Lamborn Lawrence senior
De-torch Liberty
To the editor:
I would like to suggest that
Moreover, I think her crown should be unbolted and taken off to show that everyone, big and small, as President Carter said, must make sacrifices. And he should have rescueted to ressemble Miss Lillian, and a "spoonful of medicine" should be put in her remaining hand to remind us that even though we don't like it when it happens, we measure, Mother Government knows what's good for us.
Of course, the symbolic Miss Liberty won't survive this climate. If she was a bad influence and that we will be much warmer in the wise and material bosom of during the long winter ahead.
Jeff Mohr Lawrence junior
Reasoning unsound To the editor:
As a federal employee covered by the Act 17, you like to offer a job that is in line with his editorial. His reasoning contains several errors. The contention that 8.2 million civil servants must be protected to protect their jobs is
Yes, Virginia . . .
To the editor:
laws, not the Hatch Act. The Civil Service Laws prevent politics from being considered in hiring, firing, and promoting. As a result the personnel of most federal agencies tend to be varied politically. The illusion is that Democrats hold—that we're all Democrats waiting to go out and march for Carter—is ridiculous.
I just wanted to let you know that I was hitchhiking outside of town, and they picked up by Jim Morrison. He's alive, you know. He said the girl was somewhere north of town. Just thought you might be interested.
Paul Ceruzzi
Lawrence Graduate student
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