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Wednesday, June 13, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Flag burning
Congress should follow Court's free speech ruling
Editor's note: On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that a new federal law banning flag burning was unconstitutional. Congressional leaders have said that if the law were struck down, they would begin to lobby for a constitutional amendment outlawing the burning or desecration of the flag. Unlike Congress, the Kansan editorial board does not have time to rehash the flag-burning issue. Consequently, the board has decided to rerun its initial editorial, which appeared Sept. 15, 1989, concerning flag-burning.
ere they go again
Here they go again. It's time for someone to blow out the flame before this flag-ing issue ignites further.
There should be better things to worry about. In a time of billion-dollar budget deficits and rampant drug use, is this the only thing Congress can find to do?
An educated public should get worried when our representatives jump on a bandwagon that promises to do little but ride straight over our constitutional right to symbolic speech.
The representatives think that by voting for an anti-flag-mutation bill they will be gaining votes when they run for re-election. If they think we want our right to be restricted because of the recent flag-burning furor, so be it. But that kind of pandering to poorly
Granted, burning a flag may offend some people. That's the point of burning a flag. It may be immature, but it's symbolic speech and it's protected by the First Amendment.
No representative who votes for a bill or amendment that would restrict our rights to any kind of speech should be re-elected. Period
thought-out public opinion deserves to be punished
A bunch of protestors may not have much better to do than to set fire to a flag, but we should hope that our people in Washington, D.C., have more to worry about than what those protestors are doing.
Maybe someday this issue will burn itself out.
The editorial board
Minorities suffer
Reagan era not sensitive to civil rights leaving ethnic students an uneasy path
Although President Bush has taken some symbolic steps toward eradicating racial
intolerance in the United States, he has a lot of cleaning up to do after the Reagan administration took its toll on the nation's minorities.
One in every five minority students on college campuses had suffered ethnic attacks, either verbal or physical assaults, according to a report released May 31 by the National Institute Against Prejudice and Violence.
The chairman of the institute, former Sen. Birch Bayh, D-Ind., blamed the Reagan era for this wave of racial intolerance.
It's true Reagan never did much for civil rights in this country. Except, of course, to work against them. For example, he tried to
dismantle the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Why? Who knows? But moves in this direction are certainly backwards. After people such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. give their lives for the cause of civil rights, to try to cripple that movement is unbelievable.
It is true that many college students became politically aware during the Reagan era.
One million college students each year are victims of racial intolerance or gay bashing. Until the nation is united against these acts and attitudes, and gets over the Reagan-imposed numbness to this crisis, the numbers will keep getting higher and college campuses will become increasingly dangerous for any minority student.
The editorial board
University's forum is not all-inclusive
f one was on campus last semester, it was im p o s s i b l e to ignore student
activism and administrative s c r a m b l i n g around the racist incident that occurred at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house.
For many of us, it rejuvenated our belief that what is wrong can be made right and that truth can overcome lies. The University administration told us that our concerns are their concerns, that bigotry in any form has no place on our campuses, and that students must communicate with students is essential, and that sensitivity among all groups must be cultivated.
An existing committee that is supposed to promote these values is the Presidents' Roundtable. This organization was created by David Amber, vice chancellor for student affairs, to foster a dialogue between
Liz Tolbert
Guest columnist
"student leader") and the administration. Members of this committee include: Black Student Union, Interfraternity Council, Panhellenic, Black Panhellenic, Hispanic American Leadership Organization, the editor of the Kansan, the editor of the Jayhawyer Yearbook, International Club and five Student Senate executives.
During the spring semester, Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas and Hillel both expressed concern that they had no access to the materials and encouraged Dr. Amberb to include them. Amberb has yet to make a decision on these requests, and it is his position that it is realistically impossible to include every organization. Given the campus climate and the values expressed by the administration, it is in-compensible that Ambler has chosen to delay inclusion of these groups. If Ambler is committed to a dialogue with students, then no student should go unheard.
What this controversy has highlighted is that the Presidents' Roundtable, in its current form, does not meet student needs. If Ambler sincerely believes that the Presidents' Roundtable is the approach for students to express their concerns, it must be open to all students.
If Ambler will not open this forum, perhaps the President's Roundtable be dissolved and an alternative be created. For example, Ambler could hold open forums on campus monthly that any student could attend. This would allow him access to student opinion and would show students that he truly is committed to all student concerns.
unsuccessful.
 unless administrative action follows
 administrative rhetoric, KU will continue to be exclusive and bigoted.
 ▲ Liz Tolbert is a Lawrence senior majoring in English.
Pressure on South Africa still needed, despite recent moves
he state of emergency was four years old before the earthquake
assessing the lifting of the state of emergency, it is important to understand that it came in the wake of the first restruc-
of South Africa, except for the province of Natal. In those four years, more than 30,000 people were detained for political offenses. In excess of 5,000 people died in politically-related violence; hundreds of individuals were harassed, tortured, and banned from the country; and it is now emerging that officially sanctioned death squads assassinated scores of prominent anti-anarchist activists.
Surendra Bhana
Guest columnist
turing of the state since 1978. The state geared itself for a "total war" against what it called a "total onslaught" by subversive agents. It created a national security management system which was responsible for the shift of power from white politicians in the South African Parliament to key military-security personnel.
Under this system, the State Security Council (SSC) became the supreme decision-making body with de Klek's predecessor, P.W. Bothe, as its chairman. The SSC assumed an increasing responsibility over domestic and foreign matters, and was guided by the principle of maintaining stability through a combination of repression and selected reform measures without giving up white supremacy.
This flawed policy stimulated Black opposition. The resistance movement developed grassroots support among the majority of the Black people.
President F.W. de Klerk's lifting of the state of emergency is another illustration of the state
the shift from the failed policies of his predecessor. He seeks political solutions, and, to his credit, recognizes that he cannot do so without the support of the Blacks in South Africa, who make up 75 percent of the population.
Consider, for example, that while the state of emergency has ended, much of the security apparatus is still in place. The Internal Security Act of 1982 (as amended in 1986) empowers the state to detain individuals without trial. Section 29 provides for the detention of people in solitary confinement until "all questions are satisfactorily answered." Sections 28, 50A and 50 give the Minister of Law and Order power to detain
people who are likely, in his view, to commit security offenses. And section 31 permits detention of people considered to be material witnesses in security trials.
But the message to the leading Western nations should be clear: Honor the man for the democratic principles for which he has dedicated his life, and maintain the pressure on the South African regime, which still has to show that it is serious in its intent to see genuine majority rule come to South Africa.
▶ Surendra Bhana is a visiting professor of history.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
A Wellesley view
As a former Wellesley College student and a feminist, I feel compelled to respond to Kate Lee's June 6 column.
Perhaps, as Lee believes, some of the protestors who objected to having Barbara Bush as their commencement speaker do hold personal definitions of "success" that do not include raising a family. However, those who extend their heartfelt jeers to the group should be aware of its official stance, as stated in the book organizers in the May edition of the Wellesley alumni magazine.
Their point is this: Why wasn't your mother chosen? Why not my mother, who also raised three
children and is one of the most successful and hard-working women I know? Why not some other woman to make a home for her family?
M. Elizabeth Woodbury Lawrence sergey
Free expression?
Throughout history, mankind has regarded the burning of something to be the ultimate act of violence and destruction. Now the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that to burn this nation's flag is merely a form of free speech since it only represents the arsonist's opinion of what flag represents. Therefore, I conclude that the Supreme Court will back my right to free speech when I ram a flag pole up a flag burner' nose as the expression of my contempt of the burrow' opinion of my country's flag.
Carmela M. Gibley
Payroll clerk, computer science
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Other Voices
The court probably reads the law correctly, but the law is wrong. Congress should fix this loophole before the courts are faced with deems of white-collar criminals from the S&L collapse, all accepting restitution with their fingers crossed behind them.
Well, the U.S. Supreme Court has just thrown a little monkey wrench into the equation. The court, by a 7-2 vote, decided that criminals may avoid paying restitution if they file bankruptcy, since the bankruptcy law makes no mention of an exception for court-ordered restitution.
- To the average person, it is unfortunate when a white-collar criminal avoids prison, but it is at least understandable when the price for that avoidance is to pay restitution to the people victimized.
In winning the presidency of Russia, the U.S.S.R.'s largest republic, Yeltsin has established himself as a formidable rival to the flounderers. He has had to cast him into further doubt the future unity of the Soviet empire . . .
It should be emphasized that nobody exactly knows what sort of an animal. Veltisin is; his views on voles are contradictory and confused.
From the Phoenix Gazette, May 31.
There may now be, in effect, two leaders of the Soviet "Union": Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.
Equally important to remember is that ... Yelvin has actually been elected by the people through landside victories in legislative races. Gorbachus, on the other hand, has undergone an open, contested election.
Perhaps . . . Gorbachev will take the Yeltsin election as a sign that he's running out of time, and so needs to step up the pace of reform.
20 From the Providence (R.I.) Journal Bulletin, May 31.
Different judicial standards apply to drug prosecutions
The application of law and order in the United States
has somehow lost a great deal of whatever proportion of justice it once had. It seems increasingly evident that two standards of justice prevail: the law for people and the law for money, and, by corollary, the law for those who challenge money's status quo.
What is the justice in this?:
Recently, in this city, a man got less than a year's sentence for a case of ongoing molestation of a nine-year-old girl. On the same day she was given two to three years for possession of marijuana with intent to sell.
New, it seems to me that the crime with the most damage to society and the one that should be punished more severely is the crime with a human victim of an assault. The victim is an assailant. The possession and use of drugs is, after all, a consensual activity.
Paul
Longabach
Guest columnist
So what is the difference between these? Well, I believe drug use is attacked so vehemently because it represents an attempt to take control and thus threatening the status quo of money in this country.
So-called "white-collar" crime hardly seems to be illegal. For merely reshuffling money, people like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken out of the deal pretty well off, and, of course, mismanagement is no crime at all. Who so far has gone to jail for what I think
Those who control large amounts of money, and thus actually controlling large numbers of people, should face severe punishment for wrong-doing. A person like Michael Milken should be lucky if he ever sees the light of day a free man.
Some might say there was human terror involved in a bank heist, the fear suffered by cashiers at the Bank of America or a Gogol-like fashion, what will be
is one of the biggest crimes of the century — the savings-and-loan bank crises! If robbing a savings and loan of $2,000 out of the front is legal, then you must be in prison, what is the justice for the loss of billions of dollars?
the loss in human terms of a shortage of credit in the future? Homes not built for lack of financing, businesses not growing and employing as they could have. What indeed are the 'dead souls' of the deregulation and destruction of a major financial institution?
The "war on drugs" proclaimed under the Reagan-Bush dynasty only became the hydra of activity it is now because they realized that billions of dollars were being diverted from the official, taxed economy. And like a dog fighting off all competitors to its food supply, money fights the selling of drugs to Americans, regardless of whether consenting adults are the ones caught in the net.
It used to be in the Soviet Union that a manager of a factory that was grossly mismanaged would be put on trial and if convicted would go to the gulag. Or, if severe enough, lose his life for his "crime." Now, I would never advocate capital punishment for anything, yet clearly, in this country, a new perspective is needed to decide what is right and wrong, and if wrong, how wrong?
Those who control large amounts of money, and thus actually controlling large numbers of people, should face severe punishment for wrongdoing. A person like Michael Milken should be lucky if he ever sees the light of day a free man.
Paul Longabach is a Lawrence senior majoring in geography.