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Wednesday, April 4, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Day care for poor
Passage of bill by the House despite veto threat proves that needy children are being considered
The House showed President Bush on Thursday that it understands the needs of and cares more about the modern, two-income family.
It proved that fact by passing a plan to help families find and afford day care for their children, despite the threat of a presidential veto.
The five-year plan, which would provide $3.5 billion annually for expanded day care based in public schools and make it free for the poorest families, is an idea whose time came years ago.
years In the United States, few single-income families can make ends meet. Even with both parents in the workplace, many children face dangers of economic reality, which range from insufficient nutrition to too much unsupervised time before and after school. It has been proven that latchkey children face health and social problems not experienced by children who enjoy more complete care.
Reports and studies by both governmental and private entities also have shown that child-care programs help youngsters do better in school and save money in the long run.
A 1988 congressional report, for example, said that money spent on Head Start, which would be expanded under the plan passed Thursday, helped students get better grades, stay in school and find jobs more easily when they graduated. The report said that a $1 investment in Head Start would return $6 in savings on special education and welfare programs that Head Start youngsters would be
That is why it is tough to stomach White House statements issued in response to passage of the House bill. Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Bush would veto the bill because of its cost. The White House budget office called the plan "an exercise in fiscal irresponsibility."
less likely to need. A private study released earlier this year echoed those findings.
A House-Senate conference committee now must work out a compromise between the House plan and one that was passed by the Senate in June that carries a $3.5 billion annual price tag.
But the facts show that it would be both fiscally and socially irresponsible not to implement such a plan.
Both Democrats and Republicans admit that both bills represent only token efforts to address the child-care problem. After passage of the Senate plan in June, Republican Sen. Dave Durenberger of Minnesota estimated it would take $75 billion annually to meet child-care needs of low-income families.
The day care issue is not a partisan issue. It strikes at the heart of the future of the United States, both socially and economically. Abandoning children early in life carries a greater social cost and burdens society. Spending the money now on productive programs would mean the United States would not have to spend more later to correct its short-sightedness.
Briefly stated
Richard Brack for the editorial board
■ Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus made the right decision to veto the controversial abortion bill despite his own biases. Andrus realized that the bill would be difficult to enforce and that it would have been against the wishes of a majority of Idahoans. A threatened boycott of Idaho products also may have weighed heavily on his decision, although he said he rejected the bill on its merits.
The Lawrence Memorial Hospital Auxiliary committed itself in the past to encouraging students to enter the health-care field. Now the group has announced a new $1,000 renewable scholarship for junior nursing students in the University of Kansas Medical Center. The auxiliary should be commended for its effort to combat the serious nursing shortage.
Members of the editorial board are Richard Brack, Daniel Niemi, Christopher R. Ralston, John P. Milburn, Liz Hueben, Cory S. Anderson, Angela Baughman, Andres Cavelier, Chris Evans, Stephen Kline, Caraille Krehbiel, Melanie Matthes, Jennifer Meitz and Scott Patty.
No more women's hoops
Reasons for ending OU basketball fall short
Many questions remain unanswered after the sudden elimination of women's basketball at the University-of Oklahoma.
Players, fans and observers were shocked and angry about the unreasonable decision made last week by OU administrators, who did not reveal the real reason why the program was dropped.
OU's Assistant Athletic Director Don Jimerson said the program was dropped because of low attendance and low revenues and that the decision was the right one. Officials said the university wanted to reallocate the funds for other women's sports, such as soccer. Still, there were no valid reasons for dropping the program.
The program, the third largest sport in
OU officials show a total disregard for the Big Eight conference with their unethical and apparently sexist decision. The decision raises questions about the administrators who seem to care little about OU's primary women's
terms of generated revenue behind football and men's basketball, has suffered from the university's lack of commitment to women's sports. Officials put a price on the program, and when it was low, decided the time was right to take it off the market.
The Women's Basketball Coaches Association, which condemned the decision, issued a statement that hit the issue: "The action taken by the University of Oklahoma is inexcusable. No program is safe from a short-sighted decision made to drop the No.1 choice sport of women today . . ."
The OU program finished its second consecutive losing season, 7-22, after nine straight winning seasons but had a 233-213 record since 1974.
With the support of the WBCA, the players are filing a grievance citing violation of Title IX, a federal law ensuring equal opportunities for men and women in educational activities.
The players are taking the right step in protesting the sexist decision.
Andres Cavelier for the editorial board
Boulevard blues
A committee recently was formed to decide whether to close Jayhawk Boulevard to all traffic, including busses. This committee was formed because a small minority of people thought that Jayhawk Boulevard was unsafe for pedestrians and the environment. This idea, which is advocated by two Student Senate coalitions, is impractical for both social and economic reasons.
First, the proponents argue that it should be closed because four people have been injured in accidents during the past two years. That is regrettable, but with proper safety by pedestrians and drivers, these accidents can be avoided.
Second, if the boulevard were closed, people would have to walk to class in bad weather, such as heavy rain or snow.
Third, if the boulevard was closed, campus would not be
accessible to people who are handicapped and physically unable to walk to their classes.
Some people would be late to their classes because they would not have time to walk from building to building in 10 minutes. People might not even show up for school, because they had to walk in bad weather.
Closing Jayhawk Boulevard also would cause the Lawrence Bus Company to reduce its schedules. As a result, the bus company would be forced to dismiss several drivers who made their living driving students to classes. The law would also lose revenue because fewer students would be buying bus passes. The Lawrence Bus Company could decide to reduce its downtown and weekend routes.
Finally, some people at KU do not have cars, and without a bus service, those who live far from campus would have no way to get to class.
Closing, Jayhawk Boulevard would create more problems than it would solve. The idea is as absurd as digging a canal or implementing a monorail system on the boulevard.
David Schuster Overland Park Junior
News staff
Richard Brack. Editor
Richard Nielm. Managing editor
Christopher R. Ralston. News editor
Liam Moore. Planning editor
John Milburn. Editorial editor
Candy Nieman. Campus editor
Mike Connellman. Campus editor
E. Joseph Zurga. Photo editor
Stephen Kline. Graphics editor
Bergla Kurgla. Artificial Intelligence
Tom Elmore. General manager, news adviser
Margaret Townsend ... Business manager
Tami Rank ... Retail sales manager
Misey Miller ... Campus sales manager
Kathy Stolle ... Regional sales manager
Mika Lammann ... National sales manager
Mindy Morris ... Co-op sales manager
Nate Stamos ... Production manager
Mindi Lund ... Assistant production manager
Carly Blankenship ... Manager directive
James Glanapen ... Director director
Janet Rorholm ... Classified manager
Wendy Stortz ... Tearaway sales manager
John Smith ... Marketing and research
Business staff
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SAE incident reflects campus race relations
The incident that occurred early Friday morning at the
Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity should not come as a great shock to us. The reported physical and verbal assault of a woman by members of an all-white fraternity for the sole reason that she was Black should not surprise a community that accepts and even condones the white elitism of the Greek system. The incident merely represents the next logical step for the latent racism inherent in such a social system.
Ann Dean, the woman who reportedly was subjected to the racist attack, has now come face to face with the consequences of the perpetuation of an inherently racist and elitist social organization. The ignorance prevalent in the Greek mentality cannot be better summarized than by evaluating the circumstances surrounding this repugnant incident.
The white greek system is based upon social elitism. The recruiting procedure, rush, used by fraternities and sororites is geared toward the separation of the desirable from the undesirable. The criteria used by the mental giants making these crucial decisions are impressive: haircuts, wealth and fashion sense. The objective is to create a hegemony among members of a specific fraternity or sorority as well as within the Greek system as a whole. The result has been racial segregation that has been accepted by the Lawrence community as an unfortunate fact of life i a college town.
Dan
Grossman
Staff columnist
But this segregation has resulted in ignorance, misunderstanding and hatred. The hegemony of the greek system breeds xenophobia and insecurity that becomes a direct cause of racism. Anyone who fails to match the ethnic, religious or racial composition of a particular house is either implicitly or, as we have seen in this incident, explicitly made an outcast and an automatic subject of derision and ridicule.
Most of the members of this fraternity were either from rural areas where few Blacks lived, or they graduated from predominantly white suburban or private high schools. Their resulting insensitivity and ignorance were blatantly displayed in their language and in the content of their conversation. Their lack of knowledge was compensated by negative stereotypes and incredibly stupid notions of the relationship
I spent a semester as a pledge at an all-white fraternity here. All but one of my pledge brothers and myself were white and Protestant. The anti-Semitism that I encountered there was worse than I have ever experienced, before or since. Slurs, stereotypes and jokes about Jews were almost as prevalent as those about Blacks.
between race, religion and aptitude. Perhaps the most unbelievable aspect of this ignorance was the fact that none of them was ashamed of letting everyone just how dumb he really was. Their comments could be heard in any place at any time, as long as other brothers were around to share in the bonding of mutual stupidity.
The exact reasons why I even entered pledgeship still are not entirely clear to me. I was somewhat aware of the racist problems associated with the greek system. But for some strange reason, I thought that I might have been able to contribute to some constructive changes within the system. As I later learned, that was just my way to justify joining a system where I could drink a lot of beer and meet women.
My decision of whether to complete hell week and become an active member of the fraternity came down to a simple question: Could anything that I achieve toward reducing racism at the fraternity, as well as in the greek system as a whole, be significant enough to justify my participation in an intrinsically racist system? The answer was no, and I depleged.
What is the relevance of my experience to the incident at SAE and the ignorance of Matthew Willenborg? Well, for starters, the incident sounds like something that could easily happen, and probably has, at the fraternity at which I spent a semester. I believe that it could happen at nearly every fraternity on campus. This fact is sad testimony to the status quo of
both race relations and racist toleration at our University.
I am not accusing all people in the greek system of being racist, though I believe a large number of them are. Nor am I accusing all fraternities of practicing overt racism, though I believe many of them do. The procedures on which the greek system is run encourage separation and segregation that, in turn, breeds misunderstanding and ignorance, namely racism.
Therefore, the incident involving Willenborg and his SAE bretheren cannot be considered merely an isolated incident of individual racism. It must also be considered an inevitable result of a social organization based on ellisti and, therefore, racist principles.
It follows that we should not be surprised when incidents like what happened to Dean occur. It, like other incidents in the checkered past of the Greek system, eventually will blow over and all will be forgotten, at least until the next time something like this happens. And it will. As long as we allow the Greek system to discriminate in choosing its members, we will see incidents of overt ignorance. Institutional racism, social or otherwise, cannot be tolerated. Ignoring the problem only will perpetuate it.
Dan Grossman is a Denver senior majoring in political science
CAMP UHNEELY
I CAN'T STAND IT!
WHAT WE WE DONE WRONG!
AREN'T OUR POSTERS BIG?
DO ORU SLOGANS StINK?
DON'T THEY LIKE LAMBADA
BY SCOTT PATTY
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