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Friday, March 9, 1990 / University Dally Kansan
Opinion
Women's history
Education slights their pervasive contributions
March, which has been designated Women's History Month, should be a time of reflection and learning about the roles of women in history; women who are commonly overlooked in textbooks and classroom lectures.
Since the beginning of time, historians have placed women secondary to men. Adam preceded Eve and so on. But that must change. Even before the mid-19th century when the first women's rights movement began, women contributed immensely in every facet of society. As the times changed, women moved forward, doing their part.
But education seems to miss all of the accomplishments. History is taught about white males through the eyes of white males. Where were the women? No one ever tells us, and that's wrong.
Women have proved their merits to society They are not "baby factories." They are a source of courage, ideas and innovations. In
two places has a woman never stood alone, the moon and the White House. In time that will change.
Students and faculty members should make an effort this month to change any biases toward women. Place them on a pedestal, not for their beauty, but for their merits. Women such as Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gloria Steinem and Coretta Scott King. They, among others, stood on their own and made a difference in the United States, helping pave the way for women of today to be relatively free and to continue the fight for equality.
Once this month ends, one should not forget the accomplishments of women. Rather, women's history should be a conscious part of our society. Maybe someday women can be integrated into the broader term of history and there will be no need to have a separate women's history month.
John P. Milburn for the editorial board
Facts are clear: KJHK staff doesn't control radio station
For some time, years in fact, many special interest groups have struggled to get control of KJHK, a non-commercial, educational FM station licensed to the University of Kansas. My intention in writing this column is to illustrate, according to Federal Communications Controls, the operation of KJHK. Opinion aside, what I am about to express is law, fact and absolutely constitutional.
The KJHK constitution mandates that the station fulfill two purposes. First, the station is to serve as an academic laboratory for the School of Journalism. Secondly, the station is to serve the KU student body and
As the license of KJHK, the University has seen fit to assign the control of the station to the School of Journalism. It's here that "the buck stops." However, some students and special interest groups would like to see the chain of command broken and control passed on to lower levels: students and outside organizations. That yearning for control (and fear of faculty supervision) was keenly perceived by Dailey during his visit. In remarks published in the March 1 Kansan, Dailey was quoted as saying, "Clearly, the students thought they were running the station." As far as Dailey and the commission are concerned, there is no such thing as student control. In defense of students, at times during the station's rocky history I believe students have been very close to being in control. Too close, as evidenced by an FCC fine last year.
Tim
Mensendiek
Guest columnist
At my request, James Dailey, regional administrator of the FCC's district office in Kansas City recently spoke to a KJKH staff meeting. The purpose of Dailey's visit was twofold: to explain the commission's position on obscurity and indecency, and to discuss the relationship between the commission and its licensees. In his remarks, Dailey clearly put the staff, management on notice that the commission has accepted cooperation of a broadcast station license. According to Dailey, one of those expectations is that a license will control its station operations. Dailey also said the FCC expected a station to serve the public interest.
Lawrence area public
Obviously, some groups would like to thwart the academic mission by advocating that KJHK be a promotional machine for new vinyl and an open mike for first amendment rights.
Recently, rumblings have surfaced over the possibility of censorship at the station. A small group of KJHK workers and many outsiders have brought two charges against the faculty: censorship of alternative music, and trying to control the station. My response, "Not guilty on the second count." Yes, the faculty is guilty of controlling KJHK. According to the commission, we must be or be willing to pay the consequences.
Consequences and accountability.
That's the heart of this issue. The School of Journalism, not the students, is accountable for what happens at the station. Unlike a college newspaper, a college radio station is extremely regulated by governmental bureaucracy and is answerable to authorities As Daddy told the staff, he (the commission) has the power to levy fines against a station that doesn't operate within the law.
Fines now can range upwards of $200,000; licensees pay fines, not workers.
As previously mentioned, there have been charges that the faculty is involved in censoring alternative music. Rather than bring charges against specific faculty members, accusers have focused their attacks on an advisory board that has not been utilized. (In June 1989, a Program Advisory Board was created as an FCC compliance tool for the general manager. The board can be instituted by request of the general manager. Such a request has not been made this school year.)
In addition to the charges of censorship, there have been calls for freedom of speech at JKH. Again, Dailey was frank about the commission's position
"Congress has long maintained that the radio spectrum is a finite resource that needs protection and supervision by the government." Dalley said. "Once Congress determined the special need status of the radio, it was then able to pass laws that govern how the spectrum will be used.
"You give up your rights to free speech when you agree to become the employee of a company, firm or radio station. Your individual absolute right to free speech ends at the front door of the station."
Remember, Congress passes laws — not the School of Journalism faculty. The FCC writes regulations to uphold these laws — not the School of Journalism faculty. Therefore, those who wish to change law and regulation ought to consider where the battle is being played out. Yes, you can fight the battle on a hill, but its Capitol Hill, not Mount Oread.
The School of Journalism will continue to operate KJHK as an academic laboratory, pressing for greater levels of service to our constituency. If the lab experience is insufficient, we need the needs of the KU student body and Lawrence -- within the framework of FCC regulations.
Finally;my hat's off to the KJHK staff. Despite the problems,they're working very hard and doing a good job.
▶ Tim Mensenkend is general manager of student radio station KJHK.
LETTERS to the EDITOR Accept refugees
While many KU students are headed to South Padre Island for spring break, almost 2,000 Central American refugees will be held in a detention camp at Port Isabel just across the Laguna Madre.
On Feb. 7, Gene McNary, the newly-appointed commissioner for the INS, visited the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. During his visit, he announced new get-tough policies that will increase detention and repression of Central American refugees in the United States.
Few U.S. citizens are aware that every month hundreds of refugees flee from warfare and economic poverty in Central America. Many of these refugees who seek political asylum in the United States are from war-torn El Salvador. Upon arrival in the United States, thousands of these refugees are detained by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) pending the outcome of their deportation proceedings.
INS detention camps for refugees treat asylum applicants like
criminals. The refugees are herded into prison-like detention centers with inadequate facilities. Because of overcrowding, these camps suffer from substandard conditions; low water pressure, inaccessible telephones and lack of space for legal consultations. Under McNary's strict policy, six large tents recently were erected in Texas to house detainees, adding to the already inhumane treatment of Central American refugees.
Although media coverage of the war in El Salvador has waned, the war continues and can be directly linked to the increased number of refugees from El Salvador who seek asylum in the United States. Central American refugees are treated differently than refugees Europe. In example, Eastern Europe. In fiscal 1989, 23 percent of all Salvadorans applying for asylum received it. In contrast, 90.9 percent of all Romanians applying for asylum were granted approval.
NcMary's policies, implemented as he seeks to prove himself as commissioner of the INS, are unacceptable. There is a war in El Salvador, and people escaping that situation (or any inhumane and unacceptable one like it) should be welcomed into the United States.
Chervl Musch
Lawrence graduate student
News staff
Richard Brack ... Editor
Daniel Nieml ... Managing editor
Christopher R. Relaston ... News editor
Melinda Manning ... Planning editor
John Milburn ... Editorial editor
Candy Niemml ... Campus editor
Mike Corollain ... Sports editor
E. Joseph Zurge ... Photoshop editor
Stephen Kline ... Graphics editor
Ken Marquette ... Arts/Features editor
Tom Ebenn ... General management
Margaret Townsend ... Business manager
Tami Rank ... Retail sales manager
Mary Alinee ... Campus sales manager
Kathy Stolle ... National sales manager
Mike Lehman ... National sales manager
Mindy Morris ... Co-op sales manager
Hate Stamma ... Production manager
Mindy Lundberg ... Assistant president
Cerrie Slaninka ... Marketing director
James Glesanapp ... Creative director
Janes Rorholm ... Classified manager
Wendy Stevens ... Sales manager
Jeanne Hines ... Sales and marketing adviser
Business staff
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School caused radio station's problems
"Clearly, the students thought they were running the station."
declared Federal Communications Commission official James Dailey Feb. 28, 1990, at the station's staff meeting.
I guess we students shouldn't have taken our University of Kansas Undergraduate Catalogs seriously, with their nice faliest like: "KJHK is the student-run radio station on the Lawrence campus . . ."
Dailey apparently got mixed up about what his agency did last fall. KJHK was fined for flagrant violations of the station's Class A broadcast license. The fine had nothing to do with obscenity or indecency in the traditional sense. These violations were condoned and instigated by the faculty of the School of Journalism. KJHK got busted for airing donor commercials, violating the station's non-commercial license. And Mr. Dailey, the fine was $2,500, not $2,000 as you told the KJHK staff.
The smoking gun that brought the gavel down on KJHK, and the school's cozy little scam, was a tape of 11 donor announcements and a long petition by students, ex-students and Lawrence residents who were tired of fighting through the system against the school shovers and makers. These people wanted to fight the station's growing trend toward commercialism. The FCC fine was a cold stroke of victory against a faculty-controlled process that appeared unstoppable. Things warmed last semester, with more adventurous programming and less annoying, poorly made announcements, but
now the real chill has hit
Let's go back a few years before the first cold snap was felt by KJHK staffers. 1986 was a year of absolute triumph for KJHK. Between the Outhouse, organized and initiated by KJHK management, and the Bottleneck (then Cogburn's) an exciting and dynamic local music scene had developed. Both Rolling Stone and Spin magazines recognized Lawrence as one of the most active and adventurous music scenes in the nation. KJHK was the direct reason for the issue and an album of local bands and personal creation and airtime. The live progressive rock scene was very dead from late 1983 through late 1985. No clubs. No local bands. No action. KJHK was the instrumental force in changing all that. We enjoy it today, despite the school's attempts to crush our hand-built scene.
I was JKJH's music director in the spring of 1987, when the staff became alarmed at the increase in announcements. First it was one or two an hour during prime listening hours. Then it was three or four an hour. Then five or six. Where would it stop? How many listeners would we lose because of the shameless number of these things? And not only did they increase in number, these announcements began to sound like commericals, insipid, tasteless crap done by
sophomoric chuckleheads. To longtime listeners of student public radio (my term), the sound of the station was ruined by this junk. We consulted the FCC, but they required proof that KJHK was violating the non-commercial license. The bad announcements and subsequent fine were not the fault of the students but rather the well-meaning chuckleheads. There are bigger and curlier chuckleheads at work here.
You see, KJHK had served students for more than a decade by offering them a choice. A choice over what was getting played on area radio, television and MTV. We sought to provide programming for the
Our greatest fear in 1987 was that the new emphasis on has a marketable, easy-to-sell on-air product that was uncompromising programming quality would suffer. I recall the former faculty adviser/general manager asking for a format that would be "more accessible" and music that would be "more melodious." In defiance, I urged the KJHK music staff to ignore the mainstream of the college radio market: stuff like Blow Monkeys, Guadalcanal Diary and Screaming Blue Messiahs. This music was not without appeal and would have gotten airplay on KJHK. But the rest of the band weirder fringe in a desperate attempt to thwart commercialization by less accessibility. This was a downturn in listenability, but a truly well-trained sales staff should have been able to sell Spanish polka radio to rednecks. The programming staff, disc jockeys and management alike had become a commodity, and we did not like it one bit.
open-minded, progressive listener of music (they are out there, we instigated). We knew we had no chance of attracting a KLZR fan or a KY-102 loyalist. No chance. And we were going to be dammed if we had to compromise our integrity and the longstanding tradition of excellence JKHK has in providing Lawrence with a real Sound Alternative. From Laurie Anderson to Nick Cave to the Smiths to Minor Threat to the residents to Elvis Costello and the musical heritage that spawned it all: Gene Vincent, the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, Henry Cow, New York Dolls, and Throbbing Gristle, JKHK was a spectrum of way-out, under-recognized sounds in popular music. No weirdness for weirdness' sake, we loved the station that we tailed endless over.
Robert Klotz is a Lawrence senior majoring in radio, TV and film and English.
I am not alone in these assertions. Most of my contemporaries from the old days have moved on, tired of fighting and compromising. Even if I were truly alone, I would remember what the Lone Ranger once told Tonto, "One man plus courage is a majority."
That is why we will not let the true spirit of student-controlled, interference-free KJHK die. Justify their actions as they might, the faculty and administration will not win this Cool War (Freaks vs. Maxists). It is our duty to encourage students to encourage the new KJHK staff but not dictate, manipulate and scold them as they have for the past three years.
CAMP UHNEELY
BY SCOTT PATTY
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