OPINION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PUBLISHED DAILY SINCE 1912
CRAIG LANG, Editor MARK COPER, Business manager SUSANA LOOP, Managing editor DENNIE HAUPT, Retail sales manager KIMBERTY CRABTREE, Editorial editor JUSTIN KNUPP, Technology coordinator TOM EBLEN, General manager, news advisor JAY STEINNER, Sales and marketing adviser
Thursday, March 20, 1997
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Editorials
Students with disabilities need aid from University community
If the University of Kansas intends to educate all its students, it must take measures to ensure equal opportunities for students with disabilities. The recent lawsuit filed by a KU student against the University, alleging that it has violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, should cause all members of the KU community to be more proactive in accommodating students with disabilities.
The Americans with Disabilities Act is a 1990 civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals on the basis of physical or mental handicaps. It is designed to eliminate barriers to people with disabilities.
According to the undergraduate catalog, the University has a policy of nondiscrimination and makes appropriate classroom accommodations for students who have special needs. It's time the University started living up to those ideals.
While completing a college education is challenging for any student, students with disabilities face additional challenges and should not be hampered by hurdles the school puts before them by not providing needed assistance. The University attempts to meet students' needs through the Student Assistance Center, but many of the services provided are on a volunteer basis, and volunteers aren't always available.
If necessary, the University should pay students to provide special services.
While it is commendable that the University is able to run a program to serve students' needs through volunteers, the measures should not stop there. If necessary, paid positions should be established when volunteers aren't available.
record reading assignments. Letting students know they have classmates who would benefit from volunteer services may prompt them to take action.
Lack of awareness is another problem. Many students do not know that the Student Assistance Center needs volunteers. Professors could help by asking for volunteers to take notes or
Students also should realize that the University is not the only one at fault. The University has sought to provide for students' needs through the Student Assistance Center and volunteers. If students are not stepping up to volunteer for some of these responsibilities, then they, too, are at fault.
Everyone at the University of Kansas needs to recognize that providing equal opportunities for all students is everyone's responsibility—administration, professors and students alike.
It is imperative that administrators find ways to run effective programs, even if it means paying people to assist in this task. However, students and professors are not absolved of responsibility. They also must realize their duty to help protect the rights of others within their community.
KAREN CHANDLER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Interviews should ask for opinions
Last week the University invited 115 seniors to participate in interviews designed to assess what they had learned during their undergraduate careers.
Rather than asking students their opinions of the quality of their KU education, the interviews were based on a quantitative measurement of students' knowledge. Although quantitative measurement is worthwhile, the University should put the same effort toward asking for—and listening to—students' evaluations of their education. That would place equal value on student opinion and student performance. As consumers, students' opinions should be as valued as their test results.
The interview questions were based on Eleven Goals of General Education established by the University Assessment Committee in 1889. These goals include increasing KU students' communication skills, understanding of history, appreciation of human diversity and critical thinking skills, among others.
Students' views on their education should be as valued as their test results.
Associate Provest Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett said students were asked questions like, "What are the main points of American history?"
Ackerman said she was surprised the interviewers did not ask her opinion of her education, but rather focused on what she has learned. "I thought they'd ask me what my favorite classes and professors were and why."
Other questions asked students to make ethical arguments, such as arguing for or against the cloning of humans.
"Our goals were to assess students' knowledge of ethics and cultural mores," McCluskey-Fawcett said. "The interviews are for us to assess how much we've taught. What we wanted to find out was what they learned, not how they feel about what they learned."
The University does offer graduating seniors the option to offer their opinions through a senior survey, but the survey is offered only every four years. And it does not offer the same forum that a personal interview between a student and three professors does. Nor does it offer the $25 paycheck that participants received.
Most of the students who participated seemed to enjoy the interviews. However, some question the interviews' validity in assessing what they've learned at the University.
"A lot of the things I talked about I didn't learn at the University. I learned them growing up, or through cultural experiences," said Beth Ackerman, Dallassen senior.
The willingness of KU administrators to spend money assessing the University's quality of education is admirable. But they should show the same willingness to hear students' opinions of that same education.
KANSAN STAFF
NEWS EDITORS
LAURA WEXLER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
LATINA SULLIVAN . . . Associate Editorial
KRISTIE BLASI . . . News
NOVELDA SOMMERS . . . News
LESIE TAYLOR . . . News
AMANDA TRAUGHBER . . News
TARA TRENARY . . . News
DAVID TESKA . . . Online
SPENCER DUNCAN . . Sports
GINA THORNBURG . . Associate Sports
BRADLEY BROOKS . . Campus
LINDSHEY HENRY . . Campus
DAVE BRETTENSTEIN . Features
PAM DISIMAN . . Photo
TYLER WRICKEN . Photo
BRYAN VOLK. . Design
ANDY ROHBACK . . Graphics
ANDREA ALBRIGHT. . Wire
LZ MUSSER . Special sections
AERICA VEAZEY . Neework
HEATHER VALLER . . . Assistant retail
JULIE PEDLAR . . . Campus
DANA CENTENO . . . Regional
ANNETTE HOVER . . . National
BRIAN PAGEL . . . Marketing
SARAH SCHERWINSKI . . . Internet
DARCI McLAIN . . . Production
DENA PISCIOTTE . . . Production
ALILSON PIERCE . . Special sections
SARA ROSE . . . Creative
DANA LAUVETZ . Public relations
BRIAN LEFEVRE . . Classified
RACHEL RUBIN . . Assistant classified
BRIDGET COLLYER . . Zone
JULIE DEWITT . Zone
CHRIS HAGHIRIAN . Zone
LIZ HESS . . . Zone
ANTHONY MIGLIAZCO . Zone
MARIA CRIST . Senior account executive
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A
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Column
Confederate flag not a symbol of peace
When Allied troops stormed Berlin in 1945, the first order of business was to remove, destroy or steal swastikas wherever they could be found. Swastikas on the tops of buildings were detonated. The more lightweight flags and paraphernalia either were burned, shredded or stolen by
souvenir hunters who have since sold their wares to creepy antique shops in Montana. The swastika was such a strong symbol of race hate and war that it was the first thing to go.
Apparently, the Union troops in 1865 had too much respect for their Southern brothers to destroy the symbol of their cause, the Confederate flag. Perhaps they should have. In Columbia
1.
S. C., the U.S. capital of Southern pride run amok, the debate rages about whether to keep the Confederate flag flying over the state capitol building.
Governor David Beasley, a born-again Baptist, once a staunch supporter of the banner, now opposes it. A recent U.S. News and World Report says that he changed his mind because he now believes that "the once peaceful emblem" had become a symbol of strife. "The plowshare has been turned into a sword," he said. So now that Governor Beasley has waken up to smell the wretched coffee that is the Confederate flag, he has proposed to relocate it from the capitol building to a Confederate monument. The House of Representatives, however, is skirting the issue by trying to hold a state referendum on the issue.
Defenders of the Confederate flag have written scores of material justifying the retention of the banner as a peaceful symbol. U.S. News reports that some defenders argue the flag itself is a Christian symbol based on the cross of St. Andrew. They also assert that the X shape in the flag is the Greek letter "chi", which is a Christian abbreviation for Christ.
Is the word "stretch" blazing like a neon sign in your head? Yeah, mine too. These justifications are ludicrous, to say the least. I am Presbyterian, and I can tell you that I have never been to a service where my pastor delivered communion wine with stars-and-bars napkins. In discussing this issue with other Christians, both Northern and Southern, not one of them goes to a church where the "Christian" symbol of the Confederate flag is used. Gee, I wonder why not?
Another argument from the bad-flag defense team is that the flag is nothing more than a peaceful symbol of sectional pride. Let's examine that statement. The flag was created to represent the
Confederacy of States that seceded from the Union in 1861. The states' secession was based primarily on the desire to maintain their socioeconomic structure, which happened to rely on enslaving Black people to make money. So much did the Confederacy want to protect this way of life that it provoked the bloodiest war ever fought on American soil. Given that the flag then represented the institution of slavery and white supremacy, it is pretty hard to argue that it has evolved into a peaceful symbol of anything. It was a flag of war. It never was peaceful. It never will be. It belongs in a museum.
Like it or not, the people of South Carolina and the South are going to have to deal with the very real fact that the Confederate flag has become an international symbol of race hate, belligerent sectionalism and the Dukes of Hazzard. In this country, the flag is the recognized symbol of the Ku Klux Klan. U.S. News reports that it is used internationally in South Africa to protest the government of Mandela and that in Germany, neo-Nazi groups paste it on everything to represent their ideology—the German government has outlawed the public use of the swastika.
These groups have not adopted the flag because they are big fans of the peaceful South. They adopted it because from its inception, the flag represented concepts of racial discrimination and white supremacy. The German government recognizes the pain that the swastika represents to those who suffered in the 1930s. South Carolina should have the presence of mind to recognize the mistakes of the South before 1865 and remove the flag from the seat of state government.
Unless South Carolina is prepared to publicly admit to racist tendencies and a dangerous nostalgia for a disgusting past, it needs to remove the symbol. There is a time when the past needs to become the past. It no longer is healthy or beneficial to fly the Confederate flag anywhere. It is up to the governing structure in South Carolina to recognize the mistakes of the past to enable it to move into a more hopeful future.
The reason that the South Carolina House of Representatives does not want to deal with this issue is clear. The Confederate flag means a lot of things to a lot of people. Regardless of their decision, there would be a lot of backlash. However, it is morally corrupt for the state government not to take a stand in removing the flag from the capitol. To fly a flag on a state capitol suggests that the government inside adheres to the principles of the flag waving over its dome.
Carson Elrod is a Topeka senior in history and theater.
David Schell / KANSAN
Letters
Insurance proposal isn't fair to older people
When I saw the headline in the March 10 University Daily Kansan, "Student health insurance plan slashes rates," and the deck that read "Premiums drop by 41 percent," I thought great, that will really help. But upon reading the article, I learned that rates will drop for students under 25 only. Those of us older are out of luck. Our rates are proposed to increase 5 percent next year, as they have increased in past years.
I was surprised that in fashioning the headline your staff would be oblivious to the fact that many students are 25 and older. More importantly, the staff missed the real story here. A huge proposed cut as a marketing ploy to attract younger students is in part being financed by a rate hike for older students. Sounds like blatant age discrimination to me.
At the least, this kind of two-tiered system within a group insurance plan is highly undemocratic. In fact, it may well be illegal. I've never heard of an
Even if differential rates are allowable for group health insurance, shouldn't lifestyle factors come into play? Diet, amount of exercise, drug and alcohol use and cholesterol level all play a part in overall health For example, why should a 25-year-old, nonsmoking jogger with a well-balanced diet and low cholesterol pay nearly twice as much for health insurance as a 24-year-old, junk-food munching, chain smoker?
Even life insurance rates, which are based on actuarial tables, take a sliding scale approach that gradually increases with age. G-M Underwriters whole-scale rate jump at age 25 is clearly out of line unless they can show an equal and across-the-board jump in the number of insurance claims submitted by people 25 and older.
I encourage the Kansan to challenge G-M Underwriters to
employer, for example, being able to charge such widely differing rates for medical insurance based purely on an arbitrary age cutoff.
justify this new policy, and to also ask members of the Watkins Memorial Health Center staff why they would allow such a discriminatory and agebased plan to be foisted on their clientele.
Perhaps the ultimate irony is that many students under 25 still have the option to be claimed on their parents' insurance. Sounds like G-M Underwriters is trying to lure them on board while carrying on business as usual with the many students 25 and older who have no other option for health insurance. Many of them, by the way, are graduate teaching assistants who work hard for the University yet get no University assistance with health insurance.
Instead of arbitrarily giving some customers a 41 percent discount, while imposing a 5 percent increase on the rest, G-M Underwriters should split the difference and roll back premiums 23 percent for every student. That will surely stimulate enrollment and have the added benefit of being a just policy.
Dan Grippo
Lenexa graduate student