Target
Right
wing
It would seem that if students at this University
wanted to do some complaining about radical
minorities which are distorting the views and
opinions of the majority, there is no better target
than the radical right.
It is currently popular to aim at the radical left.
This craze is especially popular among the
politicians. And it seems that university
administrators across the nation chose the same
target.
Witness the attention focused on the Black
Panther Party, which has never had many more
than 1,000 members. And then look at the
headlines that have enveloped the Angela Davis
case. To describe it simply, paranoia. The Bobby
Seale-New Haven case is no different.
This national phenomenon is also present on the
local level.
Honest answers to some simple questions will
prove this point. If you read the papers, even once
a week, you are informed enough to name this
University's supposedly conservative students.
They always claim to represent the majority.
However, few, are legitimately elected io any
office.
If you're honest with yourself, you can
probably also name the organizations to which
they belong. Ironically, the rightists have enough
ABC acronymical organizations to make FDR turn
over in his grave.
Without much of a mathematical endeavor, you
can easily tally the membership in the
organizations. The radical right numbers less than
200.
Nevertheless, they have press statements ready
for every political issue which arises, and in
virtually every one of their press releases they say,
"We speak for the majority of students when we
say..."
They also claim to represent the majority when
they testify to legislators and when they address
the Board of Regents. Currently, they are seeking
to improve their credibility by taking over the
Young Republicans club. By doing this, they plan
to use the YR club for their own political ends.
They want to, and probably will pass volumes of
fanatical resolutions at the YR's future state
convention. If they succeed at this, it will surely be
the dupe of the year.
Dupes only go so far, though. The Daily
Nebraskan predicts that the fanatical right will be
effectively destroyed when student elections roll
around in a couple of months.
This prediction is based on only one
assumption, and that is, if they have the guts to
enter.
A question of integrity
Prominent Grand Island citizen Richard E.
Spelts is finally starting to make statements about
his commission's report.
Over the weekend Spelts told the Lincoln
Journal and Star that he does not want to get
into a debate with anyone about the report. He
said that if the commission met again, they would
come to the same conclusion about Stephen
Rozman.
Although Spelts himself does not want to
debate with anyone, there are quite a few people at
this University who would like to debate with him.
The reasons are so obvious that to many faculty
members they are probably repugnant. First, Spelts
has said he has no second thoughts about the
procedures followed by his . commission.
Apparently he thinks it's fine and dandy for an
investigative commission to conduct hearings,
whereby those who testified were not under oath,
as were those who testified before the faculty
fact-finding committee.
Perhaps Spelts also considers it absurd to point
out that his commission had no court reporter, nor
did it record testimony and transcript. On the
other hand, the Holtzclaw committee produced a
five-volume transcript of testimony of over 1,000
pages.
The Spelts Commission Report was 26 pages,
not of facts, but of opinions and
recommendations. Spelts and his attorney had the
temerity to deliver to the Board of Regents 26
pages of unsound, invalid conclusions with few
facts.
Worse yet, the Board has apparently accepted it.
And Spelts is out in Grand Island justifying his
commission report by saying that the Regents'
decision not to rehire professor Rozman is popular
with the people of Nebraska. Well, it might be
popular. Spelts is probably right about that. It was
his commission's report which is responsbile for
the public snow job of making Rozman a
scapegoat.
Hopefully, when the faculty meets Monday
they will not overlook this whole affair. It is
definitely a question of intergrity.
iiinriiiBiii!iiPfrfTr
Once upon a time
Dear editor,
There once was an
Unacademic Affairs
Committee, appointed by the
Board of Regents, and it was
scheduled to meet at the
Military and Naval Science
Buiding to consider the firing
of a political science professor,
S. Vladamir Roosman, charged
with incitement to commit acts
of disobedience. According to
the Regents, Roosman was
tampering with the easily
malleable minds of the
adolescent student population
the preceeding May, at which
time the Military and Na"al
Science Building was being
occupied. He had been
convicted of the testimony of
witness XXX, who has since
declined to be identified.
Believing the action of the
Board of Regents to be
supercilious, as well as illegal,
professor Rozman threatened
to file suit against the Board.
Under this threat the Board
commissioned a committee to
report on the May incident,
and Roosman's part in it. The
report to the committee had
just recently been released, and
it started flatly that Professor
Roosman was innocent on all
counts. But the Regents, to
prove that their actions were
neither supercilious nor illegal,
stood fast on their decision to
have Roosman fired. This did
dear editor . . . dear editor . . . dear editc
seem to be a bit of a sticky
wicket for this Board of
Regents, who seemed to think
that inept, illogical action was
a new virtue in the twenthieth
century; when in all actuality,
the same turn of mind was
quite openly admired as much
as 2000 years ago. Nero
Claudius Caesar Drusus
Germanicus was a firm believer
in the philosophy that this
Board of Regents seem to
practice, and look where it got
him.
No, I am not accusing this
Board of Regents of aspiring to
the same material goals that
Nero did, but I do think that
their methods, though
clandestine and esoteric, were
the same that Nero used: Blind
Hatred, Injustice, Bigotry,
Inconstance, and Meglomania.
The Meglomania of this board
is a good topic for detailed
discussion. Their arguments
might have been something like
this.
We have been given the
power, through the democratic
process, of popular election, to
govern the University in the
best interest of the populace
that we represent. We deem it
necessary to maintain the
campus, even if we have to fire
all of the professors. At least
we will have a football team
that the state can be proud of.
The quality of the institution is
not important, as its existence.
This fact happened to have
been borne out by a newly
elected governor, who was
willing to sacrifice the quality
of the institution to give some
of the people of the state what
they really wanted-lower
taxes, and a college degree to
hang above every fireplace.
Yes, the students of the
University were subordinate to
the goals of that aboriginal
state. For that reason they
could spend four years
graduating from an
overcrowded, mediocre
institution, so that they could
carry on in the steps of their
illustrious, mediocre
politicians, who represented
their mediocre interests in the
great mythical national capitol.
Phil Kloepper
Questions Regents
I first became concerned
with the situation when I asked
myself the question, who do
the Regents represent? This
question should have
germinated in the minds of the
Regents as they searched their
intellect for the answer as a
guide for their actions. Since
they have reached this answer
themselves, I must only guess
by the results of these actions
as to their own personal
decision.
I have concluded that they
must represent the ignorant
majority (which is
unfortunately no longer silent)
of Nebraska voters who, in a
backlash of emotion, created
by a much exaggerated May
"disturbance"?? cry for the
justice of repression to swoop
down from the sky and censure
the University, along with the
regents scapegoat, Assistant
Professor Rozman.
This feeling has also
spawned the taxpayer's hero,
who, with his handful of merry
men plan to butcher the
University's budget, "trim the
fat", and reduce its already
faltering academic prestige to
that of a first rate Nebraska
vocational trade school.
This action by the voters
and the governor seems very
questionable in its intent to
better the University. I wonder
why the Regents then can't
stick their necks out and act in
the best interest ol academic
quality at the University. What
then is the best interest of the
University, or further, what is
the University itself if it is not
the aggregation of students and
faculty which are the structure
and the unity of the
institution.
Is the University the 20,000
students who are its base, the
500 faculty members, who are
the inspiration and stimulus of
creative thinking or is it a
political football tossed about
by the often removed, poorly
enlightened voters who seem to
be the controlling force behind
the Regents actions? It's quite
evident (by the apparent
disregarding of the Holtzclaw
committee's conclusions) thai
the Regents don't represent the
faculty, who they have also,
perhaps intentionally slighted
through this show of power. I
am also convinced by the
growing frustration and dissent
among studenU that they
surely do not attempt lo
represent the students.
This misrepresentation by
the Regents, in this political
power play, the firing of
Assistant Professor Rozman, of
one individual, is only a small
portion of the injustice born of
their decision. The intent to
repress the stimulus for
creative thinking, the spark
which ignites students to the
true potential of knowledge,
the drive needed to stand alone
in virgin research, in new
ideals, is being smothered and
removed as a non-academic
quality.
What irony at a time which
is so crucial to the
development of a leader, that
instead another sheep is
blindfolded at the University
of Nebraska.
Alan N. Spencer
PAGE 4
THE DAILY NEBHASKAN
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 151971