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Pride and prejudice
The Board of Regents .aversion to controversial
student fee-supported programs has been brewing for
some time. And it finally exploded Saturday when the
Board decided to stop controversial expenditures of
student fee money budgeted for Nebraska Union
programs and ASUN for a month until President Varner
writes a new policy concerning the use of all student
fees.
The Board's action Saturday is distressing to say the
least. One trouble of the action is that it is very
ambiguous. Exactly what programs of the Nebraska
Union and ASUN are to be suspended is still unclear.
But one thing is very clear. The Board wants greater
control over the pursestrings of organizations that
receive student fees-such as ASUN, the Nebraska
Union, The Daily Nebraskan and Student Health.
Greater control by the Regents would be a
tremendous setback to the concept of student
self-determination. Student fees are designed specifically
for programs that will benefit students, but now the
Regents are saying that they want to be the ultimate
judges of what benefits students.
What is really needed is greater control of student
fees by students as well as policies that insure all
elements of the student population a voice in student
fee appropriations.
The Regents Saturday indicated that their action was
taken to protect the Board from further controversies
over the use of student fees. This rationale indicates a
lack of insight to the very nature of student fees.
The appropriation of student fees, like government
taxes, is bound to be controversial at times. However,
this doesn't necessarily mean student fees should be
suspended or subjected to greater control by the
Regents.
The Regents have been upset recently over the use of
student fees concerning the conference on human
sexuality and the birth control handbooks. But
expenditures on both these projects were decided in a
democratic fashion by ASUN. Saturday's action by the
Regents demonstrates a definite lack of regard for the
democratic process on campus.
Many students are wondering why it was necessary to
suspend student fee-supported programs of ASUN and
the Nebraska Union if the Regents' main concern was
just to formulate a new policy concerning the use of
student fees. But it appears from their action that the
Regents also would like to kill the controversial World
in Revolution Conference, which is scheduled for
March. The Conference, which is planning to bring in
some radical speakers, just happens to be supported
with student fees by ASUN and the Nebraska Union
Program Council. -
Any attempt to squelch the World in Revolution
Conference would be a violation of the rights of
freedom of speech and assembly as well as the principle
of academic freedom. It is a dangerous precedent when
the Regents decide what information and speakers the
students will be allowed to hear.
The Regents have acted, now what can the students
do? For one, they should protest vocally, but
peacefully, against the seven Regents who voted for the
student fee suspension (Lincoln Regent Edward
Schwartzkopf cast the only dissenting vote in the
action). They should also make sure that there is
meaningful student input into any new policy
concerning the use of student fees.
The Regents Saturday tried to stop further
controversies over the use of student fees. But in doing
so they may have created a controversy of much larger
magnitude.
Gary Seacrest
Telephones: editor: 472-2588, news: 472-2589, advertising:
472-2590. Second class postage rates paid at Lincoln, Nebreska.
Subscription rates ar $5 per semester or $9 per year. Published
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday during the school year
except during vacation, and exam periods. Member of the'
Intercollegiate Press, National Educational Advertising Service.
The Daily Nebreskan is a student publication, editorially
independent of the University of Nebraska's administration, faculty
and student government.
Address: The Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, University of
Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68508.
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The throwback
PAGE 4
WASHINGTON--A "throwback" according
to the dictionary is "a reversal or backward
deviation." It is most noticeable under the
microscope and occurs rarely in politics because
politics places such enormous value on what
New York's Gov. Nelson Rockefeller once
called "the mainstream."
But occasionally politics does offer us a
throwback, and Mr. Nixon's newest appointee,
William Rehnquist will give us the opportunity
to study the genus, probably for the rest of our
lives.
There will be a certain satisfaction in the
study-even perhaps a certain fun. It is
interesting, for example, to speculate on what
grandfather's grandfather would think of our
world. What ideas would he espouse? Rip Van
Winkle must have been the brainchild of just
such speculation.
It is important not to confuse the throwback
with the conservative. Grandfather's
grandfather may or may not have been a
conservative. The point is that if he were alive
today he would be putting forth ideas which
are out of context, ideas which have been
discarded by the process of growth.
Let us imagine an example: He might suggest
a means by which a slave could pick more
cotton in a day. It might be a brilliant idea,
testifying to his powers of observation, logic,
even perhaps (supposing his suggestion
incorporated social betterment as incentive) to
his liberal frame of mind. The point is that it
would not be pertinent. We should have to
explain to him that there was no such things as
a slave that cotton was no longer picked by
hand.
What would he do then? Would he settle
down to grow into the new age? Or would he
fight for the old? Would he argue that we
should have slaves and pick cotton by hand? It
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
would be an interesting study in what the
psychologists call atavism, and since we cannot
study the behavior of grandfather's grandfather,
we can study William Rehnquist instead.
It is hard to believe that Rehnquist, once on
the court, will "discipline himself
intellectually" as his backers suggested, putting
aside his personal opinion in order to conform
to the facts of life. It is hard to believe he will
do this because he never has done it.
In 1952, when he was 27, he was urging his
fellow townspeople to stick with segregation.
Twelve years later he was arguing against letting
black people eat in drugstores. A local
(Phoenix, Arix.) ordinance requiring stores,
restaurants and other public accommodations
to serve citizens without regard to color was,
Rehnquist argued, "an assault on the institution
(of private property)."
And in 1967, he asserted that those who
argued in favor of desegregated schools "assert
a claim for special privilege for a minority."
Nor were these the private opinions of a
private citizen of judicial mind. As a
throwback, Rehnquist is an activist, arguing as
private citizen before the city council, writing
to the editor, making what the neighbors call "a
nuisance of himself."
Faced with the problems posed to
grandfather's grandfather he would
undoubtedly argue tha restoration of slavery
arid the picking of cotton by hand.
Rehnquist is a different kind of throwback.
It is his thought which is archaic and he does
not wish to be left alone; he wishes to stick the
rest of us with what he thinks.
He promises to be an interesting reminder of
the Nixon Administration for many years to
come.
Copyright 1971, Los Angeles Times
MONDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1971