A June 11983 Summer Nebraskcn
Peiroective
Disguised polities
is dirty politics
T! O
Salary raises unnecessary
Three chancellors were given pay
raises of more than 9 percent at the NU
Board of Regents meeting Saturday. The
board approved increases of 9.2 percent
for UNL Chancellor Roy Young and
UNO Chancellor Del Weber. NU Medical
Center Chancellor Neal Vanselow was
given a salary inci ase of 9.1 percent as
was NU President Ronald Roskens.
At the same bo rd meeting, the re
gents raised tuition or students and gave
faculty members let er pay raises, rang
ing from 8.5 to 9 pert ent.
It seems fairly ob nous who comes first
with the board of regents.
With drastic budget cuts, threatened
program cuts, rapidly depleting cash re
serves, about 120 vacant faculty positions
that cannot be filled, and not enough
money to fund even freshman English
composition courses, it is outrageous to
see administrators, who already earn
muchmore than faculty members, receive
such raises.
Students andor their parents,
through higher tuition rates, will pay
these salaries. And as students and their
parents pay more for the privilege of a
college education, they will suffer more
too.
They will suffer from the inconven
ience of overcrowded or closed classes
that can delay graduation and make col
lege more expensive than it already is.
They will suffer from having overbur
dened instructors who are not being paid
enough to keep pace with inflation. And
finally, they will suffer because they will
not receive the quality of education they
most certainly are paying for, and need
to have in order to compete for jobs with
thousands of other college graduates.
The NU Board of Regents is com
posed of elected officials who supposedly
are representing the university's best in
terests. As elected public officials they
also are supposed to be responsible with
the state taxpayers' money.
By Randy Essex
Recently, two or three cases of what
appears to be a fairly new bit of naivete
in political life have cropped up in news
reports.
It seems fairly consistent for officials
to tell the public something that no rea
sonable andor educated person would
believe. Unfortunately, that practice has
become so common that we don't even
seem to notice anymore, or worse, we
don't identify it.
Maybe it all started with Gen. Wil
liam Westmoreland's "Light at the End
of the Tunnel" speech. Or, maybe it was
Nixon's "Cambodia"speech. Anyway,
somewhere along the line, we started to
either believe, or shrug off things officials
say that are too outrageous to be real.
The problem is that many of these
people are elected, and therefore we have
the right to expect more intelligent state
ments from them.
This is one of the latest popular, but
non-meaningful statements: "It. wasn't
politically motivated."
NU President Ronald Roskens said it
about the Regents' five-year plan, and
Gov. Charles Thone said it about Presi
dent Carter's stop in Grand Island to see
the tornado damage.
Let's try not to be too silly.
The regents are elected officials. I hate
to use what apparently is a dirty word,
but that makes them politicians.
The running of the university has be
come increasingly political with Roskens
running in everybody from teachers to
insurance salespersons to support last
year's budget request before the Legisla
ture. Vhen asked about the impressive
array of support at the budget hearing,
Roskens said it was not solicited. Appar
ently, he expected the inquisitor to be
lieve all those people just happened to
drive in from all parts of the state, and it
was only coincidence that no two of them
represented the same interest.
Sorry, President Roskens, I don't buy
it.
While not guided by traditional poli
tics, mostly because few people take in
terest in what they do, the regents are as
political as any board of elected officials
in the state.
And. Thone's statement that Carter's
trip was not politically motivated sug
gests that our governor is either blind to
Carter campaign tactics or has jumped
from the Reagan camp and the Republi
can Party.
Of course, Thone really couldn't at
tack Carter as using the disaster to get
votes, even if that's what the president
was doing. The president's visit could
mean much needed federal aid for the
city, and the state is not about to attack
the method by which it is obtained or ap
proved. And that is appropriate. The subject
of this column, however is inspired by
Thone's comments that Carter had no
political motive.
Sorry, but I can't buy that one either.
Ever since Edward Kennedy started
his challenge for the Democratic Presi
dential Nomination, Carter has used fed
eral funds in- a successful attempt to
gather votes. Some, if not all, of those
grants were needed, and served a good
purpose. But, they also were politically
motivated.
Carter has done little for Miami, ap
parently having written off the black
vote as alienated by the battle against
inflation, which blacks are fighting in dis
proportionate numbers just as surely as
they fought the Vietnam war in dispro
portionate numbers.
Yet the needs of the Liberty City sec
tion of Miami are just as great as those of
Grand Island. If humanitarianism is the
motive for Carter's generosity, it makes
no difference how a city became a disas
ter.area. What matters is that people liv
ing there need help.
With Cuba refugees being pumped into
Miami under Carter's direction, taking
potential jobs, and food away from indige
nous poor, Miami's needs are quite press
ing. The point is this; our political system,
although not perfect, is in fact a political
system. And, politics and politicians aren't
inherently dirty.
We aren't going to make them disap
pear by preteding they aren't politicaly
motivated, or by saying that they aren't.
The dirty politicians, to me, are the
ones who try to disguise politics by telling
the public that politics is not politics. It's
almost 1984, 1 think.
Affirmative action plan needs strong commitment
By Kim Wilt
It should come as a surprise to no one
that the NU Board of Regents unani
mously approved the university's affirm
ative action plan Saturday.
The regents apparently wishing to be
thought of as neither reactionary nor
progressive, have committed themselves
to nothing more than a statement of
their own version of good faith, in regard
to the hiring and training of women and
minorities.
' ASUN President Renee Wessels has
said there are no provisions in the plan
for the recruitment of women and minor
ities, or for revising curriculum to recog
nize that people other than white males
attend this university. Furthermore, half
the jobs targeted to be filled by women
are secretarial or clerical
Anyone with even a sketchy knowl
edge of prior regental actions should have
expected that such a plan immediately
would meet the board's approval. Here
was a made-to-order way for them to
state support for their high-sounding
principles of affirmative action, without
actively committing themselves to hand
ing over any control to those who are
standing at the door, sticking in cautious
toes.
Perhaps it is time for more than cau
tious toes. When a man can say with a
straight face, as Regent Ed Schwartzkopf
did, that he is "weary of these sancti
monious platitudes about civil rights,"
that says something not only about that
man, but about the quality and quantity
of commitment to affirmative action, and
the larger goal of eliminating sexism, rac
ism and every other form of discrimina
tion, at this university, and in our soci
ety. When an administration can come up
with such a weak, meaningless plan and a
regental board can approve it (while self -righteously
harrumphing that commit
ment to change "must be within us" not
just on paper) and all of this can seem
logical, rather than surrealistic and 1984
twisted, then it is time to realize that af
firmative action plans may be less than
what is needed. In other words, paper
goals just aren't going to do it.
Can we realistically expect a white,
male administration and a white, male
board of regents to see affirmative action
as important? If it were not for the fed
eral dollars involved, does anyone believe
that this issue would even be considered
at all?
It is time to realize that oppression is
not restricted to the active proponents of
discrimination, the ones who make the
headlines by their membership in the Ku
Klux Klan, or the ones who sexually har
ass female employees or co-workers. They
can at least be fought against, legally and
rationally. Few would see their actions
and beliefs as realistic or acceptable.
It is the passive ones, those whose
commitment to social justice runs about
as deep as a mud puddle, who are the
more dangerous. How can you argue
against someone who seems to have your
better interests at heart?
That kind of person (or instituion)
cannot be fought against as easily, be
cause he, she, or it seems to be moving in
the same direction you are, with the same
goals and beliefs. They can make those
who urge or demand change seem un
grateful and shrill-
"Too soon, too fast," is the slogan
here, as is "Now you're asking too much.
And some will agree, believing they really
are asking too much, afraid they will lose
whatever slender hold on equality they
have been given. And therein lies the
problem, because this kind of argument
can make people believe that equality,
and the elimination of discriminatidn is
something that should be given, and
gratefully received with the same kind of
exclamations and thanks normally re
served for eight-year-olds on Christmas
morning. But watch what happens when
the eight-year-old says is isn't enough, or
it isn't what he, or she asked for. The
word "ungrateful" is often heard in such
cases.
Equality isn't a privilege or a gift, it's
a right. No one should have to ask for it,
or settle for airy promises, or feel guilty
about insisting on it. And no woman
should be able to say that the lack of it
doesn't affect her, or matter to her, and
mean it. There is no reason for allowing
change to be slow, incomplete or only on
paper. It is not written anywhere that
disarimination must be seen as "only" a
black problem, a female problem, or a
Hispanic problem. Yet, too many have
accepted that this is simply the way it
must be. Too many are willing to let
others, usually white males, set the pace
for rectificaiton of ongoing wrongs.
In the play, "The Little Foxes, play
wright Lillian Hellman has a character
say, 'There are those who eat the earth,
and there are those who stand around
and watch them eat it.
If the commitment to equality and
elimination of discrimination continues
at its current leisurely pace, we may
wake up one day to find that the earth
has been eaten away from under us.
