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daily nebraskan
Wednesday, november 19, 1980
Plan would neutralize student voice
A committee established by the NU Board of
Regents to study the membership and appoint
ment process of the UNL Publications Board has
recommended, among other things, that the
ASUN senate no longer be empowered to appoint
students to the board.
The Publications Board is the supervisory body
for the Daily Nebraskan. The committee was
formed in response to the handling of James
Coe's May 1 letter received at the Daily Nebra
skan office.
This editorial is in no way intended to discuss
or reach judgments concerning that letter or its
handling, and response to those points would
likely be considered irrelevant.
We are, however, deeply concerned about the
nature of this newspaper's supervisory board and
the methods used to select its members.
The regents, who will consider the committee
recommendation at their next meeting, passed a
resolution forming the committee and expressing
a desire that Publications Board positions be in
sulated from campus political bodies. The regents
also recommended that the chancellor take a
more active role in the final approval of board
members.
The nominees will be selected by the student
advisory councils of each of the academic
Rape films masked
by tacit approval
Violence against women comes in many forms, some
subtle, some overt.
A young woman is running through the woods, pur
sued by an unseen assailant. She runs awkwardly, looking
behind her, making short cries. She's wearing high heels.
Predictably she falls. Her assailant is upon her.
headrick
Growing up in the 1950s this was a common scenario.
The horror film was a popular motif during that decade.
Again in this decade there is a revitalization of the horror
show. From the cheaper grade-Bs, to some finely -crafted
cinematic wonders, the actors are different but the
theme's the same. Often the violence against the female
victim is masked in erotic overtones. The mixture of sex
and violence is a sure box-office bet.
Edward Donnerstein is one psychologist who has been
studying the effects of pornography on behavior. He is
now teaching at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
He said his four years of studies have shown that contin
ually portraying women as victims does increase aggres
sion against them.
Donnerstein said the current rash of violent films usual
ly portrays independent women being attacked.
This suggests a strong message: Women who are alone
are in danger. It serves as a subliminal warning for women
to be less independent and reinforces the notions of
female dependence on men for protection. He Knows
You're Alone is possibly the most blatant example of this.
The commercial says that when a woman is alone the
night before her wedding He, It, Whatever comes for her.
Continued on Page 5
U
' UP5P U4U5
Editor in chief: Randy Essex; Managing editor: Bob Lannin;
News editor: Barb Richardson; Associate news editor: Kathy
Chenault; Assistant news editors: Tom Prentiss and Shelley
Smith; Night news editors: Sue Brown, Nancy Ellis, Bill Graf;
Assistant night news editor: Ifejika Okonkwo; Entertainment edi
tor: Casey McCabe; Sports editor: Shelley Smith; Assistant sports
editor: Larry Sparks; Photography chief: Mark Billingsley; Art
director: David Luebke; Magazine editor: Diane Andersen.
Copy editors: Sue Brown, Nancy Ellis, Maureen Hutfless,
Lori McGinnis, Tom McNeil, Jeanne Mohatt, Lisa Paulson, Kathy
Sjulin, Kent Warneke, Patricia Waters.
Business manager: Anne Shank; Production manager: Kitty
Policky; Advertising manager: Art Small; Assistant advertising
manager: Jeff Pike.
Publications Board chairman: Mark Bowen, 475-1031, Profes
sional adviser: Don Walton, 473-7301.
The Daily Nebraskan is published by the UNL Publications
Board Monday through Friday during the fail and spring semes
ters, except during vacations.
Address: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 14th and R
streets. Lincoln. Neb.. 68588. Telephone: 472-2583.
Material may be reprinted without permission if attributed
to the Daily Nebraskan, except material covered by a copyright.
Second class postage paid at Lincoln. Neb.. 68510.
colleges. Some advisory councils are not elected
bodies, meaning that students appointed by their
dean will recommend students to the chancellor.
While it might have been the intent of the com
mittee to separate the pub board from campus
politics, we believe it failed, and perhaps has
recommended creation of a greater evil.
In times of controversy, which really are the
only times anyone cares much about the pub
board's student membership, the selections will
be highly political, but it will be a different kind
of politics.
The ASUN Senate conducts its business in
public. Student advisory councils, especially those
appointed by college deans, do not have to. Thus,
it is possible that the form of politics involved in
some future selections would be similar to a
caucus of a very select few.
The committee has recommended, in effect,
that student members of the pub board be
appointed by the campus elite, some of whom
were appointed by deans, and that the chancellor
have final say anyway.
The committee, in an effort to insulate the
Daily Nebraskan from harmless, public campus
politics, has invited entry of the power politics of
departments seeking the regents' good graces. It
has paved the way for a truly elitist Publications
Board, which could be expected to select editors
who toe the line of political desires.
The greatest harm of this plan is not to the
Daily Nebraskan. Rather, the student body,
which had some say in who would represent it on
the pub board, is the real loser. Those wanting
a student newspaper responsibe to student
interests have lost to those wanting a student
paper responsive to departmental and administra
tive interests.
The change was unnecessary, if we are to judge
from Monday evening's selection of next
semester's Daily Nebraskan editor.
The regents and the committee they formed to
comply with their wishes apparently saw some
evil in the appointments last spring of ASUN's
two biggest executives to the pub board.
Yet both were on the board Monday evening,
when two students involved in campus politics
sought the position of editor. Neither received a
vote, not even from those former student govern
ment officers.
The Daily Nebraskan is a resilient organization,
because it has a voice that is extremely difficult
to take away. The student body, on the other
hand, will find it harder and harder to bounce
back if the regents continue to give it less and less
of a voice, especially in selecting its own representatives.
DftVEltt WO
Sen.Hatch's wage plan examined
If you agree with Sen. Orrin Hatch that the rising min
imum wage has priced teen-agers out of the labor market,
you'll find it hard to resist his solution.
The Utah Republican says he will introduce legislation
to permit employers bound by the minimum-wage law to
hire teen-agers at 75 percent of the adult minimum.
The result, he predicts, will be to render teen-agers
more employable and reduce youth joblessness.
The proposal will be opposed by labor unions, liberals
and blacks. Why?
f
cry
Are these liberals opposed to doing something concrete
about youth unemployment that is threatening the cities?
Can blacks argue that it is better for a youngster to be
unemployed at $335 (the minimum wage beginning next
January) than to be employed at $2.50? Is labor trying to
save jobs for union members, shutting out teen-agers?
What are the arguments against the youth differential?
Some of the arguments are fairly obvious, and Hatch
proposes to meet some of them. One objection, for in
stance, is that employers will hire teen-agers at 75 percent
of adult wages then replace them when they turn 20.
Another is the fear that fathers will lose their jobs to their
own sons.
Hatch would require payment of the full minimum
wage after a six-month training period, or when the work
er reachers age 20. Meanwhile, the youngsters will have
had the chance to prove themselves.
Presumably employers would find it more economical
to keep experienced workers then to keep training new
ones.
Meanwhile, there were all these formerly jobless young
sters now going to work every day.
That is, if Hatch's assumption that the minimum wage
causes unemployement is correct. The problem is. nobody
can demonstrate that it is correct, and a good many econ
omists and labor experts argue that it isn't.
Even Hatch seems to have his doubts.
"Everyone knows." he said in a recent interview, "that
when the minimum wage goes up to $335 an hour, thousands-no,
hundreds of thousands -of kids will lose their
jobs because businesses just aren't going to pay that much
for young people who are only worth $2.50 an hour."
How's that again? There are "hundreds of thousands"
of youngsters already employed at $3.10 and they arc go
ing to be laid off when the minimum wage goes up by a
quarter an hour? Even when their replacements would
have to be paid $335 by the time they became fully
trained.
Sorry, senator, it doesn't compute. The sub-minimum
would do nothing for the youngsters already employed.
Nor is it likely to do much for their jobless counterparts
if employers know that, after six months, they'll have to
get the full minimum.
The only way it could work, it seems to me, is for the
difference in pay to be permanent. And that would pro
duce either of two results, neither of them terribly re
assuring. Either the 20-year-olds would be laid off and
their jobs given to 17-year-olds, or two groups of employ
ees, at the same age, equally experienced, would do the
same job at different pay.
Still the Hatch proposal might be worth patching up
if the minimum wage causes youth joblessness.
A number of people who have examined the problem
think the causes lie elsewhere: the jobs available to teen
agers are in the suburbs, while most jobless teen-agers are i
in the inner cities, and a number of employers simply
don't want black, inner-city youngsters around.
I suppose you could fix the second problem by setting
pay scales low enough. But then the kid becomes a more
attractive employee than his own father, causing more
problems.
I don't doubt the senator's good intentions, but maybe
he d better hatch up another scheme.
(c) 1980. The Washington Post Co.