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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 2, 1984)
Page 4 Daily Nebraskan Tuesday, October 2, 1G34 n O n " ZZZZZZzIIZ c m8pZm S3 0 rated Stat! v " n m f i ie 13 i i j -r. i . i f ii nil . n f ; i r s cm, . i t. 4 i i . 1 a 1 1 v. t . "T resident Ferdinand Marcos has lost LI popularity steadily since he declar- JL ed martial law 12 years ago. The martial law officially was ended in 1081, but the opposition and unrest continued. The slaying of Benigno Aquino, the opposition leader, in 1983 rekindled the fire of opposition; protests sprung up, there was some rioting the public questioned the nature of Marcos govern ment. Marcos is a dictator. His policies are unpopular, the economy is sinking, the country is in deep debt and the people are protesting. Instead of changing poli- esity confiic is heavy subject very now and again I'm going to write like a real person, instead of as the editorial voice of the Daily Nebraskan. I'll be personal like the other colum nists. This is one of those limes. Over the last six weeks we've ran columns and articles on a variety of issues. There have been columns about cies, he tries to quash the opposition. This summer Marcos brought back the "Special Marshalls" to hunt down crimi nals. The marshalls tend to shoot, first and ask questions later Marcos gave them a license to kill if the suspects res isted arrest. Many speculated he used the marshalls to "quiet" opposers of his regime. cV The hearings on the Aquino assassina tion have done little to assuage the unrest in the country. It is uncertain why Rolando Galman would have wanted to kill Aquino, and even more mysterious why Galman was shot by National Guards men immediately after the shooting. Analysts are predicting the Marcos government is in danger of falling. Popu lar support is almost nonexistent. Stu dent pretests are commonplace. One leader of student protests, Lean dro Alejandro, chairman cf the national Alliance of University of the Philippines Student Councils, said it is a "no-win situation for the government." Ke led a series of protests, each trying to move closer to the bridge that leads to Marcos' palace. "If they hit us, it projects an image of instability for the regime. If they don't, we sit here ail week until they allow us to demonstrate cn the bridge leading to the palace," he said. Because the situation is unstable, the United States should reevaluate its stand on Marcos. The country may be over thrown. If that happens, the new govern ment would net be receptive to the Uni ted States. The Philippines is a key part of our defense in the Pacific. A more neutral stance toward Marcos would do much to insure a friendly future with the Filipinos. 06 E (3 Chris i . Welsch abortion, religion and politics, racial and sexual preju dice, the upcoming election and socialized medicine, among other things. But none of those supposed "explosive" topics brought more than two letters to the editor. In fact, most brought no response at all. Then came the issue that brought the UNL commun ity to life. To date I've had 13 letters to the editor about the truly mountainous issue of sensitivity to obese peo ple. That's more than 600 percent more reader response than on any other issue. Granted, sensitivity is an important issue, and so is obesity, but next to the threat of extinction by nuclear weapons, or the issue of abortion, obesity seems rather trivial. Some people are fat and can't help it, some are fat and can. People should do their best to stay in shape; exer cise relieves stress and lengthens life. It's not fair to stigmatize obese people; they need support and friend ship as much as anybody else. Fat might be a popular topic for a number of reasons. It's a very immediate concern and it's personal. Que sera sera. Keep those cards and letters coming. r )' 44 oaax y - rSp 4(1 ' 1 "i -- ; - A v' 7, v -. "l-zzi f til m ... py A A MeVDOy, CDVLQ YOU SPAR 1,500 PUCKS POR A CUP CpCOf f 7J University's refundable fee disregards bylaws, Constitution "To compel a man to furnish contribu tions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical " Thomas Jefferson. Decisions respecting higher education take place squarely within the political arena in Nebraska There is nothing neces sarily wrong with this phenomena because education, whether we admit it or not, is a very political process. mMmxaammmmnBwiam Jim .osers However, because education is so polit ical, constitutional difficulties may be raised when the state, acting through our government-run university, seeks to af ford one student group a preferred posi tion in the political debate. This may have occurred with the pres ent membership and fee structure of the Nebraska State Student Association. Ad ditionally, the university may have broken its own bylaws in affording NSSA its privileged position. NSSA was created several years ago in a laudable attempt to have the students of various state supported institutions of higher learning join together and advance similar interests before the Legislature. The way the goal was to be reached, however, is not so laudable. Based upon the vote of a small minority of all stu dents, albeit a majority of the students voting, the administrations of the various schools were persuaded to provide the NSSA with some rather extraordinary privi leges. Namely, the privilege of simply declaring all students to be members of the NSSA irrespective of any particular student's desire, and the implementation of a fee structure known in the parlance of labor law as the "mandatory refunda ble fee." The Supreme Court has recognized that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees other rights than those explicitly outlined. One of these rights guaranteed to the individual is that of free association. The essence of this right is that the government may not compel or prohibit an individual's associ ation with a group unless it is justified by "a compelling governmental interest." In the case of Galda vs. Bloustein, 1982, a federal appeals court faced a set of circumstances surprisingly similar to that of the NSSA. Several students at Rutgers University filed a suit "alleging that university officers and administra tors had violated students' First and Fourteenth amendment rights by extrac ting from each student a refundable fee to support the New Jersey Public Interest. Research Group (PIRG), an independent politicaleducation organization." The Federal Appeals Court held that in the absence of a constitutionally compel ling reason for the state to fund the group, that "a fee used to finance political activity cannot be exacted even tem porarily from those unwilling to pay," and, thus, that "the refund ability feature of the funding scheme does not suffice to remedy the constitutional defect." In fact, however, the impingement of associations rights is greater in respect to the NSSA than that evidenced in the Galda case. First, in addition to the fund ing structure supporting the NSSA, all students are forced to be members of NSSA and there is no readily apparent method for quitting the organization if one desires. Second, the NSSA purports to speak on political issues in the name of its members and irrespective of dissenters' views. Third, in Galda, 50 percent of the stu dent body was required to participate in the referenda before funding support was provided to a group. NSSA has never participated in a referenda coming any where within light-years of 50 percent. Even if the violation of associations rights were not bad enough to justify a change in policy toward the organization, the university has apparently violated its own bylaws in according NSSA its privi leged position. First, eection 4.1 cfthe University Bylaws, taken with section 2.14 of the Regent's Bylaws, indicates that onlyASUN "is the o facial representative of the stu dent body of UNL Section 4.1.2 of the University Bylaws requires that the ASUN Constitution "provide powers and proce dures related to...(4) functioning as a liai son between the students and the Board of Regents, the administration, the faculty, the state legislature, and the public; (and) (5) adopting policy statements on public issues and on issues affecting students of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln." The university administration, in violation of its own bylaws, has usurped the powers exclusively granted to ASUN by allowing the NSSA to function in ways reserved to the students' official government. ' Irrespective of the substantive goals of the NSSA, and they may be very good, the means which have been chosen to advance these goals apparently violates the U.S. Constitution and the University Bylaws. There is simply no legally compelling rea son to force membership in NSSA and to compel the payment of fees to the NSSA Indeed, in the long run, a stronger organ ization would probably result if member ship were voluntary rather than coerced. Do the students a fever, UNL administra tors, let the student freely choose what organisations they shall join and toward what political ends their money shall be spent. i