Monday, December 2, 1985
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
'Market place
PcClARATION
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by hi
ccuracy in Academia, a fledgling group trying to
expose "inaccuracy" and "liberal bias" in higher
education, threatens intellectual freedom in U.S. col
leges and universities.
The watchdog group, based in Washington, D.C.,
asks students to monitor their professor's lectures and report
any inaccurate or "highly questionable" statements, according
to the Nov. 27 Chronicle of Higher Education.
The group's actions are reminiscent of the "Red scare,"
started by the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy during his 1950s hunt
for Communists.
The classroom is supposed to be a learning place, where
professors present different sides of issues and new opinions,
controversial and traditional.
Most students attend classes to hear lectures, which are
based on years of accumulated knowledge. The AIA could
cause professors to abandon their experiences and simply read
from a textbook.
Faculty members should introduce students to new ideas
and theories, not discouraged from testing new ideas because
of conservative spies.
If a course deals with controversial subjects, professors
should make their opinions known before the lecture begins so
students can distinguish between facts and opinion. Profes
sors also must not forget their duty to represent both sides of
issues in their lectures.
Professors should be free to express all opinions without
fear of being persecuted. But by its nature, AIA could limit the
introduction and discussion of controversial ideas.
The group already has targeted an Arizona State University
professor for his anti-nuclear views, according to an article in
the Sunday Journal-Star. The 52-year-old associate professor
says he has received telephone threats and verbal harassment.
The AIA lacks complete backing it has only a $50,000
budget and one full-time staff member. But if the group
prospers, it could become a threat to higher education.
Faculty members deserve to be judged by their peers not
by a one-man judge and jury looking for liberals.
Another problem with the group is that it seeks predomi
nately liberal bias. The group perhaps could be commended if
it was monitoring the quality of education and looking for bias
and inaccuracy in all areas.
Currently, UNL professors have not been bothered by the
AIA. But students and faculty should realize that the group
appears to be advocating "Conformity in Academia," not Accu
racy in Academia.
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ALL MATERIAl COPYRIGHT 1885 DAILY NEBRASKAN
People pawns in state lotfceiy
Bill Watson gets a lot of attention
these days.
Not long ago he was an Omaha
fireman, pulling down workaday wages.
Then he won the Iowa Lottery's $4 mil
lion jackpot. He quit his job, and now
everyone wants to know what he's
going to do with the money.
7
Chris
Welsch
Lottery winners always get a lot of
press. It makes sense; you win the lot
tery and you win the American Dream
the easy way, like a Horatio Alger story
without the work. Almost everyone fan
tasizes about what it would be like to
have a cool million, or in Watson's case,
a cool $4 million.
The idea of a state lottery has been
bounced around the Legislature re
cently. Sen. John DeCamp of Neligh is
certain to play an instrumental part in
pushing for a lottery in January's regu
lar session. The state needs money, and
lotteries bring in money. It is, however,
a rotten idea.
Watson's story is the happy one, and
the one we hear about, but thousands
of wishers paid for his dream.
For every Watson, there are thou
sands of Mary Smiths and John Henrys
who spend part of their meager salaries
or welfare benefits for lottery tickets in
hopes of tagging on to a chunk of the
American Dream, which is pretty hard
to come by these days.
Gov. Bob Kerrey spoke out against a
lottery because he said it encourages
people not to work. The idea is destruc
tive to the work ethic, but it's worse
because it plays on the hopes of the
poor and bleeds the very segment of the
economy that needs its income the
most.
The number of rich people who play
lotteries is incidental. The poor play,
and the poor pay.
The same is true of the horse tracks
in Nebraska. They also turn a pretty
penny by exploiting one of human
kind's eternal qualities and curses:
hope.
The people at the tracks willingly
.throw away their money on the odd
chance that they'll pick up a few more
bucks than they came in with. By and
large, the people I've seen at Nebras
ka's race tracks are not the Stuarts or
the Theisens, unless they are in the box
seats. The bulk of the gamblers are
average, poor to middle-class people.
You can say, "But they throw away
their money willingly no one is mak
ing them bet." You're right in part, but
there are compulsive gamblers, and
there are a lot of stupid people waiting
for someone to fleece them.
I can take or leave the tracks. Horse
races are entertaining, and they are
private enterprise.
But when the government wants to
set up a gambling operation, it's plain
wrong. The state is here to protect and
serve the people, not to make money off
its constituents' weaknesses.
If the state needs money, there are
better, more legitimate ways to get it.
One is to raise the income tax again.
Another would be a luxury tax that
would hit the state's rich, who can bet
ter afford to pay.
I hope the legislators resist the lot
tery temptation. State-run gambling is
not in the best interest of Nebraskans.
Bill Watson, who got back from a
Hawaiian vacation last week, might
beg to differ.
Welsch is a UNL senior English and
journalism major and a Daily Nebraskan
copy desk chief.
'Policy' instead of thought can kill
If you want to know what policy is,
try asking a waiter why you can't
substitute rice for mashed pota
toes. The answer is policy. If you still
don't know what policy is, ask the park
ing attendant why you can't make a
claim for damages after you have left
the lot. The answer once again is pol
icy. It's another term for not thinking.
Policy in one of its many guises is
responsible for the death of more than
50 passengers aboard Egyptair 648. The
policy in question is the one that holds
that you never negotiate and positively
never acquiesce to the demands of ter
rorists. They are, in the words of Secre
tary of State George Shultz, not "worth
the time of day. They're not even peo
ple, doing what they're doing."
Richard
Cohen
Shultz made those remarks before
Egyptian commandos attempted a
rescue that, it now appears clear, was
doomed from the very start. But even
after the results were in, the,United
States, adhering to policy, commended
Egypt for taking action. Never mind
that more than 50 passengers were
killed. Never mind that it could be
argued that the policy of withholding
fuel from the plane and keeping it in
Malta had totally backfired. Everyone
was congratulated. They had stuck to
policy.
The hijacking of the Egyptian air
liner was a particularly nasty terrorist
incident. It seems to have been led by a
madman who, according to witnesses,
danced in the aisles and cracked jokes
after executing passengers. Neither he
nor his colleagues ever enunciated
their demands, aside from demanding
that the plane be refueled, and they
were eclectically and somewhat con
tradictorly armed small caliber pis
tols and hand grenades. The former
were sometimes inadequate for up
close executions; the latter were more
than adequate to kill many people.
It goes without saying that it is
always easier to second-guess than to
guess to analyze with all the facts at
your disposal instead of making a deci
sion in the midst of terrible confusion.
The latter, of course, is what Egyptian,
Maltese and, maybe, U.S. officials had
to do. None of them wanted things to
turn out the way they did. Egypt can
hardly take pride in an operation in
which its soldiers reportedly killed
some of the very people they were sup
posed to rescue.
But having said all that, it neverthe
less is clear that a kind of mindless
policy is being substituted for some
hard thinking. The policy holds that
you never negotiate with terrorists and,
if possible, you kill them instead. The
idea, besides having a beguiling sim
plicity, is to discourage other terrorist
acts. The trouble with that is that ter
rorists are sometimes suicidal and
could not care less that they have no
chance of success. "Success" is
martyrdom.
Even aside from that, though, is the
suggestion that what fuels the policy is
something besides logic machismo
and resentment. Administration spokes
men talk of terrorism as if it were an
insult to U.S. resolve, as if in street
talk terrorists get into our face,
back us down, humble an administra
tion that once thought the problem so
simple and talked about it in those
terms. Only Jimmy Carter was incapa
ble of dealing with terrorism. A new
administration would banish it from
the earth.
In a statement issued after the
botched rescue attempt, the State
Department said, "Terrorism, by its
very nature, rejects the values civilized
peoples hold dear." Of course, that's
true. But terrorism succeeds beyond
the incident in question if, in the fight
against it, governments also reject "the
values civilized peoples hold dear."
The foremost value is the sanctity of
human life, especially the life of non
combatants. If so-called rescue opera
tions are attempted out of a sense of
national pride or because everyone is
simply fed up with terrorism, then like
the terrorists themselves, governments
have substituted other values for the
one they are supposed to hold most
dear.
In the last month, two different
governments have moved forcibly and
with great violence against terrorism.
In Columbia, 52 innocent people, along
with 18 M-19 guerrillas, were killed in a
government attack on the Palace of
Justice where hostages were being
held. In Malta, more than 50 died when
Egyptian commandos also answered
violence with violence. In both instan
ces, governments adhered to policy.
Next time, they ought to try thinking.
1985, Washington Post Writers Group
Cofuen is an editorial columnist for the
Washington Post.