Tuesday, April 8, 1986
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
Ed.
O H O
Vicki Rufihn Editor, 472-17(H)
Thorn Caliiukictticz, MdiKUjUHl Editor
Ad llmiltT, Editorial Pane Editor
Jaiiu'h Kucrs. Editorial Patc Editor
ciiris uvisch, Copij Desk Chic
Nel?rayskan
University o( Nebraska-Lincoln
MAW!
play
rs f f
Good idea for education
The state of Texas is well into
its third year of what some
consider one of educat ion's
most controversial issues a
law called no pass-no play.
Two years ago, the Texas legis
lature discovered the state had a
problem: The state's youth were
not as smart compared with youth
in other states. Before the no
pass-no play rule began, Texas
ranked 46th nationally in stu
dent achievement scores.
The idea works like this: Any
student who fails a course in a
six-week period can't participate
in extracurricular activities in
the following period. That in
cludes everything from football
to marching band and drama.
As expected, several Texans
have protested the new rule,
claiming it's not effective and
that it even exacerbates some
problems in the educational sys
tem. They include:
O An argument that the rule
will increase the drop-out rate.
Some say students who excel in
one event will drop out of school
if they're made ineligible. They
say that one event keeps them in
school in the first place.
O An article in the St. Peters
burg (Fla.) Times indicates that
the rule might sometimes dis
criminate. The article said 32
percent of blacks and 31 percent
of Mexican Americans have had
to quit their activities compared
with 19 percent for whites.
Cootroweirsy
Speakers provoke thought
Exposure to current contro
versial opinions is an im
portant aspect of university
education. But compared to other
universities, UNL speakers have
been tame. This week, however,
is a sterling exception.
Poet Margaret Randall spoke
last night as the keynote speaker
in this year's Women's Week.
Randall is a U.S. born poet who
renounced U.S. citizenship in
1966 and now is attempting to
regain it. She has written about
40 books, but her works, often
sympathetic to communism, have
drawn the most attention in her
attempt for citizenship.
The naturalization service has
refused her residency request
under the McCarran-Walter Act,
which denies citizenship to for
eigners who were or are Commu
nists or support its doctrine. A
federal court will hear her case
this summer.
Journalist Geraldo Rivera, a
former 2020 reporter, is another
controversial, thought-provoking
speaker. Rivera's 2020 contract
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials represent
official policy of the spring 1986
Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the
Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board.
The Daily Nebraskan's publish
ers are the regents, who established
the UNL Publications Board to super
O Smaller schools also might
claim the law is unfair because
they often have just enough stu
dents to fill a team's roster.
Some might have to drop a pro
gram altogether because they
don't have enough people.
All these points provide good
arguments, but they fail to rec
ognize the importance of a good
education. It's simple. If stu
dents can't pass, they shouldn't
be able to play. The problems
often lie elsewhere.
For example, minorities have
long been affected by the educa
tion system. White teachers often
seem to expect less of minori
ties. Thus they get less stimula
tion and have less interest in
school. Whether these students
get to compete in activities in
secondary.
Should Nebraska ever adopt
such a law, it needs to modify it
in some ways. For example, it
makes no sense to evaluate stu
dents according to their overall
grade point average, rather than
by just one grade. Few people
excel in all courses. They should
be given some leeway.
The country's education pro
grams have experienced much
change in the past five years,
most of it effective.
While it seems too early to
evaluate the effectiveness of no
pass-no play, the law remains an
important force in educational
reform.
allegedly was not renewed be
cause of the controversy sur
rounding a program decision.
Rivera charged that a segment
on actress Marilyn Monroe's death
and alleged affairs with John F.
and Robert Kennedy was not run
because of ABC executive ties
with the Kennedy family. Rivera
will speak Wednesday at 7:30
p.m.
After the outcry against left
wing bias in the university-sponsored
speakers' program about
five years ago, the program seems
to have avoided controversy. This
was a result opposite from that
intended and goes against the
tenor of what the university
stands for. People such as Dr.
Ruth Westheimer, while contro
versial, are hardly the type of
speakers who bring debate on
important issues of the day.
We hope this week's speakers
represent a trend away from
safer, mainstream speakers. UPC
should vigorously recruit impor
tant, thought-provoking speakers
from the left and the right.
vise the daily production of the
paper.
According to policy set by the
regents, responsibility for the edi
torial content of the newspaper lies
solely in the hands of its student
ediiors.
A l. .. Vi - ML.! S-Y
era in
lions,
Sometimes I think that American
women have been the subject of
more research than the entire
species of white rats. If every grant,
every publisher's advance, every fellow
ship devoted to the problems of Ameri
can women had been used to build
day-care centers, they would stretch
from coast to coast.
This spring there is yet another
bumper crop of cover stories, articles
and books about women trying to
stretch their energy over children and
jobs and coming up short. These pieces
are the predictable offspring, if you will
excuse the expression, of the baby
boom generation of mothers. In the
words a friend used at her 40th birth
day, they are "suffering from too much
of a good thing."
The most heralded, or huckstered, of
these tracts is "The Lesser Life" by
Sylvia Ann Hewlett, who is currently
making the circuit from Time Magazine
to Donahue. Her premise is that, "Un
less women get some relief from their
domestic responsibilities, they will con
tinue to fare badly in the labor force."
This is not, despite the cover blurb
by Liv Ullmann, "shocking and eye
opening." One generation exchanged
depression for stress. Now the stress
generation is looking for help.
Hewlett has been there, but her
book wobbles intellectually: a ping of
truth here, a disappointing thud there.
At best she rehashes much that has
already been said about the basic eco
nomic plight of women. Divorce, an
unbending workplace, inadequate day
care, wild insensitivity to pregnancy . . .
round up the usual suspects.
The hook is that after recycling
much of the feminist analysis and most
Letters
Rogers' theism
Steven Haack's letter to the editor
(Daily Nebraskan, April 11), regarding
the separation of church and state war
rants a response. I think the letter
misrepresented the tenor of Jim Rog
ers' column because it seems to be
based on a misperception of theists'
objections to current First Amendment
analysis.
I did not interpret Rogers' column as
a call for the abolition of separation
between church and state, nor do most
theists wish for such a result. Rather
the theists' concern is that the First
Amendment not be used to actively
discriminate against religion.
Placed in its historical context, the
Constitution probably intended the
separation requirement to operate as
little more than protection against
Congress declaring a national religion.
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the workforce nee
not moire
of its agenda, she turns around and
names feminism as a chief culprit. Up
go the television lights, out come the
pens.
Many of the recent books and arti
cles include this sort of ritual whack at
the women's movement either for
"creating" the Superwoman myth or for
"forcing" women to turn in the baby
carriage for the briefcase. Hewlett
charges that the feminist emphasis on
equal rights with men caused them to
neglect or deny the very family sup
ports needed by women.
Ellen
Goodman
The argument about the best route
to change through equal or special
treatment has been around for a
century, and it's a meaty one. The
argument that feminists are "anti
family" has been around since the late
'60s when radicals were giving karate
lessons in lofts in lower Manhattan and
talking about the cybernization of child
bearing. But in life, as opposed to lofts,
there have been feminists behind every
parental-leave bill, every child-care bill,
every flexible-work plan.
Hewlett looks abroad for her role
models, convinced that woman have it
better in Europe. Sweden, I'll buy. But
Italy, Britain, Greece? It's news to
them.
It is easy and sexy to focus on an
intra-gender battle, first between tra
ditionalists and feminists, now between
feminists and post-feminists. The cul
Brief letters are preferred,
address and phone number
misinterpreted,
The current Supreme Court, how
ever, has interpreted the provision to
prohibit a local school board from
deciding to allow a moment of silent
meditation. Theists suggest such deci
sions stretch the separation principles
too far.
On a different note, I found it ironic
that Haack would question the extent
of Rogers' conceptual development in
the same paragraph in which Haack
makes the first of several conceptual
errors.
First, Haack suggests that bestow
ing a blessing on a Christian society
can only come at the expense of those
not so blessed. The suggestion is false.
If I give a gift to A, I do not harm B
because I do not also give B a gift.
Second, Haack suggests that pre
tending to know the mind of God, as
INWONAL TERRORISM
research
prit is not feminism, not even what
Hewlett describes as the cult of moth
erhood, but the cult of rampant indi
vidualism. In America we still regard
each worker as disconnected, each
child as private property and child
raising as an issue for each family to
resolve on its own.
If you read an edge of impatience in
my words, it's because I have been a
working mother now for more than 17
years. In all those years, almost a gen
eration, the need for a more responsive
workplace and for social supports, has
been crystal clear. Progress has been a
whole lot muddier.
Many of us calculated, or hoped, that
when women formed a critical mass in
the work force, things would finally
change. We now have this mega-generation.
Many are trying to have it all by
doing it all themselves. Others are
struggling to keep their heads above
water. Still others are burning out. The
problem isn't the women's movement
but the lack of movement. The next few
years will determine whether this gen
eration produces massive change or
massive disappointment.
I admit to a vested interest in this.
Right behind the baby boom is my
daughter's generation, young women
growing up with assumptions. They
assume their lives will include work
and family. They assume that the work
place will aqjust. They don't need the
problems researched; they need them
solved. One child-care center is worth a
thousand studies.
1986, The Boston Globe Newspaper
Company'Washington Post
Writers Group
Goodman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning
columnist for the Boston Globe.
and longer letters may be edited. Writer's
are needed for verification.
law student says
did Michael Ryan at the Rulo farm, is
an act of faith. No Christian doctrine
that I am aware of indicates that man
can know the mind of God in the
manner Ryan believed he did.
Third, maintenance of a strict separ
ation between church and state will
not inhibit people from engaging in.
acts of religious fanaticism as Haack's
argument seems to presume.
My purpose in pointing out the con
ceptual infirmities in Haack's letter is
to foster the growth of intellectual
humility where I perceive none. Haack's
flippant dismissal of Christian theol
ogy as "hocus pocus" reveals a belief in
his own omniscience a belief he
properly condemns when it is helped
by theists.
L.M. Zavadil
law