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INDEX
News.2
Editorial.4
Sports.6
Classified.6
i
H April 4, 1989__University of Nebraska-Lincoln Vol. 88 No. 130
■Nebraska Legislature advances drug bill
By Jerry Guenther
and Natalie Weinstein
Staff Reporters
The Nebraska Legislature gave
second-round approval Mon
day to a bill that some sena
tors called ‘‘a step in the right direc
tion” in solving statewide crack and
cocaine problems.
State senators voted 27-10 in favor
of LB592, a bill placing mandatory
three- and five-year prison sentences
on crack and cocaine dealers.
Sen. Chris Abboud of Omaha, a
co-sponsor of the bill, said the bill is
worth passing even though it does not
solve Nebraska’s drug problems.
LB592 will send a message to drug
dealers that “Nebraska is not open
for the business of the sale of cocaine
and crack,’’ he said.
Sens. Ernie Chambers of Omaha
and Loran Schmit of Bellwood, who
both opposed the bill in first-round
debate two weeks ago, continued
their efforts to delay action on the
bill.
Chambers made an unsuccessful
motion to indefinitely postpone the
bill. Later, Schmit made an unsuc
cessful motion to delay debate on the
bill until April 17.
Chambers says LB592 does noth
ing because judges already have dis
cretion when deciding the length of
prison terms. In previous debate
Chambers called LB592 a “polili
cian’s bill.” He said some senator*
endorse the bill to make them look
like drug fighters.
‘Pass the bill*wash
your hands, and
feel good. And
you haven’t done
anything.’
—Chambers
“Pass the bill, wash your hand*
and feel good,” Chambers said
Monday. “And you haven’t done
anything.”
In his closing remarks to indefi
nitely postpone the bill, Chambers
accused the senators of being cow
ards.
“I know it will take more political
stomach than the body has to kill this
bill,” he said.
Schmit also said the bill is ineffec
tive but politically appealing. If the
bill gets final approval, he said, sena
tors will be able to tell their constitu
ents “we got tough on drugs.”
“Hell, we did nothing, folks,”
Schmit said.
Schmit said he wanted to delay
debate on the bill to give senators
more time to consider other alterna
tives.
Sen. Scott Moore of Stromsburg, a
co-sponsor of the bill, said he agrees
with Chambers that sometimes sena
tors do “oversell” bills. But passing
the drug bill would not make drug
problems any worse, he said.
By not passing the bill, Moore
said, it would be as though “we arc
throwing up our arms” and saying
the problem is so big that it cannot be
solved.
Other senators agreed that the bill
would not solve the problem entirely
but was still worthy of becoming law.
Sen. Carol McBride Pirsch of
Omaha said senators need to pass the
LB592 because an all-encompassing
drug bill could not pass anyway.
See DRUGSon 3
Connio Sheehan/Daily Nebraskan
Bar hopping
Kelly Cox, a redshirt with the Nebraska track and field team, works on her high jumping form Monday at Ed Weir Stadium.
Fraternities
are dropping
little sisters
By Jana Pedersen
Staff Reporter
Problems with liability, pres
sure from national chapters
and increased costs have
caused many national fraternities to
drop their little sister programs.
At the University of Nebraska
Lincoln, the trend to cut little sister
programs is slower but still growing,
said Jayne Wade Anderson, director
of greek affairs.
Halfof UNL’s 28 fraternities have
little sister programs. Several have
dropped the programs in the past few'
years.
Kevin Yost, Intcrfratemity Coun
cil president, said pressure from na
tional fraternities is the biggest rea
son programs arc being cut.
The national chapter of Alpha Tau
Omega has recently passed a resolu
tion denouncing little sister programs
as “second class membership for
women.”
By the ATO resolution’s defini
tion, Anderson said, little sister pro
grams could cause problems with the
way fraternities are recognized at
UNL.
Fraternities are the only UNL
organizations recognized as men
only groups, she said.
Counting little sisters as “second
class” fraternity members creates
inconsistency in fraternity recogni
tion, Anderson said.
See SISTERS on 3
Sports overemphasized, restrictions needed, poll says '
By Eric Pfanner
Staff Reporter
According to a national poll
conducted by Media General
and The Associated Press,
amajority of Americans favor tight
ening restrictions on student athletes
at lop sports colleges.
Two-thirds of the 1,108 poll re
spondents said the schools overem
phasize sports and neglect academic
standards for athletes.
A Tightening standards is ‘‘a good
thing,” said Ellen Baird, University
of Ncbraska-Lincoln associate vice
chancellor for academic affairs.
‘‘If you don’t have good stan
dards, you are failing the athlete,”
she said.
Baird said people opposed to
tightening NCAA standards argue
that college athletics provide a way
out of poverty for athletes. But the
percentage of college athletes who go
on from college to play profession'll
sports is “tiny,” she said.
Therefore, she said, ‘‘The way to
gel people into the system (to have a
productive life) is a quality education
~ and athletes are as deserving as
others.”
Responses to the poll were divided
into several groups. Seventy-seven
percent of those 65 and older, 61
percent of those between 18 and 29
and 52 percent of black respondents
said the schools overemphasize
sports, the AP reported.
But Baird said the poll results deal
with the public’s perceptions, not
facts, and therefore may not give an
accurate picture of the emphasis on
sports at universities.
Baird said she doesn’t think sports
are emphasized at the expense of
academics at UNL.
“I don’t think UNL overempha
sizes sports,” she said, ‘ ‘but there is a
tremendous premium on sports in the
Lincoln area.”
Since the media in the Lincoln
area focus on UNL sports, it may
appear that UNL sports are overem
phasized, she said.
But it is important to ‘‘distinguish
Nee says standards unrealistic in Prop. 42
By Eric Pfanner
Staff Reporter
Responding to the results of
a recent media poll, UNL
basketball coach Danny
Nee said he is against the NCAA’s
Proposition 42 because the rule
bases decisions regarding an ath
lete’s eligibility on unrealistic
standards.
More than eight in 10 respon
dents to an Associated Press/Me
dia General poll favored Proposi
tion 42, which stiffens current
scholarship eligibility require
ments for student athletes.
Nee said that under Proposition
42 colleges would use different
criteria when rewarding athletic
scholarships than they do when
admitting student non-athletes to a
university.
Under Proposition 42, student
athletes must meet the academic
standards in the present rule,
Proposition 48, to be eligible for
athletic scholarships.
The results of the survey are not
surprising, Nee said, since most
people do not understand the facts
regarding Propositions 42 and 48.
Standardized tests and high
school grades should not be the
most important determining fac
tors in judging an athlete’s aca
demic ability. Nee said.
Nee said that once given a
chance in college, some students
who did poorly in high school
show improvement. He cited two
UNL athletes admitted under
Proposition 48 who currently have
grade point averages of 3.4 and
2.7.
Under Proposition 42, student
athletes who do not achieve scores
of 700 on the Scholastic Aptitude
Test or 15 on the American Col
lege Test and do not have a 2.0
grade point average in 11 high
school core courses would be de
nied athletic scholarships.
Proposition 48 requires that
athletes meet only part of the same
academic standards to receive
scholarships. Partial qualifiers
must sit out their freshman season,
and arc eligible for only three years
of play.
the university from the larger com
munity,” she said.
Baird said die university admini
stration promotes UNL ‘‘as a
whole.”
“Sports are important, but in per
spective,” she said.
Half of the people surveyed in the
poll said they think professors com
monly give athletes higher grades
See POLL on 3
