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Vol. 89 No. 79
|Constitutional amendment necessary
Moore to propose official student vote
tty Emily Rosenbaum
Senior Reporter
wF-——
A legislative resolution to pro
A* vide an official vote for a stu
"*■ dent regent on the NU Board
of Regents will be introduced this
Ek by state Sen. Scott Moore of
ard. z
‘The main thrust of the bill will be
take sure that the students have
ng power,” Moore said.
■ The three student representatives
I on the board — from the University of
| Nebraska-Lincoln, the University of
Nebraska at Omaha and the Univer
r; sity of Nebraska Medical Center ~
now have no official vole and ‘‘the
regents can ignore students,” Moore
said.
Under the new proposal, the gov
ernor would appoint one of the three
student regents to serve as a voting
member. The student body at each
University of Nebraska branch still
would elect the three student regents.
"4 4
the education or government com
mittee in February and then will be
voted on by the Legislature, Moore
said. If the Legislature approves the
Unless you give students a vote, the board of
regents can pat the student regents on the
head and try to shut them out.
Moore
state senator
--% % -
To allow for a voting student re
gent, a constitutional amendment
would have to be passed, Moore said.
The proposal will be assigned to
bill and Gov. Kay Orr signs it, it will
be included on the November ballot
to be voted on by the public, he said.
Moore said he is not certain the
• , .-..
bill will be passed this year, but he
wants to ensure that legislators are
aware of the need for student voting
power.
Bryan Hill, UNL student regent,
said the student regent vote proposal
is a “realization that students need a
vote to be a player.”
To get students to participate in
higher education government and to
make the government responsive to
students, they need the power of vot
ing on the board, Hill said.
“Unless you give students a vote,
the board of regents can pat the stu
dent regents on the head and try to
shut them out,’’ Moore said. “If you
don’t have a vote, you don’t seem to
count.”
Proposals made by the consulting
firm Widmayer and Associates don’t
specify whether student representa
tives should get an official vote.
The Legislature instructed the
Chicago-based consulting firm, to make
the proposals, which would create a
new board of regents to coordinate
higher education in Nebraska and lay
boards of trustees for each of the three
branches of the NU system and the
four state colleges.
A student representative would sit
on each board of trustees, but the
proposals don’t say whether the stu
dents would have an official vote. No
student member would sit on the
proposed board of regents.
‘ ‘The Widmayer proposal is going
to be a big change, but we don’t know
what’s going to be the vehicle for
change in higher education,” Moore
said. “I want to make sure the issue of
student representation is discussed this
year.”
-1
Director: Money helps but isn t
cure-all for minority recruitment
ay victoria Ayotte
Senior Reporter
A million-do liar endowment fund for schol
arships is just one step toward increas
ing the number of minority students
recruited and retained at the university, a UNL
official said.
Jimmi Smith, director of Multi-Cultural
Affairs, said more money is needed to recruit
and retain a minority student population at
UNL that is proportionate with the state’s. That
is the University of Ncbraska-Lincoln’s goal,
he said.
The university has not even begun to attract
the number of minorities it needs to fill that
goal, he said.
“We’ll be fortunate if we’re even at the
halfway point,” he said. “We’ve got to go a
long way before we can even meet that minor
ity standard.”
The Nebraska Legislature on Friday ad
vanced to the second round of debate a bill that
permanently would appropriate money for the
alrcady-in-place minority scholarship program
and would not allow the University of Ne
braska Board of Regents to discontinue the
program.
program.
A resolution equivalent to this bill was passed
last year. The Legislature did not have enough
time to pass the bill. The resolution appropri
ated $800,000 fortheminorityscholarshippro
gram.
The endowment is made up of $800,000 in
state money and $200,000 in private donations.
The interest from the money is used for the
scholarships.
Although money is an issue in recruiting
minorities. Smith said, it’s not the only issue.
A different kind of recruiting, with more
personal contact and promotion of available
scholarships, is necessary to attract minority
students to UNL, Smith said.
The university may be able to recruit more
minority students with the scholarship fund,
but it still will be difficult to retain them, Smith
said.
All UNL students must recruit other minor
ity students by “celebrating diversity,” he
said.
“By having folks that arc not like you -- that
brings the excitement in life,” Smith said. “If
See SCHOLARSHIP on 5
Landis reintroduces bill to allow
legislative-backed living wills
By Brandon Loomis
Sentor Editor
Lincoln Sen. David Landis has reintro
duced a bill in the Nebraska Legislature
that would give terminally ill patients
the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment
LB839 allows patients to direct physicians
to let them die once they arc in the final stages
of an illness. It also includes a provision allow
”4 4
I think there is probably
widespread support for this
issue. But I think there is
also widespread misunder
standing. HaU
state senator
-—-« « -
w ^
ing patients to appoint someone to make the
decision of life or death for them after they are
unable to do so themselves.
“We normally believe, and have as a prin
ciple of law, the idea that I am the absolute
determinant of what happens to me,” Landis
said. . ..
A similar bill introduced by Landis was
defeated in the Legislature last year.
Sen. Tim Hall of Omaha, who has been an
outspoken opponent of the proposal, said there
currently is nothing keeping Nebraskans from
using living wills, legal documents allowing
terminally ill patients to refuse life-sustaining
treatment. He said, however, that it is not the
state’s place to endorse death.
“You go lo an attorney tomorrow and they’ll
write you a living will,” Hall said. “We don’t
outlaw it. We just don’t sanction it.”
Landis said that without legislative back
ing, the right to die is meaningless and patients
arc not guaranteed full control.
Hall said if the bill became law, there could
be a day when hospitals offer patients living
wills before entering into any kind of serious
surgery. This would remove practically all
liability from doctors in such cases, he said.
“The hospiial should have some sort of
liability for those patients,” Hall said.
Hall also expressed concern that family
members could commit fraud, presenting a
phony living will so they could immediately
collect an inheritance.
Maybe rm jusijauncnceti on mis or crass,
but I think it’s just a money issue,” Hall said.
Landis said he believes there is widespread
support for the bill outside the Legislature,
particularly among the elderly. He said the
American Association of Retired Persons will
support the bill.
‘‘I think people generally support the con
cept of self-determination,” Landis said. “It’s
part of our rugged, individualist nature.
“I think if people get on the phone to their
senators it will pass. If they don’t, it will
continue to be blocked by effective interest
groups,” such as the Right to Life movement.
Hall agreed that voters probably will sup
port the bill, but said that support comes from
the assumption that living wills currently are
illegal.
“I think there is probably widespread sup
port for this issue,” he said. “But I think there
is also widespread misunderstanding.”
Jo# H#tnxf#/D#tty N#bf»#k*n
Nebraska Deputy Attorney General A. Eugene Crump speaks Monday
during a program honoring Martin Luther King Jr. The program was
presented in the Regency suite of the Nebraska Union.
Deputy attorney general says
‘walls’ prevent total equality
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birthday,
Nebraska Deputy Attorney General Eu
gene Crump told the audience that its re
sponsibiluy “is to make King’s dream your
dream.”
But, Crump said, “there are far too many
wilis*' horn becoming “equal
