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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 20, 1990)
Readers attack restructuring and Nelson's homophobia Resources lost in restructuring In my forty years of teaching at the University of Nebraska, I have seen the university develop from a fine provincial institution into a univer sity of national prominence. Academi cally it is now stronger than it has been for at least three generations. This assertion is easy to document. It seems to me both unwise and uneco nomical to upset this productive or ganization by radical reorganization. The question to ask of any pro posed restructure is this: How would the students benefit from it? How would the men and women in the classrooms and laboratories be better taught because of administrative re organization? What is the value to education of adding a whole new layer of bureaucracy? I can sec no good coming to stu dents. On the contrary, they stand to be shortchanged. Boards, directors and administrators cost money - lots of money. Bureaucracy is the beast that cals all grain. In adding fifty new adviser-administrators, we add fifty more expense accounts. We all know about expense accounts. We all know, in addition, how new boards develop secretarial and clerical staffs, and we sec bureaucrats gather increasing numbers of research assistants to perform tasks they lay out for them selves. All this costs money. Where is this money for a new bureaucracy to come from? As a na tive Nebraskan, I know that the state hac limilAH rAcruirrAc W/a ^annr*t expect the Legislature to provide new funds. As a result, the students will be disadvantaged, because money which might be spent on leaching, libraries and classrooms will be drawn off into adm i ni stration, to boards far removed from the daily responsibilities of teach ing and learning. Instructional budg ets and research allocations will be further diminished as governing bu reaucracy robs Peter to pay Paul. The proposed reorganization of higher education could bring yet another disadvantage to the students who must have free access to diver gent points of view. A whole new layer of appointees might politicize higher education. Through political pressures and beholden officials, special interest groups and legislative whim could dictate subject matter and organization of instruction. Col leges, departments and subjects could be rearranged according to power politics independent of educational justification. Single issue zealots could bend professional conduct in depart ments such as history, gynecology and obstetrics, agricultural econom ics and all the arts. Students deserve unccnsorcd instruction, but current proposals remove time-built protec tions from capricious partisan inter ference. As a native and life-long resident of Nebraska, I conclude that the out siders who propose this radical recon struction do not know our business as well as natives can. Change for the sake of change is not a Nebraska habit, and this particular proposal seems unwise, uneconomical and threaten ing to the intellectual life of the state. And it can not benefit the students. Robert E. Knoll D.B. and Paula Varner Professor ol English Argument based on bad assumptions Bob Nelson, your editorial of Feb. 13 supporting the homophobic Andy Rooney, demonstrates faulty logic, as well as two forms of homophobia. Rooney was suspended by his em ployer, CBS, for allegedly making racist remarks in an interview witli Chris Bull of the Advocate, a gay magazine. No one denies that Mr Rooney was interviewed by Mr. Bull or that the remarks attributed to hinr were racist. Mr. Rooney denies hav ing made the remarks while Mr. Bui stands by his interview. CBS appar ently finds the charge both credible and worthy of censure. You clain that Mr. Bull is lying on the basis o derogatory remarks made by Mr. Rooney about Mr. Bull. You also believe that because Mr. Rooney won an Emmy in 1968 for a script about African-Americans and is a public figure, he could not possibly have made racist remarks in an interview in 1990. These are weak arguments. CBS is familiar with Mr. Rooney’s record and image; perhaps they know something you don’t. In any case, I am offended by the homophobic double standard you use in judging “what really happened.” You accept Mr. Rooney’s slanderous claim that Mr. Bull “couldn’t take notes,” without acknowledging that Mr. Rooney is perhaps not the most disinterested judge of Mr. Bull’s note taking abilities. You assume, in ef fect, that gay journalists arc less cred ible than other journalists, that gay journalists have axes to grind, but that a straight television journalist who has just received a three-month’s suspension is a source of the true gospel. You also believe that anti-gay remarks are less worthy of censure than other expressions of bigotry. You raise no objection to the notion of censuring racist remarks. On the contrary, you endorse a harsher pen alty for the racist comments Mr. Rooney allegedly made. But you have no objection to Mr. Rooney’s indis putable history of anti-gay remarks. The right to make homophobic re marks, you imply, is protected by freedom of speech, but there is no right to make racist remarks. This again, is a homophobic double stan dard. There were other arguments avail able to you, had you wanted merely to question the CBS decision. It is pos sible that the suspension legitimizes a long-standing lack of due process in relations between media employers and their employees. The network has a history of racism, as you note, but also an indefensible history of sexism and homophobia in its deal ings with employees. Unfortunately, you felt your best shot was an argu ment based on unquestioned homo phobic assumptions. And that is fright ening to gay students on this campus. Joel I. Brodsky Ph.D. sociology Distorted views irritate reader Seems as though that anymore, it’s not even allowable to have a dif ferent point of view. Your comments, Mr. Battistoni (DN, Feb. 8), left me wondering if that’s really the case after all. No matter on which side of the abortion issue one sits (you may correctly assume that I oppose legal ized abortion as it is now), your char acterization is only slightly less ex treme and absurd than those who bomb and bum. You have used your pen and position to freely and indiscrimi nately distort an issue and stereotype a group most likely as diverse as any you may consider yourself a part of. I was at the Pro-Life march - the first I’ve ever attended. I went be cause of what I believe in. The tone of your article suggests I’m some sort of hate-monger and terrorist. Those are, in fact, your words. At no time did I ever see cross words between any persons or groups of people. I did see a line of peaceful marchers over a half-mile long of certainly more than 2,000 and probably also less than 15,000. These arc people, human beings -- not locusts or rabble-rousers as you did, in fact, describe them. They chose, in a very peaceful and legal way, to voice their right to free dom of speech. If that makes them or me a hypocrite, then so be it. If journalism is your chosen pro fession, I should hope you come to realize the difference between dis agreeing with someone and condemn ing them. It seems to me that con demning someone as you have in your article is much more hateful than anything I saw in the “Walk for Life.” Thomas J. 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