P4Se Editorial Nelwa&kan
.. ^ A JL U JL Wednesday, November 14,1990
(Daily
Nebraskan
Editorial Board
Eric Pfanner, Editor, 472-1766
Victoria Ayotte, Managing Editor
Darcic Wiegert, Associate News Editor
Diane Bray ton, Associate News Editor
Jana Pedersen, Wire Editor
Emily Rosenbaum, Copy Desk Chief
Lisa Donovan, Editorial Page Editor
Keep searching
Committee has wasted time and money
Fifteen months and $200,000 later, one candidate for
university president drops out and another’s administra
tion is discovered to have been under censure.
What exactly was the Presidential Search Committee doing
all that time?
Obviously, not searching very hard, because Tuesday Gene
Budig, University of Kansas chancellor, withdrew his name
from consideration.
Budig said in a statement that he could not leave KU until
“closure has been reached on a scries of significant matters
which will impact KU’s long-term future.”
And another candidate, Robert Dickcson, president of the
University of Northern Colorado at Greeley, was found to have
been under censure by the National American Association of
University Professors for firing 47 faculty in 1982.
The UNL and UNO presidents of the local AAUP issued a
statement that said AAUP chapter presidents at the University
I of Ncbraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska at Omaha
were upset when they found that UNC, under Dickcson, was
censured in 1984 by the national AAUP.
Where have all the good candidates gone? Or maybe we
should ask where the search committee was looking for all the
good candidates?
I In October, the candidate list was narrowed to seven and
Duane Acklic, search committee co-chairman, said the Chi
cago-based consulting firm Hcidrick and Struggles Inc. was
rcchecking the references and looking at a secondary list of
references.
Don Blank, regent chairman and search committee co-chair
man, said the candidates’ employment records also would be
reviewed.
“The committee lakes its mission very seriously. It’s not just
a matter of ‘X’ number of candidates. We want to send forward
a list of the most qualified candidates to the regents.”
Budig and the search committee should have gotten their
I signals straight a long time ago.
And the committee also should have known about the
censure against Dickeson a long lime ago.
Let’s hope the university doesn’t suffer because the search
committee failed to do its homework.
— Dame W’icgcrl
for the Daily Sebraskan
If males could conceive,
arguments wouldn’t occur
I’m fortunate. I was educated to
believe dial I have sexual choices and
have been able to practice those
choices. I learned about pregnancy,
childbirth, birth control and abortion
issues before I was ever to encounter
these issues on the political and per
sonal front of my own life. I am
privileged to have been bom into a
familyHhat valued education, thus, I
cultivated a knowledge of the world
and a desire to read at a young age. I
am one of the lucky ones. I have not
been oppressed as a member of my
race because 1 was bom white. I’ve
lived with white privilege in a racist
culture.
Roccnlly^atty men have written
numerous lepefrio the Daily Nebras
kan ptpfdwipjpihc “immorality” of
abortion. I wt&kl like to ask them to
try to step 6nt$dc their white, male,
middle-class values and attempt to
cmpathi/.c with people w ho arc dif
ferent from themselves in regarding
the issue of abortion. The ultra-con
servative stance on abortion is ac
, cording to the book “Women, Cul
ture and Politics” by Angela Y. Davis,
“yet another offensive against the
welfare of black women and others
who suffer from racism, sexism and
economic exploitation.”
I’m fortunate that because of my
white, middle-class privilege, I’ve been
able to make choices so as not to be
faced with the decision of whether or
not to have an abortion. Not all women
receive the education that proffers
them the ability to make such choices
before they arc faced with such a
serious decision as whether or not to
have an abortion.
There arc also countless victims of
rape and incest who arc forced into
dangerous abortive situations because
of poverty and because of unwilling
ness on the part of the government to
respond to the needs of crime victims,
especially poor women in this coun
try.
The real truth about the abortion
debate is this: If men were able to
conceive, abortion would not only be
legal, it wouldn't be a political or
moral issue. Perhaps our focus on
reproductive freedom should be on
male sexuality. If men continually
cry out about the “immorality” of
abortion, then perhaps we need to
start penalizing men for the countless
number of unwanted pregnancies. After
all, women cannot impregnate them
selves.
Perhaps too, our focus should be
on whether men should be allowed to
remain unvascctomizcd after beget
ting unplanned children.
Judith Alexander
senior
English/music
Dream mirrors controversy
Reported plagiarism shouldn't diminish King's civil rights feats
rwas shot lo death in the year
2(X)9 just outside my lavish
Capitol Hill apartment. The year
before my death I won a Pulitzer
Prize for a series I wrote on an AIDS
victim who found a vaccine for the vi
rus that claimed the lives of one
fourth of the nation’s citizens.
Upon publication of the piece, leg
islation at the local and national lev
els expanded AIDS victims’ rights,
which had been severely restricted in
the 21st century.
About 22 years after my death, in
the year 2031, a bunch of historians
were hired to help compile informa
tion for my biography — the one my
son was working on.
While doing some of their digging
at my old alma mater, the University
of Ncbraska-Lincoln, the historians
found out that I had copied from my
roommate the answers loa take-home
lest for my art history silk screening
course.
Controversy shook the media; my
name appeared in the headlines. I had
plummeted from hero to villain.
Society was disappointed.
But at least I’m dead, so I don’t
have to worry about the conscq uenccs
of those actions. It’s too late. And
more importantly, my parents have
taken the eternal dirt nap as well, so
they won't be disappointed or embar
rassed.
Sometimes when I’m silling in a
Perkins late at night, I get caught up
in my own daydreaming 1 can’t help
it.
Thanks to journalists, historians
and all sorts of nosy writers, Amer
ica’s dead heroes arc quickly losing
their heroic status.
Former President John F. Kennedy
wasn’t spared.
John Lennon wasn’t spared.
And now, Marlin Lulher King Jr.
The editor ol King’s papers ac
knowledged Friday dial parts of King’s
doctoral dissertation and other aca
demic papers from his student years
appeared to have been plagiarized.
According to Clayhornc Carson.
Lisa
Donovan
the historian who is heading the King
Papers Project, analysis of ihc papers
uncovered passages taken from other
sources without attribution through
out King’s writings as a theology
student at Boston University.
King is guilty under Webster’s
strictest definition of plagiarism: “To
lake (ideas, writings, etc.) from
(another) and pass them off as one’s
own.”
The question here is whether King
did it intentionally or by omission, or
if it matters at all.
Unfortunately, we can’t bring back
from the dead one of the greatest
leaders of the 1960s civil rights
movement to ask him if he knowingly
plagiari/cd. So maybe the whole thing
should be put to rest.
Before students and faculty mem
bers pick up their pens to write a letter
to the Daily Nebraskan for advocat
ing plagiarism, read on.
David Garrow, a professor of po
litical science at the City University
of New York and a member of the
King Papers Project, said that the
discovery could affect King’s public
image.
. . this serious an offense really I
docs alter how we have to evaluate
him, especially in the context of tell
ing 10-year-olds who they should kxik
up to,” Garrow told The New' York
Times.
It could affect King’s reputation,
hut it shouldn’t. As a society we tend
to put mere mortals like King on
some sort of deity level. When they
don’t prove themselves to be God
like (i.c., they make mistakes) our I
images come crashing down.
It is truly hard to find a correlation
between King’s alleged misdeeds as
a theology student and his work as a
champion of the civil rights and the
Vietnam peace movements.
It would be a shame to say that
since he plagiarized some academic
papers, it no longer matters that he
played an instrumental role in suc
cessfully boycotting segregated trans
portation in Montgomery. Ala., dur
ing the late 1950s. It would be'ridicu
lous to say that his apparent plagia- I
rism ec lipses the fact that he was I
arrested several times as well as had j|
his house bombed for conducting I
campaigns against racism in die South I
during the 1960s. A
Maybe King forgot to add I exit-1
notes to a section of his writings. I
We’ll assume that he did it on pur-R
pose. R
If King did purposely plagiarize,®
then all of his work as a civil rights*
leader doesn’t negate those actions. P
However, if he did intentionally pla-R
giari/c, that shouldn’t ruin his credi-R
biliiy as a role model for America' R
VOUlh or Americans in general. JJ
The “if’ still remains, but itR
shouldn’t.
Donovan is a senior news-editorial mu M
jor. the Daily Nebraskan editorial pane edi-Bj
tor and a columnist. ftt
tdiiorial columns represent the
opinion of the author. The Daily Ne
braskan's publishers are the regents,
who established the UNL Publica
1 A A --
lions Board lo supervise the daily pro
duction of the paper.
According to policy set by the re
gents, responsibility lor the cdiioria
content of the neve spaper lies solely »
the hands of its students.
-_
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