Opinion
=== —
Affirmative action policy
not favoring all minorities
Waller Gholson (“Colleges should
remove blinders,” DN, Nov. 19) dis
misses ihe concern that affirmative
action policies may result in lowered
hiring standards and argues that the
main reason for affirmative action is
“to provide equal opportunities for
those who have been locked out of
mainstream education for centuries.”
Gholson goes on to develop an amus
ing metaphor of ducks and ponds but
I would suggest that he is himself
ducking the issue and misstating the
purpose of affirmative action, which
is to provide equal opportunities for
equally qualified people.
It is true that for years, academic
hiring discriminated not only against
blacks but against Jews, Roman Catho
lics and other groups. But in trying to
correct this injustice, affirmative ac
tion guidelines have privileged cer
tain minority groups and ignored others.
The consequence is that while many
departments arc anxious to hire more
blacks or women, say, there is seldom
any talk about seeking belter repre
sentation of orientals, Indians from
India, Muslims, Mormons, Jews,
Southerners from impoverished back
grounds, fundamentalist or Catholic
Christians,conservative Republicans
or celibates.
Affirmative action may indeed
result in lowered standards, but a more
serious problem is its favoring of certain
high-profile groups at the expense of
others. The “dirty little secret” about
the crusade for diversity and plural
ism is that the crusaders have defined
those words very narrowly and then
gone on to exhibit the intemperance
and bigotry so often found in crusad
ers of the past.
It would be much better to junk the
whole idea and hire people according
to their individual qualifications and
abilities. This is the best way to show
the individuals themselves genuine
respect — and it is also the best way
to achieve an authentic intellectual
diversity.
R.D. Stock
professor
English
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-EDITORIAL POLICY
Signed staff editorials represent
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Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the
Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. Its
members are: Jana Pedersen, editor;
Eric Pfanner, editorial page editor;
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Walter Gholson, columnist; Paul
Domeier, copy desk chief; Brian
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'CWW UP HOP^VIORK ’
PAUL DOMEIER
Cartoonist should look at facts
Not many people know this, but
an ancestor of Garry Trudeau,
the creator of “Doonesbury,”
was a propagandist in France before
the Revolution. The Jacobins accused
him of covering up the economic crisis
in the government of Louis XVI.
Actually, 1 have no idea whether
that’s true. If readers believed it,
though, they next could make the
simple assumption that the Trudeau
family has a history of playing around
with facts to get across an opinion.
Then I, of course, would be guilty
of the same tinkering with facts to
criticize Trudeau.
It frightens me that a lot of people
who would agree with that criticism
wouldn’t mind my fiddling with facts.
The ends justify the means if the ends
are acceptable.
Wrong. If I cannot reach my con
clusion by looking at the facts, my
conclusion isn’t worth anything.
Trudeau’s recent conclusions, or
his suggested conclusions, are that
Dan Quaylc may have tried to buy
cocaine while a senator and that if he
didn’t, at least he was investigated
and the investigation covered up.
His conclusions twist the facts,
especially the part about the cover
up. The non-publiciz.ing of a non
issue is not a cover-up.
“Doonesbury” has been suspended
by more than 20 newspapers, includ
ing The Omaha World-Herald, not
because Trudeau’s taking shots at the
Republican vice president, but be
cause he is harping on a refuted alle
gation. That fiddles around with the
ethical framework of journalism.
The important issue isn’t politics,
it’s the truth.
After 200 years, Americans have
grown complacent with the First
Amendment. We know it is supposed
to protect the expression of unpopu
lar ideas, but we’ve forgotten what
those unpopular ideas arc.
They have little to do with the
current First Amendment debates over
perverse photographs and Luther
Campbell’s cussing on stage in Flor
ida.
The important unpopular ideas
challenge the status quo. When propa
ganda is the basis for government and
society, we need unpopular ideas. Any
ideas presented to challenge the status
quo must be based on fact.
This forms the marketplace of ideas,
from which we can recreate our gov
ernment and our society. False tacts
arc counterfeit products in the mar
ketplace of ideas.
Still, readers have demanded that
The World-Herald run “Doonesbury”
and haveasked, “Let us decide what’s
#
Not iwa/iv people
know this, but an an
cestor_a£_Garry
Trudeau, the, creator
of“Doonesburv. ” was
g propagandist in
France before the
Revolution._The
laeahim accused him
of covering up the
economic crisis, in the
government of Louis
KiLL
fact and fiction.”
How ridiculous. That would be
like jury members saying, “Let us
hear allegations by a discredited source,
and solely on the basis of that infor
mation we’ll decide whether the de
fendant is guilty.”
People don’t seem to realize what
is at issue when wc take the market
place for granted. Our country is
ignoring too many instances in which
fiction is included or facts omitted to
advance a point.
Twisting of facts has hit institu
tional levels in New York. A com
mission created to study diversity in
history in the state’s public-school
curriculum has suggested that the
curriculum be changed to emphasize
the importance of women and mi
norities.
The commission’s majority won’t
admit it, but ihccommission minority
— generally, its historians — says
that emphasizing importance means
exaggerating importance.
If the suggestions are adopted, the
children of New York will be subject
to a historical quota system: A woman
mentioned for every man mentioned,
with blacks and American Indians
thrown in at the “proper” proportions.
Nurturing the idea of ethnic iden
tity has been determined to be more
important than historical accuracy.
Diversity in history now means truth
and fiction.
That is dangerous. The Soviet Union
offers plenty of evidence about what
happens when the facts come from
the ideas instead of the ideas from the
facts.
For 70 years, Soviet “historians"
have been touting the Russian Revo
lution. Communist revolution was
inevitable, beneficial and perfect,
despite evidence to the contrary.
The expectation was that, in lime,
the facts would come around to meet
the ideas. That didn’t happen.
The invented Soviet identity has
collapsed, and the Soviet people have
no history.
They’ll be able to rebuild their
history, and their identity, but it will
take a long time and be painful. I’m
confident that this time, their base
will be the facts and not Marxist
Lcninist ideology.
The biggest fact is that they’ve
been lied to for 70 years.
And anyone who believes that the
Quaylc drug investigation has been a
cover-up has been lied to.
Trudeau is good at it. The strips so
far haven’t included material worth a
lawsuit. Trudeau has danced along
the libel line often enough that he
knows how to smear without slander
ing.
Yet he may have gotten his point
across, trying to create a public mind
set that says every administration
official has a well-hidden file of dirt.
Sooner or later, the facts will show
that this is not true, and certainly not
limited to the administration. But what
will the cost be until then?
All of this because of one of
Trudeau’s biases. He claims he is a
satirist, not a journalist, and therefore
is permitted to do so.
But lately Trudeau has hinted that
his satire might really be fact, cloud
ing the line between satire and jour
nalism. When Trudeau does that, he
must follow the rules.
One rule says that the biases of
journalists are wild beasts to be caged
and killed, not pets to be fed and
played with. As for Trudeau, discuss
ing disproved attacks on a man you
normally portray as invisible with a
feather for a brain fits into the cate
gory of playing with a bias.
He’s also playing around with li
bel, with the First Amendment, with
his readers, with journalism, with the
marketplace of ideas.
Trudeau is kicking around the truth.
1 don’t like that game.
Domeier is a senior news-editorial mnJor>
the Daily Nebraskan copy desk chief and a
columnist.
