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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 17, 1992)
Jana Pedersen, Editor, 472-1766 Alan Phelps, Opinion Page Editor Kara Wells, Managing Editor Roger Price, Wire Editor Wendy Navratil, Copy Desk Chief Brian Shellito, Cartoonist Jeremy Fitzpatrick, Senior Reporter ' it-. If? i m £ 0, THs-«T«E'S «JVTA> _ CUT SCMEWW&RS. Opinion Blind to differences Fluency bill only encourages prejudice Apparently seeing, or rather hearing, is far from be lieving for one member of the NU Board of Re gents. After receiving complaints from constituents about the fluency levels of some University of Nebraska-Lincoln instructors, Regent Robert Allen of Hastings last week attended nine UNL classes taught by instructors for whom English is a second language. Allen said he was able to understand all of the instruc tors. Yet he still supports a Nebraska Legislature bill that says university teachers should be fluent in English. “Ideally our governing board should be able to handle this, but if the Legislature can help, I’m all for it,“ Allen said. If a problem with teachers’ English fluency existed at UNL, the Legislature might compel itself, wrongly, to become involved in an internal university matter. Instead of improving teaching at UNL, the passage of such a bill would give UNL the perception of being hostile to teachers whose first language is not English. And UNL’s reputation for diversity is poor enough as it is. UNL already has a system to deal with teachers’ Eng lish fluency. That system works. Involving the Legislature in that system only would cause trouble. Concerns about the English skills of foreign graduate teaching assistants led UNL four years ago to begin re quiring them to gain approval from a testing board before being allowed to teach. As should be obvious to Allen, UNL’s teachers no longer have a fluency problem. The real problem lies with ethnocentric students who excuse their unwillingness to overcome cultural differ ences by saying that their instructors lack English skills. In the world of higher education, students must expect to encounter individuals from different backgrounds. To endorse legislation to the contrary only perpetuates stu dents’ misconceptions about their own prejudices. Not every UNL instructor can or should have a Mid west-American accent. When accents do not impede the learning process, as they do not at UNL, the efforts of foreign instructors should be applauded, not questioned. Green’s view of ‘Cops’ wrong bean Orccn should try lo research fads before he starts spewing forth incorrect data regarding the televi sion series “Cops” (“Smile! You’re under arrest!” DN, Feb. 10). In fact, Green’s statements make me wonder if he actually even watched the show at all. If he had, then he would realize that no one is arbitrarily portrayed as acrimmal, as he implies. IfGrccn has the mental incapacity to watch a tele vision program and automatically assume someone is guilty of a crime without knowing all (or even most) of the facts, that is his problem. I do not believe that Americans at large would share his ignorance. Also, “Cops” docs not just throw a picture of someone being arrested to a prime-time national TV audience without first acquiring that individ ual’s expressed consent. Without such consent, the suspects’ facial features arc always digitally distorted. No T 1 • violation ol rights there. Green, with little or no intclligcnl reasoning, slates that he likes watch ing “Cops” because it provides valu able insight into the civil rights abuse? of police officers on a national basis He cites a traffic stop by police offi cers that ultimately reveals many bag? of what he calls “the good stuff.’ Fortunately, he fails to tell us whai the civil rights abuse was. I suppose he wouldn’t know, since there wasn’i one. 1 It’s clear that Green has a problem with police. But then who can blame him? After all, he constantly has to be on the watch for all of those terroristic policemen looking to probe his bod ily orifices. Yuk! Thomas K. Eads sophomore computer science Language orings understanding I’d like to respond to the letter R. Bruce Kitchen II wrote about foreign language requirements. Now, being a foreign language major, one might expect me to be in favor of a foreign language requirement — this would be a correct assumption. Neverthe less, please hear me out. I realize that having to study a foreign language can be difficult, even a pain, if it’s just not your thing — I certainly have had some trauma in the classes I’ve had to take that involved math, which just isn’t my cup of lea. But I’m not complaining that a cer tain amount of math is required. I realize that math is relevant and important, and it’s good to have a taste of what you math people experi ence. This brings me to what I want to get at. My interpretation of your ini tial question is essentially that since the “general population of the earth’ is learning English, then American students shouldn’t have to learn Ian guages beyond English. Perhaps this is true, if we arc considering only what is convenient for the average American individual. However, if we wish to understand what many around the world have had to endure in ordci to understand our culture and the language we speak, then maybe a few semesters of foreign language would be good. Perhaps their requirement ol learning English “is a travesty to grade point average” for them. Daniel Talkingion fifth-year senior French and Spanish ALAN PHELPS Jury’s finding lacks sanity On Saturday, a jury found Jeffrey Dahmer was sane when he killed 15 people. At first, it seemed almost like a joke. Dahmer murdered and dismem bered 15 men and boys. He drilled holes into people’s heads, he tried to make them into zombies, he prac ticed necrophilia. It all sure sounds like the work of a sane man. After all, most every one of us supposedly sane people docs those things on a regular basis. Because Dahmer was sane, he must’ve had a good reason for doing what he did. Sane people who kill and slice up 15 people usually have a purpose in mind. Such a motive is difficult to think of offhand, but the jury members obviously know what they’re talking about. They must have sal around listing really good logical rationales for pouring acid into people’s brains and eating their body parts. Or maybe these average Ameri cans were simply like most other average Americans. Although they see that Dahmer isn’t exactly sane, they don’t want to deal with him. blind with revenge, they would like to see Dahmer put away forever, out of sight or even killed. They didn’t want to see evil Jef- « frey “get off’ on an insanity plea. < “Please, please don T let this mur derous killer fool you with this spe- ■ cial defense,” E. Michael McCann, prosecuting attorney, told the jury. i Dahmer probably thought he was being pretty clever when he carved up those bodies so he would look insane. Hum-drum, run-of-the-mill murders aren’t enough to appear in- ; sane in Wisconsin — you have to really go for it. It’s a lot of extra work, 1 but if you’re gunning for an insanity j plea, it’s worth it. ; In most states, for criminals to win ; on an insanity defense, their lawyers , must prove that at the time of the ( crime, the perpetrator did not know , right from wrong. If the prosecuting attorney can prove that the criminal , knew killing was wrong as he or she , was doing it, then that person was not . insane. ] So.whcncveracasclike Dahmer’s i comes up, the jury must sit through a < parade of psychiatrists, all disagree- i ing with one another as to the sanity i of a murderer. The study of what : makes the mind lick is not an absolute science. These experts all have dif- i fering opinions, and the jury is forced I Umoum. Dahmer was sane, he musllve. had, a goad reason for doing whaL bus. did. Sane people wha kill and slice up 15 people usually have, a purpose in mind, o decide which one is the most bc icvablc, the most expert expert. What we arc forced to conclude rom this fiasco is that some people ire actually sane when they kill oth ers for no reason. Apparently, people x/ho can murder fellow human beings tre absolutely normal. They had noth ng wrong with them psychologically, ind their environments were perfectly .table. They just made a logical dcci .ion that someone should die. In fact, some chocolate factory workers who lure boys into their homes ind boil their skulls arc perfectly sane. \ sane person mightcasily believe he ;ould create zombies in his living oom using industrial-strength acid ind a little know-how. Wail a moment. The prosecuting itlorncys in the Dahmer trial, while naintaining that Dahmer was sane, ;onccdcd that he was “sick” and in he “grip of evil.” The difference between sick and nsanc doesn’t seem like much of a iiffcrencc. But that’s what can hap ten when the law collides with psy hology in our strange, so-called crimi lal “reform” system, where Ameri ;ans, who don’t want to spend the noncy to actually try to help crimi lals become productive members of iocicty, lock them away or kill them. Instead of receiving rehabilitation hat may or may not remove Dahmer rom the “grip of evil,” society will make him an example lo others by taking revenge against him for all the people he killed. How very civilized it all is. But that’s the sympathy of the American pockctbook. The simple fact is that we don’t care about crimi nals. We ostracize them, put them away, stuff them where we don’t have to look at them. And we think that makes things better. Psychology has come a long way in the century or so that serious study about human behavior has been con ducted, and there arc many hurdles to leap. It would be difficult to find a group of experts to agree on why Dahmer did what he did. It probably would be much more difficult, with our present level of technology, to help him lead a normal life. If the jury had found him insane, he might have sal in some mental institution for the rest of his life, draining the taxpayers’ money while doctors hypothesized and stud ied, but made little progress. Yes, that might have happened. Of course,“might” is theoperative word. T ¥ k/ II 11V/ ▼ Vl IS IIV/ W I V/l .1UI V. MUI v » v»> if wc assume that would be the ease, it doesn’t paint a much prettier pic ture of America. In a perfect society, wc would be able to help all criminals. Wc would turn them back into “gtxxl” people and set them free. In a slightly less perfect society, wc would be able to help many criminals. In our society, wc don’t want to help them. Wedon’teven wanttoiry. And those who want to see our reform system actually reform people arc denounced as being soft on crime. Wc vainly arc trying to rid society of symptoms instead of diseases. Jef frey Dahmer is insane, and his insan ity caused him to kill 15 people. Our reaction isn’t to wonder what could’ve driven him to do this horrible act or to study him in the hope lhal wc can prevent someone else like him from doing the same thing. Our reaction is revenge. Of course, maybe such base hu man instincts all arc right here in the country the rest of the world sees as a nation of cowboys, where everyone has their own guns, where “justice” is sure and swift. But maybe wc could do better. Phelps is a sophomore news-editorial ma jor, the Daily Nebraskan opinion page editor and a columnist.