EDITOR
Paula Lavigne
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Joshua Gillin
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Brad Davis
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Our
VIEW
Digging
us deeper
//z'6/er 5 stunt degrades
university practices
We have to give him credit.
After typing a few pages of poorly
written prose heavy with racist slang,
English Professor David Hibler gained
valuable media coverage statewide and
the devotion of an all-university forum.
But his alleged purpose - to con
vince blacks they should refuse to fight
and possibly die in the Iraq conflict by
stopping the crisis’ escalation - drowns
in his outhouse of racist words.
Regardless of whether Hibler had a
racist intent when he used racist words,
those words were seen as racist by many
university and community members.
The words hurt people of color.
They did nothing to prevent their
possible harm in Iraq.
As a result, Hibler embarrassed
himself, the English department and
the university with his media circus
shenanigans.
In a year top university administra
tors will ask the Legislature for a facul
ty pay increase, he made voters ques
tion the quality of all faculty members
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In a year the university continues to
recover from the Sigma Chi cross burn
ing, he brought more divisiveness and
misunderstanding.
-He has degraded the purpose of aca
demic facilities by rapping during a
personal press conference outside the
chancellor’s locked office.
In an effort to possibly prove a point
or make clear arguments of racial
standing, Hibler mired himself in the
very rhetoric he may have been seeking
to do away with. He sought respect for
his ideas, but he forced his ravings
upon the University of Nebraska
Lincoln academic community.
By doing so, he did not respect the
community.
Such hurtful actions may have dam
aged the university in a way still uncer
tain. How UNL is seen as a fair and
equitable university among its peer
institutions is yet to be seen.
Perhaps the brouhaha was a careful
ly calculated job-saving device for an
unappreciated English professor, who
still earns just more than $33,000 after
30 years of teaching. Surely there are
reasons for Hibler’s low standing,
salary-wise, but his antics may have
backfired on him instead of aiding him.
Hibler’s self-serving search for
notoriety did not help students or
advance his role as a coordinator of
academic learning at the university.
Hibler does possess the ever-valu
able freedom of speech.
But he does not possess our respect.
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of
the Spring 1998 Daily Nebraskan. They
do not necessarily reflect the views of the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, its
employees, its student body or the
UnNereity of Nebraska Board of Regents.
A column is solely the opinion of its author.
The Board of Regents serves as pubfisher
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the Daily Nebraskan Ecftorial Board. The
UNL Publications Board, established by
the regents, supervises the production
of the paper. According to policy set by
the regents, responstowty for the editorial
content of the newspaper lies sotety in
the hands of its student employees.
Letter ftHcy
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LETTERS
1
Smoke this!
I was considerably troubled by an
article I read in the DN on Friday
(“Student fees may rise”). In regards
to Nebraska Unions Director Daryl
Swanson’s proposal to raise his bud
get by 9 percent* I say, “Hey Daryl,
don’t you think that we, the student
body, are paying quite enough for our
education?”
I mean, come on. Do we really
need an art gallery in the student
union? Now, don’t get me wrong. I
enjoy art just as much as the next guy,
but if I want to see art, there are plen
ty of art galleries here in Lincoln. I
don’t see any reason to open another
in the student union, especially when
the bill comes out of my pocket!
Unfortunately, this is just one exam
ple in a long line of misuses of the
money that WE pay to the university.
Before I go any further, I want to
say that this is not a personal attack on
Daryl Swanson or the Nebraska
Union. It’s an attack on those contin
ued misuses of our student fees. I am
constantlv hearing students rnmnlain
about their cost of education being
too high. And I think some of it has to
do with misuse of funds.
I’m not a smoker and I Fmd ciga
rettes repulsive, but if selling them
keeps my education costs down, hell,
I’ll help advertise the damn things.
Some of us work two or three times
more hours than we go to school just
to make ends meet. If this passes,
who’s the next panhandler in line to
ask to take more money from our
pockets?
If a lot of students write letters to
the Committee for Fees Allocation,
maybe we can stop some of the non
sense. But, if you don’t write them a
letter, and Daryl Swanson gets what
he asks for, don’t bitch about how
high your bills are. It’ll be your own
fault.
Jon Hieb
sophomore
finance
Man with a plan
While I applaud the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln for exploring a
Diversity Plan, like many faculty and
students, I, too, am disturbed that the
Diversity Plan proposal does not cur
rently include provisions for sexual
orientation.
I am also disturbed by the fact that
Associate Vice Chancellor for
Academic Anairs tveiyn JacoDson
said that the university will not survey
the campus to determine its cultural
climate. It’s very easy for the univer
sity to ignore a culture of homopho
bia if they do not have the statistics.
Ms. Jacobson’s position of not
surveying the campus for its cultural
climate leaves us in the position of
assuming that UNL’s climate isn’t
much different from the rest of the
United States’ climate. And as that
climate pertains to gay and lesbian
youth, it is one of murderous inaction.
According to a 1989 U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services report
on youth suicide, young gays and les
bians are two to three more likely than
other young people to attempt or
commit suicide.
Twenty-six percent of young gay
men have been forced to leave home
because of conflicts with their parents
over sexual orientation. And young
gays and lesbians comprise one-quar
ter of all homeless youth in the United
States. Considering that, according to
the Kinsey Report, between 4 percent
and 10 percent of the adult population
is exclusively homosexual, homopho
bia affects approximately 1,000 to
2,500 students at UNL. These statis
ucs ao noi iaxe mio account oisexuai
men and women and transgender per
sons, who, if included, would show
the numbers of affected students to be
higher.
Senior Vice Chancellor for
Academic Affairs Richard Edwards
stated “that any plan must comply
with state and federal laws.” There are
no state or federal laws that would
prevent the university to be inclusive
of sexual orientation in their Diversity
Plan.
I do agree with Vice Chancellor
Edwards on two points, however. I
agree that the university needs to
explore “what kind of campus culture
we want to build.” Does the universi
ty want a culture that, like the general
culture of the United States, throws its
gay and lesbian youth away? Or does
die university want to truly “move the
university forward?”
Robert W. Anderson
graduate student
English
Writing on the wall
The furor over David Hibler’s e
mail is understandable, but I feel it is
misplaced. Granted, die term(s)... do
have an offensive quality to them, and
directed at any individual or group of
people, they qualify as hate speech.
However, Hibler was writing fic
tion: English instructors are known to
do that from time to time. Admittedly,
it isn’t a coherent fiction at this time,
and its quality is a personal assess
ment everyone can make for them
selves.
Does using controversial terms ...
degrade something from being
acceptable to be put out on e-mail? Or
read in a class room? I surely hope
not! Would those individuals so out
raged by Hibler’s e-mail have as much
as a complaint getting an e-mail from
Mark Twain or Richard Wright? I will
give the offended the benefit of the
doubt, as well as pointing out that
Twain and Wright may have used
derogatory language for a higher
artistic purpose. The latter is some
thing that so far David Hibler hasn’t
demonstrated, but I’m going to give
him the benefit of the doubt, too.
To me it seemed premature for
Chancellor Moeser, as well as the rest
of the local community, to come
down so hard on Hibler, before he
could be heard from.
Given how “objective” the chan
cellor and the administration tried to
t>e wim me sigma Liu cross owning
last year, I was stunned by the speed at
which the condemnation of Hibler’s
writing came. Has the student code of
conduct been reviewed to emphasize
that the university DOES have the
ability to punish student organiza
tions for misconduct during the orga
nization’s sanctioned events off cam
pus? It’s always been there as an
option, but the university declined to
show moral leadership in favor of
legal cowardice.
A year later, the current president
of Sigma Chi admitted that they DID
know that the cross burning had a
racist connotation at the time, some
thing that they wouldn’t admit to the
university community at the time.
What a great way to avoid the punish
ment from the universitylWill Hibler
be the first high-profile test case for
tenure review? If so, the university
could be treading on thin ice.
Would they fire a Mark Twain, but
let a David Duke fraternity remain
unpunished for an act of terror? I
hope not.
James A. Sank
senior
English
.Q \a/m, 1400 "R" St.* Lincoln, I
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