Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 23, 1998)
Group remembers Shepard Members of the UNL group Allies Against Heterosexisnf and Homophobia are taking names in response to the beating death of a gay University of Wyoming stu dent. The group is circulating five 50-page .booklets around the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus to collect signatures in support of friends and family of Matt Shepard, who died Oct. 12 after being beaten and left for dead several days earlier. The books will be sent to a gay and lesbian organization at the University of Wyoming in Laramie late next week.Travis Fisher, publicity chairman for Allies, said the signature drive is a way for UNL students, faculty members and staff to offer sympa thy and hope in the wake of Shepard’s death. The drive has already pro , duced more than 200 signatures and messages, Fisher said, and is well on its way to surpassing Allies’ original goal of 500 signa tures.The books will be available to dayman d next week at the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender 1 Resource C*ntert tbe,^omen’s J Center and at booths located in the Nebraska Union and at The Return of the Gay/Lesbian Film Festival at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater in Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery. Art gallery opens in union The first art gallery in the Nebraska Union opened Thursday tacemrta jC -Huge Selection S Discount Prices- 5* women By Kim Sweet Staff writer A report released on Thursday indicated women in Nebraska have some of the lowest reproductive rights and median annual earnings nationwide. The Status of Women in Nebraska, a nation wide research project funded by the Ford Foundation, was one of 10 " reports released Thursday that evaluated the nation and other states on women’s status in poli tics, economics and health. The report measures different categories from 1992 to 1998. Composite scores for political participation and representation, employment and earnings and eco nomic autonomy show that women in Nebraska are not the worst off, but are not quite in the upper half. The state ranked 34th in political participation, 30th in employment and 21st in economic autonomy, according to the report. The numbers are out of 50 states and the District of Columbia. “The facts in the report, as a whole, show that women in Nebraska are doing OK - not good, but OK,” said Joni Gray, executive director of the Nebraska Commission on Women. But in the area of reproductive rights, Nebraska ranked 50th out of 51, ranking higher than only North Dakota. The low ranking is due to Nebraska's lack of adequate policies promoting reproductive rights of women compared to other states, the Minimum wage presents a stark situation for low-income women today ” Milo Mumgaard executive director for the Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest report states. These rights range from making abortions more accessible by revok ing the waiting period to public fund ing for infertility treatments. Jessica Intermill, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln freshman political science major, said she was surprised by the extremely low ranking on the reproductive-rights index. “50 out of 51 shows we need change,” she said. Another category Nebraska women didn’t fare well in was medi an average earnings: Nebraska ranked 45*“ - tying with Alabama and Arkansas. Though Nebraska women rank the second highest in the nation for participating in the work force com pared with other states, women are not getting paid for it, Gray said. Milo Mumgaard, executive direc tor for.the Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, said the low ranking proves low-income women who are raising families on their own cannot do it on Nebraska wages. Mumgaard said many people think the harsh economic realities a single, low-income woman faces are the result of unwise choices. But he hopes the report will help clear up that myth by showing that low-income women cannot get out of poverty, he said. In order for a mother to be self sufficient in Nebraska, she must make $10.50 an hour, Mumgaard said. “Minimum wage presents a stark situation for low-income women today,” he said. Donna Polk, executive director for Nebraska Urban Indian Health Coalition, said she protested the report because women of color and rural women in Nebraska were underrepresented. The report failed to address that women of color have never been rep resented on the county and city levels of government, Polk said. There is also a disparity in life spans, she said, as white women live longer than women of color. The lack of representation will make the report less effective in fill filling the needs of all women in Nebraska, Polk said. According to the report, Nebraska scored its highest ratings in the areas of voter registration and voter turnout, ranking 14th and 16th, respectively, nationwide. Other high-ranking categories were the percentage of non-elderly women with health insurance, as well as percentage of women above the poverty level. The report will be distributed to all the state legislators as well as gubernatorial and lieutenant gover nor candidates. Lieutenant governor candidate Pam Bataillon, who was present at the release of the report, said it was an important event in Nebraska. “It shows me that we have a lot of work to do,” she said. Bataillon said the report would provide a link between the policy makers and educational advocacy groups, which she said was neces sary for change to occur. “The other thing that surprises me is how long we’ve been working on this, and we’re still at the same point,” she said. The numbers showing the low pay of women in the workforce and the low rank when it comes to women in managerial occupations were the most frustrating to UNL freshman Intermill. “It’s surprising and alarming to me, because I am going to be enter ing that work force someday.” called unconstitutional The Maneater something unexpected: irate fans and possible civil-liberty violations. Thirty-two members of MU police, 13 Boone County Sheriff’s deputies, and three city officers were at the gates of Faurot Field on Saturday, emptying pockets, inspecting bags and purses and patting down fans as they came into this weekend’s game against Oklahoma. “I don’t like it very much at all -1 feel violated,” freshman Aaron Allen lo they think, I am going to Kind of weed or a knife to T Hundreds of students and alumni were stopped at every gate and asked to open their bags and hand them over to police to search. Police detained an elderly couple at one gate and confiscat pnsea, worunngion saiu. i love every thing about Mizzou, but this is unconsti tutional.” Not only has this new university search policy upset fans, but-also Missouri civil-rights experts say it could be unconstitutional. Dan Viets, a Columbia lawyer spe cializing in civil liberties, said the - searches are against the fourth amend ment. “Appeals court have said that ran dom searches upon entering a public facility to attend a public event is ille gal,” Viets said. “The government does not have the right to search everyone because someone else has done some thing wrong.” And because MU is a public school and Faurot Field is a public facility, the university cannot make up its own search policies. “If Harvard were having an event, it would be different,” Viets said. MU lost a court case four years ago that found random police searches at public facilities to be unconstitutional. In September 1994, Joseph Thompson was arrested at an Indigo Girls concert for having a small amount of marijuana. Charges were dismissed because an appellate-court judge ruled the evidence was obtained unlawfully - through police searches at the building entrance. The Heames Center changed its search policies a year after the universi ty lost its case. MU police Maj. Jack Watring defended the policy as fair and neces sary. “We don’t search without permis sion.'If we suspect someone is bringing something into the game, we ask to search them,” Watring said. “If they don’t want their article or person searched, they won’t be allowed in the stadium, and they won’t be searched.” Mammoth replica arrives at Morrill MAMMOTH from page 1 original Archie tusks as a model for die sculpture’s. f Over a period of eight months, Hoppe, with the help of volunteers, recreated the skeleton and turned it into a life-sized statue. He first built a wooden skele ton modeled after the original , Archie. Then he used Styrofoam to recreate Archie’s muscles. He used clay on top of that to form a skin texture. Over the clay Hoppe placed molds, which were removed and transferred to the Caleco Foundry in Cody, where the statue was bronzed. Archie remained in Cody for a year, then left Wyoming four days ago and traveled across Nebraska to Lincoln, where it arrived Wednesday night. By 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Archie was fixed atop three pedestals in Morrill Hall’s unfinished plaza. Feats like the one accom plished to create Archie don’t hap pen every day, said Estes, of the State Museum. “We are talking about one of the largest bronze sculptures in the United States,” Estes said. A little help from friends The Friends of the University of Nebraska State Museum raised $100,000 by selling 100 Archie sculptures that are one-twelfth the size of the original, said Betty Anderson, who has been chair woman of die fun-raising effort for five years. Hoppe donated the small stat ues, which cost museum patrons $ 1,689 each - $ 1,000 of which helped pay for the full-sized Archie. The total cost of producing and transporting Archie was about $275,000, Estes said. Estes hopes Archie will draw more people to the museum, as well as distinguish Morrill Hall from the surrounding academic buildings. “This all came about because the Friends were concerned that Morrill Hall was too difficult to find for visitors - that it didn’t have a good signature,” he said. “It need ed something to help make the building stand out.” The University of Nebraska Foundation also contributed money for landscaping and improving the plaza through a gift in honor of*Lloyd G. Tanner. Estes hopes the new landscap ing along with benches will turn the area into a gathering place. History making history Ten-year-old Michael Doememan was among the 50 peo ple gathered in front of Morrill Hall at 9 a.m. to see Archie arrive. ' “My mom said it was going to be a historical moment,” he said. Doememan and his 7-year-old sister, Katie, along with their friend Jake §mith, 10, held up a sign made by classmates that read: “Maxey Elementary Welcomes Archie.” Matt Jones, an ethnic studies lecturer at UNL, stood across the street from the museum with his arms crossed across his chest and stared at Archie in awe. “I think it’s an interesting phe nomena,” Jones said. He said he has watched the transformation of the landscape in front of Morrill Hall in preparation for Archie’s arrival. “I’ve kind of been here since the process began,” Jones said, “You kind of imagine things in your mind by looking at what’s there,” he said of anticipating Archie’s arrival. Estes said the sculpture is the closest tesemblance to the real creatine people will ever see. “It’s an interpretation of what we now think this animal must have looked like. Since we don’t have one of the animals, we can only do our best to infer the struc ture,” Estes said. “But it certainly would be the very best model we have.”