8 The Daily Tar Heel Friday, October 16, 1987
latin
95th year of editorial freedom
The danger of
University offi- -cials
and students
have reason to pat
themselves on the
board
opinion
back after being
ranked 11th by U.S. News and World
Report among research institutions
across the country.
The honor is significant, raising the
University's status as one of the
premier public schools in the nation.
Yet satisfaction at this high level of
accomplishment should not blind
administrators to the areas of the
University that still need
improvement.
It may be easy for UNC educators
to bask in the glow of a national
ranking, yet complacency can have
negative results. In 1985, the same poll
rated UNC 9th. Although some dis
miss the ratings as biased or arbitrary,
they do reflect the opinions of 764
college presidents.
Those who rest on their laurels may
lose them. To counteract this natural
tendency, the University should take
the opportunity to address the prob
lems that existed in 1985 and persist
in 1987.
Due in part to the high ranking two
years ago, applications to UNC have
skyrocketed. However, the Admis
sions Office remains understaffed and
; overcrowded in its quarters in the
Monogram Building. The staff has
inadequate time to review applica
Legislating pseudo-morality
t -.The role morality should play in the
legislative process is truly ambiguous.
Making laws is often a matter of
putting reality ahead of ideals, of
pragmatic compromise in place of
ideological formulations. Those legis
lators who hold fast to their beliefs
often sacrifice effectiveness in the
pursuit of their goals.
North Carolina's Jesse Helms has
been characterized as "Senator No,"
because he seems less interested in
working for the passage of laws of
which he approves than he does in
fighting against legislation with which
he disagrees. Given Helms' hidebound
conservatism and highly moralistic
outlook on the role of government, it
should come as no surprise that he
finds himself in conflict with the
majority on a regular basis.
Helms is a populist and a dema
gogue, though, and is blessed with a
keen eye for those battles he can win.
Earlier this week, he led a campaign
that resulted in the passage of a Senate
bill that would clean up federally
financed AIDS educational materials.
The bill, which would ensure that such
materials would have to emphasize
sexual abstinence without promoting
homosexuality or drug use, passed 94
2. During the floor debate, Helms
hammered upon the existence of
sexually explicit comic books distrib
uted by a health crisis center that
The Daily
Editorial Writers: Jim Greenhill, Mike Mackay, Brian McCuskey and Jon Rust.
Editorial Assistants: Julia Coon and Sharon Kebschull.
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Clay Thorp, Nicki Weisensee and Amy Winslow. Brian Longr assistant business editor. Kimberly Edens and Kristen
Gardner, assistant university editors.
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Rhodes, Alston Russell and Richard Smith.
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coordinator; Peggy Smith, advertising manager; Sheila Baker, business manager; Michael Benfield, Lisa Chorebanian,
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production assistants.
Printing: The Chapel Hill Newspaper
JILL GERBER, Editor
DEIRDRE FALLON, Managing Editor
SALLY PEARSALL, Neut Editor
JEAN LUTES, University Editor
DONNA LEINWAND, State and National Editor
JEANNIE FARIS, City Editor
James Surowiecki, sports Editor
FELISA NEURINGER, Business Editor
JULIE BRASWELL, Features Editor
Elizabeth Ellen, Arts Editor
Charlotte Cannon, Photography Editor
CATHY McHUGH, Omnibus Editor
complacency
tions, much less to interview prospec
tive students.
A priority of a nationally ranked
institution should be recruiting the best
students possible. Yet UNC waits for
outstanding high school seniors to
apply rather than encouraging them,
sometimes losing the state's top
students to other schools.
Developing cultural awareness
programs like the planned Black
Cultural Center would demonstrate
UNC's broad appeal to students from
all backgrounds.
To preserve its reputation as an
academic stronghold, the University
should strike a balance between
conducting research and teaching. A
professor's name in a scholarly journal
means less than his ability to inspire
active debate among his students.
But any endeavor to attract and
keep good faculty is destined to fail
without competitive salaries and
benefits. As Chancellor Christopher
Fordham has told the Board of
Trustees, improving faculty benefits is
vital to keeping the University at the
top. Losing good faculty to better-paid
positions detracts from the Universi
ty's reputation.
A national honor should do more
than put self-satisfied smiles on the
faces of administrators it should be
an incentive to work harder. An
institution that is not moving forward
may be moving backward.
receives federal money. The, comic
books depicted sexual acts between
two gay men, and were designed to
promote the use of condoms. His
essential argument was that the federal
government should not be paying for
material that advocates such practices,
which he deemed "perverted."
The power Helms wielded, of
course, was that of public opinion.
Few senators on the floor could believe
that their constituents would look
favorably on a vote against the bill.
The overwhelming victory, then, was
to be expected. Helms also no doubt
expected a flurry of criticism on
editorial pages across America.
But that expectation does not lessen
the disaster that is Helms' measure.
The removal of the word "condone"
from the bill means that AIDS edu
cation will not be seriously impaired.
But at a time when the disease is raging
untouched, any attack on the effort
to educate the public is abhorrent.
More importantly, Helms' callous
manipulation of the situation by
oversimplification and distortion
represents a corruption of the ideals
of law-making. No matter what the
senator says, the bill is not based on
legislative morality, but on shameless
vote-gathering. The irony is that
"Senator No" has seen fit to say yes
to a bill that-serves no purpose but
agitating the public and wasting the
Senate's time. James Surowiecki
Tar Heel
Gay 9 lesbians seek equal
he events of Oct. 1 1 to Oct. 13, 1987,
will eventually be known as a
landmark social protest in the
history of this nation and the largest such
protest in 25 years. Oct. 11, 1987, marked
the National March on Washington for
Lesbian and Gay Rights, a collective of
strength, urgency and resolve. Lesbians
and gay men were in Washington to seek
relief from the systematic oppression by
our courts and legal system. "For love and
for life, we're not going back," was the
theme and message we took to the nation's
capital, and we meant it.
On Oct. 13, the civil disobedience action
at the Supreme Court resulted in over 600
arrests, while several thousand stood in
support of the demonstrators. It was one
of the largest civil disobedience actions ever
to occur at the court. Meanwhile, police
wore surgical gloves supposedly to protect
themselves from protesters who might have
AIDS.
The march garnered support from
hundreds of thousands of lesbians, gay
men, their friends and their families. The
initial count at 2:30 p.m. on that chilly
Sunday afternoon was put at 200,000. By
4 p.m., estimates had jumped to over
600,000 people.
I was there. I was with my friends, my
demands and most of all, I was there with
Protest directed
at alumni
To the editor:
Not every protest is perfect.
Not every protest is meant to
satisfy each and every person.
Yet, I feel that the demonstra
tion in Memorial Hall on
University Day was totally
justified, and I back it entirely.
Why Memorial Hall? The
people whom Action Against
Apartheid were trying to
address on this day were alumni
who were unaware of UNC's
position concerning its invest
ments in companies that are in
South Africa. Many of the
alumni do not realize that UNC
is only divesting less than half
of its money in these compan
ies. It is extremely important
that as many people as possible
know about this. I personally
do not believe in doing things
halfway and I will not stop
fighting this University until it
calls for total divestment. The
location of the demonstration
was, therefore, not meant to
attract press or call attention
to us as members of AAA but
to educate people on UNC's
investments.
To address AAA's apparent
lack of taste, I am sure that
many Board of Endowment
members and conservatives
would consider it very tasteful
if protesters marched in the
Union bathroom crying for
total divestment. The point is
that a protest is always going
to offend someone, even if it
may only be a KKK member
or a neo-fascist.
I, as one of the alleged
protesters, am totally appalled
at many people's obvious lack
of interest in South Africa and
her people. Of course, it is
everyone's right to place his
interests wherever he pleases,
even if it means idolizing
alumni and ignoring anguished
cries for freedom in South
Africa.
JOEY TEMPLETON
Sophomore
Drama Political Science
Ignorance
breeds prejudice
To the editor:
I write to respond to a claim
in Jon Rust's editorial on AIDS
and the gay community
("AIDS issue overwhelms
Student Congress proposal hardly frivolous
To the editor:
1 am writing in reference to your Oct.
14 editorial entitled "Building a paper
bureaucracy." This editorial was ill
conceived and poorly executed. It contains
important misrepresentations and misun
derstandings which lead to erroneous
conclusions.
Let us begin at the beginning. The first
paragraph disparagingly implies that this
resolution was some type of frivolous
research which had no purpose other than
a purely political one. It was not. This
resolution was a request for action. It was
a request, and not a command, simply
because the Student Congress has not the
power to compel the action we desire.
If the resolution was a cry for help, as
an anonymous congress member put it,
there is no basis for the editorial's assertion
that the cry was directed inward. In fact,
a cursory inspection of. the document
should clearly reveal that it was directed
to the University administration.
And it gets worse. By the sixth para
graph, the author has turned the comments
IReadeirs' Foirunm
Mark Donahue
Guest Writer
rny vengeance. I was there to tell my
government that 1 would no longer allow
it to treat my capacity to love as a crime.
I was there to demand an end to the
government-sanctioned discrimination
against gay and lesbian marriages and
parents, especially in the denial of our
childhood visitation rights.
I was there to demand an end to Ronald
Reagan's foot dragging on the AIDS crisis,
which was never solely a gay infliction, but
had taken a dramatic toll on the lives of
gay men in six short years. I had watched
this government, with the God-given
exception of Surgeon General C. Everett
Koop, adopt a blame-the-victim stance
with the AIDS crisis. Our lesbian sisters
had also felt gay men's pain and knew that
the suffering had to stop. Our sisters were
there to voice their concern.
I was there to support them as well. I
was there to demand an end to sexism and
to racism in this country and to apartheid
in South Africa. I was there to scream,
"Stop the violence against my sisters and
brothers! Stop firing us with no justifiable
l Nf WET, T
rally," Oct. 13) that I deem
outrageous and in need of
rebuttal. Rust states, "No
matter how they try, gays
cannot assuage the homopho
bia already prevalent in
society." Is he forecasting or
worse, advocating a closed
minded reaction to the gay
community and, in particular,
its predicament regarding
AIDS? How closed can a per
son's thinking be?
Rust's claim that gays are
incapable of reducing some
citizens' fearful response to
homosexuality is clearly an
absurd and inaccurate state
ment. As far as I can tell, just
the opposite is true. I am not
a homosexual; I have worked
with many gay men and women
in my profession, and these
collaborations over the past
seven years have been by far
the most important factor in
my being comfortable with
people regardless of their or my
sexual preference. I have found
that the more gays I meet and
work with, the more their
sexual preference really ceases
to be an issue or any imped
iment to getting the job done
and enjoying one another's
company. I trust that I am not
the only one for whom this is
the case.
Gays can, have, and I trust,
will continue to engage in
dialogue that seeks to break
down the barriers of sexual
preference. To declare their
constructive work and that
of non-gays as well hopeless
is to deny both the achieve
ments and the future possibil
ities for gay and non-gay people
to reduce the fear and ignor
ance of the population at large
regarding sexual preference
and .the urgent AIDS issue. We
do not need gloomy forecasts
of no progress. We do need to
address the AIDS issue
directly, but with hard facts and
with thL ill participation of all
concerned. It is my hope that
as we learn more about AIDS,
the praiseworthy work of the
gay community will not only
impact the medical situation
but also resolve some of the
"homophobia" a fancy word
for ignorance around us.
JONATHAN MILLER
Graduate
Music
Fight all forms
of racism
To the editor:
I want to express my concern
over the recent incidents of
racism that have occurred at
the School of Business Admin
istration. It is very sad that such
ignorance and prejudice
abound at this institution of
higher learning. As ugly as
prejudice is, I applaud Lynne
Gerber for making us fully
aware that it does exist on this
campus. The incident serves to
show that the battle against
racism is far from over. And
it is not only this type of blatant
prejudice that must be fought,
but also the more subtle forms
that occur more frequently.
Hopefully, with this realiza
tion, although many already
know it firsthand, we will
become more active in trying
of one representative into the unified body
of congressional opinion. In fact, only one
representative discussed the issue with the
author prior to publication (excluding the
comments of congress members on the
outcome of the meeting with Dean Donald
Boulton). And as a member of that
congress, I have no difficulty asserting that
she most definitely does not speak for its
membership in general.
And indeed, it is here that we reach the
crux of the problem. The DTH does not,
has not and probably will never understand
the way student government works. The
DTH has failed to understand that in order
for the speaker of the congress to speak
for the congress it is necessary for him to
have before him one of those resolutions
passed by the congress that the
author calls "nothing more than a postur
ing device." Without it, the speaker wields
no more authority than ony other student
at this University.
While the editorial was kind enough to
mention the meeting of student leaders
with Boulton, it failed to note that this
- treatment
cause! Stop throwing us out of our
dwellings simply because of who we love!
This is our country, too, and we won't let
this happen. We are 25 million taxpayers,
and we are not begging. We are
demanding!"
Some have ventured that the success of
the march was solely due to the impact
of AIDS on the male gay community, and
that the force which was demonstrated in
Washington could never be galvanized
again without the AIDS factor. I assure
you that this country will one day learn
of the folly of that myth. Gay men and
lesbians intend to make this country live
up to its democratic premises, as guaran
teed us in the Constitution.
We are a gentle, angry people. We desire
to be allowed to live our lives with peace
and dignity. We desire equal treatment
under the law and by our fellow citizens.
We desire life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. Those who would deny us this
have little more than totalitarianism in
their very souls. We are gay, we are proud
and we are at UNC and around the state,
the nation and the world.
We are here to stay. Long live the dream.
Mark Donahue is a senior political
science major from Indian Trail.
to overcome it.
VALERIE HALL
Junior
' Interdisciplinary Studies
Troll's patrons
abuse Phi Mu's
To the editor:
I am a waiter at the Phi Mu
house, and recently the sorority
has been victim of a series of
crimes. On a consistent basis,
members have discovered
either in the middle of the night
or the next morning that some
one has thrown a rock through
one of their windows. Having
to replace these windows can
become very expensive.
Another problem has been
automobile break-ins. Phi Mu
is located behind Troll's, and
its members' cars are there for
when a person has had too
much to drink and feels like
having a little fun. In addition,
the house's parking lot is dark,
and there are some trees block
ing sight from the street. I
realize that it is nearly impos
sible to apprehend anybody,
but it might be reassuring to
know that police officers are
patrolling more often who
knows, the police might catch
the culprit!
I would also take a guess and
say that this situation is not
limited to the Phi Mu's. People
probably think that it is not as
big a problem as it is. I'm sure
the Greek system would appre
ciate attention to the problem.
NICKY HOLT
Sophomore
Criminal Justice
was part and parcel of the execution of
the resolution. The meeting was requested
by the speaker following the resolution's
passage in congress last week, the meeting
was held and progress was made. This
would seem to place the author's conclu
sion that the resolution was "only a piece
of paper" on a somewhat mushy founda
tion. After all, the DTH itself, in the sense
the author seems to intend, is only a piece
of paper.
This editorial contains gross misrepres
entations of the opinions and attitudes of
the congress. The writer's conclusions
themselves are in most instances backed
up by little more than hot air. The author
maintains that the editorial is something
of a response to what he perceives as
frivolous political rhetoric. I submit to you
that he has engaged in a little frivolous
journalistic rhetoric of his own.
i NEIL RIEMANN
Junior
Political Science
Mathematics
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