10
Friday, October 1, 1999
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comments about
our coverage?
Contact the
ombudsman at
budmane’unc.edu
or call 6GS-2790.
Scott Hicks
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
Katie Abel
UNIVERSITY EDITOR
Jacob McConnico
CITY EDITOR
Dueling Editorials
Changing Mr(s). Tingle
The editorial board locks horns over whether a California teacher
should have been fired after deciding to have a sex-change operation.
SOPHIE MILAM
EDITORIAL WRITER
Dana Rivers used to teach high school
journalism. But Rivers is no longer allowed
to teach on account of being a woman - that
is, since he became a woman.
Earlier this year, Rivers - formerly David
Warfield - began hormone treatment in
preparation for an upcoming sex-change
operation that will complete his transforma
tion into a woman.
Last weekend, high school administrators
informed Rivers he would be fired due to his
“evident unfitness for service” as a teacher.
Despite the glaring injustice in firing a per
son based on irrelevant factors like the
nature of sexual organs, Rivers’ dismissal is
not the most hideous grievance committed
here.
Psychologists have long considered isola
tion to be the most debilitating form of tor
ture. Those alienated from society are driven
mad, much like our young schoolyard
killers. Often ignored, frequently ridiculed,
these students have been rejected by their
peers and eventually lose control.
Unfortunately, these days losing control
means mowing down classmates with a
semiautomatic weapon.
Parents and administrators could help pre
vent such atrocities by teaching students to
accept those unlike themselves and encour
aging students to reach out to forsaken class
mates.
Instead, adults choose to discharge a
teacher simply because his uniqueness might
distract some students from learning, there
by setting the example that individuality
should not be tolerated.
These adult role models are teaching kids
to ostracize a person, strip him of his digni
ty, take away his job and tarnish his name
simply because his differences make them
uncomfortable.
Doesn’t anyone remember the ugly duck
ling? As children we learned not to disregard
someone simply because he was different on
the outside - he might grow into a swan one
day.
We spent the last century rebelling against
the notion that a person is less intelligent,
less worthy or less human because of surface
qualities like race or gender. Didn’t we learn
anything?
Rivers’ former students are being taught to
discriminate. They’re being taught to hate, to
exclude and to ridicule. But worst of all, they
are being taught that it’s not OK to be
unique - that they will be shunned for being
different.
Is this really the message we want to send
to our children?
If parents and administrators are so con
cerned about a student’s ability to learn,
maybe they ought to be a little more selec
tive about what it is their students are learn
ing.
Barometer
2 Out of 3 ...
Officials claim that two out of three
UNC students come home sober on
party nights. With assistant hoops
E 9
coach Phil Ford's recent OWI arrest, one wonders
what the odds are for the Department of Athletics.
Of Hank and Unity
Though civil-rights leaders decry the
lack of minorities in TV shows, let's
toast the one show loved by all
*
races: ABC's Monday Night Football.
Tar Heel Quotables
“The book has increased my awareness and
made me re-evaluate my community
service and interactions.”
Freshman Genevieve Yancey
Finally, it's on the record at least one freshman read her
required summer reading, Alex Kotlowitz's "There Are No
Children Here."
“Alumni came back and said that things
had changed.”
Town Council member Flicka Bateman
On the town of Chapel Hill's year-old anti-panhandling
ordinance. As if you needed yet more proof that it's really
the alumni who run this town.
Rob Nelson
EDITOR
Office Hours Friday 3 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Matthew B. Dees
STATE & NATIONAL EDITOR
Brian Murphy
SPORTS EDITOR
T. Nolan Hayes
SPORTSATURDAY EDITOR
JOE MONACO
EDITORIAL WRITER
Students do not have the right to be dis
ruptive in school. Fittingly, teachers should
n’t either.
David Warfield served in the Navy,
worked as a political consultant and was a
rafting instructor before becoming a high
school journalism teacher in Antelope, Calif.
However, through it all, Warfield felt he
was really a woman trapped in a man’s body.
In April, shortly after beginning hormone
therapy, Warfield - who has since changed
his name to Dana Lee Rivers announced to
the school’s principal that by September, he
would be returning to school as a woman.
Rivers claims it was this announcement that
led the district to fire him last weekend.
If River’s assertion that the dismissal was
the result of his hormone therapy and
planned sex-change operation, than he might
have a legitimate complaint. It would seem
that such a firing has the potential to get the
ol’ “First Amendment Violation” sticker
smacked on its forehead.
However, I think we need to give the
administrators the benefit of the doubt and
realize that Rivers’ dismissal was based not
on the sex change itself but on the potential
ly disruptive effects his presence could have
on the school’s learning environment.
The administrators are responsible for cre
ating an environment conducive to learning.
If they honestly believe Rivers’ presence
would be an unnecessary disturbance or dis
traction for the students, then the decision to
fire him is completely justifiable.
Consider the following scenario. A teen
age girl walks into homeroom with a ridicu
lously revealing outfit. She’s got the tight,
transparent shirt and the miniskirt that’s way
too mini. If her outfit causes a needless dis
turbance or distraction among the students
and interferes with their ability to learn,
school administrators have, in most cases, the
right to send her home.
First Amendment violation? Of course
not. In her school, she’s guaranteed freedom
of expression, so long as it doesn’t hinder the
ability of her classmates to perform.
Imagine if Rivers were to leave school one
Friday afternoon with a goatee and emerge
from the faculty lounge Monday morning
with bigger breasts than the Homecoming
queen. Surely, this would cause an unneces
sary distraction for the students.
Would her students adjust over time?
Admittedly, they probably would.
However, they shouldn’t have to. These
are high school kids. They are young. School
is tough enough without wondering what’s
the deal with the teacher.
The administration made the right choice.
Rivers might be a fine educator. However,
by opting to become a woman, his presence
in the classroom places a needless and entire
ly avoidable burden on the students.
Resume Welfare
Student Congress is considering the
issue of stipends for student group
leaders. If you've got the time to be
involved, do it —but no one should expect to get
paid for padding his resume.
Deadline Set
Kudos to interim Chancellor Bill
McCoy for finally setting a firm
March 31,2000 deadline for full
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disclosure of factory sites that make UNC apparel.
“If we have to close down it creates a
greater sense of panic in students.”
Writing Center interim Co-director
Kristin Ringelberg
Who would have known the Writing Center was that
important to UNC students. One would have thought it
would be Kenan Stadium or the Smith Center.
“You score 28 points in the first quarter,
and that’s pretty much the ball game.”
Florida State Football Coach
Bobby Bowden
On the Seminoles' 42-10 drubbing of the Tar Heels last
weekend. That's what the fans who left early thought, too.
Editorial
ahr ImUj (Tar Itel
Established 1893 • 106 Years of Editorial Freedom
www.unc.edu/dth
Leigh Davis
FEATURES EDITOR
Erin Wynia
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR.
Carolyn Haynes
COPY DESK EDITOR
; IT'S
Don’t Believe it - And Don’t Buy it
With the new millennium less than 15
months away, it is high time for the
doomsday prophets to come out of
the woodwork and mesmerize us with wild
visions of the end of life as we know it.
Whether you subscribe to notions of a
coming apocalypse isn’t really important.
Everyone can enjoy and benefit from crack
pots, not only every thousand years, but every
day.
You can make up your own prophecies, if
you want to. For example: At their present
rate of growth, stores owned and operated by
The Gap, Inc. will cover every square inch of
earth by the year 2000.
Once that happens, there will be nowhere
to go but up. As the overpriced, conformist
clothes reach skyward, they will eventually
block out the sun and humankind will perish.
But oh, what a stylish death it will be.
If, for some reason, that doesn’t happen,
don’t worry. Humans won’t last far beyond
the turn of the century; they’re just too stupid.
That fact should be obvious from the fren
zy in this country over new technology. Such
a fervor isn’t surprising, since we are a con
sumer culture in which possessions translate
directly into status, but as the gadgets and giz
mos increase in number, the line between
what we want and what we need becomes
nonexistent.
Two purchases, in particular, fly in the face
of common sense. It is impossible to imagine
anyone having a need for such things, and yet
the public is groveling for them like a law stu
dent on a job interview.
One, home security systems, have been
around for many years and have wormed
their way into the hearts of most homes in
America.
The other, digital TV, doesn’t exist yet, but
when it comes to production it will almost
certainly spread like the plague, pushing
humanity further down the road to imbecility.
First of all, nobody ever benefited from the
purchase of a home security system except the
Readers' Forum
DTH Should Treat
People it Profiles
With More Respect
TO THE EDITOR:
I used to frown upon my fellow
UNC students for only picking up a
copy of The Daily Tar Heel to do the
crossword. But recent publications
have swayed my opinion otherwise.
Reading the issues of the past
week, I have concluded that there is
not a single competent writer on the
DTH staff.
Who on this incompetent staff
came up with the caption “We’re in
the Money!”? Did this person ever
think that we should celebrate the
man and not the money? That per
haps David Benjamin Clayton was
more than a $28.6 million donor?
Probably not, since David Clayton
was profiled on the fourth page of the
DTH, sandwiched in between a vari
ety of advertisements. This apparent
ly seemed dignified enough for the
editors.
Hey, here’s an idea! Let’s have
Clayton’s picture and profile on the
front page so students and faculty
would be able to put a face with a
price tag. Oh wait, then you wouldn’t
Vicky Eckenrode & Courtney Weill
MANAGING EDITORS
Miller Pearsall
PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Thomas Austrian
DESIGN EDITOR
Megan Sharkey
GRAPHICS EDITOR
JOSH FENNELL
CAUSTIC CORNER
stockholders of ADT. Alarms, in and of them
selves, don’t protect your home. Despite what
you see in commercials, nobody has ever
been scared off by a “This Home Protected
By ...” sticker.
Asa groundbreaking article in The
Charlotte Observer pointed out, if someone
wants to get into your home, they will. All
that your alarm is going to do is get your fami
ly nice and panicky right before the intruder
chops them up.
The alarm monitoring companies don’t
even want to protect you. When they get a
signal, they call (of all people) your next-door
neighbor.
In this day and age of alienation and 24-
hour Internet pom, you would be lucky to
have a neighbor who knows your name, much
less one willing to go check out your house
and get chopped up, too.
Don’t bother calling the police, because
they won’t save you either. Unless you live
next to the station house or a donut shop,
response time is never less than five minutes.
Death and dismemberment (not to mention
simple robbery) happen a little faster than
that.
So, what can we do to protect our things, if
alarm systems are so useless? Nothing. You
can be killed at any time. Get over it.
And so we come to digital TV. The govern
ment likes it, cable companies like it, why
shouldn’t you? Because watching television is
what morons do.
have had enough room for the giant
“Big Bucks” graphic.
So how about a little more respect
and attention to the people that the
DTH attempts to profile? ... I will
spare the editors from my outrage of
(another) caption because plenty of
my fellow students have already
expressed their disgust.
So keep those crosswords coming!
That’s about the only thing in the
paper I can bear to read.
Oh, and Dilbert’s pretty good too.
Sabrina Toms
Senior
Music
Tournament Noise
Makes Naps, Studying
Torture for Residents
TO THE EDITOR:
Where do our rights begin as stu
dents and residents of UNC? I recall
last year when residents complained
about the Bell Tower being too loud
when it chimed and thinking, “That’s
ridiculous! They have no right to
complain about something that is a
huge part of the UNC tradition.”
Now I find myself on the other
William Hill
ONLINE EDITOR
Whitney Moore
WRITING COACH
Terry Wimmer
OMBUDSMAN
/There is nothing good about buying a
brand-new TV set just to get high quality pic
tures. It’s television; nobody wants to see
wrinkles in Dennis Franz’s ass.
If you want realistic, go outside.
Besides, what does quality have to do with
TV? The programs are still shit, only with dig
ital you can fill your head with shit that comes
in crystal clear.
It isn’t enough that the government and
cable companies are stacked against you.
They want you to want digital TV, too. Hence
the Time-Wamer ad campaign that presents
digital technology as an increase in the quality
of life.
The only increase is in the cable bill, which
will go up to about S3OO a month, until
“Digital II” technology comes around.
Oh, and your TV set will be obsolete.
Sorry.
PBS, that bastion of independent thought,
is even getting in on the act. They have a
commercial all about how digital TV will ben
efit students. One major benefit, it seems, will
be that classes can take “virtual field trips.”
What is a “virtual” field trip? Apparently,
it’s “just as good” as actually going some
where.
So, instead of paying workers at the end of
the week, why not just show them a digital
image of their paychecks? That’s “just as
good.”
Actually, there would be a riot, because
that’s money.
Obviously, the question is no longer “What
do we need?” but rather “How much do we
need?”
The truth is, we don’t need any of it.
Garage-door openers are as useful as apple
corers are as useful as cellular telephones.
A lie is a lie is a lie. You don’t have to buy
it and you don’t have to believe it.
Josh Fennell is a junior biology major from
Charlotte. Send hate mail to
fennell@email.unc.edu.
end of the stick living in Teague
Residence Hall.
A recent weekend was absolutely
torture when I either tried to study in
my room or watch TV or when my
roommate tried to take a midday nap
as most of us do on our weekends.
We, as well as other residents,
found the soccer tournament going
on this weekend a nuisance, with the
speakers for announcing and the
band facing none other than our res
idence halls along Stadium Drive.
My question is why doesn’t the
University take into account students’
living situations before erecting anew
clubhouse full with announcer’s desk
and speakers, facing the residence
halls? Some might say, “Well, they
did it so you can see the game from
your walkways or from your rooms.”
If that was the case, and I really
wanted to see a game, I’d go to the
stadium and watch the game like
everyone else. After all, this is an
institution of education first where we
have there right to live and study, and
then an institution of sports and enter
tainment, not the other way around.
Christopher Nagy
Junior
Biology
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A
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