University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 64, No. 37, Ed. 1 Friday, April 8, 1988 Page: 3 of 10
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UNIVERSITY PRESS April 8,1988*3
*
-fair-
Comment
Higher education
should reach out
for all minorities
„ Is Texas in danger of
becoming an academic
“Third-World state” in the
very near future?
It
.tAccording to several
published reports, that was
the view of one educator at
the Coordinating Board’s con-
f&rence, “Changing
Demographics in Texas and
Higher Education.”
4 Speaking before the con-
ference Tuesday, Ray Mar-
shall, an official with the LBJ
School of Public Affairs at the
University of Texas at Austin,
said that if higher education
officials fail to persuade more
minorities to obtain college
degrees, Texas could find
itself in just such an
academic quagmire.
His reasoning is based on
statistical evidence which
dhows that while minorities
will become the state’s ma-
jprity population by the year
2000, only 26 percent seek an
undergraduate education.
4 Coupled with those disturb-
ihg figures, other statistics
have shown that as much as
32 percent of all minorities
fail to finish high school.
But while these figures
(Saint a bleak picture, indeed,
for both minorities and the
role of Texas higher educa-
tion, it is encouraging to see
the state seeking to alleviate
much of this danger.
* For instance, Gov. Bill
Clements earlier this year
called on the Coordinating
Board to develop plans for en-
suring that minorities have
equal opportunities at state-
supported colleges and
universities.
Even on the immediate
scene, steps have been taken
in the right direction.
Lamar’s Minority Scholars
Institute is scheduled to
begin this summer.
Designed to encourage
minorities to enter profes-
sional fields, the program has
received its initial funding
from several foundations.
Let’s not kid ourselves
though; there are still some
serious problems that both
Lamar and the state must
overcome.
Although the university has
met its Hispanic retention
goal for the past five years, its
black retention goal has been
achieved for only one of the
past five years.
And as state Rep.
Wilhelmina Delco, D-Austin,
said at the Coordinating
Board conference, it will not
be easy to attract blacks and
Hispanics to higher educa-
tion.
“How do you convince a
young man driving a BMW
and wearing fine clothes
who’s making more selling an
ounce of crack than he ever
could being a professor at a
university that he ought to get
a Ph.D ? ” she asked.
Indeed, how do you?
SGA senate decision
deserves accolades
* It was almost beginning to
took a lot like homecoming.
* The Student Government
Association might not have
been thinking about last
semester’s homecoming con-
flict, but similarities exist bet-
ween that process and selec-
saying that the system was
undemocratic.
The same type of com-
plaints were voiced over the
past few weeks about the
traditional way of conducting
the election of Professor of
the Year.
fcion this semester of the Pro-
cessor of the Year.
In the past, nominations
were taken at the SGA
Meeting, and the senate nar-
rowed the choices to on? can-
didate per college.
< The student body then
voted on the candidates dur-
ing the general student elec-
fions.
* That process seemed to be
ultimately related to the man-
ger in which homecoming
queen candidates were
chosen last fall.
* A committee reviewed all
the queen applicants, then
oarrowed the field to five can-
didates whom it believed
would best represent Lamar.
That procedure set off a
itorm of complaints, most
The senate debated long
and heatedly the pros and
cons and, finally, out of either
firm conviction or despera-
tion, passed a motion saying
that all professors nominated
would be on the ballot.
The senate did the right
thing.
To list all nominees on the
ballot does not demean the
honor. To be nominated is an
honor in itself.
In fact, the honor increases
when a winner is chosen from
an increased field of can-
didates.
Clear heads and rational
thinking prevailed among
members of the senate, and
they should be congratulated
for their action.
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Editor..........
Managing Editor
News Editor____
Sports Editor____
Copy Editor.....
Photo Editor____
..Steven Ford
Bryan Murley
Evelyn Hawn
. .Lyra Katena
, .Karen Davis
.Lyra Katena
Photographer..................Keith Watson
Entertainment Writer..........Brent Snyder
Staff Writers................Marlene Auster,
Cathy Faughnan, Tina Freeman,
Jason Hammond, Leah Horn,
Steven Ughtfoot, Bonnie McLain,
Sharon Perkins, Denise Polly
David Smith, Danny Stegall
Advertising Assistant.......Antionette Kelly
Circulation Manager...........Darrell Ford
Office Assistants.....Dung Pham, Anh Pham
Marketing Representative
Elaine Butler
Production Manager
Gloria Post
Assistant to the
Director of Student Publications
Louise Wood
Director of Student Publications
Howard Perkins
Publisher
Students Publication Board
Ann Shaw, Chairman
Hie University Press is the official student
newspaper of Lamar University, and is
published every Wednesday and Friday dur-
ing long semesters, excluding holidays and
Wednesdays immediately following holidays.
Offices are located at P.O. Box 10096, 200
Setzer Student Center, University Station,
Beaumont, Texas 77710.
Opinions expressed in editorials and col-
umns are those of the student management of
the newspaper. These opinions are not
necessarily those of the university administra-
tion.
y
16 6ETA UTft£ N£RWS TfcCAi>W$ COKfitoIKflfc lafouf.
Meese, North, et al. V
Conservatives discover concept of innocence
By Michael Kinsley
It’s wonderful how the criminal
travails of folks in the Reagan ad-
ministration have opened the eyes of
conservatives to the merits of the
American justice system. Nothing
used to upset right-wingers more
than “criminals getting off on
technicalities.”
Attorney General Ed Meese
famously remarked, “You don’t
have many suspects who are inno-
cent. That’s contradictory.” Now
Meese and fellow Reaganites glory
in the exotica of criminal defense
law.
Meese’s attorney, Nathan Lewin,
complains on The New York Times
op-ed page that the attorney general
himself is being denied the presump-
tion of innocence because people are
reaching their own conclusions
about his copious legal difficulties
without waiting for any indictment
and trial.
“I have little doubt that the press’s
recent indictment of the attorney
general will not stand up to the
scrutiny of any fair-minded pro-
secutor,” Lewin writes.
This is touching, but confused.
Justice requires the participants in
the criminal system — judge, pro-
secutor, jury — to presume a person
is innocent unless and until he’s been
convicted. It also requires them to
presume that a lawyer like Lewin
sincerely believes everything he
says in a client’s behalf.
But no such suspension of disbelief
is required of outsiders. Lewin is be-
ing paid several hundred dollars an
The New Republic
hour to believe that Meese is as inno-
cent as a newborn lamb. Not labor-
ing under such an advantage, we can
examine the evidence and draw our
own conclusions.
In the case of the Iranamok Four
— Oliver North, John Poindexter,
Albert Hakim and Richard Secord —
there is almost no dispute about the
facts in their recent indictment.
They may well get off.
But, as conservatives used to point
out, innocence is the least of the
reasons the American justice
system chooses not to convict peo-
ple. In the capable hands of a
Nathan Lewin or a Brendan
Sullivan, American justice offers
something better than a fair trial:
an unfair trial.
President Reagan has already ex-
onerated Bud McFarlane. “He just
pleaded guilty to not telling Con-
gress everything it wanted to
know,” Reagan said. “I’ve done that
myself.”
Yes, that’s what he pleaded guilty
to, but that’s not what he did. What
he did was lied.
Knowing all about his subordinate
North’s activities on behalf of the
contras, he wrote the House In-
telligence Committee that he had
“thoroughly examined ... all mat-
ters which in any remote fashion
could bear upon these charges” and
could “state with deep personal con-
viction” that no one on his staff had
Bush sticks close
to President Reagan
By Helen Thomas
WASHINGTON (UPI) - Vice
President George Bush, frontrunner
for the Republican presidential
nomination, has decided the safest
way to campaign is to be a clone of
President Reagan.
Bush hopes to ride Reagan’s coat-
tails to the White House on the
premise that despite the Iran-Contra
scandal, the president remains
popular.
He suffers from no Hamlet-like
dilemma. He has decided that as a
team player, who never deviates
from the party line, the people will
want more of the same.
Bush belatedly announced his sup-
port for Reagan’s veto of the Civil
Rights Restoration Act that
broadened the scope of the applica-
tion of anti-discrimination laws to
any institution receiving federal
funds.
“I’m not going to start differing
with the president after IVi years,”
Bush told reporters on the campaign
trail. “I’m going to stand with the
president.”
After supporting Reagan’s stand,
Bush said at a “Black Americans”
salute to him that he plans to have a
“positive civil rights agenda” if he
becomes president.
Ralph Neas, executive director of
the Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights, which pushed the legislation,
said: “We regret that the vice presi-
dent has chosen to support the first
veto of a civil rights bill in 120 years.
His position will allow the federal
government to use taxpayer dollars
to subsidize discrimination of
minorities, women, disabled persons
and older Americans.”
Like all vice presidents who aspire
to be president, Bush has a problem.
It’s the same problem that Vice
President Hubert Humphrey faced
when he tried to put some distance
between himself and President
Johnson on the Vietnam War issue in
1968 when he ran against Richard
Nixon.
There is no indication that Reagan
insists on the kind of loyalty Johnson
demanded, although Reagan un-
doubtedly expects Bush to be a team
player.
Bush obviously thinks he can stick
with Reagan while in office and
become his own man if he wins the
presidency.
He has taken that approach in the
Iran-Contra scandal. He says he was
“out of the loop,” but he attended
many meetings on the subject of
arms to Iran. He said he had “reser-
vations” about the secret dealings,
but all he has said publicly is that
“mistakes were made.”
In the last analysis, Bush is follow-
ing a scenario that has been suc-
cessful with many Republican
predecessors. Avoid the specifics in
promoting all good things like “I
want to be an education president.”
But don’t say how much money you
are willing to put up to raise the
standards.
A candidate is a moving target,
and he usually finds it wiser not to be
pinned down. That is why a lot of
surprises may await the public if he
is elected president.
\
ever solicited funds or support for
the contras.
Lawyers for the Iranamok Four
have bigger arrows in their quiver
than plea bargaining. For example,
they say the special prosecutor is un-
constitutional. Even if this peculiar
exercise in right-wing judicial ac-
tivism succeeds, that will say
nothing about the actual guilt or in-
nocence of the defendants. But we
can count on this subtlety getting
overlooked in the festivities of vin-
dication.
The Iranamok prosecution is
desperately hobbled by the immuni-
ty granted the defendants for their
testimony at last summer’s congres-
sional hearings. Prosecutors have
gone to almost comic lengths — such
as not reading newspapers — to
avoid acquiring useful information.
Even so, defense lawyers will argue
that every bit of evidence is tainted.
The situation is just like that caus-
ed by the Supreme Court’s widely
loathed “exclusionary rule,” which
forbids the use of evidence obtained
in or derived from an illegal search.
Valuable evidence is banned, for
reasons having nothing to do with
guilt or innocence, and the guilty
sometimes get off.
Will conservatives retain their in-
dignation if this happens to the
Iranamok Four?
Ollie North is threatening to sub-
poena the president and vice presi-
dent. Part of the idea is to create
pressure for a pardon. But part of
the idea is that if Reagan and Bush
assert executive privilege, North’s
lawyers can argue that he has been
denied information vital for his
defense. Maybe this will work. But it
won’t make him innocent.
Another way the guilty sometimes
get off is through prosecutorial inep-
titude. Ineptitude is the kindest in-
terpretation of the way Meese gave
North and Poindexter time to.
destroy piles of evidence after they
knew die Justice Department was on
to them. We’ll never know what was
in those documents, but we can
make the obvious inference: You
don’t hold a shredding party if
there’s nothing to hide.
Besides the special advantages of
their particular case, the Iranamok
defendants will enjoy the usual lean-
over-backward protections of
American justice. For example, the
requirement of proof beyond a
reasonable doubt, and the built-in
wild card of a jury that must convict
unanimously.
Don’t get me wrong. The
Iranamok defendants are entitled to
a trial every bit as unfair as they can
afford. That’s the American way.
What they are not entitled to is a
“Get Out of Jail Free” card in the
public mind.
We’ve got the evidence — in-
cluding evidence the jury will never
get — and neither law nor logic says
we can’t convict.
Meanwhile, this newfound conser-
vative passion for the rights of
criminals could lead down all sorts
of promising avenues of social pro-
gress. If we’re lucky, they may have
die opportunity to take up prison
reform next.
*LYIN6 TO COMPRESS, FRAUP, CONSPIRACY,
THEFT, PESTRUCTION OF EVIPENCE —
NO MENTION HERE OF ANY CRIMES*
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Ford, Steven. University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 64, No. 37, Ed. 1 Friday, April 8, 1988, newspaper, April 8, 1988; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth500400/m1/3/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lamar University.