The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 26, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 6, 1980 Page: 2 of 20
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The Baylor Lariat case
The norther that blew in this weekend wasn't the only thing to chill
the souls of students. You may not have noticed, but the rights of
students to do and say what they want at school received a massive
setback this week.
We're referring to the firings of the editors of the Baylor Lariat this
weekend in Waco. (For details, see page 3.) Technically, Baylor
president Abner McCall may be justified in claiming that he is the de
facto publisher of the campus paper and, as such, has the right to
dismiss the editors. But while they may be legally defensible, McCall's
actions are nevertheless morally abhorrent — and the implications of
those acts are frightening for all of us.
By claiming that the Lariat belongs to the university's
administration, and not its students, McCall and Ralph Strotherhave
reduced the Lariat from a mild, occasionally questioning voice in the
college community to a house organ parroting the dogma of the
Southern Baptist Convention. But what's even worse is their
argument by extension that almost any college administration has the
right to take over its student press if the editors get too unruly.
Frankly, the controls still exercised by many schools —publications
boards, faculty advisors and the like — smack of the days when in loco
parentis was the rage — when students weren't considered legal adults,
and administrators had to impose rules to protect students from
themselves. Most of those rules have gone by the boards — but college
editors are still, by and large, regarded as too immature to be trusted
to their own judgment in reporting and commenting on their
community's news.
The Thresher has been comparatively lucky over the years. Since
our founding in 1916, we've been free to report the news in a relatively
uninhibited manner. Since we have no journalism department, our
judgment is largely self-taught. And with one notable exception
fifteen years ago, the administration has left well enough alone.
But we're not safe by any means. McCall's argument that "the paper
is owned by the school" could be applied almost as easily to us. We
receive blanket tax funding; our office space, utilities and phones are
provided by Rice; our payroll checks come through Rice's computers.
Faced with a similar dilemma a few years back, many of the Ivy
League's newspapers set themselves up as independent corporations
and severed all official school connections. But most colleges — and
college papers — don't have the resources to become that
independent.
Things could be worse. A few years back, the paper at UT-Permian
Basin in Odessa printed an editorial critical of the UT Board of
Regents. The administration, in a classic example of overkill, fed the
entire press run into document shredders, fired the staff, and put the
paper under the school's public relations department. That sort of
overreaction doesn't seem likely to happen here. But then, Jeff Barton
didn't expect that he'd be out of a job halfway through his term at
Baylor It may be time to consider formally challenging the rights of
student expression at private schools, to determine if university
officials should still have the legal right to treat students as children.
— DLB
Sports, not politics
Sports and politics should not be mixed, but the Olympics have
been treated like a political arena by news services and the U.S.
Government.
Last Friday, February 29, the day before the U.S. and USSR
hockey teams were to clash at Lake Placid, the Houston Post ran a
"sports analysis" on the front page of the sports section by Edwin Pope
of Knight-Ridder Newspapers. The first three paragraphs of that
article paint a picture of callous men from the USSR, "tanks plowing
through Afghanistan, [and] politicians banging shoes on tables."
Later Pope refers to the USSR as "the world's most murderous
country" and tries to set a tone in his story that dehumanizes the
Soviets.
That night the U.S. hockey team defeated the USSR hockey team,
and the next morning the Post carried a front page story by Pope. He
made allusions to war and a cold war, and intimated that the hockey
victory was an American Government victory over the Central
Committee of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. According
to Pope, President Carter called U.S. hockey coach Dave Brooks and
told him that the team "reflected America's basic ideals."
T he security of the nation must be protected, but it can be protected
by defending ourselves against the Soviet government instead of
building hatred for the people of the Soviet Union. They are good
people. They are in no way inferior to us. They are sane, healthy and
intelligent. Perhaps they are being persecuted by their government,
but that is no reason to hate them. At a time when war seems
imminent, we need to understand the virtues and strengths of the
people of the USSR as well as their government's weaknesses.
Pope's and Carter's statements, however, imply that the characters
of the Soviet athletes are reflected by -the characteristics of the
government. When Carter said that the U.S. hockey team "reflected
basic American ideals" he implied not just an "American" drive to win,
but an "American" drive to beat the Soviets. When Pope talked about
"the world's most murderous country" in a sports article, he was
misrepresenting political propaganda as sports reporting.
The Olympics should be a place where people of all races, faiths and
political beliefs come together and disregard those differences in favor
of sportsmanship. The purpose of the Olympics is two-fold: to
determine the best athletes in the world, and promote understanding
between cultures (nationalities). The individuals, the competition, and
the records are more important than the nationalities.
Action against the Soviet Government is desirable but please, spare
the people, the athletes, and sport.
—Steve Bailey
The Rice Thresher, March 6, 1980, page 2
Kennedy
_ _VC J
SPANNING THE HEDGES/by David Dow
Last week the United Nations
Security Council unanimously
adopted a resolution calling for
Israel to dismantle its settlements
in occupied Arab territories.
Unanimously: that means the
United States went along.
Pragmatists cringe when America
flip-flops in her foreigh policy—as
our government has apparently
done with Israel—because it gives
countries who believe they are our
allies every reason to doubt our
sincerity and reliability. The
pragmatists have a devastating
argument supporting their
demand that the US establish some
consistency in its foreign policy.
That logic enrages moralists
because it may commit us to
defending despotic regimes.
Sticking with the Shah may have
increased our credibility with our
allies, but what about the Iranians
he brutally terrorized? This
argument too is powerful, perhaps
even more so than the pragmatic
one.
These two approaches to foreign
policy often conflict. In the
Mideast, however, the pragmatic
approach coincides with the moral
one, so by voting with the majority
at the UN, our government
blundered in two separate realms:
the US allowed itself to be fooled
by the innocent facade of a
ruthless, immoral, mob of killers,
the Palestinian Liberation
Organization, and as a result,
America has tossed yet another
foreign policy curve ball, leaving
our allies incredulous and unsure.
Debate about the settlements
focuses on two related issues:
Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and
the Palestinian refugee problem.
This week I will treat the problem
of Zionism; next week, the refugee
issue.
Nationalism in any form
foments utterly illogical conflicts.
The concept is both anachronistic
and absurd; it refuses to see people
as comprising humanity,
associating them instead with
entities called nation-states: Israel
or Egypt, Ethiopia or Somalia,
Russia or America. Choose your
favorite conflict. But how do we
jump from a condemnation of
nationalism to the conclusion that
Israel must leave the West Bank?
Nothing could be more
hypocritical. In essence, barring
Jews from the occupied territory
replaces Zionism with Arab
nationalism. (Those who find
nothing wrong with nationalism
must compare the morality of the
two interests, the task for next
week.)
Beyond the inconsistency,
seeking to stifle Zionism by
dismantling Jewish settlements
puts the US in the despicable
position of advocating a policy we
are wont to criticize, an explicit
racism. We despise Hitler;
Americans look back with shame
on our own version of World War
II paranoia, the internment of
Japanese-Americans; and we are
still combatting remnants of our
most recent and long-lived
segregation, the methods and
attitudes used to hinder the
advancement of blacks. The UN
resolution did not order Israel to
integrate the West Bank; it told
Israel to leave; it'demanded *the
very discrimination we presuma-
bly oppose; and it received our
approval.
Even America's penchant for
legalistic reasoning cannot justify
replacing Jewish nationalism with
the Arab form. The unfortunate
fact is that today we have nation-
states, the context in which the
UN—by definition—operates. By
present standards, therefore, some
country owns that land on the
West Bank of the Jordan River.
The question is who; the answer is
unclear. Just over two years ago
Secretary of State Vance admitted
that sovereignity over the occupied
territories is an "open question."
For the US to suddenly decide that
despite the uncertainty Israel alone
definitely has no claim to the land
is not Jinly a monstrous non-
sequitur but absolutely ludicrous,
given our historical tendency to
aggrandize by using our military
muscle. I don't see American
settlers in Texas, Puerto Rico, or
the Guantanamo naval base
packing their bags.
We carved up the map after the
World Wars, and the new
boundaries are permissible
because the US likes them. But
there is more to justice than
American approbation. America's
disapproval of Israeli settlements
does not make them wrong, nor
does the UN vote. Lambasting
Zionism fails to justify the UN
resolution or the US support for it,
and as I will argue next week, the
traditional plea for the
Palestinians is also remiss.
MATTHEW MULLER
Editor
IV-PH JAYOLIPHANT
ILJDLVLJCD Business Manager
Richard Decs Managing Editor
Carole Valentine Advertising Manager
Rolf Asphaug News Editor
Wayne Derrick Photography Editor
Franz Brotzen Fine Arts Editor
Steve Bailey Sports Editor
Bob Schwartz Back Page Editor
David Butler Senior Associate Editor
Assistant Editors Geri Snider, Amy Grossman
News Staff Anita Gonzalez, Allison Foil,
Kathy Mitchell, Michael Trachtcnbcrg, Bill Bonner, Sarah Herbert, R.B. Johnson,
I.ela Smith. Adrienne Clark. Laura Rohwer. J.C. Puckett, Pat Campbell,
Eugene Domack, Ron Stutes. Rawslyn Ruffin, Augusta Barone, Russ Coleman.
Ken Klein. Tom McAlister, Robin Baringer
Fine Arts Staff Steve Sailer, Gary Cole.
Jim Fowler, Thomas Peck, Nicole Van Den Heuvel, Scott Solis, Carol Owen,
Thom Glidden, Gaye Gilbert, Amanda Lewis, Mehran Gouran. M. Bradford Moody,
Andy Hathcock. John Heaner
Sports Staff Donald Buckholt, Michelle Gillespie,
Norma Gonzales. Jean Hobart, Ken Klein. Cindy McCabe, Tami Ragosin,
Laura Rohwer. Byron Welch, Rich Whitney, Alison F. Whittemore
Science Staff * Sue Taylor, Joel Breazeale,
Bob Skocpol, Debbie Wenkert. Margaret Schauerte. Greg Greenwell, Owen Wilson
Photography Staff Jay Bauerle, Robert Bohrer,
Buster Brown, T.W. Cook, Bruce Davies, Dingbat, Janie Haxrison,
Bruce Kessler, Jeff McGee, Laura Rohwer, Wunaerwood
Advertising Staff John Szalkowski
Production Staff John VanderPut, Gaye Gilbert.
Ann Betley, Laura Rohwer, Kelvin Thompson, Anita Gonzalez,Ruth Hillhouse,
Vikki Kaplan, Allison Foil, Dianne Fromc
Circulation Rob Rogers, Vikki Kaplan. Charjean Heard
The Rice Thresher, the official student newspaper at Rice University since 1916, is published
weekly on Thursdays during the school year, except during examination periods and holidays,
by the students of Rice University. Editorial and business offices are located on the second floor
of the Rice Memorial Center, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, TX 77001. Phone 527-4801 or 327-4802.
Advertising information available upon request.Mail subscription rate: $15.00 per year. The
opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of anyone except the writer.
Obviously.
© Copyright 1980, The Rice Thresher. All rights reserved.
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Muller, Matthew. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 26, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 6, 1980, newspaper, March 6, 1980; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245432/m1/2/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.