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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 11, 1986)
Fage 2/The Battalion/Friday, July 11, 1986 Stating the obvious The secretary of education Tuesday called on college and university administrations to ban illegal drugs on college cam puses. It’s a meaningless act on William J. Bennett’s part, but he said he will — if Congress gives him the authority — withhold federal funds from colleges that “do not protect their students from drugs.” With the death of University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, officials suddenly are concerned with drugs on campus. Bennett is naive in thinking that drug problems on cam puses and in sports are worse than in the past. His decree will have no effect on the problem. Drugs have been a problem on college campuses for decades and the abuse probably was more widespread in the ’60s than now. But eyes have been opened with the deaths of sports fig ures and entertainers in the ’80s. Threatening to cut off federal funds shouldn’t be-part of the issue. Drugs already are against the law, and withholding fed eral funds would do nothing but hinder campus law enforce ment at best. Bennett’s call for campus drug bans is the same as saying col leges shouldn’t allow any other crimes — such as murder, rape or theft — that would harm the students. Bennett also said colleges have a responsibility to parents to protect their children. Hogwash. The primary concern of col leges should be to the students, not to the parents, in making campuses safe. This becomes difficult when those same students are breaking the law by using drugs. As young adults they must take responsibility for their actions. Bennett has jumped on the bandwagon of outcry surround ing Bias’ death. He is voicing hollow concern by stating the ob vious. Obviously drugs should not be allowed on campus. Ob viously the rules should be enforced — not because a basketball star is dead, but because of the ongoing threat to well-being of students. Tell us something we don f know, Mr. Secretary. The Battalion Editorial Board Some stiff competition for judical nominee M o v e oyer, Daniel Man ion; and listen up. President Rea gan. I recom mend a candi date for the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals who has more ex tensive experi- Richard ence in the oh-so- Cohen complicated field of negligence law and petty suits than does Manion. I am referring, of course, to that whiz at property-damage claims, workmen’s compensation and the wholly neglected area of law dealing with plate and auto glass: Cohen of Claims. Yes, indeed, ’tis I. For almost five years, 1 toiled by day for a major insur ance company while working at night at the writer’s trade. In those years, I be came a master of what is called The Law — not studying it, you understand, but applying it. In my office, I was known as a strict constructionist. Manion, President Reagan’s nomi nee, cites among his most noteworthy cases one in which he defended a client who was sued for poorly repairing a Volkswagen Rabbit. My professional hat is off to him. I know how tough these cases can be. Whv, the corpus of the law on Rabbits, not to mention Volkswa- gens, is voluminous — going all the way back to the original Beetle. This Manion is not one to be taken lightly. But is I — Cohen of Claims — who closed the famous El Morocco case. My client, a major coal and oil distributor, made an oil delivery in the building where the famous supper club was lo cated. The man did a good job, exceed ing the capacity of the building’s tank by onlv a thousand gallons or so. The oil spilled into El Morocco, making dancing trickv and eating out of the question. In no more than a week of hard bargain ing, I closed that case. It is not my fault that tastes in nightspots later changed and El Morocco is gone. As a practitioner myself, I am awed bv Manion s experience — especially the land condemnation case involving a fence that the State of Indiana claimed caused $193 in damage. (Fences can be verv trickv.) And unlike some senators, I take at face value President Reagan’s assertion that he nominated Manion be cause the man is well-qualified, not just because he is a political conservative. However, his own submissions to the Senate mention nothing about work men’s compensation, which is well-rec ognized as the epitome of The Law. In workmen’s comp (legal jargon for work men’s compensation), you deal with job- related injuries — bad backs and that sort of thing. How President Reagan can nominate a man who knows nothing about bad backs is beyond me. Granted, Manion has credentials that I lack. Besides sponsoring a bill in the Indiana Legislature that the Supreme Court already had declared unconstitu tional, lie has praised the John Birch So ciety, which his father helped found. And then, too, Manion has gone to law school and is a member of the bar, al though he must have slept through his courses on constitutional law. I am not sure that any of that compensates for no experience with workmen’s comp. But Manion and I have a lot of cre dentials in common. Like me, he has never practiced before the court of ap peals to which he was nominated and, like me, has a poor memory. In testify ing before the Senate Judiciary Com mittee, he said of his father’s organiza tion, “I could not tell you what the policies of the John Birch Society are.” I can, but I remember nothing at all about 1983 and I once found myself writing a column that I already had written. And, like Manion, I, too, am a bad speller. He submitted documents to the Senate replete with spelling errors which, to me, proofs nothing. But what does he know about plate glass? Where is his knowledge of auto glass? Does he know how to “lose” a file until the claimant is desperate? Does he know how to order a police report, hire private investigators to find out the claimant beats his wife and drinks to ex cess — and then make settlement offers that are ridiculously low. In short, does this man — selected from the second- highest bench — really know the law that affects most Americans? I think not. Daniel Manion, no doubt about it, is a worthy choice for the court of appeals. But, in all modesty, I have to say that I know better ones. Why, at my old of fice, within reach of a flying paper clip, there were men and women who would have reduced the damages on that Volkswa gen Rabbit to nothing and closed the case involving the fence in a half-hour. President Reagan, reconsider. I submit, for your consideration, Cohen of Claims. Let me tell you about the El Morocco case. Copyright 1986, Washington Post Writers Group Education the only solutior for crime linked to porn Michelle Rowe The govern ment’s Commis sion on Pornog raphy delivered its long-awaited report Wednes day to Attorney General Edwin Meese III. The report not only calls for strict en force m e n t O f existing anti-obscenity laws but for new, tough laws to be put into effect to stamp out smut in America. In its report, the commission — ap pointed by Meese —- encourages the FCC to take action against cable pro grammers who transmit “obscene pro grams” and against people who run “phone porn” and X-rated computer services. It recommends arresting video porn performers for pandering and keeping on file names of individuals convicted of obscenity violations. The commission also recommends providing monetary restitution for “identif ied vic tims” of obscene pornography. The commissioners say their report is not intended to try “to send this country back to the sexual Dark Ages,” as has been charged by Barry Lynn, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, but to open people’s eyes to the dangers of pornography. Says c o m m i s s i o n e r Frederick Schauer, who drafted the heart of the report: “We just want people to read the report and think seriously about por nography.” The commissioners should be praised for bringing the issue of sexual violence to the public’s attention. The public needs to be educated about child por nography arid porn which encourages violence — rape, torture, murder. According to the commission, por nography is an $8 billion-a-year indus try and child pornography alone is a $2 to $4 billion industry. Evidence linking pornography to vio lent sexual acts is inconclusive. But, as Meese says, “obscene portrayals of vio lence or degradation towards women (are) socially harmful.” Violent porn, es pecially that which depicts violence against women, encourages the rape myth — the belief that women secretly want to be raped and dominated. But the methods the commission has proposed — 92 recommendations in all — for preventing such abhorrent crimes are not the answer. Problems aren’t solved by sweeping them back into the gutter. Education, not censorship, is the solu tion to the pornography problem. And education, not censorship, will solve the problem. People must learn that women do not secretly want to be raped; there is nothing arousing about sexually abus ing another person. But people will not learn these lessons if the government forbids them from viewing pornographic material. If any thing, Americans will resent their gov ernment leading them around by their hands, treating them like children. As Lynn says, Americans are “smart enough to know that when the govern ment has gotten into your library and your bedroom, it’s gotten too much power.” Once the government starts censor ing, where will it draw the line? If Hustler magazine disappeared to morrow, the world would be a better place. But if we allow the government to censor Hustler, next it’ll be censoring National Lampoon and Heavy Metal. And what will be next? National Geo graphic? Obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. So any work that is ruled to be obscene can be held liable, current obscenity laws. Defining what is obscene, how a tricky business. Simply put. material is defid obscene if average adult citizensM whole work, not just parts of it, pal offensive and if the work isjud|( lack any serious literary, artistic,f cal or scientif ic value. The worh obscene if it appeals to the pruriet terest — that is, a morbid interests dity, sex or excretion —and if,in; tion, it goes substantially bet customary limits of candor in desen or representing these matters. just because a person findsn personally distasteful does non that work is obscene, and does no tify censoring or suppressing than But try to explain that to the Li Foundation. Personally I believe the membet Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Natio be the lowest, most despicable fort life. B ut I know that I cannot of their rights to f ree speech and fret of assembly. Nor would 1 try—as as they stay within the boundaries law. Child pornography is illegal- should be — because it involves No sane person is opposed tocrad down on child abusers. But whet laws concern the sexual activitiesol senting adults, that’s another nit That’s a matter of our most pet f undamental rights — rights weo; allow the government to deny us. Just like sexual promiscuity a teen-agers, the problem of porno phy is not going to stamped out soli] appeals to “traditional values.”Jus sexual promiscuity, the solutionis cation. But more on that issue next weej Michelle Powe is a senior joint major and editor /or The Battalion The Ed Meese color-blindness test- If jou emit see the matt on the i|3ht,joa j The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest lournalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Michelle Powe,Editor Kay Mallett, Managing Editor Loren Steffy, Opinion Page Editor Scott Sutherland, City Editor Ken Sury, Sports Editor The Battalion Staff Assistant City Editor Mona Assistant News Editor Sue Krd Photo Editor. Anthony S. Gasp Staff Artist Mindy Cas| Editorial Policy The Battalion is n non-profit. self-siippoilinffiP'- 1 per operated ns a community service to Texas .M.'!' 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