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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 2, 1987)
»/1 • iwi iOiciiy, i v ViSrun J y fci / The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Loren Steffy, Editor M ary bet h Rohsner, Managing Editor Mike Sullivan, Opinion Page Editor Jens Koepke, City Editor Jeanne Isenberg, Sue Krenek, News Editors Homer Jacobs, Sports Editor Tom Ownbey, Photo Editor Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper oper ated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Sta tion. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial board or the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Depart ment of Journalism. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday and examination periods. Mail subscriptions are $17.44 per semester, $34.62 per school year and $36.44 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on re quest. Our address: The Battalion, Department of Journalism, Texas A&M University, College Station, IX 77843-4 111. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battalion, De partment of Journalism, Texas A&M University, College Station TX 77843-4111. Pageant misses point At a time when cuts in education spending are threatening schol arship programs, financial aid, minority recruitment and faculty, and when staff salaries, and tuition and service fees are increasing, the prudence of using about $12,000 in student service fees to fill the Miss Texas A&M beauty pageant budget deficit left over from 1986 is questionable. Bonne Bejarano, executive director of the pageant, said the $12,000 shortfall from 1986, resulting from inadequate fund-rais ing, was absorbed by the Memorial Student Center and the MSC Hospitality Committee, whose budgets are subsidized by student service fees. In essence, $12,000, which included prizes and clothes for the fi nal contestants, was given to the pageant, compliments of the stu dents. While A&M’s beauty pageant may be a good time and — after eight years — may also be considered an Aggie tradition, it’s not worth taking $12,000 from students to pay for it. If the people want the pageant, the people will pay for it. But if money earned from ticket sales, concessions, $3 programs and dona tions isn’t enough to cover costs, the obvious message is that the pag eant isn’t something most students care to finance — at least not dur ing hard economic times. Bejarano said the financial problems of the 1986 pageant were created largely by people who pledged donations but didn’t follow through. That doesn’t justify digging into students’ pockets — that’s cause for canceling the pageant. If A&M continues to take money from financially strapped stu dents for things most enjoyed by the general public, it will have a tough time justifying any service fee increases when the need really arises. Right to life overrules the right to privacy Vanity Fair magazine recently ran a two-page spread of pictures of people, mostly New Yorkers, who have died of AIDS. They in clude some fa mous persons, and in impact the two- page spread was a bit like the one Life magazine published years ago of men killed in Vietnam. We are engaged in another war. And like Vietnam, this war is highly politicized. Since AIDS first appeared in the United States, the disease has been linked to homosexuality. For that rea son, it was almost immediately seized upon by some as evidence of God’s wrath. A timid and irresponsible federal government, politically beholden to ho mosexual haters, followed suit. Its initial funding of AIDS research was nig gardly. But now the politics are coming from the other direction. For understandable reasons, some homosexual groups and their allies in the civil-liberties commu nity continue to see AIDS the way the federal government and its know-noth ing allies once did — as mainly a homo sexual problem. As a result, they are in the forefront of those who oppose even limited mandatory blood testing and who insist that the results of even volun tary testing be kept either anonymous or confidential. The results can be downright chilling. Persons who are known to have either the AIDS antibody (meaning that they have a good chance of eventually get ting the disease), or who have AIDS it self can keep this information to them selves. Physicians, hospitals and clinics not only keep the information to them selves but, for the most part, are forbid den from alerting others. Thus, there are situations where a husband who has been told he has either AIDS or is in fected by the virus does not tell his wife. And neither does anyone else. For instance, a husband, secretly bi sexual, was tested for AIDS and told that he has the antibody. Neither the clinic that performed the test nor the man’s own physician could inform the man’s wife. She does not know she is in danger, nor would she know — in the event the marriage dissolved or she was having extra-marital affairs — that she could be spreading the disease to others. Moreover, she would have no reason to suspect that, should she get pregnant, she could infect her children. There are serious and complicated civil-liberties and public-health concerns involved here. Homosexual groups and their advocates argue that unless testing is kept strictly confidential, persons who suspect they have AIDS will not submit to testing. They ask whether a secret bi sexual or a man who visits prostitutes would volunteer for testing knowing that his wife would be given the results. Disclosure that a person has AIDS is still tantamount to evidence of homo sexuality. That could have severe reper cussions — loss of a job, loss of housing and even loss of child custody. Besides, your sexual preference is no one’s busi ness. We are talking here of the most personal of acts. But AIDS is no longer only a homo sexual concern. It has appeared in the heterosexual community as well and, while the caseload is still small, there is reason to believe that it will grow geo metrically in the coming years. (In Af rica, AIDS mostly afflicts heterosex uals.) We are all at peril. The understandable concerns of homosex uals and the anxiety of civil libertarians over invasion of privacy have to be weighed against what experts say is the danger: an AIDS epidemic that could claim 179,000 lives by 1991. Mandatory testing conducted rou tinely among persons admitted to hospi tals or clinics dealing with sexually transmitted disease (or as a marriage re quirement) may run the risk of driving AIDS-infected people underground. But those people at least have reason to know they might have the disease. Many others — for instance, the wife of the bi sexual man — are blissfully ignorant of the peril they are in. The wife of the se cret bisexual has a right to know her sit uation and so do the people with whom she may have sexual contact. Ignorance may be bliss, but when it comes to AIDS it can be lethal. Government and the health-services industry have an obligation to Find as many AIDS-infected people as they pos sibly can and then, as sensitively as pos sible, take steps to ensure that the dis ease is not spread. Personal privacy is not a trifling matter. Neither are the concerns of the homosexual commu nity. But we all have our civil rights, and foremost among them is to life. Copyright 1986, Washington Post Writers Group Plchard Cohen Th Valle) Bui they z sprou and T In food i Bryan the toi Un offer! about Chine Mano Tht Before SMU gets it’s going to get better, worse rants i Kong Egg R Sjso Kong years, busine took t House year a and h; ageme In opene the I and t Then, the N Who would have thought the NCAA would ac tually do it? Not Southern Method ist University — it was expecting cancellation of two or three non-con ference football games and some sort of probation from the NCAA year, 13 football players were paid ap proximately $47,000 dollars, and eight student-athletes continued to receive payments totaling $14,000 from Sep tember to December 1986. Something as drastic as the death penalty was nec essary to correct the repeated recruiting violations occurring there. Paula Vogrin Committee on Infractions. Instead, SMU received the harshest punishment in the history of college football — the “death penalty.” The sanctions imposed by the NCAA will alter SMU’s football program for perhaps the next decade. To begin with, there is no 1987 football season for SMU — period. In 1988, the Mustangs are allowed to play only seven games, none at home and none against another Southwest Conference team. None of these games may be televised, and SMU cannot make any post-season appear ances (as if there could be any post-sea son appearances for the Mustangs in 1988). Until Aug. 1, 1989, the coaching staff is limited to one head coach and five full-time assistant coaches. No foot ball scholarships can be awarded in the academic year 1987-88, and no more than 15 football scholarships can be awarded in 1988-89. Compare these numbers with the 52 scholarship players at SMU last season. Finally, until Aug 1, 1988, no off-campus recruiting is al lowed. But the sanctions affect more than just the football team. Many people will be unemployed as a result — members of the Mustang coaching staff, some members of the athletic department and stadium personnel. Other sports at SMU also will be af fected. The football program generates about two-thirds of the school’s $6 mil lion dollar athletic budget. Football rev enue supports SMU’s nationally promi nent track and Field, swimming, tennis and golf teams. Without funds from football revenue, these teams surely will suffer. What about the innocent Mustang football players — those who didn’t ac cept any signing bonuses, “party” cash, rent-free apartments or “good-game” payments from boosters? They have a right to be more than a little bitter. Be cause of actions by some of their team mates and various boosters, the inno cent players will have to leave SMU if they want to continue playing football. This encompasses finding a school that will offer them scholarships, moving to that school and becoming accustomed to new coaches, teammates, professors and social surroundings. Is this fair to those players? The NCAA was not overly severe in its treatment of SMU. The school has been on probation six times in the past 12 years for recruiting violations and, even while on probation, continued the activities which got the school there in the first place. While SMU was on pro bation during the 1985-86 academic SMU will have a difficult time re building its football program. What player wants to play for a school whose team is sure to be a loser for Several sea sons? And playing for a losing team isn’t the only drawback involved for poten tial players. Since only 15 scholarships will be available in 1988, many walk-ons will not l>e able to afford the highcostd attending SMU, which has one of(k highest tuitions in the Southwest Cot> ference. The university itself will suffer. Ha ing its name dragged through the mu: with its football program has tarnishe: SMU’s reputation. Potential facultyim be turned away by the “anything fori good football team” attitude held hi boosters and some staff at the univei sity. The fact that so much attention! focused on athletics instead of acadeit ics may repel many faculty considem teaching positions there. Some potential students will decidf against attending SMU because of tk absence of a football team. Although tk presence of football shouldn’t have am thing to do with obtaining a degree,dif hard fans will opt for a university will an active team so they have somethin! to do on Saturday afternoons instead' study. Finally, what will the boosters do will I the thousands of dollars they “donatt to certain members of the football teat each year? Maybe they’ll try recruiting acadeim “bluechips.” High school seniors will scores of 1300 or above on the SAT»ii be flown into Dallas from all overik country. Boosters will treat them toes pensive dinners at exclusive restauraffi like the Mansion and Ratcliffe’s. Thevi offer these academic stars “signingbe- nuses” like new IBM PCs with even piece of software available on the raai- ket. Are scenes like this part of SMI future? Probably not. But what better time than now forth SMU boosters to direct their donation! to the academic aspects of higher eduo tion instead of the athletic ones? opene Orien in Col Jiang when Wh< in 198, more t many i tauran delivei A&M ( Aso to ope Gardei in Dec ingS4 mile ra lunch < Paula Vogrin is a senior journalist major and a columnist for The B Mail Call Think again EDITOR: Nuclear nohow EDITOR: In response to Paul Svacina’s letter, I agree with him. Blacks are just as — or even more — prejudiced as other people, but the prejudice that blacks have does not deny others of their equal rights. The problem arises when one acts on his prejudices. The quotas that Svacina dislikes were set so minorities would get the same chances as the majority. Without these quotas, qualified minorities would never be considered. Sometimes unqualified minorities slip through the system, but most of the time these minorities are the “cream of the crop.” Someday, somewhere on this earth, a nuclear bomb will detonate, taking human lives. Whether it will happen by accident or on purpose, I don’t know. If we are lucky, only one will explode. If we’re not so lucky, multiple strikes will destroy major cities and produce catastrophic aftereffects. Svacina was wrong when he said “ambition and perspiration is what made America come so far.” It also took opening closed, biased, discriminatory minds. The struggle for even a greater change still continues today. It’s not that minorities are being given an unfair advantage; they are only being given a fair chance. My parents taught me to work for what I wanted because nothing in life comes free. How do I know this will happen? Because even if by some miracle all present warheads were deactivated and disassembled, the knowledge of their existence and production will remain. The world cannot simply forget the battering ram, the catapult, the bow and arrow, the gun, or the nuclear missle. Someday, somewhere, a country or the stereotypical mad scientist would recreate a bomb and threaten to use it against others. I’m sure when Svacina’s parents came to America with $50, mine were here riding in the back of the bus and drinking from a “black” water fountain. Cynthia Green ’88 The knowledge and technology are with us forever, unless, of course, the human race blows itself into extinction. I would like to see some discussion on what can be done to cope with this reality. David Christenson ’85 Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff rt- serves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effort It maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and must include the clas sification, address and telephone number of the writer.