Page 2/The Battalion/Thursday, September 3, 1987
Opinion
The Battalion
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Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Sondra Pickard, Editor
John Jarvis, Managing Editor
Sue Krenek, Opinion Page Editor
Rodney Rather, City Editor
Robbyn Lister, News Editor
Loyd Brumfield, Sports Editor
Tracy Staton, Photo Editor
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“ \&M and B ‘ ‘
Jryan-College Sta-
ated as a community service to Texas A&M
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A healthy solution
Texas A&M is to be congratulated for belatedly restoring
emergency after-hours medical service at the A.P. Beutel Health
Center. But recognition that illness knows no business hours
should have come months ago.
The center quit providing the after-hours service in May
1986 because of problems getting on-call physicians to come to
the center at night. A University contract now stipulates that a
physician and nurse be available for emergency outpatient care,
ensuring that A&M students who become ill at night or on
weekends can receive treatment on campus.
Health center director Claude Goswick said the 24-hour
service will be evaluated this semester to see if its benefits
outweigh its costs to the University. But while the cost of the
service is high — about $300,000 per semester — discontinuing
it again would be a mistake.
A&M students pay student service fees that fund the health
center. They deserve quality treatment — no matter what time
they need it — in return.
Legal lifesaver
It may infringe on freedom of choice, and it doesn’t do
much for personal comfort while traveling, but the Texas
mandatory seat belt law has proven to be an effective lifesaver.
In the two years since the Legislature made it illegal to drive
in Texas without a seat belt, officials estimate that more than
250 lives were spared. Department of Public Safety figures show
157 fewer deaths during the law’s first year alone.
Whether tbey’fe doing it to save livfes or to avoid penalties,
most motorists are taking the law seriously: Figures compiled by
the Texas Transportion Institute show about 60 percent of
Texas drivers are buckling up.
Beltless motorists stopped by police can be stiffly penalized,
but the $25 to $50 fines serve as reasonable reminders. Bruised
collarbones or chests are preferable to lost lives.
The last two years are ample proof that the seat belt law is
legitimate. A simple tug and a quick snap could save you as little
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U S. Nav
Prisoners’ rights taking place
of justice for all in Texas Set
I’ve finally
determined a
reasonable
synonym for the
Texas prison
system. I want to
rename it a
travesty because it
The Texas
prison system is
one of the most
blatant examples
DA
Jensen
of injustice in pur just country. Justice,
in the legal sense, has come to mean
justice for the criminal and not for the
victim, the public, or those charged with
upholding order in the prison system.
The problems facing the system are
immense: overcrowding, disease and
brutality. But the real question comes
down to exactly who suffers because of
the problems. The problems make the
inmates suffer, but their solutions make
the public suffer. The public suffers
because inmate rights must be upheld at
all costs, even at the cost of the public’s
rights.
Texas prisons are overcrowded.
There just isn’t enough room for every
criminal in the system. The solution to
overcrowding has been twofold.
First, close the prison doors. Simply
do not allow the admission of new
inmates. It doesn’t matter that there is
no place else to put them.
Overcrowding makes living conditions
in prison inhumane.
I know law-abiding citizens in Brazos
County who live in overcrowded,
broken-down houses. Some are living
with three families in a two-room house.
Who is watching out for humanity here?
The second solution to overcrowding
is to release inmates who are eligible for
parole earlier than their original parole
date. The penalty for breaking the law is
reduced. The pain to the crime victim is
never reduced. The pain to society is
never reduced. But this is justice.
There is no sex in prison. That is the
Time has come for U.S. ‘Literacy Corps’
An idea has
been presented to
Congress that is
worth trying in the
battle against
illiteracy: to create
a Literacy Corps
that will enable
Warren E.
Burger
and
Edward M.
Kennedy
Guest Columnists
every year on education, but only a
pittance is targeted at illiteracy. In fact,
total spending on illiteracy in the United
States reaches only about 4 percent of
whose who need help.
disabled, adult continuing education
programs, jails or other facilities where
supervised classroom settings are
available.
Kennedy urged them to “Ask not what
your country can do for you — ask what
you can do for your country.”
college students to volunteer for a few
hours a week as assistant teachers for
students in nearby public schools or
other institutions in return for college
credit.
We pride ourselves on being an
“advanced nation,” but illiteracy in
America is at a level no nation should
tolerate. Vast numbers of Americans
lack the basic reading skills to function
in society. According to one estimate, 23
million citizens over the age of 18
cannot read the poison warning on a
can of pesticide or a package of
cigarettes, the headline of a daily
newspaper or a letter from their child’s
teacher.
An additional 35 million are semi
literate, reading so poorly that they
barely function at a survival level. That
makes 58 million adults, roughly a third
of the nation’s population over 18,
whom our system of education failed in
their adolescent years.and who are
functionally illiterate today.
The result is a massive problem of
illiteracy that costs the nation heavily in
welfare and umemployment, industrial
accidents and lost productivity.
Illiteracy is also a threat to our
constitutional system: How can a
functional illiterate really understand
that system or defend it effectively?
A recent study complained that
America has slipped behind Japan in
the quality of education, but the truth is,
we have slipped behind 47 other
countries, too. America ranks 49th in
literacy among the 159 countries of the
world.
The National Advisory Council on
Adult Education estimates that we
would need to spend five billion dollars
— fifty times more than is allocated
today — to have a significant impact on
the problem through costly traditional
programs.
New spending of that magnitude is
out of the question because of the
federal deficit. The challenge is to
persuade America to do more without
spending more. That is a tall order, but
it is not impossible — which is where a
Literacy Corps would come in.
Pilot projects at the University of
Miami and St. John’s University in New
York City, relying so far on corporate
donations, have made a start that
provides a pattern. The results of these
modest efforts are so compelling that
the time has come for a national effort.
Legislation pending in Congress
seeks $27 million over the next two
years to launch Literacy Corps projects
at approximately a thousand colleges
and universities across the country. The
bill will provide start-up grants of about
$25,000 per college to cover the initial
administrative costs of campus
programs.
In a typical ten-week semester, each
college student in the program would
provide 60 hours of tutoring. If a
thousand colleges participated, 100,000
or more students might join the Literacy
Corps, and a very large amount of
tutoring could be generated over the
next two years.
In addition to tackling the problem of
illiteracy, a Literacy Corps has another
benefit — harnessing the idealism and
volunteerism and commitment of young
Americans. So far, initiatives in this area
have been stymied by the high price of
conventional proposals such as a
National Service Corps or ROTC-type
scholarships or loan-forgiveness
programs for students willing to commit
themselves to a period of post-graduate
public service.
We believe a Literacy Corps has all
the potential for today that President
Kennedy’s Peace Corps had in the
1960s. Young Americans in this
generation are ready, willing and eager
to respond to the challenge of public
service as their parents were a
generation ago, when President
If colleges and universities across the
country respond by accepting the
Literacy Corps as part of their
educational process, students will have
the opportunity to participate by many
thousands and America may at last
begin to deal in more effective and
affordable ways with the shameful and
festering problem of illiteracy in our
midst.
One final point — the Literacy Corps
is not a new idea. It is based on a model
conceived in 1969 by an unusually
creative private citizen, Norman Manasa
of Washington, D.C., who has been
knocking on many doors for the better
part of a decade seeking support for the
concept.
And the Literacy Corps is an idea
whose time is overdue.
Warren E. Burger was Chief Justice of
the United States from 1969 to 1986; he
is currently chairman of the Commis
sion on the United States Constitution.
Edward M. Kennedy is the senior Dem
ocratic senator from Massachusetts.
rule. Sex is not allowed, but it docs-i
place. This has led to one of themo!
recent problems of the state prisoE
AIDS is being spread between innW
engaging in illicit sex.
The solution to prevent thespre^
AIDS seems reasonable. The New!
prison system decided to distribute
condoms among its inmates. It
encourages their use. 1 wouldn't be
suprised if Texas adopted similar
policy. It is reasonable to protecttbt
inmates from a disease they should:
have exposure to in the first place.
Bv providing protection from All
the system is taking away a powerft
deterrent for breaking the no-sexni
It is unfortunate that this is theonlv
to also protect the public from a
probable epidemic of the disease.
There is a lot of controversy abot
AIDS testing in prison. It is, somes:
violation of the prisoner’s right to
privacy. It is also the only way to pro!
those working in the prison andtho?
incarcerated in the prison frompte
infection.
The current policy in Texas allov
inmates who are known AIDScanio
to be identified as carrying an infect
disease. The prison staff is nottolde
inmate is carrying the AIDS virus.
Recently an inmate threw urineo:
guard in an attempt to infect the gut
with the virus. The guard was una^
the inmate was carrying AIDS until
after the incident. The guard wasne
allowed the freedom to decide ifhe
wanted to expose himself to the risk’
associated with dealing with anA!D v
carrying inmate because the inmate
privacy was being protected. Thisis,
justice.
Honest justice will occur whenpE
guards are provided with the
information necessary to enable th^
do their job effectively while atthes^
time protecting themselves from
possible infection with a deadly dis^ 1
Honest justice will occur whenthf
victim’s rights are respected just as
much as the criminal’s rights.
It will occur when law-abiding
are as well-cared-for as state prison
inmates.
The criminal rapes the public.’flu
public’s sense of justice rapes thep^
a second time.
It is time for the type of reform^
makes the prisoner a contributor to
society labor while he is incarcerated
D.A. Jensen is a senior journalisin''
jor and a columnist for The Battalia
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BLOOM COUNTY
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Participating college students would
sign up for electives offered by their
colleges and taught by their professors
in semester-long courses comparable to
those in “clinical legal education” at
many law schools, although the focus of
the Literacy Corps would be very
different. As part of the course, college
students would be given instruction on
how to tutor in reading.
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So far, we have not addressed the
problem very effectively. The federal
government spends billions of dollars
In addition to teaching in local
elementary and high schools, Literacy
Corps participants could also tutor in
Head Start centers, institutions for the
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