The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 71, No. 93, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 31, 1988 Page: 2 of 6
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Commentary
The North Te^as Daily
Page 2
Thursday, March 31,1988
Editorials
To Sir, with love?
SMU bans dating games
Sexual harassment is one of the major reasons that
Southern Methodist University has been reviewing its
policy about consenting sexual relationships between its
faculty and students.
SMU’s revised sexual harassment policy states that
consenting sexual relationships between its faculty and
students are prohibited.
The reasoning behind this provision is admirable, but
it could have been approached in a better way.
In an interview with The Daily this week, Everett
Winters, director of affirmative action at SMU, said,
“We want to maintain a professional relationship between
the faculty and students. We want social intercourse to
take place at SMU, and we want the students to feel as
though they can approach faculty members as friends.”
SMU has a good point here, and at NT, the faculty/
student relationships seem to work that way.
But people have the right to make their own decisions
about whom to date. The university’s responsibility is to
educate students, not to direct their (or faculty members')
social lives.
Winters said another reason for the revision of the
policy was education. SMU does not want a consenting
relationship between a faculty member and a student to
affect the grades of the student involved, or of other
students in the class.
“A professor is placing himself in a power position,"
Winters said. "Students involved may expect higher
grades.”
People who are outside of a faculty-student relationship
in a class may be more concerned about their grades
than those involved in the relationship.
“They feel their grades may suffer due to a relationship
between their professor and a student in the class,”
Winters said. “(Other) students may believe that the
student involved will get the best grades.”
But grading procedures that ensure fairness and ac-
countability can help safeguard against misuse by unethical
teachers, and anyone using grades to influence relation-
ships will eventually be caught.
Universities should not interfere with faculty-student
relationships. We’re supposedly all adults here, and
schools do not have the right to mandate personal
behavior.
Academy lures sponsors
Clements rallies aid
Gov. Bill Clements is known for his lack of support
to the state’s education system. But, at long last, he
seems to be seeing the light.
During his first and current terms in office, Clements
was not willing to raise teachers' salaries as high as the
legislators were. He has fought to keep them low.
Now he is finally starting to recognize the importance
of education and the necessity of funding it.
Clements was in Dallas Monday to kick off the
scholarship fund-raising campaign for the Texas Academy
of Mathematics and Science, which will open this fall
at NT.
But his support of the academy, which will allow
outstanding students to complete their last two years of
high school and first two years of college concurrently,
should have come earlier — while it was still a bill in
the Legislature.
The Legislature established the academy, but then
neglected to provide adequate money to run it. NT should
not have to find $200,000 to cover operating costs, ft’s
Civil rights triumph
already supplying facilities, faculty and staff. NT has
enough difficulty getting money from non-state sources
for other uses.
Clements does not seem to recognize that programs
like the academy will increase the quality of education.
However, despite the fact that he did not work harder
for funds to operate it, he should at least be congratulated
for encouraging Texas business leaders to donate money.
Education makes or breaks a community — the better
the education level, the better the quality of the work
force available to employers.
Several corporations have already recognized the
benefits of establishing such an academy in Texas —
especially to them — and have made donations to support
it.
They arc investing in their futures and in Texas' future.
One of the main factors a company considers when
relocating is the quality of workers in the area.
If the Legislation won't provide the money we need,
we can at least be thankful that businesses arc willing to
help out. And at least the governor is putting a hand in
Congress nixes veto
By overriding President Reagan's veto of a civil rights
bill last week. Congress deserves commendation for
proving its dedication and commitment to upholding a
national policy that demands equality for all.
Having first passed the House and Senate by wide
margins earlier this year, the bill reverses a ruling made
in 1984 by the Supreme Court. The previous ruling stated
the federal government could not keep money from an
entire institution because one of its federally-aided
departments had participated in sex discrimination.
In a last-ditch effort in favor of his veto, which was
ultimately overridden in the Senate by a vote of 73-24
and in the House with a 292-133 vote, Reagan personally
led a drive at the Capitol. He described the bill to House
Republicans as a “massive federal power grab under
the guise of civil rights.”
According to a recent Knight-Ridder wire story. Reagan
offered “alternative legislation" that would, in most
cases, allow the remaining components of an institution
involved in discriminatory practices to continue receiving
federal contracts and grants.
But critics of the “alternative legislation" reportedly
claimed it would “retain the same loopholes opened
by the high court’s decision.” In response to the criticism,
the Rev. Jerry Falwell began a nationwide campaign
involving 'jammed phone lines and swamped mail
deliveries” to congressmen, urging them to uphold
Reagan's veto.
Although several senators who supported the bill blasted
Falwell’s “scare tactics,” he maintained that the bill
would force religious schools and churches “to employ
a certain number of homosexuals, alcoholics, transvestites
and drag addicts."
However, Falwell’s campaign effort was labeled as
"a campaign effort of disinformation and distortion”
by Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, R-Minn. Rep. Tony Coelho,
D-Calif., said the bill did not require any employer,
church or otherwise to hire "homosexuals, drag addicts,
alcoholics or AIDS patients.”
Hats ofl to the members of Congress who stood their
ground on the issue of equality for all. After all, it’s
everyone's ground.
Rainy day precipitates woeful
hopes for added support of homeless
Tuesday morning I woke up to what
used to be one of my favorite sounds
— the patter of rain on the roof. When
I tentatively stuck a toe out from under
the covers, I discovered that it was not
only raining, it was cold.
My mom often keeps the patio door
open in the mornings, and my room is
close enough to the patio that I felt a
distinctly brisk breeze wafting through
the house. I withdrew my toe into the
warm cocoon of the blankets, snuggled
deeper into my pillow, and sighed con-
tentedly.
Then 1 remembered that movie 1
watched last week, and suddenly I
wasn’t quite so content. Suddenly the
fact that I have a warm, dry place to
sleep every night made me feel sad —
and terribly helpless — instead of com-
placent. Suddenly rain wasn't such a
pleasant sound.
The movie, an ABC production called
"God Bless the Child," dealt with
the plight of a young mother and her
7-year-old daughter who, through a
variety of nasty circumstances, end up
living on the streets.
The setting was an "anonymous
Northeast city,” but the story was
fact-based. It coule have been New
York, Dallas ... or Denton. Tuesday I
talked with the Rev. John Raspberry,
a Denton minister who works with the
homeless. He said he would estimate
that the number of people in Denton
without permanent roofs over their heads
is “somewhere in the low hundreds
. we don’t have as many as in Fort
Worth or Dallas, but we certainly have
them.”
Raspberry said many of the homeless
in Denton were evicted or lost their
homes as a result of mortgage fore-
closures, which isn’t surprising con-
sidering the state of the Texas economy.
He also said that as far as he knows,
Denton has only one shelter that accepts
homeless people — the Living Waters
Gospel Mission on N. Wood Street
He said the homeless who can’t find
other shelter often live in their cars. I
once slept in my car on a camping trip;
it was either that or face a rainy night
in a decidedly leaky tent.
It wasn't a pleasant experience and I
certainly don't recommend it, but I only
had to put up with it for one night. My
heart breaks to think of children who
can remember no home other than the
back seat of a station wagon
Joy
Dickinson
And Denton is just the tip of a large,
dangerous iceberg. Several published
sources have said there arc between
10,000 and 20,(XX) homeless people in
Dallas. About 3,000 people in Fort
Worth will go to bed tonight in public
shelters or on cold concrete streets.
Multiply those figures by the number
of fairly large cities in this country, and
the numbers silently proclaim the ob-
vious: Maybe our government should
stop worrying so much about the welfare
of citizens of other countries and take
better care of our own people
It makes me a little sick inside when
I hear President Reagan ranting and
raving about the necessity of "human-
itarian aid" for the contra rebels in
Nicaragua. What about humanitarian aid
to the homeless who sleep in the park
across the street from the White House.
Ronnie?
We can only hope that our next presi-
dent — Jesse, are you listening? — will
undo some of Reagan's mistakes with
regard to social welfare programs. OK,
OK, I realize it could well be Michael
or (God help us) George, but 1 can
dream, can’t 1?
I know some people will say my
attitude about social programs is sim-
plistic and that there are “mitigating
factors" to be considered. Bui I really
don’t give a hoot; it seems perfectly
fundamental and logical to me that our
government should place the welfare of
our people far above and beyond any
other concerns
On the other hand, it’s not fair to
put full blame on the government and
excuse "the rest of us." One of the
outstanding qualities of “God Bless the
Children" was that it graphically illus-
trated “man's inhumanity to man ”
That inhumanity came in small, barely
noticeable portions — but all those
portions added up resulted in two more
people on the street.
The mother in the movie earned a
living by cleaning houses. In one scene,
she asked a woman for whom she had
once worked (who had a large, mostly
empty house) if she and her (laughter
could stay there "just for a couple of
weeks, until we can get a place." This
was after she found out that their apart-
ment building was being demolished.
She had no extra money for a new
security deposit.
The woman said she and her husband
were just beginning to enjoy their retire-
ment, and “we really want the place
to ourselves. You understand.” She
sent mother and child away after giving
the little girl a bag of ccxikies “to take
home with you." One thing led to
another, the mother lost her job, mother
and child went from shelter to shelter
and eventually slept outdoors.
How many times have we all said
“no” to someone who needed help
when a “yes” wouldn’t have really
cost us anything? And do we really stop
to consider the possible consequences
of “no?”
The people in the movie didn't start
out as "them" — the nameless, face-
less lumps of clothing we associate with
street people. They started out as part
of “us,” and bitter circumstances
intervened. .
It’s true that many street people are
alcoholics, mental patients or recently-
released criminals. It’s also true that
many of them have college degrees and
once served on their local PTAs. But
none of those things — good or bad
— detract from the basic fact: They are
human beings, and they deserve better.
The movie ended with the little girl
being taken away by social workers as
the crying mother watched from behind
a tree. The social workers had told the
mother that they couldn't put the child
in foster care unless she was “aban-
doned.”
The child thought her mother had
truly abandoned her, and the mother
was still on the street. And that was
the happiest ending they could come
up with ... because this wasn’t just a
movie, this was real life. It happens
all the time.
I can't come up with a happy ending
either, and I don't know all the answers
to the problem But I’m going to write
some letters to my congressmen, and
one weekend soon you may find me at
some downtown Dallas shelter ladling
soup.
And cold, rainy days will never hold
quite the same cozy appeal they once
did. Pulling the covers over my head
won’t make it go away.
Spring brings periwinkle memories of childhood
I pass by a periwinkle plant on my way to
the General Academic Building every morning,
and it reminds me of when I was about 4 years
old.
We had periwinkle plants in our yard then,
around a huge tree that I think was a fruitless
mulberry. That was in the front yard, because
the back yard was a gauntlet of ant beds and
sticker burrs
In case you don’t know what a periwinkle
is, it grows on a thing that looks like a vine,
kind of. but isn't really. The flowers are cupped
at the bottom as if they had started out being
bluebells but decided at the last minute to flare
out into five bluish-colored petals
Periwinkle isn't exactly blue. The only thing
it exactly is is periwinkle. Crayola makes a
crayon called "periwinkle,” and that makes
it a legitimate color.
I loved the flowers, and not unlike many
children, I showed this by picking them as soon
as they had ascertained that they were not going
to become bluebells.
True to my mother’s word, the periwinkles
disappeared for a while, but like friends who
had forgiven me, they returned
Our house was white with red trim, and the
back door, which opened onto the carport, was
used more than the front door.
My little brother was bom when we lived in
this house. "Mommy and Daddy" was a
Stephanie
McCollum
common phrase then. Now, my parents are
divorced and remarried. I actually think it is
better this way. but the phrase "Mommy and
Daddy" has a nostalgic ring in my ears.
It’s funny what little kids will remember. I
remember some things about that time that my
mother, with her 21-year advantage, does not.
Of course, I remember far less than she does.
One of my most vivid memories, and one
that probably had a large irqpact on my life, is
me asking my father what he wanted me to be
when I grew up He said I should be whatever
I wanted to be.
When you're 4 or 5, that’s a pretty heavy
answer. It left all sorts of bewildering possi-
bilities. And he didn't help the situation when
he explained that I could be whatever I wanted
to be, yes, even president, and that it didn’t
matter if I was girl. Girls, he said, can do
anything boys can do.
While it left me in a quandary then, it helped
in the long ran I realized later that my being
ambitious and not letting "sexual discrimina-
tion” (it is still mostly an abstract concept to
me) get in the way was due in part to this
comment and the fact that my parents have
backed it up.
I never realized there were prejudices against
women until it was too late for me to change.
By the time someone said, “Hey, you can’t
do that — you’re a girl,” I thought they were
joking.
Another vivid memory is of the aforemen-
tioned fruitless mulberry. One autumn morning
I woke up to mother's insistence that I come
look at the tree. Over the night, she told me,
the leaves had wound up in a nice little pile
circling the trunk of the tree. I wonder now if
Mom wasn't playing with my young mind, and
knew full well that she had raked the leaves or
hired some neighborhood kid to do it.
However, I would like to believe now, as I
did then, that something magical happened, even
if I can now explain the “magic" with a mass
falling of leaves on a windless night.
The front yard also served as a great place
to hide Easter eggs. One year, this diligent little
egg-hunter forgot one. ’Long about April, a
friend from down the street found the egg —
probably with his nose. It wasn’t one of the
plastic ones with M&Ms inside.
I learned to read and write in this house.
Mom was a first-grade teacher, and I wanted
to be like her. An easy job description for a
small person to understand is that Mommy
"teaches kids to read.”
It never really sank in that these children
were older than I, but I did realize that if 1
was going to teach them to read. I’d have to
learn how first.
Sesame Street and the Electric Company were
popular in our house. I'd watch them in the
morning and come back when the big hand
was on the three and the little hand was on the
12 — to see the same episodes I had watched
that morning.
Writing letters to my grandmother was also
an enjoyable pasttime. Mom would sew at the
little table her portable machine nested in, and
1 would sit close by on the floor, asking her
the spellings of words 1 did not know. I didn’t
get the answers for free: she always had me
sound out the words and try to spell them myself
before she gave me the answers.
Of course, I must have been as trying as
any of her students: I could not for the life of
me understand why, if “I" was spelled “I,”
"you” was not spelled “U.” It didn't make
sense, and that's all my mother could tell me
Sometimes I got frustrated with learning to
print, and temporarily graduated to “cursive,”
which when 1 was 4, meant I would make loops
and dots and crosses that I thought looked like
my mother's writing. My grandmother swore
she read every word.
I practiced writing my letters at night, after
my baby dolls had gone to sleep, with the little
Bible my church had given me. 1 wrote the
names of the books, because there were only a
few of them and they were written in larger
type, giving me at least a prayer of being able
to finish the book.
1 finished that book, and many more since
then.
And the periwinkles still come back every
spring
The North Texas
Daily
71st Year Denton, Texas
North Texas State University
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The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 71, No. 93, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 31, 1988, newspaper, March 31, 1988; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth723536/m1/2/: accessed May 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.