Tuesday
Editor in chief: Jack Clifford
Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu
EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com
CAPTAIN
PAT PAYNE
Two weeks ago in Mississippi, the population of
the state decided not to join the 20th century. By
a nearly 2-to-l margin, voters chose to retain a
state flag they have flown since 1894, which in
corporated in a prominent spot the old “Stars and Bars”
— the blue St. Andrew’s Cross on a red field that was
the military banner for the Confederate States of Ameri
ca. Debate raged about whether to change the banner,
with Southern-heritage groups vowing not to respect the
new flag if adopted. They claim that the “Stars and Bars”
is an integral symbol of the South and the paramount
symbol of Southern pride.
Let’s get real here, folks. There is little about the Con
federate battle flag to be proud of. The banner has a his
tory of secession, treason, assassination, murder and
race hatred. It was the South that seceded from the Unit
ed States in 1861 after finding it couldn’t get its wav on
slavery. It was the South, under the name of the Confed
erate States of America, that enshrined in its constitu
tion the “inalienable right” to own another human being
as property.
It was the Confederacy, under the “Stars and Bars,’
that launched the war by attacking Fort Sumter. It
was the Confederacy, its “Stars and Bars” flying,
that operated the Andersonville “concentra
tion camp,” where 30,000 Union
POWs were held in appalling
and deadly conditions that
ultimately killed half the
prison’s population. It
was the Confederacy,
under the “Stars and
Bars,” that em
ployed the murder
ous Quantrill’s
Raiders, a group of
mercenaries who at
tempted to eradicate the town of Lawrence, Kan., in 1862. It was
John Wilkes Booth, a former soldier for the Confederacy and a
Southern partisan, who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
After the war, the Ku Klux Klan, a group of former Confederate
troops, led by former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest,
murdered blacks, Catholics and immigrants trying to exercise
their franchise or even just live peacefully. The Klan flew — and
still flies — the “Stars and Bars.” During the civil rights battles
in the ’50s and ’60s, a number of Southern states either began
to fly the Confederate battle flag from prominent state
buildings or incorporate it into their state flags. It’s obvi
ous to anyone except die-hard fans of the Confederacy
why they did this at that particular time: It was to show
defiance to the civil rights movement, as if to say, “The
Confederacy is here — y’all go away.” Today, other
than by legitimate Civil War re-enactors (most of
whom, as a precondition to membership, demand that
their comrades have absolutely no pro-Klan or racist
views), the flag is flown mostly by groups espousing
race hatred, including the Klan, Nazi groups and the
former “Aryan nations.”
The fact is, flying the “Stars and Bars” and calling
it Southern pride is about the same as saying that
only the “hakenkreuz,” the swastika banner of
Nazi Germany, can properly depict German pride.
Or that the old Imperial Japanese Army banner (a
rising sun with rays) is a more representative ban
ner than the current hinomaru, a red disc on a
white field, for the new democratic Japan. Or per
haps that to show proper pride in their country, the
people of South Africa should display the pre-1993
Afrikaner, apartheid-era flag.
In all these cases, the governments represented
by the flags no longer exist. There is no longer a
Confederacy, just as there is no longer a Third
Reich, or a Japanese Empire or apartheid in
South Africa. To believe otherwise by flying the
flag of an extinct government is self-delusion.
If the people of the South want to show
pride in their region, more power to them.
They can drink mint juleps and Kentucky
Bourbon until their livers turn green and
their blood’s 100 proof. They can go ahead
and pretend they’re all Scarlett O’Haras
and Rhett Butlers. But put the “Stars and
Bars” away. That flag should be seen
as a complete embarrassment to
anyone from the South and an in
sult to the country in which
the Southerners now live.
Pat Payne is a columnist
for the Oregon Daily
Emerald. His views do
not necessarily repre
sent those of the Emer
ald. He can be reached
at across_SD@hotmail.
com.
Bryan Dixon Emerald
Public issues deserve public scrutiny
1 he hmerald editorial board
doesn’t ordinarily produce an edito
rial two days in a row. But Monday
afternoon’s announcement by Uni
versity Athletic Director Bill Moos
and Vice President for Administra
tion Dan Williams caught us off
guard and deserves an immediate
response.
Apparently, an “exit strategy”
was developed, allowing University
women’s basketball coach Jody
Runge to offer her resignation, re
ceive an undisclosed financial set
tlement and close the book on the
whole controversy surrounding her
job performance and the specter of
NCAA violations.
We would love to write a long,
thoughtful editorial examining the
reasons why Runge left, the relative
merits of the charges against her,
and the wisdom (or lack thereof) of
the final decision and the amount of
the settlement.
Unfortunately, we can’t. Neither
can any of the many interested peo
ple in the community who have
been following the issue closely —
thanks to the attention Runge
brought to the program during her
eight years at the University. At
Monday’s press conference, it was
made clear that the settlement’s dol
lar amount won’t be released. It’s a
private matter, Williams said. The
law firm’s report may or may not be
released, the two administration of
ficials said.
If it isn’t made public, no one will
ever know if the University actually
had legitimate reasons to push
Runge as far as it did. It’s a private
matter — that was Moos’ and
Williams’ repeated response to
questions about the settlement and
the report.
Basically, this is crap. Moos him
self made the whole issue public.
Thanks to the law firm’s investiga
tion, Runge was metaphorically
dragged through the mud in front of
the whole community, only without
the actual details that would allow
us all to come to an intelligent con
clusion. But now it’s private. Sure.
So at the end, is Runge’s name
cleared? We don’t know. What was
really going on in the program? We
don’t know. Did Runge violate
rules? We don’t know. How much
did the Athletic Department pay to
keep her from suing? We don’t
know. And, the way matters are set
now, neither will you.
And that’s not OK.
This is a public university. It was
a public issue, and Runge was a
public employee. The law firm’s re
port and the terms of the settlement
should be released. The community
— University students, faculty and
staff, as well as the surrounding Eu
gene area — deserves to know.
It’s only fair that the administra
tion and the Athletic Department
are placed under the microscope
now, just to make certain that they
were carrying out their job duties in
an appropriate manner.
This editorial represents the opinion of the
Emerald editorial board. Responses can be
sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu.
Letters to the editor
Let us read Horowitz’s ad
I can’t believe the commotion over the slavery reparations ad in
the April 17 Oregon Daily Emerald. The article only wanted to
contribute to a free exchange of ideas, and it did. Most replies to
the ad were quick to call David Horowitz racist. The article wasn’t
racist in nature, it just looked at logical, rational arguments against
monetary slavery reparations. Isn’t it conceivable that a non-racist
might have problems with reparations for reasons not based on
race?
But even more, I can’t believe that some individual or group re
moved all back copies of that day’s paper so that others couldn’t
read the ad. I looked in the EMU for extra copies, and they were
gone. Maybe they were taken by people interested in the ad. Ap
parently, at other campuses across the country where the ad was
published, people have removed the papers so students couldn't
read the ad. When people do this, they are blatantly stating:
“Our position is not strong enough to withstand arguments, even
misguided or erroneous ones, from the opposition.”
If they expect us to believe what they do, let us read the ad! How
much stronger will our belief in your cause be if we know exactly
what the opposition says?
If their only recourse against their opponents is to silence them,
my guess is that they do not have a very strong argument based in
fact and reason, and they want the average person to decide the is
sue based upon emotion and misinformation.
Dave Reed
senior
physics
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