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E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
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Thursday, April 11,2002
Oregon Daily Emerald
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Jeremy Lang
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Editorial
Campus news
offers good,
bad, offensive
for public office. Nilda Brooklyn is running
for the State Board of Higher Education,
Greg McNeill is running for the Oregon
House and Maco Stewart is a candidate for
Eugene City Council. All are representing
the University well by becoming involved
in the political realm.
■ Jeers to the International Students Asso
ciation’s spring newsletter for printing a
highly offensive “Crash course in speaking
Chinese.” Some of the lowlights included
“Wan bum lung — a person with tuberculo
sis” and “Chin tu fat — you need a face lift.”
If the ISA wants support from both American
and international students, they should
avoid reinforcing ignorant stereotypes — es
I pecially when there is a large constituency of
| Chinese students in their own organization.
■ Cheers to the Department of Public
Safety for holding a campus safety forum
tonight and starting a “yellow jacket” walk
ing program this spring. DPS is showing a
commitment to campus safety with their in
terest in hearing student concerns. Cheers
are also in order for DPS for nixing the pro
posed bicycle registration fee — an idea that
was bound to fail from the get-go.
■ Jeers to Lane Transit District for cut
ting bus routes. Although the service claims
to be losing money, they certainly aren’t los
ing it from University students. We’re LTD’s
best-paying customers, forking out
$375,000 for the 2001-02 school year alone
to ride the bus. Bus routes servicing the Uni
versity shouldn’t suffer just because LTD
needs to downsize.
Ihe Emerald editorial board pres
ents, for your reading pleasure, our
latest collection of cheers and jeers:
■ Cheers for students running
Editorial Policy
This editorial represents the opinion ot the
Emerald editorial board. Responses can be sent
to letters@dailyemerald.com. Letters to the
editor and guest commentaries are encouraged.
Letters are limited to 250 words said guest
commentaries to 550 words. Please include
contact information, The Emerald reserves the
right to edit for space, grammar and style.
■I
: . .
editor in chief
Jeremy Lang
managing editor
Julie Lauderbaugh
editorial editor
Jacquelyn Lewis
. assistant editorial editor
Peter Hockaday
newsroom representative
Jerad Nicholson
community representative
Audri jrd
llilomm unity representative!
||ORRECTIOK
In the article “Victim voices need for awareness on
campus" {ODE, March 10)t the dale of the attack on
student Gwynne Engelking should have been identified
. , M M » J ) M > I M M f f I » I f I > I
»» •
aKYI
Steve Baggs Emerald
Fear of a drug-free world
Privacy for teenagers is a fallacy.
And if you disagree, you must have
something to hide.
That’s the new reality in Oregon.
Well, not exactly new. Such fanatical,
paranoid theorizing has existed as long as
teenagers have. Only recently has such
madness been reinforced by Oregon courts.
But we’ll get to that in a moment. For
now, let’s don our rose-colored ski goggles
and take a trip with the “Ghost of High
School Injustices Past.”
If you stood up to your varsity football
coach when he asked you to sign a pledge
to not drink or do drugs during the season,
it couldn’t possibly have been because you
objected to promising not to do something
he had no reason to assume you’d ever do
in the first place. Oh no.
It’s because you were a junkie, undoubt
edly sneaking off to your car to “ride the
black pony” before that crucial third peri
od health quiz.
Same thing goes for the contemporary
practice of drug screening.
Most parents summarily reject the no
tion of idealism for its own sake among
their teenage children.
However, this was not the case in
Oakridge, where Ginelle Weber’s parents
supported her in her genuinely good fight
against Oakridge High School and its
mandatory drug testing policy for all stu
Letters to the editor
Pledge is symbolic
responsibility
In response to the April 9 commentary ti
tled “University shouldn’t hop onto pledge
bandwagon,” the writers were slanted and
uneven-handed in their stance. The edito
rial board hardly considered true reasons
for supporting the pledge. Instead, the edi
torial board hung out a laundry list of rea
sons for not pledging symbolic support for
social and environmental responsibility.
The primary reasons for discouraging the
pledge were lack of student interest, the po
litical bias of the pledge and the dampen
I ing of diversity.
The truth of the matter is that students
have interest in the pledge, which is why it
is being promoted by them. Now that the is
sue is before us, to not support the pledge
is political bias of another kind, that of in
explicably supporting social and environ
II mental irresponsibility. Lastly, not every
dent athletes, which resulted in her being
dropped from the volleyball team.
Last month, a Lane County judge ruled
that Weber’s rights were violated when
she was expelled
from the sports pro
gram, but the ruling
upheld the basic con
stitutionality of such
random drug testing.
Not exactly a re
sounding victory for
student rights. Espe
cially when you take
into consideration that
Oakridge is but one of
13 high schools around
Oregon currently uti
lizing such invasive
and unjustifiable drug
testing policies.
Luckily for us civil libertarians, the rest
of the nation seems to be making more
headway in the fight against anti-student
rights fanaticism.
Recently, a Denver appeals court judge
struck down an Oklahoma school’s policy
of mandatory urine testing for all students
involved in non-athletic extracurricular
activities. In Texas, a high school attempt
ing to implement similar policy for all stu
dents met with an identical fate.
What does this recent turn of events tell
TenPas
Columnist
university is jumping on the “bandwagon.”
Only a few universities have agreed to pro
ceed with the pledge. The University of
Oregon failing to support the pledge is, in
a sense, defeating diversity because the mi
nority idea is being discouraged.
Whether students understand their so
cial and environmental responsibilities or
not is a whole different issue. Students can
choose or not choose to sign the pledge.
Those that do sign the pledge will symboli
cally support social and environmental re
sponsibility and be promoting diversity.
Javier Ayala
Eugene
EWEB board needs
to listen to ratepayers
On March 19, I attended the Eugene
Water and Electric Board public hearing
regarding rate hikes and have the follow
ing observations:
1. The three members who voted for the
increase (led by board President Dorothy
Anderson) had apparently already made
us? First of all, that the American Civil
Liberties Union is working overtime to
protect all students from being punished
for a crime they aren’t even being tried for,
and second, that at least in other states, the
courts are listening.
More important is the fact that parents
are continuing to wage this losing battle
against their kids.
And it is a losing battle. Not just because
the courts are, for the most part, siding
with the students, but rather because there
is simply no victory to be had from ex
cluding kids from activities based on ex
perimental or recreational drug use.
Take away a teenager’s ability to play vol
leyball, football or even to work on the
school paper or yearbook, and what do you
leave them with? A newly ffeed-up chunk
of time to get high and stare at the television.
Take away a teenager’s ability to get ac
cepted to college by preventing them from
taking part in extracurricular activities and
you’ve freed up the rest of his or her life to
find new and more efficient ways to get high.
Take away a teenager’s hopes for the fu
ture, and you may as well get high yourself.
You’ll need something to ease the pain of
the perfect, drug-free world you’ve created.
E-mail columnist Jacob TenPas
atjacobtenpas@dailyemerald.com. His opinions
do not necessarily reflect those of the Emerald.
up their minds as to how they were going
to vote, prior to any public input.
2. Public input is supposed to be weighed
and carefully considered. Clearly it was not.
3. Many excellent cost-cutting ideas
were given during public testimony. The
board patently chose to ignore them.
4. Anderson told the audience that they
were “spoiled” by the low power prices
EWEB charges. This is not only an insulting
comment to make, but it is arrogant as well.
It is also important to note that during
public testimony, it was suggested that the
rate hike decision be delayed by two weeks.
If the board had done this, it would have at
least given the appearance that they had
given some consideration to public input.
The board has clearly shown how much
contempt they have for the ratepayers by
not even listening to them. EWEB needs to
scour its budget for additional cost savings
and clean its own house before they dip
further into the ratepayer’s wallet.
Mark Hudson
Eugene
4