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Show Iiow Far Can We Go? clIk jssalt Lake cl ri banc Monday Morning Section November 5, 1981 A Page 14 Report Gives Precise Definition To Universities Universality It surfaced briefly, then fell back into the obscurity from which it sprung. Nevertheless, the recent special report on higher education in the United States made certain eloquent, important points. Titled "Involvement in Learning: Realizing the Potential of American Higher Education, the report, officially released by U.S. Education Secretary T.H. Bell, examined trends in this nations higher education and found them not particularly alarming. Which was in contrast to a similar analysis of U.S. elementary and secondary education. It detected considerable dry rot. Still, at least one of the higher education recommendations notes a troubling kind of drift. The scholars who felt the U.S. college and university pulse concluded that the patient could use a stronger dose of liberal education. Anyone concerned about the future of American community life ought to agree. What many observers, in addition to those engaged by the Involvement . . report, are seeing lately is a tendency on college and university campuses to excessivly accommodate . student demands for professional training. Such course content has always been securely within higher education purposes, but not necessarily at the expense of the university ideal. For ideally, a university is a place where students learn not only how to be gainfully employed professionals, but also how to comprehend other influences they encountrer as adults. It is no idle commencement day shibboleth to say of the days graduates that they will be looked to for tomorrows leadership. But if products of the nations centers of higher education are trained mostly in the narrow precepts and capabilities of their chosen professions, the leadership they can provide is apt also to be shallow, restricted and unsure, lacking versatilty and vision. Moreover, that incalculable quality of community, which fosters the understanding that service to others is as crucial as personal achievement, can be seriously eroded when higher education caters more to perfecting individual skills than to exapanding each students universal knowledge. The Involvement In Learning report recommends that all coland lege university enrollees be refulfill two years of liberal to quired arts study in qualifying for a baccalaureate degree. Thats fairly standard nationwide now. But it should be fully recognized as still critical, with systems of higher education rededicating themselves to principles of liberal arts fundamentals. ... Courses in history, languages, sciences, music, literature, philosophy, f Fae Forces Evaluation of Ethics By Albert R Jonsen Special to the Los Angeles Times As a professor of medical ethics. I've been asked innumerable " times in the last week what I think about trie baboon transplant I cannot simply say that this event is good or bad, wonderful or (as I overheard one critic describe it) obscene. The problem is not so much what I think about it, but how I think about it. Does the transplantation of a primate heart into a human infant violate some moral barrier between species? I cannot find any such barrier in our moral traditions, except for the ancient prohibition against sexual intercourse between humans and animals. This is far from organ donation. The Presidents Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine (1982) investigated the related issue of crossing species by genetic engineering. After consulting many theologians and philosophers, the commission concluded that breaching species barriers does not appear irreligious or morally objectionable. Does the surgery in Loma Linda violate principles of ethical experimentation? These require the presence of a sound scientific Albert R. Jonsen is professor of ethics in medicine at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. basis and the consent of the experimental subject, or, in the case of a minor, the consent of the parents. Also, in the case of a child, there must be some hope that he or she will benefit personally. The scientific basis of the experiment involving Baby Fae is suspect. The parents consent may have been imperfectly informed. The prospect of benefit is remote. If these doubts are creditable, the experiment teeters on the edge of the unethical. If they are not, the experiment is ethically proper. The local review committee judged it to be so. Is the killing of an animal to help a child the central moral issue? In recent years, we have become more sensitive to the use and abuse of animals. Very strong arguments can be made against cruelty. Strong arguments can be made against certain forms of animal experimentation. Weaker arguments focus on the kinds of research that seem crucial to scientific advance. Only the weakest argument can be mounted against taking animal life to directly save an infants life. If the transplant were likely to accomplish this (and this of course is the would seem ethical question posed by the Loma Linda experiment), it in accord with the mainstream of our moral tradition. These questions are not, in my opinion, the moral heart of this event. Rather, the powerful moral imperative to rescue the dying must give us pause. The ethic of rescue is deep in our culture. The Christian Scriptures praise the Good Samaritan The Talmud excuses from the Sabbath law one who saves a life. The rescue ethic is vital to a humane society. Still, we must ponder its meaning and its limits. Is all endangered life to be snatched from the jaws of death? Is any result, however brief and dismal, sufficient to impose an unbreachable rule of rescue? The ideal of rescue is restored life and vitality. The rescue of the pope and the president from the assassins onslaught, the swift restoration of vital functions by trauma surgeons, the repulse of massive infection by antibiotics, even the replacement of damaged organs by these are praiseworthy rescues. But their value transplantation derives from the quality of future life saved, not from the fact that death has been repelled. Indeed, quality of life is a vague and troubling term, inviting misunderstanding and bias. Certainly, it is difficult to predict the results of rescue. Yet, often the prospects for success are so remote, the attendant damage so great, the effort so draining and diverting from other values, that we can rightly say that a certain rescue is not obligatory. We may sadly, but with good conscience, stand aside. What? Not save Baby Fae? Perhaps not. Her cardiac malformation would have led to her rapid death. Now her life may be short and wretched. The odds against her are great. The immunological gap between primate and human is wide; the need for heavy drugs is great. Those drugs are, themselves, dangerous and may kill her. Even if this infant matches the best transplantation record in what the world survival Stanfords, with 50 percent five-yewill her five years be like? Her loving parents, who would have lost a baby, will lose a child. heart-transpla- anti-rejecti- ar Was this rescue morally imperative; even morally desirable? Are other rescues of this sort mandatory? My pessimistic view of Baby Faes future may be proven wrong. Occasionally, the odds against success are beaten by brilliant manipulation of nature, or by chance. But even if she lives and thrives, our society must examine the moral limits of its indispensable ethic of rescue. Tend To & - mathematics, political science, government and social development are not incidental to being a successful lawyer, physician, dentist, nurse, journalist, accountant, engineer, architect, business executive, computer technician or teacher. Rather, they are essential. Colleges and universities are looked to not only as a dependable source of the formally trained. Those institutions are also expected to matriculate people who function especially well in their surroundings because, through instruction, they are familiar with the terrain, no matter how static or changing it may be. A bracing requirement of liberal arts education for every college and university graduate can assure just that. President Reagans spokesman, Larry Speakes, goes as far as to say comparable pay would have the government setting salaries for all jobs in the country. No matter how you say it, the fact is that the Reagan administration opposes a change that could make salaries more fair and equitable in federal government as well as the private sector. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 already prohibits sex discrimination for federal jobs requiring equal skill performed under similar conditions, and of each job. the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars sex discrimination. Therefore, the federal In a related matter, some members of Congress are seeking a study government is vulnerable to discrimiof the federal work force to determine nation claims regardless of the comparable pay concept. And theres nothwhether sex bias exists in a job classification system that hasnt been eval- ing to prevent courts for allowing a uated in more than 50 years. Propo- gradual shift to comparable pay. nents want to see if discriminatory Theres simply no justifiable exhiring practices are to blame for fe- cuse for perpetuating injustices that male federal workers clustering in reduce half the workforce to second-clas- s lower-paipositions. status by restricting their earnand ing power and standard of living, and Naturally Reagan supporters are there's a good chance the burden of that fighting study, appointees with some claiming it eventually unreasonably low salaries is being would force the government, through shifted to the government. When unfamilies quallawsuits filed by employees, to spend derpaid. female-heade$10 billion or so in salary differences, ify for the state and federal subsidies. pensions and back pay for some President Reagans arguments 466.000 federal workers. They base against comparable pay just wont their estimates on last December's wash with women or anyone else interested in fair employment praccomparable pay case involving Washington state, which was ordered to pay tices. If the government can improve $861 million for 33,000 employees. the employment practices in this naE. tion, even through indirect influence, Rep. William Dannemeyer, on the the it should do so as soon as possible. he- study castigates onto off grounds it might rub private fore the workforce grows, injustices who follow would the spread and the possibility of expenemployers sive court battles increases. model" employer's lead. female-dominate- d male-dominat- d d OVtRCoNflbtw? Would Life To Bt (oumw,Bur tior wm To mAKCMmWtHf? are, nmv, Do Twcmm ? 1 ilTlj Bozo the clown a victim of miscasting been have may With his orange wig. light bulb nose, flophe py shoes and red, white and blue suit, a politician be to suited ideally appeared whose He was a Tip O'Neill for a movie marquee name was tailor-mad- e at a Ronald Reagan film festival Bedtime for Bozo" could have been a big hit Moreover, Bozo had that rare gift of extemporaneous speech making a seem like it lasted four hours. Yet, in all the polls, he wasn't even mentioned. the country just wasnt ready to have Maybe a real clown in the race. and Or, with his penchant for verbosity have should he probably circumlocution, a been running for the Senate rather than as candidate for president. write-i- n look-alik- pre-electi- e Near the end of the campaign. Bozo, Larry Harmon, returned to the scene of the crime, so to speak, for a news conference at the National Press Club, where he first announced his candidacy last March. a k a. It took him about 30 minutes to respond to three or four questions. That was truly a virtuoso performance. His act was fully as I impressive as any have seen or heard in the Senate chamber, a k.a the Cave of the Winds Because he campaigned in a Bozo bus" and wore a clown's makeup and costume, many voters apparently didn't take his White House aspirations seriously But not Bozo himself He patterned himself verbally, if not phvsieailv, after Harry Truman and claimed mYrnwr mrwwib APfWtilF YOU I VH'TKHOi? mr you bott You KWxy You UHCk r-- Ooht Mike Royko Us in the Media Chicago Tribune Service While I was in the checkout line at the grocery store. I felt a nudge. I turned and the lady behind me asked a question I've heard a thousand times. In a belligerent voice, she said Tell me, why is the media liberal?" I asked her which she was talking about. of it," she Or most of it." You mean newspapers All said "Yes," she said "And TV. too." Don't forget the magazines. don't know I don't see that many magazines But the rest of you are. Why" I fhink you meant to sav, why are the media so liberal I s.ud " No. you didn t You said, why is the media That's incorrect It should be why are That's what door. on it now. Why is the media so Well, that time. Just practice. It will impress people at parties if you say media are and correct them when they say media is. And I grabbed my bag and ran for the I wasnt being cowardly. Its just that a checkout line isnt the place for my standard lecture on the myth of the liberal media. But if the angry lady is reading, Ill touch prejudiced against President Reagan0 medium Isnt All That Liberal 1 the media Why are the media That's right I know it sounds funny that wav, but media is plural A common mistake Especially among people who think the media are too liberal "You're a smart aleck Most of us in the media is "Well, whv are tne media ail liberal By then, the checkout kid had filled mv bag so 1 didn't have time for a lengthy conversation I just said 'Good you gut it right Let's start with a question. Make a guess if you have to. Question: We all know that newspapers are liberal. Spiro Agnew told us. So tell me how many of the 40 biggest general circulation newspapers in America have endorsed Walter Mondale. All of them? Ninety percent? Answer: Sixteen have endorsed President Reagan. Ten have endorsed Walter Mondale. The rest haven't made an endorsement yet or dont intend to. Now, that doesnt sound like a liberal conspiracy to me especially if you consider that the biggest daily paper in America went for Reathe New York Daily News gan. So did the third biggest, the New York Post. (The second biggest, the Los Angeles Times, doesn't make endorsements.) the New York The fourth largest endorsed Mondale. But the fifth Times backed the Chicago Tribune largest Reagan. If you add up the circulation of the papers that endorsed Reagan, it's considerably larger than those that endorsed Mondale. And based on past positions, most of the papers that will make their endorsements this weekend will be for Reagan. Sometime after the election, some jour- - Dick West: U.S. Jusl Wasnt Ready for Real Clown in Race WASHINGTON jr neurit nQconpBur Put Pay Into Perspective After White House economist William Niskanen called comparable pay for men and women a truly crazy proposal several days ago, President Reagan tried to smooth ruffled feminist feathers with the Republican standby that such concepts threaten greater government intrusion into private affairs. Comparable worth policies, incidentally, compare such jobs as secretary with such jobs as truck driver. Such factors as time on the job and training play a part in the wage value ojzk-(oM&xr.'B- to have logged more campaign miles than HST did whistle-stoppinin 1948 g The bus stops here," Rozo would assert manner at cities he visited in a Truman-lik- e during the campaign. (Truman, by the way, served as a U.S. senator before becoming chief executive. You can draw your own parallels from that ) Bozo's abilities, Reagan and Walter Mondale, obviously were suspect in polling places were he was registered as a write-icandidate But I found myself in total agreement with a couple of his campaign promises Among other things, he vowed to elirtu nate the office of I' S vice president and to support tax reform legislation that would depreciate human beings rather than property vis-a-vi- s n Both are promises I would make myself, given the opportunity. The fact that it was legal to write in his name in only 36 states and the District of Columbia became Bozos biggest campaign issue. He felt that voters in all 50 states and assorted territories where votes are counted should have had the option of casting ballots in his favor. Anyone with the ability should have the opportunity" to be president, reasoned Bozo, who apparently had no doubts about his own ability. But several of the states in which he tried to register his candidacy told him No way, he Jose" when he inquired about write-ins- , lamented Perhaps he would have been less offended if they had told him "No go, Bozo. nalism professor is going to sit down and look at the endorsements of every daily about newspaper in the United States 1,000 of them. I already know what hes going to find. At least 60 percent of them will have endorsed Reagan. Ah, some conservative is saying, but what about all those pinko columnists0 Another myth. The most widely syndicated political columnists are the conservatives. People such as George Will, James Kilpatrick, William Buckley, and Evans and Novak are printed in far more newspapers than any liberal writer. The political cartoonists are the least partisan of all. They heap ridicule on the guy whos on top. They would make fun of their own mothers if they were in the White House. On national radio, the most widely broadcast commentator by far is Paul Harvey, the theatrical conservative. Hundreds of stations carry his show, many rebroadcast it several times a day. Nobody else in radio comes close. For reasons I can't follow, conservatives seem to think network TV is a liberal cesspool. Yet, the anchormen rarely express partisan views. The few TV commentators are bland. The journalists on the ponderous Sunday morning public affairs shows include as many conservatives as liberals. And Reagan plays the networks like Heifitz played the ' s H fiddle. For partisan politics on TV, just take a look at the channels-4h.i- t carry the right-wing TV preachers. There are more foamlipped conservative pitches made in one day on those stations than there are liberal opinions in a month on the networks. So when did the myth of the liberal media start? There was a time when I was a kid that the head of the household always warned me not to believe any newspaper because newspapers were all Republican. 1 d - think that changed in the 1960s, when the civil rights movement became the biggest story in America. Most news people were against lynch-ingpolice dogs biting children, deputies on horseback riding down demonstrators and the bodies of civil rights workers being buried under pig pens We were in favor cf people being allowed to ride in the middle of the bus, sit at a lunch counter, use a public john, buy a house, or cast a vote. Those who disagreed got red in the face and started screaming Liberals, liberals. And it stuck. But it s not really true. Just look at the editorial pages or watch the news shows and you 11 sec that, if anything, the majority of the media in this country s conservative. Is? Are? I always forget. But believe me, it am. I V M 1 i-- ; X 1 1 i |
