Opinion
Lawrence Journal-World l LJWorld.com l Monday, April 25, 2016
EDITORIALS
Difficult issue Fair and effective handling of sexual assault reports poses a tough challenge for KU and other universities.
K
ansas University must give top priority to addressing reports that are making it at least appear that KU students face an unusually high risk of being sexually assaulted. In the last six weeks, three lawsuits have been filed against KU related to two alleged sexual assaults in 2014 and 2015 in Jayhawker Towers. In both cases, the women student athletes say KU failed to properly investigate their reports and to protect them against retaliation from their coaches. The KU football player who the two women say assaulted them was expelled but not until this year. A recent report from the Clery Center for Security on Campus, which was the focus of a Journal-World story earlier this month, also raised questions about campus safety. The report showed there were more sexual assault reports at KU in 2014 than at any other Big 12 school except the much larger University of Texas. During that year, 32 instances of forcible sex offenses — defined as rape or fondling — were reported on or near the KU campus. This is a difficult problem, and KU is not alone. Two lawsuits also were filed earlier this week against Kansas State University by women students who allege the university refused to investigate their rapes and other sexual assaults in off-campus fraternity houses. A total of 173 postsecondary schools are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education for their handling of sexual violence investigations. Privacy issues make it difficult for KU and other universities to publicly comment on their handling of the cases or defend themselves against criticism. There’s more than one way to look at the Clery statistics. Do they indicate there are more sexual assaults at KU than at other campuses, or does KU have more reports because it provides services and support that make students more willing to report assaults? Maybe the fact that KU is focusing on preventing and responding to sexual assaults actually increases the number of reports. Most of the 32 assaults in the Clery report apparently were reported only to university officials, such as those in KU’s Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access, which investigates reports of sexual assault separately from police. Statistics from the KU Office of Public Safety show only seven sex crime reports during 2014. The relationship between law enforcement and the university may be important to proper handling of these cases. In many cases, women wait for months or even years to report their assaults, making their cases more difficult to investigate. Maybe KU officials should open a dialogue with local police and prosecutors to discuss how these reports can be handled in a better, more timely manner. Prevention obviously is the best answer, and KU officials are working to raise awareness through a number of steps including the opening this spring of the KU Sexual Assault Prevention and Education Center. Those are positive actions, but KU also needs to work with its peer institutions and law enforcement to address this problem before it has a serious negative impact on the university’s reputation.
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U.S. must shine light on Saudi policy How do you solve a problem like Saudi Arabia? President Barack Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia last week will have little impact on the mounting American hostility toward the Saudis. Now that the United States is no longer dependent on Riyadh for oil, U.S. officials feel free to vent the pent-up anger that has been building for years. The most recent example is the bill in Congress that would allow Americans to sue the Saudi government if it was found to have played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks — 15 of 19 hijackers were Saudis. Meantime, Obama may finally release 28 redacted pages of a 2002 congressional report on the attacks that may or may not implicate some Saudi officials. Mind you, the 9/11 Commission found no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials funded the attack. And if habi variant of Islam around the world. Wahhabism is a product of a long-ago deal between the tribal founders of Saudi Arabia and the 18th-century Sunni preacher, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. This religious strain scorns other faiths, detests Shiite Mustrubin@phillynews.com lims and praises jihad. Saudi schools teach intolRather than hope erance, and the monarchy for miracles, the next permits hard-line imams to export their poison on the Inpresident should ternet. Since the 1980s, Saudi assume that a larger Arabia has spent a fortune regional role for building mosques and religious schools in other Musthe Saudis will only lim countries, while sending increase the level Saudi imams to promote funof sectarian conflict damentalist thinking. I have seen the negative impact: on — until Riyadh and Tehran finally tire of the West Bank in the 1980s; in Central Asia, Bosnia, and this folly.” Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1990s; and in Pakistan, where for U.S. law were changed to three decades Saudi-funded permit bringing suit against madrassas have trained gena country, other nations erations of Taliban. would do the same to us. Yet the congressional bill Ideology feeds violence The Saudis defend themreflects a growing frustration at the hard-line Saudi version selves by claiming they are of Islam that has contributed the targets of al-Qaida and in one way or another to the the Islamic State. But their growth of jihadi terrorism. religious ideology has laid the The legislation is a symptom theological groundwork for of our failure to address the such violent jihadis. The main real Saudi problem, which difference between them is no U.S. leader has figured out that those groups consider current Arab regimes to be how to resolve. insufficiently faithful to these Spread of Wahhabism puritan precepts and deservThe problem is bigger than ing of destruction. the fact that Saudi charities Obama recognizes the and sheikhs have helped fi- Saudi problem. Last year, nance Islamists. The desert according to a much-dismonarchy has curbed such cussed article in the Atlansupport in recent years, and tic Monthly, the president other Gulf countries are also complained that Saudi fundconduits of funds. The exis- ing of religious schools and tential threat revolves around seminaries in Indonesia had the Saudis’ determination, moved that country from a over the past three decades, more tolerant Islam to the to spread their harsh Wah- more extreme Saudi version.
Trudy Rubin
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“Aren’t the Saudis your friends?” the president was asked. “It’s complicated,” Obama supposedly replied. True. But that doesn’t explain why presidents from both parties have gone along with Saudi proselytizing for decades. The answer, of course, is that, in the past, the Saudis provided things that U.S. presidents wanted. Of course there was oil, and — with some spectacular exceptions — the Saudis kept prices stable and supplies flowing. And there was money: the Saudis helped Ronald Reagan finance the Afghan war against the Soviets (even though they funneled the funds to the worst Afghan fundamentalist groups). The Saudis also paid for most of the first Gulf War. They make huge purchases of U.S. weapons. And even today — at a time when Americans want Mideast rulers to take greater responsibility for stabilizing their region — presidential candidates from both U.S. political parties are urging the Saudis to do more to fight the Islamic State. Never mind that what the Saudis have done already has only made the civil war in Syria — and Yemen — worse. So how do you solve a problem like Saudi Arabia? I wish I had an answer.
Get issues into open But for starters, it’s time to get the problem out into the public sphere. Obama should release the 28 redacted pages, so the public can finally see if there is any smoke. Even the Saudis have been asking for years to have the pages declassified.
Beyond that, this White House and the next must get realistic about what to expect from Saudi Arabia. It would be lovely to imagine that Saudi rulers could “find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace (with Iran),” as Obama urged in the Atlantic Monthly. But this ain’t going to happen anytime soon, not just because the Sunni Saudis fear and loathe Iran’s Shiite ayatollahs, but because the feeling is mutual.
No miracles Rather than hope for miracles, the next president should assume that a larger regional role for the Saudis will only increase the level of sectarian conflict — until Riyadh and Tehran finally tire of this folly. U.S. policy will have to accept this hard truth. If that happy day comes when both sides are ready for a truce, the Saudis should be pressured to help finance the reconstruction of Syria and Yemen. But long before that, the next president should promote an intensified debate within both Western and Muslim countries on how to prevent Saudi proselytizing from poisoning the minds of innumerable young Muslims. “There is a violent, radical, fanatical, nihilistic interpretation of Islam by a faction — a tiny faction — within the Muslim community that is our enemy, and that has to be defeated,” Obama told the Atlantic. The Saudis must be discouraged from helping that faction to grow. — Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
PUBLIC FORUM
Money well-spent To the editor: Three recent news articles caught my eye. On April 16, the Washington Post listed the 50 top political contributors, their professions and party affiliations. The next day, the KC Star ran an op-ed piece from Nicholas Kristof (NYTimes) about corporate welfare. The third, in the April 18 JournalWorld, I’ll get to in a moment. First, Kristoff: For every dollar the 50 largest corporations paid in taxes between 2008 and 2014, they got back, in federal loans, guarantees, and bailouts — drum roll please — $27. Pretty good return, $1 makes $27. But, apparently it cost them something — lobbyists. You have to spend money to make money, but once again, not a bad return. For every lobbying dollar spent, these top 50 got a return of $130 in tax breaks and $4,000 in loans, guarantees and bailouts. The Washington Post wrote that the top 50 political contributors, totaling $249 million came largely from the ranks of hedge fund managers, banking/insurance, and the oil and gas industry. Thirteen are Democrats, one is independent,and 36 identify as Republicans. The third article reports that 900 people were arrested in D.C. “who are protesting the influence of money in politics.” The organizing group, De-
Senate, Clinton’s most notable vote was to authorize the use of force against Iraq. l Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state began with the reset button debacle with Russia and ended with the deceit regarding Benghazi. In between, she demonstrated a gross disregard for the laws and regulations governing the handling of classified material. Clinton has been successful in one area: Delivering speeches for $200,000 a pop. Unfortunately, we’re unable to witness her competency here since To the editor: she refuses to release the transcripts. In her letter to the editor, Audrey Kevin Groenhagen, Mortensen argued that Hillary ClinLawrence ton’s experience makes her qualified to serve as president. Let’s look at that experience: l In 1983, Gov. Bill Clinton ap- To the editor: pointed his wife to chair the Arkansas I would like to compliment the KanEducational Standards Committee. At sas University students that participated that time, Arkansas’ education system in KU’s day of service to the city of Lawranked 48th in the country. When the rence called the “Big Event.” On SaturClintons left Arkansas, it ranked 49th. day, April 16, a group of 16 young men l In 1993, President Clinton appoint- came to my house to begin a day of work ed his wife to head the Task Force on as requested by the Oread Resident’s AsNational Health Care Reform. The sociation. They spent four hours picking controversial and secretive task force up trash in the Oread Neighborhood, presented a plan even Democrats dis- alleys, streets and sidewalks. Very nice, liked. According to Democratic Sena- polite young men who made the neightor Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Anyone borhood look amazingly better. What a who thinks (the Clinton health care wonderful program! plan) can work in the real world as Thank you, thank you. presently written isn’t living in it.” Candice Davis, l As Moynihan’s successor in the Lawrence mocracy Awakening, counseled protesters to “bring $50 cash in anticipation of fines and arrests.” What a waste! Doing “Top 50” math, if the protesters had spent their money on lobbyists, each $50 investment would return $200,000 in government benefits. William Skepnek, Lawrence
Clinton record
Big Event, big help