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By Mike Cuenca | March 5, 2002
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At face value, turning Kansas University into a spy school might seem
to be an effort that would help the country, but would it make sense?
First, there are the moral issues involved. Proponents are touting this
school's focus as teaching students how to understand other cultures so
that they'll be better able to provide "intelligence." Spoken in
another, more direct and truthful, way they're talking about training
"spy cadets" to "infiltrate" other cultures to secretly keep tabs on
them. We're talking about people whose careers would be based on lies.
I seem to remember another effort to require students to receive a more
culturally diverse education — back when some faculty members promoted
a diversity course requirement — but that was soundly rejected by the
majority of KU faculty.
Face it, these students wouldn't graduate and join the Peace Corps.
They'd graduate and quickly become employed by a certain covert
terrorist organization based in Langley, Va. Think of the people who
would come here for that kind of training. Think of the people who
would be brought here to teach and run such a school.
Besides the many moral issues involved, let's take another, perhaps
more universally acceptable, perspective. Remember the Cold War?
Remember growing up in Kansas and other parts of the United States that
were definitely targets for nuclear destruction in the event of global
war? Remember how Lawrence and most of Kansas would have been wiped out
because of all the missile silos around us?
Sure, let's forget the relief we've all come to feel now that our
children are no longer nearly as likely to face instant vaporization or
long, lingering miserable radiation-sickness and death. Let's go ahead
and paint a bright new bullseye on Jayhawk Boulevard in front of Strong
Hall. Let's give terrorists and other angry people a reason to think of
Lawrence and KU as a potential target for terrorism and hatred.
Please, let's get real here. Sure we want to help make the world safer
and more secure. But let's do it by producing graduates who will go out
into the world to spread peace, cultural tolerance, and good will. Not
espionage.
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Originally published by the Lawrence Journal-World.
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