Letter: Legislators' silly request demands silly response

Editor,

Recently, unidentified legislators demanded that department heads at all 
Kansas universities furnish the names of courses with homosexual and/or 
bisexual content. I say demand, not request, since by law the 
universities must comply when a deadline has been set. The information 
must be sent by today. I urge department heads across the state to reply 
to this demand with the same eloquent gesture our own sociology 
department suggested - by sending their entire course catalog.
   At K-State, I have taught literature by gay writers and literature 
dealing with homosexual themes in such basic courses as Modern 
Humanities and Expository Writing. I included these authors and works 
not in deference to a political agenda, but simply because it would be 
impossible to devise a syllabus without them. In every field of every 
discipline, homosexual people have shaped the body of knowledge 
universities are obligated to preserve and teach. No course or classroom 
can be said to be free from their influence.
   This is an obvious threat to academic freedom, but equally disturbing is 
that in a state where all public education is underfunded and high 
school students enter college often underprepared, there are politicians 
whose priorities are so skewed. At this university, our own obligation 
to preserve and teach essential knowledge is compromised by a dismally 
equipped library and a grossly underpaid faculty.
   It is all the more disheartening that these anonymous legislators feel 
they have the time to make ridiculous requests to departments busy with 
the work of educating students, instead of seeking to solve the genuine 
problems afflicting us. It is my hope that their identities are revealed 
so that voters who support academic freedom and resent government waste 
can free even more of their time come November.

Melissa Rodenbeek and 23 other signatures
Instructor, PILOTS program