Editorials
Thursday, May 28, 1998

UH faces hard decision
on athletic programs

UNIVERSITY of Hawaii intercollegiate athletics have been thrust into limbo by the announcement that eight of the 16 schools in the Western Athletic Conference will leave and form a new conference. Among them is Brigham Young, the school with the longest and most intense rivalry with UH. Also leaving are Air Force, Colorado State, Nevada-Las Vegas, New Mexico, San Diego State, Utah and Wyoming -- the geographical heart of the conference.

These are generally the schools with the strongest athletic programs in the WAC, which makes the viability of the conference with the remaining eight schools highly doubtful. In addition, five of the remaining schools are in Texas and Oklahoma, far from Hawaii and with no strong rivalries with UH.

President Kenneth Mortimer and other university officials were caught by surprise by the announcement and had no action plan in place. Their options are limited. It's possible that the Southwestern schools not included in the departure move will decide to leave the WAC as well, which would spell the end of the conference. Joining an existing conference, forming a new conference or reorganizing the WAC with some new schools are possibilities. But the best idea may be to try to join the breakaway group by offering to pay travel expenses of visiting teams.

The announcement that the eight schools will leave the WAC was based on dissatisfaction with the unwieldly size of the conference and the way it had been split into eastern and western divisions, which would have eliminated some rivalries.

Hawaii's location, 2,500 miles away from any athletic competitors, has always posed financial problems and probably figured in UH's exclusion from the new group. Intercollegiate athletics has become an expensive business with the profusion of scholarships and the need for the major sports to fund those that don't generate revenue. The university presidents and athletic directors who decided to bolt from the WAC can't be blamed for putting the interests -- essentially financial interests -- of their schools above those of the conference.

Some hard thinking will be needed in Manoa to come up with an answer to this challenge -- particularly with state funds for the university in short supply.

Confusion on Mideast

AS if the Arab-Israeli dispute wasn't difficult enough, recent pronouncements by prominent Americans in conflict with official U.S. policy have added to the confusion. First, Hillary Clinton declared that she supported the establishment of a Palestinian state. White House officials hastened to assure a skeptical world that the first lady was merely expressing her own opinion, not her husband's. Washington's position is still supposed to be that the issue is to be decided in negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians on a peace settlement.

Now House Speaker Newt Gingrich has entered the fray, declaring in a speech to Israeli legislators that the disputed city of Jerusalem is "the united and eternal capital of Israel." Gingrich later tried to soften his remarks. Asked if the Palestinians had a right to the city, he said, "It's a perfect example of what needs to be in direct negotiations." This is the administration's position -- not his initial statement, which upset the Palestinians but did not result in cancelation of a scheduled meeting with Yasser Arafat.

Two years ago Congress voted to compel the administration to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in recognition of Jerusalem's status as the capital of Israel, despite opposition from the White House. As Gingrich noted, Clinton signed the bill into law. But Democrats succeeded in inserting an escape clause allowing the president to postpone the move indefinitely.

Before his election, Clinton had supported moving the embassy to Jerusalem but changed his position after taking office to conform with existing official policy.

In view of all these shifts, it should come as no surprise if the Israelis and Palestinians -- or Americans, for that matter -- aren't quite sure what the U.S. position really is.

Funding public TV

HAWAII Public Television is feeling the impact of the state's fiscal austerity program. Its appropriation was cut in half by the Legislature -- from $1.3 million last year to $670,000. As a result, public TV has been forced to drop its two most popular locally produced programs, "Dialog," a public affairs discussion and call-in show, and "Spectrum Hawaii," which features the arts and other local subjects. However, most programs produced on the mainland will continue, including "Sesame Street" and "Nova."

General Manager Don Robbs said he was shocked by the size of the cut in state funding and said in the future public television will have to depend totally on community support. Perhaps that is just as well.

The people who want public television to survive should take responsibility and support it financially. They will have to stop depending on the state to subsidize it, which means depending on taxpayers who don't watch it.

Many public TV stations began life with government funding but have become self-supporting. Hawaii Public Television had already envisioned that change. But now it will have to come sooner than expected.

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Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited Partnership

Rupert E. Phillips, CEO

John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher

David Shapiro, Managing Editor

Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor

Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors

A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor