BRIEFLY
Edited by Donald Sevener
BATTLE OF THE SEXES
In the race to gender equity on the courts and fields of college sports, women are catching up. Still, men hold a huge lead. A recent report from the Illinois Board of Higher Education shows that women have made gains over the past three years in narrowing the gap between female and male participation in intercollegiate athletics at Illinois' public universities. But the report also reveals that women have made strides in the equity race largely because men are slowing down. From the 1993-94 school year to 1995-96, female participation in college sports rose 3.2 percent at the 11 state universities that field competitive teams. During that same period, male participation fell nearly 12 percent. These changes are, in large part, the result of Illinois schools' attempting to comply with federal regulations forcing colleges and universities to equalize athletic opportunities for men and women. The rules — known as Title IX under federal equal opportunity legislation enacted in 1972 — have been controversial (see Illinois Issues, September 1995, page 11) because, critics have contended, some colleges have eliminated men's sports in their attempt to equalize participation rates and spending levels between male and female athletics. Student athletes and their parents, for example, sued Illinois State University after the school eliminated men's soccer and wrestling for the 1995-96 school year while adding women's soccer as a means to balance athletic participation. However, the Board of Higher Education study cautioned against jumping to conclusions. The report stated: "At several institutions, comprehensive examinations of intercollegiate athletics programs have resulted in the reduction or elimination of certain sports based on costs, student interest, attendance and the value of the sport to the overall campus environment and institutional mission." For example, the report noted that at three universities — Chicago State, Northern Illinois and the Carbondale campus of Southern Illinois University — participation in intercollegiate athletics declined among both men and women. Still, it remains true that men's participation has fallen faster and further than women's participation has grown. And the gap remains significant. For instance, even after eliminating two male sports at ISU, men still held a large advantage over women in athletic participation — 58.6 percent of athletes were men to 41.4 percent women, despite the fact that women held the advantage in enrollments at the university 56.6 percent to 43.4 percent. The same trend prevails statewide. Though the gap has narrowed slightly over the past three years, there are still far more male athletes than female — 63 percent to 37 percent in the school year just ended. In contrast, there are more women (51.3 percent) than men enrolled in public universities. All the universities have quite a way to go to reach the gender equity finish line. According to the Board of Higher Education study, spending on women's sports in fiscal 1996 constituted 35 percent of total athletic expenditures, while female undergraduates represented more than half of full-time undergraduate students. Though they have gained a few strides, women athletes must often feel like they've been running in place. Donald Sevener
PAIN AND SUFFERING Illinois' tort reform legislation, signed by the governor in March 1995, has failed its first court test. Cook County Circuit Judge Kenneth Gillis consolidated six personal injury lawsuits in order to address one aspect of the law's constitutionality. His adverse opinion is not binding on other judges, but it lays the groundwork for eventual definitive pronouncements in the state and federal supreme courts, where it will surely end up. The law places a $500,000 cap on awards for noneconomic damages in personal injury suits. The suits could be for such causes as product liability, motor vehicle injury or medical malpractice. Noneconomic damages would include such concerns as pain and suffering and loss of companionship. Judges may not inform juries of the limitation when they begin deliberation, but they must impose the limit on larger awards. Gillis found a number of defects. The law usurps jury functions to render verdicts and determine sanctions. It infringes on judicial functions by imposing a pre-trial reduction. It constitutes impermissible special legislation since it only concerns personal injury suits and not those brought by businesses. Proponents, largely Republican lawmakers and business interests, have argued that the legislation will result in better health care by reducing pass-through costs of high malpractice insurance, improve the business climate by reducing costs of liability insurance and relieve clogged court dockets by reducing the number of frivolous injury suits. F. Mark Siebert 8 ¦ July 1996 Illinois Issues
URBAN OASIS
The kids in Chicago's Bridgeport housing development call it "the Amazon." And in a neighborhood dominated by asphalt and industrial cranes, two acres of vibrant green ecosystem, however polluted, would seem an exotic, almost foreign land. But with the help of some friends and federal money, the kids — dubbed the River Crew — are helping clean up their natural playground. The area, owned by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, is historically significant as the origin of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. But as home to the endangered black-crowned night heron, its environmental significance is arguably greater. The River Crew is turning this urban neighborhood into a wetland. Bubbly Creek — as that section of the Chicago River is called — is located in Mayor Richard J. Daley's old neighborhood at Archer and Ashland avenues, and is a legend. Bubbles dot the creek's black surface as the methane gases rise to the top due to years of dumping chemicals and livestock carcasses during the era when the Union Stockyards lined its banks, says Andrew Hart, the crew's coordinator. However, unlike most other banks along the Chicago River that are cement-lined, those at the turning basin — where ships unloaded wares then turned to go out to sea again — are natural. And even when polluted, the water, trees and surrounding vegetation have attracted wildlife. In addition to the heron, the area is home to geese, coots and other waterfowl, even beaver. When the River Crew wanted to make their "special place" available as a park, they joined with the Friends of the Chicago River and the Open Lands Project. The Chicago Park District is also involved. The crew received a $30,000 grant from the federal Urban Resources Partnership. That enables the park district to remove concrete and asphalt from the site in order to create a wetland, which they expect will be done by the fall of next year. The park district employs 10 members of the crew, but the number doubles or triples in the summer with unpaid volunteers, all teenagers from the housing project, says Hart. He says the neighborhood kids attend workshops at the housing project that help them identify the plants and animals they observe along the river. In addition to sheltering some of the state's more fragile species, this urban "Amazon" might just be nurturing some budding naturalists.
Beverley Scobell Illinois Issues July 1996 ¦ 9 BRIEFLY
GRAVE MATTERS II Before they left Springfield, lawmakers voted to toughen state regulation of cemetery trust funds. The reforms, which are now on the governor's desk, were backed by Illinois Comptroller Loleta Didrickson. Under current law, the comptroller has responsibility for regulating privately held funeral homes, licensing cemeteries and monitoring trusts established for perpetual care. But the department that oversees the trusts has had little authority to crack down on abuses. As a result, finding a place to bury a loved one in Illinois can become a nightmare. Terry Bibo reported in Illinois Issues that Peoria's Springdale cemetery has wallowed in financial troubles for more than a decade (see October 1995, page 20). "Waist-high weeds and unkempt gravesites have attracted vandals," she wrote. In fact, Springdale is one of a handful of troubled cemeteries in the state, including Forest Home Cemetery in suburban Chicago and cemeteries in Venice in the Metro East area and Sesser in southern Illinois. The comptroller's office audits the trusts for 867 licensed cemeteries, as well as cemeteries that do not require a license. Fraternal, religious and municipal cemeteries are not included in that total. Neither are the hundreds of small rural and family plots. Under state law, cemetery owners are required to put a percentage of the funds generated from burials in a trust. The income from the trusts is then used for ongoing maintenance. Yet the comptroller's office reports that since 1972 "only nine licenses have been revoked within an industry that's grown from having trust funds of $2.8 million in 1978 to $667 million today, with projections that level will hit $1 billion in 1998." The legislation would allow the comptroller to use certified public accountants to scrutinize operations showing signs of financial difficulty. It would make explicit the authority to conduct investigations in cases of suspected fraud and to file civil suits on behalf consumers. And it would provide for the appointment of independent trustees to oversee the largest trust funds (more than $500,000). "Vulnerable families," Didrickson charged in a statement issued after the legislation was approved by lawmakers, "have suffered at the hands of a few unscrupulous cemetery owners and operators who have used trust funds as their personal piggy banks, whose greed has produced rundown cemeteries, open crypts and other disturbing circumstances.... This legislation changes the way we do business with regard to cemetery regulation in Illinois." The legisiation was drafted after discussions with the Funeral Home Association and the Illinois Cemetery Association. Peggy Boyer Long
NEW REPUBLICAN ORDER "One fact is beyond dispute: The days when a city such as Chicago could come to a capital such as Springfield with an attitude and a wish list are over." -- Charles Mahtesian, Governing That population and partisan changes have eroded the political clout of this state's major city is not news. But writer Charles Mahtesian reports in the June issue of Governing magazine that Chicago's fate is shared by cities throughout the country as power in the statehouses has shifted from urban to suburban interests. City Democrats may have cause to fear the social and fiscal agendas of suburban Republicans who now control legislatures and governors' mansions, but Mahtesian posits the GOP blueprint for metropolitan America really looks a lot like "old-fashioned spoils politics." Citing skirmishes between Chicago and the collar counties over airport management, for example, Mahtesian argues that Republicans want control over public works projects and regional assets in big cities such as Chicago — and control over the revenues and the jobs they generate. He points to similar efforts to wrest control of patronage- and contract-rich resources in New York and Pennsylvania, where Gov. Tom Ridge won a court battle to oust Democratic holdover members of a port authority that, Mahtesian notes, doles out millions in economic development projects and contracts. At the same time, Republicans have moved to divest themselves of social problems: "To the Democrats in Springfield, the school reform bill represented the monumental irony of the new order. Those institutions the Democrats really wanted the Chicago city government to control — airports, stadiums, waterworks — the Republicans were trying to take away from them. The one institution Republicans wanted to reform but didn't want to oversee — the school system — was being dumped in the mayor's lap." Mahtesian has some advice. "Cities that send a delegation comprised exclusively of minority party legislators," he writes, "run the risk of irrelevance on important issues." And he argues cities will have to become better at building political alliances. But he hints there may be a silver lining for cities that are forced to live within their means. In some cases it might be better, after all, to lie back and let suburban interests take the lead. "... cities such as Seattle, New York and Chicago are going to have to get used to both scaled-back expectations and a very different role in the state capital." Peggy Boyer Long 10 ¦ July 1996 Illinois Issues
WEB SITE OF THE MONTH Welcome to the "most terrifying two and a half minutes of your life." That's the apt description of that first exhilarating/death-defying/horrifying plunge from the zenith to the nadir of a ride that some people, with a stronger sense of adventure than instinct for survival, call "fun." But before you head for the thrills of hurtling through space, stop by these World Wide Web sites to explore the history, geography, psychology and reasons to celebrate this, the International Year of the Roller Coaster. You can start at the World of Coasters, http://www.rollercoaster.com/, which lays claim as "the web's premier coaster site." It offers a comprehensive tour of the coaster world, from "News from the Front Seat" to "Physics of Roller Coasters," as well as reviews of coasters and parks, statistics, history of the roller coaster, an almanac of coaster milestones, pictures, links to books, magazines and videos about coasters, a list of new coasters opening this year and a "Where To Coast" guide of 160 parks. Also check out Rollercoasters and Other Miscellaneous Insanities at http://www.coasters.net:80/Coasters/ for a listing of scores of coasters and links to the fastest, highest and most daring, including Batman the Ride at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee. Rollercoaster! at http://mosaic.echonyc.com/~dne/Rollercoaster!/ reviews new rides for 1996, including a special link to the Superman at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, Calif. It also has pages devoted to "The Most Terrifying Coaster Ever!" and "The Quest for the Ultimate Ride." There is even a call to action, appealing to visitors to help preserve a piece of coaster history: Leap the Dips, believed to be the oldest standing coaster in the world, now stands in a state of disrepair and neglect in a park in Altoona, Pa. Rollercoaster! also suggests some intriguing motives in "Why the Hell Do People Ride the Damn Things?" (One conclusion: Riding a coaster is "kind-of-like-sex fun.") There you go — if the sticky, sultry summer has you down, unwind with the most terrifying two-and-a-half minutes of your life. Donald Sevener
DEAD MAN STANDING
Deaf Bill Lee died in 1915, then spent the next 80 years standing around. Now the former fisherman has a spot to lie down near the Mississippi River. According to folklore, the deaf, mustachioed Alton fisherman was a drinker and a brawler who delivered sermons on the banks of the Mississippi. When he died, authorities postponed burial and tried to find relatives. The search was in vain, so Lee was removed from his coffin, pumped full of embalming fluid and propped up in a closet at an Alton funeral home that doubled as the coroner's office. He has held up well ever since. Generations of children were allowed to visit his mummified corpse. Even a vacationing member of the "Hee Haw" television show reportedly stopped by. Lee was years ahead of the Knoxville Mummy. Carl L. Stevens' mummified corpse was left reclining at home for nearly nine years while family members continued to change his clothing and bedding. After the body was discovered by authorities, the late Peoria County Coroner Herb Buzbee called the case the "bizarrest of the bizarre," according to the Peoria Journal Star. To this day, according to a representative of the Illinois public health department, no state law exists that determines when a corpse must be buried. Whatever the legal niceties, Alton residents decided it was time to pay their final respects to Deaf Bill Lee. He was laid to rest on June 24 in Portage des Sioux, Mo. According to the Alton Telegraph, the grave, the tombstone, the casket and the flowers were donated, along with an antique tuxedo that was sewn onto the body before burial. Ray Long Illinois Issues July 1996 ¦ 11 |
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Antwonne Tolliver is building a trail through the woods along Bubbly Creek in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood, where he and others are cleaning up a natural wetland area. Photograph courtesy Chicago Youth Centers
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Sam S. Manivong, Illinois Periodicals Online Coordinator |