To submit a lengthier opinion piece about a topic of public interest, please email your submission to letters@ljworld.com and indicate that you would like it to be considered for a “Your Turn” column. Submissions must bear the name, address and telephone number of the writer.
An open letter to the Lawrence City Commission: Regarding the current proposal to ban the use of “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ minors in Lawrence, I’d like to add another faith-based perspective to the discussion. First, I want to commend the city for considering such a proposal and ...
The Journal-World has been commendable in its coverage of the controversy over the University of Kansas’ refusal to disavow use of the Kansas Board of Regents’ optional suspension of tenure protections in the wake of current budget problems. In her “Follow-up” note on Friday, the ...
Douglas County has done better than several surrounding counties relative to many of the COVID-19 indicators. More consistent mask wearing is likely part of the underlying reason for this; at least many of our local public health officials think so. And there’s certainly data to back up the ...
Your Dec. 6 editorial criticized the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics’ proposal for overhauling NCAA Division I sports governance because we did not recommend an antitrust exemption to enable big-time sports programs like KU to cap college sports spending. We agree too many ...
Last March the pandemic caused institutions of higher education to empty their cam-puses overnight and remain that way through the summer. This had a major financial impact on the institutions but also on their communities — and KU and Lawrence were no exception. Many small businesses in ...
Military service is an honorable tradition in our country. Accordingly, Nov. 11 is a federal holiday. President Dwight Eisenhower issued the first Veterans Day Proclamation. Eisenhower stated that a “grateful nation might pay appropriate homage to the veterans of all its wars who have ...
Sometimes renting a dumpster is the best way to show that you care. It is time to show the GOP some love and rent a dumpster for the driveway of the House of Trump, formerly known as the Republican Party. I’m a fifth-generation Kansan and (former) Republican who has reached this ...
Several months have passed since the controversial departure of our former police chief Gregory Burns, who in fact was Lawrence’s first-ever African American police chief. We are still greatly disturbed by many unanswered questions surrounding his departure. We understand that the duties ...
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. As we enter the eighth month of COVID-19, it almost feels like cognitive dissonance to be talking about “Awareness.”We are all acutely aware that life is challenging for everyone right now. We are all more than aware that some members of our ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has created great challenges as we all grapple with protecting the health and safety of residents, work to manage the spread of the disease and deal with the steep economic and social consequences the pandemic has left in its wake. Until COVID-19 is controlled, likely ...
I am the director of Graduate Studies for the Philosophy Department at the University of Kansas, overseeing our masters and doctoral programs. One-third of our graduate students come from abroad. They represent eight countries across four continents. There’s no hyperbole in saying that our ...
For 8 minutes and 46 seconds, we watched the taking of yet another life at the hands of those whose duty is to serve and protect. We reach out today as we continue to grapple with the devastation caused by the most recent instances in a continuation of generations of violence against black ...
To my fellow white clergy: Martin Luther King Jr. said, “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” That time is now, and has been since 1619. The killings of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd are but the most recent acts of injustice the American black community has ...
University of Kansas Chancellor Douglas Girod, under criticism from the Journal-World, recently admitted that KU has lost around 26% of its general operating budget due to the coronavirus lockdown. Now students, staff and faculty are on tenterhooks, waiting for information about budgets, salary ...
Your family takes great pride in helping each other across generations. The grandparents regularly set aside money, knowing that your dream is to build a second home on a few acres of land the family owns. You could not do it without them. They want to do it for you. After years of their ...
We continue to work closely together — now more than ever — to protect the health and safety of all Douglas County residents and to provide critical services during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is our top priority. On March 23, Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, LMH Health, Douglas ...
Life has changed. All that is critically important to each of us is now more clearly in focus. Life is precious. Family and community are treasured gifts, more central to life than we may have realized in the busy and hectic days before life changed. The unknowns, the worries, the concerns ...
On Feb. 11, the Lawrence City Commission expressed its support for moving forward on drafting a policy that would require the Lawrence Police Department to limit cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in certain cases, which would put our community’s safety at risk. ...
I write as an advocate for Medicaid expansion in Kansas and as a promoter of Republican-Democrat compromise. I served as a state senator from Lawrence from 1983 to 1992, and I also serve as chairman of Save Kansas Coalition Inc., a bipartisan group. I am concerned that this important advance ...
Sleepy eyed on a recent Sunday morning, a young mom named Rebecca and her two children, Byron, 6 and Kennedy, 2, wandered over to the Lawrence Community Shelter’s front desk, the place where I was stationed as a volunteer. I had brought doughnuts. “Would you like one?” I asked. ...