Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 3, 1974)
\ v_ Weather Partly cloudy and mild Tuesday and Wednesday. High today 60°; low tonight 35°; high tomorrow 64°. Notheasterly winds 3-5 mph. Che Battalion Today in the Batt Sororities p. 3 P & Z p. 5 Executive board .p. 5 Vol. 68 No. 50 College Station, Texas Tuesday, December 3, 1974 A&M Consol charged for sex discrimination By ROSE MARY TRAVERSO Staff Writer Violation of the Fair Labor Slan iards Act of 1938 was charged in a iuit filed by the U. S. Secretary of Labor against A&M Consolidated School District in the U. S. District ourt in Houston on Nov. 27. The district allegedly violated irovisions of the Act, which involve discrimination regarding ialaries of faculty members since September 1971. “Male employes during the years n question did work under a eon- ihat paid them $300 more than their female counterparts,” said Fred Hopson, school superinten dent, during a press conference last week. “However this contract re quired many hours of extra work and duty for those employes.” These duties involve “crowd con trol,” ticket taking and ticket selling at athletic events and other extra curricular functions sponsored by the district. “Female teachers don’t handle a fist-fight in a crowd too well,” Hop- son said. The contract also required daily policing of playgrounds, parking lots and other outside areas where students gather before school, at noon and after school. Male teachers were also assigned to specific after-school functions in the absence of the principal. However since September 1973, all teachers are paid on an equal basis according to years experience and perform equal and comparable extra duties, said Hopson. When teachers of both sexes are present at the games, the men are still expected to handle any trouble, said Charles Hensarling, school board chairman. “It’s costing the board a lot more money to do the same job,” Hen sarling said. The suit is seeking payment with six per cent interest to more than 100 female teachers for the period of time named in the complaint. “This could run in excess of $60,000,” Hopson said. If the case is lost, the money will come out of the instructional prog ram and a five or six cent per $100 valuation tax increase will be neces sary, Hopson said. According to Jack Woods, the district’s legal counsel, the suit is an extension of cases against non professional employes across the na tion. The act does not apply to pro fessional employes, such as teachers, as interpreted in a similar suit, Maryland vs. Wortz, he said. No faculty complaints of dis crimination had reached the board before it received a recommenda tion from a representative of the federal Wage and Hour Bureau to change salary policies, Hensarling said. The district will try to find the identity of the complainant who as yet has not been named. Woods said. Gray appointed to bank board University National Bank appointed Corps Comman der Rickey A. Gray last week to the bank’s board ol directors. Gray replaced John Chappelle as an advisory di rector on the board. Chap pelle resigned as Corps Commander Oct. 24. Gray will receive $125 from the bank for attending each monthly board meeting. Two other students, Steve Eberhard, student body president, and Greg Magruder, Residence Hall Association (RHA) presi dent, are also serving on the board and will receive the same compensation. According to Magruder, the three students are only advisors and do not have voting privileges as do other board members. Keeping warm Photo by Chris Svatek Two Aggies watch as the time ticks off for the football team Friday. It always seems colder when your team is behind. Some schools eliminate dessert Shawn Phillips Consol to increase lunch prices Photo by Steve Krauss Bonfire was followed by the sounds of Shawn Phillips in G. Rollie White Coliseum last Tuesday night. Phillips was presented as a Town Hall Special Attraction. By ROSE MARY TRAVERSO Staff Writer A rise in lunch prices in the A&M Consolidated School District is ex pected for the coming term, said Olie C. Grauke, the district’s assis- Monthly food bills up again with huge boost from sugar Sugar price boosts of more than 50 per cent in a month pushed up the family grocery bill in November, an Associated Press marketbasket survey shows. But there were signs that the sugar spiral may be easing as three of the nation’s major refiners announced wholesale price cuts. The reductions announced Mon day were the first wholesale cuts in The recent problems with the in crease in sugar prices is not antici pated to cause any problems in food service operations in the near fu ture, said Ed Davis, affirmative ac tion officer, in a special release to The Battalion. Davis, in his statement, said the reason for A&M’s lack of problems is that the department buys its sugar in bulk, thus reducing costs and bypassing the recent increases in sugar prices. Another reason was the student menu boards’ campaign to stop food waste. Fred Dollar, director of food services, was originally asked by a Batt reporter if the recent sugar price inflation was affecting TAMU. Dollar has refused to answer any questions about Food Services and has referred all questions to Davis. Dollar said The Battalion has misquoted him too many times. Davis, who was unable to be in terviewed, produced a special re lease for The Battalion. Davis, in his release, also cited the computerized student identifi cation system in the dining halls has also aided in stopping unnecessary food and sugar consumption. more than a year. The action came amid new government hearings into soaring profits for refiners whose earnings have been boosted by the growing worldwide demand for the sweetener. Amstar Corp., the nation’s largest cane sugar refiner, Sucrest Corp. and CPC International’s industrial sugar division said they were lower ing wholesale prices of fine granu lated sugar—the kind you buy in the grocery store—to $66.75 per 100 pounds. Amstar and Sucrest cut $5.20 from the price of 100 pounds of sugar at the wholesale level; CPC reduced its price by $5.10 per hun dredweight. Amstar said the cut will bring the wholesale price of a five-pound bag of sugar to about $3.47. That’s actu ally higher than the price in most supermarkets because the sugar on the shelves was processed several months ago and the retailers haven t caught up with more recent wholesale boosts. It will take a while for Monday’s reductions to reach the retail level and, in between, consumers will face the higher price tags prompted by earlier increases. Supermarkets have urged cus tomers not to buy sugar and some stores are limiting purchases. Many people are already boycotting sugar. The latest check showed sugar in creased in every city except Dallas, where the specified five-pound sack was unavailable at the supermarket. Because of sugar, the total mar ketbasket hill also jumped sharply in every city except Dallas, rising an average of 6 per cent in November. If sugar was removed from total, however, the average increase was only 0.7 per cent and the bill in six of the 12 cities declined. A comparison of current prices with those at the start of the year showed the marketbasket bill up an average of 20%, with sugar con tributing a disproportionately large share of the increase. Most authorities say food prices over-all will rise in the beginning of next year, tant superintendent of finance, Tuesday. Currently the lunch price is 50 cents at the elementary school in the district and 55 cents at the mid dle and high schools. The size of the possible price hike cannot be de termined until the district’s exact deficit is known, Grauke said. The high price of food items, especially sugar, has forced Texas school districts to reduce or elimi nate desserts from the school menus and many have either raised lunch prices or are facing such a possibil ity. In Amarillo, where lunch prices range from 50 to 70 cents, the dis trict has started experimenting with artificial sweetners. Desserts have been eliminated in the Dallas Independent District, one of the largest in the state. Fif teen districts in the San Antonio area said they have been forced to reduce sugar consumption and some are considering eliminating desserts. In Fort Worth, sugar has been stockpiled by the district, said Wade Danowsky, director of cafeterias. “If we had not done that, we would have been in real trouble,” he said. The district cut desserts in high schools years ago. The Waco School District, which has operated on a deficit for a long time, increased the price of lunches to 55 cents and to 65 for high school pupils. Similar raises were found in Odessa, Corsicana, Denton, Austin and others. “Our approach to the problem is that we are not troine to cut nut or alter our service, Grauke said. “Our approach will be to raise our price. Thp district’s operations have re sulted in a loss of “Something around $1,000” since September, although the figures are not exact, due to mistakes in the computerized bookkeeping system, Gauke said. “We re kind of treading water right now since the report doesn’t tell us anything because of errors,” Grauke said. He said the district has had prob lems adjusting to the computer sys tem, which was introduced in Au gust, but will overcome these dif ficulties as employes become more familiar with it. “We know that we re not a whole bunch in the hole but we re not going to have to take steps at mid term,” Grauke said. “Other districts raised their prices this summer, but we decided to increase ours only when we saw we had to, rather than do it prema turely, he said The menus will continue to offer variety to encourage students to be responsive to different kinds of foods, Grauke said. “As educators, we need to educate them along the lines of proper nutrition,” he said. Political contributions ‘encouraged’ by Bell After the parade Photo by Jack Holm The only time Texas trailed the Aggies Friday was when the cleanup crew followed the parade before the game. The Aggies lost the game 32-3. These Texas students’ spirits were not dampened by the task they were given. DALLAS (AP) — Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. executives are “encouraged” to contribute to the campaigns of political candidates, a toi^ executive and part-time lobbyist for the company said Monday. Ward K. Wilkinson, vice presi dent and supervisor of the company’s public affairs depart ment, declined to comment, how ever, when asked if executives are coerced to contribute campaign money. “We do encourage our manage ment employes to contribute to candidates of their choice. I’m sure a lot of them have. Their choices are varied,” Wilkinson said. Personal records of the late T. O. Gravitt, head of Bell’s Texas opera tions, show he wrote five checks last April to that many Texas politicians. Gravitt committed suicide Oct. 17 at his Dallas home. His family and former San Antonio Bell execu tive James Ashley have joined in a $29.2 million suit claiming libel and slander by the company. Among Gravitt’s personal effects were notes received by him, hand written on Wilkinson’s letterhead stationery. The notes said “$100 each Dal Milford campaign fund, J. J. Pickle ditto. $50 to Ben Atwell campaign fund and Richard Geiger campaign fund. $20 to Chris Semos campaign fund. Asked if he had written the note, Wilkinson said, “In view of the fact that a lawsuit has been filed, I don’t think I should comment on that. ” Wilkinson was asked if the note could be or should be construed as coercion to contribute campaign monies. “I’ll have to decline to comment orj that. I don’t think it would be appropriate,” he said. Wilkinson said one of his respon sibilities is to supervise company lobbyists. “I haven’t done any lob bying myself this year,” he said. Another Wilkinson letterhead note found among Gravitt’s papers was one which said: “Need $100 check to Kent Hance of Luhbock, a Democrat. Beat Dock (sic) Blan chard the Demo, incumbent in primary. Faces Repub. Bob Garner of Lubb. in Nov. 3 gen. election. Expected to win, but because the Repub. candidate for Gov. is from Lubbock too — it could be tough. ” Wilkinson said he could not comment on details of the note. The five checks written by Gravitt were on an account at the First National Bank of Dallas, ac cording to the San Antonio Express-News. There was nothing among Gravitt’s papers to indicate whether he actually contributed $100 to Hance’s campaign, the newspaper said. Asked if Bell executives were given $1,000 raises in 1966 with the stipulation they use all or most of the extra money to feed political campaigns, Wilkinson said he would not discuss the question.