Che Battalion
Vol 69, No. 17
Copyright © 1975, The Battalion
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, September 30, 1975
Professors may sue
president, regents
Campus
Associated Press
AUSTIN, Tex. — Seven University of Texas
professors said they will sue the school’s new
president and the school’s Board of Regents in
federal court for allegedly punishing them for
their outspokenness.
The professors claimed Monday President
Lorene Rogers violated their First Amendment
rights by cutting the merit raise recommenda
tions for them by deans and department heads.
The seven are: Edwin Allair, philosophy;
David Edwards, government; David Gavenda,
physics; Forest Hill, economics; Standish
Meacham, history; Thomas Philpott, history;
and Philip White, history.
An eighth professor, James Kinneavy, En
glish, had intended to join the suit, but Rogers
restored the cut in the merit raise recom
mended for him. That made the issue moot for
him, he said.
The seven have been among the leading cri
tics of the choice of Rogers as UT-Austin presi
dent. She was four times rejected by a faculty-
student nominating committee, which has no
power but which allegedly was promised by the
regents that its recommendations would be con
sidered.
Rogers issued a statement saying, “This is so
Attorneys claim
ridiculous — when I cut back 70 people and
eight of them singled themselves out and say,
’She’s trying to keep us from talking.’
White told a Capitol news conference he tried
to save the university “acute embarrassment” in
the case by meeting confidentially with regents
Chairman Allan Shivers in August when he first
learned of the cuts.
He left that meeting, he said, optimistic that
the cuts would be restored and that no publicity
would damage the school.
“We believe she (Rogers) set out to do us in,”
Philpott told reporters.
“We have made her look bad,” said White.
“She has punished us because we dared to chal
lenge the presumed prerogative of the ad
ministration to mismanage the university in sec
ret. ”
David Richards, Austin lawyer representing
the professors, said Rogers’ restoration of Kin-
neavy’s merit raise, may be “proof of the pud
ding.”
“It was capricious from the outset,” he said.
“Maybe she was trapped.”
The average cut for the seven is $836 a year,
they said, and this mounts up over several years
and even affects retirement pay.
“WOMEN IN POLITICS” will be discussed by State Rep. Sarah
Weddington at Texas A&M University’s next Political Forum Oct. 2.
Forum Chairman John Oeffinger said the Memorial Student
Center presentation will be at 12:30 p.m. in Room 601 of the Rudder
Tower. ^
STUDENTS INTERESTED in taking the State Department’s
Dec. 6 foreign service officers examination must be sure their applica
tions reach the testing offices by Oct. 31.
Application forms and information are available from Dr. J. M.
Nance of the Histoiy Department.
STUDENT RADIO, scheduled to open Oct. 1, will not open for
an indefinite period of time due to engineering difficulties. The
announcement was made Monday night by Station Manager Scott
Sherman.
A STUDENT GOVERNMENT-sponsored voter-registration
drive is now in progress on the first floor of the MSC. The drive will
continue through Friday, the last day for registation for the Nov. 4
constitution referendum.
Texas
Hearst‘spaced out
Hues Corporation
H. Ann Kelly of the Hues
Corporation displays some
of the emotion that made
the group a success at
Texas A&M last year. This
second Town Tlall con
cert was also the second
trip to G. Rollie for the
group.
StafT photo by Glen Johnson
Mental hospitals
in medieval state
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A former
mental patient whose legal pleas re
sulted in a landmark Supreme
Court decision said Monday that
medieval conditions continue to
exist in some public mental hospi
tals.
Kenneth Donaldson said that at
the Florida State Hospital in Chat
tahoochee, where he was held for 15
years, doctors failed to identify the
mentally ill, medication was distri
buted indiscriminately and patients
were beaten by attendants.
Donaldson testified before the
Senate subcommittee on aging,
which is examining the needs and
treatment of elderly patients in
mental health facilities.
Donaldson was released from the
hospital in 1971 just before he ap
peared in federal court on his 20th
appeal to win his release. He had
been hospitalized when he was 48
years old after a civil court proceed
ing had been instituted by his
father, who asserted Donaldson was
suffering from delusions and
paranoia.
After his release, Donaldson won
a damage suit. The Supreme Court
ruled last Jan. 26 that so-called men
tally ill persons who are not danger
ous and who can provide for them
selves cannot be held in a mental
facility involuntarily.
“There was nothing wrong with
me mentally, morally, physically,
financially or legally,” he said.
“There was no legitimate reason for
my being held there even one day.
“Yet for 15 years the doctors said
that I was so ill that I could not even
be released to the custody of a half
way house where residents had ac
cess to psychiatrists.”
Donaldson, who lives in York,
Pa., outlined the following condi
tions, which he said prevailed at the
Chattahoochee facility:
— “My doctor for 10 years, who for a
two-year period was the only doctor
of 1,300 men, was licensed by the
state only as an obstetrician.
— “Medication was given indis
criminately by doctors to patients
who sometimes were not seen by a
doctor for months, even years.
— “There was physical abuse ol
old men. Arms were broken —
which were reported as ‘fall in
shower’ — teeth knocked out, ears
bloodied. Sometimes these things
were done by sadistic attendants
without provocation, other times for
slight infractions of the rules.
“That is the environment, gent
lemen, that federal dollars are help
ing to provide for our elderly,”
Donaldson said.
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — The con
tradictions multtiplied Monday in
Patricia Hearst’s public personality
and in the story of her kidnaping and
flight.
While a magazine article pictured
Miss Hearst as a willing revolutio
nary who refused to go home, attor
neys for the heiress described her as
still “spaced out” and a former un
derground comrade said she had
3een brainwashed by her parents,
rather than the Symbionese Libera
tion Army.
“She’s been more spaced out. It’s
harder to get her to talk,” attorney
Terence Hallinan told a news con
ference. “She becomes over
whelmed by tears much faster. She
cannot even begin to get into these
areas that her mind has closed on.”
But in a tape released from her
Los Angeles jail cell, SLA member
Emily Harris said that Miss Hearst,
whom she knew as “Tania,” is “a
truly beautiful woman” being man
ipulated by sexist attorneys.
“As a woman, I clearly see the
whole Hearst defense strategy as a
cruel manifestation of a male-
dominated society where women
are defined by men as being fragile,
weak and unable to make decisions
for themselves,” she said.
Mrs. Harris said a sworn affidavit
saying Miss Hearst was brain
washed is “a lie,” and she bitterly
declared: “The Hearsts have de
fined me as the enemy of Tania, a
woman I have loved and respected
for over a year.”
Meanwhile, Miss Hearst’s attor
neys sought to cast doubt on a story
in Rolling Stone magazine placing
her on a cross-country odyssey with
Jack Scott, a radical critic of the
sports establishment.
Hallinan, who declined direct
comment on the piece, mentioned
it when asked about a taped
jailhouse conversation in which
Miss Hearst described herself as a
radical feminist.
“The Patty Hearst that is in jail in
Redwood City right now is not the
same person who made those tapes
and is not even the same person that
Jack Scott, or whoever was in that
Rolling Stone article, met with,”
Hallinan said.
Later, in a private conference
with U.S. District Court Judge
Oliver J. Carter and U.S. Attorney
James L. Browning Jr., the Hearst
defense team won a promise that
Patty’s jailhouse talks with her pa
rents and attorneys would no longer
be taped.
The judge also postponed a
scheduled Tuesday hearing in the
case for one week after he was told
that psychiatrists reports on Miss
Hearst’s mental competency are not
ready.
Hallinan said Miss Hearst’s men
tal condition is deteriorating rapidly
in jail and that psychiatrists had ex
pressed “some concern” that she
might try to commit suicide. He cal
led for her immediate transfer from
her San Mateo County Jail cell to a
hospital.
The Rolling Stone article, which
will not appear on stands until later,
quotes verbatim from purported
conversations among Miss Hearst,
Scott and fellow fugitives William
Emily Harris. It said it was Miss
Hearst who asked to join the ter
rorist Symbionese Liberation Army
four weeks after her Feb. 4, 1974,
kidnaping.
It described a frightened and “up
tight” Miss Hearst fleeing cross
country in a car driven by Scott after
six SLA members died in the May
17, 1974 shootout with Los Angeles
police.
Scott, the article said, offered to
drive Miss Hearst home or any
where she wanted to go. It quoted
her as refusing with the comment,
“I want to go where my friends are
going.”
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT Hubert Humphrey told a sym
posium at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin on Monday to
apply greater political pressure and “infiltrate” the bicentennial
celebration to obtain greater tax support for the arts.
HALL TIMANUS, a strong George Wallace supporter, and
three other political leaders have joined a steering committee that
opposes adoption of the proposed new Texas Constitution.
FISK TELEPHONE SYSTEMS, INC., of Houston said Mon
day the new Texas Utilities Commission has accepted its charges
against Southwestern Bell as the commission’s first case.
BLAMING THE UNIONIZATION of city employes, former
Texas Gov. John Connally said Monday in Houston that New York’s
economic problems will spread to other cities.
National
CONGRESS HAS APPROVED $185 million for construction
projects on 15 military bases in Texas.
REJECTING a compromise offer from President Ford, the
Select House Intelligence Committee lined up Monday in favor of
taking its fight for secret information to the full House.
THROUGH COURT RECORDS and interviews, the story is
unfolding ofhowa West Virginia farmboy siphoned off $4.3 million in
U.S. dollars in a kickback scheme he executed while serving as a
petroleum purchasing agent for the South Vietnamese government.
PORTUGUESE PREMIER Jose Pinheiro de Azevedo on Mon
day ordered a military crackdown on leftist-controlled radio and tele
vision in Lisbon, Portugal, but soldiers at one station refused to obey
and thousands of leftists took to the streets in protest.
Grants available
for pre-law students
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY students preparing for law school
may apply for several Root-Tilden Scholarships, reports Dr. J. M.
Nance, campus pre-law advisor.
New York University is offering the 1976-77 scholarships that are
primarily intended for students planning careers in public service.
Scholarships are awarded without regard to financial need and
are generally for one-year’s tuition. Usually renewable, the scholar
ships can be augmented by other aid if need is shown.
Any students desiring additional information or wishing to make
application should contact Nance through the History Department.
Consol grading system altered
By PAULA GEYER
Battalion Staff Writer
The A&M Consolidated School
District elementary schools will be
operating under a different grade
reporting system this year, Robert
Garner, College Hills Elementary
School Principal, said Monday.
The new system, designed by a
report card revision committee, will
mainly change report cards for
grades one through three.
The committee is composed of
teachers from College Hills and
South Knoll Elementary Schools.
Instead of receiving a report card
for the first six weeks, these grades
will hold parent-teacher confer
ences.
Mary Jones, a College Hills
Elementary teacher and committee
member, said these conferences
will help acquaint the parent with
the progress of the child’s school
work and provide a more personal
education.
After the first six weeks report
cards will be given to students in
these grades but they will be diffe
rent from report cards given to
grades four and five. Garner said.
The upper grades will receive re
port cards with letter grades and
corresponding numerical grades, he
said.
The lower grades will receive re
port cards with a grading of strong,
satisfactory or needs improvement.
Gamer said the grading on report
cards for the lower grades last year
was broken into classifications of
strong, satisfactory and unsatisfac
tory.
He said the new system will also
allow for grading a child on two
grade levels instead of one.
“If the child is in grade three and
reads at grade two level, it will be
possible to give him a satisfactory on
grade level two instead of an unsatis
factory on grade three level,”
Garner said.
The lower grades in the elemen
tary school are graded on subjects
that include spelling, math, read
ing, writing and attitudes and
habits.
Reading on the lower levels is di
vided into phonics, oral reading,
reading comprehension and inde
pendent reading.
The upper grades study the same
courses with the addition of science,
languages and social studies.
The first report card for grades
four and five will be given out next
week.
Parental conferences for grades
one through three will also begin
next week.
.
Mandrill
The performance of Claud “Coffee’’
Cave and his group. Mandrill, gave the
audience at G. Rollie White Coliseum last
Friday a welcome surprise. The instru
mental group added diversity to the pro
gram. Staff photo by Glen Johnson