Discovery damage
only minor — so far
Top Secref review
in Entertainment
TV ruling's effect
on colleges unsure
See page 11
Battalion
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Vol 79 No. 165 USPS 045360 12 Pages
Serving the Gniversity community
College Station, Texas
Thursday, June 28, 1984
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Tennis Anyone?
Bryan’s Gage Gandy, 11, returns a serve at attending the Texas A&M All Sports Camp
the Omar Smith tennis complex. Gandy is which ends this Saturday.
75 percent increase
in tuition proposed
By BILL ROBINSON
Senior Staff Writer
Students at state colleges and uni
versities could be hit with a 75 per
cent increase in tuition costs this fall
if Texas legislators approve a tax
plan now being considered by the
House of Representatives.
Tuition at all state-supported
schools would rise from $4 to $7 per
credit hour in the 1984-85 academic
year as part of Rep. Stan Schlueter’s
$4.9 billion tax package to fund pub
lic education and highway repairs.
Schlueter, D-Killeen, is chairman of
the House Ways and Means Com
mittee.
Terry Kirkpatrick, a member of
Schlueter’s staff, says in-state tuition
will increase to 15 percent and out-
of-state to 75 percent of the total cost
of education over a six year period.
“After it reaches 15 percent, tu
ition will be about $19,” Kirkpatrick
says. “It’s an increase of about 500
percent.”
Non-resident tuition would re
main about 10 times higher than
Texas residents pay, or about $190
per credit hour.
Texas A&M student leaders are
preparing a battle against the mea
sure. The Texas A&M legislative
study committee has called a press
conference for 2 p.m. today in Aus
tin, committee director Johnny
Hatch says.
“As it stands right now we’re
going to be opposed to an increase in
tuition for three reasons,” Hatch
says.
“First, they are simply raising tu
ition; second, they are doing it doing
a special session when we don’t have
a chance to voice our opposition,
and third, they are trying to intro
duce it on a tax bill — tuition is a fee
not a tax, it should be introduced
separately.”
The committee’s opposition is
centered around the method legis
lators are taking to enact the in
crease.
“They suspended rules and didn’t
have to announce the committee
hearing so we didn’t even have an
opportunity to testify,” Hatch says.
“We are students and we do op
pose a tuition increase, but we do re
alize that Texas is ranked 47th out of
50 states in tuition cost. The cost for
you and I is $108 per credit hour to
go to school — the state pays $104
and you and I pay $4.
“We realize that one of these days
Texas is going to have to raise tu
ition — we just want to have a voice
in it.”
Texas students now pay for 3.7
percent of the cost of education and
non-resident students pay 35 per
cent.
The increases in tuition will not
benefit the state’s colleges, though.
Some state higher education funds
would be shifted to to public schools.
Kirkpatrick says the state won’t
make any money off of the tuition
plan.
“It doesn’t raise any money — it
takes a little pressure off of the
state,” he says.
The proposal to increase tuition
costs did not surprise Texas A&M
University System officials.
“Texas is, if not the lowest tuition
in the nation, close to it,” Board of
Regents secretary Bob Cherry says.
“We’ve been expecting an increase
for some time — it didn’t come as a
surprise.”
Cherry says system officials would
prefer low tuition if given a choice..
Committee completes
education reform bill
United Press International
AUSTIN — A House-Senate con
ference committee ended negotia
tions Wednesday on a $2.8 billion
education reform bill but delayed a
final vote on the measure, appar
ently fearing the entire education
package could be scuttled if the Leg
islature fails to pass a tax bill.
The education bill is written to
take effect Sept. 1, 1984, but law
makers’ rejection of a pending tax
hike bill would effectively make the
measure moot since no funds would
be available to finance the education
reforms.
If a tax bill failed, the education
bill could be amended in the confer
ence committee to take effect Sept.
1, 1985, giving the Legislature time
in the January-May 1985 regular
session to pass a tax increase.
“We’ve got a pretty good educa
tion bill,” said Rep. Wayne Peveto, a
member of the conference commit
tee. “If we can’t pass a tax bill, we
could change it (the education bill)
and make it effective in ’85. That’s
the strategy. The tax bill’s in big
trouble.”
Also throwing a wrench into the
education bill’s progress was re
newed opposition from teacher
groups, who last week endorsed the
House version of the bill.
“Even a dog knows the difference
between being stumbled over and
being kicked. As (the education bill)
stands in its final form, Texas teach
ers are being kicked and the Texas
State Teachers Assocation cannot
support it,” said TSTA President
elect Becky Brooks.
Teacher groups were angry that
the conference committee took
money from a career ladder plan for
teachers to cut the cost of the mea
sure. However, House leaders said
they doubted the opposition would
affect the bill’s chances of adoption.
Once the House and Senate adopt
the compromise education bill, it
then heads to Gov. Mark White, who
described it as “the best in the coun
try” and promised to sign it into law.
The adoption of a plan to revamp
the state’s complicated school financ
ing system was the final step in the
negotiations. Committee members
agreed on a modified version of the
House plan calling for the state to
pick up about 65 percent of the cost
of education with local school dis
tricts paying the rest.
Education Commissioner Raymon
Bynum said the new system would
better equalize funding between rich
and poor school districts, but also
could force some wealthier districts
to raise taxes to make up for lost
state revenue.
The bill requires teachers to pass a
competency test by June 1986 in or
der to keep their jobs, allows school
districts to decrease annual bonuses
awarded in a four-level career lad
der if the state fails to fully fund the
ladder, forces students to pass all
subjects (except honors courses) in
order to participate in extracurricu
lar activities, and mandates pre-kin
dergarten for poor and non-En
glish-speaking 4-year-olds
Jackson
obtains
of 22
United Press International
HAVANA — Jesse Jackson an
nounced Wednesday he will bring
22 American prisoners, most con
victed on drug charges, home from
Cuba Thursday, and said Fidel Cas
tro agreed to review the list of politi
cal prisoners in Cuban jails.
The 22 jailed Americans will be
met by the FBI, officials from the
Immigration and Naturalization
Service and the U.S. Marshall Serv
ice, the Justice Department said in
Washington.
With the Cuban president at his
side at a post-midnight meeting with
reporters, Jackson listed issues the
two men discussed, with mixed re
sults, in eight hours of talks, ranging
from the prisoner questions to nor
malization of relations between the
communist island and the United
States.
After visiting the American pris
oners in jail, the black Democratic
presidential candidate was to fly to
Managua, Nicaragua, for talks with
the Sandinista government — the
target of CIA-financed rebels — be
fore stopping again in Cuba Thurs
day to pick up the prisoners en route
to Washington.
U.S. officials said there are 29
Americans in Cubans jails, 24 on
drug charges, four for hijacking air
planes and one for a sex offense. It is
not clear which of the prisoners are
being released, but Castro said the
hijackers would not be freed.
Announcement of the prisoner
release was welcomed at the White
House but jeered in Miami’s Cuban
community.
“What about the thousands of
men rotting in jails because they
have stood up to Castro?” Pedro
Suarez, a security guard, asked.
High Court OKs
college TV deals
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The NCAA
suffered a multimillion-dollar jolt
when the Supreme Court ruled
Wednesday that colleges are free to
cut their own deals for televison cov
erage of football games.
With the 1984 football season only
two months away, the court ruled 7-
2 that the NCAA’s arrangement to
broadcast collegiate football on tele
vision networks violated federal anti
trust law.
The ruling allows college teams —
most notably traditional power
houses — to reap more revenues by
negotiating their own television
packages for the upcoming season,
which begins on Labor Day, rather
than relying on the association.
A lower court had ruled the
NCAA package was anti-competitive
because it reduced the number of
games available to TV viewers na
tionwide.
Writing for the high court. Justice
John Paul Stevens held the NCAA’s
contracts placed a “ceiling on the
number of games” that was an “arti
ficial limit on the quantity of tele
vised football that is available to
broadcasters and consumers.” He
concluded that was an unreasonable
restraint trade in violation of the
Sherman Antitrust Act.
The NCAA’s role of representing
both large and small schools is not
aided “by curtailing output and
blunting the ability of member insti
tutions to respond to consumer pref
erence,” Stevens wrote. Instead, the
group “has restricted rather than en
hanced the place of intercollegiate
athletics in the nation’s life.”
NCAA’s television rules do not
promote equality among schools but
only limit one source of revenue,
Stevens noted. There is no evidence,
he said, that this produces “any
greater measure of equality through
out the NCAA than would a restric
tion on alumni donations, tuition
rates or any other revenue produc
ing activity.”
Justice Byron White, an All-
America halfback who kept alive the
NCAA schedule last fall by issuing a
stay continuing the NCAA’s broad
casting schedule, dissented.
Joined by Justice William Rehnqu-
ist, he argued the court erred in
“treating intercollegiate athletics un
der the NCAA’s control as a purely
commercial venture, or even pri
marily, in the pursuit of profits.”
In Today’s Battalion
Local
• The College Station city manager says the city's land
fill may fill up by the 1990s. See story page 5.
• A professor of agricultural engineering was appointed a
Fellow of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers.
See story page 6.
State
* Interest groups lined up to criticize as unfair the
Texas Legislature’s proposed $4.9 billion tax plan. See
story page S.
World
• Israeli warplanes bombed a suspected Palestinian
guerrilla base hours after Israel and Syria announced a
Red Cross-mediated prisoner exchange. See story page 10.