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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 17, 1985)
Ocean basin study A&M leads drilling exploration Page 3 Victory on the road Ags work overtime against TCU Page 9 The Battalion Vol. 80 No. 78 USPS 045360 16 pages College Station, Texas Thursday, January 17,1985 ury finds Time guilty in defamation case NEW YORK — A federal jury de cided Wednesday that Time mag azine defamed Ariel Sharon in a cover story about the massacre of Palestinian civilians, then resumed deliberations to determine whetjiei the former Israeli defense minister was libeled. The finding meant that the jury had decided in favor of Sharon on the first of three issues, all of which must be resolved in Sharon’s favor for him to win his $50 million libel- suit. Just after 11 a.m., the jury of four women and two men announced in court that the Feb. 21, 1983, Time story defamed Sharon because it meant he “consciously intended" Christian Lebanese militiamen to massacre Palestinian civilians in 1982. “In other words, your answer to the first question is‘yes’?” asked T.S. District Court Judge Abraham I). Sofaer. “Yes," said jury foreman Richard Zug. The jury, which met for 15 hours — minus meal breaks — over three class, went back to the jury room im mediately to deliberate on the re maining issues of falsity and malice. \ small smile cracked Sharon’s face when the ruling was an nounced. His beaming wife, Liii, turned to the reporters across the aisle and winked. One of Sharon’s ever-present Israeli security guards also turned and smiled at his boss. Later, on the courthouse steps, Sharon said, “I’m pleased that we jury glish. this point. I agazine is charging that I not understand plain that En ive line s managing < Time continues to belie ■lieves, its story is cot i ect ory over which Sharon si reportedly “discussed” >r the assassination of I anon's c.hrislian president-elect, shir Gemayel, with Phalangists before the Christian militiamet sacred hundreds of Palestinii ■li-occupied West Beirut. tor,said, totally be The st said he venge fi Isra dav Sharon has denied discussing re venge “with any Lebanese." file jury decided unanimously, “by a preponderance of the evi dence,” that the l ime article, “read in context,” had defamed Sharon. Based on that finding, the jury then decided a key paragraph of the story meant Sharon “consciously in tended’ to allow the’ Phalangists to lake revenge, including killing non- combatants. l lie jury did not rule, however, that the paragraph meant Sharon “actively encouraged the massacre. The jury’s ruling Wednesday vyas the first of three that Sofaer re quited of them in his lengthy charge on Monday. T he jurors, having determined that Sharon was defamed, must now decide first whether the article was false and then rule if T ime knew the story was false when it was published and if the magazine did so with “ac tual malice” or “reckless disregard” for the truth. affects local organization By DAINAH BULLARD Staff Writer A 1984 ruling from the Internal Revenue Service could spell a de crease in donations to charitable or ganizations nationwide, including the Aggie Club. The ruling, which states gifts to charitable organizations must be made without adequate compensa tion in order to be tax deductable, could affect organizations ranging from university athletic clubs to sym phony orchestras. This would in clude any organization which of fers bonuses such as preferred seating to donors. With a membership of about 3,500 and annual donations of about $2 million (which is channeled into athletic scholarships), the Aggie Club has a lot riding on the outcome of the IRS ruling. However, Harry Green, executive director of the Ag gie Club, said he believes Aggies will continue making donations to the University’s athletic club, even with out the bonus of a tax deduction. The Aggie Club offers donors the option of purchasing (for $104) a season pass in the preferred seating area of Kyle Field. Green said the practice of offering preferred seat ing to donors is very common among the nation’s university ath letic clubs. Donations to the Aggie C range from a minimum of $100 t maximum of $2,500, Green s; The preferred seating sections Kyle Field are the center sections on the second and third de< ks in the west stadium. As a donor builds up senority, he or she has the option of ib at buying seats closer to the 50-yard line, Green said. The IRS ruling was made after a taxpayer paid $300 to become a member of. a university’s athletic scholarship program, the mem bership allowed him to buy a space for home football games in the pre ferred seating section of the univer sity’s stadium. The cost of the season pass in the preferred seating section was $ 120. • > cause there were 2,000 people waiting for a chance to become members of the athletic club, the IRS ruled that the option to buy a season pass in the preferred seating area was more valuable than the an nual $300 membership fee. There fore, no charitable deductions would be allowed. Photo by PETER ROCHA Rainy Day Biker Wednesday’s rain and cold made getting clists as well as pedestrians. Today’s forcast around campus an unpleasant task for bicy- calls for more rain. Hazing in the Corps not a new Aggie tradition Editors note: liiis is the set oik I article in a three-part series on the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets. By MIKE DAVIS Reporter Since the Aug. 30 death of sopho more cadet Bruce Good rich, hazing has become a major issue on the Texas A&M campus. T hough the death of Goodrich is the onlv re corded hazing-related death, hazing at this 108-year-old University is nothing new. “Hazing” as defined by University officials and the state of Texas is vague. Even as far back as 1908, au thorities questioned certain Corps activities that they called hazing. Stu dents were prompted to strike be cause of dissatisfaci ion over a propo siti to remove traditional class authority such as the cleaning of dormitory rooms by freshmen, the assessing of demerits to under classmen and classmates and the re quirement that freshmen do pci sonal services for upperclassmen. Eighty percent of (he Corps, lead by the junior class, left the campus. Many c adets later made appeals Tot return, but nevertheless, later that year President Henry H. Harrington resigned. By TRENT LEOPOLD Staff Writer That next letter to Mom may cost more than expected wheti the price of a first-class postage stamp in creases from its current price of 20 cents to 22 cents Feb. 17. College Station Postmaster (Tin- ton L. Matcek said the increase is necessary to keep up with inc reasing costs the U.S. Postal Service is incur ring. Lie cautioned people to be sure I fazing at T exas A&M continued with 27 cadets being dismissed for hazing in 1913, six suspended for “brutal treatment” in 1928, and ten dismissed in 1934. Another mass movement against the regulation of hazing occurred in 1947 but failed. Eighteen cadets were suspended in 1966, one cadet suspe nded for "aggravated assault” in 1974 and eight c adets were dismissed in 1982. D'spite the history of hazing, Gen. Ormand R. Simpson, assistant vice president for student services, said the situation has improved at the University. the required amount of postage is placed on items when mailing them after the Feb. 17 deadline. “Mail put in mailboxes after the deadline without the correct amount of postage will either be sent back to the sender for additional postage or be sent to its destination with the re maining postage due,” Matcek said, “ft will be up to the discretion of in dividual post offices. “Mail put in most local boxes on Feb. 16 after about 4:30 p.m. or 5 p.m. will probably need to have the “It’s a hell of a lot better right now,” Simpson, Class of ’36, said. “My goodness, I don’t think you’d be in the Corps I was in.” Simpson said if it were as easy to get out of th'e Corps of 1932-36 as it is to get nut today’s Corps “we might have had 90 percent attrition tie- cause the Corps of 1932-36 was a very brutal outfit to be in.” Simpson said much of the attitude toward hazing began to change after World War II. “Not too long after I left, World War II started,” he said. “Everything was torn up then. Nothing really mattered, and that history of the correct postage on it since the in crease goes into effect at 12:01 a.m., Feb. 17.” Matcek said he recently ordered 250,000 two-cent stamps so people can add them to their 20-cent stamps to get the proper amount of postage on their letters. “The two-cent stamps have been ordered and clerks now have them so people can use them in conjunc tion with the 20-cent stamps they al ready have, however we don’t have any of the new 22-cent stamps yet,” Corps is sort of blank.” All Corps freshmen were moved out to Bryan airfield in 1948 because of hazing. Simpson said moving the freshmen away from campus worked because no upperclassmen lived at the airfield to haze the fresh men. “Those freshmen at Bryan air field didn’t come to campus except for football games,” he said. “The in structors went out there. That was a little college of its own.” But the movement also had a bad influence, he said. “What started then was a very bad precedent, which has been contin- he said. “We expect to get them any day now, but the exact date of their arrival is uncertain.” The first 22-cent stamps will be “D” stamps similar to the “C” stamps issued when postal rates were last in creased in November 1981 from 18 to 20 cents, Matcek said. Matcek said the first commemora tive stamp probably will be available in late January or February and fea tures the musician Jerome Kern. Matcek expects to receive about 25,000 of these stamps for distribu- ued,” Simpson said. “That is the hazing of sophomores.” The seniors and juniors were fu rious because there were no fresh men to haze, he said, so they hazed sophomores. “The sophomores then had two fish years,” Simpson said. “And since that time a lot of sophomores have had two fish years.” Simpson said that when he was a sophomore nobody bothered him. “They (juniors and seniors) called me by my first name and were friendly,” he said. “I made better See Corps, page 19 don in the College Station area. The Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal service agreed to the postage price hike late last year. The nine-member board originally asked for a three cent increase. In addition to the two cent in crease on first-class, non-presorted letters, postcard postage will in crease from 13 cents to 14 cents and second class mail will increase from 4.1 cents per pound to 5.8 cents per pound.