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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 30, 1985)
'-.-wv' r Buzzer shot nips Owls Lady cagers win second straight Page 15 Texas A&MV 1 ^ M m m • The Battalion Vol. 80 No. 85 CJSPS 045360 18 pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, January 30, 1985 Meese claims no misconduct despite report Heave Ho! Photo by ANTHONY S. CASPER Workers from the A&M Carpenter Shop put the finishing touches on the new MSC lounge and study area. The lounge is located in the MSC basement near the snackbar and bookstore. The grand opening is scheduled for later this week. State legislators say get ready for tuition hike This is the first article in a two- part series on the possible tuition in crease for Texas students. By JERRY OSLIN Staff Writer Texas has a tradition of offering low tuition to college students, but according to some state legislators, it is a tradition that is about to be bro ken. “The (State) Senate is favorable to a tuition increase,” said Sen. Kent Caperton, D-Bryan. “With the bud get crunch we nave in Texas right now, we don’t have the luxury of of fering the lowest tuition in the coun try anymore.” The Texas House of Representa tives also is in favor of raising tu ition, according to Rep. Gary Thompson, D-Abilene. “There is a very good chance that a tuition-hike bill will be passed dur ing this session,” he said. “We have a $1 billidn shortfall in the state, and there is wide-spread agreement in the House that an increase in tuition is needed.” Even if the state had projected a revenue surplus, the legislature would still pass a tuition-increase bill, said Rep. Wilhelmina Delco, the chairwoman of the House Higher Education Committee. “There have been several at tempts in the past few sessions to raise college tuition,” Delco, D-Aus- tin, said. “If tuition is raised — and I think it will be — it will be because it’s an idea whose time has come.” A bill sponsored by Delco would raise tuition $2 per semester hour every year until it reached a level of $24 per-semester-hour. “I know an increase in tuition will hurt people,” she said. “That’s why my bill calls for 25 percent of the tu ition raised to be set aside for stu dent financial aid.” Delco said tuition for in-state un dergraduates hasn’t been raised since 1971, and this is the main rea son for the increase. But Caperton disagreed. “I have fought tuition hikes in the past,” he said, “but I can’t afford to take the political easy way out this time. We need the money.” Caperton said non-resident, grad uate, medical and dental school tu ition should be raised first and then resident undergraduate tuition only if it is needed. “We need a tuition adjustment, but I still strongly believe we have a responsibility to make higher educa tion available to as many people as { xissible at the lowest cost possible,” le said. Thompson said a tuition-hike is needed because the poor are un fairly bearing the burden of sup porting higher education. “Students aren’t paying their share of the education costs,” he said. “We have a situation where stu dents are getting a free ride at the expense of taxpayers.” A recent study by the Texas Re search League, an Austin-based public policy research group, re vealed tuition and fees charged to Texas resident undergraduate and graduate students are the lowest of any state in the nation. It also said Texas ranks last in non-resident graduate tuition and next to last in non-resident undergraduate tuition. “Studies have slibwn that the chil dren of the well-to-do are more likely to go to college than the chil dren of the poor,” Thompson said. “We are at a point where the poor are subsidizing the rich to go to school.” The TRL report also said resident students’ tuition pays for only about 3 percent of their educational costs while non-resident students’ tuition covers 31 percent of their educatio nal costs. A House bill, sponsored by Thompson, would raise the cost of resident tuition 2 percent of the edu cational costs every year until it reached 15 percent. It also calls for an immediate increase of non-resi dent tuition to 75 percent of stu dents’ educational cost. Thompson admitted some stu dents would be hurt, but said his bill allows an increase in student finan cial aid. “T he plan has a very generous scholarship fund for students who cannot afford the cost of the in crease,” he said. Thompson’s bill also calls for tu ition to be indexed to the inflation rate to keep up with rising education costs. See Tuition, page 9 System crash result of tampering, malfunctions Library patrons suffer from breakdown Associated Press WASHINGTON — Attorney General-designate Edwin Meese III said Tuesday he has met “ethical as well as legal” standards of conduct, but a report made public at the insis tence of senators concluded he vio lated conflict of interest rules. That finding was reached by two attorneys in the Office of Govern ment Ethics, but they were over ruled by the head of he office, David H. Martin, who was appointed by President Reagan. Martin informed the committee Jan. 24 that no ethics violation by Meese occurred, never mentioning the staff report — which became known through a news account Monday. The internal report by staff attor neys F. Gary Davis and Nancy Feath ers was made public as the Senate Judiciary Committee opened new hearings into Meese’s fitness to serve as attorney general. Last year, the committee dropped action on Reagan’s nomination of his longtime associate after indepen dent counsel Jacob A. Stein was ap pointed to investigate allegations concerning Meese’s financial deal- imrs with associates who later won i' Y '!**•■*'** - ♦* federal jobs. Stein said there was no grounds to prosecute Meese on any violations of federal criminal law. Feathers and Davis concluded, “There are two situations in which Mr. Meese violated the standards of conduct or other applicable stat utes.” They said the violations included a rule that sets limits on receipt of gifts by White House employees and a regulation prohibiting federal em ployees from participating in mat ters in which they have a financial in terest. These potential violations involve financial aid Meese got from Jofur R. McKean, who arranged two loans to taling $60,000 to Meese in June and December 1981. In October 1981, McKean, who was Meese’s accoun tant, was nominated to a seat on the U.S. Postal Board of Governors. “Mr. Meese should not have par ticipated when Mr. McKean came before the senior staff for approval with respect to positions on the Postal Board of Governors,” the Da- vis-Feathers report said. “He had a financial interrest in the matter The report also cited a delay in in terest payments to McKean and “the appearance of impropriety created by his (Meese’s) activities.” Meese, 53, originally appeared be fore the committee last March, but action on his nomination was post poned because of the investigation. In opening statements by sen ators, only Sen. Howard Metzen- baum, D-Ohio, said he would op pose the nomination. Eight senators said they supported the presidential counselor and nine contended they were undecided. Thurmond said he wants the committee to vote Thurs day on its recommendation to the full Senate. By GIGJ SHAMSY Reporter A computer hacker’s tampering and a system malf unction caused the breakdown of the Sterling C. Evans Library computers and forced li brary personnel to resort to slower man ual operations since Jan. 12. A hacker is a person who illegally invades a computer system and al ters data within the computer’s memory. Library Director Dr. Irene Hoad- ley said this interference combined with a common disk drive malfunc tion, called a “head crash,” has re sulted in the breakdown of all library computers for more than two weeks. Library Systems Analyst Tim Saito said a head crash sometimes is caused by a particle of dirt which jostles the 3()0-megabyte disk in the computer and halts the system. Since the malfunction, Saito said he has been working around the clock with library staff to protect the library’s data. Hoadley said the library staff has been forced to restrict the number of books checked out to five books per person. “We have two CRT (cathode ray tube) screens operable on the first floor,” she said. “Since we are per forming all functions manually, we will limit these screens for checking out books and for necessary library transactions.” The malfunction has inconve-. nienced both library staff and pa trons, Hoadley said. A team of work ers is investigating ways to prevent the problems from occurring again, she said. See Library, page 9 Doctors face ethical dilemma in abortion “Omeyoa Stan treating a fetus surgicafly or medically, that acknowledges that fetus as a patient. It leaves the doctor in the paradox of treating it as a patient or abort- ingitf*—Medical Ethkist Thomas Murray. This is the third article in a three- part series on abortion. By MICHAEL CRAWFORD Staff Writer Medical technology is moving fas ter than the law. In the landmark Roe vs. Wade case, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas’ statutes which pre vented abortions except when the mother’s life or health was threat ened. That 1973 ruling was based on medical technology which the jus tices used to divide pregnancy into three equal sections. As time progresses, the mother has fewer options available when de ciding on having an abortion or not. The Court declared that in the first trimester a wdtnan may receive an abortion on demand. During the second trimester, the state may regu late abortion procedures, yet the woman’s right to an abortion re mains. Ariel, according to medical knowledge at that time, the fetus could survive outside the womb in the third trimester and therefore the state can prevent abortions except where the mother’s life is threat ened. That definition of third trimester viability is threatened by the medical profession’s ability to save younger and younger fetuses. Such advances increase the possibility that a doctor may someday be forced to abort a fe tus he might otherwise be able to save. “At the time of the Supreme Court decision in 1973, the decision was based, in part, on the stage the fetus could be sustained,” says Steve Heartell, director of the Greater Dallas Maternal and Family Plan ning Clinic. “Advances in technology have lowered the age at which a fe tus can survive without aid. That’s a problem.” Medical Ethicist Thomas Murray at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston says, “Once you start treating a fetus surgically or medically, that acknowledges that fe tus as a patient. It leaves the doctor in the paradox of treating it as a pa tient or aborting it.” Murray says that fetuses 24 or 25 weeks old may be able to survive, but they would probably be severly dam aged. Parents no longer must wait until birth to discover if their child has certain deformities. Amniocentesis can detect certain genetic defects like Down’s syndrome by withdraw ing and analyzing fluid from the am- niotic sac. Unfortunately, amniocen tesis cannot be performed until the 14th week of pregnancy and the re sults take several w'eeks. When the results are finished, the fetus is al ready capable of movement. Another improvement in fetal monitoring is ultrasound scanning. That test enables doctors to accu rately determine the age of the fetus and provides a visual check for de formities. The fuzzy image resembles that of a child capable of surviving outside the womb. Because the mother can observe the fetus, Murray says, the mother’s decision to abort becomes more difficult. “It is less than a full-term baby, but it is still something quite signifi cant,” Murray says. See Docters, page 9