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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 14, 1985)
—■^xasA&MQ - - I# I 1 ticpattalion Vol. 80 No. 96 CJSPS 045360 16 pages College Station, Texas Thursday, February 14, 1985 Report: human rights have made progress Associated Press I WASHINGTON —The State De partment said Wednesday in its an nual report on worldwide human rights that “real progress” was made in Latin America and the Caribbean. It also stated that the “most serious” problems of political repression oc curred in the Soviet bloc. ■ Elliott Abrams, the assistant secre tary for human rights and humani tarian affairs, said, “The only signifi- cant overall trend is the trend toward improvement in the Western Hemisphere.” ■ Over the last five years, nine Countries have shifted front dictatorship to democracy in the hemisphere while “zero countries have gone from democracy to dictatorship. That’s a very impres sive trend.” I The 1,453-page report, which is mandated by Congress and has been issued annually since 1977, covers conditions in 164 countries through the end of 1984 and, in some cases, early 1985. H Although the report praised the rights records in most democratic countries, the situation in Uganda, one of Africa’s few parliamentary democracies, was described as “grave,” with tens of thousands re ported killed as a result of insurgent terrorism and government coun termeasures. Other countries singled out for unusually harsh appraisals were Al bania, where the situation was said to be “exceptionally bad,” with “ex tremely fiarsh prison conditions,” and North Korea, described as “one of the most highly regimented and controlled” nations in the world. Asserting that objectivity was a key goal, the report said “while the Soviet bloc presents the most serious long-term human rights problem, we cannot let it falsely appear that this is our only human rights con cern.” According to the report, “Soviet performance in the realm of human rights fails to meet accepted interna tional standards. The regime’s com mon response to efforts to exercise freedom of expression is to incarcer ate those concerned in prisons, labor camps or psychiatric hospitals.” Abrams ^said there was a “further crackdown” on religious activity in the Soviet Union last year. Among the groups targeted, he said, were Catholics, Pentacostalists, Baptists and Jews. The report also found that in Vietnam, a close Soviet ally, “perva sive” controls are maintained over the citizenry and Hanoi bears some responsibility for executions and other abuses in neighboring Cambo dia, where more than 150,000 Viet namese forces are stationed. The report called democracy “the surest, safeguard of human rights” and said it was “encouraging” to see “real progress” coming about in the strengthening of democratic institu tions, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. President Reagan has said, the re port noted, that 90 percent of the people of those regions live in na tions either democratically governed or moving in that direction. Study says efforts to move boor out of inner cities fail Associated Press I DALLAS — Over the past 11 years, Congress has appropriated more than $223 billion on grants and programs designed to help the poor escape from urban ghettos into suburban public housing. But the inner cities have been shored up by racial discrimination, politics, poor program design and inadequate enforcement of federal regulations, the Dallas Morning News found during a 14-month in vestigation of federal housing poli cies. George Romney, who took charge of the nation’s housing programs in 1969, said in a recent interview the traditional residents of the inner cit ies have found it difficult to move to the suburbs of major American cit ies. Robert C. Embry Jr., who man aged the Carter administration’s ef forts to move the poor out of ghet tos, said,“The neighborhoods won’t accept it.” The Census Bureau’s most recent figures, based on 1980 data, indicate that in the nation’s 100 largest cities, 41.4 percent of low-income whites lived in poverty-dominated areas. The figures also show that 73.8 per cent of low-income Hispanics and 82.9 percent of low-income blacks lived in such ghetto areas. Photo by JOHN MAKELY Will You Be Mine? Sully was given a rose by some admirer late Wednesday af ternoon in honor of Valentine’s Day. The holiday is cele brated in memory of St. Valentine, who, in medieval times, came to be associated with the union of lovers under duress conditions. Suit filed against A&M over probation dispute By JERRY OSLIN Stuff Writer I Lawyers for a Texas A&M student filed suit against the University Feb. 4 charging the school unjustly pun ished the student for excessive park ing tickets in retaliation for the stu dent’s outspoken support of Gay Student Services. .Jg Tom Urban, vice president of Academic Affairs in the A&M Stu dent Senate, was quoted in the Oct. 6 issue of the Bryan-College Station Kagle as saying, “We hope the reso lution will make the Board (Texas A&M’s Board of Regents) look be yond their own bigotries and accept GSS.” His comments came after the Senate passed a resolution support ing the GSS. Urban, a senior aerospace engi neering major from Gollege Station, was placed on conduct probation by the University on Nov. 27. A letter from Brent Paterson, Judicial Af fairs Supervisor for Student Serv ices, informed Urban he was placed on conduct probation for accumulat ing “an excessive number of unpaid parking violations” and a failure to “register the vehicle with the U.P.D.” Bob Wiatt, director of Security and Traffic, said having more than nine parking tickets is excessive. Urban said he received 16 park ing tickets during the fall semester Tom Urban but paid them on Nov. 7 and bought a parking sticker on Nov. 14. The suit also says Urban received 12 parking tickets during the Spring 1984 semester but paid them in March. It also says that no discipli nary action was taken against him. “By putting Tom Urban on con duct probation for parking tickets, the University has chosen to punish him for his outspoken support of the Gay Student Services,” said LIrban’s lawyer, Beatrice Mladenka-Fowler. “The University is denying Tom his first amendment rights.” This is the first time an A&M stu dent has been put on conduct proba tion for having too many parking tickets, Mladenka-Fowler said. She said the University was using the parking tickets as an excuse to get back at Urban. Under Article 50 of the University regulations, a student on conduct probation is considered “not in good standing with the University.” The student also is ineligible to hold any elected or appointed office of the University and is ineligible to receive a University administered scholarship. Notice of the probation is also included in the student’s per manent file. Also, a student on conduct proba tion who further violates any of the See Suit, page 7 Women can invite men on dates, too UNIVERSITY NEWS SERVICE Put that special guy on the receiv ing end of the hearts and flowers this Valentine’s Day — it may not be a bad strategy. That’s the indication from research conducted by a Texas A&M psychologist. Dr. Charlene Muehlenhard, assis tant professor of psychology, has found women who have decided to make the first move in dating situa tions have nothing to lose with most men, as long as they can face reject ion. Muehlenhard’s studies focus on Woman-initiated dating, a fairly re cent development in male-f emale re lations and therefore relatively un explored by researchers. The studies have looked at a wide range of variables in woman-ini tiated dating, including the attitudes of conservative vs. liberal men to ward a woman asking them for a date. The study also looks at the ramifi cations on the relationship and the tone of the date when the woman does the asking. “I feel that this is new territory I’m working in and I find that very exciting,” Muehlenhard said. After analyzing the results of sev eral of her studies, Muehlenhard has concluded a woman can ask a man out with little risk as long as she can take it if he says no. “Some men commented that T’m always the one to stick my neck out and I’d like it if someone else would do that for a change,’ or T’d be really flattered,’ ” she said. Men who tested out as conserva tive (traditional) and those who tested as liberal (non-traditional) both said they would respond posi tively to a woman who asked them out if they liked her and wanted to date her in the first place. In fact, many said they would not ask out a woman they liked and wanted to date unless she gave them some kind of positive signal. If they did not want to date her, they would not ask her out, signal or no signal. The studies, which were con ducted at the University of Wiscon- sin-Madison and A&M, showed that about half of the men wanted the woman to ask them out and half wanted her to give them a hint that she would like to date them. Almost none wanted the woman to wait for the man to make the first move. Only four percent of those same men said they would ask a woman out if she waited for them to take the initiative. About 66 percent said they would respond by talking to her more often and 30 percent said they would not indicate any interest in a woman un less she gave them some kind of en couragement. The only problem Muehlenhard has found with a woman taking the initiative is that some men may get too “turned on” by it. Parking a problem for Southwest schools j Editor's Note: This is the first arti cle in a two-part series on parking 'problems and solutions at Texas A&M and other Southwest Confer ence schools. By TRENT LEOPOLD Staff Writer Traffic officials at Southwest Con ference universities agree parking problems exist partially because peo ple don’t like to walk from outlying parking lots to the inner-campus area. And the biggest parking problems of all SWC schools seem to be at Texas A&M and the University of Texas. Texas A&M has issued more traf fic tickets than any other school in the SWC during the past two years. Texas A&M also has a lack of close- in spaces, but recent improvements such as the intra-campus bus route has helped alleviate the parking problem. Ray James, the head of parking and traffic at UT, says he hears com plaints too often about the parking there. “One of the biggest parts of my job is hearing all of the complaints from everybody who isn’t satisfied with the parking situation,” he says. “Of course our bus system helps alle viate much of the problem, but when you have 45,000 students, you will have problems. “It’s just that people are basically lazy and don’t want to walk very far.” Traffic officials at Texas Tech University in Lubbock feel they have one of the better parking facilities in the nation and plan to continue im proving their current parking situa tion. Bob Suliigan, traffic and parking coordinator at Texas Tech, says the school is fortunate because all of its parking spaces are strategically lo cated. Texas Tech has 4,764 re served parking spaces, 3,799 dorm parking spaces and 5,129 commuter parking spaces. “It is less than a five-minute walk for faculty and staff from anywhere on or around campus,” Suliigan says. “The traffic flow is pretty good, although we do have some bottle neck areas.”. See Parking, page 5 Parking comparisons for Southwest Conference A&M Texas Rice Baylor SMU Houston Tech TCU Arkansas Student enrollment 33,859 45,281 3,500 10,800 8,845 31,095 21,633 6,503 13,982 Number of parking spaces 16,292 10,308 8,000 4,600 6,500 11,851 13,692 5,000 17,000 Average price per year for student permits Average price per year for faculty/staff permits $69 $11 free $35 $40 $38 . $22 $10 $10 $83.40 ^ $38 free free $40 $63 $38 $40 $60 Approximate number of traffic tickets issued per year 108,000 78,000 20,000 25,000 no record 91,000 45,000 55,000 54,000 Shuttle bus system yes yes yes night only special events only yes yes no yes