Page 2/The Battalion/Thursday, July 10, 1986
Opinion
Better than tents
Texas Department of Corrections Chairman A1 Hughes’
proposal to use “pre-release centers” to cut down on prison
overcrowding makes much more sense than previous sugges
tions for solving the problem.
Hughes says he will push for at least four pre-released cen
ters, designed for housing inmates serving the last six to 12
months of their sentences or low-risk offenders such as drug
abusers. The centers would have industrial operations and pos
sibly work-release programs.
Hughes hopes to make a formal presentation to the Texas
Legislature during its next session.
Pre-release centers are a more effective solution to over
crowding than releasing prisoners before their sentences have
been served completely or housing them in tents. The 500-in
mate units would ensure prisoners do not have years trimmed
off their sentences merely because of lack of cell space. But the
centers also would meet prison reform requirements. The in
dustrial operations and work-release programs would tie in with
current rehabilitative programs offered by the TDC.
The total cost for the construction and land acquisition
would be between $8.5 million and $10 million, Hughes says.
But the TDC chairman plans to compare the cost of a state-built
facility with private bids. Private construction would take some
of the financial burden off the state, making the proposal all the
more appealing in these times of declining oil revenues. In addi
tion, profits from the industrial operations would be returned to
prison-system funds.
The four proposed units could be a much-needed release
valve for the rising overcrowding pressures which currently
plague Texas prisons.
While the proposed facilities may not be the ideal solution to
the prison problem, they certainly make previous suggestions
seem pleasantly ridiculous by comparison. After all, justice
based on cell vacancy is not only ineffective, it’s embarrassing.
The Battalion Editorial Board
Reagan’s press limits
The Reagan
YV h i t e House,
whose managers
prefer decorum to
the sometimes un
ruliness of a free
Michael
Putzel
News Analysis
—and sometimes free-wheeling—press,
is more and more off-limits to reporters.
They're small steps, to be sure, each
one bv itself hardly worth mentioning
outside the grounds. But as they are
added one after another, they begin to
f orm a pattern of exclusion.
Item: The Secret Service, ostensibly
for reasons of security, begins barring
the small “pool” of reporters and pho
tographers that usually accompanies the
president from following him into and
through hotels and places where he
goes to make speeches. As a result, news
people no longer can get close enough
to the president to talk to him when he
is traveling.
Item: Still photographers, once ac
companied by reporters and television
crews whenever they took pictures of
the president, are quietIv escorted into
some meetings without their inquisitive
colleagues along. Begun on an experi
mental basis, purportedlv to increase
opportunities for candid photos of Rea-
uan. these “stills onlv” events are now
Michael Putzel is a White House corre
spondent for The Associated Press.
'Coqqo
0000 yd
fr
The new discrimination:
affirmative action quotas
One sympa
thizes with the
Supreme Court’s
ruling against the
sheet metal work
ers union in New
York City b e -
cause the union
had flagrantly
discriminated
against minori
ties. But the
court’s sanction
We do not have the current figures,
but it is unklikely that anyone would
charge that there is anti-Semitic discrim
ination at Yale today, either at the fac
ulty or at the student level. Quite the
contrary would certainly appear to be
the case in the student body: 3 percent
of Americans are Jewish, and probably
25 percent of the student body of Har
vard and Yale are Jewish.
William F.
Buckley Jr.
frequent substitutes for the larger ses
sions that customarily include reporters.
Item: The president, who once en
tered the East Room through the main
door to address assembled guests, now
slips in through a side entrance beyond
the reach — and questions — of report
ers covering such events.
None of these steps would be cause
for concern if there were regular access
to President Reagan and his top lieuten
ants. But for years members of the news
media have been prohibited from walk
ing unescorted through the working
areas of the White House and generally
see the president only at his pleasure or
the inclination of his staff.
Reagan, in particular, exhibits little
desire for informal or unrehearsed
meetings with reporters.
And as a practical matter, no other
outside observers have regular opportu
nities to question him about his policies
or issues of national concern.
The president’s business is, after all,
the public’s business. And while most
would acknowledge he has the privilege
of conducting much of his work behind
closed doors, there will continue to be
demands for open scrutiny of his
thoughts, his decisions and his policies.
of the lower court’s remedy introduces
us to the surrealism of the court’s logic.
By Aug. 31, 19K7, the union in ques
tion is supposed to have in its work force
29-23 percent black or Hispanic. The
figure itself is a metaphorical reproach
of the kind of logic the court has per
mitted itself to engage in. I doubt that
Einstein would have specified 29.23
parts uranium in an atom bomb with
any confidence, and certainly Maxim's
would not specify 29.23 minutes in the
oven for a Baked Alaska. The idea of
U.S. courts spending their time measur
ing in hemidemisemiquavers compli
ance with anti-discrimination statutes
gets to the shaky empirical question, and
we are still left with the moral question.
Now what are we to conclude f rom
this, if we fix attention only to the rea
soning of the Supreme Court? At what
chronological point can a white Anglo-
Saxon Protestant protest a pattern of
discrimination against him? If it is said
to him that it as simple as that lie was
less Well-qualified than the Jewish appli
cant, he has recourse — doesn’t he? —
to the argument that subjective criteria
are relied on heavily in any situation in
which there are eight or H) applicants
for any single opening, and individual
qualifications tend to become redun
dant. Will the courts be asked to regu
late school admissions policies, given
that at the same time the New York
sheet metal workers union was discrimi
nating against blacks and Hispanics,
Yale was discriminating against Jews?
holding is a narrow one . . ..N»
noritv employees therefore renuI.
to challenge the race-conscioii'H
sin es contemplated In a propost'H
sent decree as violative of iliti!®
under Sec. 703 or the Mth Ik
ment. Even if non-minoritv empB
do not object to the consent dc«
court should not approve a tonscl
cree, a court should not approve E
sent decree that on its face provitl-B
racially preferential treatmertp
would clearly violate Sec. 703B
14th Amendment.”
That is what one might call,if
concurrent opinion, but it exprewl
reservations held by many whoiJ
one hand wish to stamp out (lisuiil
tion and on the fear that ther
taken by the Supreme Court tnev
fights discrimination with theweaj
discrimination.
Daniel Oren, a fairly recent graduate
of Yale University, has written a book.
Joining the Club, documenting what ev
eryone knew, not about discrimination
against blacks and Hispanics by Yale
(and by other Ivy League colleges), but
against Jews. It was onlv after World
War II that, in most faculty depart
ments at these nerve centers of liber
alism, a Jew could get a tenured ap
pointment. There were implicit quotas
limiting Jewish and Catholic students.
The Supreme Court appears to have
sanctioned a promotion schedule in
Cleveland by firefighters that provides
for promoting a white on Monday, a
black or Hispanic on Tuesday, a white
on Wednesday, a B/H on Thursday —
the idea being to undertake, in the
name of affirmative action, something
on the order of quotas that represent
demographic distribution. In voting
with the majority, Justice Sandra Day
O’Connor was visibly unhappy. “I write
separately to emphasize that the court’s
The majority of Americans haul
very docile, submitting to the mol
ton of the Supreme Court. You
almost anything to the Christiannj
ity — take away their right topii !
schools, tell them they can’t keepf 1
tier off the neighborhood netvsstB
direct them to send their chiklrB
schools ten miles away. But the®
eye is going to go on one of theseB
when an American who has neve*
gaged in discrimination discover®
he can get promoted only by pent®
of a federal judge. The New Yo®
Cleveland rulings of the court are
fragile than their rooters make the I'
to be. Af f irmative action is noisii®
stitutionalized as the new instiun«|
discrimination. Somewhere
line there may lie another court
White vs. Board of Education.
Copyright 19S6, Universal Press Syndic^
Problems of the farmers also plague Farm Aid
c
aid
wh
grt
of
bu
SUl
tin
YV<
th<
no
th<
dir
re;
tio
wi
fo
Mi
tin
su
7
f
dej
Un
she
nat
We
the
tioi
When the edi-
tors determined
that I was to cover
farm Aid II. most
of the staf f w as en-
v ions. I w a s
thrilled at the
chance to get to
hang out with Wil
lie Nelson a n cl
friends and get
paid for it to boot.
Karl
Pallmeyer
I should have realized there might be
problems when it took W illie's people
six hours to get the press passes ready
and I was required to make a S50 “dona
tion" before I could pic k up passes for
me. and linttnlion photographer Tom
()wnbe\.
When we arrived at farm Aid II we
were told In "Those in Charge” that we
couldn't go anvwhere but the press tent
and the audience. Thev also told us that
then would ti\ to organize groups to
take' up to the' photogj aphers' platform
just below the stage so that we could get
pic ture’s. It took forever for " I hose in
Charge" to organize these groups, so we
took our chances with the crowd.
Aftet we got some shots of the crowd,
we went back to the press tent and
waited around for the stars who just got
off stage and were supposed to come
back and talk to the press. None of the
currently popular stars made it back,
but Roger McGuinn, one of the found
ing members of the Byrds, and John
Brine did. I enjoyed talking to Brine and
McGuinn, but I couldn’t get much that
would be of interest to the MTV genera
tion of today. I would much rather
spend the afternoon talking to McG
uinn than John Cougar Mellencamp but
I, and about 100 other reporters, was
sent to get a story of today’s music, not
the music of 20 years ago.
Right before John Cougar Mellen
camp hit the stage, “Those in Charge”
decided that photographers couldn't go
up on stage because we were not follow
ing the rules thev had made up. Appar
ent Iv, thev decided it would be a lot less
work on them if thev would refuse to co
operate with the press and claim that
someone else was responsible.
After much arguing with “Those in
Charge,” thev finally agreed to take us
on stage so that we could get some pic
tures. They said we could have onlv 10
minutes, but we would have to wait until
some "hardcore professionals” were
through shooting.
Those “hardcore professionals” were
about 13 y ears old and were taking pic
tures with Bolaroids and Kodak Disc-
Cameras. For some reason there were
tons of the 13-year-olds that had full
run of the concert because their passes
said “Willie’s friends.” Basses that said
“Media" were pretty much useless.
We got up on stage just in time for
Neil Young's set. I was a good little jour
nalist, got some shots of Neil and, when
mv time was up. got off the stage and
waited to be led back to the press tent.
“ Those in Charge” who led us up to the
stage were no w here to be seen. One of
“ Those in Charge" at the stage looked at
me in confusion and thought the best
wav to deal with the problem was to
send me bac k on stage. I didn’t mind.
After Stev ie Rav Vaughan played we
decided to call it quits and grab a bus
back to the hotel. We had had enough
of the heat, the dust, the crowd, the mu
sic and the hassels of trying to get a
storv.
The problems of Farm Aid II and the
problems of the farmers are somewhat
similar. Farm Aid II was a disorganized
mess — thev weren't even sure where it
was going to be held until a week before
the concert. Bless problems were the re
sult of poor planning, lack of cooper
ation and special interests getting in the
way of the greater objective. No one was
sure of what needed to be done or how
to do it. The music was fantastic but the
show brought in only $1.4 million for
the farmers and some of that money w ill
have to go to pay for the concert. The
biggest benefit from the Farm Aid con
certs is not the money they bring in but
the publicity given to the farm problem.
Many farmers are losing the farms
because they can no longer afford to
keep them running and make enough
money to keep themselves alive. Al
though the farm industry is vital to this
nation’s economy few people seem to re
alize that farmers are in trouble. Even
fewer people are aware that they need
to do something to help the farmers.
Bart of the farmers’ problems stem
from the fact that most recent govern
ment legislation has favored big busi
ness over small businesses such as farms.
Big businessmen have a powerf ul lobby
and are able to get almost anything they
want out of their senators and congress
men. The biggest and most powerful
lobby of farmers is the tobacco farmers.
Most other farmers aren’t rich enough
to buy food and clothing for their fami
lies, much less buy a congessman to put
in their pockets.
Farmers need to get organized. They
need to work together to get programs
that will benef it all farmers and not just
specific groups. You can’t feed a nation
tobacco.
Farm owners also need to work to
gether to make the rest of the country
understand the problem so that®
in the cities w ill help farmers. B
country won’t be able to survive wi®
them.
Karl Pallmeyer is a senior journtw'
major and a columnist for The Bif'
ion.
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Loren Stef t v, Opinion Page Editor I
Scott Sutherland, Cit\ Editor
Kay Mallett. News Editor
Ken Surv, Sports Editor
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