Tuesday, April 14, 1987/The Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
acuity Senate OKs resolution
imed at salary discrimination
By Amy Couvillon
Staff Writer
Alter more than two hours of bit-
tei debate, the Texas A&M Faculty
Senate on Monday approved a reso-
pion intended to identify and rem-
edv salary discrimination against f e-
rnale faculty members at A&M.
■The resolution mentions “statisti-
ll evidence of a measurable dispar-
it) between female salary levels and
jtl) e of men for the 1985-86 aca-
■mic year.” It suggests that A&M
flouid set aside sufficient funds to
j Irrect salary discrimination where-
: ve it is found.
■“An immediate, case-by-case eval-
Htion (should) lie conducted by de-
■rtments, with die oversight and
■idance by the offices of the dean
■ faculties and provost, and imme-
late raises (should) be granted to
th e women found to be victims of
■scriminatory salary treatment,” the
I Isolution said.
■The final version of the resolution
■emerging from a tedious tangle of
Iiendments, motions, whereases
1(1 therefores — differed substan
tially from the original resolution in-
tlduced by Dr. Katherine O’Keeffe
Brnnithe Committee on the Status of
■omen. The original proposal had
■vocated an across-the-board pay
■tease for all A&M female faculty
! ifembers.
All resolutions coming from the
Fa ulty Senate must be approved by
Jesident Frank E. Vanaiver to be
dtime policy.
O’Keeffe was emotional and often
sarcastic as she defended the com
mittee’s proposal to give female fac
ulty the raise, which she said would
remedy a “collective discriminatory
burden of $ 180,905.76” found in a
study done by the Office of Planning
and Institutional Analysis.
The approved resolution, which
also includes suggestions for a yearly
salary study and an oversight com
mittee to be established by Vandiver,
was passed in an overwhelming voice
vote dominated by male voices. The
aware of the fact that I wear a skirt.
Most of you do not.
“This is a very difficult debate,
where people get up and talk about
women. There are too few of us
here. There are too few of us here to
answer.”
Several senators, especially Dr.
Omer Jenkins of the statistics de
partment, objected to the statistical
methods used to point out discrimi
nation. Jenkins said he was uncom
fortable with several technical as
pects of the study.
“This is a very difficult debate, where people get up
and talk about women. There are too few of us here.
There are too few of us here to answer. ”
— Dr. Katherine O’Keeffe of the Committee on the
Status of Women
few voices voting against the final
proposal were female.
O’Keeffe presented survey results
showing that most women perceive
sex discrimination, while many
males do not believe it exists. She
pointed out a fact obvious in the
crowded room — that there are very
few women in the Faculty Senate,
which reflects the fact that women
comprise only 8.2 percent of the
A&M faculty.
“1 am looking at all of you,”
O’Keeffe said, “and I am acutely
“Our society does discriminate
against women,” Jenkins said. “But I
hate to see a statistical analysis such
as this onego on the record.”
Dr. Don Plellriegel, interim dean,
introduced a presentation from Dr.
William FI. Bassichis, who was not
present at the meeting.
Included in HellriegeTs presenta
tion of blurry overhead transparen
cies was a list of the number of
women per department. The list
showed that 24 departments have no
women faculty members at all.
“I allege,” Hellriegal said, “that
for the next 14 departments of the
list (that have one woman per de
partment), and probably for the
next seven departments also (that
have two women per department),
the number of women in each de
partment is too small to determine if
anything beyond individual charac
teristics is affecting salary.”
Hellriegal suggested that a study
of female salaries should include
only those departments that include
more than two women.
O’Keeffe responded sarcastically,
saying Bassichis’ evidence was anec
dotal rather than statistical.
“Twenty-four departments,” she
said, “who have no women at all, are
so ‘pure’ that they are beyond any
accusation of discrimination against
women?”
Dr. Chester Dunning, who sided
with O’Keeffe on many of the ar
gued issues, urged senators to stop
arguing technical statistics and get
on with the spirit of the resolution.
“I’ve heard many critics, partic
ularly statisticians, say they don’t
really question the results, just the
method,” Dunning said, “and they
don’t want us to be associated with
dirty data, or dirty manipulation of
data, even though the bottom line is
we have a history of discriminaton.”
Engineering professor Don Rus
sell, who proposed the resolution
that ultimately was accepted, wor
ried that across-the-board raises
See Faculty, page 10
State legislators hear
committee testimony
on abortion proposal
AUSTIN (AP) — A state law
maker urged colleagues Monday
to ban late-pregnancy abortions
and require unmarried minors to
get parental consent to end preg
nancies.
A San Antonio obstetrician
said the bill could drive young
women to illegal, unsafe abor
tions.
The testimony came on Rep.
Mike Millsap’s bill that would ban
abortion of fetuses that have
reached “viability” and would be
capable of surviving outside the
womb. A similar bill was heard
Monday in a Senate committee
with its sponsor, Sen. Ted Lyon,
making changes to increase its
chance of passing.
“The legislation I have laid out
before you today will not totally
satisfy people on either side of
this issue,” Millsap, D-Fort
Worth, told the House State Af
fairs Committee, which heard
several hours of testimony but
planned to take no action Mon
day.
Millsap on Monday changed
the bill to allow pregnant minors
to have abortions with the con
sent of one parent. The bill pre
viously required approval of both
parents.
“To deny a parent the right to
give consent to surgery on their
minor daughter that could scar
them physically or emotionally
for the rest of their lives is simply
destructive of the family unit,”
Millsap said. “It goes against ev
ery principle regarding the sanc
tity of the family. No one should
have the right to do this to my
daughter or to the daughters of
any Texan.”
His bill would allow pregnant
minors to seek court approval for
an abortion, a process that com
mittee member Lena Guerrero,
D-Austin, called impractical.
“If a judge finds a young
woman mature he will grant her
an abortion,” Guerrero said. “If
he finds her immature, will he
make her a mother?”
Lyon, D-Rockwall, dropped
from his bill the provision requir
ing minors to have parental con
sent.
“I’m a political realist and I re
alize that with that provision in
the bill I do not believe I have a
chance of passing that out of this
committee,” Lyon said.
The' bill also was attacked by
Sarah Weddington, an Austin
lawyer who successfully argued
the Roe vs. Wade case that led to
the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court de
cision striking down state laws
against abortion.
[Sculpture sent back to artist
to have damages repaired
udents wa-i ug by the art ex-
[hibits between the Academic
building and Harrington Class-
jroom Building may have been
doing a double take this week, not
[because a new sculpture has been
[added, but because one is miss-
| in g-
“The Howl,” a multi-colored,
fiberglass sculpture of a wolf
howling at the sky, had graced
the walkway between the class
room building and Harrington
Tower since February, along with
several other pieces of art, but a
University Art Exhibit spokes
man said the wolf sculpture was
removed Friday at the request of
the artist.
Cathy Hastedt said some dam
age had been done to the artwork
before it came to the campus.
Prof gets bomb threat about 2 A&M buildings
By Christ! Daugherty
Staff Writer
An engineering professor in Zachry Engi
neering Center received an anonymous call Mon
day afternoon in which the caller threatened to
blow up both Fermier and Thompson halls.
Bob Wiatt, director of the University Police
Department, said the professor, who asked not to
be identified, received the call on his private of
fice line at approximately 2 p.m., and at that time
notified the police department.
Building proctors chose to evacuate faculty
and students in the buildings at that time, against
the advice of the police, Wiatt said, and they re
mained outside for about 30 minutes.
Wiatt said evacuating the building is not a
good idea in all circumstances because it often
leads to more calls of that type.
Instead, the police prefer to quietly check the
building in question before upsetting classes.
“We have to make a decision in the case of an
anonymous phone call as to whether it’s legiti
mate or a prank before we evacuate,” Wiatt said.
“In this situation we considered it a prank, but
the proctors made an individual decision to
empty the building.”
A sweep of Fermier and Thompson yielded
nothing unusual, he said.
Since the professor received the threatening
call on his private, unpublished office line, it’s
possible the caller knows him, Wiatt said.
But this sort of occurrence is not unusual, 1
added, and there was a rash of similar calls la
spring.
Also, although about half the calls are placed
to the police department, the other half are re
ceived by a variety of people, including secretar
ies, professors and students.
“It seerrts like it always happens toward the
end of the semester during exams,” Wiatt said,
“which makes us think someone didn’t study and
wanted a long, lazy afternoon out in the sunshi-
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