he Battalion
Vol. 87 No. 88 GSPS 045360 14 Pages
College Station, Texas
Thursday, February 4, 1988
ennedy obtains
enate approval
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
enate on Wednesday swiftly and
unanimously confirmed Anthony M.
Kennedy to the Supreme Court,
Bnding a ferocious political battle
pat began seven months ago.
Kennedy, a federal appeals court
Judge who was President Reagan’s
Ihird choice to succeed retired Jus
tice Lewis F. Powell, was approved
Jn 97-0 with Democrats and Repub-
licans alike praising him as a moder
ate, open-minded conservative.
Reagan, in a statement, said he is
1‘extremely pleased” and declared
pennedy “will make an outstanding
addition to the Supreme Court.”
“The Senate has not only restored
lothe nation a full nine-member Su
preme Court, it has reaffirmed this
country’s commitment to the philos
ophy of judicial restraint,” Reagan
said.
In Sacramento, Calif., Kennedy
issued a statement saying he could
“conceive of no greater honor for an
attorney or a judge” than to serve on
the Supreme Court, and adding he
is committed to the American consti
tutional system.
Kennedy, 51, will be sworn into
office Feb. 18, becoming the 104th
justice in the history of the nation’s
highest court.
He is expected to play a pivotal
role on the sharply divided court,
particularly on such issues as abor
tion, affirmative action and separa
tion of church and state.
His confirmation, after a one-
hour debate, was in marked contrast
to the stormy fight touched off by
the nomination last July of Robert
H. Bork.
Bork, Reagan’s first choice to fill
the vacancy created by Powell’s June
26 retirement, was denounced as a
rigid right-wing ideologue who
threatened individual freedom and
civil rights progress. The Senate re
jected him by 58-42 on Oct. 23.
Reagan, calling Bork the victim of
a lynch mob, then picked Douglas H.
Ginsburg, who withdrew from con
sideration after admitting he had
smoked marijuana while a Harvard
law school professor.
Students blame assault
on A&M football player
By Drew Leder
Stuff Writer
Two Texas A&M students and a
iCollege Station resident said they
[were assaulted by an A&M football
I player in an attack last weekend that
[left all three in the hospital, accord-
jing to College Station Police Depart-
|ment records.
Involved in the incident were
IA&M students Walter Voigtman, a
Jjunior political science major, and
jMary Barclay, a senior elementary
[education major. Mary Barclay’s
[husband, Andy Barclay, also was in-
Ivolved.
Andy Barclay told police that an
[A&M football player got out of a car
land attacked them at about 12:30
a.m. Sunday and then sped away,
I police records show.
The attack took place in the park
ing lot of the Woodstone Shopping
Center on Harvey Road, the records
show.
According to a police report,
Voightman told the police officer
that he knew the attacker to be an
A&M football player.
The report says the man was iden
tified later as a football player by wit
nesses in the parking lot.
Mary Barclay said Wednesday
that she went to the College Station
police station Monday to file formal
charges of aggravated assault, but
police said that an arrest warrant for
the man hasn’t been issued.
Diann Williams, records techni
cian for the College Station Police
Department, said Wednesday eve
ning that aggravated assault charges
against the man are being processed
and will be officially filed in a few
days, but she could not provide fur
ther information.
According to the report, the at
tacker was a passenger in a Corvette
convertible being driven through
the parking lot in front of Archie’s
390 Hamburgers.
The Barclays, Voigtman and an
other woman were in a car that had
just pulled into the parking lot. The
report said Andy Barclay had just
exited the car when the man called
out, “Look at those faggot cowboy
boots.”
According to the report, Barclay
replied, “What’s wrong with cowboy
boots?”
The report says the man exited
See Attack, page 5
House kills Reagan’s request
for more aid to Contra rebels
WASHINGTON (AP) — A bit-
tedy divided House voted Wednes-
Iday to cut off U.S. military support
for Nicaragua’s Contra rebels, re
jecting President Reagan’s aid re
quest in the hope of spurring peace
prospects in Central America.
The 219-21 1 vote, culminating six
years of overt and covert military
support for the rebels fighting the
leftist Sandinista government, killed
Reagan’s request for $36.2 million in
new aid to keep the Contras alive as
a fighting force through June.
It was a serious defeat for the
president, who had lobbied hard on
the issue for two weeks and put the
Contras among the top foreign pol
icy priorities for his final year in of
fice. Only a day earlier, Reagan had
argued that failure to extend aid
would strengthen communist influ
ence in the hemisphere.
“Today’s vote is the end of a chap
ter,” House Majority Whip Tony Co-
elho, D-Calif said. “The Contra pol
icy is the past. Now we can deploy
America’s greatest strengths, from
aid and trade to diplomacy, to stoke
the flames of liberty and secure the
future for Central America.”
But Republicans bitterly warned
that the action would relieve part of
the pressure on Nicaraguan Presi
dent Daniel Ortega that has forced
him into recent concessions, and that
Managua would slip backwards into
renewed repression.
Degree applications
due by end of week
By Amy Couvillon
City Editor
Degree applications are due
before 5 p.m. Friday for Texas
A&M students planning to grad
uate in May, Assistant Registrar
Don Gardner said Wednesday.
To apply for an undergrad
uate degree and order a diploma,
a student must fill out a card in
the degree check section of the
Office of the Registrar in Heaton
Hall.
The office is open from 8 a.m.
to 5 p.m. Monday through Fri
day, but is closed from noon to 1
p.m.
Students applying for a degree
also are asked to fill out another
card, which provides information
for the Association of Former
Students Directory and mailouts
to former students.
Degree candidates must pay a
diploma fee, which was available
as a fee option in spring registra
tion. But if a student hasn’t paid
the fee, Gardner said, the regis
trar’s office can make arrange
ments to send a bill to the student
later.
“The main thing is to get over
here and fill out the cards,” Gard
ner said.
Computer-generated degree
audit letters will be sent in April
to every student who applies for a
degree, Gardner said. The letter
will tell the student whether any
problems — such as unresolved
petitions or trouble with transfer
credits — remain to keep the stu
dent from graduating.
Gardner said it is important for
degree candidates to get prob
lems like this resolved as soon as
possible and not leave them until
the last minute. The verification
period before the graduation cer
emony is much shorter this se
mester because it is the first se
mester in which graduating
seniors will be required to take fi
nals.
“The goal is that by April 1, we
will send all these students a nice
clean audit,” Gardner said.
Gardner estimated that about
3,000 students will graduate in
May.
Late degree applications will be
accepted up until the time that
grades are turned in, Gardner
said, but because diplomas have
to be ordered in advance, stu
dents who apply late may not get
their diplomas in time for the
May 13 and 14 graduation cere
monies.
“If they come wandering in
around March, I’ll let them ap
ply,” Gardner said, “but we can’t
guarantee when their diploma
will come in.”
“The issue of Nicaragua and Cen
tral America will not go away,”
House Republican Leader Robert
Michel of Illinois said.
“If you vote this package down,
you’d better be prepared to bear the
consequences,” Michel said. “And
who among you is smart enough to
predict the path on which Daniel Or
tega will take you?”
Current aid to the rebels expires
Feb. 29, and Democrats pledged to
hold another vote before then on an
alternative package of purely hu
manitarian aid to the rebels, and to
follow that up with a new emphasis
on economic development aid for
countries in the region which abide
by terms of a five-nation peace
accord.
“We recognize that we cannot
morally walk away and leave them
abandoned in the jungle,” Rep. Da
vid Obey, D-Wis., said.
The most controversial part of the
defeated package was $3.6 million
earmarked for weapons and ammu
nition, which Reagan had said he
would withhold until March 31 to
see how cease-fire talks go between
the rebels and the Managua govern
ment. Those talks are scheduled to
resume Feb. 10.
Squeeze me
Matthew Blake, a junior marketing major from
Houston, chooses a poster from a display that is
currently set up in the MSC. Each semester the
Photo by Shelly Schulter
Aggie Cinema invites the Austin business to sell
the posters at A&M. The display will last until Fri
day.
New Jersey court:
Surrogate pacts
are ‘baby-selling’
Father gets custody of Baby M
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Pay
ing a woman to have a baby
amounts to illegal baby-selling,
the New Jersey Supreme Court
ruled Wednesday in the land
mark Baby M case. But the tod
dler will live with her father, with
visiting rights for her biological
mother.
The court’s 7-0 decision over
ruled all but the custody decision
of a lower court judge in the dis
pute over a surrogate agreement
gone sour.
Mary Beth Whitehead-Gould
bore a daughter nearly two years
ago for William Stern and his
wife, Elizabeth. She was artifi
cially inseminated and agreed to
accept $10,000 for having the
child, but when the girl was born,
she changed her mind, refused
the money and fled to Florida.
Authorities tracked her down
after nearly three months and re
turned the child to the Sterns.
In its decision, the high court
said the contract between White-
head-Gould and the Sterns vio
lated New Jersey adoption laws
because of the payment to her.
“This is the sale of a child, or at
the very least, the sale of a moth
er’s right to her child, the only
mitigating factor being that one
of the purchasers is the father,”
the court said.
But the justices found no ille
gality in allowing women to vol
unteer as surrogates, provided
the agreement allows the mothers
to change their minds about giv
ing up parental rights.
The judges said Whitehead-
Gould is entitled to see her
daughter, and directed a lower-
court judge to set guidelines.
They also voided the adoption of
the baby by Mrs. Stern.
Because the surrogacy contract
is invalid, the court said, the case
boiled down to a custody dispute.
The court said it closely scruti
nized both households and found
it would be in Baby M’s best inter
est to grow up with the Sterns.
Rumors say
Soviets had
meltdown
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) —
Rumors of another Soviet nuclear
accident swept across Western Eu
rope on Wednesday, triggering
speculation in grain and dollars on
financial markets before being
squelched by Soviet and Swedish of
ficials.
The false reports may have been
the fallout from a test of an early
warning system begun by an interna
tional nuclear energy watchdog
agency in the wake of the 1986
Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet
Union.
The national news agency Tid-
ningarnas Telegrambyra, citing
Sweden’s national Radiation Protec
tion Agency, reported “an atomic
power plant accident apparently oc
curred in the Soviet Union.”
The report spread quickly, even
though officials at the radiation
agency said they had made no such
statement and the Soviet Minister of
Nuclear Energy denied an accident
had occurred.
The rumor also reached New
York, as stock prices of companies
that trade in grain rose on the ru
mor, because contaminated Soviet
crops would spur U.S. exports. The
dollar rose slightly on some Euro
pean markets as the rumor spread.
Nude males run through Commons,
MSC in possible initiation incident
By Kimberly House
Staff Writer
The University Police Depart
ment reported that several males
were running nude in the Memorial
Student Center Wednesday at 12:06
a.m.
The police also reported that
three males wearing only neckties
around their heads and carrying
towels began creating a disturbance
in Krueger Hall at 12:48 a.m.
An officer apprehended one male
whom she chased to Cain Hall. The
man told the officer he had orga
nized an initiation of freshman re
cruits.
Bob Wiatt, director of security
a^d University Police, said there
“Unless someone files a criminal complaint no one can
be arrested and names do not have to be revealed. ”
— Bob Wiatt, director of security and University Police
were a nuniDer ol inciuenis mat oe-
gan right after midnight that were
reported to UPD and continued for
a couple of hours.
No one was arrested and the case
is under investigation, according to
Wiatt.
“There were naked men running
through campus and running
through dormitories,” Wiatt said.
“Not only did our department
have a number of calls but the Col
lege Station Police Department did
too because there were allegations at
Treehouse Apartments, off campus,
that there were a number of people
running there.
“At this point we are conducting
an investigation to see if there is any
violation of hazing or any other ap
propriate charge such as disorderly
conduct,” Wiatt said. “Except, to
have disorderly conduct or anything
like that^'ou have to have a victim
who will sign a complaint.”
Hazing is when you force anybody
to do anything against their will, he
explained, or even by the virtue of
your position assert your authority.
He said the incident could be a vi
olation of the state hazing law and
also the hazing laws of the Univer
sity. That will be determined by Stu
dent Affairs, to which the case is be
ing referred, Wiatt said.
When the investigation is com
pleted the county attorney may want
to determine if there was a violation
of any hazing statutes, Wiatt said.
To be charged with indecent ex
posure, he said, you have to show
. See Nude page 5