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The isattalion
Vol. 88 No. 8 USPS 045360 18 Pages In 2 Sections
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, September 7, 1988
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|Military exemption,
bribes shake Israel
JERUSALEM (AP) — A scandal
I involving citizens paying thousands
of dollars to avoid military service
has shaken Israel, where the army is
considered a sacred institution and
most believe their nation is sur-
[ rounded by Arab enemies.
The story of Israelis paying up to
[$10,000 in bribes to avoid serving
has been front-page news and domi-
[ nated radio broadcasts Tuesday.
“Shock waves swept through the
I IDF (Israeli Defense Force, or army)
. following the disclosure that a
[network of army personnel and civil
ians had been arranging exemptions
from military service in return for
[bribes,” the English-language daily
I Jerusalem Post said.
Renaan Gissin, the deputy spokes
man for the army, said the scheme
that was revealed Monday with the
arrest of 16 people, including high-
ranking officers and doctors, and
“touches on the very essence of the
Israeli Defense Forces — the sacred
principle here is to do military serv
ice.”
Israel is a nation of 4.1 million res-
lidents where both men and women
are drafted at age 18, and men do
reserve service of up to 62 days a
year until age 55. Many job adver
tisements ask that applicants prove
they served in the army. Avoiding
service has long been a social taboo.
There are virtually no conscien
tious draft resisters in Israel and
fewer than 300 people have refused
service during the last decade in con
troversial military operations in
places such as Lebanon and the oc
cupied territories.
But after the scandal broke Mon
day, reports surfaced that about 60
people had paid thousands of dol
lars to escape the draft or reserve
service. Newspapers reported Tues
day that several hundred people
may be involved.
The army said dozens of more ar
rests are expected.
The scheme, which investigators
say started in November, reportedly
involved falsified medical statements
and tampering with army computers
to show men excused from reserve
duty. Those arrested include two
lieutenant colonels, two majors and
an orthopedic surgeon.
A&M bid to dismiss language prof
subject of hearings, testimonies
By Stephen Masters
Senior Staff Writer
The Academic Freedom, Tenure and Respon
sibility Committee convened for a second day
Tuesday to hear testimony on a ctpntested move
to dismiss a tenured Texas A&M professor.
In a December 1985 letter. Dr. Katharine
Richards, an associate professor of modern lan
guages, was notified by her department head,
Dr. Luis F. Costa, that she would be removed
from University payroll in May 1986. Because of
continuing appeals, she is still on budgeted pay
roll.
Richards is contesting her dismissal and also
has filed civil charges against Texas A&M with
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commis
sion. She has been crippled from poliomyelitis
since she was 10. A deposition filed with the
EEOC by Richards said she wears a leg brace and
cannot walk or stand without crutches.
Tuesday’s testimony was from the dean of the
College of Liberal Arts, former and current de
partment heads, and a former student.
Richards has been a member of A&M’s faculty
since 1970 and in Spring 1988 was elected to the
Faculty Senate, w here she serves on the Research
Committee. She has had tenure since 1976.
The University charges say the move is based
on “professional incompetence, continuing or re
peated substantial neglect of professional re
sponsibilities, moral terpitude adversely affecting,
the performance ol duties or to the meeting oT
responsibilities to the institution, or to students
or associates, and mental or physical disablement
of a continuing nature adversely affecting to a
material and substantial degree the performance
of duties or the meeting of responsibilities to the
institution, or to students or associates.”
Jerry Cain, associate general counsel for A&M,
said the University is likely to drop the accusation
of moral terpitude.
“We just threw that (moral terpitude) in to
make sure everthing was covered,” Cain said.
Costa, who has served as department head
since 1983, continued his testimony from Mon
day. He spoke of three different instances where
students came to him to complain about Rich
ards’ class. He also said that Richards’ student
evaluations were consistently poor.
Costa said complaints were similar in that they
indicated Richards gave few explanations, that
students had problems understanding her, that
she was absent-minded in class and that she
tended to call on the same students for most of
the hour and would ignore the rest of the class.
Costa also testified that students complained
Richards often seemed unprepared. No students
testified to this statement during the first two
days of the hearings.
Dr. Daniel Fallon, liberal arts dean, testified
after Costa. In a deposition for the hearing, Fal
lon agreed with Costa’s recommendation and
stated that medical conditions, not her sex or
handicap, were the basis for her dismissal.
Richards said that the school is discriminating
against her on the basis of her sex and handicap.
She said the school is hiding behind vague terms
and won’t address actual charges.
“They won’t say the exact charges,” she said.
“They are using vague terms from the faculty
manual.”
Dr. Anne Elmquist, modern languages depart
ment head from 1973 to 1983, gave testimony
that agreed with both Costa and Fallon that Rich
ards’ mental condition was such that she should
no longer serve as a professor. Elmquist said stu
dent complaints against Richards increased
greatly in the 1981-82 school year.
In an unusual move because of schedule con
flicts, a witness for Richards, Marion Abbey Phil
lips, a 1986 microbiology graduate who now lives
in Austin, who was in Richards’ Spanish 205
course in Fall 1985, testified Tuesday on Rich
ards’ behalf, before A&M had finished present
ing its evidence.
Phillips said Richards was very prepared, cour
teous and spoke Spanish regularly in class.
A&M is scheduled to call its final witness to
day. Richards also is expected to begin calling
witnesses today.
Testimony is being heard by the six-member
committee consisting of four regular members
and two alternates; however, only five members
of the committee will vote. Once testimony is
completed, lots will be drawn by the alternates to
determine which will vote.
The Texas Open Meetings Act calls for meet
ings over personnel to be closed to the public or
to be held in executive session unless the person
under discussion wishes the meeting to he open.
Richards requested the meeting to be open and
for The Battalion to attend.
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Three rascals
Spanky McFarland, 59, of the Little Rascals fame, signs autographs
for the Teston family from Centerville Tuesday afternoon at Cavend-
Photo by Sam B. Myers
ers Boot City. Spanky, wearing the small boot in the center of the
photo, starred in 95 episodes of the show.
Road construction
rerouts A&M traffic
Dorm parking added
University News Service
Traffic on the north side of the
Texas A&M campus will be tem
porarily rerouted beginning at 9
a.m. Thursday while the State
Department of Highways and
Public Transportation completes
work orTjHouston Street at Uni
versity I>rive.
Houston Street will be tempo
rarily closed from University
Drive to Hogg Street beginning at
9 a.m. Thursday so that highway
department crews can complete
work on the adjacent section of
the widening of University Drive.
To ease traffic problems
caused by the closure, Asbury
Street will become two-way from
University Drive to Hogg Street,
also effective Thursday morning.
Asbury will remain one-way off
campus from Ross Street to
Hogg. Ross will remain closed to
through traffic from Asbury to
Spence Street while construction
continues on the on-going storm
sewer project.
Flagmen and patrol officers
will be posted in the area to direct
motorists while the street is
closed.
The street is expected to be re
opened by Monday morning.
•••
To ease overcrowding in campus
parking lots, Texas A&M parking
officials have opened the tempo
rary lot behind the University Po
lice Station to dorm students
only.
Major Linda Lively, head of
parking administration, said the
gravel lot was designated for
dorm students at the beginning
of the semester, but lack of use
prompted her to open the lot to
all students with parking permits
Tuesday.
The spaces are currently re
stricted to dorm students until
the department can gauge how
many dorm students will use the
lot. The lot may be opened to all
students in the future.
“It’s virtually empty,” she said.
“We’ve got almost 300 spaces and
people are running around all
over the place and they don’t
know it’s back here.”
The lot is in the former loca
tion of the married student apart
ments. Students can get to the lot
by turning off Houston Street at
the University Police Station.
Water level recedes, Officials warn investors of gold scams
flooding still possible
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Floodwa-
ters were receding in most of Mexico
on Tuesday but communities in
northern Veracruz, hit by Hurricane
Debby last week, feared rain in the
mountains would send rivers out of
their banks again later in the week.
“It takes five days for the water
from Mexico City rains to arrive
here. That’s what we’re afraid of,”
said Fortunato Guzman Rivera,
mayor of Panuco, 190 miles north
east of the capital on the Panuco
River.
At least 34 people have been
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Columns give
look at past
As a special feature, we at The
Battalion decided to re-run some
of the more popular columns that
have appeared on the Opinion
Page over the years.
For some of the older students,
the columns will bring back mem
ories. For the younger under
graduates, they will give you a
glimpse into the past of Texas
A&M and The Battalion.
Opinions expressed in The
Battalion are those of the author
and do not necessarily represent
the opinions of The Battalion.
swept away by swollen rivers or died
in mudslides and thousands were
evacuated during more than a week
of rain dumped by two hurricanes,
Debby in the Gulf of Mexico and
Kristy in the Pacific. An undeter
mined number of poorly built
homes were damaged or destroyed.
Remnants of Debby continued to
cloud skies over parts of southern
Mexico on Tuesday. Kristy, which
never crossed land, moved out to sea
earlier.
More than 200 people were evac
uated from the banks of the Panuco
and the town of La Barranca on
Tuesday, and several hundred U.S.
tourists stranded in resort areas of
the south for three days were flown
out to Mexico City.
Along the shattered 220-mile
southern coast road between the re
sorts of Ixtapa and Acapulco, a mot
ley fleet of buses, trucks and jeeps
provided transportation in relays.
Passengers had to carry their lug
gage past army troops across dam
aged or washed out bridges before
starting the next leg of their journey.
The Panuco, which overflowed in
three communities Monday, ap
peared to stabilize one foot below
the floodline Tuesday, Guzman Riv
era said in a telephone interview.
The Santiago River in the west-
central state of Nayarit was flooding
Tuesday, but the Papaloapan in
southern Veracruz and other major
streams were within their banks, an
Agriculture Department spokesman
said.
He said 10,000 people had been
evacuated from nine communities
near the point where the Santiago
empties into the Pacific.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thou
sands of American investors will lose
millions of dollars this year in what
authorities on Tuesday branded the
“fool’s gold rush of 1988” — various
swindles offering the chance to buy
gold at below-market prices.
State securities regulators and the
Council of Better Business Bureaus
warned in an “investor alert” that
the gold schemes represented the
fastest growing fraud threat in the
country. Since the spring of 1987,
they said, the number of known gold
scams has jumped from eight to 52
under investigation currently.
Officials said last October’s stock
market collapse had created a cli
mate allowing the swindles to proli
ferate.
“Thousands of individuals fled
the markets, turning their backs on
mainstream investments,” James C;
Meyer, director of the Tennessee Di
vision of Securities, told a news con
ference. “The result: a huge pool of
potential, cash-rich victims ripe for
exploitation by the promoters of
exotic investment swindles.”
Meyer, who is president of the
North American Securities Adminis
trators Association representing 50
state securities offices, estimated that
tens of thousands of Americans na
tionwide would lose $250 million in
the bogus gold deals this year.
The typical “dirt pile” swindle
works this way:
A high-pressure salesman calls
from a boiler-room telephone oper
ation, offering to sell 100 tons of dirt
for $5,000. The con artist guar
antees that the dirt pile will yield at
least 20 ounces of gold, an effective
price of $250 an ounce, far cheaper
than current gold prices.
“The problem is the gold doesn’t
exist beyond microscopic, economi
cally unrecoverable levels,” Meyer
said. He said investigators have
found that many of the mine sites
contain less gold than can be found
in sea water.
“Why people will commit their life
savings over the phone, when they
wouldn’t think of buying a car or
house sight unseen, is a continuing
and troubling mystery to those of us
whose job it is to promote investor
protection,” Meyer said.
Officials urged consumers to
hang up on high-pressure telephone
sales tactics.
Remedial classes may cause trouble
AUSTIN (AP) — Many community colleges
and universities could face problems next year
when they will be required to offer remedial in
struction to students who fail a basic-skills test in
reading, writing and mathematics, educators say.
A major problem may be finding enough qual
ified teachers for the remedial programs, which
according to some estimates may be needed by at
least 25 percent of next year’s freshmen
statewide.
It is not yet known how many students will
need the instruction at each school, since the test
is still being developed and the minimum passing
scores have yet to be set, officials said.
Some educators say the greatest impact is
likely to be felt by universities that have relatively
low admission standards and have not been of
fering remedial programs.
But even institutions that have experience with
remedial education —such as the community col
leges —will probably need to greatly expand
their efforts and hire additional teachers.
“The need for these qualified people is going
to hit tins stare uxe a bomostieli next year," said
Rollo Newsom, vice president for academic af
fairs at Southwest Texas State University in San
Marcos.
SWT has begun planning master’s degree and
certification programs in “developmental educa
tion” to help train teachers and administrators
who will be needed for the remedial courses.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating
Board has recommended that the Legislature
provide $34 million for remedial instruction for
the two-year budget period that begins next Sep
tember.
Some educators have said the skills test should
be canceled if funds for remediation are not ap
proved.
The test and the remedial instruction are parts
of the Texas Academic Skills Program, which is
planned as a way to identify students’ deficiencies
and help them acquire the basic skills necessary
for success in higher education.
Institutions cannot use the test as an admission
requirement, but students must pass all parts of
the test before they can receive an associate de
gree from a community college or before they
can take university courses beyond the sopho
more level.
Some community college students who are
seeking a vocational education certificate also
must pass the test.
Freshmen entering colleges and universities
next fall are the first group required to take the
test.
Institutions will be required to offer remedial
courses, but participation by students will be vol
untary.
Educators will have a better idea of how many
students will need the remedial courses after the
minimum passing scores are set early next year,
said William Sanford, the Coordinating Board’s
assistant commissioner for universities and
health affairs.
An early idea about the difficulty of the test
will be available after October, when a group of
students at colleges and universities will volun
teer to take the test in a trial run.