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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 18, 1991)
April ITjt ‘ar sity tion nuedfrompaji the fc sked homose om to stan; dt> people pi f l 8 the commj: y standing an; ? so-called i 1 said. 1 A&M studa ^ber, told ft uld not want t <ual orientatio: University po! prof to looki at ^ gay/® ney said, 'erg, an Ail! ^ and GLSS the Universih' olicy. mophobic pro ■ a bad time,' committee, xual speakers ive their name 1 many of tin who said k niversity job; printed, saidi ination polio ) insurance. Thunderstorms High 84' Maybe morality can be legislated, and maybe it can’t. For sure though, love cannot be legislated.” — Tim Truesdale page 2 Punished Ponies A&M men’s tennis team thrashes SMU 6-1 in the Ags last match before the conference tourney this weekend page? Campus Theft Officer gives tips for protecting belongings pages TheBattalion Vol.90No. 134 USPS 045360 12 Pages College Station, Texas Thursday, April 18.1991 Ogden answers questions on By Bridget Harrow The Battalion State Rep. Steve Odgen lis tened to Texas A&M students Wednesday night as they voiced concerns, asked questions or of fered support for the proposed $50 student fee to build and op erate a recreational sports fa cility. Most students pointed out that the current recreational fa cilities are inadequate, but argu ments centered around if all stu dents would use the new facility and if they are willing to pay for it. Odgen said that is why he wants to get feedback from stu dents about the recreational sports fee bill. A&M already has received au thority in 1989 to charge stu dents a $35 fee every semester to build a recreational sports facility from a bill signed by former Gov. Bill Clements. A&M students ap proved a referendum calling for a fee to fund the facility in 1987. On April 11, another bill was unanimously passed by the Texas Senate Finance Committee to raise the fee to $50 per semes ter and $25 each summer ses sion. The bill still has to pass both houses, Odgen said. Odgen said the University in dicated that in the long run it would be better to build a more expensive facility costing $41 proposed sports facility fee million by levying a $50 student fee over twenty years. "It is conceivable that (current students') children might pay for (the facility)," Odgen said. Odgen said the fee for the rec reational sports facility should be considerea in reference to possi ble tuition and fee increases that would be an additional $250 per semester for a student taking 15 credit hours. Odgen said he had three con cerns about the proposed fee: □ Since a tuition and fees in crease is likely at A&M, should students be given the opportu nity to vote again on the additio nal $50 fee for the recreational sports facility? □ Since students are paying for the facility, should there be a clause in the bill stating students should have an advisory input in the design and operation of the facility? □ Is it fair to levy a $50 fee on every student for the next 20 years, even though some stu dents will use the facility more than others? Some students also ques tioned whether A&M should be funding a recreational sports fa cility when the money could be used in other areas such as fund ing the Sterling C. Evans Li brary, hiring more professors or keeping summer classes open. "The administration and the See Ogden/Page 6 SCOn D. WEAVER/The Battalion Three little soldiers Squadron 13 removes the United States flag and the Texas flag in front of 13 had just taken down the flags before it began to rain. Rain is expected the Systems Administration Building at 5:20 Wednesday night. Squadron through the rest of the week and into the weekend. Student Senate fills committee chairs Speaker advocates grape ban By Julie Myers The Battalion Political activist Cesar Chavez said the United Farm Workers strategy of public action has been more successful than pur suing official government policy channels. Chavez, founder and presi dent of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO, spoke to students Wednesday night in Rudder Auditorium as part of a weeklong tour of colleges and universities in Texas and the Midwest. The inability of farm workers to correct working conditions through legislation stems from their relative lack of power, Cha vez said. "Most workers are not United States citizens," Chavez said. "They don't know the language and they have no influence." Instead, the workers turn to consumers, he said. "The consumers are our court of last resort," Chavez said. "You can vote by not buying Chavez grapes. If you shop at a store that's open 24 hours, the polls never close. You can help us level the field." These public actions resulted in a grape boycott directed to ward H.E.B. grocery stores in San Antonio. The UFW last week lifted the boycott after the supermarket chain ceased adver tising or promoting California grapes. Any black, red or green table grape in grocery stores from late May to Dec. 31 comes from Cali fornia, Chavez said. See Activist/Page 12 By Greg Mt. Joy The Battalion Three Texas A&M Student Senate committee chairs were filled Wednesday night at the Senate's final meeting of the spring semester. Thomas Luttrell, a junior mar keting major, won the election for chairman of the Student Services Committee. Luttrell said upgrading, bus stops, campus lighting and bike routes were among the issues he would address as chairman. Luttrell also said the mainte nance of campus fountains would be looked into. "I noticed the Chemistry Building fountain was on when I came here," he said. "We all know that has a tendency to change all too often though, and something should be done." Sophomore speech commu nications major Michael Pinkus will serve as chairman of the Ex ternal Affairs Committee. Pinkus said his committee has perhaps the greatest potential for next fall. "There are so many directions we can go," he said. "We need to help open up communication be tween different student organi zations. We also need to involve the community in what we are doing." Next year's Academic Affairs Committee chairman will be Brad Hampton, a sophomore economics and history major. Hampton said his committee will be dedicated to generating stu dent input. "I hope to get started now," Hampton saiu. vve need to build policies before we leave for the summer, so we can be pre pared to deal with major issues next year. There is a lot going on, and there are a lot of things this committee needs to ad dress." Since Hampton won the posi tion, his off-campus Senate seat now is vacant. Hampton, along with junior psychology major Susan May and junior aerospace engi neering major Nicholas Wyman, occupied unfilled Senate seats after the general election. Speaker Pro Tempore Patty Warhol said Hampton's seat would be filled as soon as possi ble, as would any other seats left vacant due to a stricter Senate at tendance policy. "We are now accepting appli cations, and will do so continual ly," Warhol said. "We will fill all vacant seats immediately, fol lowing the interviewing of can didates." Warhol said applications for the seats will be available at a ta ble on the second floor of the Pa vilion. In related Senate activity, a bill was passed which would penal ize senators removed due to ab sences. Under the bill, those re moved will be ineligible to sit in the Senate for a two-year period. In other action, a hotly con tested bill was passed to estab lish a mandatory workshop for all senators each fall. After much debate, a pro posed mandatory meeting for all applicants filing for senator posi tions to be held before the elec tion was dropped, clearing the way for the legislation's passage. Railroad strike bypasses A&M University uses truck shipments, official says By Twila Waddy The Battalion Texas A&M has not been af fected by the railroad strike that is crippling many other parts of the country. The switch from railroad ship ping at A&M was done a few years ago, and today most freight is transported by trucks, Donald Powell, director of Uni versity Business Services, said. "We have converted almost entirely to trucks now, even for food services," he said. "In fact, we only had two rail shipments last year." Business Services buys frozen foods delivered in refrigerated trucks because they operate on a more flexible schedule than trains, Powell said. "They can travel any place and they can deliver the product right to our door," he said. Powell said a train goes through A&M's campus and de livers products to the Food Serv ices Commissary, the warehouse that stores the food supply. The commissary is the primary location that receives freight at See Train/Page 12 Court ruling changes 'fair use' protection By Timm Doolen The Battalion A recent federal court deci sion against Kinko's Graphics Corp. will change the way commercial copy centers pro vide educational material to schools across the country. Adrianna Foss, corporate communications director for Kinko's, said the decision will not allow copy centers to be protected under the "fair use" clause of the Copyright Act of 1976. The fair use clause provides general guidelines for what copyrighted work can be re produced without permission from the publisher. For exam ple, the copied work must be relatively short compared to the whole work, only one copy per student can be made and the work can be copied only for educational pur poses. Eight major publishing companies, including McGraw-Hill, Harper & Row and Prentice-Hall, filed the lawsuit in the spring of 1989 against two Kinko's copy shops in New York City for including copyrighted work in anthologies prepared for universities. The publishing companies asserted that the two shops in New York copied substantial portions of copyrighted works without permission and re produced anthologies con taining all or parts of several different works. They maintained that the two Kinko's then sold the an thologies to university stu dents for profit. Foss said that in the past, store workers determined if works to be copied were pro tected under fair use. If not, the company would seek per mission from the appropriate publishing company. She said because of the March 28 ruling, the company must receive permission from publishers for virtually all See Expert/Page 5