PINION
The Battalion • Page 5
Wednesday • June 7, 1995
12th Man Plaza project
A couple of weeks ago a re
cent study brought to my
attention that the aver
age salaries of professors at
other universities are nine per
cent higher than those at
Texas A&M University. Dur
ing the 1994-1995 academic
year, many of the professors
whose classes we attend made
about $6,000 less than the average of their peers at
similarly-sized schools.
“Well, boo hoo,” you might say, “If those
eggheads were in it for the money, they wouldn’t be
professors to begin with.” And I would say you’re
probably correct. However, one must still wonder
why good ol’ Aggieland has to skimp on professors’
salaries relative to the current market value.
Is it because our teachers are less qualified than
the market demands?
Not at all. A&M seems to insist on “pedigreed”
professors from well-regarded schools across the
nation. This is an employment characteristic A&M
takes great pride in as a student recruitment de
vice. However, with below average pay, it may be
come more difficult to keep these “purebreds.”
Is it because A&M is a little low on cash and, in
trying desperately to keep the electricity and water
turned on, has decided to cut corners on professors’
salaries?
Ummm ... no.
Anyone is welcome to peruse the Uni
versity budget available in the library and
see just where all the money goes. It’s
quite clear that with the hundreds of mil
lions of dollars swirling around The Texas
A&M University Corporation, it’s largely a
matter of internal bureaucratic decision
making as to how the money is spent.
Is it because professors’ salaries are not
as important as other stuff around here?
I suspect it is.
Now, in the interest of fairness, we have to re
member our school is a business, a huge one. And
there are certainly some budgets for our school that
are decided by elected officials in Austin. But for
the most part, the state allocates plenty of money
based on many factors, including student enroll
ment and possibly cotton futures in Bangladesh, for
all we know.
So, besides parking spaces, what else is more
important than professors around here? Stumped?
It’s sports! That’s right, we’re not an academic uni
versity with an athletic department attached for
fun and rivalry, we’re an athletic university with
an academic department attached for research
money and, uh ... well, research money.
A May 24 article in the Bryan-College Station
Eagle quoted Bill Perry, the associate provost and
dean of faculties as saying, “The faculty have re
overshadows academics
mained loyal to Texas A&M during these lean bud
getary times, but I fear that if we fall further and
further behind, the outside world is going to start
looking more attractive.”
Whoa. The third-largest university in the coun
try, behind other schools? Not in football, by golly.
OK, our library isn’t even in the top 50, but what’s
this “lean budget” stuff? Why are some budgets
lean and others not?
Although Perry’s allotted budget for professors’
salaries may be lean, there’s nothing he can do
about it. However, the only things lean about ath
letics around here are the steaks and the athletes
who sweat for Aggieland. In fact, just the other
day, while driving down Wellborn Road, I was ad
miring the new $36 million Rec Sports Center.
“Sure looks like a lean budget was at work here,” I
thought to myself.
And then there’s the Twelfth Man Plaza project.
This project accepts $100,000 donations in the
name of each offensive and defensive position on
the football team and a $3 million contribution to
represent the head coach position.
Each contributor buys themselves part of an im
mortal memorial etched in granite next to the
Twelfth Man statue, giving A&M one more much-
needed monument. Soon we will certainly surpass
even Washington, D.C.
Try as I might, I can’t begrudge Aggie athletics
of all its money. If “rich ol’ Ags” want to give their
millions to the football team or the athletic depart
ment, then they should be free to do so and even
congratulated for their gifts.
But I also must congratulate those responsible
for thinking up new ways to extract these millions
from former students.
An underpaid professor would call this tactic
“creating a market.”
What bothers me is that while so much money
is being obtained and spent on athletics, we seem
to be having trouble keeping professors’ salaries
competitive. There is no real answer to satisfy
both issues. It’s just a matter of what a budget
committee, a student body and the Association of
Former Students’ endless fund fountain perceive
as being important.
How important are well-paid, quality professors
to you?
It’s not a question of where the money is coming
from, it’s a question of where it’s going. Aside from
the fact that an athletic department and a winning
football team can enhance a university experience,
take a moment to ask yourself ...
• Would I be here if A&M had no football team?
* Would I still donate money years later?
• WTat if the team was only mediocre?
* Am I a student and a fan, or a fan and a student?
Frank Stanford is a
philosophy graduate student
Backward Action
Affirmative
action promotes what it seeks to eliminate
by years ago this na
tion embarked on what
has become an arduous
journey to ensure equal oppor
tunity among our country’s mi
norities.
Somewhere along the way,
the principal leaders of this
quest donned dark sunglasses
and striped canes and led affir
mative action into the ground.
The greatest of all political detours occured
when the phrase “equal opportunity” became
synonomous with “equality.” Understanding
the difference between these words is intrinsic
to understanding the problem.
Affirmative action was created to pro
mote “equal opportunity” — the levelling of
the playing field. It has since evolved into
the promotion of “equality,” the idea that
we were all created equal and therefore
should be equally successful.
The approach of creating an environment
in which those discriminated against regain
the opportunities they so readily deserve is,
and always will be, a noble and just task.
Affirmative action programs have strug
gled to achieve this goal. However, in the
effort, they have lost sight of a most-basic
•premise: Treating individuals differently
because of their ethnicity or numerical sta
tus is wrong.
We, as a nation, have not yet achieved our
dreams of equal opportunity, but the so-called
affirmative practices of the last two decades
are now spawning the very quality they were
created to destroy, as well as undermining the
unity of a nation.
Affirmative action has been manipulated
and contorted into gender and racial preference
programs, which have permeated much of our
lives. Quotas and discrimination lawsuits have
become the unspoken norm in our society.
A whole new class of citizens has traded
pride in personal achievement
for a belief that the system is re
sponsible for its success. The
victimization of minorities has
established the thought that
somehow, because of past in
equalities, minorities are de
serving of special treatment
and, baring special treatment,
they are destined for failure.
The result of preferential treatment is stig
matizing.
According to an article in Newsweek maga
zine, in 1992, only one of the 280 African-
American applicants to the University of
Texas Law School scored high enough to be
admitted without the consideration of race.
It is not to say minorities are less intelli
gent; however, to excel because of a character
istic of one’s self rather than the quality of
one’s self is certainly not “affirmative.”
Whatever happened to good ol’ “American
rugged individualism,” where hurdles were
seen as chances for improvement? To rob
someone of their failures is to rob them of an
education and a chance for meaningful
achievement.
The true victims in all of this are those who
have been passed up in the name of social
progress. Destined to criticize those who have
usurped them, these are the new racists. Like
their minority counterp arts, they are quick to
blame racism for their failures.
In this sense, affirmative action is fostering
a generation of Americans who compete only
along racial lines. This bigotry proliferates
race supremacy and allows previously-voice
less extremists an audience.
The solution no longer lies in stringent gov
ernment regulation. It is time to dismantle a
system that has cost us the integrity of a work
ethic. Blindness to color and gender can be
achieved; it is only a matter of realization and
effort.
Last week the Supreme Court, let stand
a lower court ruling that scholarships re
served for specific ethnic groups were un
constitutional, thereby starting all stu
dents on the same step.
In California, Gov. Pete Wilson has
promised to remove all state policies that ex
tend preferential treatment based on ethnicity
or gender. No longer in California will the mi
nority businessperson be used as a pawn in
the pursuit of state contracts.
Reform like this is vital if we are to equal
ize opportunity for everyone. There is no
greater opportunity for improvement than on
this country’s college campuses.
Student equity in our universities can
be achieved simply by removing all refer
ences to race from entrance applications.
Universities should be equally as color
blind when hiring faculty. Their only con
cern should be hiring the best possible pro
fessors for the job, bar none, and let the
racial chips fall where they may.
It is not the duty of the university to pad
statistics or increase graduation rates. It is up
to individuals to study, and it is their respon
sibility to graduate.
We all have the ability to achieve in some
areas of life; failure and success determine the
paths we will walk.
It is every American’s obligation to ensure
these checks and balances are a part of every
citizen’s life. In this day and age, it is no
longer practical to discriminate based on gen
der or race.
Many future successes will be engi
neered by the minds of people as diverse as
their own dreams. As Martin Luther King
said, now is the time “to judge all people
not by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character.”
Alex Miller is a senior
bioengineering major
;
!
People do not
choose sexuality
This letter is in response to
Kathy Carson’s letter to Mail
Call on June 5, stating that ho
mosexuality is merely a choice.
Carson has no understand
ing of the issues that a person
deals with regarding their com
ing out.
I know from personal experi
ence that homosexuality is not
just a choice. No one can tell me,
or any other gay, lesbian, bisex
ual or transgendered person
that we simply chose to be at
tracted to the same sex. How can
Mai i
a person choose to be attracted
to someone else?
A person either is or is not at
tracted to the same or opposite
sex. I can no more make myself
attracted to the opposite sex any
more than she can make herself
attracted to the same sex.
Although Carson may believe
that following the Lord will clear
up any doubts one has about their
“simple choice,” I suggest that she
talk to some people about their
“decision to be gay.”
Alex Rigsby
Class of ’95
• This letter is in response to
Kathy Carson’s Mail Call letter
on June 5. Her belief that homo
sexuality is a choice is her own
opinion, and I respect that.
What I totally disagree with is
how she does not consider her
self homophobic and how she
claims to know that the only an
swer to a perfect world is
through reading the Bible and
through Christ.
How dare she assume that her
world is the only perfect world? It
is so blatantly phobic to anyone
and everything not included in
Christian teachings that she has
systematically eliminated most of
the people in the world.
She says she is not homopho
bic. I think she is ignorant to the
fact that many gay men and les
bians — we don’t really use ‘ho
mosexuals’ anymore — in this
world do not follow the Bible and
still have perfect lives according
to their own opinions.
How dare she say I am not hap
py, full of joy or at peace because of
who I am and what I believe.
Paula Fedirchuk
Graduate student
Block grants will
not starve children
It’s nice to know that Chris
Stidvent is concerned about chil
dren going hungry. The national
government is trying to give more
power to the states by consolidat
ing block grants, but there still
will be some restrictions, so starv
ing children will get their fill. As
for his comments about separa
tion of church and state, I would
like to remind him that the First
Amendment clearly states that
Congress cannot prohibit the free
exercise of religion.
Voluntary moments of silence
are constitutional. As a compro
mise, though, to keep from divid
ing religious students from non
religious students, I would en
courage parents to pray with
their children before school. It
would be an excellent opportunity
for parent-child bonding.
Erik Walsh
Class of ’98
For every change, some
thing else seems to remain
the same.
Discrimination, prejudice
and fearful hatred are as
alive today as they ever have
been. Today’s social climate
makes constant strides to
ward better liberty and
equality, but countless people
and institutions improve the
rest of society’s progress.
The most recent example
being Abilene Christian Uni
versity’s dismissal of theater
director Robert Neblett from
a production of The Merchant
of Venice based solely on his
homosexuality.
Neblett, an ACU alumnus,
was invited to direct the pro
duction but was quickly dis
missed when school president
Royce Money learned of
Neblett’s sexual orientation.
Money was quoted as saying,
“We appreciate his tremen
dous talent and find it unfor
tunate that his choice of
lifestyle has resulted in this
situation.”
The school determined
that Neblett was unfit to rep
resent the university because
his lifestyle violated its moral
code.
This kind of ignorant intol
erance should be ended.
The university had an
agreement with Neblett: he
was to direct a Shakespeare
an play to the best of his abil
ity, and they were to give him
the honor and credit for his
production. Instead, ACU hu
miliated and degraded
Neblett in a public forum.
Neblett responded to the inci
dent, saying he was
“crushed” and that he felt,
“Abilene Christian Universi
ty has ‘outed’ me and pushed
me out of the closet in a pub
lic way.”
In a number of similar sit
uations, this incident could
be considered a case of
wrongful dismissal. For in
stance, at a public university
like Texas A&M, dismissal
based on race, sex or religion
is illegal, and that umbrella
could come to include sexual
preference.
While the dust settles from
the ACU incident, it is inter
esting to note that the real
theatrical irony comes from
the fact that The Merchant of
Venice is a play spoofing
mindless racism and preju
dice, but that probably does
n’t make Robert Neblett feel
any better.
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Unfair Dismissal
Sexual orientation should not be
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