ii|silay, June 14, 2001
Opinion
Page 5
THE BATTALION
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JESSICA
CRUTCHER
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one black mate men are beginning to hle^exu-
hirassment charges as well —
ESTATE ' a *f ls,: ot bur men.
IBhese claims now account for
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; left at thep! --’ percent or all sexual harassment
eidents in ctitarges, which is nearly double the
diversity Pu® unt i() years at T 0 according to
has only 2 Coras®, . • i b b .
ow interest ratK e Equal Employment Opportunity
e best deal ni ommission (EEOC). Some of the
A&M students' i • • i ^ i i
basketball a :o ■P* aints involve unwanted sexual
^rth over 300ott Ivances; however, most of them re-
41 : " n 4tr C1 -)rfl being harassed in a lewd and
-nished Model - : : ,, ° rr
h v Anywhere e xually otrensive manner.
i sw Parkway,nr For examjyle, one lawsuit involved a
^979-683-5758or sf a jj ^ t] . cct . nl . 1 ]y St whose supervisor
■ngly” demanded sexual favors in
■ange for a larger bonus — possi-
se. remodeled, y 3s ;in insult rather than a proposal
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71MATES
— and told the analyst he would be
better off as a “homosexual prosti
tute,” according to The New York
Times. Another case involved a Dil
lard’s shoe salesman who complained
that his male supervisor frequently
touched his groin and buttocks.
Much of this behavior ultimately
goes unpunished because of how
current federal laws are being inter
preted by lower courts. Currently,
sexual harassment is only considered
“discrimination because of sex” un
der the Supreme Court’s interpreta
tion of Title VII of the 1964 Civil
Rights Act.
Many homosexual employees have
little recourse because of the way
this law is written and because many
states do not have laws prohibiting
harassment because of sexual orien
tation.
Adjustments to the current laws
are needed. It should not matter
whether the harassment occurs be
cause of the victim’s sex or because
of his or her sexual orientation. If
the improper conduct is sexual in na
ture, it should fall under the umbrel
la of sexual harassment, and the vic
tim should be provided with a legal
recourse.
A hotel employee who is openly
gay, Medina Rene, lost his case
against the MGM Grand Hotel in
Las Vegas at the U. S. Court of Ap
peals for the 9th Circuit last March.
it
The degrading and
humiliating treatment
Rene contends that he
received is appalling. ,,
— The U.S. Court of Appeals
9th Circuit
Rene said he was constantly harassed
by other employees, who would try
to pinch his buttocks and engage in
other unacceptable conduct. The
court’s ruling was disturbing, to say
the least: Any harassment was based
on his sexual orientation, not his sex.
According to The Times, the court
stated “The degrading and humiliat
ing treatment Rene contends that he
received from his fellow workers is
appalling. However, this type of dis
crimination, based on sexual orienta
tion, does not fall within the prohibi
tions of Title VII.”
It does not matter whether the ha
rassment was based on sexual orien
tation or gender — common sense
tells us since it was sexual and physi
cal in nature, it was sexual harass
ment. T here is a line between inno
cent teasing and making a co-worker
miserable. Rene’s fellow workers
crossed that line.
A defense lawyer for another case,
this time involving two supervisors
harassing 10 male salesmen, argued
his clients’ behavior was “nothing
more than what goes on in a typical
high-school locker room,” according
to The Times. According to the
EEOC, the incidents had been pre
viously dismissed by the company’s
management as horseplay.
Physically harassing someone,
whether horseplay in a high-school
locker room or a more targeted at
tack in the workplace, is inexcusable.
Unfortunately, one’s supervisors
cannot always be trusted to keep em
ployees in check — often, the super
visors are the perpetrators. There
fore, effective national laws are
needed to protect all victims of sexu
al harassment, not a select few.
Sexual orientation should not
matter when filing a suit, because it
makes one no more or less likely to
be the brunt of cruel sexual jokes.
The lack of laws protecting people
on the basis of sexual orientation,
combined with a narrowly written
definition of sexual harassment, cre
ates a gray zone that must be effec
tively eliminated.
Jessica Crutcher is a junior
journalism major.
3d, 3bdrm/2bth di
$300 month
680-8952.
seded, non-sn
3lex with baity
jst move-ln. 774'
aeded for 5- : |
i/mo. -(-utilities.
CHAD MALLAM/ThE BATTALION
V is not a substitute
-based shows lack substance
min. to main of r «
i-smoker, $$'
255-8938
WICES
\NTED
HT LOSS
merica is ruled by
television. No
ther country
nsive Driving. W#e sacrificed their
5- |ot!| ves to wa teh the lives of
ie discount. M-i . ...
ipm-9pm), FitWrs on television.
&Sat(ioam-2:3t (;ps’ s IQ-eroding
Inside BankolAn* urt ,, F „
e . sas/cash, urogram, Big Brother,
i law. m-univ ill return this summer.
bh0W ’ UF dozen people will live in a house with
ameras following their every move,
hen, one person will be voted out of the
to sell lawn businf 0 | S g eac j 1 wee F with the last person
care. Call J.O. wfl . ’ r . \
inning a sum of money for imitating
lomer Simpson; that is, sitting around
oing nothing.
rweight? inc Flave people forgotten what it was like
Call Mary 978-) nave lives? Judging from what some
eople are watching on television,
Heurism is currently in fashion. We not
|jv have “Big Brother,” but “Survivor,”
■mptation Island,” “Cops,” “The Real
forld” and “The World’s Scariest Police
bases.” These show regular people do-
ig abnormally stupid things. Some do it
>r money and some because they have
othing better to do. And people watch.
What is so interesting about seeing peo-
le live their lives? “Survivor” — unlike the
:st of the shows —- has potential to enter-
dn, simply because of the exotic locations.
BS is now considering a celebrity version
1 “Survivor,” which sounds like a great
lea. They could take people like Alec
aldiwin, Roseanne, Rosie O’Donnell, Ben
ffleck, Gilbert Gottfried, Leonardo De-
laprio and Bill Maher off to some deserted
land — and leave them. It would have
rear ratings. After all, Baldwin said was
^SIFIEDS avm g America anyway.
jgfhere maybe hope for “Survivor,” but
iete is no hope for the others. What is
L n 845 Q 5 p 9 £P lepdea behind “Temptation Island?”
1 hatching a bunch of models, actors and
ie fine print.
actresses try to seduce people should not
be’prime-time viewing. Depending on
one’s vantage point, it can be considered
either a soap opera or low-quality porn.
People that watched the program should
stop kidding themselves and watch the
real thing.
T here are also those who seem to get
their enjoyment from watching brazen
acts of stupidity. No, not on C-SPAN, but
usually someplace like MTV. “The Real
World” supposedly follows the lives of a
bunch of strangers living together. Soon,
scientists will find that enough exposure
to that program causes viewers to curl up
into the fetal position and shiver, bemoan
ing their now missing intelligence. €
As bad as “The Real World” is, shows
like “Cops” and “Jackass” are worse. These
shows prove that humans have not evolved
much, if at all, from the times of the gladia
tors. Some people still seem to derive
pleasure from watching others do stuff
most people would never fathom doing.
T he only difference is now people are not
doing battle with each other, they are usu
ally endangering themselves on their own.
WTiere is the excitement in watching a
toothless mother of six who lives in a trail
er park be sprayed with mace because she
is drunk and disorderly? How can people
derive any enjoyment from watching some
guy set himself on fire? This is not enter
tainment; this is pathetic. But people
watch.
Americans must be really bored. That is
the only explanation for such garbage on
television and for it being watched. Maybe
seeing other people live their lives re
minds folks of something they no longer
have: a life.
Mark Passwaters is a senior
electrical engineering major
Mars, a real possibility?
(U-Wire) — On July 20, 1969,
an American walked down a short
ladder and set foot on the moon.
It was heralded as the greatest ac
complishment in history and was
the farthest any human had ever
traveled from home. Today, more
than 30 years later, it is still the
farthest any human has traveled.
Clearly the next goal in human
exploration is a longer hop out
ward to Mars. WTiat is not as
clear is when we will take this
next step.
Granted, a journey to the red
planet is no easy task. Mars is
roughly 200 times as far away as
the moon. However, our com
puters today are more than a
million times more powerful
than they were in 1969 and our
Gross Domestic Product is
nearly triple what it was at the
time of Apollo 11. Still, we are,
by most estimates, 20 years away
from a manned (or wommaned)
mission to mars.
This 20-year goal is consistent
with past estimates since, 10 years
ago, most estimates put us 20
years away. NASA’s time frame
for a manned mars mission seems
to be governed by the following
simple formula: mission date =
current date + 20 years. The typi
cal response is to blame one pres
ident or the other for budget cuts
and failure to support the space
program, but there are more
deeply rooted problems.
Consider the space shuttle. It
was supposed to be the next big
step in space exploration when it
was designed in the late ’70s.
Rather than disposable rockets,
the shuttle was NASAs reusable
spacecraft to conserve resources
and save money.
Unfortunately, the space shut
tle did not save money, but
rather, costs 10 times as much
per launch and 20 times as much
per pound of cargo as the mod
ern Russian rockets. This seems
to be a chronic problem for most
government agencies — trying
to make something simpler and
cheaper resvdted in a solution
that was more expensive and
complex.
This overblown complexity
has become so bad that some
even doubt that NASA could put
a man on the moon today.
NASA’s scientists have been re
placed by bureaucrats. In the last
30 years, NASA has increased
not its capabilities, but its layers
of redundancy.
The problem is that there is an
expectation to be perfect today.
We frown on solutions that are.
low-tech, ugly or just un-cool.
Remember the true story of
Apollo 13, where astronauts were
able to fix a system with rubber
hoses and duct tape. That’s sim
ply not possible today. More
complex systems are not less sus
ceptible to failure; they are more
difficult to repair. Trying to make
something perfect will often
make it worse.
Here is a way you can test this
simple premise. Take an ordinary
sheet of paper and a pair of scis
sors. Now, try to cut a circle out of
the piece of paper and you will find
that it is not perfect. So try to fix it.
You will find that each time you try
to make the circle more round it
ends up smaller and no more
round than it was before.
If you keep going you eventu
ally run out of paper. NASA
spent 30 years trimming off its
rough edges until there was noth
ing left.
We have become a society of
worrywarts, a nation of sissies. At
some point between the late ’60s
and the present, the American
people decided to stop taking risks.
People died to make the Apol
lo program a success and people
will probably die trying to
achieve a Martian landing. Reck
lessness or a degradation of the
value of human life is not needed,
but courage and the acceptance
that progress must come with
risks, which seems to have disap
peared from modem America.
Environmental groups have sued
NASA to bar the space agency
from using nuclear power plants
on Mars probes.
One group of scientists sug
gested that NASA must spend
seven years building a quarantine
facility to house anything we
bring back from mars in case it
has Martian bacteria on it.
Sounds kind of like the “moon
germs” people were afraid of with
Apollo. There is caution and then
there is insanity. Many have let
prudence give way to paranoia
and it is holding us back.
The real reason we were able to
reach the moon in the ’60s is that
President John E Kennedy com
mitted us to that goal as a country.
Meanwhile NASA was scratching
its head wondering if it was possi
ble. If President George W. Bush
were to commit America to put
ting a man on Mars in this decade,
we could. That is, we could if we
could accept that there will be risks
and again muster the same nation
al commitment we once had.
Brian London
Columbia Daily Spectator
Columbia University