Oregon daily emerald., November 21, 1973, Image 1

For over-priced Varsity Preview
AD offers one dollar refund
A one dollar refund will be
awarded students attending
Tuesday night’s Varsity Preview
intrasquad basketball game, it
was announced by the athletic
department and ASUO President
Greg Leo Tuesday night im
mediately following the game.
A tentative agreement was also
reached to hold another in
trasquad game next Tuesday
which would be free to student
athletic combination
ticketholders and costing 50 cents
for non-ticket holders.
The settlement came on the
heels of a threatened suit by two
students this week alleging all
student combination holders
should be admitted free of charge
to the game.
Bill Sloat and Rick Wise, who
threatened the suit, indicated
Tuesday night the suit would be
dropped. “The decision is very
acceptable to us,” Sloat said.
' ‘We feel the athletic pass holders
will be getting what they are
entitled to. It was a little
presumptuous for the athletic
department to think they could
get more money out of the
students. "Rie sparse student
crowd was indicative of the
support of the principle that the
prices were too high.
The refund will take place
Monday and Tuesday at the
athletic department ticket offices
from 8 a m. to 5 p.m.
Greg Leo initiated the $1 refund
proposal after controversy over
the student prices ($1.50 for all
students) for the intrasquad
game boiled to a head with the
announcement of the threatened
suit against the athletic depart
ment.
Eligible for the refund are 650
students who signed up at tables
placed at the north entrance to
Mac Court before and during the
game. It was announced ova- the
public address system during the
game that a refund might be
offered and that students needed
to sign up for the refund.
The official decision to award
the refund was then announced
after the game. Confirmation of
another intrasquad game is
expected today.
Athletic Director Norv Ritchey
said, “After negotiating with
Greg Leo, it became obvious
there was a feeling that student
tickets were over-priced and
consequently we’re offering a
refund. We feel badly about the
mistake and apologize for any
inconvenience.”
Greg Leo was also pleased with
the agreement. “I think this
solution is equitable for all
parties concerned. The
scheduling of a second game I
feel is a genuine, good-will offer
by coach Dick Harter and the
athletic department. I think that
this gives all students—even
those without athletic com
bination tickets—an opportunity
to see the Ducks this year.”
tr*
Photo by Linda Howe
Kathy Rooney, Pat Lawrence, Robin Curtis and Greg Herman,
residents of Tingle and McClain dormitories in Hamilton complex, put
this sign together as part of a sign contest for Saturday’s Oregon
Oregon State football game at Autzen Stadium. Making signs for the
yearly "Civil War" battle is an old campus tradition that has been
revived by the fraternities. Winner of the sign contest will be an
nounced at Saturday’s game.
Chicago Eight s John Froines: acquitted after five years
By STEVEN DEUTSCH
For the Emerald
Ed. note: Steven Deutsch is a
professor of sociology at the
University, currently on leave.
He has been involved in the legal
defense of the Chicago Con
spiracy 8; was an observer at the
original trial and the present
trial. This is submitted from
Chicago.
Flash! November 3, 1973, John
Froines, formerly on the faculty
of the University, is acquitted on
charges of contempt arising from
the 1969-1970 trial in which he was
earlier acquitted on charges of
conspiring across state lines to
incite riots at the time of the 1968
Democratic Party Convention in
Chicago. It is not really the end,
but it has been five years.
After completing his un
dergraduate work at Berkeley,
John Froines went to Yale
University to work on his doc
torate. There, in the middle 1960s,
Life magarine featured him, witi.
a strongly supportive com
mentary about how while some
faculty and students were
demonstrating in the streets on
behalf of racial justice, some
students were working con
structively in the eyes of Life
editors; John Froines was in
volved in inner-city tutorials and
self-help community projects in
the New Haven ghettos.
While spending two years on a
post-doctoral research
fellowship, working in London
with a Nobel laureate winner,
Froines was invited to join the
chemistry department faculty at
the University. While returning
from London en route to Oregon,
he and his family spent the
summer of 1968 in Chicago with
relatives.
Froines came to Eugene in
September 1968 to begin teaching
and research, after having
worked with thousands of others
to protest the Indochina policies
of Lyndon Johnson and to at
tempt to push the Democratic
Party away from a continued war
policy (a position expressed by
millions in the primary elections
of Eugene McCarthy and Robert
Kennedy).
Indicted in 1969
Froines and seven others were
indicted by the Federal Govern
ment in March 1969. Their
alleged conspiracy began on
April 12, 1968, according to the
government, and they were
initially tried under a law passed
by the U.S. Congress on April 10,
1968. This law is the 1968 Civil
Rights Act, passed after a year of
stalemate following the House of
Representatives affirmative vote
on the “Anti-Riot” Act of July 19,
1967.
The final bill was passed in the
spring of 1968, within a week after
the assassination of Martin
Luther King, Jr. after Senator
Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) added
the so-called anti-riot provisions
to the legislation. The law
literally outlaws travel from one
state to another, the writing of a
letter, the sending of a telegram,
the making of a telephone call, a
speech on radio or television, the
result of which is to encourage
persons to participate in “an
act...of violence by one or more
persons part of an assemblage of
three...which...shall result
in...injury to the property of any
other person...”
Constitutional issues discussed
The fundamental constitutional
issues of this law and the deeper
meaning of the Chicago Con
spiracy case have been discussed
a good deal over the years.
Although referred to as
“demonstrators,” in fact, the
Chicago Eight were never tried
for overt acts, but only for
alleged conspiratorial intent.
The courts have had the case
for five years. Initially, John
Froines and Lee Weiner were
acquitted of the charges of
conspiracy. Bobby Seale was
dropped from the initial trial in
the fall of 1969. On later appeal
the charges against the
remaining five defendants were
dismissed. Remaining were 176
charges of contempt levied
against the seven defendants and
their attorneys. The appeals
Analysis
court dismissed a substantial
number of the original charges so
that 52 counts of contempt were
left remaining when the trial
opened in Chicago this past week.
The first review by the federal
judge Gignoux (all Chicago-area
judges having refused to hear the
contempt appeals case) was in
regard to the defense arguments
for dismissal, and a number of
counts were immediately
dismissed. Furthermore, Froines
and Weiner were totally
acquitted, and so the number of
contempt citations, originally
176, was reduced to 19. What is
significant is not that the jail
sentences imposed were sub
stantial, but that the number and
character of citations of con
tempt in 1969-1970 by Judge
Julius Hoffman was outrageous
— a reflection of the entire court
proceedings which were unique,
preposterous and horrendous.
Let us return to John Froines.
He is now a proved innocent man,
guilty of no crime. He was
acquitted of conspiracy charges
(five years imprisonment and a
$10,000 fine), and he was
acquitted of contempt (sentenced
to 6M> months in prison). Yet, he
served two weeks in prison; had a
promising career in chemistry
basically altered; has had a
major disruption and realign
ment of his personal life; has
spent five years of his life in
volved in defense of actions
which were proven legal and well
within the constitutional rights of
any citizen to protest the actions
of his government; and he has
been overwhelmed with the
financial pressures to raise
staggering amounts of money to
conduct the defense.
When John Froines was in
dicted on March 20, 1969, and in
the subsequent months, reactions
in Eugene and on the campus
were varied. The Governor and
some other politicians in the state
took the position that such a man
did not deserve to be on the
University faculty, while a
member of the State Board of
Higher Education favored paying
him, if necessary, to get him to
resign from the faculty. And this
all in response to indictments on
charges and later an acquittal!
Until last week the only charge
against Froines was con
temptuous behavior in a cour
troom, seen by most journalists
and lawyers as one in which
prosecutors and the bench were
largely responsible for creating
the atmosphere.
There were other responses to
Froines in 1969 and 1970. His
colleagues, chairman and other
faculty expressed support and
regard for him professionally and
personally and were joined by
President Robert Clark in
resisting public hysteria and
remaining committed to the
principle that one is innocent
until proven guilty, and that in
any event the charges in no way
demonstrated unsuitability to
retain his University position.
Commitment to basic
academic freedom and civil
liberties was the dominant
position, but now that Froines has
been proven totally innocent and
acquitted of all charges (and in a
position to sue the Government,
having served time in jail), some
Oregonians — including
politicians and prominent
citizens — should feel em
barassment as to their position in
the past.
It might be mentioned that at
the present time John Froines
teaches part-time at Goddard
College in Vermont, but the
experience over the past years
has turned him into a major
activist and his energies have
been intently working on the
Indochina Peace Campaign
during the past year.
Still involved in trial
Although acquitted on Nov. 3,
John Froines remains actively
involved in the appeals trial in
Chicago. The attempt is by the
defense first to demonstrate the
atmosphere of the 1969-70 trial.
On Nov. 5 Bobby Seale, who most
recently ran second in a field of
eight for the mayorality of
Oakland, testified about how in
October 1969, the court refused to
recognize that he was without
legal representation (his lawyer,
Charles Garry, was hospitalized;
Judge Hoffman refused a trial
delay), and that attorneys
Weinglass and Kunstler tried in
vain to make such pleas to the
court.
Finally the defendants also
joined in efforts to return justice
to the courtroom as Bobby Seale
was chained to his chair and
gagged in the trial. On Nov. 6,
former Attorney General of the
United States, Ramsey Clark,
testified as to the political nature
(Continued on Page 10)