-editorial
Abortion for poor
In recent months, the U.S. Supreme Court and the
Congress have taken measures which will deny the use of
Medicaid funds for women wishing to have abortions. The
action will create a huge disparity between the rights of
wealthy women and poor women in seeking abortions.
The abortion issue is an extremely emotional one.
Persuasive arguments can be made on both sides of the
theoretical and philosophical debate on the morality of
abortion.
But the Congressional and Court decisions dodge the
issue completely. Wealthy women will still be able to get
abortions, but the poor will be unable to afford them. The
poor who cannot afford abortions will seek them in spite of
any federal law; granting federal money for abortions
merely ensures that the safety of the woman will be pro
tected. This inequity cannot be allowed.
Not many years ago (and even today in some areas),
abortions were performed in clandestine meetings with
quack doctors or totally uneducated hacks. With low
income women unable to afford abortions, they will return
to crude and dangerous methods of abortion. Providing
Medicaid money for abortions will ensure that qualified
doctors perform the operations in sanitary conditions, a
privilege which should be enjoyed by poor as well as weal
thy.
Controlling the size of families is a necessity for many
low income people. But contraceptive devices are not as
readily affordable for poor people, and they are not well
educated about their use. Until and unless the government
funds education and use of contraceptives, abortion is an
option that must be kept open for the poor.
The action by the Court and Congress, supported by
President Carter, does not change the government’s gen
eral policy toward abortion. It merely creates a hurdle to
abortions which will be impossible for low-income people
to surmount. State and federal policies must apply to rich
and poor alike, and if it is necessary to grant federal money
to poor people to ensure that goal, then so be it.
V,
J
Letters
Call of duty
Anyone who saw campus sec
urity guard Hal Frey lying on his
stomach leaning into an open
storm drain two weeks ago across
from the EMU may have won
dered what was going on—espe
cially since his arm was plunged to
the shoulder in the foul-smelling
water.
If they had stayed around, they
would have seen Frey and Robert
Frankel, also of campus security,
scooping water and sludge from
the deep drain with a pail attached
to a long wire handle improvised
from a straightened coat hanger.
It was a long, hard, smelly
process, but after 30 minutes work
they succeeded in retrieving a ring
of keys dropped through the drain
grating.
After returning the keys to the
embarrassed but grateful woman
who dropped them, they shrugged
off thank-you’s and retired to the
nearby building for a much
needed scrub.
Frey and Frankel maintained a
helpful and courteous good humor
throughout the incident.
For service considerably above
and beyond the call of duty, we
would like to publicly thank these
two men.
Dorene Klein, Junior CSPA
and five co-signers.
Neutron politics
The position taken by the
Emerald against the neutron
bomb is deserving of the highest
praise by those of us concerned
about the survival of the human
race. However, the editorial is little
more than an empty gesture
when put forth isolated from the
context of the struggle for detente.
The virtual isolation of U.S. im
perialism renders the dominant
sectors of finance capital suffi
ciently desperate to utilize so
called “tactical nuclear weapons”
such as the neutron bomb. The
victory of the Viet Namese people
signaled the close of Indo-China
as a theater for U.S. imperialism,
despite recent provocations
against North Korea. The victory
of the MPLA in Angola heralded
the death rattles of U.S. interests
in South Africa, Zimbabwe and
Namimbia. The objective demise
of NATO combined with Com
munist victories in Portugal,
Spain, Italy...constitute a mortal
threat to U.S. hegemony in
Europe — the last outpost of
Western imperialism.
However, Jimmy Carter’s au
daciously hypocritical “human
rights" campaign was the final
touch in orchestrating the destruc
tion of any viable base for opposi
tion to the neutron bomb. It pro
vides the pretext of morality for a
necessary united front in which
anti-Sovietism is the central
theme. This united front includes
forces as broadly based as the
most reactionary sectors of fi
nance capital represented in the
Tri-Lateral Commission — Jimmy
Carters puppeteers, and social
democrats such as Irwin Silber’s
cliche, Harrington’s hoardes, eg.,
D.S.O.C., New American Move
ment, and a Pseudo-Marxist New
Left weaned on F B I. Story, nur
tured by Mission Impossible and
enlightened by junior high school
curriculum guides authored by
that great expert on communism
— J. Edgar Hoover. We even find
dominant Maoist elements calling
for a strong NATO to contain
"Soviet hegemonism, social im
perialism” and on the domestic
front C.P.U.S.A. "revisionism.”
The twin engines of racism and
anti-Sovietism have paved the
way for the use of the atom bomb
from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to
the torturous genocide of Soviet
atheists by the neutron bomb — a
weapon which will leave their pre
cious icons intact to be returned to
the U S. to be worshipped in our
churches by “Christian soldiers."
These same sentiments could
provide the moral rationalizaton
for the use of tactical nuclear
weapons such as the neutron
bomb against Africans as well as
Soviet Communists.
The neutron bomb has raised
the stakes of the folly of racism
and anti-Sovietism to nothing less
than the annihilation of the entire
human race.
Marvin Berfowltz
Visiting Associate Professor of
Education
Letters policy
The Emerald will accept and try
to print all letters containing fair
comment on ideas and topics of
concern or interest to the Univer
sity community. To the extent
possible, letters and opinion col
umns will be printed on a first
come first-served basis. Opinions
and letters should be typed with
65 character margins and should
be triple-spaced. Letters and col
umns must be signed and the
author's major or faculty status
noted.
Amazon Co]
opinion
in
unity Tenants seek recognition
When Amazon Community
Tenants (ACT) entered into
negotiations with the University on
June 28 in an effort to resolve the
rent strike, it had essentially two
demands: 1) that the administra
tion provide a “system for r esident
participation in management de
cisions,” and 2) that the administ
ration “provide confortable hous
ing for families at a low cost.” the
University has recently rejected
both concepts explicitly and in
writing, but the fact is that the lan
guage quoted above is not taken
from ACT documents, but from
policy statements published by
the Housing office itself.
In veering away from its own
stated principles, the administra
tion has embarked on a new
course that jeopardizes the exis
tence of tow-cost student housing
and entails the destruction of the
organization that represents
Amazon. On July 8, President
Boyd sent a letter to Amazon ten
ants warning that “the holding of
state funds involves grave re
sponsibilities" and that “the mis
use of state funds carries with it
serious legal penalties." Boyd
further announced that the Uni
versity was pursuing an investiga
tion of the "liability of participants
in this illegal action.” Our attorney,
Joe McKeever of Legal Aid Ser
vices, has pointed out that “the
monies being held by ACT cannot
be legally characterized as state
funds.’” It seems clear that Boyd’s
letter was intended to intimidate
Amaxon residents with unsub
stantiated charges.
Boyd's letter also stated that the
Administration does not “wish to
participate in any collaboration
with ACT" and that it wishes “to
deal with a different group of stu
dent spokesmen.”
On July 14, Donald Moon Lee,
Associate Director of Housing,
sent a letter to twelve Amazon
tenants announcing that “a spe
cial group of Amaxon residents,
chosen by random numbers from
a current list of Amazon residents,
has been selected.” Each of the
twelve recipients of the letter was
invited to a meeting on July 19 at 7
p.m. in Carson Hall offices. It is
dear that the University wants to
be able to break off negotiations
with striking tenants while being
able to daim that it is earnestly
pursuing talks with Amazon resi
dents. Lee and Boyd may be hop
ing that this “gamble” will pay off
by producing a compliant bundle
of tenants who will nod “yes” at
every suggestion, but it seems
more likely that this is intended as
window-dressing for the State
Board of Higher Education. What
ever happens at the July 19 meet
ing, the Administration will once
again daim that it has demon
strated “good faith.”
Labor history buffs may recall
that this ploy was frequently used
by employers in the years before
collective bargaining representa
tion, when such a “chosen” com
mittee was known simply as a
“company union.” ACT is confi
dent that the University’s plan to
bypass the tenant union at Ama
zon by setting up a “company
union” will not receive any support
here. The only acceptable basis
for representation of tenants is
through democratic elections to
an Amazon board of governance.
At the present time, ACT attor
neys are meeting with David
Frohnmayer, legal counsel of the
University, to discuss alternative
approaches to tenant representa
tion in management structures,
Lee’s initiative in choosing whom
he will meet with from the other
side completely undercuts
Frohnmayor’s efforts to resolve
the dispute. If Lee thinks that rep
resentatives should be chosen by
lottery, he might want to suggest
that Frohnmayer’s legislative seat
be raffled off.
Having rejected the democratic
principle that tenants should be
able to choose their own rep
resentatives, the administration
is drifitng into dangerous interfer
ence with student rights to or
ganize and petition for a response
to grievances.
The administration has also
made it dear that it is beginning to
regard low-cost housing as a bad
bargain for itself. In recent years
the University has simply dropped
its stated commitment to provide
low-cost housing to low-income
students and now quite openly
compares Amazon’s "bargain"
rates with those on the private
market, implying that the differen
tial is embarrassing. As the as
kins and Sells report noted, It is
the policy of the Housing Depart
ment not to compare rental rates
in the Eugene-Springfieid market
area with University housing,
however, the Director of Married
Student Housing often makes
such comparisons....” Recr- itly,
President Boyd has also takr , to
comparing Amazon with other f us
ing, arguing in his July 8 left r to
ACT that, “by any standard the
proposed rates are a bargai for
tenants."
This entire approach is incon
sistent with the policy of the State
Board of Higher Education, which
specified that rental rates shall be
the “minimum’' required to ensure
self-sufficiency and self
liquidation. The administration,
however, has twisted state policy
to mean that Amazon must sub
sidize the debt service obligations
owing on Westmoreland. The
April, 1977, statement on the
proposed rent hike even claims
that Amazon’s failure to contribute
its “fair share” to Westmoreland
"is one of the reasons why rents
must be increased to provide for
the required payments on the part
of Amazon to the bond debt ser
vice.” That the idea of Amazon
paying a “fair share” of the cost of
Westmoreland can be suspected
of being completely arbitrary is
shown by the various percentages
that the Housing Office has consi
dered imposing on Amazon, a
range that included zero per cent,
7.75 per cent, 11.65 per cent,
31.40 per cent, and the Haskins
and Sells guess of 32 per cent.
The ASUO recently commis
sioned a review of the Haskins
and Sells report by the firm of
Gregor, Thorp, McCracken, and
Early. Their review concluded that
all methods of calculating a per
centage are “equally justifiable (or
from the other perspective, arbit
rary),” and that “allocation of this
debt sen/ice to Amazon could be
interpreted as an attempt to have
Amazon residents subsidize
Westmoreland rents.” Along with
Sally Smith, former Assistant Di
rector of Married Student Hous
ing, we "remain unconvinced with
the argument that Amazon has a
duty to pay a share of the debt
service.”
If the two projects provided
equivalent accomodations and
services, there would be no objec
tion, but it is bordering on the sur
real to suggest that a share of the
cost of building a modem land
scaped building be assigned to
other tenants who live in a
30-year-old World War II barracks
and who are protesting about inef
ficient maintenance and neglect.
When talks began on June 28
between ACT and the Housing Of
fice, we felt that a real possibility of
working through a process of
compromise and agreement ex
isted. When the talks broke down
and the Housing Office refused to
show up, we offered President
Boyd the opportunity to demon
strate his statesmanship by enter
ing into direct talks with ACT
aimed at resolving the dispute and
quickly ending the rent strike. In
stead, Boyd chose to pursue a pol
icy of intimidation and subterfuge.
Boyd has another opportunity to
settle the Amazon issue now by
investing David Frohnmayer with
the authority to reach binding ag
reements with Amazon Commun
ity Tenants. The Housing office
should be told to withdraw from
their interference in tenant organi
zations, to stop harassing emp
loyees who are in the rent strike, to
allow new admissions into Ama
zon without submitting ap
plicants to a loyalty test, and to
provide documents that ACT at
torneys have requested. The ad
ministration should refrain from in
flammatory comment and intimi
dating letters and let their chief
legal counsel sit down and work
out the issues with ACT.
Walt Shaasby
Coordinator for representation
Amazon Communitv Tenants