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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 8, 1978)
Letters Vote ‘no’ on 51 Students fought to gain the right to vote in the district where they attend school. On May 23 you will have the opportunity to exercise this right in a battle of national im port. The issue is whether all citi zens, regardless of sexual prefer ence, shall have the basic rights to housing, jobs and public accomo dations. By repealing human rights measures in Miami and St. Paul the “New Right” has shown that it can and will take away the civil rights of gay people. Eugene is the next site of this struggle. We must all act to stop the tide here. If we don’t the issue will not only be where next, but who next and what next? Which gains made by civil rights and feminist advocates will be up for repeal? The very least we can do is to vote. If you are already registered in Eugene, make sure to vote on May 23. If you are not, be assured that all citizens in this county have the right to register up to and in cluding election day. Until May 16, you can register by mail. After that date you must register at the County Elections Office (175 W. 8th). In both cases of late registra tion, you must take your voting certificate to your polling place. The Gay People’s Alliance, with the help of organizations like the New American Movement, will be staffing tables during the next few days in the EMU to help you regis ter. If you can’t find a table, regis tration forms are always available in the GPA office, 318 EMU (take the elevator). If you want to do more, call the GPA (686-3360) or the Eugene Citizens for Human Rights (485-1075). But at least vote. STOP THE TIDE HERE. REGIS TER AND VOTE NO ON BALLOT MEASURE #51. Barbara Corrado Pope Instructor, Women’s Studies and Daniel Pope, Assistant Prof., History Capital terrorism You know, I've been hearing an awful lot about terrorism in differ ent countries. There’s Marxist terrorism, Palestinian-terrorism, Arab-terrorism, Jewish-terrorism, etc. etc. But, you know, they never talk about American-terrorism. We have it though, and we’ve killed an awful lot of people with it. It’s cal led “capital punishment." Joyce Falshung Sophomore, Marketing Warped priorities It was fascinating to note in Friday’s Register-Guard that the University has created a brand new administrator, namely a “vice president for public services.” This strange new creature will “coordinate university activities" in such things as fund raising and alumni relations. For such educa tionally crucial activities, our new vice president will hold the rank of professor and get a salary of $39,500 per annum. For months the University has been insisting it cannot afford to pay minimum wage to food ser vice workers and other student workers, or to pay a living wage to GTFs, yet somehow they came up with $39,500 to hire another damn vice president. How many vice presidents are there now? With that money, they could pay every student worker the minimum wage and have enough left over to give a raise to every GTF. Is this an educational institution or a home for unemployed bureau crats? We’ve got to demand changes in these warped priorities. Jeff Edmunson Graduate, Psychology To the point The Atiyeh-Martin- McCall gubernatorial debate held Friday, April 28 in the EMU K.*oved to be an important lesson in politics for many citizens in attendance in cluding myself. The debate de monstrated that not all candidates fit the image created by their cam paigns, and that some candidates can face tough issues honestly while others know how to dance well. Former Governor McCall danced with surprising virtuosity considering his reputation as a “bold dynamic” politician. McCall dodged hard core issues like state legislation on gay rights and nuc lear power. He seemed to offer a return to Oregon’s lost Camelot as his only firm proposal. Senator Atiyeh was neither in novative in his thinking or dynamic in his presentation. His answers were all the low-keyed soft sell type, and he often tried to smooth over the rough issues by talking around his main point rather than straight at it. Only State Representative Roger Martin confronted the ques tioning with straightforward ans wers. The issues the other candi dates talked around Martin took on without hesitation. Even if one did not agree with every single stand he took or each and every proposal he made it was dear he was not hiding his position behind a screen of empty rhetoric. On most issues all three seemed to be in basic agreement, but on the sensitive questions only Martin made his stand clear. Any of the three candidates would certainly be an improve ment over our present do-nothing governor, but from media reports alone it would be difficult to make the choice among them. However, if every Oregonian had the oppor tunity to see these three state leaders on the same stage to gether there is no doubt that Roger Martin would be our next governor. David Price Graduate student, Business Bigoted morality? Brower is right (letter, April 24) that the Bible is not recognized by the Constitution as a standard for determining rights. What assur ance have we that God, in his judgement of people and nations, recognizes the Constitution and the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court or even a Eugene City Council ordinance? If the people of Eugene vote that His Biblical morality is bigoted, will He be im pressed? R.R. McCready Associate prof., library -opinion ■■■■■ Law vs. justice: Redden’s ruling is legal, but unjust Submitted by Ozodi Osuji for the African Student Organization On Tuesday, May 2, 1978, James Redden, Oregon Attorney General finally handed down his long awaited formal opinion: the State Board of Higher Education has no legal power to order divestment of university stocks in the 27 U.S. corporations doing business in South Africa, in which it had invested. His reasoning, as reported by the Emerald was that “political factors could be only consi dered in buying and selling state stock if it affected the return on those investments.” Further, only “the safety of investments and the probable rate of return could influ ence the investment managers to sell stock.” A cursory glance at Redden’s argument will im mediately convince the reader that his opinion rests solely on pure economic and legal grounds. The state is in the business of maximizing profits. Given that goal, the best policy to adopt is to invest in markets where the probability of greatest dividends is anticipated. South Africa is one such market. We give accolades to Redden for his economic perspicacity. He is a shrewd businessman. In business, rationality dictates that objective cost-benefit calculations override subjective, emotional or abstract speculations as to whether our behavior is moral. (?) In fairness, we must not blame Redden. Like public officials everywhere, he exists to carry out policies enacted by the political superstructure in which he oper ates. Indeed, several other states and boards of higher education have done precisely what he did. For instance, the California "Regents,” University of Washington "Board of Regents,” Yale University, Princeton and Stan ford, and so on. Redden's opinion is strictly legal. We say "legal” because in all probability he interpreted the law correctly. Thus, he is not only an astute economist, he is also a brilliant lawyer. Now, leaving the quibblings of transient public offi cials that bloom today and pass into insigificant oblivion tomorrow aside, (can you remember the Oregon Attorney General of 1940?), let us address ourselves to the ques tion of justice. What is legal, what is just? Mr. Redden was acting legally, but was his action just? Our view is that he was not. If so, then, the law does not necessarily repres P.ao A ent justice. In fact, many atrocities are committed under the cloak of law. Witness Nixon’s law and order policy of the late 1960s — a camouflage under which vigorous attempts were made to stifle black demand for justice. This makes it crucial for us to be suspicious of those who mouthe “law” slogans. We must contantly ask, is law justice as a metaphysi cal abstraction, which lends itself to various definitions. Maybe so. Nevertheless, we all suspect that healthy human beings tend to be able to intuitively conceive what treat us. Pragmatic responses to the requirements of the present situation notwithstanding, most people imma nently agree that we should treat others as we would they treat us. Although a cynic like Bernard Shaw points out the built-in contrdiction in the golden rule (for example, suppose you are driven by a death wish and don’t mind others’ killing you, can you justifiably kill others!), we are of the opinion that a sane human being not impelled by desperation is most likely to expect others to threat him decently. Hence he treats others decently. “Other regarding” behavior is the simple phrase. The Attorney General’s ruling decidedly does not take the effect of his behavior into consideration — an economically strong South African government will have the military wherewithal to supress the African segment of its population. Or is it the case that the Attorney General was cognizant of the effects, but motivated by self survival interests is careless of the well-being of the Africans? We hesitate to dismiss this behavior as cowardly (we define courage as the ability to identify with others’ misery and feelings; and subsequent behavioral responses under taken to alleviate it. Self-survival becomes concurrent with others’ survival). Cowardice than is opportunism. The courageous would rather resign than be part of body manipulating legal shenanigans to enslave the weak. Law or what is legal is usually legislation enacted by those in control of the instrument of coercion. The South African apartheid regime, for instance, has laws. Some of these laws stipulate that over 95 percent of the land area of the “republic” be reserved for whites (see the 1933 Native Land Act), that blacks live in assigned bantutans (ghettos), that blacks carry pass cards all the time, that blacks not be seen on the streets of the major cities after daytime hours, that blacks must not have votes in the elections to parliament, that black wages must be lower than whites’ — any whites, irrespective of the level of skill or education and above all, that blacks not express their thoughts openly in the press — censored press. All these are legitimate laws of South Africa. If we fail to differentiate what is just from what is legal, it follows that for the peoples of South Africa, black and white, to be law abiding means acquiescence of the above laws. Since the rhetoric of the American system is that a democratic republic is a country ruled by laws, then the democratic South African Republic is ruled by laws. Nobody should be above the law, hence the African must accept the place stipulated for him by the South African laws. Most sane people will probably object. They will point out that some laws are clearly serving the interest of the most powerful group in certain countries. Under this con dition, the laws are unjust and should not be obeyed. We are merely trying to point out the ridiculouness implied when public officials proclaim the need for laws as opposed to morality. Redden dearly acceptes the view that morality has no place in government operation; otherwise, how could he unabashedly encourage initui ous trade in human suffering? Perhaps we are a bunch of naive, uninformed sen timentalists, unappredative of the reality of human ex ploitiverness, especially when national self-interests are at stake. The international arena may be a jungle for the most powerful to swallow the weak. Yet we dissodate ourselves from any opportunistic, expedient behaviors that see man as a means to an end. Man is an end in himself, and if the Attorneys General of the world are incapable of realizing that fact, then the laws they repres ent are not worthy of respect. Only when laws approxi mate justice can we, in honesty to ourselves, abide by them. In the meantime, may “cool” objective, rational money-grabbers invest in South Africa, make profits from slave labor. Convince your consdences (if any) that your actions are legal and economically wise. For us, we see through these legal antics and must separate the chaff from the good seed when the time comes. South Africans must be liberated.
