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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 8, 1979)
opinion__ ours___ Deportation proposal obscures Iran issue No one burns so well as a foreign witch. Iranian students throughout the Un ited States may be able to read that message more clearly in the light cast by recent inflammatory rhetoric of Americans condemning anti-Shah demonstrations in this country. Official groups such as the city coun cil of Los Angeles, where a protest di rected at Shah Reza Pahlavi’s sister and mother flared into violence last week, and American newspapers, in cluding Eugene’s own Register-Guard, have argued for a quick deportation of “every Iranian who flings a rock or torches a car.” Supporters of this summary treat ment misbehaving foreign protestors base their proposal on the U.S. Immig ration and Naturalization Service’s pre rogative of canceling the visas of aliens convicted of crimes here. Preoccupation with the conduct of anti-shah demonstrators here distorts and distracts attention from the real issue: the shah and U.S. policy toward Iran. Opposed as we are to violence — personal or political, on the battlefield or in the street — the Emerald cannot subscribe to this heavy-handed re sponse to the demonstrations. We oppose the threat of deportation because it imposes multiple punish ment for a single offense, the motiva tion for which — political opposition to a brutal government — if expressed in a nonviolent form, would represent no crime. An American convicted for throwing a rock during a protest against the shah would be fined and handed a jail sen tence, quite possibly suspended. That would probably end the matter. If the policy advocated by the Register-Guard were followed, how ever, an Iranian protestor convicted of the same crime could be first fined and imprisoned, then deprived of an Ameri can education and finally returned for cibly to Iran, possibly to the clutches of the SAVAK, Iran’s secret police. That kind of selective punishment strikes us as patently unjust. We are not suggesting that protes tors committing acts of violence should not face the penalties of American law. Political motivations, however sincere or altruistic, may help explain the causes of illegal acts, but not provide an immunity for them. On the other hand, we may justifiably consider motivation when we talk about invoking the option of deporta tion. The immigration and naturalization service received the latter administra tive power in order to rid the country of criminal undesirables who were not citizens. Under this authority, the crim inal mastermind Meyer Lansky was deported to Israel and Mafia members have been returned to Italy. Such persons displayed true crimi nal behavior of illicit gain inspired by personal greed or vindictiveness. Applying the same policy to Iranian protestors, however, obscures the nuances and blunts the remedies of our laws of which Americans are so proud. Additionally, the creation of a witch hunt mentality, encouraged by argu ments for a free-wheeling deportation policy, threatens the civil rights of all, American or foreign, liberal or conser vative. It represents a “chilling effect” that suppresses the legal exercise of these rights without necessarily pre venting illegal acts motivated by similar sentiments. Newspapers and public officials must be considered particularly culpa ble in these matters because they pro vide a “legitimacy” for such oppres sive, public opinions. Undoubtedly, the anti-American na ture of the struggle against the shah has contributed to such reactions by U.S. citizens and public institutions, who then consider Iranis here as un grateful guests. But, as we have noted before, the hostility of Iranians toward U.S. gov ernment and business seems less than surprising when one understands that the shah was installed in power through a U.S.-backed coup and is maintained there with American sup port. Meanwhile, the lucrative Iranian oil industry has stayed almost exclu sively controlled by American techni cians and managers. In such circumstances, one might better argue that it’s the Americans in Iran — and not the Iranis in America — who should be deported. va irs Closed evaluations ‘proper’ Both of your recent front-page articles (ODE, Dec. 4 and 8) have referred to an alleged University Assembly decision not to allow student access to course evaluation data. Surely, you meant to refer to “mandatory” access, since instructors may, of course, now permit open student access to their course evaluations, if they wish. I find it surprising that this point also seems to have escaped Mr. McLean, particularly since his own school has recently decided, as a unit, to release survey data. In any case, I assume that future articles will observe the distinc tion between “voluntary” and “forced.” You are entitled to choose to interview only those who support forced release, just as the ASUO is entitled to claim the issue as a cause, in times when causes are apparently hard to come by. Still, I wonder about the fairness of the coverage and the morality of the ASUO stand. The Buckley amendment, as you know, has recently given students a significant gain in their rights to privacy of personal evaluative records. Students, quite properly, hailed the victory as a triumph for individual rights. Surely, each of us would be repelled by the suggestion that student records should be available to anyone coming in off the street. Yet the ASUO appears now to have chosen to crusade to force public, unrestricted release of faculty evaluative data which are in many ways entirely comparable to private student grade records. How is such an obvious attack on individual rights consistent with the generally progressive student government position? Throughout the statements reported in your articles there seems an unspoken assumption that evaluations which are not published in some way are somehow lost, and of no influence. Let me assure you that course evalua tions are always considered as primary data in any faculty reviews, for promotion, tenure or any other purpose relating to teaching. As I said in the University Assembly meeting, review bodies then go on to solicit other information on teaching, but the survey results are in no way ignored. Mr. Warren is quoted in your paper as saying" that “Taxpayers are basically skeptical of public employees who are unwilling to hold themselves open to fair evalua tion.” The statement itself may be correct, but the inference should not be drawn that the present faculty evaluation process is unfair. The review process now in use is, quite properly, not open to the public, so students (and many faculty mem bers) are naturally unaware of its nature or details. I assure you, however, that the process is a fair as it is humanly possible to make it, and that it takes student opinions significantly into account. Your article refers also to a lack of willingness to com promise on the part of some faculty members. I see an absence of compromise on this issue as inevitable, so long as students persist in wanting the surveys to provide them with immediate guidance, while the faculty aim is to im prove teaching quality and permit judgment of perfor mance. No survey yet designed has dealt with this intrinsic conflict in an effective way. I am convinced that in the long run, though, the students, and certainly the taxpayers, be nefit most from evaluations designed as part of a valid, comprehensive faculty review process. The Greenfield Holbo procedure is dearly aimed at that goal. C.R.B. Wright professor, mathematics ‘Do it right; do it yourself While it is indeed sad that a majority of the professors on your campus fail to see the obvious benefits of allowing students access to evaluation results, the students need not look to the legislature for help. The solution is simple; students should refuse to fill out University-distributed questionnaires and instead distri bute and compile their own. If you want it done right, do it yourself! Peter Pels third year, law I heirs rizmr w, wce^m u-ti G>*rt W/SWMam nf
