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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 16, 1981)
opinion Sex discrimination stains the state system A class action suit alleging Oregon’s eight public colleges and universities discriminate against women faculty was certified in U S District Court Tuesday From the statistics submitted by the plaintiffs there is little reason to doubt the claim of sex discrimination will be proved It is quite startling to see that even in the State System of Higher Education, where one of the spoken ideals is truth, discrimination appears The suit alleges women faculty are dis criminated against in pay promotion, tenure, professional duties sabbatical leave, grant application support administrative and adjunct appointments salary support and grievance mechanisms The suit was filed by 13 women faculty members from five of the colleges and universities in the state system Specific allegations of sex discrimination will be brought by the individuals in court But there is reason to agree that the charges of discrimination are true systemwide District Court Judge Helen Frye, in a written opinion said, "The plantiffs have made an adequate showing that the board (of higher education) heads a statewide system that practices sex discrimination ” That s quite a damaging statement but one which can be backed with excerpts from the University’s own affirmative action report issued April 1981 These statements are indicators of areas of possible discrimination at the University “Compared to last year, the percentage of women appointed to 1979-81 academic postions declined The percentage of new minority appointments decreased from that of past years in both full-time and part-time positions at all ranks Judge Frye noted that the plaintiffs “have presented statistics tending to show a statewide ours pattern of disparity between men and women faculty members in promotion and access to upper-echelon positions in addition to pay differ entials " The University report went on to cite dis crepancies in faculty salaries here Men receive an average salary of $24,840. while women receive only $18 648 The percentage of women appointed to full time academic positions is also declining — as are minority appointments in both full-time and part time positions the University report states The state system unlike the University, lacks adequate affirmative action goals The dis crimination suit relates directly to the state board s affirmative action failure systemwide theirs This discrimination suit comes at a time of economic stress However, the importance of the suit outweighs the problems it poses for the board It's unfortunate this discrimination suit will have a greater impact on affirmative action than programs already in existence Perhaps affirmative action programs as a result of the discrimination suit will be given the clout they need to ensure fairness in hiring and advancement It should be to the shame of the state board that a judge will correct existing inequities in the system The discrimination suits will be expensive in salary and punitive compensation, but the affect systemwide will be to correct a deplorable situa tion that has been allowed to go on for far too long HAM' OBVIOUSLY AnIHER EXAMPLE OF YOU* FAMOUS SENSE OF HUMOR UNDER PRESSURE — Ri6Wf. RpN?' Offended I am writing with reference to Tuesday s front page article titled “Few View Otum Induction' with the sub headline "Student Apathy Scolded “ I was very offended at the implication that students were apathetic” about wanting to see Paul Olum’s inauguration As a student, I would very much have liked to have attended, but I did not know that I could I work in the German department as a clerical assistant I knew the professors were invited; we received several announcements concerning this but not one single announcement concerning the students being welcome ever came across my desk As to the quote from Wilkins saying you must “flood the campus with in formation,” rf a memorandum had been sent to all departments asking that in structors announce to their classes that students were invited to attend, the turn out most probably would have been larger In comparison to much of the trivial announcements that we deal with daily, this one would have been most welcome I would like to personally apologize to Pres Olum I am very sorry I wanted to be there but I did not think I would be welcome Shelty Harris Junior, Journalism Sinking ship An article appeared on the front page of the Emerald on Tuesday which attempted to justify the few number of students who attended Paul Olum's in auguration I found the article to be utterly pointless Page 4 Here we are in a time where cutbacks have become the rule rather than the exception, and the Emerald wonders why students did not come in droves to Olum s ceremony School pride dimin ishes when funding diminishes It's as simple as that It's no slight against dear Paul it’s just characteristic of a sinking ship How many sailors would rush to the party being held for their new captain when news of imminent disaster abounds? Not many, if any When it comes right down to it observation of ceremony is low on the list when the school's going to pot It's not lack of information on the event that prevented hundreds or even thousands of Duck students from crowding the stands at Mac Court, as ASUO President Wilkins guessed It's not lack of promotion, either It's not even a "self-centered philosophy" that caused only 30 to 40 students to take Sunday afternoon off and observe the inaugura tion It's plain and simple a fact of life that practically all of the University’s 18.000 or so students don’t give a hoot about an inauguration And why should they? Olum has been serving as president for the last year, anyway As a final note. I d like to say that the money used on the inauguration cert ainly could have been used for educa tional programs instead But. alas, a bit of sparkle in the form of pomp and cir cumstance is just too valuable to skip And anyway, it didn't cost too many thousands of dollars Jay Leisner Senior, finance Crack down In the past two months the Islamic Republic of Iran has executed over 1800 (Amnesty International statistics) revolu tionaries in an attempt to crack down on the opposition which is growing daily This figure does not include a great number of the masses who are being executed on the streets without trial Over the past two years, the Islamic Republic has been unable to solve the country 's problems due to its reactionary nature and as a result of this has in creased its oppression on the opposi tion Daily, an average of 20 people are executed and hundreds are arrested The Islamic Republic is accusing the members of the opposition of being U S mercenaries while it is shamelessly making deals with imperialist nations in order to survive its severe economical crisis By suppressing the resistance of the Iranian people the Islamic Republic is directly serving the purpose of the U S imperialism, because the U S knows that if a true and just revolutionary govern ment comes into power its interest in the crucial region of the world will definitely be endangered The Muslim Student Association has supported this regime in Iran from the start and still continues to do so The MSA never mentions or explains the suppressions and executions performed by this regime it supports We therefore invite all freedom loving people to join us in exposing this criminal regime and its supporters We would like to ask the Muslim Student Association why the Islamic Republic of Iran is ex ecuting the revolutionaries who had joined the people in the struggle against the Shah We would also like to ask them why the Islamic Republic is releasing the members of the Shah's secret police (Savak) who were responsible for ex ecuting the Shah's atrocious crimes Also we would like to know how the Muslim Student Association justifies its support of a regime which takes pride in executing pregnant women as well as children from the ages of 9 to 17 Farhad Lankarani ISA. Poor handling I am writing concerning the very poor organization used in running the Univer sity of Oregon Invitational Tennis Tournament (October 9-10) The officials in charge of running the tournament both upset and angered a number of players when, without notice, they cancelled all of the adult divisions I feel my experience is typical with that of others I arrived at the covered courts at 11 a m for my first match only to be hastily told that my division was cancelled and I would not be playing so I could leave When I attempted to inquire why the division was cancelled, pushy officials simply said there wasn't time for it. As if failing to notify the players of cancellations in advance wasn't bad enough, the officials were also very rude and inconsiderate in answering ques tions from the curious players In addi tion. they had the gall to ask non-playing participants to donate their entry fee to the school tennis team rather than receiving a proper refund In future tournaments officials should be organized enough to structure ample time for play in all divisions, attempt to be more considerate in their dealings with the participants and develop a more effective way of informing players of cancelled matches If these simple im provements cannot be made such tournaments should no longer be run Nicholas Baras Freshman, Journalism Friday, October 16,1981
