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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (July 19, 1983)
I Financial aid office not taking sides We sympathize with the “damned if they do — damned if they don’t" position of the University’s financial aid office over enforcement of the Solomon amendment. The Solomon amendment forbids disbursement of financial aid to students who have not registered for the draft. The law, which went into effect July 1, requires draft age students to be registered for the draft or declare exemp tion if applying for federal financial aid in fall term. Ed Vignoul, University Financial aid director, said that the University doesn’t have a choice in the matter. The University receives $22 million in financial aid that would be jeopardized without their office’s proper compliance with the law. Draft registration, like the draft itself, is one of those issues hung with the trappings of conscience and morality. Vignoul has done a commendable job keeping his office above the furor of debate for or against draft registration. Students who are opposed to draft registration might remember that the financial aid office has opted to guarantee the availably of financial aid to students instead of taking sides in the issue. Don’t grumble at the financial aid workers when you are given the compliance form to sign — they didn’t advocate the law. The law has been buffeted about the courts since it was passed last year. A test case filed by the ACLU in District Court in Minnesota last October issued an injunction against the law. However, in June the Supreme Court stayed the in junction. What this implies is the case against the law is on hold — though the enforcement of the law is being pursued. The ACLU considers the rule "a serious abridgement of constitutional rights” — the right forbidding self incrimination (the fifth amendment) and the right barring criminal punishment without benefit of trial (bill of attainer). They are absolutely right. But how many times have we seen the sharp edge of constitutional rights dulled by governmen tal expediency? Meanwhile, students, if only to further’their possibilities through higher education, will have to grit their teeth and ’’X’’ the compliance statement. opinion More support services needed for vagrants The city of Eugene has initiated a Vagrancy Task Force to handle transients that regularly pass through town. We think the task force is a good idea, but we advise the venerable City Council to be cautious. The problem of vagrancy is acute in the West University area. An influx of vagrants on 13th Avenue is common during spring and summer. In fact, some students seem able to predict the weather in Seattle or California by the number of vagrants drinking in the park on 14th Avenue. The attack on vagrants will be two pronged, using ex isting support services and law enforcement. The law en forcement efforts will be concerned with use of abandoned buildings by vagrants and drinking in city parks. The par ticulars of the support services effort have yet to be outlined. Support services should be the most important aspect of the city’s vagrancy program. Yet, it seems the city’s ap proach is nothing new and will rely on the police to round up the bums, throw them in jail for the night and let them out in the morning. The ACLU Is objecting to the program because they say it gives “too much discretion” to the police to pick up ‘peo ple who look scruffy.” That’s more than likely true — the police might use the charge of vagrancy as a catch-all or a means of harassment. The city should emphasize its participation in programs such as the Eugene Mission, Salvation Army, and the White Bird Clinic. The Eugene Mission is an effective organization helping vagrants turn their lives around. However, the mis sion is located on West 1st Avenue a long way from the areas that vagrants congregate. The city might consider setting up outreach houses in the trouble areas. WE ItttNKTHEE RR THE GIFTS OF UN BOUNTIFUL herpes and THINE blessed AIDS, 0, LORD.., NOW SEND US SOMETHING TOR ALL THE OTHER WIERDOS.' debbie howlett editor’s note Frankly I've been baffled as to why some student govern ment officials aren’t a bit more outraged over what I’ve capriciously tagged “Food Gate.’’ A little more than a week ago I found myself discussing an editorial I wrote which chastised student leaders who were ’’tight-lipped” about alleged violations at the Food Op, a non-profit collective that took the meaning of work study literally. The semi-private conversa tion I had with ASUO Vice Pres. Kevin Kouns and ASUO Publications Director, Mary Hope started out as a discus sion of the ASUO’s involve ment in “Food-Gate." We then meandered to a discussion of the ethics of bending the law. Strangely enough, we even talked about the ethics’ of breaking the law. And we weren't talking civil disobedience. Kouns said the Food-Op In cident occurred, in part, because of the way the time sheets are printed (they don’t allow a student to record more than one block of time in a given day). Further, Kouns said, there was no criminal in tent in the recording of work hours, ergo there is no criminal liability. I disagreed. Kouns tried to sway me. It was only bending an administrative rule, he said. Hope concurred Without the knowledge of whether it was a federal of fense or an administrative rule, I asked Kouns and Hope if it were not criminal, wasn't “Food-Gate" just a bit im moral. That got a lukewarm "maybe .’’ We then discussed the morality of bending rules to iraqan daily emerald The sumirnf edition of the Oregon Daily Emerald is publish ed Tuesdays sod Thursdays «*cept during e*am «e«k and vacations by the Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing Co #i the University of Oregon Eugene tregem. 9/40.1 The Emerald operates independently of the University with offices on the third floor of the Erb Memorial Union and is a member of the Associated Press Meets and Editorial MB 111 1 Display Advertising and Business ABA 1/1? Classified Advertising AM 4141 Production MB41B1 Circulation BAB t$11 Editor Managing Editor/New* Editor Editorial Page Editor Photo Editor Aaaoclata Editor* Highar Edueati i/Depanmeni* and School* Stodant Government Politic* Editor Community EditnriHigher Education Night Editor Oerter*l Stall Advarii»ing Managar Cla**itiad Advancing Production Managar Control t*r Debbie Ho* let t Sandy John*lona Cort Eernald Mar* Pynas Joan Merman Jim Moore Brook* Derail Michele Matasaa Cort Fernald Darlene Gore Salty Otiar Victoria Koch Jean Ownbay tap the fed's vast pot of public money. We argued whether a few thousand dollars would ever be missed by the federal government. Without coming to a conclusion, we changed the subject — sort of. We talked about a rumour I’d heard — that the Univer sity’s administrators were in a heavy sweat over “Food-Gate” because they were afraid an audit would show the Universi ty receiving more federal work study money than they ought to be receiving (administrators adamantly deny this is the case). Hope said she’d heard the same thing We circled back to the argu ment of the morality of taking more than one's fair share from so large an entity. We us ed the University's rumoured excess as a point of discussion. Hope’s rationalization for "bending the rules” when it comes to squeezing the fed’s pocketbook, is a time-worn cliche. She said the govern ment doesn’t allow the com mon person to be completely honest because honesty usually nets J.Q. Public less money. Kouns and Hope cited food stamps as an example. Nobody, according to Kouns, separates and marks fcod-stamp-purchased food from, say, a house-mate's non food-stamp-purchased food, even though it's required by federal law. If the government asks though, Hope said, you tell them you're doing exactly what you're not doing. If you told the truth, you wouldn't get as many food stamps, Kouns said. Hope said that if the Univer sity were indeed getting more than its share of work-study money, ‘‘so what.” The ASUO wouldn't say anything about it because surplus funds benefit University students. Walking up to the feds and saying "here, the University has too much of your money, take some back,” is misrepresen ting the students at the Univer sity, she said. We argued over how students would wanted to be represented, monetarily or morally. It is interesting that what comes to light in the news pages of this paper — the comments that are ‘for the record’ — have a distinctly different sound than what is said “off the record." This conversation was an in teresting, sometimes heated, exchange. It was not explicitly “for the record,” yet it was never said to be “off the record.” I was privvy to a couple of student leader’s thoughts on how they dealt with the federal government. If the Food-Op weren’t so entrenched in what appears to be federal viola tions, those comments might not have made these pages. But given the involvement of the ASUO in this incident (whether the ASUO should be involved or not), which carries implications that the Food-Op defrauded the federal govern ment, Kouns and Hope’s com ments seem highly newswor thy, and highly interesting Hope and Kouns caught me with my pencil poised. Since they did not say their com ments were "off the record,” I feel compelled to record them. My mind guides my pencil to write that both Kouns and Hope's jugular veins are popp ing in an effort to restrain themselves from bluntly say ing "Fuck the Feds.” And by now you might’ve guessed that both Kouns and Hope may want to say nearly the same thing to me. Maybe they do, I’m not sure. Hope did surmise that I was crusading on a white horse, that my seemingly pious posi tion was only because this type of news would make a name for myself, my staff and my paper. i felt that was a fair com ment, and to an extent, she’s right. Exposing impropriety at the University’s Food-Op, and editorializing about the shame of it all isn’t going to land any one a job with the Washington Post. The Emerald, and Jim Moore, the associate editor covering the ASUO, may earn a modicum of respect for their integrity, and possibly a few laurels for some hard work, but not much more is likely to come of it. It also struck me that, in a simplistic way, a newspaper gains admiration and respect, especially from its audience, by telling the truth. So I smiled at Hope. “You bet,” I answered with as much cockiness as I could muster. Hope smiled too, but I’m fairly certain we weren’t mak ing the same connection.
