6 The Daily Tar Heel Wednesday, November 30, 1977
Greg Porter
Editor
Ben Cornelius, Managing Editor
Ed Rankin, Associate Editor
Lou Bilionis, Associate Editor
Laura Scism. University Editor
Elliott Potter. City Editor
Chuck Alston, State and Ndtional Editor
Sara Bullard, Features Editor
Ch EnissitN, Arts Editor
Gene Upchukcu Sports Editor
Allen JernIgan. Photography Editor
Fringe lot good alternative
to parking deck addition
If there is one lesson the University should have learned by now, it is that
money won't solve every problem. But the Board of Trustees' most recent
excursion into the world of on-campus parking problems indicates that the
simplest of schoolings has gone unlearned.
The UNC Board of Trustees has given its approval to a proposed $2.6
million addition to the South Campus parking deck. But the board's
decision seems to be based more on the desire to spend than on a
commitment to solving the parking problem.
V$
8 ft
t ! A IM h
,4:1' ir
y' Ah ' I
r
At :
''VTrw-Vhiftiafo riMmi'iiHtii tfi"ir"ri
The Board of Trustees approved a $2.6 addUin -Jh? Prob!ems here
million addition to this parking deck. are indeed obvious.
-A well-selected fringe lot with adequate shuttle service to campus would
strike the heart of Chapel H ill's traffic problem commuters and not the
superficial contributors to the problem visitors to the medical complex.
Conscientious planning could lead to a cheaper, more efficient and far more
equitable solution to the parking problem.
Although the Board of Trustees has approved the project, it has not
awarded contracts yet. We urge the board to take one last look at its options
before giving the final go-ahead to the parking deck addition on Manning
Drive. If the trustees have the good of the campus, the University and the
community at heart, they should revise their plans and investigate
alternatives such as a fringe lot that will meet our needs more adequately
and efficiently.
The board should realize that it takes careful planning and weighing of
alternatives and not just money to solve problems.
School
may not have used best defense
Four possible legal reasons why
By CHARLES E. DA YE
Editor's Note: This is the first of two
columns addressing the Bakke case. Today,
Charles E. Dave, associate professor of law,
argues that Allan Bakke should lose his
"trumped-up1" case. Tomorrow, Dean
Morton I. Tekher of the School of Social
W 'ork will argue in support of Bakke's stand.
Setting the Record Straight. In 1973 Allan
Bakke was one of 2,644 applicants for 100
seats at the Medical School at the University
of California-Davis (Cal-Davis). In 1974 he
was one of 3,737 applicants for 100 seals.
Cal-Davis has a so-called "disadvantaged
special admissions" program, a basic
characteristic of which was that, in addition
to other factors normally considered in
determining an applicant's admissibility, the
race of the applicant was also considered.
The other factors included MCAT scores,
grade point average, summary of a personal
interview, the motivation, character and
imagination of an applicant, as well as the
locale of practice the applicant anticipated
entering. Bakke challenged only the race
referenced criterion. Bakke did not apply for
admission under the special program
although it was not, by its terms, limited to
blacks or ethnic minorities. Blacks who did
not request to be considered under the
"special" program were considered under the
"regular admissions" program. My
information is that Bakke applied to 12
medical schools all of which rejected him.
Yet he sued only Cal-Davis. The trial court
found Allan Bakke would not have been
admitted even if the special program did not
exist.
It is not altogether clear that Cal-Davis
put its best defense forward. For example, it
did not challenge nor, for all that appears,
raise the potential issues of the
discriminatory impact of standardized tests.
Neither party raised the question of whether
Cal-Davis had previously discriminated
against blacks in admission, although Cal
Davis "admitted" that it had not previously
done so. In sum, Cal-Davis was not the best
laity
(5ar UM
85th year of editorial freedom
a i : i -.j .
rtiiuruing i o .3 i u u e n i
Government Transportation
Director Paul H. Arne, a fringe
parking lost would cost, at the
maximum, $1,000 per space. Even
assuming an expensive and
elaborate bus service to the lot, the
total cost of the alternative would
fall far below the $3,300 per space
cost of the proposed addition.
Simply, there are cheaper and
more effective ways to ease the
parking squeeze on campus. For
instance, a fringe parking lot with
more bus service could serve the
same purpose as the proposed
parking deck, and would cost a great
deal less.
But an alternative to the addition
would offer other benefits besides
savings. For example, it doesn't take
a traffic specialist to realize that a
parking deck on Manning Drive
would not meet student needs. Yet
student money would nevertheless
be used to help finance the proposed
surrogate for seeking to protect the interests
of blacks which were clearly implicated in
the litigation.
The Issue in the Bakke Case. The true
issue in the case is: "Whether in allocating its
scarce educational resources a state is
constitutionally restricted to questionable
quantitative criteria in the admission of
students, or whether it may consider a broad
range of societal interests, including the race
of applicants?" This is the true issue because
no one has contended that Cal-Davis
admitted "unqualified," as distinguished
from relatively "less qualified" persons.
The problem inheres in the impossibility
of any qualifications test to reduce the
'applicant pool to the precise number of
applicants to be admitted. Accordingly, the
rhetoric about "reverse discrimination"
utterly misses the point. When the state is
incapable by qualifications tests to reduce
the applicant pool to the precise number of
applicants to be admitted, the state has to
report to non-qualifications factors, or
admissions criteria, to further reduce the sie
of the pool. If the state has no policy that it
can further by the application of non
qualifications criteria, I submit that the only
rational way to admit would be by lot. No
university admits by lot. The simple reason is
that universities do pursue other objectives
in determining admissions policies.
Thus conceived, we can understand that a
practice of admitting the relatively better
qualified in preference to those relatively less
qualified, from pool in which all applicants
are qualified, effectuates a policy of
allocating educational benefits exclusively to
the relatively better qualified. Other policies
may also be similarly pursued through the
adoption of appropriate criteria reasonably
related to the furtherance of other objectives.
A well-used criterion is the geographic
preference which practically all major
national schools employ. So too with a
policy of according opportunities to those
who historically have suffered educational
disadvantages. So too of a policy ot
producing medical or other ptolessionals to
meet crying social needs.
A Sketch of the 1 aw . At the outset it must
be pointed out tli.it probably cu'iy law in
letters to the editor
Faculty valuable advising resource
To the editor:
To be sure. I am among the many who
welcome enthusiastically the increased
attention being given to undergraduate
advising ("Maligned system needs help,"
Nov. 29). We can hope that the inquiries now
being made will lead to changes in the
institution which will make more and better
advice available. And yet. while the scrutiny
now being given to formal advising
procedures is warranted and some changes
are surely needed. I feci also that some
changes in the attitudes and behavior of the
undergraduates might go far to remedy the
current situation.
The faculty are here, they are well-trained,
they are experienced, and they are, in most
cases, quite able and willing to advise their
students and to explore with them their
many academic options. Perhaps if the
students could come to regard the faculty
less as semi-animate automata who have no
existence outside the classroom and
understand clearly that the faculty consists
of learned, humane individuals w ho are glad
to discuss and advise then perhaps the
undergraduates might come to approach
their own teachers for counseling, and
proposed changes in the advising structure
(while necessary and good) would be only
supplementary to the faculty's resumption of
its total teaching role.
Daniel J. Sheerin
Department of classics
More punk
To the editor:
An apology is due to Mr. Templeton: My
dear Gil, I am sorry forwhatever"pot shots"
at your personal integrity I might have made
in the past. 1 should not have used such terms
as "narrow-minded" and "foolish" in
describing your character. Rather. I should
have described you as being unfair to New
Wave artists.
Gil Templeton. as evidenced in his
rebuttal ("Reviewer responds," Letters, Nov.
28), didn't seem to understand what the furor
some way discriminates. There is simply no
prohibition in the constitution of general
kinds of discrimination. Ordinarily when a
law is challenged as denying equal protection
on the grounds that it discriminates, the
ultimate test is not whether in fact the law
discriminates, but w hcther there is a rational
basis which justifies that discrimination.
However, because of the unhappy history
of race relations in America, the doctrine has
evolved that distinctions, discriminations or
classifications which are based on race are
"suspect." Race classifications used by the
post-bellum South for the purpose of
suppressing blacks were the precise
conditions which in larger measure
motivated the passage of the Fourteenth
Amendment and caused race classifications
to be suspect.
Today Allan Bakke would tell us that a
constitutional provision originally
. . must be pointed out that probably
every law in some way discriminates'
conceived and interpreted to constitute a
shield for former slaves is to be turned into a
sword by a white man to cut off the
descendants of former slaves from
educational opportunity in professional
schools. That is an overwhelming irony.
Allan Bakke should lose his case for any
one of four possible legal reasons:
1) Not even a racial classification is
unlawful if the state has compelling reasons
to justify making it. Compensating for
historic denials of opportunity can be found
to constitute a compelling reason.
2) Under recent Supreme Court cases,
Allan Bakke should lose because it cannot be
demonstrated that the Cal-Davis medical
school, controlled by white males, was
motivated by a racial animus against Bakke
because he is a white male, nor can he prove
that by their conduct the Cal-Davis faculty
intended to cast a racial slur or stigma on
him.
his review engendered was all about.
Whether the Dead Boys' LP has musical
value or not is not the point Mr. Brown, I or
any of the others who found, as he puts it,
"discontent" with his review, wanted to
make. The point is this: Mr. Templeton
chose one "punk" LP at randomlistened to
as much as his precious ears could take,
decided that he didn't like it, and proceeded
to condemn an entire genre of rock. This was
undeniably unfair to many punk groups he
had not heard.
Templeton says in his rebuttal that his
article "expressed what my feelings and
opinions were in accordance to the album."
Oh, so that's what he was doing when he said
"PUNK ROCK." meaning all New Wave
bands, amateur and professional, signed and
unsigned to recording contracts. "IS BOTH
DEGRADING TO THE WORLD OF
MUSIC AND HAZARDOUS TO YOUR
HEALTH." 77o. Mr. Templeton. is totally
uncalled for.
1 have made my apology to you, Gil. You
are indeed entitled to your opinion." Now,
however, it is your turn to apologize for the
liberties you took in your article that were
based on insufficient and inconsequential
facts. I hope you are responsible enough a
journalist to admit fault.
Tom Eisenmenger
2IOCarr Dorm
Agreement
To the editor:
In his column on nuclear technology
(Nov. 28) Julian Grajewski asks, "Why,
then, is the national media engaged in a
veritable propaganda blitz...?"
Why, Julian, is you in English graduate
school?
Chuck Babington
Bynum Hall
Wasted fees?
To the editor:
Now that the referendum is over, those of
us who voted against the fee increase can
Allan Bakke
3) Allan Bakke should lose his case to the
extent that he claims to have been
discriminated against, that discrimination
was imposed on him by member of the class
to which he belongs, i.e. white males. There
is no reason to fear that Allan Bakke and the
entire class of white applicants are subjects
of political oppression and are incapable of
exercising political power to adequately
protect their interests. In short, whites in the
dominant position at Cal-Davis are doing
things to themselves which is quite unlike the
situation to which the Fourteenth
Amendment originally was addressed.
4) ' The racial classification, to the extent
that there truly was one in the Cal-Davis
procedure, is not motivated by an animus
against anyone, black or white. It was
motivated by the objective of providing a
limited, (1 repeat limited), opportunity to a
few, (I repeat a few), blacks. It was not
motivated by an animus toward Bakke in
particular nor whites in general.
Some Policy Dimensions. There is a
serious question whether one can truly
determine that Bakke was more qualified or
less qualified than the blacks admitted,
notwithstanding that they scored lower on
the MCAT. First, standardized tests in
general are predictive only with respect to
first year performance, to the extent that
they are predictive at all. Beyond that no one
claims more. Surely no one claims that there
is any correlation between high MCAT
scores and the making of good doctors. It
would be untoward to hold, for
constitutional purposes, that Bakke was
better qualified because of his higher score,
for the simple reason that to do so would be
practically to enshrine the MCAT in the
Fourteenth Amendment.
The evil would be compounded since there
exist serious questions about whether a
standardized test score alone can really
only hope the money will be spent wisely.
But I doubt that it will.
Last summer one of the editors under the
Media Board forged Mrs. Sparrow's
signature to a $250 check to pay a $25
photographer's bill. Apparently the payee
needed a short-term loan since the money
was eventually paid back. Both parties
claimed it was just a joke and they did it to
relieve boredom, but Mrs. Sparrow wasn't
laughing. But it was a wise expenditure, no
doubt.
A member of CGC told me that he had
done a study and found that WXYC could
operate on $4,000 per year. He pushed the
$14,000 expenditure for three reasons:
1) To deplete the budget and force a fee
increase.
2) To prevent minor organizations
(AWS. etc.) from getting any money.
3) To allow WXYC to get at least $20,000
per year after the fee increase passed.
He told me that he coached the WXYC
people on what to tell individual members of
CGC in order to "snow" them so they would
pass the expenditure with a minimum of
fuss. Again a wise expenditure, no doubt.
Over the past few weeks, the DTH
reported the Crime of the Century at
WXYC. Is it wise for students to support this
stupidity"?
Only three examples do not make a case
against a fee increase, but it is necessary to
see that any fee increase does go where it is
needed. As a law student, I already support a
student bar association, two law review and
a mootcourt,, and, I .want tp makedamn,
certain that the money 1 pay to
undergraduates isn't wasted.
Kerry Holliday
609-A Hibbard Drive
The Daily Tar Heel welcomes letters to
the editor. Letters must be typed, double
spaced, on a 60-space line and are subject
to condensation or editing for libelous
content or bad taste.
should lose
measure the aptitude of minorities for
medical study, not to mention the aptitude of
minorities to become competent
professionals. Let the law school test makers
tell it:
"Any rational attempt to predict
probable law school performance
on the basis of (LSAT scores) must
also take account of unquantified
information about the applicant,
including such things as work
experience which might either aid
them in the study of law or explain
lower college grades, his reasons
for studying law and his
motivation and dedication irt '
college, and his probable
adjustment to the stress and
competition of law school." . .
This is what the Law School Admissions
Council told the Supreme Court in its brief
on the Bakke case.
Beyond the legal issue there is quite a
distinction between opportunity in the
abstract and realistic opportunity. For
example, in 1976-77 there were 39,996 first
year students in 164 law schools. Of this
number 2.128 (or 5.1 percent) were black.
This was in the heyday of so-called
affirmative action! For that same year a
survey reveals thay if there had been no
special admissions programs about 300
blacks (or 0.75 percent) would have been
admitted to the 1976-77 first year class. It is
well known that currently blacks comprise
less than 2 percent of lawyers nationally and
less than 5 percent of doctors. One cannot
blink away the fact that a serious deprivation
will be visited upon blacks, and this nation, if
limited compensatory justice programs such
as that at Cal-Davis are constitutionally
prohibited. r
Those who object to racial classifications
sometimes claim they would not object to a
"disadvantaged" classification. What is the
qualitative distinction between a
classification for the disadvantaged and one
for race, if the evil isonj'classification? If the
evil is not all classifications, then why only a
racial classification? It appears that a so
called disadvantaged test, if applied
honestly, would not necessarily reach the
Wilmington 10
fiasco mocks
human rights
By VIKK1 BROVGHTON
North Carolina, ironically termed the
state "First in Freedom," has earned the
rather dubious distinction of being one of the
most oppressive and racist states in the
nation in light of the Wilmington 10 case.
The plight of the Wilmington 10 has
received international news coverage, and its
reflection on North Carolina is not a very
flattering one. In these days of self
righteousness and human rights
declarations, this case makes North
Carolina, and the United States in general,
appear to be absurdly hypocritical at best.
Officials in Gov. Jim Hunt's office said
last week they had received more than 1,000
letters, telegrams and petitions either urging
or opposing a pardon for the Wilmington 10.
The governor's press secretary, Gary Pearce,
estimated that two-thirds of the messages
urge a pardon for the nine black men,
including the Rev. Ben Chavis, who are
serving long prison terms on charges
stemming from racial disorders at
Wilmington in 1971. The other member of
the 10, a white, female social worker, has
been paroled.
Pearce said 1 3 letters and a petition signed
by 120 persons had come from individuals
who identified themselves as members of
Amnesty International, the worldwide
human rights organization which recently
won the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize.
Amnesty International has classified the'
Wilmington 10 as political prisoners in their
own country, that is, prisoners who were
arrested "for their beliefs, color, ethnic
origin or religion." This claim should not be
taken lightly. The London-based
organization is regarded highly for its
accuracy and impartiality. In fact, Amnesty
International is a source of information on
human-rights violations for both Congress
and the State Department.
At a recent news conference, Gov. Hunt
said he would not be swayed in his stand on
the Wilmington 10 by the strong black
support given to the succession amendment
in the referendum held a few weeks ago. He
said in decid ing such as case, "You just set all
that aside and do what is best for the state."
If, indeed. Gov. Hunt wants to do what is
best for the state, regardless of political
concerns, he should take a more responsible
position in regard to this violation of human
rights. If this case, now being appealed to the
N.C. Court of Appeals, again meets an
unresponsive and irresponsible state judicial
system, then Hunt should exercise his
executive privilege.
' 'The Soviet" Union, under fire for its
oppression of Soviet dissidents, isjustifed in
pointing out our country's hypocrisy
concerning human rights. Granted the
number of political prisoners in this country
is small in comparison to that of the Soviet
Union, but the United States is not without
guilt.
The whole world is watching. It is time we
practice what we preach.
Vfitki Broughton, a junior journalism
major from Raleigh, N.C, is editorial
assistant for the Daily Tar Heel.
his case
precise objective which is to provide
opportunities to those who historically have
been denied those opportunities.
But even beyond that, what is the logic,
not to mention the morality, of a preference
for the disadvantaged when it was blacks
who in America were held in slavery for 246
years, when it was blacks who were subjected
to state-imposed J im Crow laws for 89 years,
when it was blacks who were subjected to
laws that made it a crime to teach slaves
reading, when it was blacks who are grossly
under-represented in the professions, when it
is the central city and rural blacks who are
without decent access to professional
services?
There are those who argue that if we get
into the business of race classifications, or
indeed quotas, regardless of the purpose, the
nation shall never be able to stop and shall
tread a road to oblivion. I accuse such people
of being unable to distinguish between an
inch and a mile. They look upon a raindrop
and envisage an inundation.
Who can doubt that dominant white
Americans will keep close check and restrain
affirmative action programs to see that they
cease when their need has disappeared? Who
has a realistic fear that professional schools
dominated by white males will turn into
institutions exclusively for blacks?
. Postscript. Because of its media coverage
and its controversial social content,
regardless of how it is decided, the Bakke
case will be seen to have much broader
implications than anything the Supreme
Court is likely to decide. If Bakke wins, those
who went forward toward compensatory
justice only reluctantly will have an excuse to
' backslide. Ultimately it appears that
'reasonable and flexible compensatory
justice programs are necessary as an interim
means if America ever is to become the ideal
nation she holds out the claim of being. As
interim measures, reasonable and flexible
' compensatory justice programs seem to be
the only realistic steps that promise to work.
Therefore they are not merely necessary, but
imperative.
Charles E. Daye is an associate professor
of law at the J INC law school.