Volume 87, Issue No. 10
Thursday, August 2, 1979, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
wesxigation
EEOC probing
alleged discrimination
By GARY TERPENING
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is
investigating several cases of alleged wage and sex
discrimination on the Chapel Hill campus, the Summer Tar
Heel has learned.
Susan H. Ehringhaus, assistant to the chancellor,
confirmed in a telephone interview Wednesday that the
University is involved in the investigation.
"There has been an investigation of wage and hour
discrimination going on for some time," Ehringhaus said.
Douglas Hunt, vice chancellor for administration and the
University's affirmative-action officer, was unavailable for
comment Wednesday afternoon.
Raymond Cordelli, assistant regional administrator for
the New York division of the Department of Labor's Wage
and Hour Division, said in a telephone interview Wednesday
that the Greensboro wage and hour area office began the
investigation in 1975. The case file for the investigation was
turned over to the EEOC this July.
Linda Burchette, compliance officer for the Greensboro
office, said in a telephone interview Monday that the
officials from her office have visited the campus at least three
times during the investigation. Burchette said the
investigation, which focuses on health and health science
affairs, is now in the process of administrative negotiations
with the EEOC, and the investigation had begun in 1975. She
declined to comment on details of the negotiations.
Miriam Slifkin, president of the N.C chapter of the
National Organization for Women, said Monday that she
had originally spoken with Cordelli when he was the area
director in the Greensboro office. Slifkin, who had been
approached by University employees alleging various forms
ofsex discrimination, said she requested that Cordelli
initiate a class-action suit for all women employees of the
University.
Slifkin said the investigation undertaken the next year by
James C. Stewart, who replaced Cordelli when he went to
the New York office, covered only faculty and exempt
personnel University employees such as administrative
and research staff. Stewart, contacted Tuesday, declined to
comment on the investigation.
Alvin Ciapp, an official in the Charlotte EEOC office, said
that while he was not at liberty to discuss the ongoing
negotiations, the question of the matter entering litigation
depends on responses from the University.
II 41k- ttMBw -to. a i A ml wtMt- 4 -.fib -
In this issue:
A guide
for new students
at Carolina
Although this issue is being sent to all incoming freshmen
and junior transfers and is directed toward their relative
ignorance of Carolina, we hope our summer readers will find
it enjoyable and informative. This is the last issue of the
Summer Tar Heel for 1979. Publication of the Daily Tar
Heel will resume Aug. 27, the first day of fall classes. Good
luck on exams, enjoy what's left of the summer and we hope
you return to Chapel Hill and the DTH this fall.
The Summer Tar Heel staff
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Tar Heel
champs
UNC baseballers, regular season league champs,
captured the North Carolina Summer League
championship tournament in three straight games last
weekend at Boshamer Statium See story bn page 23.
Cane Greek standstill
Conflicting interests compound water problems
By KIMBERLY McGUIRE
The last week's rainfall has done more for
Chapel HilFs water crisis than 12 years of local,
state and bureaucratic haggling.
As the town and the University have grown,
the problem has become more critical and
more complicated.
An Analysis
The present controversy centers on the Cane
Creek community, the site of the Orange Water
and Sewer Authority's proposed reservoir to
meet expanding water needs. Confusion of the
issues and secrecy among community,
University, state and federal officials have
caused battle lines to be drawn on several fronts.
While the residents of the Cane Creek area will
be immediately affected by the location of a new
reservoir, the decision will have repercussions for
the entire Chapel Hill community.
The most important decisions affecting the
future of Cane Creek have been made behind
closed doors. OWASA and the state
Environmental Management Commission have
used secret-session privileges to address the
problems of a reservoir at Cane Creek.
. The watershed in the southwestern corner of
Orange County is composed of about 20,000
acres of land, most of which is presently in
agricultural production. The community dates
back to the late 1700s; it is some of the most
productive farm land in the state Ten dairy
farms operate in the area, and 150 people are
entirely dependent on them for their livelihoods.
Most of them live within one mile of the
proposed dam.
The social impact of the project seems to be
i last on the list of considerations in this case.
People, and the lifestyles they represent, are
threatened by the Cane Creek plan. Contrary to
what some pro-reservoir spokesmen claim, many
of the farms are being taken over by young
people planning a future in agriculture. Eight of
the 10 dairy farms are expected to be passed onto
the next generation.
The family farming community of Cane Creek
is alive and well and one of the few strongholds of
the rural lifestyle that is fast being overrun and
absorbed into suburbs and "bedroom
communities." Cane Creek residents are fighting
for the chance to hold onto their land and
independence.
Soon after the coming crisis became apparent,
the area's water utility changed hands from
University to OWASA ownership.
The one"" condition of sale when OWASA
acquired the utility from UNC was a continued
commitment to Cane Creek as the primary
source to meet Chapel Hill's growing water
needs. So, along with the problem, OWASA
inherited what was to be the solution and
proceeded with the plan to take Cane Creek.
It wasn't as easy as they had hoped.
OWASA met opposition on every front. From
the embittered farmers and land owners in the
Cane Creek community, to the state
Environmental Management Commission, to
the federal Army Corps of Engineers, the new
water authority had to prove its know-how in
mapping the logistics of the Cane Creek
proposal.
Alternative sites had been considered, and
subsequently rejected, for more than a decade.
Jferdan Lake had alfeady been abandoned as a
potential water source and pegged as an
See DAM on page 6A