Daily
Trojan
University of Southern California
Vol. LXVII, No. 31
Los Angeles, California
Tuesday, October 29, 1974
TAs may strike if 5% pay raise not granted
BY LARRY TUCK
Staff Writer
Teaching assistants may threaten to go on strike against the university if an immediate pay raise of at least 5% is not granted.
At a meeting last week, nearly all ofthe approximately 100 TAs present agreed that they could not survive on the present salary schedule.
A petition demanding a minimum 5% pay raise is now being circulated.
Another meeting will be held
Wednesday to consider whether response to the petition indicates enough support to merit further action.
The Graduate and Professional Schools Committee last month recommended that the university give TAs an immediate 5% raise and an additional 15% pay boost for the 1975-76 academic year.
The 5% recommendation was turned down, and the 15% proposal is being considered by the Resource Management and Planning Committee. The university said that an immediate
System for
tickets to continue
The lottery system used for last week’s football tickets will be used again this week for the game against the University of California. Berkeley and for future games against Washington and Notre Dame.
Coupons should be turned in to the Ticket Office, Student Union 200. by 4:30 p.m. today. Eight coupons in each envelope are allowed.
All envelopes will be shuf-
fled and filled on a random basis and may be picked up on Thursday and Friday. The number of one ofthe coupons must be written on each envelope for purpose of identification.
Coupons numbered between one and 5.000 may be picked up at the Ticket Office, and those with numbers over 5,000 may be picked up at the Information Center.
No limit will be placed on the number of reserved seats distributed. Students who do not turn in their tickets will have unreserved seats in the end zone.
raise is impossible because all the available funds have already been budgeted.
Bob Kanter. a TA in biology, said that most TAs were tired of discussion with no results.
He said that if the petition indicates that most of the TAs in the university support the 5% raise demand, they will first try to go through channels to find out why a raise has not been granted.
If that doesn't work, he said, they may threaten to strike, and will carry out that threat if necessary.
Kanter pointed out that TAs here have not gotten a pay increase since 1969. when the pay schedule was increased to a minimum wage of $3,000. Since then, faculty and staff have gotten cost-of-living raises, but TAs have not.
“The university thinks they’re giving us some kind of gift by giving us the stipend, but it’s the sole support for some people,” he said.
He said that he knows of several TAs who will not return here next year if the raise is not granted.
Kanter added that this year the Biology Department was “scraping the bottom ofthe barrel” for TAs because it had received few well-qualified applicants.
Judge says equal rights bill will change society
BY DAVE LaFONTAINE
When the Equal Rights Amendment is ratified in 1975. it will be the cause of more change in society than any other single factor. Judge Joan Dempsey Klein told a group at the YWCA’s Women’s Resource Center Monday.
Klein, the presiding judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court, said the amendment will guarantee that women will not be discriminated against or deprived of opportunity on the basis of sex.
“The amendment is also conducive to other legislation affecting women, encouraging affirmative action which is opening many career doors to women as public and private employees,” she said.
Klein said two significant bills affecting women were passed by the state legislature this year.
One change is in the community property laws which will take effect Jan. 1. 1975.
“Previously all property was under the control of the husband, with the wife having little to say,” Klein said. “Now the law provides for equal control and management for all community property earned since marriage.”
Since both husband and wife are liable for post-marriage debts, women will have a chance to build up credit.
The credit act passed this year also allows women to build credit references in their own name while they are working, and even while they’re married. Judge Klein said.
Klein also referred to the bill changing the rules of evidence in rape cases as being significant.
“Previously a woman could be asked about her own sex conduct in giving testimony,” she said. “A defense lawyer could discredit the victim on basis of sex experience.
“Now a defense lawyer is not allowed to go into a woman’s sexual background. This will ensure more women reporting that they’ve been raped .”
The new law does not allow a judge to tell the jury to view the victim’stestimony with caution because ♦he charge is easily made but difficult to prove, Klein said.
She said additional legislation has been passed
ensuring that more women will be appointed to state boards and commissions.
“Ofthe top 55 appointees in the state only one is a woman,” she said.
“Women represent 53% ofthe population, and it's not fair that we don’t have any say in the decisionmaking process.”
Klein also said more women are being used in the Los Angeles Police Department. She attributed this to the fairness of Ed Davis, police chief, and legislation encouraging equality in physical education.
“Those women out in the field with policemen are just as qualified physically and mentally,” she
said.
Klein is currently running for the Superior Court of Los Angeles after serving 10 years on the Municipal Court bench. She is a graduate of UCLA Law School and has lectured here as a professor of the judicial administration program.
I x> Hr/-
GRANT ANNOUNCED—Sen. John V. Tunney (D-Calif.) said Monday that the university will receive a grant of at least $500,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities for new indisciplinary courses. See related story on page 2. DT photo by Mike Ito.
$500,000 grant given for course program
JOAN DEMPSEY KLEIN
BY MIKE MEYER
»	Staff Writer
Sen. John V. Tunney (D-Calif.) announced at a campus news conference Monday that the university has been awarded a federal grant which will be between $500,000 and $700,000 to develop new interdisciplinary courses.
The award, from the National Endowment for the Humanities, is among the largest grants made for the curriculum development of a private university.
The initial grant, to be used over a five-year period, is for $500,000, but the National Endowment will add $100,000 to the grant if the university can raise $100,000 for the program by April 30, 1975 through private donations.
U.S. Rep. Yvonne Braithwaite Burke (37th District) and Caroline Ahmanson, a member of the national council of the National Endowment for the Humanities, also spoke*at the conference, hosted by President John R. Hubbard and the Board ofTrustees.
“One ofthe things we have to recognize in a world with so much philosophic change is that our citizenry must have an understanding ofthe human condition in order to undergo changes and preserve our basic freedoms,” Tunney said.
“In our pursuit of scientific activities. we must not leave the humanities uncovered.”
Tunney said the world is undergoing one of the greatest crisis mankind has faced—the interaction between nations and between groups of people.
“We must recognize that no one country can go it alone Because of our interrelationships, we re going to have to get along with other people and develop relations of peaceful interaction,” he said.
“The education of our citizens in the humanities is the best way o prepare for these interactions.”
Burke said that because the university is located in such a low-income urban area, the
grant can have a great impact on changing the attitudes of students toward social problems.
“You can’t isolate problems—social problems, historical problems, and legal problems are all related. You can’t divide them into disciplines,” she said.
“The change in curricula will assist students in dealing with these problems, because they are human problems,” she continued.
Both Tunney and Burke said they thought the grant would encourage other universities to place more emphasis on the humanities.
Ahmanson, speaking on behalf of the NEH, said, “Today when we as a nation are recognized as a great power, we must also begin to encourage an understanding and use of humanistic values.
“The need in this country (for this type of program) is so great that it is difficult to decide where the money will go.
“By the time a proposal becomes a grant, it has gone through a great deal of scrutiny, so this is a great feather in the cap of USC.” she said.
The proposal for the award was developed by the Humanities Division ofthe College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences.
For more than two years, committees of faculty members, administrators and students have worked together to plan new courses in liberal arts education.
The rationale behind the program is to consider the university’s role in improving today's cultural and moral climate. according to John E. Cantelon. dean ofthe College of Letters. Arts, and Sciences.
The proposal would achieve new types of interaction between scholars in the liberal arts, the professional schools, the Gerontology Center and other multi-disciplinary segments of the university.
(Continued on page 3)