Daily ip Trojan
University of Southern California
Volume LXX, Number 9 Los Angeles, California	Thursday,	September	30,	1976
Some special admissions illegal
Emergency loan funds available
BY ivENT SCHOivNECHT
Staff Writer
Approximately $10,000 from the Student Emergency Loan Program has been lent out since the beginning of the semester, and another $15,000 is available.
The student affairs staff, which processes the loan applications, said at least 100 loans
BY CLARA GERMANI
Staff Writer
Special admissions programs that give preferential treatment to minority medical and law school applicants have been declared unconstitutional by the California Supreme Court.
The Program for Economically Disadvantaged Students, one of the programs implicated by the ruling, is used at the Law School, which each year admits approximately 30 minority students who have less than the required entrance qualifications.
The court declared programs similar to it unconstitutional on the grounds that they violate the equal protection clause ofthe 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Effects of the ruling are unclear, especially for private institutions, said Scott Bice, the Law School’s chairman of selection of students.
The ruling, however, does not affect students already enrolled in the program.
“It will be a complex legal matter,” he said. “Nothing is clear at this point, but two issues are concerned."
One issue, he said, is whether the decision of a state court based on a federal constitutional law will affect the admissions procedures of a private university.
The other issue is whether appeals of the ruling can show that minority programs are not unconstitutional.
Although the decision is being appealed by the University of California schools, if a stay is not granted, schools utilizing the special admissions programs must begin revisions to include all disadvantaged applicants including whites.
The original aim of the special admissions programs was to help disadvantaged minority students get a foot in the door of predominantly white professional schools. But in the move to eliminate discrimination against minorities, discrimination against disadvantaged whites was said to have resulted.
Under the ruling it is possible the programs can continue if selection is based not on race but on need.
ROBERT L. MANNES
have been awarded, but 150 more can still be obtained.
Available to all registered students, the loans have a $100 limit. The student is allowed 90
Alternatives to language requirement possible
BY MARC GROSSMAN
Staff Writer
Foreign language requirements have long been a nuisance to those students who feel that they are useless.
This has prompted many students to attempt to rid themselves ofthe burden of a third-year language. Easier said than done.
It is possible to drop the third semester of a language, but only in special circumstances, said Theodore D. Sackett, chairman of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
“There are two instances in which we make exceptions,” Sackett said. “The first involves students who transfer from a school where there was no foreign language requirement. If the student finds it physically impossible to complete the requirement and still graduate on time, his case would possibly be considered after the second semester of the language.
“We want it made clear that this does not mean that all transfer students are exempt from the language requirement.”
He also said students changing to a major where there is no foreign language requirement are also special exceptions.
Sackett stressed that “We try to be humane. If someone is so bad at a language that it would be absolute torture for him to continue, we may allow him to substitute a Spanish literature class.
“His failure, however, must be attested to by his instructor. Carmen Sadek, director of the entire foreign language program, has a list of questions that she asks people in this position.”
He added that no excuse is taken at fape value. “I don’t take anyone’s word anymore,” he said. “All claims are investigated thoroughly by
the individual foreign language departments.”
In the past, applications would be approved or rejected by the chairmen of the specific departments. Now, however, the petitions must go from the chairman to the associate dean for honors and advisement of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Norman R. Fertig, and then to Sadek. Finally it is acted upon by the Academic Affairs Committee.
Sackett said, “This was done to eliminate confusion. The department chairmen used to have differences on what was a legitimate petition. Now Sadek makes what, in effect, is the final decision. I don’t sign anything anymore.”
Most incoming freshmen, upon hearing of the foreign language requirement, take the first two semesters during their first year and then* inexplicably, take the third semester in their senior year, he said.
“Students come to us constantly saying that they couldn’t possibly make through Spanish III because they hadn’t had Spanish in two years. Whose fault is that?
“The most absurd thing to me,” he said, “is when a student says that he received an “A” or “B” in Spanish II that he didn’t deserve and won’t be able to get through Spanish III.
“We monitor our department very carefully. Our instructors do not give away grades. I feel that the student who does this has terrific nerve to use this against us, after we have done our best to teach him Spanish.”
Sadek, Fertig and all other foreign language department chairmen were unavailable for comment.
days to repay it without an interest charge.
“We designed the whole thing to be as free of red tape as possible,” said Robert L. Mannes, dean for student life. Mannes is the final authority in deciding who receives a loan. “The (application) form doesn’t ask what the money is going to be used for. I figure that if someone asks for it, they must need it.”
The student government developed the criteria for the loan program, but the student affairs staff modified the application, deleting questions about how the money was going to be spent and when and how it would be repaid.
Mannes said it is possible for a student to pick up a loan requisition one day and pick up the money the next.
To apply for a loan, a student must present his fee bill to Noreen D’Argenio, Mannes’ secretary. If the fee bill has already been paid, the student may take the form. But if it hasn’t, he must submit a note from the Financial Aid Office, allowing him to apply.
“There haven’t been any major snags in the program so far,” Mannes said. “If a student wanted a loan before the semester started, he might have had some trouble documenting his statement that he was going to register. But the business office was very cooperative and the students were very helpful.”
Lest students think they can get away without repaying within the 90-day grace period, they should know that after that time standard bank interest rates apply. Should they offer no repayment at all, they will be denied enrollment in the next registration.
Students may reapply as often as necessary, with the single restriction that they repay any outstanding loans before trying to secure another.
Students wishing to apply for a Student Emergency Loan may do so between 10 a.m. and noon, Monday through Friday, in Student Union 201.
BOB CLAMPETT
Cartoonist colors in characters
BY JOHN CARRARO
If the voice behind those incredible Looney Tunes characters gives them life, then Bob Clampett, best known as the creator of Beanie and Cecil, is the man that makes them believable by giving them human actions.
Clampett, who presented a slide and film presentation in the Student Activities Center Wednesday, can give a carrot to Bugs Bunny to chomp on, devise ways to have Tweety Bird escape from Sylvester and protect Beanie and Cecil from the dastardly deeds of Dishonest John.
He is an Emmy award-winning cartoonist who through his work has delighted audiences since Warner Brothers, the makers of Looney Tunes, first decided to go into animation long before Mickey Mouse was a gleem in the eyes of Walt Disney.
Beginning the presentation with a Sylvester and Tweety Bird epic entitled Birdy and the Beast and continuing through an Elmer Fudd cartoon called An Itch in Time, Clampett related vignettes of a time when cartooning was forming its foundation.
He spoke of his dealings with the Disney Studio as a puppet maker, his first cartoon drawings at Warner Brothers and his general feelings about the art form that “only now is being taken seriously.”
Clampett’s memories of behind-the-scenes activities in the studio were priceless as he told stories not so much about his craft, but about the men he worked with.
“Animation is very much a collaborative bus-
iness,” he said. “The cartoonist, voice behind the caricature and publicist all strive to be creative and in the process entertain you.”
“Each cartoon is a chain belt of activity,” Clampett said. “Every man has his own job that must be completed before the next step begins. An eight-minute Bugs Bunny cartoon that cost $18,000 about 25 years ago would cost $125,000 today because of this.”
The Hayes Office, Hollywood’s answer to censorship in motion pictures, was very influential in any storyline that crossed over to the cartoonists, Clampett said.
“In fact, you could say they were responsible for giving Tweedy Bird feathers because they thought he looked much too naked without them,” he said.
Clampett also noted, however, that at times certain risque lines of dialogue and actions would be overlooked by the office. Cartoonists felt it a personal accomplishment if they could handle something so subtlely that it would be able to slip by their keen eyes.
An example of this was shown in the final cartoon of the lecture, An Itch in Time. In it a cat has been pursued by a flea until he finally can no longer stand it. The cat goes completely berserk, running around a room, hopping high into the air trying to rid himself of the flea. He stops abruptly, looks at the audience and repeats the lines that escaped the censors ears: “Hey, I better cut this out or I may get to like it.”
Bob Clampett is a fountain of anecdotes who spouts off remembrances as fast as he gathers them.
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