Volume XCIV, Number 37
trojan
University of Southern California
Wednesday, October 26, 1983
Zumberge explains S. Africa trip to BSU
By Jeffrey Tylicki
Assistant Qty Editor
President James Zumberge, in a meeting with students from the Black Students' Union, said Tuesday his recent trip to South Africa was in the interest of the free flow of knowledge across international borders and was not an endorsement of the “abhorrent" apartheid policies of that country.
Zumberge's address to the BSU came barely six hours after his office called BSU President Darrell Adams to ask that the meeting take place at 5 p.m.
Isaac Gilliard, director of the BSU student affairs committee, was livid over the short notice Zumberge gave the group. But
he said George Abdo, executive assistant to the president, implied the meeting Tuesday was virtually a "now or never" situation.
The meeting with Zumberge was in response to a letter sent to him by the BSU which demanded he go before the university community and explain his 17-day trip to the Republic of South Africa, where apartheid— the legal segregation of whites and non-whites—is firmly rooted.
"If we don't meet with Zumberge now, then he could put us off forever with the excuse that he made the offer and we turned him down," Gilliard said
Tuesday afternoon before Zumberge's speech.
The BSU and several other student organizations, including the African Students Association, had hoped to have enough advance notice to publicize the meeting with Zumberge.
"I find the institution of apartheid abhorent and morally wrong," Zumberge said to a standing-room-only crowd at the Student Activities Center. "But if you believe it's a matter of not whether one goes, but how one goes, you can see it from my perspective."
Many members of the university have been quick to condemn his South African visit, Zumberge said, but he stressed
that his trip was in no way a show of support for the nation.
"Part of the rights of humans is to make free investigations and inquire for truth wherever that truth may be found." Zumberge said.
South Africa played host to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research in September. The committee, known as SCAR, is an international scientific body with 15-member nations, including the United States, Soviet Union, Japan, Great Britian, Argentina, Australia, and South Africa.
The members of SCAR govern research and explorations in Antarctica with a policy that no nation may establish a claim to
continental territory. Zumberge explained that because of this, delegates meet "without respect to the political forces that divide them."
Elected as president of SCAR at their meeting in Leningrad in 1982, Zumberge said he gave the opening address at the annual two-day conference. During the remainder of his trip, Zumberge said he visited Kruger National Park, a winery, several universities, and went on geological field trips that included going down into a gold mine.
One student asked Zumberge if the university's indirect investments in South Africa— through American corporations—was not unlike helping a killer purchase a murder weapon.
Zumberge responded that he believes the economic force of investments in South Africa will help drive apartheid from the country.
"If outside forces withdrew investments (in South African businesses), blacks would be hurt the most," he asserted.
Zumberge recounted the board of trustees' policy toward its South African investments, explaining that this university, like Harvard University, has agreed to report its South African holdings annually, but will divest only if a particular corporation is found to be undermining attempts to change the separatist policies of the government.
One question Zumberge posed to the group was why he was not accused of being a communist sympathizer after last year's SCAR meeting in Leningrad. A student replied that the university had at least assisted in furthering the cause of oppressed Jews in the USSR with its highly publicized offers of professorship to seven Soviet-Jewish scientists last spring.
Responding to the implication that the university was doing nothing for the black South Africans, Zumberge replied that a university program has been set up which currently sponsors two "colored" or black South African students at the university.
Zumberge said he also visited (Continued on page 10)
Five buildings fail to
ATHER ALI/DAILY TROJAN
Bruce Hall is one of five university buildings to fail state and city earthquake codes after a recent inspection.
meet quake codes
University has no immediate plans for upgrading remaining campus buildings
By Joseph McDade
Staff Writer
Five campus buildings—including a dormitory that nearly 200 students call home—fail to meet state and city earthquake codes, according to city officials. But university administrators say it will some time before the buildings are reinforced.
The earthquake division of the city's department of building and safety has said that Bruce Hall, the Education library, the south Science library, Touton Hall and the Parkview building are insufficiently reinforced. Although one structure, the Accounting building, was recently brought up to code, there are no immediate plans to upgrade the remaining buildings.
Thomas Coffin, director of architectural services, said that plans have been formulated for the improvement of the buildings, but the essential repairs will have to wait until more funds are available.
"We're planning on bringing every building up to meet the ordinances, just as we did with the school of accounting," he said. "However, when we upgrade, the costs are going to have to be incurred one at a time."
In order for the buildings to be upgraded, Coffin said, campus officials will have to complete a detailed structural analysis of each building, acquire the funds from the administration, and then put the contract up for bid.
Ordinance 16A of the dty earthquake safety code, created after the 1933 Los Angeles earthquake, requires that all buildings erected prior to 1933 must be upgraded with steel reinforcements in their exterior masonry.
At present, the exteriors of the five buildings are comjjosed of a layer of concrete and bricks. To meet dty standards, a layer of brick would have to be temporarily ripped away and replaced with steel girders. The remaining space would then be filled with gunnite, a concrete filler. Finally, the floors would have to be tied to the outside walls. Coffin said the price of such an operation at a building the size of Bruce Hall, located across the street from Bimkrant residence hall on 34th Street, would range from $500,000 to $1 million.
Coffin said he had no idea when the work would begin.
(Continued on page 3)
Group studies institute dispute
By Steffannie Fedunak
Staff Writer
A mediating committee has been formed to help resolve the bitter confrontation between the university and the family of Arnold Schoenberg, the late world-reknown composer whose personal artifacts are kept in the university institute that bears his name.
The seven-member committee, formed by university President James Zumberge, will meet with Ronald and Lawrence Schoenberg, Schoenberg's sons, who have charged the university with breach of contract and have threatened to remove Schoenberg's artifacts from the institute.
"The point of the committee is to thoroughly investigate what the problems involved are," said Marshall Cohen, dean of humanities and chairman of the committee.
"We're are going to try to make recommendations about how to resolve the disagreements (between the Schoenbergs and the university)." he said.
The Schoenberg heirs have daimed the music department, who manages the institute's budget, has used the institute building for classes, faculty meetings, and redtals—events that the Schoenberg family says are not permitted by the contract, which gave the university sole possession of the composer's artifacts in 1973.
"They're using the institute building for other functions," said Ronald Schoenberg in a September interview. "They're not using it for Schoenberg Institute functions."
Under the contract the university apparently agreed that the institute would be used only for activities related to the compos-
er and the study of his work.
In addition, the Schoenberg heirs dte a lack of activities recognizing the composer's musical achievments as a further breach of contract.
The committee, which will first meet Nov. 4, is to discuss the problems surrounding the future of the institute, and make recommendations to Zumberge towards some type of resolution.
If the Schoenberg family withdraws the archives, which indude the manuscripts, musical scores, books, and other artifacts of Schoenberg, then the angular, unique Schoenberg Institute building could be rendered useless.
More significantly, the university could also lose the prestige it has gained as a site for both scholarly research and a permanent memorial to the man re-(Continued on page 10)
Two IR professors react to invasion
By Cornell Barnard
Staff Writer
The U.S. invasion of Grenada, which resulted in the overthrow of the recently installed Marxist government there, drew favorable comments from two international relations professors and a graduate student.
Almost 2,000 U.S. Marines and paratroopers invaded the small southern Caribbean island of Grenada yesterday in an airborne strike under orders to protect American residents and "restore democracy' in the tiny Carribean country. At least two American soldiers were killed.
"My feelings concerning the entire situation are unmixed, the U.S. did the right thing," said Robin Ranger, assistant professor of international relations. Ranger, who appeared yesterday on the KABC-TV show L.A. Today, said that it was virtually impossible to object to what happened in Grenada.
"The United States acted in conjuction with requests from small allied countries in the Carribian to intervene. These countries were worried about possible Soviet military expansion," he said.
"What has happened in Grenada is a large defeat for the Soviet Union and a victory for the U.S. If you can get rid of Soviet colo-
(Continued on page 11)