Seventy-Fifth Year of Publication
dMHy trojan
1912 — 1986
Volume Cll, Number 25
University of Southern California
Monday, October 6, 1986
Feature
Office seeks to aid disabled through barrier removal
By Rajiv Khatau
Staff Writer
In a comer of Norman Topping Student Center, room 101, the Office for Students with Disabilities is on a mission to remove architectural barriers affecting handicapped students.
"We believe that students with disabilities should be allowed to participate and be treated like any other student on campus," said Lynne Bejoian, director of the Office for Students with Disabilities.
As director, Bejoian consults with other administrative offices to insure that basic rights such as classroom accessibility are made available to the handicapped.
The university's handicapped students — a population of about 300 permanently and temporarily disabled people — do not have access to several buildings on campus.
Even though California law states that buildings built after 1979 must be accessible to the handicapped, older buildings, such as Bridge Hall and the School of Accounting, lack sufficient elevators, Bejoian said.
On a short-term basis, Bejoian said, her office would relocate a classroom if a disabled student had accessibility problems.
Bejoian said her office is currently working with the university administration on (Continued on page 10)
Apartheid rhetoric attacked in discussion
By Denise Hendricks
Staff Writer
"Apartheid is legal racism, it discriminates by color of your skin. Apartheid kills," said Carol Thompson, associate professor of political science, addressing a group of students at a discussion Friday afternoon.
Thompson talked about the effects apartheid has on the neighboring countries of South Africa and the university's refusal to divest.
"Apartheid is alive and well despite what President Reagan says and what you get from the university," she said.
"The Sullivan Principles (a set of standards for the equal treatment of employees of different races by U.S. corporations) are only a camouflage for companies to make money off of apartheid. . . .1 do not support the university's policy at all," she said.
General Motors Corp., which received a Sullivan rating of one, the highest available, was applauded for eliminating its segregated bathrooms in South Africa. However, all the corporation did was take down the "whites only" sign, replacing it with a blue dot, and the "blacks only" sign, replacing it with an orange dot, Thompson said. GM is "one of the (businesses) which USC did not divest from."
She said that only "cosmetic reforms" exist, such as the recent legalization of interracial marriages. Although the couples are allowed to marry, they aren't allowed to live together in that country without special permission.
"Over 16,000 (blacks) are in detention in South Africa, 4,000 of whom are estimated to be children between 11 and 15. Children are being tortured in South Africa today," Thompson said.
While in detention, blacks are often placed in solitary confinement and are denied trials and lawyers.
Thompson rejects a common argument made by those who oppose sanctions because they will end up harming blacks more than helping them. She said a friend of hers from South Africa, who is now exiled in New York, said, "I really wish they had hurt me 15 years ago (by imposing sanctions), so my son would be alive today."
The blacks are "dying to boycott apartheid. They're not asking the (U.S.) government to stand alone, they're saying join us," Thompson said.
South Africa is threatening to impose sanctions against its neighbors, in response to U.S. sanctions.
However, Thompson said South Africa has already sabotaged the transportation and trade of its neighboring countries. She said it stopped Mozambique from exporting coal and cement, the country's main exports, and has also waged war against Nambia and Angola.
In these neighboring countries, over 100,000 people are dead, 5 million people are displaced, and $4 billion is lost each year due to the
WENDY DONG / DAILY TROJAN
Carol B. Thompson
aggression of apartheid, she said.
If something is not done soon, Thompson said, "there may be a bloodbath.''
Thompson warned that conditions in South Africa could become very similar to the past situation in Zimbabwe. Apartheid existed in that country from 1930 until 1979, when it gained its independence. Today, Zimbabwe has a growing economy. The blacks have been impecable in honoring an agreement made there concerning the rights of the white citizens, she said.
"Zimbabwe shows reconciliation is possible, that people are willing
(Continued on page 7)
Research funding up over past four years
'Stunning growth rate’ cited
By Terry Allen
Staff Writer
Research sponsorship at the university increased 54 percent between 1981 and 1985, according to the reaccreditation self-study report issued last Thursday.
"That's a stunning growth rate," said Jerome Walker, associate provost. "We have continued to succeed in recruiting very fine research faculty. Our faculty has had a very high success rate in making proposals for research money."
From 1981 to 1985, total research and training grant sponsorship increased from $71.5 million to $110.7 million, the report said. The university now ranks 16th among all universities in the nation and ninth among private institutions in its total volume of externally-funded projects.
Forty-two percent of the growth in research sponsorship has occurred in the last two fiscal years.
The report says that for the fiscal year beginning in 1983, 57 percent of all proposals made by faculty for research contracts were successful, up three percent from a year before and six percent from the previous fiscal year.
John Crow, executive director of development for the School of Medicine, said private and public support for projects within the school is on a "significant climb." He said he believes much more lies ahead.
"Hopefully, this is just the tip of the iceberg," he said of the 60 percent increase in research money the medical school has collected in the last two years. "As far as the overall picture is concerned, medicine is certainly the biggest player (in research grants), and we're on a nice climb."
Recently, the medical school received an $8 million grant from the National Institute of Health to research acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Doctors from the school are now working with AIDS patients to test new drugs for possible treatment of the virus. They are also working on a major new project designed to safeguard transfused blood. Crow said.
Perhaps the largest contributor to the medical school's research endowment is the three-year-old Norris Cancer Hospital and Research Center, which Crow said is on the National Cancer Institute’s list of the top 20 cancer research facilities in the nation.
(Continued on page 7)
Funding for toy, food drives questioned
Senate programs debated
By Gary Sutton
Staff Writer
With blood, toy and food drives in the works at the Student Senate, some senators have voiced opposition to the use of student funds for the sponsoring of certain community activities.
student money be used for community activities. "Program money (given by the students) should go right back to the students," said Bruce Clausen, graduate student speaker.
Larco believes the senate has a responsibility to support improvement of the area. "Com-
Only the Toys for Tots program, which is expected to cost $2,000 to $3,000, is partially funded by local businesses. Other benefit programs are almost fully dependent on money given by students, said Elizabeth Larco, chairwoman of the Student Senate's environmental and external affairs research / action unit.
But recently, some senate members have questioned whether or not it is right that
munity activities are a part of university life," she said.
But Clausen and other senate members want the funding for these programs to come from other sources. They are not completely opposed to community programs.
The debate arose at the senate's executive cabinet meeting two weeks ago when Clausen said he didn't believe that community service was articulated
in this year's mission report, Larco said.
The report was written by the senate during its summer retreat in Palm Springs.
Annual mission reports are designed to provide a specialized course of action for the senate to follow during the upcoming academic year. In previous years, these reports were very similar to the preamble of the senate's constitution, but this year's is "radically different," Clausen said.
The latest mission report says the senate "provides comprehensive representation that fosters maximum student participation. Through its legislative and programming branches, senate provides visible services to the student body. With forward-looking decisionmaking, senate facilitates student efforts toward improving student life in a fiscally responsible manner."
The preamble, however, says the senate has the power to "make studies, reports, and recommendations advocating student rights, needs, interests and welfare to the university community, the president's university governance system, the administrative offices of the university, the Board of Trustees, and the general public."
But because involvement in community programs has be-(Continued on page 7)