trojan
/olume XCVII, Number 40
University of Southern California
Monday, October 29, 1984
Grade fixing on campus
Employee fired for taking pay-offs
By Sheldon Ito
Qty Editor
A university employee in registration and records was fired and at least 21 students will be called before a conduct review board in the wake of a university investigation into the falsification of grades by computer.
The female employee, who was fired last June, reportedly admitted to university officials that she was paid $1,500 to falsify the grades of five students. University officials suspect another employee, who had been fired a year before the grade tampering was first discovered in January, of taking bribes to alter about 25 other students' transcripts.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office is also investigating the tampering.
Letters were mailed Friday to the 21 students informing them of the charges against them, said Robert Biller, executive vice provost. The reviewing process should begin in about two weeks, he said.
Biller also said cases involving at least six other students are still under investigation.
Howard Saperston, director of registration and records, said he could not comment on the
grade tampering because of the district attorney's investigation.
But Saperston told USC Transcript that the tampered grades were detected with the help of a new transcript audit tracking system.
"We have the means of internally monitoring all this fraudulent activity," he added. "It wasn't happening behind our backs and we believe we have thwarted all attempts to illegally change grades."
If after the reviewing process a student is determined to be guilty, the board — which will consist of two faculty members and one student — can recommend punishment ranging from a written reprimand to expulsion.
The final decision on what the punishment would be belongs to James Dennis, vice president of student affairs.
William Hogoboom, general counsel to the university, said the university has submitted its findings to the district attorney's office, but it is up to the district attorney to press criminal charges against either the employees or the students.
Hogoboom said there are several criminal
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Professor says Prop. 41 misleads
Welfare programs would be reduced under measure
By Tom Fitzsimmons
Staff Writer
If implemented, Proposition 41 would result in massive reductions in state assistance programs for children, the elderly, the blind and the handicapped, said Madeleine Stoner, assistant professor in the School of Social Work.
"For anyone reading the proposition who is not informed, it is going to look like a nice, safe piece of welfare reform, (but) it's filled with very misleading language," Stoner told a small group of public administration students Thursday night in Von KleinSmid Center.
"It's just another attempt to drastically cut human services."
Stoner said the initiative, which would cut California welfare spending to make it conform within 10 percent of the national welfare spending averages, would cut $2.1 billion from Aid to Families with Dependent Children and another $1.4 billion in Medi-Cal aid, a total cut of $3.5 billion.
She said considering welfare averages among states is unrealistic because different states have different costs of living and differing numbers of individuals living at or below poverty level.
California, she said, has one of the highest costs of living and one of the largest welfare spending programs in the United States.
The poverty level is currently defined as $10,178 for a family of four. The maximum annual amount of welfare a family of four can collect in California is $7,500.
"Nobody's getting rich off welfare — and we're giving the most in the country.
"We can only speculate about where the cuts will come from.
We know, however, that cuts have to be made," Stoner said.
The legislative analyst has estimated the welfare cuts would amount to about 36 percent of the 1982-83 Medi-Cal budget.
The initiative's author, Ross Johnson (R-Orange County), argues the cuts would not affect the elderly, the handicapped and foster care for children. Stoner said this is not true.
"Think of where the cuts will
come from. Nearly all the services of health care that we're concerned about — medical services, services for children and so on — are linked to AFDC programs.
"If AFDC costs are cut, the maintenance need level would also be decreased, which means the aid recipient would have to pay a higher percentage of co-
(Continued on page 6)
University imposes ban on rented video tape movies
By Aaron Van Curen
Staff Writer
At the request of a coalition of 13 movie-making firms, student organizations in university housing will no longer be able to show rented videotape movies.
The Office of Residential Life imposed the ban in a memo issued last week to all resident advisers.
The memo directed university staff members not to rent video cassettes from retail outlets such as Big Ben's and Von's Market for use in activities conducted by residence hall governments.
It also said public facilities and equipment owned by the university or hall governments could not be used to show these movies, and that no student government money could be used for their rental.
The action was taken as a result of a letter the university received from a New York law firm representing the 13 movie-making firms. The letter said the firm had learned that movies had been rented from a retail outlet and shown at a resident activity at Cardinal Gardens, said Logan Hazen, director of Residential Life.
A staff member from the Office of the General Counsel said that rental of a home video cassette does not include performance rights, and therefore the tape can only be shown to a private group.
The university believed that student resident organizations were tight enough private groups to qualify to use these movies without paying royalties, Hazen said.
The letter disagreed, and included a definition of what groups could use videotapes without paving royalties, a definition that did not include student resident organizations.
The counsel staff member said a fine line separates the groups that can use the films without paying for performance rights, and those that must pay royalties.
Hazen said the university is accepting the movie-makers' assertion that student organizations do not qualify in the first group.
"USC is closely affiliated with the film industry, and wants to cooperate,” he said
Students who are concerned whether they are within the law when using rented video cassettes should use common sense, the counsel staff member said. A few people who watch a movie together are not violating the law, the staff member said. However, a larger group of people who gather specifically to watch a movie may be in violation of the law.
The order has already caused problems with one scheduled activity. Hazen said a planned comedy film festival, using rented videotape movies, was canceled on only two days notice.
Resident advisers who have planned such events, Hazen said, have had more time to find alternate activities.
Hazen lamented the development, saying, "It was an inexpensive, really easy, really successful program."
Residential Life does not, however, plan to stop showing films:
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Afghans defeat Soviets, professor says
By Andrew Thomas
Staff Writer
The Soviet Union has been defeated in Afghanistan, said Nake Kamrany, a professor of economics at the university and one of the ten scholars nationwide who is involved in a study of Afghanistan.
"The Soviets have no other choice than to seek a political solution, unless they want to kill a majority of the people," Kamrany said, but he said he is not sure the Soviets will be able to accept defeat.
The year-long study, sponsored by the Department of Defense, addresses the question of why the Afghans continue to resist the Soviets.
The key, says Kamrany, is that "the Soviets are trying to change the value system of the people," who view the invaders as atheists and consider their own resistance a Jihad, or holy war.
In addition, the Afghans have historically resisted attack by foreign forces.
'They put a high “value to their freedom and therefore will fight to the end," Kamrany said.
The implications of the Soviet defeat are worldwide, he said.
When the Soviets seek diplomatic solutions, "the Afgh-
ans will say to just get out," which means the Soviets will have to give up their goal of gaining a warm-water port, he said.
Kamrany, a native of Afghanistan, has also participat-
ed in a five-year survey in which he evaluated over 15,000 published reports about Afghanistan. The survey was initiated by the Association for Afghanistan Studies and sponsored by the university's Na-
tional Endowment for the Humanities.
Kamrany spent five summers doing fieldw'ork in Afghan border areas.
"I wanted to see what hap-(Continued on page 6)
ED BATT DAILY TROJAN
NAKE KAMRANY