Gay students given $5000 aid to start new programs
By Jennifer Cray
Assistant Gty Editor
Paul Ballard, co-chairman of the Gay and Lesbian Student Union, said he has a lot of new plans for his organization.
Some of his ideas include establishing student grants and scholarships, hiring a paid staff member to run the GLSU office in the Student Union Building and setting up a gay hotline on campus.
Now, some of his plans are closer to becoming realities, thanks to $5,000 the GLSU received last week to fund its programs through May. After last semester's funding problems, the GLSU should now be on a more stable financial footing.
Half of the money came from the Student Senate, and the other half came from the Program Board, said Scott Evers, chairman of the Program Board.
Ballard said he submitted a
proposed budget of 56,435 to Dave Buckett, program adviser for the Office of Campus Life, at the end of November.
Evers said the GLSU did not receive all the money requested on the budget because of the Program Board's limited funds. The $2,500 the board gave to the GLSU came from its contingency fund for year-end budget emergencies, Evers said.
Mike Singer, Student Senate president, said he understands the GLSU needs more money than the Program Board and the senate are able to give. He said there is no real financial mechanism for the GLSU and other student service organizations in the present structure of the Program Board.
The senate is "in the process of reviewing the success of the new structure of the Program Board and at the same time (Continued on page 3)
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UC Regents to review S. African investments
University law students excel as state successes on bar drop
By James Jones
Assistant City Editor
While the issue of apartheid in South Africa has continued to receive a great deal of media attention, a recent decision by the University of California Regents to review its policies on investment in South African companies drew mixed reviews from the university community.
Bernard Walker, president of the Black Student Union, said the regents' decision will have a significant effect on this university's future policy concerning South Africa.
But Bret Fausett, undergraduate vice president of the Student Senate, said their policy review would have "little to no effect on what we do."
"It shows that other institutions are admitting to the significance of the problem and are now taking action," Walker said.
"It gives us a more obvious example that divestment is both possible and feasible. It is a good way to make a statement because the withdrawal of money would not just be a symbolic gesture," he added.
If the UC Regents decide to remove funds from American companies in South Africa or to divest, they would join a growing number of universities that have dropped their ties to the country based
on the apartheid issue.
These universities include Yale, Harvard and the University of Michigan.
A committee is in the process of being formed to directly review the university's policy of investment in U.S. corporations operating in South Africa, said James McPherson, student community senator.
The purpose of the committee, McPherson said, "is to assess our investment policies in corporations in South Africa, to evaluate the performance of these companies with respect to equal rights and to make recommendations on what action the university should take and present it to the Board of Trustees."
"The administration will just look at proposals of the committee and decide what to do, not on what other universities do. They see our university as an independent organization," Fausett said.
Walker, however, said, "The (university's) administration will never take the initiative on their own. All action here has come out of the struggle by students."
McPherson said the committee will ultimately be composed of 13 members.
Student Senate President Mike Singer said the committee will include members from the Student Senate, university faculty and administration, and possibly the Board of Trustees.
By Aaron Van Curen
Assistant City Editor
The passage rate for prospective lawyers taking the California Bar exam, including graduates of the university Law Center, plummeted 10 percentage points to its lowest point in several decades.
The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that 58.2 percent of the 3,074 applicants who took the exam last July failed.
The normal California passage rate is around 50 percent, the Times report said.
In past years, 80 to 85 percent
of the university graduates taking the test passed. But this year, only 71.5 percent of the 177 graduates taking the exam for the first time passed, according to Larry Raful, assistant dean of student affairs at the Law Center.
Though the percentage of university graduates passing the bar exam places the Law Center fourth in the state, Raful said the center's administration was unhappy with the test results.
"We would like to be better," Raful said.
The law schools of the Univer-
JULIE SEIDEL DAILY TROJAN
Intense studying at the Law Center has apparently paid off, with the university ranking high in percentage of graduates who pass the state bar exam.
sitv of California at Berkeley. UC Davis and Stanford University had a higher passage rate than this university. Eightv-one percent of the Berkeley graduates taking the bar exam for the first time passed.
In an attempt to bolster the success rate of its graduates, Raful said the Law Center has issued a memo telling its students that hard work is necessary to pass the exam.
Not even the smartest people can pass the exam without intensive study, Raful said.
"Only one guy I know of has gotten through on his smarts," Raful said.
Preparation for the bar exam involves three years of law school and a hectic two-month cram session just before the exam is taken.
In the Times report, John Fitz-Randolph, dean of the Whittier College School of Law, attributed the higher failure rate to a tougher test.
"The questions themselves don't seem harder. They seem fairly typical," FitzRandolph said. "I can only presume the grading standards are tougher."
Raful agreed the decline was brought about by a tougher test this year, but was not sure why the exam was more difficult.
He said the Law Center was conducting studies to determine the cause of the failure rate increase.
However, J.D. Harriman, a
1984	graduate of the Law Center and former senior class president, disagreed with Raful and FitzRandolph.
Harriman, who is now em-(Continued cm page 2)
Volume XCVIII, Number 8
trojan
Southern California	Tuesday, January 22, 1985
JULIE SEIDEL'DAILY TROJAN
Some students may believe that at this university they are pretty dose to heaven, but some unsure souls decided to take the test being administered in front of Tommy Trojan Monday.
McPherson said he hopes the new committee will be able to make a full report to the Board of Trustees no later than April.
"I don't want to see the issue die over the summer," McPherson said.
Jon Strauss, senior vice president for administration, has been heavily involved in this issue, but was not available for comment. Strauss reports directly to university President James Zumberge on (Continued on page 5)
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