Daily « Trojan
vol. Ixv
no. 64
University of Southern California
los angeles, California
thursday, january 11,1973
Charges dropped against students in ROTC sit-in
By Sarah Heck
Charges against three of the five students involved in the May 11 takeover of the Air Force ROTC building have been dropped by the University Judicial Council.
James Appleton, vice-president for student affairs, said the judicial made the decision at a Dec. 14 hearing because those defendants were not given their right to a speedy trial.
A complaint, filed Nov. 28, alleged that Rick Frishman, Jim Glick, Sam Hurst, Jerry Reitman and Rick Saslaw had continued to occupy the AFROTC building after having been asked, and then ordered, by Daniel Nowak, acting vice-president for student affairs, to leave the premises. The students were identified and placed under suspension pending a formal hearing of the case.
Hurst and Saslaw are not currently enrolled. A hold will be placed on their re-enrollment pending review of their involvement in the incident.
The decision to dismiss the charges is based on the council’s belief that too much time has passed to allow a fair presentation of the facts. As of the date of the hearing, six months had gone by since the takeover incident.
In dealing with student disruptions, the university recognizes the fact that a student’s civil rights as granted in the Constitution are still in force.
Because of the delay in the hearing, the council contends that many of the witnesses for the defendants had been graduated or transferred to other
JACK ANDERSON
schools. Their report also stated that, whether the list of witnesses was accurate or not, “Testimony has become increasingly suspect with the passage of time, and the intervention of a vacation period and a full academic semester.” ■
The council’s dissenters said that President John Hubbard suggested the delay. Support for this view can be found in the record of letters from Nowak to each of the defendants. “Therefore, I have recommended to the president and received his approval to hold the case over until the earliest possible date after the school year resumes in September,” wrote Nowak in the letter.
It has also been suggested that the students agreed to waive their right to a speedy trial in favor of presenting their case to a committee of peers.
Despite these reasons for delay, the council contended that neither was justification for a six-month delay and the fault of such a lengthy delay falls on the university.
Because the activities were political in nature and the charges have been dismissed, the university may not release the information to persons off campus without the student’s consent.
Although Appleton has accepted the dismissal he has instructed a member of his staff to meet with the three students to indicate the severity of the incident, expectations for future behavior and his rationale for following the council’s recommendation.
Columnist to speak on press
JACK ANDERSON
Jack Anderson. Piilitzer Prize-winning Washington columnist, will be the guest speaker for the Great Issue Forum today at noon in Bovard Auditorium. Anderson will speak on “‘Freedom of the Press: Fact or Fiction,”
Anderson, who has a nationally syndicated newspaper column, The Washington Merry-Go-Around, won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting last year for his disclosures of Nixon Administration policymaking during the India-Pakistan war. Anderson also reported in his column that the Justice Department settled an antitrust suit against ITT, on terms that were favorable to the company, at about the same time that ITT promised a contribution to help pay for the Republican Convention. That report endangered the confirmation of Richard Klein-dienst as Attorney General.
Anderson most recently was involved in the Eagleton affair. He falsely reported in his col-
umn that the then vice-presidential candidate Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D-Mo.) had suffered from a drinking problem. The story was later fully retracted and Anderson offered a public apology to Eagleton.
Anderson took over the Washington Merry-Go-Around column in 1969 after Drew Pearson, its founder, died. Since then the column has added between 50 and 75 newspapers to its syndication for a present total of 700 newspapers, with a combined readership of about 45 million.
Anderson is also credited with revealing in his column that the late Sen. Thomas Dodd of Connecticut had diverted campaign funds to his personal use (he was subsequently censured by the Senate.) His columns showing the relationship between former Sen. George Murphy of California and Technicolor were considered a factor in the defeat of Murphy by Sen. John Tunney (D-Calif.) in 1970.
HIGH-RISE HASSLES—Workmen suspended outside the 14th floor of the Apartment Tower have been busy boring holes (small dark circles in photo) in the side of the building. The holes enable the workmen to tighten steel cables that support the structure. Officials say there is no danger to the building. DT photo by Barry Brown.
Cables are slipping at Apartment Tower
By Stanley Martin Kelton
Workmen pounding holes in the outside of the new Apartment Tower during the past couple of weeks have apparently been doing more than merely inspecting the building, as had been asserted by university officials and the building’s architect.
“An excess of 200 holes have been made in order to see if any of the wire cables which support each floor have slipped; in about 30 cases it was necessary to tighten the cables,” said Harry E. Kyne, assistant director and administrator of new construction.
In contrast, Richard Der-man, the building’s architect, and Anthony Lazzaro, vice-president for business affairs, said that the inspection showed none of the cables had slipped.
“The necessity ofthe cables being tightened is no cause to worry about the building being unsafe or that it might
collapse, it is entirely safe,” said Jack M. Fratt, chief ofthe building bureau for the city of Los Angeles.
The inspection and subsequent corrective action were a result of Derman observing that concrete plugs had cracked in the side ofthe building, indicating a high probability that supporting cables had slipped. During the inspection the cracked plugs were removed and a random spot check of plugs was conducted.
Controversy clouds the reason for the slippage. “The slippage is either a result of the cables not being tightened properly when they were originally installed, or a result of the building slipping; however, in either case the slippage is not considered normal,” Pratt said.
Kyne contends that the slippage is a result of the building settling, and is normal. Men working on the 14-story structure say that it is a result of failure to tighten the cables when they were originally installed.
The inspection and corrective actions have now been completed. Painting the holes is all that remains to be done, said Lazzaro. The Apartment Tower, with each floor supported by 500 wire cables, is the first building of this type to be constructed on campus.
Credibility Gap is at Bitter Ashtray
TheCredibility Gap, a satirical group, is performing at the Bitter Ashtray through Saturday.
Dan Sullivan of the Los Angeles Times has recognized the Credibility Gap as one of the top ten theatrical attractions for 1972.
Recent performances at the Ash Grove have received good reviews.
The group will appear tonight at 8:00 and Friday and Saturday at 8:30 p.m.
Admission is 75 cents for students with identification and $2 for all others.
Course evaluation guide not yet available
By Loren Ledin
staff writer
Students seeking help in selecting next semester’s classes are once again without the aid of a course evaluation guide.
It’s been four years since the guide was last published in 1968 and although hopes were high for a repeat publication last September, the operation was scuttled by lack of funds and a multitude of work problems.
The ship has now been righted, says Cliff Ishii. academic-educational program director, who promises that the guide will be ready in time for early registration for fall, 1973 classes.
“Even if it is only one-third ready we’ll print it,” he said.
Ishii was appointed to his post as academic-educational programs director three weeks ago, filling a void that had existed since September when Fred Labankoff resigned from the job.
The nonexistence of a student government forced the late appointment of Ishii. Until the formation of the Programming Board there was no agency with the power to appoint a successor to Labankoff.
Ishii has since set the machinery in motion for compiling and publishing the guide with his recent appointment of Gordon Dossett as its director.
Randy Zomar, ASSC business manager, said it was decided to publish the guide this May.
“It was close to being printed,” he said. “We had resigned ourselves to a summer publication. It was scheduled for printing in May.”
But problem after problem delayed and finally cancelled the publication.
First, said Zomar, there was Labankoffs claim that he was getting poor results from the computer printouts.
The guide is compiled by feeding student-completed surveys into a computer which evaluates the information and returns the desired readout.
Apparently, the readouts
which Labankoff received were incomplete and contained infor-mation contrary to what he desired.
This created innumerable delays which in turn, said Zomar, produced a shortage of funds.
Late in the summer, the project had already cost nearly $3,600 and the job was still far from completed. “It was obvious,” Zomar said, “that the cost would far exceed the $5,000 budget it had been given.”
Labankoff was unable to turn to the ASSC government for help since it had been abolished in the spring. So he turned, without success, to the university.
(Continued on page 5)