University of Southern California
Tuition group to
DAILY ©TROJAN take legal action
VOL. LXIV NO. 95 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 1972
Irish fight for human rights, says IRA man in fiery speech
By TIM NOVOSELSKI Staff Writer
A fiery outburst from a member of the audience, perhaps illustrative of the explosive situation in Ireland, marked the beginning of yesterday's speech by Jerry O'Keefe, a member of the Irish Republican Army.
“You're a bloody murderer,” shouted the bespectacled, heavy-set man near the back of Bovard Auditorium before O’Keefe had much time to say anything. “Tell us about the soldiers you are murdering. If you give me the microphone for 90 seconds I'll tell about..
The man. who spoke with the same Irish accent as did the speaker, was interrupted and toldthat he could continue at the conclusion of O'Keefe’s speech.
Then at the end of the talk the man in the audience was no longer in the auditorium, but other were present to call O'Keefe a “man of deceit.”
O'Keefe drew such reactions by giving a capsule history of Irish-British conflicts, saying the situation in Ireland concerned a civil war of human rights and not necessarily of religion, and that the IRA only wanted to “relate to the people.”
O'Keefe said the Irish movement against British repression began as early as 1913 and guerrilla warfare was underway by 1916.
Uprisings against British troops have occurred off and on since that time, said O'Keefe, with the end coming when the people of Ireland are free of suppression.
O’Keefe said the IRA opened a six-year campaign against the British in 1956, but complete failure was the result.
“IRA people were getting killed and British soldiers were getting killed but there were no changes," he said. “Then in 1964 we stopped terrorist activities) for five years to decide what Irish freedom meant.”
O’Keefe said freedom did not mean inadequate housing and
JERRY O'KEEFE
poor education for 10.000 families in Dublin, and asked why many Irish have to depend on a rich uncle or aunt in America to survive.
O'Keefe also cited gerrymandering is no longer taking place, but that the British nullified an election in 1969 after the gerrymandering was eliminated.
O'Keefe said the civil rights movement in Ireland had grown strong by 1969. when nine British policemen were brought to court on brutality charges.
“There were 400 witnesses who went forward and identified the men as murderers but the case was dismissed,” said O’Keefe.
O'Keefe said it was realized that the police force was simply a band of bigots and that the Provisional IRA, a faction of the Official IRA. began a bombing campaign.
As a result, some civilians were killed, said O’Keefe, and the Provisional IRA had to revise its methods and objectives.
“They were fighting for the people, and you don’t fight for the people by blowing them up,” said O'Keefe. “And any fool can shoot a soldier. All you have to do is be a good shot.
O’Keefe added that the IRA just wants to change the system that brings about the suppres-
sion of the Irish.
“We don’t want a blood bath but we’ll fight as long as there is something to fight for. and protect when there is something to protect. The real terrorists in Ireland are the British troops.”
A group of law students seeking a tuition rollback announced yesterday that they will start legal proceedings against the university.
“At this point we are not at all optimistic about the university rolling back the tuition increase,” said Bert Cohen, a member ofthe Tuition Action Committee.
“We will continue to bargain with the university, but at the same time we will start legal action through channels established under the Economic Stabilization Act, pursuing the matter into court if necessary,” said Charles DiSalvo, another committee member
'We will now firm up our contract with a lawyer who is very enthusiastic about representing us.”
The committee met yesterday with Carl Franklin, vice president for financial and legal affairs. “Franklin spent the time during the meeting explaining the need for the increase,” said Cohen. “We weren't given a chance to explain our position.”
“I hope it wasn’t the case,” said Franklin. “It took time to explain our $100 million budget and the need for the increase, but the committee was able to ask 25 to 30 questions.”
Franklin reaffirmed the university’s intention of implementing the increase during yesterday’s meeting, in addition to explaining why the change was to take place.
In addition to the two committee members, the meeting was attended by Dorothy Nelson, dean of the Law Center, and John Wiley, associate dean of the Law Center. Franklin refused to allow a Daily Trojan reporter and photographer to attend the meeting.
“By having representatives from the Law Center at the meeting
I	feel as though we were being pitted against the Law Center,” Cohen said. “Our complaint is with the university, not with the Law Center."
“That wasn’t the purpose of having representatives from the Law Center at the meeting,” Franklin said. “They were there to talk about what had already been discussed with the students. They were there to bring the students and the university closer together.”
“I hope that the student body will not view today's meeting as a failure, because it wasn’t,” Cohen said. “This matter will take months to settle, and we will need the financial support to pursue the matter through the courts if necessary.”
The Tuition Action Committee is soliciting support at tables in front of Tommy Trojan and on the patio of the Student Activities Center from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Student struck; suspect caught
By LAURINDA KEYS News Editor
A student parking lot attendant was hit in the mouth by a juvenile with a rock in his hand Tuesday night and the suspect was caught and booked for assault with a deadly weapon after a fast chase by Campus Security.
Ed Hurst, a law student who works at parking lot S, said he saw two juveniles leave the Community Center at 6:15 p.m. and begin dodging between parked cars and looking in the windows.
“I yelled, ‘Are you looking for something?’ ” Hurst said.
“Then they began walking toward me. ‘Are you talking to me motherfucker?’ one of them said. Motherfucker, don’t say that to me.’
“I said, ‘Sorry I’m just doing my job.’ He then began moving his arms and head back and forth and then hit me in the jaw. He had a rock in his hand.”
At that point, campus police-
men Barry DeForest and Thad-deus Roundtree came around the corner in their patrol car. Hurst said the suspects ran off after the one who hit him said, “Don’t talk to me again, motherfucker.”
Hurst told the security men what had happened. DeForest then raced across Vermont Avenue and into a dirt lot, where the suspect was hiding in some bushes. DeForest shined his flashlight into the bushes until he was able to apprehend the 17-year-old suspect. The suspect said his companion, who escaped, was Menosis Davis, an 18-year-old.
Hurst said after the security car left in pursuit of the suspect, “I tried to get an identification from Mr. (Gilbert) Williams and a staff member at the Community Center. But they both said they couldn’t identify them, even though there were only half a dozen people in the room and the staff member was in the main
room and Mr. Williams was in the office by the front door.
“They seemed to know who the guy was but didn’t tell me his name so I could relay it to Security if they failed in the pursuit.”
Williams later said he knows the two suspects but had been working in his office that evening and hadn’t seen them.
The 17-year-old, on probation from the Crenshaw District Probation Office, has been arrested for car burglary twice before by Campus Security. He was turned over to the Los Angeles Police Department which released him to his mother.
No DT until after Easter
There will net be a Friday edition of the Daily Trojan. Publication will resume on Tuesday, April 4.
Gay Lib will file suit to end ‘suffering’
By ROBIN NEWCOMER Managing Editor
Members of the Gay Liberation Forum (GLF) will try to end what their lawyer has called “great humiliation and mental suffering” when they file a law suit against the university and the Board of Trustees Monday.
The suit, the first ever filed by a student organization against the university, will climax 12 months of preparation since the Board of Trustees officially denied the GLF recognition on campus.
Although it is not certain what actually occurred last April 14. Larry Bernard, a graduate student and active member of the group since fall 1971, has surmised that the regular approval procedure that all new campus groups must go through for on-campus recognition was interrupted by a university official.
“The student activities committee had already voted to recognize the group,” Bernard said. “The letter was even in the process of being typed.” It was at
that point that recognition of the group was held up while the issue was sent to the Board of Trustees for review.
In the meantime, the GLF received temporary recognition on campus. “We have been the only group to receive interim recognition,” Bernard said. “It was probably done so we wouldn’t question what was happening to our application.”
Members of the GLF became impatient when they did not receive word about the trustees’ vote, however. When they heard that the board had already decided whether to give its approval but hadn’t disclosed its decision, the members of the GLF tried to discover the outcome of the vote.
“We went to Dean (Robert) Mannes and said we knew that the trustees had voted on the issue, but he wouldn’t answer us,” Bernard said. “Then we went to President Hubbard and force him to admit that they had voted. We pushed hard enough until he had to admit it.”
It was after this confrontation that the group finally received official notification of the trustees’ decision. The terse reply to the GLF’s request came without explanation from the board: “The Gay Liberation Forum is not entitled to use university facilities.”
Focus
Bernard believes the group hadn’t received an answer before this because the board wanted to let the issue ride into the summer when the group would temporarily disband. However, after receiving the board’s vote, they realized that the only way to obtain what they feel are their guaranteed rights as students of the university was through legal channels.
The group issued a statement that read in part: “The refusal
is an outright violation of the Statement on Student Rights which states that students shall be free to organize and join campus associations to promote their interests.”
Led by Bernard, the GLF then went to the American Civil Liberties Union to seek legal assistance. The ACLU agreed to help prepare the case and six months later a lawyer was researching it. An injunction written by the lawyer was ready early this month.
Wednesday a university spokesman denied any knowledge “of any injunction against the university involving Gay Lib.”
When the GLF takes the copy of the injunction to the Superior Court in downtown Los Angeles Monday, precedent will be on the side ofthe group. In January, 1971, Superior Court Judge William Gallagher ruled that the refusal by Sacramento State College officials to allow the Society for Homosexual Freedom on campus as a student organiza-
tion was a denial of the students’ rights of free speech.
For the GLF, a more important reason that the group be granted recognition lies in its philosophy that it exists to help homosexuals who may be cut off from family and friends because of society’s attitudes toward gays.
“A lot of gay people need a little support and information and then they will be fine,” Bernard said. “Our original purpose was to be able to share what it is like with other gays to help them feel more comfortable with themselves.”
The group has now expanded its purpose to include the education of the straight community. To do this, GLF members have spoken to classes at the California state colleges at Dominguez. Fullerton and Los Angeles, as well as to third-year medical students at USC County-General Hospital. “Our goal is to let them in on some of the realities as opposed to myths that they (Continued on page 3)