Chicano law students protest new policy
By TIM NOVOSELSKI Staff Writer
In the face of a possible change of the Law Center’s minority admission policy, Chicano law students have planned an open meeting today at noon in Room 7 of the Law Center.
The possible change of policy comes in the form of a new proposal concerning minority admission. which will be voted on by the Law Center’s faculty at 3 p.m. today.
At present, three minority students and one faculty member are given the opportunity to interview minority applicants to the school. After the interview the applicant is given up to 20 points to be added to his prediction index score.
“The prediction index score
is, simplified, a combination of the applicant’s grade point average and results from the Law School Aptitude Test,” said Lynn Pineda, a first year law student.
Pineda said the results of the interview can, many times, be the difference between admission and rejection.
“The Chicanos interview the applicants to find out how much they have contributed to the Chicano community and how much they are likely to contribute after they graduate,” said Pineda.
Pineda said Chicanos fear the possible elimination of the interview setup and the possibility that all minority students would be admitted through an open competition concept.
This way, said Pineda, students who would be valuable to
their own community after graduation might not be admitted, whereas they might have qualified under the present admission policy.
Thus, that very possibility has provided impetus for today’s open meeting.
“Chicanos have sent letters to all faculty members of the Law Center asking them to appear at the meeting and respond to the Chicanos’ 10-point plan,” said Pineda.
The 10 points to be discussed are, as presented by the Chicanos:
•	Admission of 30 Chicanos for the coming academic year, as stipulated in the “Equal Representation Plan” adopted by the State Chicano Law Students Association.
The plan calls for admission in all California law schools of
a percentage of Chicanos proportionate to their numbers in the state population.
•Autonomous selection of incoming Chicano law students by the Chicano Law Students Chapter at the University of Southern California.
•	Chicanos shall have voting participation in the policymaking bodies governing the Law Center.
•	Establishment (next year) of a course which examines the particular legal problems of the Chicano community in light of the historical repression and exclusion Chicanos have suffered by Anglo institutions since the unjustified American invasion and conquest of Mexican territory in the last century; moreover, courses already in the curriculum should reflect the
significant contributions of Spanish-Mexican law in the institutions of the Southwest.
•	For the coming scholastic year, a Chicano professor should be hired for the faculty.
•	The minimum grade point average for the first year for Chicano law students shall be 68 (it is 70 now) with the understanding that the overall average for the three years shall be 70 at the minimum.
•	Chicanos shall assume control of the tutoring program for the coming scholastic year—with Chicanos doing the basic tutoring of first-year Chicano students as well as coordinating faculty participation.
•	Readmission of Daniel Chavez and Carmen Diaz, who have proven during their “p-
(Continued on page 2)
University of Southern California
DAILY fit TROJAN
VOL. LXIV
NO. 71
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1972
LA Times critic says politics, building mix
By MARY ANN GALANTE Associate City Editor
“Many campus buildings are built more with politics in mind than architecture,” John Pastier, Los Angeles Times architectural critic, said Wednesday.
Speaking on “Architecture as a Political Art,” Pastier said. “The choice of architects to design campus buildings is largely influenced by donors, administrators and the power structure.”
Pastier added that architecture remains a conservative profession because architects require funds controlled by traditionally reactionary donors. “Architects identify with their clients’ mentalities,” he said.
Pastier had previously criticized the design of Heritage Hall in the Los Angeles Times. He elaborated briefly about his objections to the building’s design.
“Heritage Hall was the ugliest building on campus at its time,” said Pastier. “It’s pretentious
and from what I know of the political situation concerning it, it’s even more obscene.
“The veneer the building has of serving the university is terrible. There are three classrooms in it, but that doesn’t make it a general university building. It’s still just a big trophy case.”
Pastier went further by comparing Heritage Hall to an automobile showroom. “It’s a place to take the rich alumni and show them O.J.’s 500th touchdown. Their hearts melt and they donate another $500.”
He said the building’s design is poor. “Whatever its purpose, it should have at least been an architecturally good building. USC has a good football team, so why not put up a good building to show the team off in?”
Pastier said the trend toward conforming to established architectural styles is changing in the schools. “The American Institute of Architects (an architectural professional society) is beginning to organize and take a stand against donors dictating architectural style.”
Dorm security tightened
Beginning tomorrow, the EVK and College-University dorms will have a new security procedure. The inner doors between wings and floors will be locked at all times.
The doors will open with the
Brass quintet play at SAC
The Alex Rodriguez quintet, a jazz group, will appear today at a noon concert in the Student Activities Center.
Rodriguez, a native of Los Angeles, has been playing the trumpet since he was eight years old.
Rodriguez, along with his group, was featured last May at the Pilgrimage Theater Spring Jazz Festival.
girls’ individual room keys.
An added security precaution is that the locks can never be in an unlocked position. Men’s dorm room keys will not open the doors.
Laura Kotsiris, Women’s Halls Association president, praised the new security procedure. She said the recent killing of a coed at Oregon State University led, in part, to initiating the new security. There have also been recent reports of unescorted men on the floors.
This new procedure will also keep solicitors and wandering children from the dorm halls. Acoording to Kotsiris, “It is the best thing ever installed to keep security tight.”
Kotsiris said there is a problem in setting up the elevator security in Birnkrant. The EVK and College-University keys must also fit the elevators, but the men’s dorm keys must not.
MADALYN MURRAY O'HAIR
O’Hair raps Christianity
By GUNTHER MERLI Staff Writer
American churches have more money and power now than at any time before in the nation’s history, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, noted atheist crusader, said yesterday.
She described her single-handed battle with established Christianity in a forceful speech to an audience overwhelmingly sympathetic to her views, that half-filled Bovard Auditorium. Many of her remarks received applause.
O’Hair said, “200 years ago when the United States was founded, churches were small in number, meager in attendance and poor.” Today, she asserts that the Roman Catholic Church owns more in just land alone than the five largest corporations in America—Standard Oil of New Jersey, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, U.S. Steel and Mobil Oil.
The churches’ political power also remains strong. “Within 18 months or three years at the most,” she predicted, “the churches will get their school money.” She said that parochial schools would get state money eventually, despite laws separating church and state.
O’Hair is virtually alone in her fight to maintain the separation of church and state. She lost the NASA case, in which she attempted to prevent the reading of passages from the Bible aboard American spacecraft, when the religious community wrote three million letters to the judiciary, she said, “while the atheistic community sat on its ass.”
American history, O’Hair maintained, perpetuates the “generally bullshit story” that America was settled by people longing to be free from oppression. On the contrary, she said, they were religious fanatics whose governments were
theocratic and whose “established churches were riddled with bigotry, hatred, repression and intolerance.”
The situation changed with the American Revolution. “The Constitution does not have a single reference to Jesus Christ or God,” said O’Hair. “You will be startled by the lengths to which the founding fathers went not to mention God.”
In 1799 and 1802 in Virginia, church property was seized and sold for public purposes, so powerless were the churches under the fledging U.S. government, O’Hair said. She described how the situation has changed.
“We have not always had church tax exemptions,” she said. Pennsylvania was the first state to give the churches a tax exemption, in the early 1800’s, and by 1911 38 states had done so.
Bible reading and prayer recitation, she told the audience, became mandatory in public schools by 1910 in 12 states. In 1954, under President Eisenhower, the words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance. In 1955 the phrase “In God we trust” was printed on all currency. In 1956, she continued, “ ’E Pluribus Unum’ was ditched as our national motto and replaced by ‘In God we trust.’ ”
In 1961, the Supreme Court overturned a rule requiring those being sworn into public office to recite an oath expressing their belief in God. Five years later, said O’Hair, Congress passed a law again requiring the same oath.
“Since 1948, religion has very quickly established that we are a Christian nation,” she said. “The churches have also moved very quickly after money and power.”