Staff Photo by Wayna Lavtna
CONFRONTATION — While students from eight high schools waited to board buses after attending Festival Aztlan on campus Monday, a number of unidentified youths began throwing rocks and lumber at one of the buses. None of the students were injured. A Los Angeles Police Department spokesman said the group dispersed before they arrived on the scene. The youths had not been among those invited to the festival, according to a MEChA official.
^trojan
Volume LXXXVIII, Number 54 University of Southern California
Tuesday, April 29 1980
GANG FIGHTS FEARED
MEChA safeguards Aztlan rally
By Stephanie Chavez
Staff Writer
In anticipation of possible gang related problems that could have arisen when about 500 Mexican-American high school students were bussed to the university for Cinco de Mayo festivities, members of MEChA organized their own security that prevented a potential confrontation between youths after Monday's program.
Barrio Day, which concluded the Festival Aztlan celebration, was intended to recruit minority students as well as show them the educational opportun-ites at the university. The program included a band and a low rider car show in front of the administration building to make university students aware of the different subcultures of the Chicano Community.
Toward the end of the program, Juan Rivera, a MEChA coordinator, observed that youths other than those who had been invited had come onto campus. Also, a low rider car, which did not belong to any of the three invited car clubs, was mistaken as part of the car show and allowed on campus. Rivera said he notified University Security of the situation and the possible conflicts that could arise from the uninvited youths' presence on campus.
Sgt. George Farina of University Security said that security was informed of the "possibility of some type of rumble." Two Los Angeles Police Department units that were in the area came to the university to monitor the activities along with security.
“Once we were aware of the
situation there was laid-back monitoring of the area. None of the officers were involved in any confrontations," Farina said.
(Continued on page 6)
No settlement near in Marine Center dispute
By Tim Lynch
Staff Writer
To the South Coast Regional Commission:
Dear Sirs, please tell us, how did we get into such a mess?
The university needs a research center — and the fishermen need their ice. It's as simple as that, unless you don't care for research and never eat fish. I'm sure they can coexist.
Yours truly, George H. Mueller
Unfortunately, the regional commissioners, the Los Angeles Harbor Department, the university, local fishermen and the harbor's only ice provider do not see the matter as simply as Mueller/a private citizen who expressed his frustration (in the above letter) to the commission six weeks ago.
When the Harbor Department granted the university a lease to build its new research center last October, school officials had no idea they would become involved in a complex dispute between the fishermen and the Harbor Department.
The university's problems began when the department condemned the old center in Wilmington and decided to put the new one in Fish Harbor, an area used primarily by fishermen and fish processors. When the department — which has the authority to decide the location of ail structures — revealed that a part of the center would displace the harbor's only ice house, the fishermen and the ice house operator fought back.
By law, the university had to notify all landowners and tenants within 100 feet of the proposed site about the construction. The Harbor Department provided the university with the list of names, but it failed to include the name of the ice house operator, Tony Accetta.
More than three months after the permit had been issued, Accetta notified the South Coast Regional Commission of the university's failure to notify him. The commission, at a hearing in which one member called the Harbor Department a "big monster," revoked the university's permit.
Since then, the opposing parties have made claims and counter claims about the legality and validity of operating the research center in Fish Harbor. Two folders of public records at the coastal commission office in Long Beach bulge with hundreds of documents, pictures and letters.
"The fishermen view the Harbor Department with a lot of suspicion," said Don Keach, deputy director of the Institute for Marine and Coastal Studies at the university. "They're using us to force the hand of the Harbor Department."
The university has been left with a nonfunctional $700,000 building and no guarantee that the matter will be settled soon, or in its favor.
Last week, however, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge approved a university request mandating the South Coast Regional Commission to reconsider its revocation of the original construction permit for the half-completed marine research center.
(Continued on page 13)
Sex discrimination charged by medical campus prof; claims paid lower salary
By David Romero
Staff Writer
A lawsuit charging the university with sex discrimination against an associate professor in the medical school has been filed in federal court and will be served this week, according to the professor's lawyer.
The suit, brought against the university by Joy Cauffman, an associate professor in family medicine and pediatrics, states she has been paid a salary less than that received by males doing the same or similar work.
The suit demands that Cauffman be promoted to full professor status and be paid an amount equal to the salary and benefits she would have earned had she received a full professorship previously.
The suit also states the university should be prevented from further discriminating against Cauffman on the basis of sex and that the university pay reasonable attorney's fees and costs incurred by Cauffman because of the lawsuit.
(Continued on page 7)
University Center wins by large margin in referendum
By Margaret Bernstein
Staff Writer
Last week's Student Senate election garnered the largest voter turnout in the history of the university.
A record-breaking total of 1,965 students voted, electing 16 undergraduate senators and 3 graduate senators. The highly publicized University Center referendum was favored by 86% of those voting.
Voter turnout at the university has risen consistently during the past three years, jumping from a total of approximately 1,433 votes cast in the 1978 election to the turnout of 1,513 last year.
All five incumbent candidates (Colette Benton, Irma Castro, Mercedes Marquez, Monica Townsend and Tim Walker) were reelected to the Student Senate. A complete listing of the new student senators is on page 15.
Jeff Gates, chairman of the senate, suggested that the past year's highly visible performance by the senate had encouraged the huge voter turnout and the support of last year's candidates.
Gates indicated that programs such as the Campus Newsletter, an update of senate activities published regularly in the Daily Trojan, and the successful University Center campaign had augmented the public image of the student senators and their actions this year.
Gates also attributed the large candidate pool — 25% more students ran for office this year than in 1979 — to the newly conspicuous role the senate is playing on campus. "Hopefully, this increase
(Continued on page 13)
Staff photo by Kannath Lawta
FESTIVAL AZTLAN ’80 — In celebration of Cinco de Mayo, MEChA held a variety of events Monday. Various “low riders” displayed cars and vans. One of the cars, shown from two different angles, is pictured above. All cars displayed were owned by three clubs: Lifestyle, Imperials and New Style.