Senate official calls for minority job committee
By Brandon Bailey
Staff Writer
The president of the Faculty Senate has called for a committee to deal with complaints about the percentage of women and minorities employed as university faculty and participants of university governance groups.
John LeBlanc, president of the Faculty Senate, said he wants to meet with representatives of concerned university groups to discuss questions from the university community service center advisory board and the neighborhood relations commission.
In the March issue of the Faculty Newsletter, LeBlanc said that 1,619 out of 1,773 members of the university faculty are Caucasian.
Minorities comprise three of the representatives among the 195 faculty senators and alternates. Twenty-six women are on the Faculty Senate.
The executive board of the Faculty Senate and the President's Advisory Council executive committee are made up entirely of male Caucasians.
The university neighborhood relations commission has found that out of 76 schools and departments at the university,
33	have no minority faculty' and 9 have one. The commission also found that 12 schools have no women on their faculty and 18 have one.
Although certain proposals have been submitted to the affirmative action committee of the council by Barbara Pearson, director of equal opportunity and affirmative action programs, the council committee has not been able to review them.
A meeting scheduled for the committee in early March was not held because a quorum could not be obtained.
Information provided by Pearson's office indicated that less than 14% of university faculty and white-collar employees represent ethnic minorities. This report led the university community service center advisory board to considerable discussion at its last meeting, said Trusee Norris, president of the advisory board.
Norris said the issue was very important to the board, which consists of people not employed by the university who live and work in the area.
The low percentage of minorities employed as professionals bv the univer-
sity is "a fairly difficult question for the university to deal with," Norris said.
"1 can understand the university's position — unless someone asks them it's easy to forget about dealing with it (the percentage of minority employees). We felt it was our responsibility to bring this to their attention," Norris said.
The service center advisory board reported its concern to the university neighborhood relations commission, along with a request for information on the university's affirmative action policies.
The university is in full compliance with all equal opportunity and affirmative action regulations, said Robert Biller, dean of the school of public administration and chairman of the neighborhood relations commission.
“Part of why we're getting to be a stronger urban university is that vve have been able to attract minority candidates of high quality," Biller said.
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trojan
University of Southern California Volume LXXVI, Number 34	Thursday, March 29,1979
Apartheid system limits business, says student
By Alice Ragenovich
Stalt Writer
The presence of J. Robert Fluor's corporation in South Africa is of concern to the Pan African Student Union on campus. Fluor is chairman of the university's Board of Trustees.
"Corporations don't invest in a country for philanthropic reasons. They want high returns on their investments and South Africa is an excellent place to exploit...Blacks are paid slave wages and have no rights," said Musekiwa Kumbula, president of the Pan African Student Union.
The South African government is under an apartheid system, which is a legally enforced system of racial segregation.
American corporations have to abide bv apartheid government laws A corporation is limited bv the apartheid rules and therefore cannot allow equal employment practices in South Africa, said Kumbula, a sophomore in public administration.
"There are certain positions that are reserved for whites.
"Corporations are biding more time and helping the apartheid system; they are denying our freedom But it's as inevitable as tomorrow's sun that the w'hite minority rule will end," Kumbula said.
Fluor Corporation has a $4-billion contract in South Africa. The initial project was a $2.8-billion coal liquefaction plant for the South African government. Coal liquefaction turns the solid coal into liquids like gas and diesel fuel.
In January the corporation decided to increase the size of the present project with a S2-billion addition. "Were virtually doubling the size of the project with an extension that will be completed in 1982," said Paul Etter, vice-president of corporate communications for Fluor.
"The whites in South Africa need oil right now but our feeling is that Fluor shouldn’t help the whites...South Africa has everything but oil.
"Iran has stopped shipping oil to South Africa and will start supplving oil again as soon as there's a change, as soon as the immoral apartheid is gone," said Kumbula, who is from Rhodesia.
Fluor has always attempted to be fair in its treatment of blacks, Etter said. In December Fluor signed the Sullivan Principle, formally declaring its support of fair treatment of blacks. But Fluor adhered to the principles before December, Etter said.
"Fluor (Corp.) operates around the world and has always (continued on page 2)
OT photo try Rtctwd Lavttt
FRATERNITY FEVER — Clifford Hackney and John Russell, pledges of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, dance in front of Tommy Trojan as part of their pledge activities.
Senate votes to abolish CAAB
Umbrella groups to allot funds
By Shari Cookson
Assistant City Editor
The Student Senate voted Tuesday to endorse a plan to abolish the Campus Activities Allocation Board and its review board.
line endorsement w ill be reviewed in bylaw form at the next senate meeting. If the senate approves the official document, funds will be appropriated through seven umbrella organizations: academic programming, black student programming, campus-wide entertainment programming, Chicano programming, recreation and club sports programming and service programming.
The umbrella organizations would distribute
money to individual groups that sponsor what the umbrella organizations deem worthwhile programs.
A programming team, consisting of a program board, a policy board and an audit board, would oversee the process.
Half of the money will be automatically distributed to the umbrella organizations to insure minimum funding. The rest of the programming funds will be appropriated according to general student preference.
About 311) representatively selected students will be telephoned next week and asked to rate the um-
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Pressure forces major changes in purchasing policy
By Bob Conti
Staff Writor
The university has made major changes in its purchasing policy due to pressure from the federal government.
The new policy will have the various departments w ithin the university send out bids for items like office supplies, laboratory equipment and furniture.
In addition, cost savings are averaging $20,(XX) to $22,000 per month, said Emil Murarik, director of purchasing.
The federal government's Office for Naval Research audited the university's purchasing policy and said it had to make major changes in the procedure or risk losing government contracts, Murarik said.
In addition, the government wanted better records kept of purchases bv the university.
Currently, the university is working on federal projects involving departments such as engineering, physics and chemistry.
Another provision of the new policy provides that no employees or anyone else directly connected with the university may participate in the selection or awarding of a contract to any firm w here he has an involvement.
Murarik said he knew' of no problems or violations, previous to the new policy by people connected to the
university. This is a standard provision made in any arrangement that involves the use of federal funds, he said.
Patronizing businesses owned by minorities may also be a factor for the policy change. Again, there is no evidence that the university practiced out-right discrimination against certain businesses. However, recent government contracts with various institutions have not been renewed because records showed practices of discrimination in a government report.
This clause does not restrict the university from patronizing businesses from people involved with the university, however. It states it cannot participate in the decision-making process.
This forces individual departments to go through the process for their supplies, such as paper for photocopiers. While they may have been buying from one company in the past, they must now’ accept bids from various distributors.
If the department has a particular distributor who has been good to them in the past, they may continue business with them, as long as their bid follows the new policy.
Although it requires a great deal of paper shuffling, Murarik said it takes no longer to go through this procedure than the old one.