Retired prof continues fight over grievances
By David Hall
In September 1977, Irving Rehman retired at the age of 66 after serving 33 years on the staff of the Department of Anatomy in the School of Medicine.
But unlike most people leaving the university after so many years, Rehman will not sit back and live comfortably on a large pension. In fact, his work continued, even when his days on the faculty ran out.
Rehman is still fighting what is becoming the most important, and certainly one of the most complex, grievance cases handled by the Faculty Senate. Rehman’s claims include:
• Being frozen at a given salary level and position from 1949 to 1967 as a result of a conspiracy jointly conceived by the president of the university, the head of the Department of Anatomy and the dean of the School of Medicine.
•Because of his low salary, his retirement benefits were miniscule and his attempts to be allowed five additional years of employment to increase his pension were not accepted by the current head of his department.
•After going through a successful grievance hearing before a Faculty Tenure and Privileges Committee panel, Rehman was offered an “unsatisfactory” settlement from President Hubbard's office and would only receive the settlement if he signed a Release and Covenant Not to Sue, which would prohibit him from seeking further legal action or making any of the facts of the case public.
•Since Hubbard’s offer, his further requests have been all but ignored by the administration.
“Very frankly, when I first read through the transcript of the case, I couldn’t believe
it,” said Richard Davis, the cochairman of the Faculty Senate Rights and Responsibilities Committee. “It is difficult to believe this would ever happen, but here it has happened.”
Along with Henry Slucki, the other committee cochairman, Davis will work with John LeBlanc, senate president-elect, in presenting Rehman’s case at Wednesday’s Faculty Senate meeting.
Although the situation only became a real issue late last year, it got its start some 30 years before when Rehman became a tenured member of the faculty. Shortly thereafter, according to the memorandum that followed Rehman’s grievance hearing in June, 1977, a dispute broke out between Rehman and Paul R. Patek, the department chairman.
As a result of the dispute, the memorandum said, Rehman received no salary increase for “three or four years” and in 1951, “he asked for a committee, composed of medical faculty from out-
IRVING REHMAN
side the Department of Anatomy,” to look into it.
The committee met, but without the knowledge of Rehman. Not only was he not given his raise, but he was also asked to leave the university.
The memorandum said Rehman had not been given an opportunity to confront (continued on page 5)
Daily § Trojan
University of Southern California
Vol. LXXIII, No. 42 Los Angeles, Co. Tuesday, April 18, 1978
JAM SESSION SINGULAR—Unfettered by the day's constant breeze, this student blew some notes of his own while relaxing alone on grassy knoll outside Bing
Theater. If practice makes perfect — and assuming the lad's not playing off-key — he may be another Al Hirtor Herb Alpert. DT photo by Paul Rodriguez.
Commission to reprimand senate candidates for expenditures abuse
By Michael Schroeder
Staff Writer
Three student senators-eleet and two losing candidates will be publicly reprimanded by the Commission on Credentials and Elections for questionable campaign practices in last week’s senate elections.
The newly elected members will be allowed to take their seats.
The five campaigned in the commuter constituency, and were accused of exceeding the spending limit of $75 in the printing of a campaign leaflet. The commission of the President’s Advisory Council made its decision following discussion by the senate's Joint Elections and Credentials Committee.
Nancy Somers, Mark Kaufman and Dan Suruki, the
senators-elect, and Chris Dombrowski and Mike Kulwiec campaigned as a group. Bill Matsumura, a student now serving as chairman of the senate’s Academic Affairs Unit, represented the candidates as their campaign manager.
The original accusation made by Tom Verdegem, a member of the Campus Activities Allocation Board, came before the Student Senate’s Joint Elections and Credentials Committee April 10, the first day of the senate elections.
The major protest presented by Verdegem said the group “exceeded the limit of $75 for campaign expenditures . . . seeking to gain unfair advantage over other candidates by not using the fair market value to compute campaign expenses.”
Other charges in the appeal included fraudulent use of an implied endorsement by the university: signing names of persons to documents without (continued on page 2)
Officials debate tax reform bill’s benefits to homeowners, industry
By Robin Oto
Staff Writer
Parties debating the Jarvis-Gann Initiative say the bill will either relieve heavy homeowner taxes or it will only benefit commercial and industrial property owners.
The proposition, which is on the June 6 primary ballot, was the subject of a debate between Howard Miller, president of the Los Angeles School Board, and J. Earle Christo, vice-chairman of the United Organization of Taxpayers. The speakers conferred on the Student Activities Center patio Monday.
“It goes right to the homeowner problem and does not give a windfall to others,” Christo said.
“This measure, the way it’s being represented, is a fraud. The tax relief goes to large landowners and. owners of commercial and industrial property. Its purpose is to use the anger over taxes to benefit owners of commercial property,” Miller said.
Opponents of the bill feel its passage will result in an economic crisis because approximately $7.5 billion will be lost with the property tax decrease. This revenue loss, they feel, will result in the loss of county jobs, including police, firemen and teaching positions within county schools.
“You’re talking about a devastation of the county — we’re talking about a massive recession, dropping a kind of time bomb. It proposes to change the entire economy of the state,” Miller said.
“You can’t cut $7.5 billion and say no one will be fired. Who will pay? The middle-class taxpayers this is supposed to protect?” he said.
Both Arthur Laffer, business and economics professor at the university, and Milton Friedman, Nobel prize-winning economist from Stanford University are major proponents of the proposition.
Laffer feels a reduction in property taxes will stimulate the economy instead of bringing it into a crisis.
“We have higher state, excise and income taxes than the state of Illinois. If you really want to make California healthy, you want to tax the heck out of them?" Laffer said.
Basically Laffer feels lowering taxes will give people more incentive to work, subsequently increasing the value of the tax base. The market for housing and other businesses will increase because people have more incentive to buy and invest with less taxation, he said.
Proponents of the bill feel lowering taxation will attract business to California and rising property values of houses because of increased buying, will lead to expanding construction. Laffer feels the present taxation system forces businesses to relocate in states with less restrictive taxes.
The proposition cuts property taxes to 1% ot the market value and revises property assessments increases to 2% per year.
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Campus Security issues to be discussed at forum
By Pamela Samuels
Staff Writer
A forum to give administration, security officials and community members an opportunity to discuss Campus Security will be held Friday.
The forum will begin with the showing of a videotape of the KABC-TV news series, “Crime at USC.”
Charles Robb, a security officer presently under a 60-day suspension because of an appearance on the KABC-TV news broadcast without university permission, is expected to attend.
“Basically, I’ll be there to answer questions,” Robb said. “But if they’re interested in the truth, then that’s what I’ll tell them .”
Campus Security administrators have declined to attend the forum because “they are involved in litigation and can’t say anything,” said Isidra Person, editor of AllUsWe. the black students’ newspaper.
Community organization representatives and victims of Campus Security harrassment are expected to attend the forum at 7 p.m. Friday in the Community Center, she said.
AllUsWe is sponsoring the forum because the group has been receiving notices of complaints from people who have been victimized by Campus Security, Person said.
Person said she felt that it was important for campus security administrators there to hear the other side.
“We’re trying to be objective and we want all sides to be represented, but if security administration doesn’t come then they won’t hear the complaints nor be able to defend themselves,” Person said.
Michael Bland, a former security officer, will also attend. Bland, a black who was thought to be caucasian by most of the security officers, was one of the first people to go to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with complaints about harrassment of blacks.
Bob Lyons, administrative assistant of the conference, said his organization has been receiving complaints about Campus Security for the past two years.
“The security force’s way of dealing with minority kids in the area is atrocious,” Lyons said. “They harrass them, they accost them, and they beat them.”
“I have three folders full of complaints about Robb that go back two years. We asked that he be terminated. If it had been done then you wouldn’t be talking to me now, nor would there be a need for the forum.”
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