Summer
Trojan
University of Southern California
Vol. LXVII, No. 13
Los Angeles, California
Wednesday, August 7, 1974
University sees no problem in HEW rules adoption
NEXT QUESTION—Gwen Gregory, director of the Office of Policy Communication, Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, answered questions at a briefing in Bovard Auditorium Friday. The topic was sex discrimination under the
regulations of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Most of the questions concerned the act's effects on athletics, curriculum and campus organizations. Photo courtesy of News Bureau.
Film depicting farm worker confrontations to be shown
Why We Boycott, a film of the confrontations between the United Farm Workers Union, the Teamsters and the police last year will be shown at 7:30 p.m. in the University Church.
The meeting, which will be open to the public, will also include speakers, a discussion and refreshments. The church is located at 817 W. 34th St.
Organizers for the UFW have been circulating a petition on campus asking that the university remove lettuce and grapes from the cafeterias.
Juli Dahl, organizer,estimates that the petition will have 350 signers by the Thursday meeting.
Ken Bridges, director of Food Services, has said he will not remove lettuce and grapes from the cafeterias.
“I don’t feel I’m in a position as director of Food Services at the university to take away an item that is desired by my customers.
“I feel this needs to be done on an individual basis. I don’t feel that I should deprive them of a product that they desire to eat,” he said.
Bridges added that Food Services buys its lettuce from three or four produce companies depending on the quality and price, and that it had no way of knowing whetherthe lettuce was union or non-union.
The UFW is asking that consumers boycott lettuce, grapes and Gallo wine in protest of the poor living conditions and poor wages of the farm workers.
A collection will be taken at the Thursday meeting of non-perishable food items for the striking workers.
Also at the meeting, several committees will be set up, including ones to handle phone calling, making flags and leaflets, act as delegations and post leaflets.
The delegation committee members will go to managers of area stores and ask them to remove grapes, lettuce and Gallo wines from their shelves.
BY MARJIE LAMBERT
Staff Writer
USC officials doubt that the university will have problems complying with the anti-sex discrimination regulations proposed under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
The university will submit feedback on the regulations to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which is administering the program, but Barbara Pearson, director ofthe Equal Opportunity Employment and Affirmative Action Office, said in an interview that most of the material submitted to HEW would be questions on the regulations.
The proposed regulations provide that vocational, professional and graduate schools, as well as public undergraduate colleges, may not discriminate between the sexes in admission or recruitment of students.
USC, as a private undergraduate institution, is exempt from the admissions ruling, but USC graduate and professional schools are not.
Equal treatment
The regulations would also require that all students be treated equally once they are admitted in any educational institution. Exceptions are military institutions and parochial schools where compliance would be inconsistent with the religious tenets of that school.
Under the category of treatment come such areas as athletics, financial aid, housing, and campus organizations.
Not included under the revised rulings is curriculum. A section which would have prohibited sexist instructional materials was later struck due to possible conflicts with the First Amendment.
Compliance
If USC or any other educational institution which receives
She’s been at USC for one year, and with her promotion last week to assistant athletic director under John McKay, Barbara Hedges has made the front page of the Los Angeles Times sports section and been interviewed on Ralph Story's A.M. and other media.
Her appointment comes at a time when the Education Amendments of 1972 are calling for an end to sex discrimination in many areas, including athletics.
Hedges’ responsibility as one of five assistant athletic directors will be the women’s intercollegiate program.
Already this year, the budget for the women's program as jumped from $11,000, and Hedges says that she doesn't think the increase is a definite result of Title IX of the amendments, but that in looking over the regulations of that act, the university
Woman named to athletic post
would realize it had to raise the budget.
One result of the bigger budget will be professional coaches for the women’s competitive teams.
Sherrry Calvert, who placed 11th in the javelin throw in the 1972 Olympics, will be track and field coach.
Pokey Watson Richardson will be swimming coach.
Richardson won a gold medal in swimming at the 1964 Olympics.
Jean McCullough, a physical education instructor, will coach basketball, and Jan Hasse, a southern California tennis player who once captained the Junior Wightman Cup team, will be in charge of tennis.
No coaches have been found as yet for gymnastics or volleyball, although Hedges said she is currently negotiating with a former Olympics volleyball player.
The professional coaches are a major improvement over what the program has had in the past, said Hedges, because the teams were formerly coached by graduate assistants, resulting in a turnover every year.
“The quality was there, but the consistency was not,” said Hedges.
More uniforms, equipment and travel to competitive events will also be covered by the increase.
“The increased funding will do a lot for morale,” said
Hedges. “I think our teams will be much better.”
Hedges said she thought the higher budget would result in an improved program, give the program higher visibility and attract prospective female athletes to USC.
“Indevelopingthe women’s program, I think that the problem with women in this particular institution has been that many people didn’t even know the program existed.
“My responsibility is to make the program visible to the students, to the alumni, to the public in general. In this way we will attract female athletes to the university. They will come here if they know we have a growing program,” said Hedges.
Hedges came to USC from the University of Arizona where she was a gymnastics coach when her husband was transferred to southern California.
funds from the federal government does not comply with the regulations, it will lose those funds.
USC currently receives about $35 million for federal research, training and service agreements, but not all of that is subject to being withheld under those regulations.
The university would also stand to lose federal student aid funds, including $592,602 in Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants. Over $2 million in National Defense Student Loans, which includes a $500,000 collections figure, would be withheld, as well as the government’s 70% share of a $1.2 million work-study budget.
An as yet undetermined amount for Health Professions aid would also be withheld.
Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employment programs have already caused USC to adopt guidelines which prevent racial or sex discrimination in hiring. “This is just an additional government tightening of the belt in the discrimination area,” said Clark A. McCartney, director ofContracts and Grants.
Students
“Students have never been covered before,” said Pearson.
“We’ve been far ahead of the other institutions in the United States. Whatever Title IX develops in terms ofthe final regulations, we’ll of course have to follow them, whatever those minimum regulations are,” said McCartney.
The regulations are expected to go into effect in January, 1975, after the public has had an opportunity to submit comments to HEW and HEW has written the ruling and had it signed by the President.
“I think it will be fairly easy for us to live with Title IX,” said Pearson. “I think the people it’s really going to be hard on is the school systems. USC will be able to cope.”
Responses
Pearson said she has a few questions on the regulations, and that she has asked all vice-presidents who could be affected by the regulations to submit comments to her.
She will coordinate the responses and send them to HEW.
(Any member of the public is invited to comment on the regulations by sending their remarks to HEW, Office of Civil Rights, P.O. Box 2974, Wash., D.C., before Oct. 15.)
One inconsistency, said Pearson, was that a section of the Title IX regulations provided that pregnancies be treated the same as any other disability, but that the Supreme Court has just ruled (Geduldig v. Aiello) otherwise.
The university currently leaves the length of pregnancy before leaving up to the woman and her doctor.
She also has questions about retirement benefits.
(Continued on page 2)