Scarlet & Black. November 25, 197

 

Panel emphasizes complexity of Bakke case

By Trena c1cland

A panel discussion sponsored by
the Grinnell College Republicans
drew approximately 150 people to
the Forum Monday night to hear
Professors Joseph Wall and Ira
Strauber and administrator Janet
Carl address the legal, cone
stitutional, and social aspects of
the controversial Bakke case now
before the Supreme Court.

The meeting was designed to
give the campus community ex—
posure to what Strauber called an
“academic perspective” on
complex and little-understood
facets of the case. An historical
overview of the case, in which a
white male charged a California
medical school with reverse
discrimination in its admissions
policy, was given by freshman Ted
Vlamis.

STRAUBER opened the
discussion with an interpretation of
the le 31 technicalities of the case

Profs Bob Grey, Al ones and Wayne Moyer

and the constitutional arguments
for and against Bakke. He called
the suit “ cry complicated” and
said thati s “a classic example of
a bad case that will probably make
an equally bad law."

Strauber explained that the
California State Court, which
upheld Bakke's suit against the
University of California Medical
School at Davis, decided that the
school had used unconstitutional
means (in the form of a quota) to
achieve the legitimate state ends of
integration and minority health
care. Davis countersued, claiming
that quotas are legitimate means
to an end, if one accepts racial
distinctions (including past in»
justice done to minorities) and
state goals. Bakke himself,
Strauber said, is more concerned
With what he claims is blatant
racism than with the ”meansVend“
issue that the lower court and
school so vehemently debated.

generally agreed last

Tuesday in Grinnell llouse that Jimmy Carter's foreign policy,
through diner g symbolically. has been similar to that under

. er Prim

Ion of human ri - hts was one than ' e, they said.

STRAUBER also claimed that
the federal issue of Affirmative
Action “adds an aspect of national
interests to the state question.”
The government, which has dealt
at length with the principle of
Affirmative Action in executive
orders and civil rights acts, seems
to be arguing “that the principle of
Affirmative Action makes the use

of race, per sc, legitimate,"-

Strauber said.

“What the federal government is
saying is, ‘This case has got to go
back to the state courts, because
when they considered the question
of the legitimate means toward the
end, they forgot an end; the end is
equal opportunity and equal
pmtec ' n for racial and other
minori es,’ In my reading of the
case, on one hand, the introduction
of the government issue of Al-
firmative Action forces the case
back to the state level to reconsider
the relationship of means to en'ds.
On the other hand, given U.S. code
and civil rights acts, it seems to me
that the legal precedents Will be in
favor of Bakke." Strauber said.

WALL discussed individual
merits versus group merits and
elaborated on the ramifications of
the Bakke case. The issue, he said,
is significant in its unprecedented
amount of advance publicity and
“unenlightened discussion," the
number of related briefs which
have been filed by concerned
groups, and “a very disturbing
effect of dividing civil libertarians
in this country as no other case
has.”

Although the federal government
has in the past based some of its
actions on race (for exa ple,
redistricting and busing po ’cles),
Wall said that “any classification
based on race is suspect. That
means there must be the most

Grapevine rates c asses, profs

By John Mandel
and John Strauss

Questionnaires for “The Ins
stitutionalized Grapevine” will be
distributed today by student ads
visers or can be picked up in the
post office for those students living
off-campus.

“The institutionalized
Grapevine" is a booklet, sold in
April of each year during pre-
registration, which contains
student comment on Grinnell
courses and professors. The
questionnaires collected from
students form the basic outline of
the booklet. ‘

THIS YEAR‘S co—editurs are
senior Chris Sodoma and junior
Karen Langsley. Professor Ed-
ward Barboni was also consulted
about the questionnaire.

The student questionnaire this
year has been drastically reduced
in size from previous years in
order to facilitate student
responses. Although some
questions have been edited, the
basic format remains the same as
in other years.

BEFORE the Institutionalized
Grapevine, students were forced to
fill out evaluation questionnaires

hr .

 

each semester. Only faculty
members had access to the results.
Compiled responses went to each
individual faculty member and
were employed in later personnel
decisions. Students had little idea
of the effects of their responses.

The Grapevine thus emerged not
only to help enable students to
make rational choices in selecting
courses and to provide teachers
with constructive input, but also as
a reaction to me confidential
evaluations.

THE FIRST Grapevine posed 26
questions to students, who gave
ratings on a number system. The
responses totaled about 60 per cent
of all courses.

The second Grapevine was
almost identical to the first except
for one addition. It included the
number of majors who responded
in hope of “interpreting the value
of a given evaluation since majors
and nonrmajors may often have a
different viewpoint when
evaluating the same professor."

The third effort used written
comments and de—emphasized its
statistical aspect. Grapevine III
was also much Shorter than its
predecessors. The response rate,

ANHEUSER-BUSCH

NAIURAE. “El-ll

When we brew if light,
we do it right.

under $0 per cent, led to decreased
validity of the evaluations.
Grapevine IV was a thorough
and helpful effort. Response rate
was 55 per cent and a total of 163
classes were evaluted. Grapevine
V had 109 classes tabulated. Only
66 of these classes had a onethird
response rate or better. Grapevine
v1 extensively used the opinion
format and “open-ended”
questions instead of statistics. The
response rate was a dismal 27 per
cent, with only 71 course
evaluations, making its
fectiveness questionable.

Leach

~tCorrtinucd from It. It

Congress and the two»party
system. I’ve also been talking
more than many about the ace
countabillty of congressmen to
their constituency, particularly as
it relates to the Korean situation
and conﬂicts of interest.”

As to Leach's prospects of
a second term, prof Al Jones
commented, “I think he's an able
and energetic congressman. He is
an incumbent, and he campaigns
hard. He has many resources. But
this is an uncertain district that
has turned out incumbents inthe
past."

ef-

 

careful kind of judicial review in
order to determine whether the
interests are so compelling as to
justify the particular means."

Wall addressed the basic
argument as being whether or not
quotas are legitimate and-or
constitutional and whether they
justifiably deal with social
problems. He also confronted
Bakke’s argument that he should
be considered on individual merit
and not as a member of a racial
group; by pointing out that Bakke
was turned down at ll other
schools, that his age was against
him, and that his scores were not
exceptional. Wall implied that
perhaps other characteristics
besides race were working against
Bakke.

Wall closed by affirming the
Davis policy as ”legitimate use of
experimentation” in attempting to
include minority students.

“SlMPLY. we have to defend the
quota system as being im»
plemented by Davis. It may be the
only direct way to get results.
We’ve discovered in these past 40
years that it is not enough to open
up professional schools to blacks
and encourage them to attend
them,” he said.

Carl, Associate Dean of Student
Affairs, addressed the case with an
emphasis on its social imr
plications, and implied that quota
systems and the reverse
discrimination often inherent in

Art work

By Elaine Ashhaugh

Recurring destruction or theft of
works of art on campus has
recently resulted in d’ cone
tinuation of all art exhibiu'ons
sponsored by Grinnell's art
department.

By majority vote of the art

' department faculty, no shows will

be held under the auspices of the
department either in Scheaffer
Gallery of the Fine Arts Building,
in the Forum’s Terrace Gallery, or
in any other location on campus.
(However, this does not include
student shows in the Forum’s
Negative Space Gallery, Per—
manent Art Collection shows, or
exhibition by others, as in~
dividuals.)

THE DECISION will apply for an
indefinite period, the stipulation
for revival of the art showings
being the availability of a safe,
secure, climatercontrolled area for
use as a gallery. Neither of the
presently available areas has
these qualities.

President A. Richard Turner
described this situation as
disgraceful, adding, “A real
wealmess of a college this size is
not to have adequate gallery
space.” Recognizing . this
inadequacy, the Board of Trustees
approved a plan for construction of
an art gallery at their meeting
earlier this month.

DURING the second week of
September, three photographs by
senior June Bradley were stolen
from an exhibition in the Forum’s
Negative Space Gallery. The thief
has not been apprehended.

Over the weekend of October 3, 9,
three drawings of women by Alex

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them have many faults.

“. . . Disadvantaged status is
clearly not a sufficient reason to
grant one person opportunity over
another. even though I think it may
be argued that advantaged status
has, in the past, been sufficient.
The practice of providing op-
portunities to white males simply
because they are white and male is
patently unjust and simply
reversing the situation will do
nothing to mitigate the social ills
which abound in this country,” she
said,

CARL PUT little Weight on the
relation of the case to Affirmative
Action, since the latter calls for
goals and timetables, rather uran
quotas, to achieve integration and
equal opportunity.

“In this sense, the Bakke case
has little to do with Affirmative
Action. although there seems to be
a strong lie in peoples' minds,

. Fominis and minority
groups must not be undone by the
results either way,” she said,

MODERATOR Gregg Edwards
expressed pleasure at the large
turnout and the academic bent of
the discussion,

“This is the first time I've heard
an intellectual debate about the
Bakke case. Previous to this, we
discussed the case from an
emotional standpoint, considering
almost solely the question of
quotas,“

attacked

McKibbin were vandalized,
causing irreparable damage to the
genital areas of each. The works,
hung in Scheaffer Gallery, were
each valued at 8100.

LAST year, on May 22, 1977, a
Middle Eastern woolen wall
hanging, measuring eleven by five
feet, and valued at $510, was ripped
down, leaving fragments of the
work hanging on the wall, Again
the vandalism occurred in
Scheaffer Gallery, In this case. the
criminal is known to have been a
Grinnell student. A roommate of
the vandal later notified
authorities of the work's
whereabouts.

Grinnell has had a long history of
such attacks, but recent acts have
been more frequent. Works of
professors Richard Cervene, Glen
Zirkle and Merle Zirkle have all
sustained damage, as have those of
former Grinnell professors. All
studio art professors, except
Cervene, who plans to continue
showing his works on an individual
basis. have decided not to show
their works here due to the con-
stant threat of vandalism.
Although the first to recognize that
students need to view others’ art
works and that all Grinnellians
should see that they are working
artists, art professors have
decided that the recurring problem
of wanton destruction overshadows
these benefits.

THE ART department also finds
regrettablethe fact that this year’s
notably diversified Scheaffer
Gallery schedule, planned by
Dlrector of Scheaffer Gallery
Robert MCKibbin, cannot be
carried out, McKibbin had
planned eight shows, including as
many mediums as possible. on a
minimal budget of $2000.

Grinnell's inadequate gallery
facilities make such scheduling
difficult literally no shows
travelling around the country
would even consider Grlnnell, was
it not for a willingness to ease up on
their own stipulations for security
controls. With the recent flare-up
of crimes, the art department felt
that it could not, in good con-
science, invite artists to show their
works under the present insecure
conditions.

 

