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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 1974)
. .aoMnap3B Ictlc? cUU iu riciuci I sen uuci uci a ouui im iucu ; The recommendation that the UNL Career Planning and Placement Center be financed ''entirely by state tax dollars, instead of by student fees, seems to be a sound one. , The ASUN executives plan to make that recommendation to the Board of Regents at Its meeting Saturday in Scottsbluff. i The placement office's durrent yearly budget of about $60,000 comes entirely from student fees. Although, the Fee Allocations Board (FAB) last semester recommended eliminating student fee support for the placement office, the regents in May decided the support should continue. According to the FAB, the office should not be financed by student fees because it could more appropriately be funded from another 'source." . - .That other source should be state tax Ci'!''rs :i ' " '' .' r Career counseling and placement Is an integral part of a university's educative process, just as classroom teaching is. The placement office, then, should be financed like UNL's academic departments, which receive state tax support. In a survey compiled this summer by ASUN Pres. Ron Clingenpeel, the method of financing UNL's placement office proved to be an exception to the rule. Thirty-eight of the 40 schools responding said their placement offices received state funds. Of the remaining two offices, one received a combination of student fees and tax dollars plus funds from a state employment service. The other office financ ed itself by charging students to register Frank Hallgren, director of the UNL Career. Planning and Placement Center, agrees that his office should receive state tax dollars. In a letter to Clingenpeel, he said: ". . . those who believe that the career planning and placement function does not merit the same tax support that such services as the UDUI SCI II IW . U.OrilCI . mw w. -.53.. Office receive either, do not understand the function or have no concern as to how students use their college training." -Rerausfi one of a university s major deals is to prepare students .for responsible careers, universities are. obligated to help students find those careers. The ASUN executives correctly believe this heip1 should be free. Assessing a fee for registering with the placement office, another possible means of financing could The smaller selection of potential employees, in turn, might, reduce the number of employers coming to UNL to hire students. Regent approval of the ASUN recommen dation will be a . necessary step toward . obtaining siate tax support for the office. . Jane Owens 1 : Confusion over ERA still exists amy struthers "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State, on account of sex. Congress and the several States shall have power, within their respective jurisdiction to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." The word3 are music to my ears. They compose the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and have come to be known as the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The amendment holds the promise of true legal equality for men and women. It has been twisted and distorted by opponents, glorified and Idealized by supporters. And when it comes right down to it, the average American really doesn't know just what the RA is and what type of legislation now is surrounding it. Closer to home, there Is the case of the Nebraska Unicameral which ratified the amendment and now is trying to reverse that move. It seems the ERA is a culmination of efforts by American women to attain equality under the law that dates back to 1648, when one Mistress Margret Brent appealed to the Maryland Assembly for the right to have a "place and voice" in the legislative body. Her request was denied. Two hundred years later, American women still were trying to obtain a voice in their government. In 1848 the first women's convention met to discuss the right to -vote and legal discrimination of women. - . ... The first women's publication, a weekly called The Revolution, was- established in 1853 by Susan B. Anthony, who later was arrested for trying to cast a vote in the 1872 presidential elections. If it was Introduced In 1923, where has the ERA been for the last fifty years? It has been talked about in endless and repetitious committee hearings, which always produce favorable reports. Somehow, though, the amendment never got beyond those meetings. During the '503, the ERA was taken out of the closet long enough to tag onto the "Hayden rider", which was intended to reduce severely the effectiveness of the amendment. , . ' ' .- The rider stated, "The provisions of this article shall not be construed to impair any rights, benefits or exemptions, now or hereafter conferred by laws upon persons of the female sex' ' . - ' , , ' This meant to preserve all those wonderful legal "protections" which male lawmakers believed women deserved. Thanks, but no thanksl Some of those chivalrous protections included a limit on the number of hours per week a woman could work or the number of nights she could work overtime (46 statesstil.Ubav, jLJchaws .iyil the books), ano! prohibitiornof the employment of women in specific jdosv including mirrtngr the mixing, selling and dispensing of alcohol, and freight and trucking jobs. (Similar laws exist in 26 states now.) When the 91st Congress met in 1971, it was Rep. Martha Griffith of Michigan who brought the ERA out of committee and onto the floor. What followed was tremendously quick action after half a century of getting nowhere. - The House voted 350 to 15 to approve the amendment in October; the Senate began the first of a short series of hearings on the amendment that same month. " By March of 1972, the ERA had won the required two-thirds majority in both the houses of Congress and was sent to the 50 states for ratification. !f three-fourths, or 37, of the states ratify the amendment before 1979 seven years following . congressional approval the amendment would go into effect two years after the last state approves it. That gives us something to look forward to in 1981 . Presently 33 states have ratified the ERA. However, two of them Nebraska and Tennessee now are trying to back out. For the intimate revelations of the committee hearings surrounding state Sen. Richard Proud and the rest of the gang down the street, tune in next uookcamo nlaro eama nano ml ... . '- 0 m .... - - ' t J PSQO 4 daily ncbraskan friday, September 6, 1974