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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
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PSQO 4
daily ncbraskan
friday, September 6, 1974
