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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 8, 1991)
I Hiring freeze I may not bum I UNL campus By Dionne Searcey I Staff Reporter Administrators probably will not clamp a hiring freeze on the - University of Nebraska-Lin coln like the across -the-board restric tions made at UNO in response to proposed budgetcuts, an official said. Stan Liberty, interim vice chan cellor for academic affairs at UNL, said he doubts UNL will experience I overall restrictions on hiring admin Iistrators, faculty and staff members. Administrators announced an overall hiring freeze at the University of Nebraska at Omaha on March 19, said Louis Cartier, director of univer sity relations at UNO. Cartier said the freeze at UNO is a result of the Appropriations Commit tee’s preliminary budget proposal that calls for 4 percent across-the-board cuts to state agencies. Liberty said UNL officials must consider the proposed budget cuts, too, but an overall freeze could cause departments to lose good job candi dates. “We don’t want to gridlock insti tutions by freezing everything up in a panic,” he said. Cartier said UNO also faces the possibility of losing good people but “serious problems require serious measures.” Liberty said UNL is seeking an alternative to a hiring freeze that re sponds to possible budget cuts. See FREEZE on 3 Midi Kuncl of Alpha Omicron Pi takes the lead against Lisa Sickert of Alpha Phi during the Phi Psi 500 held Saturday on S Street, The 500 is an annual philanthropic event sponsored by Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. Panel debates access of crime reports By Lisa Donovan Senior Reporter Following a recent Missouri court deci sion that allowed access to campus crime reports, a flood of debate has spilled onto campuses nationwide about whether the names of student suspects should be released for public record. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is no different. Traci Bauer, editor of the student newspa per The Southwest Standard at Southwest Missouri State University, spoke at the UNL this weekend about her 1989 attempt to obtain information regarding an alleged rape that involved a basketball player. Bauer sued the university because she was denied access to the crime report. Bauer was one of five panelists who spoke Saturday before an audience of about 100 in Avery Hall as part of a forum on “Access to Campus Crime Reports.” The U.S. Department of Education has said federal funding could be removed from schools that release crime reports under the 1974 Buck ley Amendment. Southwest State University denied Bauer access to the report because of the Buckley Amendment. The district court ruled last month that the amendment, which says that student reports cannot be released for public record, does not apply to campus crime reports. Many of the panelists said the Bauer case could change the whole notion of releasing campus crime reports. John Bender, an assistant news-editorial professor at UNL, said there are two different perspectives stemming from the debate on availability of campus crime reports. One is the consumer perspective, which states that someone who is looking into attend ing a college or university should have access to campus crime statistics, he said. Bender cited the case of Howard and Connie Clery, whose daughter was beaten, raped and murdered in her dormitory room at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania in 1986. Apparently the campus had had problems before the Clery murder, but university offi cials had not made the problems public, Bender said. The Clerys sued Lehigh and used the $2 million settlement to establish Security on Campus, Inc., which works to gain access to crime reports. It’s important for students, employees and prospective college students to have access to crime statistics so they can make informed decisions about where they want to work or attend classes, Bender said. “Students can make better consumer deci sions on what colleges and universities to at tend.” The other perspective is the journalists’ point of view, Bender said. Journalists have a responsibility to report what’s going on, he said. Bender said that right now, the Department of Education is using the 1974 Buckley Amend ment, otherwise known as the Family Educa tional Rights and Privacy Act, to keep all student records privileged. The Education Department has interpreted the act to mean that campus crime reports that may include student suspects should be privi leged information. The department can with hold federal funding of colleges and universi ties that don’t comply. Bender said that although the Education Department has used the act to inhibit the release of campus crime reports, the Bauer case See PANEL on 3 / yj j Hanna investi > n*.,*. gates the UNL police X) department. Page 11. ^ The United XL J') States supplies the * ( l Kurds, warning Iraq !, | ”—7 / not to interfere. Page IL ^ A 2 J A UNL student ^ starts a write-in cam paign to become Lincoln’s mayor. Page 3. UNL women receive award for volun teerism. Page 6. The Nebraska baseball team sweeps Colorado State. Page 8. INDEX " Wire 2 Opinion 4 Sports 8 A&E 11 Classifieds _ Speaker: Disparities affirm policy’s need By Tabitha Hiner Senior Reporter The only way to end racial and gender disparities is through Affirmative Ac tion, despite its costs, an economics professor at American University in Washing ton, D.C., said on Friday. Barbara Bcrgmann told a group of about 160 people at the College of Business Admini stration that disparities can be proved in many ways and that inequalities won't change unless Affirmative Action is implemented. “You can’t change it just by saying, ‘Come on, try to hire blacks,”’ she said. Affirmative Action usually is advocated by arguments that look at the past and future, she said, but the real justification lies in present disparities. The “backward-looking” argument states that past discrimination against blacks can be attributed to their preparation for the job mar ket and that Affirmative Action is needed to make up lor past treatment, Bergmann said. The “forward-looking” argument claims that the world isn’t going to be a happy place as long as gross racial disparities exist, she said. The argument states that “we’ve got to shoehorn blacks into the better jobs just so we can get their incomes up,” Bergmann said. “Both of these arguments . . . make the assumption that the reason blacks don’t have these jobs is that they arc unworthy to have them,” she said. These arguments play along with the com petition myth embedded in society, she said. That myth is based on the assumption that a business hiring workers to improve profit only will look for productivity when hiring, Bergmann said. Women whose salaries are 70 percent of men’s salaries and blacks who cither aren’t hired or who arc hired at lower salaries than whites’ salaries intrude into that paradise, she said, because they show that productivity has not been the only consideration. “Needless to say, this demand that we make an effort to increase the number of black people hired by a certain employer... clashes with this norm we have in our mind,” she said. Quotas and timetables should be used to implement Affirmative Action, Bergmann said, but their use should vary with each case. Bergmann handed out copies of a possible discrimination situation to the audience to show how economics students at American Univer sity responded. The situation was an altered Supreme Court case in which no blacks had been hired for hundreds of entry-level jobs. After the students were asked their recom mendations concerning the case, Bergmann said, 40 percent supported goals and time tables. Because the case was seemingly cut and dry, Bergmann said, she would conclude that people’s attitude toward Affirmative Action is not related to the degree of racism or sexism that occurs.