ustxtxb_obs_1957_08_02_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

r \\ –/ Prof Rehearing Barred rollment is inevitable. Obtaining qualified faculty members is increasingly difficult. It is this possibility which disturbs me most, for all colleges, including Tech, are now confronted with very serious problems of faculty recruiting.” Jones made these and similar statements between July 13 and last Saturday night, when Watkins released his statement. Four days later, his own position becoming increasingly opposite to that of the board’s, Jones told an Observer reporter he had decided, “for the good of Tech,” that he had said “about all I’m going to say. I’m on the record now. I’m willing to sit here until midnight and talk, but I will not answer questions which I think can only stir up more controversy.” Jones then refused to answer, in whole or part, whether he now felt an irreconcilable gap existed between himself and the board, whether he planned to help Abernethy, Stensland, and Greenberg find other jobs, whether he would now recommend them for jobs elsewhere \(although he had defended their teaching records earlier, he said in response to questioning in this area that he had received “new evidence which might make me hesitate to recommend one” of the fired teachers. He would not identify this teachaccreditation was a certainty, whether he had been allowed to, or in fact had, defended the fired teachers to Watkins, whether he personally had been contacted by the Southern Association or the American Association of University Professors, whether other teachers’ jobs were likely to be in jeopardy now, whether the fired teachers have yet been replaced, and whether he felt that the silence which he plans now to maintain was a proper position for him to assume. To one question, had the board in effect, told him to keep quiet? Jones gave a nettled and emphatic answer. “No, sir,” he said, “it has not.” in Austin referred to the American heritage of free speech “without fear of government reprisal” and denounced the Texas Tech directors for “star-chamber secret firings” “reminiscent of the thought control exercised in the universities of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.” The people, it said, “find obnoxious the politically-motivated firings of Texas Tech professors who have expressed their thoughts.” “Academic and moral fitness” should be the sole criteria for state teachers, with “political or sociological conformity” not a prerequisite. The resolution demanded the reinstatement of the three professors fired. Donald Agnew, executive secretary of the Southern association, said preliminary reports indicate two and perhaps all three of the fired professors “were dismissed by the governing board without due process or attention to academic freedom and tenure … We are very much concerned … and are looking into it.” The AAUP has also started an investigation. Labor Resolves Many Reforms =0 Reactions to Firings Pile Up Watkins decision was Tech’s president, Dr. E. N. Jones. After the July 13 action he issued statements which, he admitted to the Observer, implied a “confidence” that the board, when Watkins returned, would grant a reviewin a called meeting or at the regular Aug. 17 session. He said immediately before the Watkins decision was reached that “dismissal from a college faculty should be with due process … it is within their professional and constitutional rights.” And he said, when asked if he now knew why Abernethy, Greenberg, and Stensland had been fired: “With the qualification that I could have misinterpreted the reasons, I drew the conclusion that .in the case of Abernethy it was his political activities; in the case of Greenberg, speeches on integration were mentioned; in the case of the Adult Education the discussion indicated the board felt the money could better be used elsewhere.” Possible Effects Jones said also, minutes after the Watkins decision, that he feared loss of accreditation for ‘Tech from the Southern Association of Colleges and SeCondary Schools: “I am gravely concerned over the possible effects of this decision …. both immediately and in the future. For example, the Southern Association …. already has officially requested a report on what has happened. The Southern Association is the accrediting agency for the colleges universities, and high schools from Virginia to Texas. “Individual colleges and entire state-supported systems have been put on probation by the association. There were problems in Louisiana during the Huey Long administration, for example. If the conditions leading to probation are not cleared, the school’s accreditation can be removed. Such action has a disastrous effect upon the transfer of credits by students to other schools and materially lowers the value of degrees conferred. A college loses academic acceptance and respectability with loss of accreditation. “A depressing effect upon en AUSTIN The Southern Assn. of Colleges and the American Assn. of University Professors are eyeing the Texas Tech dismissal of three professors suspiciously, and U. S. Senator Ralph Yarborough has condemned the firings in emphatic language, as has the Texas AFL-CIO. Yarborough said the refusal of the Tech directors to reinstate the three is a “tragic departure” from American principles. If the firings stand, he said, “the board has buried the principles of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the founding fathers.” Yarborough said the board cast a shadow over the school’s great history by “intolerance and lack of wisdom.” The three were not fired for inefficiency but f o r “exercising their right of free speech,” he said. “T h i s is democratic Texas, not communistic Russia or fascist Germany, and we should observe and apply democratc principles.” A resolution adopted by the AFL-CIO merger convention thority.” Did Dr. Jones think that the Governor \(who appoints the thing in the present situation? “You know more about that than I do.” Would Dr. Jones, would anyone at Tech, ask the Governor to look into the fuss? He would not comment. InOrder. e. Faculty members, surveyed at random by newsmen, reflected the Jones dichotomy; so did Lubbock townspeople. Dr. C. B. Qualia, a language teacher, said he didn’t think it would be “wise” to comment, “the way things are going.” Dean of Agriculture W. L. Stangel, like Qualia, an original Tech faculty member, said the fired men deservedl a hearing. Lubbock’s mayor, S. S. Forrest, said he “didn’t really know enough” about the merits of the case to comment, although he had every confidence in the board’s ability and dedication to Tech. Dr. J. Chess Lovern, pastor of Lubbock’s First Methodist Church, said it was “unthinkable” to him that the fired trio were to be denied a hearing. The affected three, meantime, were, they said, at loose ends. Abernethy, who recently added a $5,000 wing to his Lubbock home, has an offer from Michigan State which he has not yet accepted. Greenberg told his department head, Dr. Sylvan J. Kaplan \(from New York, where he is jobbled at” by another college, but to that time was undecided. Stensland said his plans were also uncertain and that, because of the “far-reaching implications” of the dismissals, he wanted more time to think before he would talk about what he might do. Tech’s mood, expectancy of storm, was most clearly to be found in the not-for-attribution comments of administrators and faculty members. One of these called attention to the words carved over the door of the administration building, emphasizing their order: “Religion, I n d u s t r y, Virtue, Wealth, Enlightenment, Citizenship.” He noted that these were flanked by Mirabeau Lamar’s “A cultivated mind is the guardian genius of Democracy. It is the only dictator that freemen acknowledge, the only security freemen d e s i r e,” and Solomon’s “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but Sin is a reproach to any people.” Another waved a hand at Tech’s statue of the late Will Rogers astride a slope-shouldered cowpony: “Ask him what he thinks. Haley talks to him, I understand.” A third called the board actions “stupid,” and asked “who in hell cares, really, about the people who got fired? Maybe they shoulda been fired; maybe I should. But not that way. It’s the way they did it. Stupid.” Then he gestured with his chin at a poster advertising a square dance for undergraduates: “See that. That’s a pretty heavy handed kid’s joke. But you want a comment. That’s my comment.” The poster read: “Approved by the Mau-Mau.” Notches for Haley Clearly, said the Tech community \(no matter which side of the controversy its individual memcould nowif he has not already done sofile three notches on the butt of his pistol: one each for Abernethy, a professor of government who has been exercising some of what he believed were his rights; Greenberg, a psychologist who is blind and can’t see the color, or the importance of AUSTIN What does unified labor in Texas believe? What will it use its power for? Some of the answers are contained in the resolutions adopted by the AFL-CIO merger convention here this week. They range from opposition to sales taxes and support of a fair corporate income tax to demands for better unemployment compensation services and an industrial safety code. For a keynote, “Government has the basic responsibility of meeting the broad health and welfare needs of the people,” a statement in the community services committee’s report, is probably as accurate as any. “The union member is first and foremost a citizen of his community,” says the report. And, “the community has a responsibility to its citizens. It must be prepared to meet those social needs which individuals or families cannot meet adequately with their own resources.” In its economic policy report, the convention slammed obliquely at the Texas Research League, a business-financed agency that is due to get the state’s tax research job. “Any objective study of our tax system should be a group composed of citizens of all economic groups and should include representatives of labor, farming, and small business as well as industry,” said AFL-CIO. Texas ranks “among the lowest in its education and welfare programs” and must adequately finance them, “although additional taxes may be required.” Present tax structure in Texas doesn’t require industries “to share an equitable proportion” of the taxes, AFL-CIO says; it is opposed to “any form of sales taxes” and favors “a fair corporate income tax.” In economic policy, AFL-CIO also endorses controls on loan sharks and their principal device, credit insurance; low interest loans under liberal terms; an increase in the $600-per-person income tax exemption; and elimination of federal tax law loopholes. The Texas unions favor federal aid for school construction, with safeguards against federal control; adequate teacher pay; personal and professional security for teachers through the establishment of the legal right to collective bargaining for them, with tenure and pension provisions; and assurance to the teacher of “freedom to teach the rtuth.” More medical schools are needed to let young people who want to study medicine do so, says the state AFL-CIO. For its own household, AFLCIO recommends that “disclosure of our affairs in reasonable detail must be made, and perusal and discussion concerning them should be encouraged.” It observes that “public defalcation and private embezzlement has been far greater in the political and business worlds than in the area covered by labor unions.” An ethical practices committee, on which no officers or employees of the state AFL-CIO can serve, is to receive complaints of unethical conduct in unions, hold hear the color, of a human skin; and Stensland, a teacher of adults whose work the directors thought unnecessary. Maybe, even, he could file a fourth notch, for Tech, itself. It would be necessary to wait a while to see about that. ings, and make recommendations to the executive board of the state group. The convention commended the legislature for the slum clearance bill and urged cities to take advantage of it. It condemned the legislature’s failure to do away with the provision that each agency of the government sets its own “prevailing” wages without regard to “what wages actually are prevailing in the area” for government construction jobs. It asked for a public hearing with right of appeal on this question. Highway construction wage scales were condemned as sub-standard. More use of union funds for tinion hall and home construction loans was suggested as a way around the high cost of money. Labor legislation changes were asked, including repeal of S.B. 45 “which requires striking or picketing before an election” on having a union; abolition of “the present arbitrary formula” on picketing procedures and undefined limitation on language on picket lines; “reasonable union security contractual provisions after approval of a majority of the employees concerned”; a functional state Department of Labor to hold representation elections, and an industrial safety code. In Latin-American affairs the AFL-CIO endorsed the continuatilon of Mexican labor tours. It recommended since U.S. citizens have to “board up their homes and travel north” as migrants much of the year to make their living, “that alien workers be stopped from displacing these citizens from their jobs or jobs they could have at a lesser rate of pay.” In the social insurance area, AFL-CIO endorsed higher old age benefits and a national health program, “including national health insurance … with full reservations of free choice of doctors and patients.” The unions severely criticized the Texas Employment Commission, whose policies they said “restrict the intended rights of the unemployed.” The law itself contains many penalties against employees but fails to provide ample penalties for employers for abusing provisions “to protect their tax rate” and coerce employees not to take advantage of their rights, said the AFL-CIO. Only one of the three TEC commissioners the employer memberis “properly placed” in his category as defined by law, said the unions. “Moreover, there is