University Daily Kansan, June 15, 1984
Page 5
Directors call ruling setback
By MARY ALICE LEARY Staff Reporter
A Lawrence city official and a KU director yesterday agreed that affirmative action got a backtrack this week from the Supreme Court's decision that workers with seniority could not be laid off before women and minorities with less seniority hired under affirmative action plans.
"Last-hired-first-fired" is foolish," said Rehilio Samuel, director of the Lawrence Human Resources Department, which enforces civil and human rights for the city.
Vernell Spearman, director of the office of minority affairs, said that the rulings was a setback for women's and minorities' rights, and that by the work women and minorities in the work office have overlooked a significant contribution.
FRANCIS H. HELLER, KU professor of law, said that the effect of the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action would depend on how broad or narrow the opinion written by the Supreme Court would not receive the Court's interpretive opinion until next week.
Affirmative action is a program required by law to eliminate discrimination practices in hiring and employment of race, color, sex, creed and age.
Although private employers are not required by law to have affirmative action plans, some did so because of social pressures in the workplace, Spearman said. The ruling was a signal that employers will no longer be to conform to those pressures, she said.
"UNTIL, AFFIRMATIVE action, a lot of places were sadly lacking minorities and women," she said.
She said that the affirmative action work of the past 20 to 30 years in the United States will "go down the tube" as a result of the ruling.
The ruling defeated affirmative action's purpose and would make maintaining a balance between white workers difficult. Spearman said.
Samuel said that the move away from equal employment in the work place was a result of the conservative attitude of the current Supreme Court and the Reagan administration.
I'm honing
I'm hoping someone will challenge this ruling, but the Supreme Court has the final say and where do you turn after that?
Vernell Spearman,
minority affairs
He also said that an erosion of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was responsible for the decline.
♥
"I'm totally opposed to the Reagan Administration," he said.
WOMEN AND MINORITIES have not created the problem of discrimination, Samuel said. Employers have created the problem by failing to hire
He said that older women and minorities should file complaints of discrimination, because if they had been given the same opportunities as white males were given, they would have been more likely to the white males have today.
and promote women and minorities, he said.
Heller said that if people thought they were victims of discrimination, relief could be sought through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was the policing arm for the discrimination laws.
Samuel said that though equal opportunity might have lost ground by the decision, it would motivate those who were involved in civil rights to push harder for affirmative action.
THE CASE THE decision was based on began 10 years ago in a Memphis, Tenn., firehouse, whose department was almost exclusively white until the 1970s, when the department used the city for racial bias
In 1861, two lower courts ruled that the Memphis Fire Department had to retain a certain percentage of blacks. That forced the city to lay off white laborers.
Spearman said, "I'm hoping someone will challenge this ruling, but the Supreme Court has the final say and where do you turn after that?"
But, the white firefighters took their case to the Supreme Court and won.
Samuel said that the next step for affirmative action would be at the polls next November, when the public could vote out of office the leaders who were not doing their jobs.
Bush breaks tie vote to save MX
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — Vice President George Bush cast a dramatic, tie-breaking vote last night, saving the 10-warhead MX missile from extinction, but opponents said that he would "hopes for the MX are dimming."
The crucial vote was tied 48-48 on a motion to kill an amendment by Sen. Lawton Chalfun, D-Fla., to put the MX on ice for one year while examining the feasibility of a small, single-warhead missile. Bush declared, "the Senate being equally divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative and the motion to table is agreed to."
"It means that hopes for the MX are dimming." Chiles said after the 49-48 defeat of his proposal.
Earlier, the Republican-dominated Senate rejected by a vote of 55-41, a Democratic attempt to eliminate funds in the $291 billion defense authorization bill for the production of 21 missiles in the fiscal year 1985. That amendment sought to limit the amounts missile funds but apply $1.4 billion of the saved funds to conventional warfare programs.
Bush, who was brought in Wednesday night by the administration to preside over the Senate in case his vote was needed to turn back a new GI Bill, last broke a Senate tie on Nov. 8 with his vote to restore money for nerve gas weapons.
As president of the Senate, Bush votes in the case of ties
Chiles said that President Reagan
lobbied hard all afternoon to preserve the missile against his assault. Sen. Daniel Moyhan, D.N.Y., told reporters after the vote, "We won."
"There are never going to be 100 MX missiles deployed in Minuteman silos," he said, declaring the vote was an expression of severe dissatisfaction with the vulnerable basing mode planned for the missile.
Democrats argued that the weapon was a destabilizing first-strike weapon that did nothing to control among the superpowers.
Members had braced themselves for an all-night session to finish the bill, and cots were brought in for members to use for naps. But just before midnight, the bill's managers decided to quit at midnight CDT, and return to the bill yesterday morning. They also will work Monday and around the clock into Tuesday if necessary, they said.
The MX's vulnerability in existing silos ruins its use as an arms control bargaining chip. Sen. Edward Kenedey, D-Mass., said. President Reagan, has "opposed every single arms control agreement ever to come before the Senate." As for the missile, Kennedy said, "the time has come to put the MX out of its misery."
Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said, "I haven't seen the Soviets racing to the bargaining table. So much for the bargaining between us. He has challenged anyone supporting this, so make one argument that (i) it increases stability in the nuclear arms
the "Midgetman" single-warhead missile now being developed is a better deterrent because "we have infinite flexibility" on where to put it. "They don't know where to aim. They don't know where to shoot."
Sen. Patrick Leahy, DV., chief sponsor of the initial Democratic amendment that, in effect, would save $1.2 billion out of the defense bill, termed the MX as "perhaps the premier case of defense priorities gone astray" because of its vulnerability, its first-strike capability and the various basing systems proposed over the years.
"No one should be fooled into thinking maintaining strong nuclear forces depends on building the MX. The truth, the hard truth, is that we have to take it seriously, and it makes a nuclear exchange more, not less likely." Leahy said.
President Reagan initially asked for 40 of the huge missiles, but the Armed Services committee pared it to 21. The house passed bill authorized 15 missiles, but with a reauthorization that the missile spending only after Congress took another role on the program next spring.
As a prelude to the MX debate, the Senate rejected 55-43 an attempt by Sen. Alan Dixon, D-III, to send the bill back to Tower's committee with instructions to hack out another $8.3 billion.
Once the Senate finishes with the bill, it will have to go to conference with the House to settle the many differences between the two versions.
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