Students take offensive

The last several weeks have seen a steady rise in the tempo of student demonstrations on a variety of issues across the nation.

Focusing on the impeachment of President Nixon, 200 people at the University of Cincinatti picketed an address by Vice-President Gerald Ford on Feb 20. At the State University of New York, 250 students marched and burned an effigy of Nixon. A White House representative who spoke to a still-loyal Republican club in Queens on Feb 23, was met by 250 demonstrators calling for Nixon's ouster.

Rallies and actions in seven cities also sought to protest the presence on campuses of corporate recruiters, especially representatives of the oil companies. A demonstration on Feb 25 at San Jose State College in California, called by the Radical Student Union there, blocked the recruitment efforts of an executive of Standard Oil of California.

The 300 demonstrators demanded that Standard Oil "rehire the ones you laid off", in a reference to large-scale layoffs at Standard refineries and other facilities. A company spokesman claimed later that the recruiter's visit had been called off "due to lack of interest".

An Exxon recruiter at the Ann Arbor campus of Michigan University was met by 100 students protesting his presence last Feb 5. On Feb 14, recruiters were targets of protests in Ann Arbor. Over 500 Berkeley students at the University of California staged an action to block an Exxon recruiter there Feb 6. A Marine Corps recruiter at Boston University and a Macy's recruiter at Columbia University were all targets of protest in the last several weeks.

Staggering rises in the prices of food and gas provoked actions of students on several campuses.

Students from Trenton State College and 15 independent gas station owners gathered at the New Jersey state legislature in Trenton Feb 6 to register their objection to price increases and to make a statement to their Congressmen. They were denied the floor and the session was adjourned by the legislators.

One hundred students at Kent State University in Ohio rallied to support the demands made by the Council of Independent Truckers for a rollback in diesel fuel prices. They had previously joined the truckers picketlines in Akron.

Demonstrations this month at Columbia University, called by the Attica Brigade, a national anti-imperialist student organisation, hit rises in tuition, financial aid cutbacks and called for an increase in the enrollment of third world and working class students. Fifty people interrupted a meeting of the University senate, Feb 22 to press the demands which were supported by 3000 signatures on a petition. Over 100 activists at the Buffalo campus of the State University of New York gathered Feb 7 to protest the cutbacks in funding of department offering courses in Black women and working class studies.

Other actions included a meeting last week at Iowa City State College called to support the Palestinian resistance movement in the Middle East.

—From The Guardian

That's the Way Pat wants it

Washington (SWS)—President Nixon's personal jetliner, originally furnished and decorated at a cost of $1.5 million, is undergoing a $285,000 redecoration at the request of Nixon's wife, [unclear: hat].

The alteration, at government expense, was begun after Pat expressed a wish that the guest quarters be closer to the presidential lounge.

Washington (APS)—A recently released survey by a Washington consumer group shows that the men who control the 18 largest oil corporations in America are also the directors of the largest banks and major companies.

The Centre for Science in the Public Interest claims that "about 25 oilmen in the banks of New York and other cities make national policies". For example, the Centre found that directors of the Chemical Bank of New York are also directors of such oil corporations as Exxon, Texaco, Mobil and Shell, and that certain directors of both Amoco and Mobil also sit on the board of the Chase Manhattan Bank.

The study concludes that the 18 largest oil companies have interlocking directorships with 132 US banks and financial corporations, 31 insurance companies, and 224 large manufacturing and distribution corporations.

United States: When is Discrimination Simple Justice?

"Discrimination in reverse," some educators have called it; others say it is simple justice. Because members of minority groups in the United States have long been subjected to discriminatory practises in education on the basis of their racial origins, one effort to correct these past wrongs has been the introduction of special quota systems in the universities. But now a law student, Macro Defunis, is sueing the University of Washington Law School and claiming that his application was rejected because of his skin colour—or lack of it. Defunis is white.

It is Defunis' contention that the Law School has established a quota for the admission of minority group students and that it therefore discriminated against him and other white applicants whose academic qualifications were above those of many blacks, Indians and Filipinos who had been accepted the year before. Since the University of Washington is a state institution, Defunisinsists that he has been denied equal protection of the laws, which is a violation of the 14th amendment of the US Constitution. The persistent law student has now succeded in bringing his case to the attention of the Supreme Court.

The University's position is that it has established no formal quota system but only an "affirmative action programme" designed to increase the number of minority students in the Law School. The programme is in keeping with the state's interest in achieving "legal education for a multiracial and pluralistic society". But the University's claim that no students were admitted or denied admission on the basis of race was denied in the lower state court. The state supreme court later reversed the decision, citing several US Supreme Court ruling in favour of school busing schemes and against Southern "freedom of choice" plans.

"Clearly consideration of race by school authorities does not violate the 14th Amendment where the purpose is to bring together rather than separate the races," the Washing State Supreme Court concluded. Defunis was not satisfied. No one can say what the final ruling will be. The issue is extremely complex and some lawyers feel that the important difference between the Defunis case and past cases of legally sanctioned discrimination lies in the yoluntary nature of the University of Washington plan. The Law School was under no constitutional obligation to increase the enrollment of minority students; it was, if at all, a case of de facto discrimination—a category that the law courts have never clearly defined.

The fact remains that in the state of Washington there exists a "gross underrepresentation of minorities in the legal system." The University has conscientiously tried to remedy this situation, Whether its plan is the best possible one is difficult to say. Certainly Marco Defunis does not think so. But then, ironically, the question of his own legal education is now strictly academic. While his case against the University has been making its painstaking way up through the courts, Defunis has been allowed to continue at the Law School. Right now, Defunis is completing his third and final year of study.

Genocide still o.k. in US

Washington (SWS)—The United States Senate refused last week for another year to ratify a 25-year-old international treaty outlawing genocide.

The defeat, which came when the Senate failed to get the two-thirds majority necessary to over-ride a filibuster and obtain further debating time, leaves the United States as one of the few countries in the world which is not legally obligated to refrain from genocidal activities.

Training for repression

Washington (ANS)—The US Department of Defense has admitted that in the last 36 months it has trained over a hundred officers of the Portuguese Air Force to prepare them for military action against black guerrila forces in Mozambique.

The Pentagon also acknowledged that Portugal is using US equipment, ammunition, and aircraft in its colonial wars.

See Nguyen Run

Saigon (SWS)—Government officials announced here last week that President Nguyen Van Thieu has formally approved a bill amending the constitution to allow him to run for a third consecutive term as president in 1975.

The amendment had earlier been passed by the puppet National Assembly, and will enable Thieu, who ran unopposed last time around to painlessly continue his regime, always assuming that both Thieu and his regime exist by 1975—a proposition that is considered doubtful in many quarters.

Old Adage Proved Wrong

Tulsa (NS)—A University of Oklahoma professor has devised a simple solution to the fuel crisis. Dr Walter Ewbank mixes his gasoline with 13 per cent water and reports getting 30 per cent higher mileage as a result.

Under normal conditions water and gasoline do not stay mixed, and the water would end up fouling the spark plugs, but Dr Ewbank claims to have developed a mechanical device that keeps the two together, and the water then causes the fuel to burn more efficiently.

The professor's discovery is now being tested by the post office on four postal vehicles.

Nixon promoted self

Washington (ZNS)—In 1969 and 1970, President Richard Nixon signed his W-2 tax forms merely as "Richard Nixon".

In 1971, and 1972 however, he signed the same forms as "the Honourable Richard Nixon"

For the two years in which he was plain "Richard Nixon" the president paid more than $73,000 in income taxes, over the two years in which he was "Honourable" he paid only $5,000.

PRG Trashes Ky

Saigon (ZNS)—Remember Nguyen Cao Ky, former Air Marshall and one-time ruler of South Vietnam?

Well, he came out of political obscurity and back into the news recently, though he probably wishes he hadn't. He ran into a little difficulty with the PRG revolutionaries.

Ky had been living like a landed gentleman on a 30,000 acre estate in the Vietnamese Central Highlands, assisted by the Saigon Government which was nice enough to give him a helicopter and a couple of light planes to help things out on the farm.

Last week however, he suffered a slight reverse, the PRG burned his luxurious plantation house to the ground. Not, apparently because of his past, but because the former dictator has refused to pay his property taxes to PRG groups operating in his neighbour hood.

The Army gets the gas

Washington (NS)—The Pentagon reported last week that it is requesting a 15 per cent increase in its fuel allocations for the first three months of 1974.

Rear Admiral Nathan Sonenshein, the Defense Department's director of energy, will ask that petroleum products supplied to the military be increased by nearly four million gallons a day. If the request is granted, it will mean that US defense installations will be consuming an incredible 30 million gallons of fuel every 24 hours.

Death penalty for aiding guerrilas

The Smith regime is to introduce the death penalty for aiding guerrillas or for failing to report their presence to the authorities. It will also be an offence punishable by hanging to undergo guerrilla training or to recruit people for guerrilla training.

Amendments to the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act tabled by 'Minister of Justice, Law and Order', Desmond Lardner-Burke, increase the maximum penalty for terrorism and acts of sabotage to life imprisonment or death.

The Minister is also to have increased powers to prevent political meetings. At present he can ban any gathering for three months by publishing a notice in the Government Gazette. A new amendment increases this period to 12 months.

A 16-year-old African faces the death penalty if he is convicted on charges brought against him in the Salisbury High Court of being involved in a guerrilla attack in which a white farmer's wife died.

He is alleged to have taken part in an attack on a farm in the Centenary area on January 24. Guerrillas are said to have thrown four hand grenades into the farmer's house, one of which killed Mrs Gertruda Kleynhands.

The case—like previous guerrilla trials—is being heard in camera and the name of the accused has been withheld.

Another white woman was killed in a landmine explosion near Cenenary on September 2. She was the wife of a policeman who had recently moved into the area.

In another explosion later the same week three more people—one white and two Africans were injured.