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THE RED AND
Georgia's only collegiate daily newspaper
VOLUME 84, NUMBER 4
UNIVERSITY OF 4.EORGIA. ATHENS. GEORGIA :KI6II2
BLACK
Inside
A guide to
Athens’
nightclubs
See p. 2
TUESDAY. SEPTEMBER 27. 1977
Thomason threatens
Georgia Power suit
called ‘guarded'
case?
She also differed with the White House
and Attorney General Griffin Bell, who
have stated opposition to rigid, exclu
sionary quotas
“The courts will approve rigid quotas
in certain circumstances,’' she said.
“Courts routinely and always use quotas
They’ve used them dozens of times with
police and fire departments across the
country.”
SHE SAID, “the Justice Department
lawyers clearly recognize that, the way
this final brief was written”
Mrs. Norton, who is black, cited
court-ordered hiring lists of applicants
who have passed a special qualifying
test, and "the court orders for every two
whites appointed from this list, you must
appoint one black
“That’s a quota,” she said. “It would
be wrong, technically, to say that is the
remedy to be used in all circumstances.
Everybody on the list is qualified, but it’s
a quota and the whites certainly have
their rights delayed And you can run out
of jobs before you get to all the whites.”
She expressed doubts even most blacks
favor widespread use of rigid quotas
"I'm not sure anybody’s for rigid
quotas,” she said. “Believe me, the
blacks’ support of rigid quotas comes out
of the fact that whites oppose them.
When whites make a lot out of quotas,
blacks think of that as a symbol.”
She said more flexible goals and
targets usually are adquate to assure
minorities equal opportunity.
request for an investigation into the
practices of Georgia Power's security
department
Meanwhile. Thomason, represented by
me Albany law firm of Vansant and
Ingram, obtained legal testimony Friday
in Macon from a former Georgia Power
security department employe
While declining to release the details of
that testimony until later this week.
Thomason said the former employe’s
statement provides "key information”
into “questionable” practices of the
utility’s security department.
“The information that I have obtained
and documented through a court reporter
is more than enough for the Public
Service Commission to obtain an audit of
Georgia Power.” Thomason said.
GEORGIA POWER S cost of employing
and equipping its security department
with nine plainclothes investigators,
sophisticated intelligence and photogra
phic devices and automobiles and
helicopters was financed through utility
rate hikes to power customers. Thomason
said.
“‘And my information is that the costs
were up in the millions of dollars,” he
said, comparing the security depart
ment’s equipment to “that you would
expect only the CIA (Central Intelligence
Agency) and the FBI (Federal Bureau of
Investigation i.”
Thomason said the proposed invasion
of privacy suit against the utility will
seek to “force Georgia Power to refund
every penny of that money to the rate
payers of Georgia
“If the power company had had to pay
for the security department out of its own
pocket, it would never have had these
kind of activities going on," Thomason
said
IN RESPONSE to the security
department disclosures. Georgia Power
Co. officials have maintained their
activities were designed to “protect
Georgia Power company and equipment
and personnel ”
A statement issued by the utility
earlier this month said the company
"does not authorize or tolerate any
political spying, nor do we authorize any
files on individuals whose political or
social ideas might differ from our own ”
Thomason said he is not critical of
information gathered by the power
company concerning the security of
power plants or substations
“I would defend the company s right to
keep information like that That fact does
not offend me at all
“But what 1 am opposed to are these
questionable, illegal activities of Georgia
Power that were passed off as
intelligence.” he said
Thomason said the suit he files against
the power company will include the
names of a number of other individuals
and groups which were targets of the
security department’s investigations
Lester Maddox
what the pain meant
Maddox first drew national attention in
1964 when he chased blacks from his
"Pickrick" fried chicken restaurint with
a pistol He later leased the restaurant to
avoid integration and it subsequently
closed
He was elected governor of Georgia in
1966. defeating moderate Ellis Amall in
the Democratic primary runoff He
trailed Republican Howard “Bo" Calla
way in the popular vote but was chosen
by the Democratic state legislature when
neither candidate received a majority
due to a write-in vote for Amal!
President Jimmy Carter then a state
senator, was eliminated in the first
primary but spent the next four years
running for governor and won the post in
1970 Maddox was elected lieutenant
governor because the state's chief
executives were then not able to succeed
themselves
Carter and Maddox frequently tangled
and when Carter finished his term,
Maddox sought election as governor for a
second time Although Maddox led 12
Democrats in the primary. Gov. George
Busbee easily won a runoff
The defeat brought an end to
Maddox's turbulent eight-year political
career in the state -a period Busbee
described as “pickhandle politics”
because of the pick handles Maddox
autographed for customers at his fned
chicken restaurants
Maddox ran for president in 1976 under
the American Independent party banner
attacking Carter as “the most dishonest
man I ever met” and a “socialist.” but
polled teas than 1 per cent of the vote
By YVONNE WILLIAMS
Assistant state editor
Consumer activist Larry Thomason
said Monday he will bring a class action
legal suit against Georgia Power Co. for
invasion of privacy
He charged that the utility company
has violated the privacy of a number of
individuals and groups by maintaining
secret security files on peisons consi
dered “subversive” to the company’s
interests.
Thomason, a former stale legislator
and currently an attorney for the Georgia
Consumer Center, said he has received
reliable information that he was among
those investigated by undercover agents
of the power company.
Other targets of clandestine surveil
lance and investigations by the electric
utility reportedly include Gene Guerrero,
executive director of the American Civil
Liberties Union of Georgia, the Ralph
Nader Congress Project, the Interpeace
Organization, certain news media em
ployes and the Georgia Pow.er Project
“I'm going to put a stop to it,"
Thomason vowed. "I am outraged that
that kind of thing is being done ”
THE DECATUR attorney said that
following the Atlanta Journal’s disclosure
earlier this month of the power
company’s sophisticated intelligence
operations, “It didn't take me long to find
out that my name was among that
hallowed few.”
Thomason said the state Public Service
Commission (PSC) has granted his
Narrow ruling
in Bakke
MARIETTA. Ga (UPI)-Colorful for
mer Georgia Gov Lester Maddox, who
suffered a serious heart attack Sunday
night, was taken off the critical list
Monday but still remained in an intensive
care unit at a Marietta hospital
A spokesman for Urban Medical
Hospital said Maddox, who will be 62
Friday, was listed in "guarded”
condition, an improvement from his
earlier critical status
Although not permitted any visitors or
phone calls, Maddox was not expected to
be in intensive care for more than five
days, the spokesman said He was
described as having had “a good night”
and able to sleep although he suffered
some pain initially
The heart attack was a myocardial
infarction, or blockage of the arteries
feeding the heart, according to Dr
Erdogan Oran, a heart specialist treating
Maddox
Maddox, who became a national figure
in his opposition to racial integration,
suffered the attack at his home Sunday
while working in the yard about 8 p m
His wife, Virginia, said that when she
looked outside. “I saw him lying on the
front seat of the car ar.d I said to myself,
“uh-oh ’ I ran out there and he said he
was having a real bad pain in his arm ”
Mrs Maddox helped him inside where
he took something for the pain but when
it persisted. Maddox was rushed to the
hospital
The former governor, who recently got
into the real estate business and had
traveled with a former dishwasher as a
two-man cabaret act. had no history of
heart trouble, his wife said, but “he knew
WASHINGTON (UPI)-The head of the
Equal Employment Opportunity Com
mission predicts the so-called Bakke
case, to be argued before the Supreme
Court Oct. 12, will fail to result in a broad
ruling on the issue of minority quotas.
But Eleanor Holmes Norton said in an
interview that in the long run. U S courts
will uphold mcinl quotas in some
instances to correct past discrimination
The government submitted a friend-of
the-court brief last week, in effect urging
a narrow ruling supporting affirmative
actions, in the case in which Allan Bakke,
a white, has challenged a special
admissions program at the University of
California medical school at Davis.
Bakxe. who failed to win admission,
went to court after some less-qualified
minority applicants were accepted under
the program which set aside 16 of 100
places in the entering class for
“disadvantaged" persons.
CIVIL RIGHTS groups fear the court
will use the case to retreat from
advances made by blacks since school
desegregation cases 20 years ago.
Mrs Norton who was consulted before
the Justice Department took its final
position on the Bakke case, criticized
early drafts of the brief that “left open
the interpretation that existing affirma
tive action programs—ones that the
courts or the Congress had approved-
might be illegal ."
The day of the
During yesterday’s torrential downpour, flying saucers
invaded the University campus. The two freshmen in the
top photo, unaccustomed to such strange goings-on, decided
flying saucers
Photos bv RUSSELL SHELDON
contrast, the upperclassmen in the lower picture seem
quite used to such happenings and are merely going about
their appointed rounds. Actually, the pictures are the result
ue.
““HM
Thornton charged in projector theft
B) TOM BARTON
City editor
Student filmmaker Spencer Thornton.
22. of 540 Oglethorpe Ave., was arrested
by University police Monday morning in
connection with a Kodak movie projector
belonging to the journalism school that
was reported missing earlier this year
Police entered Thornton's home in June
with a search warrant, and picked up
several items, including the projector,
valued at 190 Thornton is charged with
theft by taking, and is scheduled to
appear in Magistrate's Court on Oct 24
The arrest centers around the
projector, which was checked out of the
journalism school last spring, but was
never returned At that time, students
could borrow equipment to use on
projects by signing their name and
leaving their phone numbers
“We go through at the end of every
quarter and check and make sure nothing
is missing,” Robert Crow, business
manager for the journalism school, said
Crow said students are contacted if
they still have material that must be
turned in. "Like the library, the student
is subject to a fine if it is not returned in
time." he said
Crow added that "if the phone number
is there, we contact the student directly.”
If the equipment is still not returned.
Crow said that he reports it as missing to
the University police
Thornton said he did not wish to
discuss how he obtained the projector,
but said he feels that he is being made an
example of. and that he was the victim of
a “malicious" letter written to Crow.
“An anonymous letter was sent to Crow
over the summer saying that I had
equipment belonging to tne journalism
school without permission." Thornton
said “This person did not have the guts
to come to me about it first, and had to
write a letter to someone else ”
Thornton said he wondered about the
timing of the arrest, and added that he
aided University police in recovering
other equipment reported missing from
the journalism school, including some
camera lenses from The Red and Black
office
"I'm no crook, but 1 just got over
anxious.” Thornton said about the
projector “It's my own fault, and 1 sure
Capsule news
Davison returns home
University President Fred C Davison is out of the hospital and recovering at
home after an operation for kidney stones, according to University Public
Relations Director Barry Wood
There were no complications from the operation and Davison is recovering on
schedule. Wood said
will not make the same mistake again
Crow would not comment on whether
Thornton followed the correct procedures
in checking out the projector, but said he
did turn over all records concerning the
projector to University police
Funner (ieorgia Governor Lesler Maddox
I