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Hie Augusta News-Review (USPS 887 820) - April 21, 1979 -
(The Augusta
Mallory K. Millender Editor-Publisher
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Our new doy begun
ff W The Sears suit
Coming in the wake of the Bakke and
Weber court challenges against affirmative
action programs to help minorities
overcome historical patterns of
discrimination in education and
employment, the suit filed by Sears,
Roebuck against 10 government agencies
has the effect of once again retarding our
civil rights program.
The suit alleges that federal laws,
regulations, policies and directives that
give these agencies power to seek an end
to racial and sex discrimination have
created such confusion and conflicts that
it is impossible for the giant
merchandising concern to comply with
their orders.
The NAACP regards the suit as not
only highly unusual, but we feel it is a
skillful public relations maneuver aimed
al preempting impending action that the
Equal Employment Opportunity
Comnission (EEOC) was about to take
against Sears. One pertinent fact is that
Sears filed the suit the day that EEOC
notified the company of its “failure to
conciliate" on employes’ grievances of
discrimination.
No doubt, there is some merit to a
number of Sears' complaints. Like Sears,
minorities have expressed concern over
moves to play off women, who have their
own proper lists of grievances, against
them in complying with affirmative
action mandates. Minorities are also
concerned about the impact of the
mandatory age retirement law.
By extending the retirement law from
65 to 70, Congress has clearly reduced
the number of opportunities that would
have been opened up to more recently
hired minorities and women by departing
older, white male workers.
The veterans preference system very
often also works to the detriment of
effective affirmative action programs.
But these programs, however, certainly
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By Benjamin Hooka
should not hamper Sears’ responsibility
for placing its own house in order. Many
of the rules and regulations about which
Sears complains were created after the
enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Prior to that, there is no question that
Sears, like other private and government
employers, were discriminating against
blacks. But largely through the efforts of
its late Chairman Julius Rosenwald, Sears
in recent years has been regarded as a
friend of minorities.
The fact, therefore, that progress was
made in opening up opportunities to
minorities in the last 12 years should only
be regarded as evidence that, where there
are laws, rules, regulations and correct
government policy, employers will take
steps to end discrimination.
For these reasons, the NAACP has
called upon Sears to withdraw its suit. If
this is not done, the Association is
prepared to challenge the suit either
through a direct counter-challenge or as a
friend of the court.
Clearly, the Sears suit is the wrong case
because the suit, whatever else may be
said about it, is an unwarranted, frontal
attack upon the entire apparatus designed
to assure equality of opportunity in this
land of liberty.
It is the wrong time for a leading and
responsible corporate entity in America
to be initiating litigation that can only
undermine the climate of affirmative
action which is still in disarray because of
the Bakke and Weber cases.
It is a lawsuit brought for the wrong
reason because it seeks to blame the
Federal government for the ills in our
society when the blame for
discrimination based on race, sex, age,
creed, color or other distinctions rests, in
great part, on U.S. society as a whole,
including Sears and others in the private
sector.
Page 4
a Sense of Direction
OB Before
ft B\ He Leaves Home
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Affirmative action as a racial remedy is
at stake in Supreme Court action in the
current Weber case. A lawyer for
32-year-old Brian Weber has asked the
United States Supreme Court to affirm
the ruling of a lower Federal Court that
threatens to destroy most voluntary
affirmative-action programs, where it sure
enough will block blacks and other
minorities in their attempt to climb out
of the economic barrel.
Associate Justice Lewis Powell Jr. and
John Paul Stevens were both absent from
the bench March 28 as Attorney Michael
R. Fontham argued that an affirmative
action plan initiated in 1974 by the
Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical
Corporation in Gramercy, Louisiana to
increase minority representation and
promotion on its work force constituted
an illegal “reverse discrimination” under
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
COURT TOOK A NARROW VIEW
The Appellate Court sitting in New
Orleans had already ruled in 1977 that,
since there had been no actual proof of
past discrimination by Kaiser, the
company’s program amounted to an
unconstitutional racial quota and not a
legal remedy. Lawyers for Kaiser, the
United Steel Workers of America, and the
federal government, all arguing against
Mr. Weber, urged that employers be
permitted to adopt voluntary programs to
correct perceived racial disparity. I wish
those appellate justices had been black,
and slaves, although they are supposed to
be American citizens, such cruel irony.
Noyes Thompson Powers, attorney for
Kaiser, maintained that the standard
adopted by the appeals court “will
literally end affirmative action.”
WHY DID STEVENS DISQUALIFY
Although Justice Powell, who cast a
controlling vote and delivered the opinion
of the Supreme Court in last June’s
notorious Bakke decision, was unable to
attend Wednesday’s oral argument. He
may listen to tapes of the argument and
participate in the decision of the case.
Justice Stevens disqualified himself from
the case, offering no reason for his action.
The High Court’s ruling in the Weber
case is expected to provide a definitive
ruling on the legality of affirmative action
in the workplace. In the far more heavily
publicized Bakke decision, which
Dear Editor:
On behalf of the staff and board of
directors of the Augusta Opportunities
Industrialization Center, Inc. (AOIC), I
would like to congratulate you and the
staff at The News-Review on your eighth
anniversary.
It is a compliment to you and your
Walking with dignity
Letter to the editor
OIC offers congratulations
Title Vn-
Liberation or penury
By Al Irby
concerned university admissions and not
employment, the court was badly divided
and left unresolved many questions
concerning the permissible scope of
affirmative action.
LEGAL AND BASIC DIFFERENCES
In the Bakke case, the court ruled that
race could be one factor in selecting the
university student body, but that the
admissions program at the University of
California Medical School at Davis had set
rigid quotas that were unconstitutionally
discriminatory against white applicants.
But in the Weber case, there was no
official finding of past discrimination on
the part of Kaiser. To say that Kaiser and
every other facet of American life have
no official finding of past discrimination
is the biggest fairy story since the “Little
Red Robin Hood” saga with the hated
old wolf. This type of preposterous
sophistry should have had the learned
gentlemen of our High Judiciary giggling
all over themselves behind their dignified
bench.
Here is the crux of the program -- to
prepare unskilled workers for the
higher-paying craft jobs. Now, listen to
this closely. Only fifty percent of the
openings were set aside for minorities.
The intent was not to bar whites like
Weber. This is the stink that the courts
and the whites are ignoring: 45 percent of
the area’s work force is black and hold
less than two percent of the craft jobs at
this Kaiser plant. Civil rights leaders have
noted that the Appeals Court ruling
places employers in a legal quandry with
respect to affirmative action. The great
sin that this country is guilty of is its
unwillingness to atone for its wrongdoing.
Whites hardly look upon slavery and its
horrendous act of being the only so-called
civilized nation to drop atomic bombs on
open cities. That’s why we are having this
heartless hassle over Bakke and Weber.
KAISER LACKING IN COURAGE
The ruling confronts past
discriminating employers with a moral
dilemma. If they admit the truth to past
discrimination, which is true for the
entire nation, they would invite suits for
substantial back pay from all non-whites.
But if they lie like Kaiser is doing, they
then open the door to destroy the only
gleam of economic light to lead blacks
and other minorities out of the jungles of
sure poverty.
the growth of The News-Review as a
viable community newspaper.
I hope that The News-Review will
enjoy continued success.
Gloria J. Butler
Executive Director
AOIC
o*l,
The blackside of Washington
A white Ohio summertime sunshine
liberal has taken over the Peace Corps
post from which psychologist Dr. Carolyn
R. Payton, director of counseling at
Howard University, was fired last falh by
the Carter administration at the insistence
of ACTION Director Sam Brown.
ACTION’S black associate director,
John Lewis, tried hard to save Dr.
Payton, but failed. Then he tried to
ensure the $52,500 position for another
black, and was doing ok until Ohio Lt.
Gov. Richard F. Celeste lost out in his
gubernatorial race. Since last November,
the pressure has been on Carter to give
the defeated Ohioan a top slot in
Washington to keep him alive politically
for the next Ohio governor’s contest.
But what worries blacks is the
wolf-in-sheep’s-clothes kind of politician
Celeste is. They point out that he was
reared in lily white Lakewood, a suburb of
Cleveland where his father was the
perennial mayor. Until recently, they say,
Lake wood was one of those communities
where blacks were not allowed after dark.
How Celeste is going to perform as
Peace Corps director in Africa and the
rest of the Third World is a big question.
•0 the other hand, Dr. Payton had served
successfuDy as an official of the Peace
Corps in Latin America and the
Caribbean when she was named to head
the agency.
CABINET POST FOR EDUCATION?
The Senate and House are in a fight
over the proposed elevation of Education
in the Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare to Cabinet level.
The Senate favors it, but the House,
including many of the members of the
Congressional Black Caucus, opposes it
for various stated reasons under the broad
WoKt ■
I had the honor of being present at the
ceremonies surrounding the signing of the
peace treaty between Egypt and Israel,
and it would be hard to describe the
extraordinary mood of accomplishment
and pride that permeated those events.
The treaty provided the President with
a badly-needed boost, especially in the
area of foreign policy. Before his flying
peace mission to Cairo and Jerusalem, the
Administration had been hammered by
criticisms of its policies.
It was accused of projecting an image
of weakness. It was charged that we
“lost” Iran, sold out Taiwan, and were
buckling under to the Russians. The
leadership role America played in
bringing out the Mideast peace treaty has
stilled those criticisms, but not for long.
Other challenges to foreign policy
leadership are in the offing. The Panama
Canal Treaty has to be implemented with
enabling legislation, a new trade
agreement will go to the Senate for
approval, and the SALT agreement
limiting strategic weapons will soon bring
another controversial treaty to the Senate
floor.
And that’s just in addition to the
ongoing foreign policy decisions that have
to be made -- on China, on southern
Africa, on relations with the rest of the
world.
Lurking behind all of these decisions is
the continuing cool war with Russia, a
conflict that influences all of our
relationships abroad.
All of this boils down to the fact that
foriegn policy, once a matter of national
consensus and bipartisanship, is quickly
becoming a partisan affair. That could be
both healthy and dangerous. Healthy,
because policies always ought to be faced
with challenges and alternatives.
Dangerous, because protracted
disagreements could lead to an inability
to act in our own best interests.
The projection of a great power’s
influence depends on more than just
military strength, although that is a good
part of it. Those who charge America
“lost” Iran are wrong because Iran never
was ours to win or lose. No nation can
impose an unwanted government on
another country that’s far away and
determined to overthrow a corrupt and
cS$ 4J
No peace in
Peace Corps
By Sherman Briscoe ■ N AACP
cover of “expanding the beaurocracy.”
But when the cover is pulled back,
there stands a little black woman hardly
five feet tall, who is a giant in Education.
She is Dr. Mary Frances Berry, assistant
secretary of HEW for Education. She has
both a Ph.D. and a law degree, and has
been provost of the University of
Maryland and chancellor of the
University of Colorado.
If Education is raised to Cabinet level,
who should be named secretary. Dr.
Berry of course. No mention of her is
likely to come up in the debates now
going on, but she is surely there in the
minds of many congressmen.
And she’s in President Carter’s mind,
too. If he names her secretary of
Education, he’U have two black women in
his Cabinet, and NO black men. The
thought has him scratching his hair
thinner.
A BRIGHT NOTE
Those on welfare of one form or
another must sometimes wonder whether
or not their cause • gets lost in the huge
Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare with 140,000 employes.
But it doesn’t get lost because there is
an administrative pipeline running from
the White House to the Welfare unit in
HEW. At the White House end of the
pipeline is a bright 26-year-old black
Harvard-trained lawyer and government
expert guarding the interest of welfare
participants. He is Christopher Edley Jr.,
assistant director of the Domestic Policy
Staff.
Edley is on leave from Harvard where
he is a teacher in the Kennedy School of
Government. Welfare is in good hands.
The young expert’s father is Christopher
Edley of die United Negro College Fund..
To be equal
Foreign policy
tests leadership
By Vernon Jordan
brutal dictatorship. American policy had. .
few realistic alternatives.
Ask anyone who grumbles about the
Shah’s loss of power what America
should have done, and you don’t get a
coherent answer. The reason is that the
only available alternative - military
invasion -- is unthinkable and
unworkable. Or don’t we remember
Vietnam?
A second guideline ought to be the
pursuit of detente. That has been the
mark of both Republican and Democratic
administrations for the past decade or
more. And there’s no reason not to hew
firmly to it. That doesn’t mean we’ve got
to let the Russians do whatever they want t
in areas of major concern to us. But it
does mean we should avoid linking issues
that shouldn’t be linked, and avoid
locking ourselves into a situation in which
we’re always reacting to the Russians.
A reactive policy is self-defeating. I
don’t give the Russians the credit so
many people give them. I don’t think we
should tremble in fear over the
pretensions of a country that can’t
produce wheat from the richest
grainlands in the world or make a pair of
shoes that don’t fall apart.
Realistic assessment of a potential
enemy makes sense. But let’s not become
afraid of that potential enemy, or we’ll
risk defeating ourselves. That means we
should have die strength to negotiate and
confirm a new SALT agreement, since
slowing down the arms race is in our own
best interests.
Finally, a sound foreign policy has to
be based solidly on a nation’s moral and
economic strength. America is a world
leader not because there’s a CIA man
under every dictators bed, or because our
Marines are poised to invade anyone who
disagrees with us, but because we’ve got
the most productive economy in the
world, along with the most skilled people.
Continued racial friction, high
unemployment, and urban deterioration
are what will hurt us most in foreign
policy. The stronger, more equal our
society becomes at home, the stronger
and more influential it will be abroad.
That’s a truism that should be the
cornerstone of American policy.