The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, November 15, 1994 -- 3 Court sets aside ruling that college violated prof's free speech The Washington Post WASHINGTON -The Supreme Court yesterday set aside a ruling that a New Yorkcollege violated a professor's speech rights when it demoted him for a zealously anti-Semitic speech. Leonard Jeffries touched off a firestorm ofcontroversy three years ago when he vilified Jews as the enemy of Black ' people. The justices vacated an appeals court decision that Jeffries be returned to the chairmanship of the Black stud- ies department at City College of New York. The appeals court had said the First Amendment protects speech on public matters, "no matter how vulgar." The Supreme Court told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to reconsider its ruling in light of a high court decision last May reaffirming the broad power of government entities to restrict employees' speech. While the action is a setback for Jeffries, it is not clear how the dispute ultimately will be resolved. The complex May ruling, Waters vs. Churchill, emphasized the "extra power" government has over its em- ployees' speech. But that power is not unlimited, and public employees have certain procedural rights when faced with disciplinary action for theirspeech. The May ruling allows a public employer to discipline a worker for speech that could reasonably be ex- pected to harm an agency. A key ques- tion for the appeals court is whether it was reasonable for City College to believe that Jeffries' declarations would hurt the school. In his 1991 speech at the Empire State Black Arts and Culture Festival, Jeffries maligned Jewish people by saying that "rich Jews" had financed the slave trade and that Jews in Holly- wood had conspired to "put together a system of destruction of Black people" in their film depictions. After the highly publicized speech and ensuing controversy, college offi- cials reduced Jeffries' department chair- manship from a three-year term to one year and removed him from his post. He kept his professorship with the same pay and benefits. Claiming his First Amendment rights had been breached, Jeffries sued Bernard Harleston, president of City College, which is part of the City Uni- versity of New York, and several CUNY officials. A district court, while acknowledg- ing the speech was "hateful, poisonous and reprehensible," ruled that Jeffries should be reinstated and awarded him $360,000 in punitive damages. The court said college officials had failed to show the speech had hurt the operation of the college, which might have justi- fied removing him from the chairman- ship. The appeals court for the 2nd Cir- cuit affirmed the heart of the judgment, saying "central to our constitutional democracy is the right to speak on political or social matters without fear of retribution by the government." It ordered a new trial on the punitive damages. The appeals court in its April ruling agreed that the college had not shown its operations were significantly dis- rupted by Jeffries' speech. In the college's petition to the hig h court, New York Attorney General G. Oliver Koppell said the appeals court set too high a standard for government trying to show the negative effects o(' "hate speech" by a university leader. "(U)niversity administrators may no longer act to protect their institutions until harm is manifest, an approach which is antithetical to responsible stew- ardship," the petition to the court said. Jeffries countered that whatever fears the school may have had immedi- ately following the July 1991 speech had dissipated by March 1992 when he was stripped of his chairmanship. The case is Harleston vs. Jeffries. 'Clinton considers inviting Congress Sleaders to summit U.S. colleges scramble to raise funds The Washington Post WASHINGTON -- President Clinton is considering asking Republi- can and Democratic leaders of Con- gresstojoin himin a mini-summit next month to seek areas of legislative coop- eration and to "set a tone of working together when we can," according to a senior administration official. White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta and other senior administra- tion aides have sought meetings with the new GOP leaders yesterday, the first such session beyond pro forma telephone calls since the Republican sweep in last Tuesday's elections. A spokesman for Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) in line to lead the GOP major- ity in the Senate, said a meeting with Panetta has been arranged and a spokes- man for Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) soon to be House speaker, said a meet- ing between Gingrich and Panetta is being scheduled. Panetta is doing advance work on an initial meeting that Clinton is seek- ing with the Republican and Demo- cratic congressional leaders next week, if possible, after the president's return from the Far East. He is expected to explore at that time what one official called "a bipartisan mini-summit" to be held between Thanksgiving and Christmas aimed at discussing both the congressional schedule and legislative areas where there might be coopera- tion. But officials said such a session is just one idea floating in the White House and that a firmer idea of how Clinton will proceed with the GOP Congress probably won't emerge until the end of this week at the earliest. "We are setting up a lot of base-touching meetings this week," an official said. i Senior administration officials, par- ticularly in the economic area, are in engaged in what one staffer called "wall-to-wall-meetings" this week in Clinton's absence to try to devise a strategy for immediate problems -- such as the special congressional ses- sion at the end of November to act on a trade legislation - and the broader issue of how to work with or against the new Republican Congress. The White House has cited welfare reform and political reform of Con- gress and the line item veto as areas where it sees a potential for coopera- tion with Republicans, although the specifics already seem rife with sig- nificant differences. GOP officials said Gingrich, in his day-after-the-election conversations with Clinton, offered to schedule early House consideration of issues that the GOP majority and the White House agree on - such as the line item veto - early to demonstrate the Republi- cans and the Democrats can work to- gether on some things. Officials said Panetta also wants to discuss the special session of Congress the last week of November that will take up the international trade pact, the Generalized Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. Gingrich has pledged to work with Clinton to get House approval of the pact, but Dole has said the White House must work out some way of dealing, perhaps outside the agreement itself, with concerns that GOP conser- vatives have about elements of the treaty. Although Republicans gener- ally favor trade agreements and Demo- crats often oppose them, the most con- servative side of the GOP has raised strong objections to GATT. From Staff and Wire Reports Every college and university in the nation, it seems, is looking for the almighty dollar. Or, for that matter, the yen, pound or franc. Whether public or private, big or small, the nation's institutions of higher education are into raising money like never before. And they are doing it both here and abroad, sometimes to the chagrin of alumni who must face an increasing barrage of solicitations from their alma maters. The reasons are both obvious - rising costs at time of declining gov- ernment help - and more subtle, in- volving the aging of America's wealth. The University's fund-raising ef- fort, The Campaign for Michigan, has a goal to raise $1 billion by 1997. By September, the campaign that kicked off in 1992 had yielded $677 million. "The support from other sources is not what it once was," said Provost Gilbert R. Whitaker, Jr. "We really need a dependable additional source of support. The Campaign for Michigan is a piece of a step toward doing that." The state funded 51.6 percent of the University's general fund in 1985-86, compared to 37.3 percent of this year's fund. State appropriations to the Uni- versity rose by 2.3 percent this year, but inflation is expected to remain at 3.5 percent. This fall, Pepperdine University launched a slick fund-raising effort with a goal that would have been unheard of a decade ago: $300 million in new contributions. The University of Cali- fornia, Berkeley, is preparing for the most ambitious campaign in its long history, aimed at bringing in $1 billion by the turn of the century. Last year alone, Stanford raised $221 million. And Harvard, being Harvard, be- gan a fund-raiser this year that puts the rest of them to shame - a mind-bog- gling $2 billion goal that would be added to the school's already-huge endowment. "There are campaigns starting tff every single day," said Charles Stephens of Indiana University's Cen- ter on Philanthrophy. Those fund-raiding machines are going to be running at high speed for the next 20 years or so. The reason: the timing will be right for an aging seg- ment of society to be parting with its money. Demographers say that a huge amount of cash, in excess of $5 trillion and perhaps as much as $10 trillion, will soon begin changing hands from one generation to the next in the United States. The nation's colleges and uni- versities are angling to get a piece of that veryflarge pie. Their prime target is wealthy people without children. "The generation that is getting older right now is an extraordinarily wealthy one and, in an unprecedented way, that wealth is going to be transferred," said Brad Barber, director of institutiopal advancement for the University ofC4li- fornia. "Even if we exclude those who have children, it's a staggering amount of money." Giving to education already ranks second to religion as the major source of philanthrophy in the United States. Last year, charitable donors gave more than $15 billion to education alone. "People give to education because tiey see themselves empowering others. to do as they have done," said Stephens. "I think there is as much a missionary attitude giving to education as there is giving to the church." But educators also say that, in the world of giving, both individual and corporate donors are becoming a much more fickle bunch. They say that he days of just being handed a checl, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, that donors are demanding more -c- countability than ever before. MICHAELtF ITHUGH/i'ly Jodi Masley, RC junior and National Women's Rights Organizing Coalition chair, speaks on the Diag yesterday in support of Jennifer Ireland. Ireland, a LSA sophomore, lost a court battle last summer in which custody of her daughter was awarded to her ex-boyfriend Steven Smith. Masley said NWROC believes that the right to use daycare is under attack, since Ireland lost custody partly because she put her daughter in daycare while she attended classes and Smith's mother could take care of the child in their Mt. Clemens, Mich. home. Chrysler's largest shareholder demands more stocks DETROIT (AP) - Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian, Chrysler Corp.'s largest shareholder, is de- manding that the automaker take ac- tion to boost its stock price and let him buy millions more shares. If it doesn't, he threatens to sue and perhaps try a takeover. Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. asked federal regulators yesterday for per- mission to buy enough Chrysler stock to increase his stake in the company to 15 percent. He now owns 32 mil- lion shares, about 9 percent of the 'company, worth about $1.4 billion. In a letter to Chrysler's board, Kerkorian asked the company to lift the anti-takeover "poison pill" provi- sions it put in place four years ago when he starting buying large quanti- ties of Chrysler stock. He also proposed that Chrysler increase the dividend it pays to stock- holders, split its stock 2-for-I and start a program to buy back stock from shareholders. Any of those mea- sures might boost the price. "Despite the company's excellent operating performance in recent years, the company's stock price perfor- mance has been very disappointing," Kerkorian wrote. "Like any other shareholder, my aim is to enhance the value of my investment in the com- pany." He said his previous efforts to persuade Chrysler management to take such actions had been "sum- marily rebuffed." "If the management and the board of directors of Chrysler has a positive response, we would be very pleased," Tracinda executive Alex Yemenidjian said yesterday. If the company doesn't take the steps proposed by Kerkorian by Dec. 15, Yemenidjian said, "There are a whole series of options available to us," including a takeover. Chrysler had no comment yester- day. Lehman Brothers analyst Joseph Phillippi said he doubted a takeover was what Kerkorian had in mind. "I don't think he's got the fire- power, nor does he have the back- ground to run an auto company, Phillippi said. "First of all, the guys who are running the store are doing a tremendous job." Chrysler's profits for the first nine months of 1994 topped $2.5 billion. In May, it increased its quarterly divi- dend to 25 cents a share from 20 cents. It also increased the dividend 5 cents last December, and analysts won't be surprised if another increase is announced before the end of the year. But investors are leery of the cy- clical nature of the auto industry, and Chrysler's stock price hasn't risen to match the company's performance. Kerkorian bought millions of shares in 1990 when the company was flirt- ing with bankruptcy and its stock was trading at $12. The price hit $62.50 in February, but it has fallen since. EVEaB1ARR GRANDOPE 9 f 34S. State Street " 4 doors South of Liberty. 98-86 Group Meetings O Michigan Students for Peace Meeting, Modern Language Building, Room B 118, 7 p.m., 764-5943 U U-M Gospel Chorale Rehears- als, School of Music, Room 2043, 7:30-9:30 p.m., 764-1705 U Thai Students Association - Weekly Planing meeting, Michigan Union, Michigan Room, 6 p.m., 663-7299 M Study Abroad Programs in China, Modern Language Build- ing, Room B116, 5-6 p.m., 764- 4311 0 "Year 501: the Genocide/ Ecocide in Puerto Rico Con- tinues," Trotter House, 7 p.m., 998-1631 Q "Bulgaria: Creatinga Culture for Democracy," speaker Dr. Todor Tanev, International Center, 12 p.m., 662-5529 O Mickinsey and Co. 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