The Los Angeles Loyolan, Volume 47, Issue 1 - October 6, 1969

Los Angeles LOYOLAN VOL. 47— NO. I A LOYOLA.MARYMOUNT STUDENT PUBLICATION OCTOBER 6, 1969 Marymount Fends off Panty - raid By Gnossis Pappadopoulis Marymount experienced a mas¬ sive panty-raid Monday night, September 29. The number of par¬ ticipants is undetermined, but the crowd was large and energet¬ ic. According to almost all the girls who commented on the raid, things got out of hand. Several girls reported that considerable amounts of clothing. — up to $100 for one girl — disappeared. Resi¬ dent advisors reported that win¬ dow screens were ripped, and a light plug and bunk bed ladder were broken. While several girls stated that they thought the raid was “just letting off steam,” others were not amused. “Material things can be replaced, but Fm totally em¬ barrassed,” one girl stated while reporting a theft. “Any guy should have more respect. ” Girls fended off the raiders in various inventive ways. Gallons of water were dumped out of dorm windows. One boy was temporal ily hospitalized after a salt shaker was dropped on his head from an upper-story window. Several freshmen put one of the raiders on the defensive. They locked a freshmen boy in their bathroom. “He was petrified,” they all agreed. Postcard Centennial Observed By Brian Gorey This year marks the centennial celebration of professional base¬ ball and college football, but did you know that this is also the year of the postcard? October of 1869 marked the first sale of postcards in Austria. The cards were designed to lighten the load, of postal employees. Throughout 100 years of use, post¬ cards have marked festivals," cele¬ brations, and important events of the times. In commemoration of the event, Loyola will present a series of postcard displays from the recently received Werner von Boltenstein collection of more than one million postcards. This is one of the world’s largest. Housed in the Von der Ahe Li¬ brary, the displays concern trav¬ el, art, and religion. The first ex¬ hibit extends from October 1 to October 9, presenting the diver¬ sity of postcards. The next display commemorates the 200th anni¬ versary of California. A schedule of upcoming expositions will be posted in the library. Mounting the displays will be Mrs. Diana Young, curator of the library, and Mike Roberts. Conservative protest removes professor By John Armstrong & Brian Gorey The Society of Jesus struck a major blow against academic free¬ dom at Loyola this summer. Fr. Norbert Rigali was denied permission by the California Jesuit Province to either teach or live at Loyola University this fall. Fr. Rigali asked Fr. Willis Egan, Chairman of the Theology De¬ partment for a job. Fr. Egan agreed; the Provincial didn’t. Fr. Rigali taught philosophy at Fr. Norbert Rigali, S.J. Professors back , oppose Jesuit teacher’s removal By Armstrong, Butcher & Balak “It would seem that the men who opposed Fr. Rigali’s entering the university manifested sterile minds. They seemed to be moral entrepreneurs.” These comments by a faculty member at Loyola indicate the in¬ tensity of the reaction of members of the university community to the Jesuit Provincial’s refusal to allow Fr. Rigali to live or teach at Loyola. Loyola from 1954 to 1956 and from 1965 to 1967. He received his S.T.L. from the University of In- nsbrifck in 1960 and his Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1964 for his study of Karl Jas¬ pers, the noted German exis¬ tentialist. Last year Fr. Rigali was a re¬ search assistant at the Cambridge Center of Social Research at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some¬ what ironically, his area of spe¬ cialty is Christian ethics. Last July 11, Rigali wrote letr ters to Fr. Egan and Fr. Vaug¬ han, Education Provincial for the Society of Jesus in California, asking for a teaching position at Loyola University. At the time, Fr. Egan was at Los Gatos working full time for the California Provinces Min¬ istries Commission. The letter from Fr. Rigali was not for¬ warded to him due to a mixup in the mail service. Fr. Vaughan told Egan that the had received a letter of appli¬ cation from Rigali and asked him for his opinion. Egan responded The reactions covered a number of areas ranging from academic freedom and faculty hiring to the relationship between the univer¬ sity itself and the Jesuit commu¬ nity to the role of authority in the Jesuit community. The tone of the reactions ranged from ex¬ treme defensiveness to bitter amusement to outright anger. Fr. Donald Merrifield, Presi¬ dent of Loyola University, stated that he did not feel that the Rigali case compromised the academic integrity of the University or en¬ dangered its academic freedom. However, as Fr. Merrifield put it, “it would have been nice if the Provincial had consulted with me.” Merrifield emphasized that he feels the Provincial has the right to make such decisions without consultation with the university president or academic vice-presi¬ dent and that he has the ultimate authority over assigning Jesuits, Merrifield noted he did not feel that the Provincial has the right to tell him how to run the university. “If he ever does, I can always resign, ” Merrifield de¬ clared. When asked why he didn’t take any action concerning the Provin¬ cial’s decision regarding Rigali, Merrifield stated “I don’t know why I didn’t do anything. Of course, I was in Denver at the time and what reached me were (Continued on Page 3) Loyola president starts minority studies program By Richard Schwartz and Wes Merritt Fr. Donald Merrifield, S.J., President of Loyola, has announced “an experimental program in Afro-American and Mexican Ameri¬ can Studies.” The minority studies program applies to three areas. A student may take a minority course in the Afro-American area, the Mexi¬ can American area, or for history, sociology, or psychologly credit. Students could include minority studies courses into their degree programs in several ways. They may be taken as electives or as major courses. They may also be used to fulfill the social science requirement for the College of Arts and Sciences. Some of the principle contrib¬ utors to the program are Profes¬ sors Taylor, Hernandez, and Ben- Levi from the Sociology depart¬ ment and Dr. Fitzgerald, chair¬ man of the Political Science de¬ partment. Dr. Fitzgerald said of the pro¬ gram: “It’s a good start.” The “experimental program” has a long history which began with the founding of the President’s Ad- Hoc Committee on Race Rela¬ tions. From this body two Task Forces were formed for the pur¬ pose of researching specific pro¬ posals in the field of Minority Re¬ lations. After a lengthy process of re¬ search and consultation, the Task Forces reported with specific pro¬ posals on College and Minority Relations. Their suggestions in¬ cluded the establishment of a spe¬ cial committee on minority af- airs, library purchases in the area of minority culture, special studies courses on ethnic history, and administrative action on the hiring of qualified black and Mex- ican-American personnel. The Ad-Hoc Committee sup¬ ported the Task Forces’ report and drafted similar joint recom¬ mendations. A Crisis Coalition, in¬ cluding LUCAP, BSU and UMAS formed to demand administrative approval for the proposals. The ASL.U Senate and Loyolan added their endorsements. A mixed reaction by the Board of Trustees to the Task Force re- (Continued on Page 2) that he was quite pleased about Fr. Rigali’s request — that “it was an unexpected boon.” He stated that he needed Rigali but commented that some of the Jes¬ uits at the University would prob¬ ably not be very happy about it. Fr. Vaughan told Egan that he would inquire further into the matter. Vaughan subsequently received around five letters from members of the Loyola Jesuit community which criticized Rigali. The con¬ tents of these letters were not re¬ vealed, but indications were that they charged that Fr. Rigali was a disruptive influence on campus and too liberal and “got along with the students too well.” They felt these factors would damage Loyola’s Jesuit community. Fr. Egan also wrote a letter to the provincial reiterating his de¬ sire and need to have Rigali in his department. Fr. Egan felt that if Loyola were to have a theology major, it had to have a man of Rigali’s caliber and area of spe¬ cialty. Fr. St. Clair, the rector of the Loyola Jesuit community, suppo¬ sedly took a poll of the members which determined that Fr. Ri¬ gali’s entrance was greatly op¬ posed. However, the Loyolan could not find one Jesuit at Loyo¬ la who stated that he actually was polled. Among those who stated that they had not been contacted' for this informal community sur¬ vey were: Fr. Merrifield, Fr. Clark, Fr. Rolfs, Fr. Egan, Fr. Albertson, Fr. McCurdy, and Fr. O’Neill. Fr. Egan returned to Loyola on July 30 and found the letter from Rigali sitting on his bed along with all the other mail that he had received during the summer. On the next day he asked Fr. Rigali if he had heard anything from the Provincial. Rigali re¬ plied that he hadn’t. Evidently, Rigali was notified on August 2 that he could neither live in the Loyola community or live in an apartment off campus and teach at the university. He was told by Fr. Vaughan that letters were written about him, but evidently the content of those letters, the people who wrote them, and any specific in¬ stances of misconduct were all not disclosed to him. Neither Fr. Egan, Dr. Erland- son, Fr. Clark, nor Fr. Merrifield were informed of the decision by the Provincial. The only news of the decision came by grapevine. Fr. Rigali told Dr. Kearley about the decision on August 2. He in (Continued on Page 7)