The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 62, No. 65, Ed. 1 Tuesday, February 6, 1979 Page: 4 of 8
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: North Texas Daily / The Campus Chat and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the UNT Libraries Special Collections.
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PAGE 4—THE NORTH TEXAS DAILY
Tuesday, February 6, 1979
Sears cites conflicting federal laws
Government regulation promotes White male work force
CHICAGO (AP)—For years now,
Sears, Roebuck and Co., the world’s
largest retailer, has been dogged by
women and minorities who say they
can’t get a fair shake in hiring, promo-
tion and pay.
The Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, the nation’s No. 1
watchdog in policing alleged job dis-
crimination, consolidated the hundreds
of complaints filed against Sears and has
had the giant employer under its
microscope since 1973.
All this time, Sears has fought the al-
legations in secret negotiations or little-
noticed court actions.
BUT NOW the company has come
out with six-shooters blazing. It hired
Charles Morgan Jr., a legal guru to civil
rights activists of the 1960s, and
brought its own suit against several
government agencies.
Filed last week, the suit hit the legal
world like a thunderbolt. It has angered
advocates of affirmative action and
made them wary or confused about its
potential impact.
“I’m not aware of any litigation that
has had the lightning-rod effect that this
complaint has had,” said T.C.
Kammholz, a Chicago lawyer who in
1976 helped win a U.S. Supreme Court
ruling for General Electric against
pregnant women who had sued for
disability benefits.
"The discussion about this has been
just enormous," he says.
SEARS’ CLASS-ACTION suit—on
behalf of all retailers—argues that
federal laws, rules and regulations are so
inconsistent that employers cannot com-
ply.
It says laws dating to the veterans
preference hiring act after World War II,
and including the recent abolition of
mandatory retirement at 65, have
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produced a white-dominated male work ment inequities, the suit says. it is a publicity ploy by Sears in anticipa-
pool. Some legal experts are skeptical, say- tion of a possible suit by the EEOC after
These laws, not corporate discrimina- ing the suit could have trouble surviving years of failing to negotiate a settlement
tion, have created statistical employ- a motion to dismiss and speculating that out of court.
Rep. Abner Mikva, D-IU., a former
Supreme Court clerk, calls it an attempt
“to sue history,” and Howard
Glickstein, a law professor at Howard
University, says Sears is "trying to seek
immunity from laws because govern-
ment agencies aren’t as efficient as they
should be.
“It’s like the Mafia in Chicago suing
the Justice Department’s strike force to
stop enforcement of criminal laws
because it has been inconsistent in its
policies," said Glickstein, who headed a
task force for President Carter which
last year studied the problem of overlap-
ping laws. Glickstein recommended that
EEOC have primary responsibility in
coordinating federal affirmative action
programs.
KAMMHOLZ, THOUGH, says the
suit is an “appropriate course of action
whose time has come," and that “a lot of
people are cheering" in corporate suites.
“It strikes a friendly chord with nearly
everybody that’s against big government
and a bungling bureaucracy.”
Sears denies it is out to scuttle equal
employment programs.
“Nothing could be further from the
truth,” said Sears Chairman Edward R.
Telling in a letter to Sears’ 417,211
employees. He said Sears’ suit will force
citizens to "view us as the law-abiding,
dedicated citizens that we are, instead of
attempting to pass their guilt to us. . .
Win or lose in court, Sears will continue
to provide basic fairness and equal op-
portunity for all Americans.”
SEARS SAYS its statistics show a
steady increase in employment of
women and minorities in several job
classifications but refuses to disclose a
detailed breakdown of specific employ-
ment data which it prepared and submit-
ted voluntarily to the EEOC.
In 1977, the EEOC, using “statistics
of disparity between Sears’ workforce
and the national workforce,” found
“reasonable cause” to believe Sears dis-
criminated against women and
minorities, it wrote a report explaining
its finding but, under law, cannot release
it. Sears will not release its data or the
EEOC summary for competitive reasons
and because the case is pending, says
Sears spokesman Ernie Arms.
SEARS WANTS an order that such
statistical disparities cannot be used to
prove non-compliance with discrimina-
tion laws, and a ban on awards of back
pay unless intentional discrimination is
found.
“After a quick reading, it’s hard to
know what it means,” said Ira Glasser,
executive director of the American Civil
Liberties Union. “But most of my
employment opportunity lawyers here
are very angry about it.”
If Sears wins on its terms, “the net
result will be a slowdown of affirmative
action," says Harry T. Edwards, a
University of Michigan law professor
who specializes in labor law.
EDWARDS AND other lawyers
believe a case argued this week before
the Supreme Court could pose a greater
threat to affirmative action programs. In
that one, a white worker for Kaiser
Aluminum says he was unfairly passed
over for a training program in favor of
black workers because of an affirmative
action agreement.
“That’s the case I’m concerned
about,” said Edwards, adding it could
be more important than the case of Al-
lan Bakke, whose admission to a
medical school was ordered last year by
the U.S. Supreme Court.
Edwards’ reasoning is that Kaiser vs.
Weber deals with affirmative action in
the workplace, not just professional
schools, as did Bakke.
music, quilting
hill woman
Superman’s
Metropolis
flourishes
METROPOLIS, III. (AP)—This is
the city of Metropolis, the home of
Superman, who is really a Baptist
preacher in blue tights and a cape.
And faster than a speeding bullet,
the new "Superman” movie has
propelled this Ohio River town of
7,500 back into the national
limelight.
Superman, as all crime-fighters
know, lives in the fictional city of
Metropolis. And back in 1972, Bob
Westerfield, a dry cleaner by trade,
sold the local people on the idea of
capitalizing on the caped hero’s fame.
After Westerfield moved here from
Owensboro, Ky., in 1969, he ap-
proached the Chamber of Commerce
with the idea of riding on Superman’s
capetails and getting some publicity
for the town.
Then, with permission from
Superman’s copyright agents in New
York, Metropolis adopted the
crimefighter in ceremonies featuring
a local Baptist minister clad in blue
tights and a cape
'Banjer'
satisfy
In the snowy mountains and the isola-
tion that surrounds Appalachia, Aunt
Jenny Wilson is a walking folk song.
She is a mountain woman with all that
that implies, a life shaped by remoteness,
danger, blood feuds, hot passions and a
stoic resignation to what may come. “If
you’re born to hang you’ll never
drown,” Aunt Jenny says.
At 79, she has traveled to Arlington,
Texas, to play her banjo, the instrument
that has recently brought her not only
pleasure, but fame.
She has been. Lord help us, dis-
covered. Students of Appalachian
folkways from miles around have invited
her to music festivals to listen to her
play, question her and cherish her as a
relic.
"Last year, I went all the way to
Arlington. My grandson and I drove out
in his pick-up," she said. Aunt Jenny
quilts during the winter, when it is too
cold to play her banjo, which she
musically pronounces “banjer.”
“I’ve made six quilts so far this winter
and I’m working on two more,” Aunt
Jenny said with undisguised pride.
“Quilt patterns have such grand names.
Jacob’s Ladder, Bear’s Paw, Milky Way,
Texas Star, Clay’s Choice. I couldn’t tell
you all the patterns I’ve made in my
time.
“Whenever I get a quilt done, a hand
is there to put it in, and that pleasures
me.
‘‘I have three children, 11
grandchildren and 14
great-grandchildren.I’m 79 years old, or
will be Friday, and haven’t spent a day
in a hospital in my life. If any woman
has had more pleasure than I, well, bud-
dy, I’d like to meet her," she said.
Aunt Jenny has seen it all and endured
it all, all the joys and horrors that have
made Appalachia less a place name than
a mystique.
She buried her husband when he died
from a coal mine cave-in. She carries
knife scars on her back and arm,
souvenirs of a square dance that went
sour when the moonshine jug appeared.
Yet the same nimble fingers that work a
quilting needle pluck a rollicking banjo.
For her, old mountain traditions are
not a matter of academic research but
simply remembering.
“I was the youngest of 11 children. I
was a toy to my brothers. They call-
ed me sparrow, I was so little and
scrawny. I was always pestering to go
with them but they wouldn’t let me.
"One day my brother said, ‘Sparrow,
if you can learn to shoot a gun, ride a
horse and play a banjer, you can go
where the boys go.’
“I learned all three. I was playing the
banjer when I was nine and by the time I
was 14 I was playing at every dance
around . . .
“But, my yes, I still love to play the
banjer. Come spring, I’ll put new strings
on that banjer and be off playing again.
There’s seven or eight places I’ve already
been invited to.
“Not now, though. Buddy, you
couldn’t get me out in that weather. I’ll
just stay home and tend to my quilting."
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Morrison, Sue. The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 62, No. 65, Ed. 1 Tuesday, February 6, 1979, newspaper, February 6, 1979; Denton, TX. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1002656/m1/4/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.