Western Front - 1982 May 18

              Inside:
B'ham student slums:
No place like home
—page 6
Frisbee club
masters golf
—page 8
Western Front
WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY VOL. 74, NO. 32 TUESDAY, MAY 18,1982
Hundreds to lose aid?
Draft-dodger bill takes
officials by surprise
By LLOYD PRITCHETT
The U.S. Senate's passage of a
bill that would deny student aid to
draft-evaders caught local officials
by surprise last week.
The measure, passed un­animously
by the Senate, has been
leery
Draft foes
of
Senate
measure
By ELAYNE ANDERSON
A U.S. Senate bill denying
financial aid to young men who
have not registered for the draft
has been coldly received by local
opponents of Selective Service
sign-up.
But William Scott, president
of the Whatcom County chap­ter
of the American Civil Liber­ties
Union, said although he
had not heard about the bill, it
seems Congress has the right to
set "ground rules."
"It is also a question of due
process," Scott added.
Howard Harris of the anthro­pology
department and a mem­ber
of Whatcom Draft Infor­mation
and Referral, said the
bill would make conscientious
objecting more difficult for
those who have not registered.
Harris said he is considering
reactivating the group, which in
the past counseled young men
uncertain whether to register
for the draft. He said the group
never urged anyone not to reg­ister,
but only informed them of
all the options.
"I'm in total sympathy with
those who don't register," Har­ris
said, "but it's a dangerous
position."
In 1940, Harris said, he regis­tered
as a conscientious object­or.
"Now I might not register,"
Harris said. "I don't know."
A man should think in ad­vance
about registering, Harris
said, because he only has 10
days after receiving his draft
notice to claim he is a conscien­tious
objector.
"If you haven't thought about
it by then," Harris said, "you
will have a hard time convinc­ing
anyone."
Scott said the bill would be
"punishing conscience."
"I suppose you could make a
civil liberties case of it." Scott
said. "Of course this is all specu­lation."
__
hailed by conservatives and mod­erates
alike as an effective means of
forcing thousands of reluctant stu­dents
to register for the military
draft.
Only U.S. House approval and
President Reagan's signature are
needed to pass the bill into law.
But local draft board members
and Western financial aid adminis­trators
had little to say about the
measure, citing limited information
about it.
One local draft board member,
Bellingham Police Chief Terry
Mangan, said he had not even seen
the bill, adding he felt it would be
"inappropriate to comment on a
bill I haven't read."
Western political science profes­sor
Gerard Rutan, another local
draft board member, could not be
reached for comment on the mea­sure,
but it is his practice not to
discuss draft-related matters with The
Front.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the
Selective Service System's West
Coast headquarters in San Fran­cisco
said his office had made no
estimate of the number of draft-defying
college students who might
lose financial aid if the Senate bill
becomes law.
Such figures might be developed
by early next month, however, the
spokesman added.
Statistics released in February
by the state Selective Service Sys­tem
showed some 59 percent of the
estimated number of draft-eligible
males in Whatcom County had not
signed up for registration.
If those figures still are valid,
hundreds of Western students could
lose their eligibility for basic grants,
supplemental grants, direct student
loans and other forms of federal
financial aid with the Senate bill.
But John Hay of the draft sys­tem's
Seattle office earlier said the
low registration figures might be
exaggerated because many draft-age
Western students might be reg­istering
in other counties.
Western Financial Aid Director
Wayne Sparks said he could make
no estimate of how many students
might be denied student aid as a
result of the Senate measure.
But he added he could see few
technical problems with invoking
the bill, "depending, of course, on
how the federal government
decided to implement the rule."
Sparks said the simplest way of
enforcing a ban on student aid to
draft-resisters would be for stu­dents
to sign a form certifying they
have registered for the draft.
"It (the law) would be pretty
-easy to .administer that way-,'" he
said, but added the government
(continued on page 2) Terry Mangan: 'Inappropriate to comment
Paddy wagon greets
Sunrise Keg revelers
By DAN BOYLE
Whatcom and Skagit County
sheriffs were successful in keeping
eager Sunrise VII advocates from
invading Clayton Beach last
Saturday.
At 6 a.m., the official "tapping"
time of the previous six Sunrise
Kegs, only one person was on the
beach. He picked up a stick of
driftwood, climbed up a sand dune
and pressed into the firm sand the
words, "Sunrise Seven?"
Up on Chuckanut Drive where
the trail to Clayton Beach begins,
two sheriffs' cars and a paddy
wagon awaited any students who
dared not heed the warnings to
stay out.
Whatcom County sheriff depu­ties
began patrolling the Clayton
Beach area last Friday night, a
deputy spokesman said.
Only a small number of people
tried to gain access to the beach, he
said, and very few citations for
parking and illegal possession of
alcohol were written.
Tougher residency rules
make debut this summer
By HEIDI FEDORE
It will be tougher for non-residents of Washington
state to obtain resident status — and lower tuition
rates at Western — with the terms of a bill passed
during the 1982 session of the state Legislature.
The bill states that non-residents must prove they
plan to make Washington their permanent home by
living here for one year before applying for residency.
Although that aspect of the bill always has existed,
a more austere regulation has been added, said
Richard Riehl, director of admissions. Starting June
1, when the bill becomes effective, students must be
financially independent from their parents. This
would not apply, however, if the parents were to
become Washington residents:
Riehl said he does not know what effect the bill will
have on already-declining enrollment at Western.
Currently, out-of-state students encompass 5 per­cent
of Western's enrollment.
"The out-of-state students here this year may have
planned to apply for residency for next year," Riehl
said. "It's hard to tell whether they'll continue attend­ing
or not."
Riehl explained that it's difficult to project any
results of a bill until it takes effect.
"We'll have to wait to find out whether enrollment
will drop because of this."
"Historically," Riehl said, "Washington colleges
had a high percentage of in-state attendance."
"There were no major viola­tions,"
he added.
One student said being denied
access to Clayton Beach on this
day was like getting no presents for
Christmas.
Even with the empty beach and
the sheriffs patrolling the area, the
Sunrise Keg still did not die com­pletely.
Nearly 80 people cele­brated
the tradition in two new
locations north of Clayton Beach.-
Many of the original founders of
the Sunrise Keg celebrated the day
on three boats off Teddy Bear
Cove. Forty people celebrated
there with three kegs and a hot tub.
Near Tunnel Cove north of Lar-rabee
State Park, nearly 30 stu­dents
celebrated the day on a bay
cliff with two kegs.
Members of the Teddy Bear
Cove party agreed to transport the
other party to their boats, but the
day's cliff dwellers refused.
"We know how to celebrate the
spirit of Sunrise just as well as
them," one student said.
The celebration on the cliff came
to an abrupt end at noon, however,
when one student fell off the cliff
and fractured his jaw bone. Para­medics
quickly arrived.
Some traditions are hard to
break, no matter what the opposi­tion.
Still, Sunrise VII could not
compare to the 3,000 people who
drank 81 kegs of beer last year.