Louisville Cardinal
Vol. XLVI No. 11
Law faculty votes exemption of
junior class from requiremen t
by Kenny Vandevelde
The law school faculty voted at its
meeting Tuesday to exempt the junior
class from a research writing requirement
it had passed in November, 1973.
The decision to exempt that class
came amid vociferous complaints from
the junior class that the requirement was
unfair in that a major change was made in
the curriculum without proper
notification of the students involved .
Though the requirement had been
passed in November of last year, most
students, in fact, were not made aware of
it until this semester.
Larry Ethridge, President of the
Student Bar Association, presented the
motion for exemption to the faculty. He
argued that the issue was one of
"fundamental fairness" to the students.
He said that students were partially to
blame for the "snafu" since student
representatives were present when the
requirement was passed, but made no
effort to inform their colleagues of the
matter.
But he also said that the faculty shared
culpability since it had also made no
effort to notify the students.
Ethridge stressed, as did othc;:r students
present that he was not opposed to the
writing requirement itself, but simply
believed that the students should not be
expected to meet a requirement "of this
magnitude," on such short notice.
The Student Bar Association President
told the faculty that if the motion for
exemption failed he would appeal to the
university central administration, and if
he failed there , might ultimately take
legal action against the university. He also
warned them that failure to exempt the
juniors would "create a very large bloc of
alienated students" who , after
graduation, would become alienated
alumni and whose negative influence on
others could eventually hurt the law
school.
Doug Famsley, a student in the junior
class submitted a petition to the faculty
signed by a majority of his class,
protesting the requirement.
He noted that last year, when the
requirement was passed, the class then
enrolled as juniors was exempted because
there wasn't sufficient time for them to
prepare their papers. He said that since
students were just now learning of the
requirement, the situation of this year's
juniors is comparable to that of last year's
with regard to time, and that the current
class should therefore be exempted also.
Farnse1y said the faculty , if it refused
the exemption would be saying in effect
that the end justifies the means, i.e .
requiring a paper was important enough
to justify the unfair situation.
Professor Ralph Petrelli sided with the
students, saying the matter was one of
procedural due pr 'ess.
Referring to the administration's
failure to notify students of the
requirement, Petrelli said, "someone
dropped a ball in the waning hours of
(former law) Dean Merritt's
administration," and it was unfair to
make students suffer the consequences.
But another faculty member
characterized some of the students'
arguments as "groping attempts to muscle
the faculty or to confuse the issue in
favor of the students."
A third faculty member said that to
exempt the students from the
requirement would be to do them an
injustice, since they needed the benefit of
the writing experience.
Photograph by Rick Y ctter
Larry Ethridge, President of the Student Bar Association, argues for the exemption of
the junior class from a new research requirement.
After hearing these arguments, the
faculty easily passed the motion on a
voice vote, with only one or two negative
votes cast.
One faculty member who supported
the students admonished them for
waiting to protest retroactively, rather
than taking an active interest in the
curriculum before and during the original
deliberations. But , despite the
admonition, most of the students
attending the meeting left immediately or
shortly after the motion passed.
The only other item of business on the
agenda of the special meeting concerned a
change in the policy on incompletes and
withdrawals. After considerable
discussion , the matter was postponed due
to a lack of a quorum.
Crime rises drastically on campus
According to recent Department of
Public Safety statistics crime, at U of L, is
up drastically over past years. Although
actual arrests are down, the seriousness of
the crimes reported has been greater.
The statistics appearing below involve
a four year period with figun~s ,·for 1974
covering the months from January to
October of this year.
The number of reported crimes is, to
date, 120 more than for 1973. The
increase in crime reports can be
attributed to a number of factors chief of
which is the increase in bicycJe thefts.
Since the cost of most bicycles is above
one hundred dollars , this classifies them
as grand larceny thefts. This has led to an
increase in the case value of grand larceny
theft at U of L from $16,342 in 1973 to
$29,813 in 1974.
Photograph by Rick Yetter
Law school Dean Steve Smith presides over the Tuesday faculty meeting at which the
students presented their-demand for exemption.
Likewise the total case value of items
stolen from the univer ity has increased
over a four year period . In 1971 the total
amount of stolen property added up to
$26,885. in 197_ the amount dropped to
$22,380. In 1973 it was $26.173. but to
date in 1974 the amount is already
$36,410.
The total number of arrests appears to
have gone down with only 62 being
reported this year compared with c 9
reported in 1973. The drop in arrests.
however , can be attributed to the
creation of the Jefferson County
detoxification cen ter which serves a the
depository for those souls who become
inebriated . This does away with the need
to me formal arrest charges.
The figures for the total number of
arrests during the last four years are as
follows :
1971 -- 97 arrests 86 non-university
persons, 8 students, 3 staff.
1972 - 97 arrests, 91 non-university
persons 5 students 1 staff
1973 - 89 .arrests, 73 non-university
persons, 6 students, 1 0 staff.
197 4 - 62 arrests (to date), 56
non-university persons, 3 students 3
staff.
Director of Public Safety Dan Keller
says that students were not the problem
in terms of crime here at U of L.
"Students are the ones being preyed
upon." The non-university person arrest
rate is high according to Keller· other
urban universities run about 50% while U
of L's average is about 7 5%. ("Students
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