To get readers on this blog, I may have to use more sensational headlines, like this one from Norman Lebrecht today, plugging his article Legend of a Lovelorn Lodger about Raymond Coffer’s new website on Richard Gerstl.
I have tickets to the LA Phil tonight, Gustavo Dudamel conducting a world premiere of John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary. Pam doesn’t want to go, so I may take Nathan.
Last week I received a call from the LA Phil’s development office. I was forced to tell them why I don’t give them money anymore. Next year will be the 11th consecutive season without a regular subscription concert with a work by Schoenberg.
Of course, there have been some Schoenberg performances since the big Schoenberg Prism series in 2001-2002. In February 2005, Esa-Pekka Salonen led the orchestra in Gurrelieder, but three of the four concerts were completely bought out by Chorus America for their conference, so that doesn’t really count. And Simon Rattle performed the Brahms/Schoenberg Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, op. 25 and Chamber Symphony No. 1, op. 9 with the Berliner Philharmoniker in November 2009. There have been some non-orchestra performances, including Pierrot Lunaire on a Green Umbrella program in February 2010. And this year, my friend Mitch Newman gave an excellent performance of the String Quartet #3 (which did not get reviewed, unfortunately).
But eleven straight seasons without a regular subscription orchestral performance by the LA Phil of a work by Schoenberg is just not right. And so I told the development office that I felt there must be some ban on Schoenberg at the LA Phil, or else how do you explain it? Every other major orchestra in the world regularly performs Schoenberg, so how is it possible that in the city he called home for his last seventeen years, they play not a note? And how could they ask me to give money to support an organization that has banned my grandfather’s music?
The development people were very nice, and sympathetic. They even suggested that President Deborah Borda or Chairman David Bohnett would love to hear from me about it. I told them that I’d be happy to speak with anyone, but I didn’t think that Borda or Bohnett would want to hear what I had to say. The development person said he would send me an e-mail and introduce me to Bohnett. And that was the last I heard. No e-mail, of course.
One more anecdote on this subject. I remember meeting Deborah Borda for the first time at the LA Phil’s concert during the Schoenberg Prism series where they performed A Survivor from Warsaw, op. 46 with Leonard Nimoy as the narrator. (Incidentally, George Takai recently performed the same role. So when will William Shatner do it?) I was sitting up in the Founders section (this was before the move to Disney Hall) in tickets that the LA Phil had provided to Belmont (as publisher). So I saw Ernest Fleishman and went over to thank him for the tickets (and the whole Schoenberg Prism series, which I believe he had planned with Esa-Pekka prior to Deborah’s arrival in January 2000). He introduced me to Deborah. I said to Ernest that this was the first time I had heard Survivor in a live performance. Deborah was surprised and asked how that could be true. Well, I answered, this was the first performance by the LA Phil of that work in my lifetime (I was 35 years old). Of course, Ernest had been executive director of the LA Phil for 30 of those years. I suppose that is how Deborah learned that it was going to be okay not to program any more Schoenberg.
And a final thought, the LA Phil has yet to perform the Schoenberg Violin Concerto, op. 36. [My mistake: the work was premiered by the LA Phil in 1974 with James Levine conducting and Zvi Zeitlin on violin.] The work was composed in Los Angeles in 1936. Esa-Pekka Salonen, who was the LA Phil’s conductor for 25 years, and who has recorded a ton of Schoenberg, even won a Grammy for his recording of the concerto with Hilary Hahn and the Swedish Radio Symphony. And yet he never performed the piece in Los Angeles. In fairness, the work was programmed during the Schoenberg prism series in 2001-2002, but Viktoria Mullova cancelled in the last minute. On her website, it says
Mullova recalls learning the violin concerto of another Austrian, Arnold Schoenberg, in the late 1980s “and wanting to die, I was struggling so much”. Asked to take it back into her repertoire for the 2001 Schoenberg festival in Los Angeles, she refused. “Despite the perfect circumstances, it wasn’t worth it. The music wasn’t good enough for me to put up with the pain.”
It must be false, because she was in the program and only cancelled the week of the performance. On Norman Lebrecht’s old posting from 2001, it says
As the Looking Glass tour packs her diary, she is busily relearning the Schoenberg concerto, the most refractory piece in the repertoire, which she will play in Los Angeles this year on the 50th anniversary of the great scale-breaker’s death.
My understanding was that she had some sort of nervous breakdown.
In any case, the LA Phil could easily program the work again, with Hilary Hahn or Christian Tetzlaff (who recently performed it at Carnegie Hall) or Ilya Gringolts (most recently in Glasgow) or Nikolaj Znaider. I’d like to hear Midori perform it, since she did a great job with the Phantasy, op. 47. But does the LA Phil really need me to tell them? Shouldn’t they be able to figure this out on their own?
We Schoenbergs are an opinionated bunch. When we are together, we like to debate and argue about everything and anything and nothing at all. We get together often, but when we’re not all in one place, we miss the family interaction. So, why not start a family blog, where we can float ideas, rant and rave, challenge and annoy, just as if we were all on vacation together?
The Schoenblog is a place for public comments. It is not intended for private family matters. Only post a blog entry here whenever you feel like saying something that other people in the world should read.
We have an eclectic family with expertise in many fields (e.g. law, archaeology, genetics, electrical engineering, philosophy, music, art, photography, statistics, advertising, language, literature, and tennis), so I expect our blog posts will cover a wide range of topics. That should make this blog interesting, not only to us, but to others as well.
I actually started a blog (actually an on-line diary) in May 1997, but that was before most people had ever heard of blogs. (The term “blog” was coined in 1999.) Fifteen years later, I am ready to start again in this collaborative fashion. I am hopeful that as a family we can come up with something interesting, not only to us, but to the rest of the world as well.
So go ahead and post your thoughts, your critiques, your reviews, your ideas or anything at all. Just like when we’re all together at Rockingham.
I am all in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy, as Warren Buffett recently proposed, even though this would certainly increase my tax burden. My motive is not only the zeal to “do for my country,” but the knowledge that the greatest risk to my personal well-being is income inequality so great that it leads to revolution. As most wealthy taxpayers realize, paying taxes is a small price to pay for preserving the status quo.
But Buffett has an even more cynical motive for advocating more taxes from the super rich. Taxes are his best friend. Higher taxes act as a barrier to wealth creation. The higher the taxes, the safer is Buffett ‘s position on top of the wealth pyramid.
To understand this, one needs to understand that for the mega-rich like Buffett, money has absolutely no utility. There is simply nothing they want that they cannot buy. One or five or ten billion more or less simply means nothing. All that matters is their relative position among the super-wealthy. The best case scenario for someone like Buffett is that no one ever challenges his position on the Forbes list. For Buffett, a 100% income and capital gain tax would be absolutely in his best interest. No wonder he now favors higher taxes.
Another way to understand this is to consider the following: what if overnight the government doubled the amount of money you have? If everyone else stayed the same, this would really be a bonanza for you. But what if at the same time everyone else also doubled his money? Then you’d expect prices to double and everything would end up the same as it was before. Your buying power would not increase at all even though you had twice as much money. The fact is that money is just a measure of your buying power. The only thing that matters is where you stand relative to everyone else
Buffett’s late call for higher taxes is therefore perfectly consistent with his own self-interest. Indeed, low taxes pose the greatest threat, as it would allow others to catch and overtake him on the wealth pyramid. Buffett’s demand for higher taxes is merely a way to protect his buying power, just the latest manifestation of his relentless pursuit of his own self-interest.
In his August 2011 op-ed in the Washington Post, Buffett claimed that his income taxes were just under $7m and that this figure was just 17% of his income. Probably the numbers seemed so large that most people didn’t even bother to think twice about them. But the figures are grossly, almost criminally, misleading. Buffett implied that his income was $42 million, which sounds like a lot. It isn’t, at least not for Buffett. That amount is just 0.1% of his net worth. If he put his assets in a CD at his local bank he’d make more than four times that amount. Investing just 2% of his assets in US Treasury bonds would generate an equivalent amount of income. To keep his taxable income so low, Buffett has to invest nearly all of his assets in stock that pays no dividends (like Berkshire Hathaway) or in tax-free municipal bonds. In other words, with a more “normal” asset distribution, one not designed solely to avoid paying income taxes, Buffett’s gross income would be far, far more than what he implies in his article.
Buffett does not disclose how his charitable gifts affect his $42m in taxable income, whether the figure is before or after taking a deduction. But charitable gifts are another one of Buffett’s misleading schemes. In 2006, Buffett announced with much fanfare that he would give $31 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The present value was actually far less, since the gift was to be made over a period of 20 years, or at Buffett’s death (when he has no option but to let go of his money). As it turns out, Buffett gives about $1.5 billion per year, or just 3% of his assets to the BMGF. In other words, even as Buffett announced one of the largest gifts in history, he made sure that he would still be getting richer every year until he died. Apparently, even in his eighties, Buffett still feels the need to hold on to and play with his money. And the BMGF, while generously distributing several billion dollars each year, has managed to grow from $29 billion in 2005 to $37.4 billion in 2010. While Buffett mandates that his annual contributions be spent by the BMGF, in fact that spending is merely used to help satisfy the minimum spending requirement for the foundation, allowing other money to remain in the foundation rather than increasing substantially the charitable dollars distributed to charities. In other words, the BMGF itself has become a type of holding company, much like Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, investing its assets, growing (largely untaxed), and spending just enough each year to qualify as a charitable foundation.
Most people who give to charity do so to support their personal charitable interests. Buffett apparently has none. Unlike billionaires George Soros or Eli Broad, Buffett has no desire to use his money for any particular cause. Nor does he wish to spend any time thinking about which charities he might support. Rather, he has abdicated the decision-making to the BMGF.
As nice as Buffett’s charitable contributions seem, they really are quite unimaginative and, in the context of his excessive wealth, hardly noticeable. He could double his contributions and still be the third richest man in the world until he dies. It is actually not hard to give away large sums of money. He could give $50 million to endow a university economics department in each of the fifty states and that would total $2.5 billion. Each year he could do the same for ballet or diabetes or solar power or you name it. He could even help the country by readjusting his portfolio to a more normal distribution among asset classes, which would hardly hurt his portfolio but would result in more income taxes. But to do these things he would have to have an interest in something other than his own wealth, and that, apparently, is the one thing Warren Buffett is lacking.
[Published: Newsletter No. 4, November 2002, Jewish Music Institute: International Centre for Suppressed Music.]
It seems that when one wants to deflate the image of Arnold Schoenberg and the twelve-tone method of composition he developed, the most common approach is to recite Schoenberg’s most famous statement to his pupil Josef Rufer during the summer of 1921:
I have made a discovery which will ensure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years. [Ich habe eine Entdeckung gemacht, durch welche die Vorherrschaft der deutschen Musik für den nächsten hundert Jahre gesichert ist.]
The not-so-subtle implication is always that Schoenberg was a fanatical German supremacist, like Hitler, and therefore that his twelve-tone method should be associated with fascism and Nazism and discarded. Uncritical acceptance of this statement can be found in even the most pro-Schoenberg books and articles. But closer scrutiny casts serious doubt on the accuracy of Rufer’s recollection. Schoenberg’s most (in)famous statement may be the most famous thing he never said.
Schoenberg is possibly the world’s most well-documented composer. His thousands and thousands of pages of writings — books, letters, essays and aphorisms — have been meticulously preserved, catalogued and made accessible by publication and in the Schoenberg archives open without restriction to scholars since 1977. However, Schoenberg’s most famous statement does not appear in any of these writings. Its source is the 1959 publication by Schoenberg pupil Josef Rufer, “Das Werk Arnold Schönbergs” (Kassel 1959). In that book, published eight years after Schoenberg’s death, Rufer stated, apparently for the first time, that during the summer of 1921, in the Austrian town of Traunkirchen, Schoenberg had disclosed to him the discovery of the twelve-tone method. The quotation recounted by Rufer some thirty-eight years after the fact has become the line most commonly used to discredit Schoenberg and his music.
There is good reason to be skeptical of Rufer’s belated recollection of this event. Rufer conveniently makes himself the first pupil to whom Schoenberg disclosed his new method of composition. The first work using the twelve-tone method, the prelude of the Piano Suite, op. 25, was begun in Traunkirchen in July 1921. But as Schoenberg’s biographer H.H. Stuckenschmidt recounts “an enormous number of friends and pupils visited” Schoenberg at Traunkirchen that summer. Wouldn’t Schoenberg have made this disclosure also to other pupils and colleagues? Why did Rufer not reveal this event until 1959, after Schoenberg and many of the other pupils (and witnesses) had died?
For the sake of argument, let us assume that Schoenberg did disclose his method of composing with twelve tones only to his young pupil Josef Rufer during the summer of 1921. Would Schoenberg have used the German nationalist language that Rufer ascribes to him? It should be noted that when Rufer recounted the story it was 1959. The German-born Rufer had lived through the entire Nazi period in Germany. The phrase “supremacy of German . . .” was one that Rufer had heard many, many times. Can we be certain that his belated recollection of Schoenberg’s words was accurate?
The timing of the disclosure to Rufer also makes Schoenberg’s use and appropriation of nationalist German rhetoric unlikely. Schoenberg moved to Traunkirchen in July 1921 after an incident in the town of Mattsee, where it was made known to him that the town did not appreciate having Jewish guests. (Rufer is credited with locating the Villa Josef in Traunkirchen to which the Schoenbergs moved.) The Mattsee event proved a watershed in Schoenberg’s perception of himself as a Jew. Less than two years later he would write to Kandinsky that the event led to his rediscovery of his Jewish identity and he warned already then of the dangers of Hitler and anti-Semitism. If Schoenberg did use the term “German supremacy” when discussing his musical discovery during the summer of 1921, it could only have been with great irony — an irony perhaps lost on his young German pupil Rufer.
A letter from Schoenberg to Alma Mahler dated July 26, 1921 casts much needed light on the subject. In this short letter, which has not previously been published, Schoenberg makes a statement quite similar to the one Rufer later recalled. But the context of Schoenberg’s statement makes it clear that Schoenberg harbored no sympathy for the Austrian German nationalists who had recently interrupted his summer in Mattsee.
My dear, most esteemed friend,
I just wanted to give you quickly a sign of life and to thank you for your dear letter. Quickly: for after I paid my Mattsee compatriots — forever deranged by the madness of the times — a tribute in money (very much money) and what is more: work time (3 weeks!) — I have begun again to work. Something completely new! The German aryans who persecuted me in Mattsee will have this new thing (especially this one) to thank for the fact that even they will still be respected abroad for 100 years, because they belong to the very state that has just secured for itself hegemony in the field of music! — How are you? All is well with us — only we cannot find anyone to do housework. Long live Democracy : no one wants to work, so we have to do it. Many heartfelt greetings from my wife, Trudi, Görgi and from me. Your most devoted Arnold Schoenberg
Liebe hochverehrte Freundin, nur um rasch ein Lebenszeichen zu geben und, dir für deinen so lieben Brief zu danken. Rasch: denn, nach dem ich meinen Mattseer Mitmenschen — Ewig-Zeitgeisteskranken — einen Tribut von Geld (von sehr viel Geld) und was noch mehr ist: in Arbeitszeit (3 Wochen!) gezahlt habe, — habe ich wieder zu arbeiten begonnen. Was ganz Neues! Die Deutscharier, die mich in Mattsee verfolgt haben, werden es diesem Neuen (speciell diesem) [XXX] zu verdanken haben, dass man sogar sie noch 100 Jahre lang im Ausland achtet, weil sie dem Staat angehören, der sich neuerdings die Hegemonie auf dem Gebiet der Musik gesichert hat! — Wie gehts dir. Bei uns alles wohl — nur können wir niemanden zur häuslichen Arbeit finden. Es lebe die Demokratie: niemand will arbeiten; also müssen wir es tun. Viele herzliche Grüsse von meiner Frau, Trudi, Görgi, und von mir.
Dein herzlich ergebener Arnold Schönberg
If Schoenberg did say something to Rufer during the summer of 1921, it was probably similar to what Schoenberg wrote to his friend Alma Mahler. But the irony in the letter to Alma Mahler is completely lost in the famous line later recounted by Rufer over thirty years later. And the implication that is often made from the Rufer quote — that Schoenberg was a fanatical German nationalist — is exactly the opposite of what Schoenberg expressed.
Schoenberg recognized that his discovery of the twelve-tone method would have far-reaching implications, and correctly predicted that his innovation would establish his pre-eminence among composers not just in Austria and Germany, but throughout the world. (The widespread use of the twelve tone method by other composers since 1921 does seem to bear out Schoenberg’s prophecy.) Schoenberg recognized the supreme irony that the honor that would inure to Austria as a result of his discovery would even benefit those Austrian German nationalists who sought to expel him because of his Jewish background. The discovery of the twelve-tone method was not proclaimed as a triumph of German nationalism, but rather in spite of such nationalism.
We have from Schoenberg another similar but much more ecumenical statement about the importance of his 12-tone method of composition. In 1930, Schoenberg wrote to a number of leading figures seeking support for a proclamation in honor of the architect Adolf Loos’ 60th birthday. After receiving an uncharacteristic rejection from Albert Einstein, Schoenberg wrote to Loos’ wife, Claire on November 17, 1930 as follows:
Dear esteemed madam,
Enclosed is the answer from Einstein and one from Heinrich Mann. To Einstein I wanted to send the following answer:
“. . . I understand something about the subject; hardly less than the expert from the newspaper, whom everyone would believe. And I say: Loos has in his field at least the same importance as I do in mine. And you know perhaps that I pride myself on having shown mankind the way of musical creation for at least the next hundred years.”
[Verehrte gnädige Frau,
anbei die Antwort von Einstein und eine von Heinrich Mann. An Einstein wollte ich folgende Antwort richten:
“…ich verstehe wirklich etwas von der Sache; kaum weniger als der Fachmann von der Zeitung, dem jeder glauben würde. Und ich sage: Loos hat auf seinem Gebiet mindestens dieselbe Bedeutung wie ich auf dem meinigen. Und Sie wissen vielleicht, dass ich mir einbilde der Menschheit für wenigstens hundert Jahre die Wege musikalischen Schaffens gewiesen zu haben.”]
There is no doubt that Schoenberg believed that he was an heir to the great Austro-German musical tradition — to Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner. But this does not make him a believer in Nazi-like German supremacy. In several essays written in 1931, he discusses the concept of “national music” and of improper attempts to ascribe national, political dimensions to artistic phenomena. In music, as in many fields, certain nations sometimes obtain hegemony over others. But in Schoenberg’s view, artisitic dominance was not at all related to political dominance. Schoenberg certainly believed that his discovery of the twelve-tone method would again lead to Austrian and German hegemony in the field of music. But that did not make him a German nationalist. As an Austrian, and a Jew, he could hardly have ever had any sympathy for those who longed for a 1,000-year German Reich. One may quibble with Schoenberg’s naturally partisan view of the historical importance of his own discovery, and of the influence it would have in the future. But it is not fair to ascribe to Schoenberg the German nationalist tendencies that he so obviously abhorred. It is a mistake to rely on the line recounted by Rufer in 1959, when we have in Schoenberg’s letters evidence of a more nuanced, ironic and ecumenical point of view.
Letter to Los Angeles Times
(8-16-94)
By Randy Schoenberg
Estrich misses the point in arguing that defense attorneys face an ethical dilemma because they cloud the “truth” when defending their clients. The penal system, as its name suggests, is not about “truth”, but about “penalties”. A finding of guilt does not unrape the victim, it puts the rapist in jail. Our penal system is premised on the concept that the state cannot penalize a person unless it can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person is guilty. It matters not whether the person is actually guilty or innocent; if the state cannot meet its burden, it cannot punish. The defense lawyer’s role in this system is to check the power of the state to penalize.
A good defense attorney, therefore, is rightly unconcerned with what he or she believes is the ”truth”; his or her concern is whether the state can prove its case. As Estrich well knows, there are often larger issues at stake than the guilt or innocence of a single defendant. If we deny a defense to defendants when a confession is beaten out of them by the police, or when, as in the Simpson case, the police illegally enter a person’s home to obtain evidence, then we deprive ourselves of the protections against abuse of power by the state that our Constitution rightly guarantees and that people in less fortunate countries so desire.
“The Editor Departs”
Law Street Journal Article (April 8, 1991)
By Randol Schoenberg
I have been very grateful for the words of encouragement I’ve received throughout this year on the job we’ve done with the newspaper. Publishing an issue every month has not been easy, but I believe that we have served the Law Center community well.
We’ve accomplished quite a lot this year. In the past, the Law Street Journal came out irregularly. The content was inconsistent and the coverage poor. But this year we set a new standard with eight full issues (as opposed to only five last year) with more than double the amount of pages. By doing our own layout, we’ve been able to come out on schedule and report on news before it comes stale. I think the style of the paper has improved also.
Our staff has grown considerably, and I would like to thank the many people who have worked so hard to make this newspaper appear in your mailboxes every month. Our staff of senior writers took time out to contribute regularly, not because they were going to get class credit or because they represented a particular organization, but because they had something to offer which no one else could provide: The studied eye of a good reporter.
Along with our more noticeable presence came an added dose of criticism and responsibility. Instead of being a ragsheet that curiously appeared at odd intervals, the Law Street Journal has become a value and reliable source of information. So when we approached controversial subjects—Secession, the Course Evaluations Boycott, Minority Admission, Justice White’s visit or the SBA’s budget woes—we had a responsibility to act candidly and fairly. Some people have felt that at times we were not being fair. We have taken that criticism and learned from it.
But part of the trouble was certainly caused by the perspective we offer. There are two other sources of information for law students: SBA memos and the Administration’s Advance Sheet. We tried to speak from a third point of view and that sometimes put us at odds with the SBA and the Administration. But it has been my philosophy all along that the Law Street Journal should be independent. It should not merely parrot the views of the Administration or the SBA.
In France they call the press the Fourth Estate. That is because a truly effective press should not be permanently allied with anyone. If we were to hold back on stories merely because we are friends with members of the SBA or with the Faculty, then we would not be fulfilling our duty as journalists. That duty often puts us in difficult positions, but I believe that for the most part we have done the right thing. The positive comments I have received from those who rely on the Law Street Journal for information more than outweigh the few negative ones from people who would rather you receive their version of the facts or none at all.
This issue of the Law Street Journal will be the last of this year, but it is the first for the new Editor-in-Chief David Willats Beck and his staff. If this issue is any indication, we can be certain that the Law Street Journal will continue to provide timely and comprehensive coverage of Law Center news.
Many of you are asking yourselves right now, “What is he doing up there? Who invited him to speak at a diversity rally?” And now some of you are probably thinking to yourselves, “Is he gay? Is he handicapped? What is it?”
Well I have to disappoint you. I belong to none of the standard diversity categories. I am not a racial or gender minority, that is, I don’t look Black or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or anything but a White European Male. And I’m not a hidden minority either, at least not at this Law School. I’m not gay. I’m not physically handicapped. I’m not poor. In short, I am what everybody is not referring to when they say that we need more diversity.
But I would like to speak if I may, on the dangers of diversity rhetoric. Diversity proponents like easy classifications. Are you a different color? A woman? Then it’s easy to say you are different. It starts to get more difficult when less identifiable groups demand inclusion. Are you gay or lesbian? Are you dyslexic or deaf? Okay, then join the diversity club? But, no matter how inclusive it gets, I am not invited.
The goal of many diversity proponents at this law school is not just tolerance of difference, but a restructuring of the whole student body and faculty. They want more Blacks and more Hispanics and more Women and more this and more that. What they don’t want is more of me. And so, let me tell you how I feel about that.
Let me help you classify me some more. I belong to a large subgroup of the white male population on campus: I am Jewish. Jews on the whole are what you might call “overrepresented.” That is, there are far more Jewish students and professors at USC than one would expect based on our population in general. Although you probably won’t say it outright, many of you see that as a problem. Why aren’t they proportional, you ask. What advantage do they have? Whatever it is we must counterbalance it with a diversity criteria so that Jews don’t have a disproportionate representation at our law school.
Am I wrong to perceive this as a threat? If diversity had been the guiding principle of faculty selection, Erwin Chemerinsky would not have been hired. Neither would Scott Altman. Nor many other professors, good or bad. And let me tell you right here, if diversity had been the main principle in admissions, I would not be here either.
Proponents of diversity criteria claim that we should counteract the history of racism and oppression that minorities have faced in this country. I agree. But let me talk once again as a Jew. My parents are first generation Americans. My grandparents were forced to flee from Hitler only fifty years ago. My great-grandfather was murdered at Treblinka. Most Jews can tell you similar stories, some also of murderous pogroms a generation earlier. Is my family history really so much better than the diverse people you would favor over me?
But my point is not that Jews should be considered one of the diversity groups. We would still be overrepresented and need to reduce our population. My point is that there are many factors that go into every person’s life. And to privilege one person over another, merely because of their race or gender or sexual orientation or class or religion, is wrong. It defies the principles of equality, and it defies the very dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, that people would some day be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
“Give the Graduate Senate a Chance, Not Secession”
Law Street Journal Article (January 14, 1991)
By Randol Schoenberg
In a few days, the SBA will take a poll of the student body to determine whether or not they should try to secede from the USC Student Senate. The issue is likely not one that has caught the attention of the average law student, but it has been a subject of heated controversy in the SBA for the past four months.
The SBA is nearly unanimous in its support for secession of some kind, yet I believe not enough consideration has been given to the idea of a Graduate Student Senate. For that reason I oppose complete secession and support forming a separate Graduate Senate.
The proposal of Student Senate President Steve Webber to form a new Graduate Student Senate has been in the works for nearly a year. This week the Graduate Assembly of the Student Senate will hold a meeting to accept proposals for the new graduate student governing body. One of those proposals will come from our own Student Senator Michelle Milner. In two weeks the proposals will be debated by the Graduate Assembly and one will be selected as the blueprint for the new senate. In February there will be a university-wide referendum and if the results are positive, the new Senate may begin operating this Spring.
I support the new Senate because I think it will be the best way to address the concerns of the SBA and of law students as members of the University community. The primary justification given for secession is that our student programming fees are not returned for use in the Law School. I am sure law students are not the only ones who feel that they are not getting their money’s worth. It is likely that other graduate students share our feelings that most of the programming activities are geared to undergraduates. If that is the case, then a graduate senate could provide a good forum for planning activities that are directed at graduate students.
The SBA has plenty of money already for funding student activities at the Law Center. Invariably much of the money that the SBA does have is wasted on failed events or distributed to small organizations. Last year the SBA approved an allocation to pay for the transportation cost of students working on the Mariel Cubans project. The members of the SBA were largely indifferent when I pointed out that they had just approved an allocation $100 more than what was requested. There is no shortage of money at SBA, only a shortage of ideas for using the money.
We stand to lose a great deal if we push ahead with secession instead of supporting the Graduate Student Senate. Primarily we lose any say we might have in the creation of the new senate. Other graduate students will not be very responsive to our needs if we have declared our intention to pull out our funds from the new body.
Secession will not be an amicable divorce. We cannot expect the other graduate students to pay much attention to us once we have withdrawn from their body. We will not be invited to any graduate student events or be able to debate any graduate student issues. One of our only avenues for airing our grievances to the University will be closed.
We have very much to gain from a new graduate senate. Foremost will be increased representation commensurate with our size. The Law Center is likely to hold a great deal of power among the graduate students because our school is one of the largest and most cohesive. One proposal would be to increase the number of representatives so that there is a chance for a law student to be on the senate for more than one year and gain the experience needed to be President or Vice-President. One problem that we have now is that our senator is always a neophyte and is therefore unlikely to hold significant positions in the student government. A new Senate could solve that problem.
The problems that the proponents of secession are quibbling over are minor ones. We should at least give the new Graduate Senate a chance to prove itself. Steven Webber has already announced that he will propose that law students who work as researchers be treated like other graduate students and get paid appropriately. The Graduate Program Board also wants to play a more active role in bringing grad students together. I for one would welcome the opportunity to meet other graduate students, and I would hope that we would act in such a way that they would also like to meet us. That is why I am voting to support the formation of a separate Graduate Senate.
“SBA Votes for Secession from University”
Law Street Journal Article (December 3, 1990)
By Randol Schoenberg
In a stunning move that may change the face of student government at USC, our SBA has voted to secede financially from the Student Government. With sixteen votes in favor and only two against the SBA decided to seek a separation from the current governing body. Then by a four vote margin, the SBA declared its desire for financial independence from the rest of the University community. The second vote was a rejection of Student Senate President Steve Weber’s plea for Law Center support of a separate Graduate Student Senate. In January the SBA will take a referendum before continuing the fight for separation.
What is secession? The SBA is steamed that each semester, the graduate program board (GPB) returns only $9.16 of our $21 programming fee to the SBA for use in funding law center activities. The GPB receives $185,000 per year for programming out of an overall student affairs budget of almost $1,000,000. The programming fees are returned to the various graduate schools for their own use. The Law School receives about $11,000 each year from the GPB. However, the law students contribute over $25,000 to the entire student affairs budget.
The SBA wants to regain control over the difference by financially separating itself from the rest of the University. That move is likely to meet much opposition both in the Student Senate and the University administration.
The Student Senate distributes the entire University’s programming fees. They dole out money to the student assemblies representing various constituencies on campus. For example, the Black Student Assembly gets $25,000, Latinos $26,000, Asians $22,000, Women $9,000, Gay & Lesbian $11,000, and International students $27,000. Our programming fees go into the pool that subsidizes the activities of those groups. The Senate also gives $48,000 to fund Intramurals.
Proponents of secession argue that we receive little if any benefit from our programming fees which are not returned to us by the GPB. Opponents worry that the law school will be sending the wrong signal by calling for complete separation from the rest of the University.
In the articles below, Third Year President Alan Hoffman and Second Year Vice President Michael Hoffman debate the pros and cons of secession.