Moderator:

Elaine H. Pagels, Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of

Religion.

Panelists: Donald J. Cohn ’50, trial lawyer in private practice; Leroy

L. Lim ’90, reverend and former Episcopal chaplain, UCLA; Rebecca

Migliore ’85, pastor, Patterson Memorial Presbyterian Church; Edward

E. Sterling ’75, Global Missions Fellowship. Betts Auditorium, School

of Architecture Building.

Moderator: Nathan B. Scovronick, lecturer in public and international

affairs, Woodrow Wilson School. Panelists: Spencer W. Blasdale ’90,

co-principal, The Academy of the Pacific Rim; William H. Kingston,

III ’65, teacher, Moorestown High School; James T. Mills ’45, founding

director, New Jersey Communities in Schools; Howard C. Wainer *68,

principal research scientist, Educational Testing Service, and member,

Princeton Regional School Board; Diane K. Weeks ’75, attorney. McCosh

10.

Top Of Page
On the Campuses: Audit Opportunities

Princeton Reunions isn’t the only time an outsider can

sample the Ivy League education being offered there. The retirement

home advertisements have it right: Settling down near a college town

does have some real advantages. Not only does Princeton University

offer a slew of lectures that it advertises as open to the public,

but — quietly — it also allows area adults to sit in on entire

lecture courses. Until this year these auditors could attend for free

just by getting permission from the professor, but recently those

requests got out of hand.

Under the new system auditors must register and pay a token fee of

$50. Compared to what the for-credit students pay, five figures for

each course, this is still quite a bargain, and for the would-be

auditors

who cannot afford the $50, the fee is waived. Auditors can attend

lecture courses but not labs, seminar courses, or precepts (smaller

break-out session). Last fall 470 auditors registered and 360

registered

for the spring semester, says Pam Hersh, director of the Office

of Community and State Affairs.

Princeton’s in-person registration for the fall semester is closed,

but mail-in registration for auditors continues until September 1.

Forms are available from a box outside Room 220 in Nassau Hall. Choose

from a list of courses that have been approved by professors and

department

managers. Among the most popular courses are art history, music,

literature,

and history.

Other area colleges offer similar opportunities. Mercer County

Community

College requires senior citizens to pay full fare for noncredit

courses

but offers credit courses either for audit or for credit. Seniors

over 65 can take credit courses for free at Mercer under these

circumstances:

in Mercer County do get a discount — they pay in-county rates.

complete and it has been determined that space is available.

In contrast, Rider University allows members of the general public

to audit, on a space available basis, for $160 per undergraduate

course

and $225 for a graduate level course. Rider alumni, nevertheless,

pay just $30. (These fees would also apply to Westminster College

of Rider University courses.)

The policy for the College of New Jersey, meanwhile, is to charge

the going rate — the same rate as for credit students. In some

isolated cases the tuition can be waived. The requirements for a

waiver

involve being enrolled in at least six credit hours.

Nothing says you have to be retired to "take" or audit a

university

course. Your favorite course — one that may even pertain to your

day job — might be offered at lunchtime or in the evening.

— Barbara Fox

Princeton Reunions: Women and the Law

In 1996, while still a law student at University of

Chicago, Tara Crean got to work on one of the ugliest, costliest

sexual harassment cases ever. A volunteer in the university’s legal

aid clinic, a service for people with low income, Crean provided legal

assistance to one of 27 women suing the nearby U.S. subsidiary of

Mitsubishi for injuries suffered from a pervasive environment of

sexual

harassment. The events were so atrocious — ranging from physical

harassment to discrimination — that soon after the U.S. Equal

Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington’s civic rights

enforcement

agency, filed its own suit against the company. Mitsubishi

capitulated,

and nearly 800 women working at the company were offered a generous

settlement.

The right of women to be free from sexual discrimination, protected

under the federal constitution, prevailed in this case. But had a

similar case been filed against a public sector employer — the

state of New Jersey, for example — the outcome might have been

very different, says Crean. In a recent move to protect states’

rights,

the U.S. Supreme Court has invoked the Eleventh Amendment to exempt

states from federal laws — including laws traditionally concerned

with civil rights. "The Eleventh Amendment is about the state’s

right not to be sued, and if you work for the State of New Jersey

in Trenton, and you sue your employer, you’re suing the state,"

says Crean, a 1994 graduate of Princeton University who now works

at the Women’s Law Project (215-928-9801), a legal non-profit based

in Philadelphia.

Crean will be one of the speakers at "Princeton Women and the

Law: Law as a Choice and as a Tool," a discussion sponsored by

the Princeton University Women’s Center that takes place on Saturday,

May 27, at 10:30 a.m. in Room 101, McCormick Hall on the campus of

Princeton. Brita Strandberg (Princeton Class of 1990) of Shea

and Gardner will talk about a case involving one of her clients, a

member of the Iraqi resistance who worked against Saddam Hussein and

had to be evacuated from Iraq for safety. Sally Frank (Princeton

Class of 1980), another panelist, made headlines while still a

Princeton

student when she sued three all-male eating clubs as a means of

opening

them up to women. She now teaches law at Drake University. Call

609-259-7184.

Civil rights, women’s issues, and public interest law has been

foremost

in Crean’s mind since her first few days at Princeton, when she joined

the Urban Action League and got involved in community efforts in

Trenton.

Originally from the suburbs of Rochester, Crean studied politics and

took a year off to work for the Legal Action Center for the Homeless,

an agency in New York that sets up legal clinics in soup kitchens

to help inform homeless people of their rights, from welfare

entitlements

to immigration issues.

After graduation, Crean studied law at the University of Chicago,

a school she admits "does not have a reputation for encouraging

public service," but she chose to attend so she could spy on the

enemy camp. "I came out of there immersed in the reasoning of

the Rehnquist Court, which is very much concerned with states’ rights

and limiting Congress to its enumerated power," she says.

"That’s

a real threat to those of us interested in Civil Rights protection

and legislation — it’s through congressional power that a lot

of Civil Rights laws have been enacted. Now, through the umbrella

of states’ rights, a lot of those are being cut back. "

Just last week, in fact, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as

unconstitutional

the Violence Against Women Act, a federal civil rights remedy that

would have allowed women to recover damages if they could prove they

were raped, battered, or assaulted as a result of their gender.

Congress

has been able to enact similar legislation in the past on the basis

of its authority under the Commerce Clause and the Fourteenth

Amendment,

but here the U.S. Supreme Court used another amendment to override

it. "The Eleventh Amendment is this dusty part of the constitution

recently discovered by the Supreme Court that creates sovereign

immunity

for the states, or the right to be free from federal law suits,"

says Crean. "It even threatens the right of employees to sue for

race and sex discrimination. I think the people who are most

vulnerable

are state employees because of this whole ascendancy of the state

amendment."

At the Women’s Law Project, Crean is an advocate for women’s rights,

litigating on several instances of sexual discrimination on the job,

from a women basketball referee’s demand for equal court time to

female

employees’ demands that their health insurance cover contraceptives

equally with male-specific prescription drugs and devices. In 1998,

in the case of Kemether vs. Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic

Association, she represented a high school basketball referee who

was told she could not officiate boys’ games, even though male

referees

can work with girls’ basketball. "We went to trial, prevailed,

and now in Pennsylvania women can referee boys’ games and girls’

games,"

says Crean. "We think it’s important not only for Kemether, but

to send a message to girls in athletics that their games are just

as competitive and they deserve the best referees."

Although the Eleventh Amendment is not likely to erode civil rights

already enacted by the federal government, Crean is fearful that new

civil rights law may suffer. "The Supreme Court seems to be

indicating

that it is not going to give Congress as much rein as it did in the

1960s when the Civil Rights Act was enacted," says Crean. "I

don’t think an injury already recognized by the court, such as sexual

discrimination by a private employer, will go outside of the court’s

reach because of precedent, but there are a lot of new rights, such

as the Family and Medical Leave Act, that the Congress has recognized.

I think that these newer rights are more vulnerable. Part of the Civil

Rights movement is recognizing new rights, whether it’s the right

of gay and lesbian people to be free from discrimination in the

workplace

or the right of a battered woman not to have her productivity

interfered

with at work by her batterer."

— Melinda Sherwood

Corrections or additions?

— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.