ABC Evening News open - 1977-10-03

Channel: malgent

Transcript

Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)

[0:00] to Nashville.

[0:02] >> This is the ABC Evening News with Harry

[0:05] Reer and Barbara Walters. And tonight,

[0:07] Frank Reynolds in Washington. The US

[0:09] Supreme Court has let stand a local

[0:11] school board's firing of a homosexual

[0:13] high school teacher. This is Jim

[0:15] Mitchell. After six long days, the

[0:17] hijack odyssey ended in Algeria. All

[0:20] hostages safe. This is Chapman. India's

[0:24] new leaders have interrupted Indura

[0:26] Gandhi's comeback bid by arresting her.

[0:29] This is Ken Kashuhara.

[0:31] >> A chemical that causes cancer in man has

[0:33] not been regulated in the United States

[0:35] for the last 40 years. I'm Vetina

[0:37] Gregory.

[0:39] >> Good evening. All summer, the White

[0:41] House and the Congress have dominated

[0:43] news from Washington. Today, the third

[0:45] branch, the judiciary, took over. This

[0:47] was the beginning of the fall term of

[0:48] the Supreme Court. Frank Reynolds

[0:50] reports.

[0:53] >> Many of the most important Supreme Court

[0:55] decisions of this century have involved

[0:57] the rights of the individual versus the

[0:59] authority of the state. The Burger

[1:01] Court, whose justices began their fall

[1:04] term this morning, has not found so

[1:06] consistently in favor of the individual

[1:08] as in the days of Earl Warren. And

[1:11] today, the court refused to consider a

[1:13] case in which a known homosexual was

[1:16] fired from his high school teaching post

[1:18] after it became known that he was a

[1:20] homosexual. In other words, the court

[1:22] upheld the right of local school

[1:24] authorities to deny employment to a

[1:26] known homosexual. The case involves a

[1:29] man in Tacoma, Washington. Jim Mitchell

[1:31] has this report.

[1:35] James Gaylord taught social studies here

[1:37] at Tacoma's Wilson High School for

[1:39] almost 13 years. Then in 1972, school

[1:43] officials learned that Gaylord was a

[1:44] homosexual. There were no charges of

[1:46] misconduct with either students or other

[1:48] faculty members, but Gaylord was fired

[1:51] for violating the school district's rule

[1:53] against immorality.

[1:54] Gaylord filed suit to get his job back

[1:57] and for the last 5 years has thought

[1:59] through the courts a favorable ruling.

[2:01] Today's US Supreme Court decision came

[2:03] as a disappointment.

[2:05] >> I went into this legal battle because I

[2:08] hoped to win and I went into the battle

[2:11] because I was fully prepared to lose.

[2:14] If uh I had been accused of a crime, I

[2:18] would have had an opportunity to secure

[2:20] justice. But I was accused of no crime,

[2:24] charged with no misconduct.

[2:27] Uh, my offense was my status,

[2:31] that I existed,

[2:33] and that I honestly acknowledged that I

[2:35] was gay. Gay Lord said if he had it to

[2:38] do all over again, he probably would

[2:40] have never admitted to school officials

[2:41] that he was a homosexual. That way, he

[2:44] says, he would probably still be a

[2:45] teacher today. Jim Migel, ABC News,

[2:49] Seattle. In other actions today, the

[2:51] court ruled that some of the Nixon White

[2:53] House tapes may be used in civil as well

[2:56] as in criminal trials. The court upheld

[2:58] an order that white school districts be

[3:00] merged with a predominantly black

[3:02] district in the Wilmington, Delaware

[3:04] area. This could mean countywide fussing

[3:06] of students. Women generally live longer

[3:09] than men, so because they are likely to

[3:12] collect more in benefits should they be

[3:14] required to make larger contributions to

[3:16] pension funds. The court will decide

[3:18] that one this term. The court refused to

[3:21] review and thus upheld a ruling that

[3:24] sets racial quotas for promotions in the

[3:26] Chicago Police Department. But the court

[3:28] will hear and decide the most famous

[3:30] quota case of them all, the Baky case,

[3:33] in which Alan Baky, who is white,

[3:36] applied for admission to the University

[3:37] of California Medical School and was

[3:40] turned down because the school had a

[3:42] quota for blacks. Baky maintains he was

[3:44] a victim of reverse discrimination. By

[3:47] now, all the students accepted when he

[3:49] applied have been graduated. Tom Gerald

[3:52] has a report on two of them. Providing

[3:55] medical care for children is the

[3:56] ambition of Dr. Tony Johnson Chavis in a

[3:59] nearby hospital delivering babies and

[4:01] caring for their mothers is the goal of

[4:02] Dr. Pat Chavez. The Chavises are interns

[4:05] at the Los Angeles County USC Medical

[4:07] Center. It's not a charity hospital, but

[4:10] is an inner city complex where

[4:11] minorities, especially

[4:12] Mexican-Americans, seek medical

[4:14] attention. Born black and poor, Pat

[4:16] Chavis earned scholarships for his

[4:18] premed schooling and was recruited for

[4:20] the medical school.

[4:22] >> They found out my background. They found

[4:23] that I was from a poor background as far

[4:25] as my education was in a a primarily

[4:28] black school that wasn't rated as one of

[4:29] the top schools. And um my parents were

[4:33] were not rich by any means. So they u

[4:36] put me on the uh special program as far

[4:38] as they brought me in under the task

[4:40] force. Without the task force program,

[4:43] what do you think your chances would

[4:44] have been of getting into Davis?

[4:45] >> Uh, zero.

[4:47] >> He, like his wife, plan to practice

[4:48] medicine among the poor and minorities.

[4:50] If the Baky case is upheld, she believes

[4:53] qualified blacks will be bypassed.

[4:55] >> The Baky case is actually a pro-white

[4:57] middle class Americanized um, goal. Um,

[5:02] if that's positive, then it's going to

[5:05] have very destructive and very

[5:06] widespread effects. The chaves are the

[5:09] product