THE RECORD

NOVEMBER 24,1975

VOL. 1, No. 14

LYNDON B. JOHNSON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

EDITOR Hoyt H. Purvis

CONFERENCE EXAMINES WOMEN IN PUBLIC LIFE

Participants from throughout Texas and the nation assessed the increasingly important role of women in public life and considered ways of furthering feminine involvement at the Conference on Women in Public Life, November 9-11.

The conference, attended by more than 1,000 persons, was co-sponsored by the LBJ School and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. Those in attendance heard a bevy of speakers and panelists, including leaders in the women's movement, government, politics, and journalism.

The conference concluded with a summary panel discussion with panelists including Dean William B. Cannon of the LBJ School; Dr. Beryl A. Radin, assistant professor of public affairs; and LBJ School students Steve Cobble, Ellen Jones, Mary Jo Seeman, Nan McRaven, and Melanie McCoy.

Dean Cannon said he had "never seen a conference as stimulating as this or quite as singular."

Dr. Radin said that although the diversity of opinion and varied backgrounds of the women attending the conference made it hard to measure the meeting's success, "we'll know this meeting is successful," if:

. The Texas Legislature creates a commission on the status of women for the state. "It's our dubious distinction to be the only state without such a commission," she said.

. Each woman attending the conference "finds that she is able to express her views in places where she previously felt intimidated, that she's no longer a secret feminist."

. The number of women running for office in Texas and winning increases multifold.

. The women attending go home, organize, petition and attend meetings of their local governments and insure that available funds for social services are used for women's needs.

. Mary Tyler Moore no longer calls Lou Grant "Mr. Grant."

Ms. Seeman, who summarized the 15 workshops which had been organized and coordinated by participants in the LBJ School Policy Research Project on Public Policy on the Status of Women, said that most of the workshops stressed the need for more organization.

The workshop facilitaton included Billie Carr , Democratic National Committeewoman; State Representative Wilhelmina Delco; Emma Lou Linn, member of the Austin City Council; and Martha Smiley, state chairwoman of the Texas Women's Political Caucus.

"We've all learned a lot in traditional roles as mothers, homemakers and volunteers," Seeman said. "It's time to translate skills into the political sphere. We need more self-respect and organization if we're going to help liberate both women and men. We have gained momentum from this conference. Let's not quit now,"

She also noted the need for more part-time jobs and more day-care centers.

Ms. Jones said the main lession to be learned from the conference is that "women are power." She emphasized the necessity of understanding "all women who have different needs from our own" and she encouraged participants to "go home with what we have heard today. . .and overcome our timidity to face difficult situations."

Mr. Cobble echoed a warning issued by an earlier conference speaker, Elizabeth Reid, that a male backlash against the women's movement is coming.

He compared it with the white backlash against blacks. He said it was "a combination of outright sexism, which should be met with anger, and just anger, and... real fears for loss of jobs, power, position, security, inability to deal with new roles and changing roles. And I think that should be met with compassion. They have to somehow be dealt with separately."

Ms. McRaven said, "The media has done us wrong." She pointed to the non-substantive coverage given to women's activities.

"We can't expect an institution that has misrepresented us in the past to know or to do anything differently today without our help. We need to start changing things ourselves."

Ms. McCoy pointed out that women are diverse, but if "the women of this world are to begin to change the future, we must find some common ground, some unity and some solidarity." She added that every woman must become a participant and an activist wherever she lives.

The conference had begun on November 9 with a panel of motion picture and television producers and directors analyzing the portrayal of women in film and on television. Gloria Steinem, editor of Ms. magazine, was moderator.

Ms. Reid, former assistant to the Prime Minister of Australia and a key figure at the United Nations International Women's Year Conference in Mexico City, was the keynote speaker.

Her topic was After Mexico City—What? and she said, "The obvious and tragic answer is a backlash."

Reid said, "We don't want just women in office. We have to have feminists in there...If we're talking about changing the world, about changing American society or Australian society...then we're talking about having devoted feminists in there."

Speaking of her own experience and that of other women in politics, she said, she had never previously realized that "politics is game playing...and it is absolutely institutionalized."

Referring to what she called "the sex-object game," she said, "The more pleasing a woman is to the eye of the beholder, the more likely she is to be listened to." She also spoke of the "putdown game" in which women are politely but firmly dismissed, often with expressions such as "ladies," "girls," or "members of the fair sex." An even worse version of this game, she said, "is the invisible woman syndrome" in which significant contributions by women are overlooked while men who make similar suggestions are praised for their ideas.

Reid said, "We are fighting for all women. But the fight is not easy. We are going through a period of total backlash. We will have to become extraordinarily sophisticated in the strategies that we use, but most of all we are going to have to realize that the changes we are fighting for are not just changes in the world out there. They are changes within each one of us, for each one of us puts down at least one woman every day."

Other major speakers at the conference included Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller, Representative Barbara Jordan: Ambassador Carol Laise, director-general of the Foreign Service; and former Representative Martha Griffiths.

There were also three major panel discussions in addition to the summary panel. The large number of members of each panel made it difficult for the panelists to make more than brief remarks in many cases. Altogether nearly 50 persons took part in the three panels.

The first of the panels dealt with Common and Uncommon Problems Around the World and a group of authorities on women in different countries.

"Women in every country are disadvantaged in some respect," said Dr. Ruth Bacon, director of the U.S. Center for International Women's Year.

The second panel was on The Women's Movement Through the Eyes of the Media and was moderated by Judith and Bill Moyers.

Susan Caudill of KERA-TV in Dallas articulated the sentiments of many of the panelists when she said, "In the last few years, the media have significantly improved their coverage of the women's movement and to a lesser degree their coverage on women."

"But at the same time," she said, "I think we have to be realistic and recognize that the media, especially television with its enormous power, remain essentially a menace to women."

Isabelle Shelton, long-time Washington Star reporter, said, "I'm not quite as pessimistic as some about the press or the women's movement because I've seen such enormous changes in the last 25 years."

Bill Moyers said, "For all the talk about equal rights, we still have a society, and therefore a journalism, shorn of discernment, shorn of the ability to recognize that women, too, like everyone who has had to fight their way from a subservient role, are human beings who think, act, dream, aspire, as men do, to the powerful and irresistible idea of self-propriety.

The third panel was on Exploring the Gains and Gaps of Women in the Power Structure of Texas and featured a number of women officer holders and activists.

Frances (Sissy) Farenthold, former legislator and gubernatorial candidate, said that women's "timid ways must be replaced by a million acts of courage," and said the essential element of running for office is audacity—"the opposite of timidity."

Barbara Vackar, coordinator of Texans for the Equal Rights Amendment, recounted her group's work to keep the ERA from being rescinded ni Texas. She noted that those who oppose the ERA say they are "women who want to be women," and declared that those who support the ERA "are women who are women."

Other panelists included San Antonio Mayor Lila Cockrell; Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes; State Representatives Sarah Weddington, Kay Bailey, Wilhelmina Delco, Eddie Bernice Johnson, and Chris Miller; and Mary Pearl Williams, County-Court-at-Law judge in Travis County.

Liz Carpenter was conference coordinator.

CANNON TO RESIGN

William B. Cannon, dean of the LBJ School since October 1974, has resigned the deanship to return to the University of Chicago administration and faculty.

Effective January 1 he will be Chicago's vice president for business and finance, professor in the Graduate School of Social Service Administration, and member of the University of Chicago Committee on Public Policy.

Cannon served as vice president for programs and projects for six years before coming to the LBJ School. Earlier, from 1954-1959, he was director of social science development at Chicago and then an assistant vice president for development.

In his letter of resignation to President Lorene Rogers, Dean Cannon said:

"I made this decision on the personal grounds that Chicago—of which I am a graduate and where I had been for a number of years a member of the administration and faculty—offered a set of new opportunities which I should not pass by. It is with real regret that I leave The University of Texas and the LBJ School. They are both fine institutions, which makes it all the more difficult for me to leave them."

In the letter Cannon expressed his gratitude for the "support and help I received" from the LBJ School faculty, staff, and students.

He wrote, "I hope it is apparent from my reference to the quality of the institution and the support I have received that I would not leave for any reason than to return to a place where I have spent many years, for a role which will be fulfilling and in which I may be able to make a further contribution."

Dr. Rogers said, "Dean Cannon has truly been an asset to this institution and while we understand his reasons for leaving, we regret his decision to do so. We, wish him well in his new assignment." President Rogers will appoint an acting dean to serve during the search for a new dean.

The method for selecting deans to fill vacancies, as set forth in the Handbook of Operating Procedures, calls for the formation of a committee to make recommendations to the president. The committee will consist of:

Five voting members of the faculty of the school or college for which a dean is being sought, elected by that faculty by the Hare System, and two voting members of the faculty of the University, not including administrative officials, appointed by the President; three students appointed by the President from a panel of not less than five nor more than ten names selected by the student council for that school or college; and such other persons as the President might deem appropriate.

"On the Record"

. Dr. David Warner, associate professor of public affairs, gave a paper at the recent 58th annual national conference of the American Institute of Planners in San Antonio. Warner's paper was on the subject of how changes in the current tax, subsidy, and grant-in-aid system could increase the unemployment of low-wage workers.

. Robert J. Macdonald, associate director of conferences and training, is co-author, (with Paul Scott) of "Local Policy Management Needs: The Federal Response" which will appear in the November/December issue of Public Administration Review. Originally prepared for the Study Committee on Policy Management Assistance of the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Management and Budget, the paper was then selected and revised for inclusion in the special symposium issue of PAR.

. Recent guest speakers to the topical seminar on Government and The Media have included Peggy Simpson, Washington reporter for the Associated Press and President of the Washington Press Club, and Juan Vasquez, newsman for KENS-TV, San Antonio, and a former New York Times reporter. Ms. Simpson spoke on Congressional-media relations and coverage of government and politics in Washington. Vasquez dealt with his experience in covering government at the local, county, state, and national levels and on legal questions pertaining to the media. On November 24, Jack Keever, a veteran Associated Press reporter on Texas government and politics and co-author of John Connally: Portrait in Power will meet with the seminar.

. Esther DeHaven of San Antonio, personnel specialist for the U.S. Civil Service Commission, will meet with second-year students on job placement at noon Tuesday November 25 in the Student Lounge. Tuesday afternoon she will speak to the Policy Research Project on Public Policy on the Status of women.

. Forthcoming speakers for the student-sponsored brown-bag luncheon series will include Milton Tobian on December 2 and Sue Ford Patrick on December 9. Tobian is executive director of Common Cause in Texas. Ms. Patrick is a foreign service officer.

TWO TESTIFY BEFORE POLICY FORUM

Two LBJ School faculty members testified before the regional Forum on Domestic Policy conducted in Austin on November 11 by Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller and other top Administration officials including Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare David Matthews; Secretary of Transportation William Coleman; and Secretary of Interior Thomas S. Kleppe.

Dr. Jurgen Schmandt and Dr. Beryl A. Radin from the LBJ School were invited to testify. Schmandt's topic was, A Proposal to Abolish the Welfare System, while Radin dealt with the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. Here are excerpts from the testimony:

SCHMANDT

The nation has a large and increasing welfare population. Our welfare policy is guided by the desire to help people in need to become economically self-supporting or, where this is impossible, to limit the degree of their dependence. The majority of our people, I assume, is opposed to the idea of the welfare state which provides a wide range of entitlements protecting people from the cradle to the grave. Instead, we are searching for non-demeaning ways which encourage people to help themselves. With this as an overall objective I propose that we eliminate step by step the welfare system as such and integrate cash assistance and service delivery into a social policy which is meaningful for the entire population, offers services not only to the poor and near poor, but in exchange requires financial or in kind contributions according to each person's capability.

A second objective...is a streamlined division of labor among federal, state, and local governments as well as private groups. The federal government should develop overall policy and set minimum standards. States should be responsible for program planning in response to the specific needs of their populations. They should license and control service providers, but should not, as a general rule, provide service themselves. Local governments and private organizations (not-for-profit as well as conventional business undertakings) would provide services, subject to precise standards and licensing requirements which would prevent commercial abuses in catering to the needs of human beings.

In the area of cash transfer payments determination of eligibility and administration of programs can best be done, with the help of modern computer technology, by the federal government...The SSI program, though it encountered many technical difficulties, was a step in the right direction, providing a nationally mandated floor for payments and taking away some of the welfare stigma associated with earlier programs for the aged, blind, and disabled. Learning from the SSI experience the next step should be the federalization of payments to needy families and children (AFDC). Veterans payments should be channeled through the same organization. The food stamp program should be eliminated and incorporated into a single program for cash payments to individuals. In the area of social service delivery a large number of overlapping or closely related programs need to be consolidated into a service delivery system available to all citizens. Participants would contribute under a sliding fee scale which takes into account each individual's economic circumstances. New ways for allowing people to contribute their time and skills need to be developed. Organizationally such a system for service delivery might look similar to our long established system of community libraries: a central service center offering under one roof a variety of social and health-related services, with branch offices in neighborhoods and mobile units to reach homebound or rural persons.

At the present time, the linkage between the partially federalized cash payment system and the diversified system for the delivery of services is insufficient. Rather than developing in a major way the service advisory capability of the Social Security Administration, the consolidation of locally available social services into community service centers with their increased visibility would go a long way in letting people know where to turn when they need help...

I have been silent about the financial implications of the proposed reforms. Frankly, I don't know how much it would cost. Probably nobody does. Based on the experience gained with SSI, it is likely that cash assistance to the AFDC population will be more expensive, partly due to establishing a national minimum payment level, partly because a larger number of people eligible might join. Service delivery, on the other hand, might attract new sources of funding, at the local level or from revenue sharing funds...

Admittedly, I have proposed difficult and controversial reforms. I submit, however, that they will become acceptable to our people as an alternative to the total welfare state on the one hand, or on the other hand, violent confrontation between those who feel left out and those who try to protect their status and privileges.

RADIN

Since the late summer, the Washington press has been peppered with accounts of problems connected with the Supplemental Security Income program—the new federal welfare program for the nation's aged, blind and disabled population. The program, known as SSI, has been administered by the Social Security Administration since January 1, 1974 and, as the press has reported, has been a difficult and cumbersome program to administer efficiently, equitably, and without serious payment error.

The press has once again served the public well by pointing out legitimate concerns and problems involved in a large-scale federal effort. It has not, however, placed these problems in a broader context. The experience of the Social Security Administration with SSI is instructive to those in the American public who are concerned about other aspects of welfare reform.

A number of the issues related to SSI discussed in the press may be attributable to miscalculation, mismanagement or poor judgement by staff of the Social Security Administration. Some of the computer foulups are due to limitations of an outdated computer system that is technically unable to respond to new demands. But while some of these difficulties may be unique to Social Security (and its resources and staff), many of the difficult issues involving SSI are endemic to any national system of welfare administration.

While we continue to advance schemes for guaranteed income or other forms of federal welfare reform, we pay little attention to the problems that must be faced in the implementation of such programs.

The "simplest" program

Enacted in 1972, the SSI program moved through Congress as the remnant of Nixon's welfare reform strategy. The state programs for aid to the aged, blind and disabled were viewed as the least controversial and simplest part of state welfare. To a large extent, the federalization of these programs was sold to Congress as a relatively simple, check-writing process that was amenable to a highly centralized and automated implementation effort.

As has been discovered in the months since the program went into effect, the simplicity that was envisioned in the SSI program was illusory. The folding of adult assistance programs into SSI does, indeed, represent a simpler task than would have been demanded by the federalization of the AFDC program. But the relative difference between the two is now a theoretical concern that is not much comfort to administrators charged with making sense of the SSI program. The Social Security Administration's experience with SSI indicates that a number of issues must be considered before a new programmatic plunge is taken.

Individual needs vs "clean" programs

As the theorists of welfare reform have been telling us for nearly a decade, the development of an efficient, centralized payment procedure requires a simple, predictable, and relatively inflexible set of eligibility criteria and payment levels. The number of variations in payment amounts must be minimal. The assessment of the individual applicant's need for payments must be simple and involve straightforward and predictable criteria.

The SSI program contains neither simple eligibility criteria nor uniform payment amounts. It was neither historically nor politically possible for such a program to be instituted.

The historical inhibitions revolve around the difficulties of converting individuals on existing welfare rolls in more than 1,300 governmental units to a uniform payment level and uniform eligibility criteria. The practices within the existing state and county administered systems were not only diverse (reflecting differences to income support of the aged, blind and disabled) but they were also calculated on individually determined needs. Although some states had moved toward flat grant payments for recipients of the adult programs, most states and county welfare departments had a repertoire of possibilities on which to call when assessing the needs of an individual and computing a payment amount. If the new federal program ignored the past practices and calculated benefits on average payments levels, one could assume that a fairly sizeable group of recipients would lose benefits in the shuffle. The recipient—the individual least able to absorb the short-term losses—would be asked to bear the brunt of long run gains of predictability and uniformity. . .

The political inhibitions prohibiting simplicity and uniformity stem mainly from the legacy of federalism. States had the perogative of establishing their own payment levels and, as well, criteria for eligibility when they administered the adult assistance programs. Variation in payment amounts reflected real differences in cost of living across the country. But the variations also reflected the political attitudes within the jurisdiction and the degree to which the polity determined that the aged, blind and disabled were the "deserving poor."

...The legislative drafters of SSI were faced with a range of diverse state practices, from states with liberal eligibility requirements and processes to states with punitive practices and limited eligibility. The solution of compromise that was honed out tended to establish requirements that fell in the middle ranges of state practices.

...[e] ligibility for the payment program was intertwined with a host of other programs that were the responsibility of state or county jurisdictions. Eligibility for SSI, established by the federal agency, was the trigger for medicaid eligibility in many states. It was related to eligibility for food stamps in yet other localities. And it continued to be related to eligibility for social services.

A clean separation between cash payments and this cluster of other state or county administered programs was theoretically possible. But the recipient, once again, would have to bear the burden of the short-run transition...

There are a number of possible responses to the current situation. Congress could order an immediate tightening of administrative procedures to minimize the error rate and attempt to recoup some of the alleged overpayments. Given the political and administrative realities of the SSI program, however, the SSI recipient would be the victim of the tightening-up process. Without changing basic eligibility requirements to simplify the program, control will be possible only at the expense of the SSI client.

The other possible alternatives are less dramatic and less visible to headline hunters. The Social Security Administration must be given adequate resources and some time to stabilize the program, train staff and provide computer facilities and administrative structure to implement the program. New federal programs are needed that provide states and counties and incentives and/or requirements to assure adequate ancillary services for the SSI population.

But most important, with administration support Congress must move in the direction of program simplification, eliminating some of the requiremnts of the SSI program which make it complex and error prone.

Without action on some of these fronts, it would be premature—indeed, foolhardy—for the country to bite off another chunk of welfare reform.