Isaac Laquedem

A little free advice for law-abiding employees of Reed College

I read with great interest the Oregonian's recent coverage of rapes and sexual assaults at Reed College, and the school's response to complaints by women students.  The article said that Reed discouraged women who reported being sexually assaulted from reporting the crimes to police, but urged them to present their complaints to student-run honor boards.

A school such as Reed, that attracts a diverse group of brainy intellectuals, must get a number of 17-year-olds among its entering classes.  Chapter 419B, Oregon Revised Statutes, requires certain groups of people, including all school employees, licensed professional counselors, psychologists, regulated social workers, and physicians to report suspected incidents of child abuse.  "Child" means an unmarried person under the age of 18, and "abuse" includes rape, sexual abuse, and unlawful exposure to a controlled substance that subjects a child to a substantial risk of harm to the child's health or welfare.

So if a 17-year-old Reed student tells an employee of the college that she has been sexually assaulted, Reed's employee has a duty to report the charge to the police and not just to the honor board at Reed College.  A Reed employee who knows of a charge of sexual assault but fails to report to the police has committed a Class A violation (ORS 419B.010).  I'm assuming that a college is a "school" -- ORS Chapter 419B requires school employees to report suspected child abuse but does not define "school" -- but as Reed's website describes Reed students entering from high school and going on to law school or medical school, Reed must consider itself a school also.

There's unfortunately no similar statute to protect 18-year-olds at Reed, but it sounds from the newspaper reports as if the school should ensure that its employees know their legal duties to protect minor students.  As I read the statute, they also have a duty to report to the police information that 17-year-old students are in the presence of illegal drugs, but I doubt that Portland's finest have enough officers to deal with the influx of calls that would result.

 

Condoleezza Rice to speak at Portland State University

Portland State University is about to announce that Condoleezza Rice, formerly national security advisor and then secretary of state to President Bush (43), has accepted PSU's invitation to be the principal speaker at this year's Simon Benson Awards dinner, the university's main fundraising and recognition event.   Friendly persuasion from some of our elected officials helped make her decision an easy one.

Five million reasons for Oregonians to eat whole-grain foods

Eleven months ago when Bob Moore (pictured here, the founder of Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods, the Milwaukie purveyor of stone-ground whole grain products) announced that he and the other shareholders were transferring their stock to an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) so that his employees would all have the chance to become owners of the company, a few skeptics (see the comments here)  pointed out that he and his wife Charlee weren't making a gift to the employees; the ESOP would be paying the Moores for their shares over time.

Last week the Clackamas Review reported on what Mr. and Mrs. Moore are doing with a large chunk of their proceeds: they're giving $5 million to Oregon State University to establish a program on nutrition and encourage healthy eating.  (Bob, who turns 82 next month, is himself the best advertisement for the diet he encourages.  Don't ask him what he thinks of the Atkins diet if children are present.)

Bob and Charlee Moore are a class act.  We're lucky to have them in our community.

Willamette University apologizes for creating a spam engine

Last week Willamette University spammed the mailboxes of hundreds of lawyers as it advertised an upcoming continuing legal education program.  The announcement itself wasn't so bad; the problem was that Willamette sent to a mailing list it had created, leaving the listserv address in the "TO" field, so every lawyer who responded with "unsubscribe" or harsher words sent his or her message to the hundreds of other involuntary participants.  These were followed up with several dozen admonitions not to hit "Reply to All," which also went to everyone on the list.

Willamette got the message.  Here's what it sent to the lawyers on its list, this time by USPS and not e-mail.  The other side of the card offers a $20 discount on the admission price to the event itself.

 

Oregon lawyers have a list, and Willamette Law School's on the "naughty" side of it

Willamette Law School sent out an e-mail today to a list that it had compiled, mostly of lawyers, to advertise a program of continuing education that it plans to present in December.  Apparently most of the people on the list had no idea that they were on the list.  Well over 100 of them sent back an "unsubscribe" message -- to the list.  As lawyers' inboxes filled up this afternoon, the messages in response got more vituperative.  Dozens of messages complained about people hitting "reply to all" and were in turn sent to the entire list.  Mixed in with the angry messages were some laced with humor, in particular one from a Portland tax attorney (let's call him "Mr. K.") that started with "Every one of you who wrote 'me too,' or words to that effect, should hire a lawyer before ever hitting the 'Send' button again."  Mr. K. pointed out that the lawyers who demanded to be removed from any and all lists (as some did) were making that demand not only on the hapless soul at Willamette who touched all this off, but also on everyone else who received the message.  Some of those people, Mr. K. noted, might want to remain on some of those lists, as for example his list of lawyers to whom he refers work, and Santa's list of good little boys and girls.  After Mr. K.'s bit of good humor, tempers seemed to subside, maybe because we're getting close to Christmas.  I don't know that his message would have been as effective if this had happened in April.

It isn't Conell, Pinceton, Bown, or Datmouth

Some years ago I promised the Fine Institution that issued one of my degrees that I would remember it fondly in my will.  As it labors under some illusion about the extent of the Laquedem fortune, it invites me to planned giving luncheons and dinners from time to time.  Such an invitation arrived by e-mail yesterday.  It's tasteful and well-written, befitting the Fine Institution's long history.  It has one small flaw, however: in the "from" address, the name of the Fine Institution itself is misspelled, leaving out the first "r."

Even after the cuts, Portland's schools are still the most costly

Monday's Oregonian carried this article about what local school districts would cut as a result of the state cutting local school support for 2010-2011.  Some districts propose to cut teachers and administrative staff, some propose to reduce special programs, and some propose to dip into reserves.

The article included a table (not apparently available online) that showed, for 9 metro-area districts, their 2009 enrollment, their 2010-2011 budgets, the state funding shortfall, and what the districts propose to cut.  One thing missing from the table, however, was just how much it costs each district to educate a student.  I did the math; here it is:

Portland                   $9,976 per student per year
David Douglas           $9,163
Tigard-Tualatin           $9,034
Lake Oswego            $8,628
Hillsboro                    $8,497
Forest Grove              $8,362
West Linn-Wilsonville  $8,289
Beaverton                   $8,142
North Clackamas        $7,524

The Portland school district is losing $19.4 million of state funds.  That's $425 for each of the 45,681 students in the district, which will reduce the funding per student to $9,731 -- still above what every other large district in the area spends on its students.

I'm used to thinking of Portland as a large school district, and it is; it's still the largest in the state in numbers of students.  But it isn't as large as it was; some years ago it educated 70,000 students a year; it now has only 45,000.  Beaverton has 37,000 and Hillsboro has 20,000, not as large as Portland, certainly, but within the same general range.  Yet they manage to educate their students for $1,500 less (Hillsboro) and $1800 less (Beaverton).  What is the extra $1,500 buying?  Let's find out.

Yale Fan Chooses Harvard

If he survives the jokes and teasing he's going to get from the other freshmen, this particular young man, whose name really is Yale Fan and who hails from Beaverton, and who is entering Harvard College in September, is likely to make his mark in physics.  He's already received national recognition for his research in quantum computing, the concept of using the quantum states of subatomic particles to serve as the zeroes and ones of computer data, and there's doubtless more to come.

The Laquedem High-Test Plan to Evaluate Politicos

Let's expand the idea of testing our high school students (and by inference, their teachers) and give the same test to candidates for paying public office.  There would be no passing grade, but the candidates' scores would appear on the ballot next to their names, much like the octane ratings on gasoline pumps.  For the reading comprehension portion of the test, I'd use a public-private partnership agreement (such as the one that is bringing a change of soccer league to Civic Stadium).  For the mathematics portion of the test, I'd use a recent school district budget.  One advantage of using standardized high school tests is that we've already paid the consultants who designed the test, and the marginal cost would be simply to print a few more copies and hire some impartial graders.  In fairness the candidates who take the test should be given their scores privately first, and a chance to withdraw from the competition without their scores being published.  And voters might cast a warier eye on a prospective Solon's promises of fiscal responsibility if they come from someone who scored only 24% on the math test.  If the plan works out, we could later on hire Consumer Reports to rate our legislators.

Oregon State University misses a basket

If I were on Oregon State's basketball team, I'd be concerned that the proofreaders at my school's advertising agency missed this particular typo.