The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, a federal jury in New Jersey today issued the first ever verdict finding a tobacco company liable for contributing to a smoker's death. The Supreme Court said the government may be held liable for damage caused by vaccines it licenses. The White House denounced Israel's expulsion of an Arab American activist. We'll have details in our news summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy? JUDY WOODRUFF: After the news summary we go first to the debate over welfare reform after a look at two different states and their efforts to improve the welfare system. We talk with two senators, proponent Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and critic Bill Armstrong. Then correspondent John Merrow has a documentary look at young lawbreakers who are being sentenced to school. Next, the Democratic Party platform struggle. Representatives of the Dukakis and the Jackson forces join us. And finally, Charlayne Hunter Gault makes a piece of history again.News Summary WOODRUFF: A federal jury in Newark, New Jersey today for the first time found a tobacco company liable for contributing to a smoker's death. In the case brought by the husband of a longtime smoker who died in 1984, Rose Cippolone, the jury found that the Liggett Group, Inc. , had failed to warn the public about the dangers of cigarettes. And it awarded $400,000 to Cippolone's husband. But the jury also held that Mrs. Cippolone bore 80% of the blame for her own death. In addition, the verdict exonerated the Liggett Group, Lorrilard, Inc. , and Philip Morris, Inc. , of misleading the public about the dangers of smoking, or of conspiring to mislead. The case had been closely watched for its impact in other potential lawsuits against the tobacco industry. Robin? MacNEIL: In another liability case, the Supreme Court today unanimously rejected arguments by the Reagan Administration and ruled that the government may be forced to pay damages when a vaccine it has licensed causes the disease it was supposed to prevent. The decision came in a case involving a Pennsylvania boy who was an infant in 1979, when he was given a dose of oral polio vaccine, which was later determined to have caused him to come down with polio. The boy is now paralyzed and deformed and breathes only with the help of a respirator. The Administration had argued that the government should always be shielded from lawsuits in such cases. But the high court held otherwise. WOODRUFF: President Reagan today laid out his agenda for next week's summit of the Western industrialized nations in Toronto. Speaking to a private group know as the Atlantic Council, which deals in foreign policy, Mr. Reagan called for a joint effort to solve some of the world's toughest economic problems.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: Let us join together to help restore the economies of two countries. One, the Philippines, an heroic democracy ravaged by communist led insurrection; the other, Afghanistan, a victim of brutal aggression. Let's join together to bring the newly industrialized countries into the full and mature place in the world trading system that they have earned. Let's join together in helping the countries of SubSaharan Africa work out their debt problems. And let us join together to attack the lifeblood of one trade that should never be part of international trade, the international narcotics trade. MacNEIL: In Arizona, fire officials said it will take two more days to contain a brush fire now burning in the area of the Coronado National Forest. The fire is located on the border of Arizona and Mexico, and is one of several to hit the West in recent days. The blaze began in Mexico and moved northward into Arizona. It's been fanned by erratic winds, and more than doubled in size yesterday, despite the efforts of 1200 firefighters. So far the fire has consumed mostly brushwood in an area of 9500 acres. WOODRUFF: The White House today denounced Israel for deporting the Arab American activist Mubarek Awad. A White House spokesman said the expulsion of the U. S. citizen born in Jerusalem was unjustifiable. Marlin Fitzwater told reporters that if Awad had acted illegally he should have been charged and tried in court with full due process of law, instead of being deported. Earlier today, Israeli officials took Awad to the airport and put him on a plane bound for New York. The move ended Awad's seven month long legal battle to avoid being expelled, after Israel accused him of helping foment a Palestinian uprising in the Occupied West Bank territory. MacNEIL: South Africa's Supreme Court today rejected a plea to reopen the case of the Sharpeville Six. The black defendants have been sentenced to hang in connection with a mob killing of a black township official. We have a report by James Robbins of the BBC.

JAMES ROBBINS, BBC: The legal avenues for escape from the gallows are dwindling. Another was closed today. Relatives of the six condemned heard the judge spend an hour rejecting the defense case that the trial must be reopened because one of the original prosecution witnesses had lied. He now says police tortured him and told him to say two of the accused were part of the murder mob. The judge said ample other evidence convicted the six and dismissed defense objections as frivolous and absurd. International dismay at the death sentences stem partly from the circumstances of the murder. Against a background of antigovernment unrest four years in the black township of Sharpeville, a crowd of residents, angry at rent increases, attacked the black deputy mayor. They regarded Joseph Shlamini as a collaborator in apartheid rule. He was stoned and burned to death with petrol, a barbaric, medieval killing the judge said. But the conviction of just six people because they were part of the crowd has been widely criticized. But a government spokesman at a recent briefing for foreign correspondents argued against the international calls for clemency. He showed a video arguing that a revolutionary campaign had been mounted to pillory South Africa and ignore the real victims, like the murdered mayor. Tonight families of the condemned were returning home to Sharpeville after another painful visit to death row. More and more they believe the six will join 71 people already hanged in South Africa this year. MacNEIL: This afternoon the United States made an appeal to South Africa on behalf of the Sharpeville Six. State Department spokesman Charles Redman said, ''We continue to appeal for a humanitarian resolution of the case, either through clemency or a new trial. '' Also today, Vice President Bush had critical words about South Africa. He said them in response to a reporter's question about the Democratic draft platform, which calls South Africa a terrorist state.

GEORGE BUSH, presidential candidate: I think it's a racist state, regrettably. And I think we ought to do what we can by staying engaged and try to figure out if the U. S. can use its moral influence to change that situation. But I don't favor breaking diplomatic relations. WOODRUFF: In Stockholm, 7000 scientists from around the world gathered to exchange information on AIDS at the largest international conference yet held on the disease. Dr. James Curran, Director of the AIDS program at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, said that new cases are being reported in this country at the rate of one every 14 minutes. MacNEIL: In the Soviet Union, the territorial dispute between the Republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan has flared up again. Armenian popular demands for return of a small enclave caused bloody riots in Azerbaijan, and the dismissal of the communist party leaders of both republics. Today, with a general strike paralyzing his capital Yerevan, the new Armenian party chief promised demonstrators that the Armenian parliament would soon vote to return the territory, but the new Azerbaijani party chief vowed that it would not be given up. MacNEIL: In Moscow, Soviet leader Gorbachev today opened a dialogue with the Vatican by receiving Cardinal Agostino Casaroli. Both sides ruled out any imminent visit by Pope John Paul II. Today, the foundation stone was laid for a new cathedral in honor of the millennium of Russian Christianity. It's the first church to be built in Moscow since the 1917 revolution. The Soviet Supreme Court said today that four communist leaders executed in Stalin's purges of opposition elements were not guilty. They included two of Stalin's leading opponents, Gregory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev, who were shot after show trials in 1936 and '37. WOODRUFF: That wraps up our summary of the day's news. Just ahead on the NewsHour, welfare reform, back to school for youthful lawbreakers, the Democratic Party platform, and a poignant return to the University of Georgia. Relief in Sight? WOODRUFF: We turn first tonight to congressional moves to reform the nation's welfare system. Today the Senate began debate on the Family Security Act, a $2. 8 billion program aimed at getting more people off welfare.To do that the bill would make major changes in the way the present welfare system operates. These would include withholding the wages of absent parents to pay child support, paying former welfare recipients child care and medical insurance for nine months after they find jobs, requiring states to pay welfare benefits even if both parents are in the home, and mandating states to expand job training for welfare recipients. We'll hear from the chief architect of the legislation, New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and its principal opponent Colorado Senator William Armstrong. But first, Kwame Holman has a background report on how experimental welfare programs in the Senator's home state are working. MIRIAM LOPEZ: I don't want to live on welfare. I never wanted to live on welfare, but where was I gonna go? Where was I gonna go?

KWAME HOLMAN: Miriam Lopez is 34 and single. She's been jobless and on welfare for seven years. She says welfare is the only way she could support her two children. Recently because of a job training program in New York City, Lopez got off welfare and went to work. Ms. LOPEZ: I'm on the right track now. My oldest son, he seems like proud of me now. You know, before he was, like, people would say, What does your mom do? Well, you know, what does she do? ''Well, my mom sews, she cooks, you know, she's a mom. '' But now, he ''You know, my mom works in a hospital. She works in (unintelligible), she works in a computer room. '' It's like he's a better person also.

HOLMAN: The welfare reform bill now before Congress is designed to create more success stories like Miriam Lopez's. Two hundred thirty thousand families remain on New York City's welfare rolls. Nationally, welfare supports nearly four million families and costs the federal government $9 billion a year. Called Aid to Families with Dependent Children, welfare today is a massive support system for mostly uneducated, unskilled women and their children. New York State commissioner of Social Services, Cesar Perales, says the Federal Welfare Reform Bill represents a consensus that those women need job training and education. CESAR PERALES, N. Y. State Social Service Commissioner: I think it supports the concept that if you're going to move these heads of households from public assistance into the labor market, you have to provide them with skills that are valuable and which will provide that caretaker parent with a decent income. WOMAN: Well, I want to start as a secretary and I want to work myself up. WOMAN: What skills do you have already? WOMAN: I need to brush up on my typing skills --

HOLMAN: New York's latest effort to help welfare clients is called Comprehensive Employment Opportunity, nicknamed CEOSC. The job training program is voluntary, targeted at parents whose children are under six years old. The state requires welfare parents whose children are over six to take job training for a job. CEOSC provides child care while parents get the training. Lack of child care, especially in New York City, often prevents parents from even looking for work. The goal is to get these women into jobs before they become trapped in the so called cycle of dependency. Program official Rae Linefsky says welfare clients have widely different needs. RAE LINEFSKY, Federation & Education Guidance Service: We have those who read at the second grade reading level. We have those who read the 12th grade reading level. Very few who have in fact gone on to higher education, but there are a few in that position. We have some who have never worked. And therefore the whole aspect of work, not only do they not have the particular skills, but the whole work experience is terribly frightening.

HOLMAN: The CEOSC program can accommodate only 1400 people a year. Many others are waiting to be enrolled. Miriam Lopez completed the program. Ms. LOPEZ: If I would have gotten the opportunity that they gave me seven years ago, I would have grabbed it. Mr. PERALES: It takes time to communicate those skills, to prepare women for the labor force. It's an expensive investment, but I think it's well worth the investment. The fact is we get a lot more money under the Welfare Reform proposals that are going around.

HOLMAN: New York State already operates the kind of jobs programs called for in Senator Moynihan's Welfare Reform Bill. So for New York, the bill simply means more money for existing projects. But in other states the bill would require new programs and a greater investment of state dollars, and in states like Colorado there's resistance to the idea of another federally mandated program. Ted Strickland is President of the Colorado Senate. TED STRICKLAND, President, Colorado Senate: Compare Senator Moynihan's state of New York against our neighboring state to the north of Wyoming, where there are more people in one building in New York City than there are in the entire state of Wyoming. You cannot make an application of mandated programs to an agricultural energy state like Wyoming that applies to the state of New York. Those flexibilities must be there if a program is going to have any chance of success.

HOLMAN: Colorado has its own program for putting welfare applicants to work. Twenty four year old Rita Chavez lives in Greeley, Colorado, 50 miles north of Denver. Temporarily out of work, she applied for welfare to help support her two year old daughter. But instead of being added to the rolls, Chavez was put into an experimental program called Welfare Diversion, that placed her in a minimum wage job without any job training. RITA CHAVEZ; They said I had to apply myself and try and get a job and they give me courses on how to present yourself for interviews and stuff, and things like that, that I had to try at least. WOMAN: Okay, what you're going to do is attend a job orientation at the Human Resources Department.

HOLMAN: The program is mandatory for welfare parents whose children are over six months old. About half the area's welfare applicants, close to 600, are diverted into the mandatory work program. Clients are guaranteed to earn more money working than they would get on welfare. The average person earns about $4. 00 an hour. Unlike New York, there's plenty of child care available in Greeley, and the philosophy behind helping people find jobs is different as well. Jackie Johnson is a county commissioner in Greeley. JACKIE JOHNSON, Colorado County Commissioner: My goal is to give someone the experience of going to work every day, understanding what that means, teaching them how to look for a job, and then helping them find a job as one becomes available. We're not putting a lot of effort into training for long term skills. We think that a person who gets those other things can move up a ladder on their own. So maybe that's the western philosophy. You get the start and then you do it yourself from there on.

HOLMAN: But the approach to job training aside, there are concerns about the welfare reform bill. One, being voiced by advocates for the poor, is that the bill doesn't provide enoughmoney to support needy families who are not eligible for job training. David Jones directs the Community Service Society, a New York City advocacy group. DAVID JONES, Community Services Society: We're taking this particular welfare system and saying, Well, we're not going to provide enough resources to make sure a child is properly housed or fed. But we expect this child and family to get up and out while they're living in conditions that rival some of the worst conditions of poverty at the turn of the century. And that's what primarily we object to.

HOLMAN: No state's public assistance grant meets the national poverty level. In fact, federal benefits have fallen by a third since the 1970s. Miriam Lopez remembers trying to live on $500 a month in welfare and food stamps at a time when her son's illness prevented her from working. Ms. LOPEZ: You're always counting your pennies. You know, you're always in a bad mood because you have no money, you're always in a bad mood because your children, you go out with them and they want something and you can't afford it. You're always in a bad mood because when you open your closet you don't have nothing decent to wear. You know, and then if you live in a neighborhood that you don't want to live in, you can't afford to move out. And that puts you in a bad mood, too.

HOLMAN: Some of those who work with the poor say the welfare reform bill could be the last chance to change the system for years to come. That's why they say they prefer to wait for a better bill than support this one. WOODRUFF: We turn now to Capitol Hill and the Senate debate that began today on overhauling the present welfare system. Last Friday I talked with the chief sponsor of the pending legislation, New York Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and its leading opponent Colorado Republican Senator William Armstrong. I began by asking Senator Moynihan, a longtime champion of welfare, whether he had converted to a more get tough approach. Sen. DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN, (D) New York: Not a get tough approach, Judy, it's a realistic approach to what can be done and what needs doing. A little history: What we call welfare is the title of the Social Security Program that began half a century ago as a ''widow's pension. '' The issue of child support didn't arise, the gentleman was dead, and women weren't in the work force. The typical recipient was thought to be a West Virginia miner's widow. Half a century goes by. This program -- and it's a large program -- one child in four in America will be on welfare before they're 18. Perhaps even more, maybe one in three. The absent male parent can contribute, doesn't. And the woman should be in the work force, as you are in the work force, as Mrs. Lopez now is. Seventy two percent of married children with children are in the work force; 53% of married women with children under three. This is the first time ever we're going to take a maintenance program with a slight work component and turn it around to be a job program with income supplements until you're on your own. WOODRUFF: Well, Senator Moynihan, just tell us in a nutshell what are the most important provisions of the bill? Sen. MOYNIHAN: We provide an entitlement for job training, as much money as the states will spend on programs they devise, they will now get. And that is the first time ever, and that, plus automatic child support. Number one, child support. You have a child, you're going to have to support it for 18 years in this country. Sorry. Two, we're going to help that mother get work. Half the recipients in New York City, Judy -- and they are the -- the welfare population of New York City is twice the population of Delaware -- half of those young women have never had a day's work in their life. And they need to be helped into the world they don't know about and are afraid of. But they get in there, they'll be like everybody else. WOODRUFF: All right, Senator Armstrong, you've got objections to the bill. Tell us what they are. Sen. WILLIAM ARMSTRONG, (R) Colorado: Ms. Woodruff, I think the bill is well intentioned, but off the mark in its results. It's supposed to be a bill about putting people to work, but in fact there's no work requirement in it. One of the amendments which I'll offer when this comes to the floor, is a provision which will require people to actually work as a condition of receiving welfare, with some exceptions. That, by the way, is one of the central reasons why the President has promised to veto the bill in its present form. WOODRUFF: Wait a minute. Some people are under the -- you're saying mistaken assumption that it does require people to work. You're saying it does not. Sen. ARMSTRONG: No. The rhetoric says we want people to work. The bill doesn't require people to work. Second thing is related to it. The rhetoric says, and the principle which I endorse, as Senator Moynihan does, is that people ought to have an opportunity to be trained to work. But the bill doesn't require that the states actually get anybody in training. Even the present law says that 15% of recipients must be receiving training, and this bill not only doesn't increase that percentage, it actually repeals it. And so another amendment that I'll offer when it comes to the floor is to reinstate the 15% training requirement so that at least 15% of the people who are receiving welfare cash payments will also receive welfare education training. And then scaling that up to 20% the second year and 25% the third year. WOODRUFF: Let me go back quickly to Senator Moynihan on those two points. Senator Moynihan, no work requirement? Sen. MOYNIHAN: Judy, Senator Armstrong and I aren't at odds on this. What we are basically doing here in this bill is following an outline that the governors gave to us last year. The governors association, by 49 to one, said this is what we want, and on the (unintelligible) of participation, they said, Don't bind us too much, because there's a tendency to get the easiest cases and say you've met your quota. What they have learned to do is -- get the hardest cases. The easiest cases take care of themselves. And they want to -- and we target this money on young people, with young children, those mothers who had babies in their teens. They're the ones who really do need help. And if you work at it, you get results. The governors swear by it. WOODRUFF: All right. What about that, Senator Armstrong? He's saying that the governors didn't want what you're talking about. Sen. ARMSTRONG: Well, I'm not a governor. I'm a United States Senator, and if we're going to pay for a program, it seems reasonable to me that we ought to require that people actually get the benefits from it. Now, the President said we ought to have 70% of the recipients actually receive education as well as cash benefits. My amendment says at least we ought to reinstate what we've already got in the law, we shouldn't repeal that. And scale it up gradually to 25%. So in a sense that's sort of a compromise position. It's not as stringent as the President suggested, but at least it's something. It says that we're really serious about it, and maybe we can work out a compromise. Sen. MOYNIHAN: Bill, could I interrupt here and say, we're going to work out a compromise. You want that kind of thing and so do I. Sen. ARMSTRONG: Now you're talking. WOODRUFF: Senator Moynihan, one of the criticisms that's been raised by the advocates for the poor, social workers and so forth, is that -- you're requiring mothers to work with children who are infants. And that you're requiring them to -- if there's child care available, to use that child care. Are you comfortable with that notion? Sen. MOYNIHAN: Yes, I am; 53% of married women with children under three are in the work force. We have to start thinking these mothers on welfare as unemployed. Two percent of them now have jobs, whereas, you know -- they're having a life experience different from their contemporaries, and not as good. Listen to what Mrs. Lopez was saying. I mean, what a life that is. Bill, you and I agree on this. Sen. ARMSTRONG: Well, there's no question about it, that what we're seeking to do here is to break that cycle of helpless, hopeless, dependency, and I don't believe that in the main most welfare recipients will be antagonistic towards the idea of education and training and jobs. That's exactly what they want. The question is whether or not we're really going to give it to them in this bill, and I'm hopeful that before it's over Pat and I will be able to reach an accommodation and that I'll be as supportive of the legislation as he is. At the moment, it doesn't contain those elements that I think are necessary. WOODRUFF: From the statistics that I've seen, the job training programs that have been in place around the country, the success rate we are told, is only about 10% of those people who are trained and jobs are found for these people. Are you both convinced that this program is going to work if it's put into effect? Sen. ARMSTRONG: Well, of course, that's one of the reasons why we not only want a mandate training, but also in my opinion we ought to mandate the people actually work. Even mothers with very young children ought to work perhaps part time, and at some point they ought to actually have a requirement to work full time as a condition of receiving -- WOODRUFF: Well, my question is that if these programs are only 10% successful, according to their own statistics, and Senator Moynihan, I want to bring you in on this, what makes you think it's going to work at a federal level? Sen. MOYNIHAN: Judy, we are -- we're -- a new kind of realism has come upon us, as well as some new real honest to God controlled experimental work. Yes, success rates are very low. And the effort to do even that is very intensive. But every -- that 10% are ten lives saved. The accumulation is very real. I mean, we're not pretending it's easy any more. Thinking it was easy, we found out it was hard, and we stopped even trying. We say, We know it's very hard. Gonna take a lot. It's gonna take time, but if you recognize, if you start with those -- that realism, you're going to get something. And the governors swear by it. I mean they -- the ones who have done it really are proud of it. Gov. Dukakis, Gov. Deukmeijian -- WOODRUFF: Just one other question on that. Are there enough jobs out there, assuming all these people were trained, the unemployment rate has been relatively low in recent -- are there enough jobs for these people? Sen. MOYNIHAN: Absolutely. The most important thing going with us is demography. Between now and the year 2000 the number of people, 14 to 24, drops by 21%. We're entering a tight labor market. Bill, do you agree on that? Sen. ARMSTRONG: Well, there's plenty of jobs, but the problem is that we don't want to create any more artificial barriers to work. This bill does that. Hidden away in some obscure parts of this are provisions that actually make it more difficult to get somebody off of welfare and into work, and I refer specifically to the requirement that says when you look at a job you don't have to take it if the cash value of the job doesn't exceed what you're getting on welfare, plus food stamps and AFDC -- and Medicaid. That's a new requirement. It means literally somebody wouldn't be required to take a job unless they made as much as $13,000 a year in New York or California. So we want to eliminate any requirements that make it hard to go to work and provide as much education and incentive to people as we can to get them to work. WOODRUFF: Just quickly, Senator Moynihan, President Reagan has said he's going to veto this bill if it comes out of the Congress in a form similar to what it's in now in the Senate. What happens if he does veto it? Sen. MOYNIHAN: Well, first of -- Senator Dole, the Republican leader, voted for this bill. Senator Packwood, the former Chairman of the Finance Committee. on the Republican side, finance committee, two to one, Republicans, 17 to three altogether. We will reason with the President. We're even going to reason with Bill Armstrong, because he's a good guy, and Colorado needs this program on a Colorado style, not a New York style. And that's what we want to do. You design yours, we'll design ours. Our people are not the same. WOODRUFF: Senators, we thank you both, Senator Armstrong, Senator Moynihan. Thank you both for being with us. MacNEIL: Still ahead on the NewsHour, teaching kids that run afoul of the law, the Democrats look for common ground, and a remembrance of things past. Sentenced to School MacNEIL: Next a report from the education beat that looks at the link between crime and learning. Education correspondent John Merrow reports on an innovative criminal justice solution used to deal with the problems facing many youthful offenders. Judge TOM McGEE: One of the rules and regulations is going to be that you're going to have to start to cooperate with the educational people in doing the evaluations that I'm going to order for you, to try to determine what your educational needs are, okay?

JOHN MERROW: The judge in this case, Tom McGee, could have sent the teenage offender to Louisiana Training Institute, but he's giving him a second chance. Under normal circumstances, in this Bronx Criminal Court, 17 year old Sean Boule could have been sent to a juvenile home, or more likely have been put on probation for a year or more. But because of this man, Tom Olin, he's also getting a second chance. Judge: You do realize you're getting a break here?

MERROW: The two juvenile offenders, one in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, the other here in the Bronx, New York, have something in common. They're learning disabled. In fact, 35% of all young offenders have an undiagnosed learning disability, a condition that normally occurs in only five to 10% of the population. LD, as it's called, is not mental retardation. By definition, learning disabled people are of average or above average intelligence. Some learning disabilities are subtle, like scrambled signals to the brain. The more familiar learning disabilities involve reversing letters and numbers, or not knowing right from left. JEFFREY GALLET, Family Court Judge: A kid will get up there and I'll say, ''Raise your right hand,'' and he'll raise his left hand. And the officer will say, ''Raise your other right hand. ''

MERROW: Whenever he sees a young defendant get confused like that, Jeffrey Gallet suspects the youth may be learning disabled. Gallet, a family court judge in the Bronx, is severely learning disabled himself. Judge GALLET: I was dead last in my class at Wilkes College. I'm sure you don't know anyone else who was dead last, at least who admits it. I -- so sometimes I felt I was brighter than anyone gave me credit for, and sometimes I agreed with them that I wasn't too bright but if I worked harder I could make it.

MERROW: Jeffrey Gallet stuck it out. He finished college, went on to law school, and eventually became a judge. He's sympathetic to those young people whose untreated learning disability keeps them from getting a decent education. Judge GALLET: You can't wash the floor in this building, this courthouse that we're in now, unless you can run the machine. And in order to run the machine you have to be able to read, and you have to be able to program and set the dials. So if we let a child get out of school who hasn't got basic skills, the child's got two ways to earn a living. You can turn to crime, you can go on public assistance. Crime pays more. And frankly, it's got a higher status in the community.

MERROW: Experts say other reasons for the high incidence of learning disabled youths who end up in trouble with the law, they get frustrated and act out. They're easily disoriented and therefore more likely to get caught. And once they do get caught, their lack of verbal skills often prevents them from talking their way out of trouble. Once in the juvenile justice system, learning disabled youth are treated no differently than anyone else, which even those who work in the system say is very badly. Judge GALLET: I think it's a dehumanizing process for everybody who's involved in the system. I think it's dehumanizing for the judges, for the court officers, for the kids. MERROW: Dehumanizing? Judge GALLET: For everybody. Dehumanizing. Yes for the kids, yes for their parents, yes for the witnesses, yes for the complainants, yes for everybody. It's not a good system.

MERROW: Statistics back up the judge's statements. Eighty five percent of juveniles who are arrested once end up being rearrested and rearrested. Judge Gallet is particularly frustrated because a city the size of New York has only two small experimental programs for learning disabled offenders. In fact, in the entire country, there are only a half dozen educational alternative programs. Judge GALLET: We're going to offer you some tutoring and some vocational help. And you really have to put a lot of effort and energy into this. We can't do it for you.

MERROW: One of New York's two programs is here in the Bronx. It's funded by the Bronx District Attorney's office, not the schools, and is run by Tom Olin, who is learning disabled himself. THOMAS OLIN, Bronx District Attorney's Office: We're trying to offer something a little more. It's still a form of prosecution, but it's a prosecution with a different purpose. We're trying to offer something a little more than that's being offered in criminal court presently for certain defendants.

MERROW: Only first time offenders accused of minor crimes are eligible for the program if they're found to be learning disabled. Still, young offenders who qualify don't necessarily jump at the chance to enrol in a program that sounds an awful lot like more school. Jamie Hernandez, for instance, preferred at first to take his chances in court after he was arrested for throwing rocks off a highway bridge. JAMIE HERNANDEZ: Every time I used to go to court, you know, the D. A. or my lawyer used to say, We're not ready, postpone it. Then I go back the next time, it's either we're not ready, or they're not ready, or boom, postpone again. You know, going back and forth for nine months, you know. It's boring. So I said, you know, put me on the program. They told me it was six months, and they say they'll drop the charges, and I say, hey, better. (reading in class) What if he could fly or jump over tall buildings? Girls would really be impressed by such a superman.

MERROW: Jamie's agreement with the court calls for him to stay in school -- he's a high school junior -- and spend three afternoons a week here at the Opportunity Center for instruction in English and math. ELLEN FIGOWSKY, Director, Opportunity Center: These are kids who don't know how to use a calendar, or a clock for that matter, or some of whom never really venture out of their neighborhoods because they don't know how, they can't read a subway map and are really intimidated by lots of different people, so don't ask which train would get me to such and such place. Mr. HERNANDEZ: When I go to a store and I whip out money to go buy some -- sometimes I put the wrong amount, or sometimes too much, you know. And sometimes I end up fighting with the cashier until I realize I do something wrong. Then I apologize, grab my things and I leave. MERROW: Can you get rid of learning disability? Is it like the common cold, or acne? Ms. FIGOWSKY: It's not something you can get rid of, but you can learn to make adaptations, because what most of these youngsters have experienced is this intense frustration and a throwing in the towel because they can't do it. They don't want to do it, they haven't been taught the ways to compensate. Judge GALLET: When I drive and I expect to take directions, I tighten my watch band so that I know immediately which side the left is. I don't have to look down. If you're driving and someone says turn left, you don't want to start looking at your wrist, because you're going to hit something. There are lots of things you can learn. And I do them, and I think I've learned to function on a high level. And all these kids can if we get them. One of the definitions of learning disabilities is ''average intelligence. '' So we have people who can make it if we teach them how to make it.

MERROW: Judge Gallet, Ellen Figowsky and Tom Olin agree that it shouldn't be the court's role to identify and educate learning disabled youth. They say schools should be doing more. Mr. OLIN: Fifty years from now you won't need this type of program if the proper resources are put into earlier education. And then you can have the court system for the real criminals, the people who really deserve to be punished and prosecuted.

MERROW: What will it take to make schools in New York City and most other places do more to identify and help learning disabled youth? In Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, it took time. Family court judge Tom McGee spent nearly 10 years working to make the schools follow both the letter and the spirit of the law. Judge McGEE: The law is clear. Common sense dictates, morality dictates, everything dictates that you should tailor an educational plan to a kid.

MERROW: The law Judge McGee is referring to, the education of all handicapped children act, was passed by the Congress in 1975. As in New York, the force behind the Jefferson Parish Program knows about disabilities firsthand. Judge McGee's own daughter is learning disabled. The judge forces local school authorities to live up to the law and develop individualized education plans, or I. E. P. , for all learning disabled juveniles who come before his court. Judge McGEE: I want to find out everything that the school system knows about you at this time before we start reinventing the wheel, okay? I want to find out what they've already done with you, and I want to find out what processes have been going on with the school system and what they know about you at this time before we start issuing specific orders about your education. You understand? TEACHER: Here you have a verb, preposition.

MERROW: The Jefferson Parish schools work closely with Judge McGee to implement his programs, which is now in its tenth year. About two dozen learning disabled offenders are integrated into the school system's special education program. In the past, it was commonly held that intensive remedial education did not help put most offenders back on the straight and narrow. Now, however, the evidence from Louisiana shows that while it may not work for ordinary offenders, special attention is effective with learning disabled youth. Most offenders who complete Judge McGee's program do not end up back in court again. Rayfield Smith is one of those who's benefited from Judge McGee's efforts. TEACHER: Murray, what is the subject of this particular sentence? STUDENT: Stranger. TEACHER: Very good. Okay, what is the verb? STUDENT: (unintelligible) TEACHER: No. The verb. STUDENT: Oh, the verb? Is. TEACHER: Is, the verb is. Okay?

MERROW: Mearlean Bracklin is Rayfield Smith's English teacher. (to Ms. Bracklin) From what you know of him, is he pretty much on the right path now? MEARLEAN BRACKLIN, teacher: I think so. I mean, we've talked, and he's even talked about his closeness with his grandmother, and you know, how he tries very hard to please her, and I think knowing that he has teachers now that care about him, he's going to try even harder. MERROW: Sounds to me like you are hopeful. Ms. BRACKLIN: Very. Very hopeful for Rayfield.

MERROW: Rayfield still goes to Bonneville High, the local high school, but he was released one month early from his educational probation program based on his school performance. Keeping Rayfield in high school, says Judge McGee, is a lot cheaper than the alternative, Louisiana Training Institute, a juvenile detention center. Judge McGEE: LTI, you know, cost maybe $18,000 a year. And if we can keep him here in Bonneville and provide remediation under strict supervision, probation and supervision, protect the community, and possibly alleviate one of the causations for this delinquent behavior, then everybody comes out, the taxpayer comes out, the citizens of the parish comes out better off, and the kid comes out better off. Platform Construction MacNEIL: Next tonight, the political dance over the Democratic Party's platform. The platform has become a testing ground between the Dukakis and Jackson campaigns as they prepare for the July convention. The negotiations began in earnest over the weekend when the party's drafting committee met on Macanaw Island, Michigan. We look at the tenor of those negotiations now with the top Dukakis and Jackson platform writers: Former Congressman and attorney Michael Barnes of Maryland for the Dukakis campaign, and Eleanor Holmes Norton, the former head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who represents the Jackson campaign. Ms. Norton, when the weekend ended, you said to members of the press who hoped for blood, ''You will find the floors are clean. '' Is that because the blood has yet to be spilled? ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Jackson campaign: I hope not, and I think not. If the spirit of Macanaw Island persists, I think while there may remain disagreements that the cooperation between the two campaigns will continue. MacNEIL: Do you agree with that, Mr. Barnes? MICHAEL BARNES, Dukakis campaign: Yes, I do. Clearly our desire in the Dukakis campaign is to try to pull the party together and get us all working together so we can beat George Bush in the fall. We think that's going to happen and this process is part of that. And it was very pleasing to see how everyone worked together this weekend. As Eleanor indicates, we do have some substantive differences. Clearly Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis don't agree on some important issues. But we work together very collegially in a very positive atmosphere, and I think that'll continue. MacNEIL: You got much publicized agreement because you and the Dukakis camp accepted Jesse Jackson's description of South Africa as a terrorist state. But you have -- aren't the real difficult issues still ahead of you? I think of military spending freeze, a tax increase that Mr. Jackson has been advocating, declaration in favor of Palestinian homeland, things like that. Aren't the really tough ones still ahead? Mr. BARNES: Well, as I indicated there are some difficult issues. You've indicated some of them. Jesse Jackson is supporting a tax increase. Gov. Dukakis does not believe that we should commit ourselves to raising taxes when we win the election. The defense spending issue is a very important issue. Gov. Dukakis does not support a reduction in defensive expenditures. So there are some important issues. But these issues can be addressed in a collegial atmosphere. We're all friends, we're all Democrats, we all respect each other. I know that everyone in the Dukakis campaign has enormous respect for Eleanor, and obviously for Jesse Jackson and the wonderful campaign that he's run. He won some important victories in the platform process already, that can demonstrate to his supporters that his candidacy for President was not in vain despite the fact that Michael Dukakis is going to be the nominee. When the Jackson supporters look at the drug plank, when the Jackson supporters look at the South Africa plank, and when the Jackson supporters look at a number of other issues that will be addressed in this platform, they're going to see that Jesse Jackson had an impact with respect to the issue of drugs, had an impact on the issue of South Africa. And I think that's very, very important for them and for our party. Ms. NORTON: Robin. I wouldn't want to leave the impression that Jesse Jackson advocated positions on taxes and military spending that were at odds with large sections of the American public. The tax increases, for example, would obtain for the top 1% of the population, not the vast majority of the American people. He's concerned, as are many members of Congress, that after tax reform the top 1% are paying 20% less tax, and the bottom 10% are paying 20% more. There's some adjustments that need to be made, but those adjustments -- we don't seek for their own sake. We seek them because of the deficit, and because Gov. Dukakis, should he become President, is not going to be able to pursue what he wants to do if he doesn't have in place a way, a plan, for dealing with the deficit. MacNEIL: What we're really talking about here -- apart from what Mr. Jackson advocates -- we're talking about the Democratic experience in 1984, Mr. Mondale's very straightforward declaration at the convention that there was going to need to be a tax increase. He went down in flames. Many Democrats believe that if the Party commits itself in its platform, or anywhere else, that it'll be greatly to the Party's disadvantage. How do you -- Ms. NORTON: What Jesse Jackson is advocating is a great deal different from what the Democrats advocated in 1984. I mean, he was there, he's not foolish, he understands the fears people had. But I really don't think that the American people are afraid on taxes on the top 1% of the population who make over $200,000 a year. I really don't think so. Jackson does not believe that the country is against corporations paying some more taxes in light of the larger deficit. How are we going to get to reinvestment in the future? And that's where the polls show us there is lack of confidence in this Administration. MacNEIL: Then how do you compromise that one? I mean, it seems as though Ms. Norton on behalf of Mr. Jackson is really insisting on that one, and you sound equally insistent on the other way, the Dukakis forces do, they don't want to go on record as getting any tax increase at this point. How do you compromise that one, Mr. Barnes? Mr. BARNES: Well, Gov. Dukakis has a very strong record of fiscal responsibility. He balanced 11 budgets in Massachusetts. He inherited a huge Republican deficit from his predecessor, and he turned that around in Massachusetts. I believe he can do that for the country. MacNEIL: But he also went on record when he ran for governor as no tax increase, and then found himself with a deficit situation where he had to advocate a tax increase, and he got defeated the next time around. Mr. BARNES: Well, George Bush has taken this position that there will be no tax increase while he's President of the United States. That's really irresponsible, because you don't know what the future's going to require with respect to fiscal policy. And the Congressional leadership has met with Gov. Dukakis, he's sat down with them, and they've all agreed that they'll work closely together with a Democratic President, Democratic Senate, Democratic House, and he'll address this issue of the deficit. But the Congressional leadership has said to Gov. Dukakis, You don't need to advocate a tax increase in this campaign. You don't need to run on a platform that promises a tax increase. We're ready to work with you. And my guess is that work will begin the day after the election. They'll sit down together and address it in a responsible way. MacNEIL: Would Mr. Jackson be satisfied with a declaration in favor of fiscal responsibility, or some code term like that that didn't actually mention a tax increase? Ms. NORTON: Sounds pretty Reaganesque, and of course we haven't had much fiscal responsibility, despite the use of the term. And Jackson isn't impressing this matter for its own sake. He does not think that Gov. Dukakis will be entirely credible unless he is more explicit about how he is going to get over this huge stone that's been left in our path. The great deficit. The other issue that Mike spoke of, perhaps misspoke, was that -- was military spending. Jesse Jackson does not advocate a cut in military spending. That's what Democrats are -- MacNEIL: I think I said freeze. Ms. NORTON: You said freeze, but Mike said cut. We advocate a freeze, and what a freeze means is that growth will be cut. We've had a doubling of military budget in peacetime during this Administration. In point of fact, nobody believes that anyone could possibly raise the military budget any more, and there's lots of members of Congress who think we ought to freeze it. MacNEIL: Mr. Barnes? Mr. BARNES: Actually, a freeze is a cut. Because you'll have inflation next year -- Ms. NORTON: Cut the growth -- Mr. BARNES: -- and if you freeze it in place for the next five years, as Jesse Jackson advocates, and you have 4% inflation a year, that ends up being a 20% cut in purchasing price, the purchasing value of your defense dollars. So a freeze is like a cut. Ms. NORTON: Everything on line now. You draw back nothing. Everything on line now continues. What you do do is cut the growth that has been escalating for eight years. MacNEIL: Let me -- because we can't resolve this one right here, and we have a couple of minutes left -- let me ask you, Ms. Norton -- the D. C. delegate, Mr. Fontroy, says the shopping list, as previous Democratic platforms have had, the shopping list of specific wishes expressed by particular interest groups have only given ammunition to the other side, and given them tools by which they can mount opposition to those specific things. And the wish of the party this year, expressed by Paul Kirk, the chairman, and so on, has been to avoid the shopping list. Does the Jackson side agree with avoiding the shopping list? Ms. NORTON: The Jackson side agrees. Indeed I think if you look at what has come out of the session this past weekend, you will see not a shopping list but a declaration that delayed maintenance for America is over. That we'll look at the infrastructure and try to approach investing in it, and investing in children and child care, and health, has been delayed too long because these people who are in office now simply don't believe in government. So you don't have a shopping list. In fact, what we came out with from Macanaw was not very long, but it was specific enough so that the American people can know what they're getting when they elect Democrats in November. MacNEIL: Is -- Mr. -- from your point of view, are you going to be able to get away, Mr. Barnes, with a vague declaration of principles, or are you going to have to put specific things in in order to satisfy the Jackson people, and keep his supporters active in the campaign? Mr. BARNES: Gov. Dukakis would not be satisfied with a vague declaration of principles. He's run a campaign that's demonstrated very clearly where he wants to take this country, a whole range of areas, with a lot of specificity. When you talk about environment policy, or energy policy, or welfare reform, or health care reform, as he's done in Massachusetts, a whole range of issues on which his views and his policies are very, very clear. So I think I would agree totally with what Eleanor just said about the thrust of the kind of document we're putting together and the kind of platform that'll be adopted at the convention. Ms. NORTON: Jesse Jackson has pushed and pushed Gov. Dukakis for specifics and I -- MacNEIL: And you're pushing -- Ms. NORTON: You're pushing me off the air (chuckle) -- MacNEIL: Yeah, you're pushing us out of time. We'll pick this up as it goes on further. Eleanor Holmes Norton and Michael Barnes, thank you. Remembrance of Things Past WOODRUFF: Finally tonight, we have excerpts from a commencement address that was delivered this weekend at the University of Georgia. It's a special one for us, because the speaker was NewsHour correspondent Charlayne Hunter Gault. In 1961, Charlayne helped pioneer the civil right movement by being one of two black students to desegregate the University of Georgia. Twenty five years after her graduation, she scored another first when she became the first black to address the University's graduating class.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I know that the University of Georgia made an enormous difference in the lives of so many, that even today I get letters from classmates from 25 years ago, who tell me of the enduring lessons that they took from this place. Even though in some cases those lessons were a long time coming, and not the usual lessons taught in an academic setting. Listen, for example, to this letter I received just a few months ago from a Georgia graduate, class of 1963, living now in North Carolina. She writes, ''I entered the University of Georgia a very ignorant child. Growing up in Virginia, I was not aware of the suffering of blacks. And I truly had never given it a thought. But your experience was visible to me. I watched from the window the night the mob came over the hill from the basketball game, and that shock remains vivid in my mind. For the first time, I understood unreasonable cruelty. And I have not been an innocent since that night. '' I came across some words to -- the other day of the West African novelist Ayi Kwei Armah, and they, too, struck a chord of memory. ''Our way is not a random path,'' he wrote, ''our way begins from coherent understanding. '' The reason they struck a chord was because I believe that the South's understanding, even when it was wrong, was always more coherent than the rest of the country. And as we have peeled away the protective coating that has exposed other parts of the country's weaknesses on matters of justice and equity, the South's coherent understanding is the one really hopeful sign I see for America. President Knapp's bold stroke in hiring 15 black faculty members for the upcoming academic year is a part of that equation. When people at the top exercise aggressive leadership and will, even when they don't work miracles, Mr. President, they set a tone, and they create an atmosphere that makes things happen. I am convinced that the presence of more black faculty members here will not only attract more black students to this campus, but their presence, along with these other black students, will move this place, our place, to a new phase in its pioneering history, a place that could be a model for a more perfect union. Because it is in the scheme of things, our turn. Recap MacNEIL: Again, the main points in the news today. A New Jersey Federal jury found a tobacco company partially libel for a smoker's death. The Supreme Court said the Federal Government can be held responsible for damages caused by vaccines it licenses. The White House denounced Israel for expelling an Arab/American activist. And in the Soviet Union, four prominent communists executed in Stalin's purge trials, were declared innocent. Good night, Judy. WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. That's our NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.