The Locker room is Private Property; D. G. Smith

Remember that we live and work in a capitalis tic, free enterprise system. Professional sports Mr. Smith is a writer living in Santa Maria, California. He has been a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal. 189 teams are certainly a part of this system. Even when a sports team uses a rented facility,the busi ness part of the arrangement is still private-just as private as any other business that operates in a rented building. The courts have already established that an owner has the right to move a franchise to another city. Certainly no one disputes the owner's right to control parking and concessions; to release a play er who isn't doing the job; to trade the contract of one player for another; to keep fans off the playing field; even to change the team colors. Why then doesn't the owner have the considerably lesser right to determine who will, and who will not, be allowed on the premises?

We are talking here about individuals and indi vidual rights. It is my contention that the owner has the right to ban women, or anyone else, from the locker room for no other reason than simple own ership. This is the same right that a female reporter would invoke to keep any uninvited person out of her home, including a team owner. The team own er doesn't owe an explanation to those who are kept out and most certainly not to any group of political reformers or protest marchers. It is quite clearly none of their business. The same owner has the right to admit only female reporters and to keep the men out, or to allow only reporters over 40, or those with last names beginning A through L. This is the owner's prerogative, and it is not the business of government to determine who is to be allowed in a private facility. In regard to the contention that reporters "have a job to do," I submit that this situation is not exclu sive to the newspaper business. Indeed it applies to every employed person, and we cannot expect doors to open just because somebody has to earn a paycheck. I have been freelance writing for 25 years, and I have yet to see a publisher accept something that he doesn't want because "Don Smith has ajob to do." Nor have I seen affirmative action groups breathing fire because one of my articles wasn't accepted. This isn't the way that the system works, and let's hope that it never comes to this.

Rejection is a part of my business just as other obstacles are an inherent part of any job. Female reporters would do well to remember this the next time they are told that they aren't allowed in a room where men are showering and changing their clothes. 0 190 Affirmative Disintegration: India's Most Dangerous Decade by Shyam J. Kamath F or the past decade, India has been on the verge of political and social collapse. In recent months, caste riots over a decision to enlarge India's affirmativeaction "reservation" policies have claimed hundreds of lives, including an estimated 150 suicides, mainly by distraught youth, many by public self-immolation and inges tion of poison. In just one week, 325 people lost their livesin communal riots sparked by a political ly motivated religious dispute between the coun try's majority Hindus and the minority Moslems. In the beautiful vale of Kashmir, the idyll has again been shattered by gun battles between Kash miri Moslem secessionists and Indian security forces with nearly 2,000 people killed. Life in the adjoining state of Punjab remains paralyzed, and the death toll mounts as Sikhsecessionistscontinue their reign of terror. Continuing agitations in the northeastern states, especially.Assam, fester and take a heavy toll on human life. Communal frenzy has touched virtually every state while caste divi sions seem drawn more sharply than ever before.