The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 15

15 AT I.AItGK EIXKiN (iOODM hymii-iftriiiM'iiiriii mm Page 17 of prejudice? She was brilliant. Everyone involved in the case agrees about that. She was also unattractive; Everyone agrees about that tOO. Boston Evening Globe Friday, November 11, 1977 An TT -J I appearance She was overweight, whiny, argumentative, unkempt the list goes on v.i sloppy, hypercritical, unpopular. The life of Charlotte Horowitz, whose dismissal from a Missouri medical sphool became a Supreme rnnrt naco thic uapIc has By Virginia Bohlin I become painfully public.

description of rejection. ''X, ft From all reports, she in- A WZ. IJ isieraciea wun me wuuu Slilraa fincrppnnil nn a blackboard. She was punished for the crime of being socially unacceptable. Charlotte Horowitz was older than most of the other students when she was admitted to the University of Missouri-Kansas City Medical School in CHARLOTTE HOROWITZ case in court i 1 1- This dramatic living glowing at nighttime, is hidden from the street.

The approach side of the house is deliberately understated. Special to The Globe How to stay indoors but bask in the sun all day and the moonlight at night? How to have an interior with spectacular flowing spaces but privacy, too? How to have ceilings that never need to be painted; window coverings that never have to be taken down for washing or dry cleaning? The answer to all these questions are to be found in a suburban Boston home, just named a 1977 Honor Awards winner by the New England Council of the American Institute of Architects. But, in the eyes of the owners, even more important than the architectural award, is the fact that the house is a "Winner" for them. "The house works for the way we agree the owners, who are willing to talk about their home but insist on remaining anonymous when it comes to their names or address. The husband is an industrialist; the wife, an educator, Before they built two years ago, they lived with their three children, now 13, 10, 7, in a pseudo English Tudor house.

"But the way they were living was not at all the way they wanted to live," relates. Leland Cott of the Cambridge architectural firm of GelardinBrunerCott Inc. Cott found this out shortly after he was hired and working with the client on site selection. Most persons have their land by the time they engage an architect. "But my clients hadn't bought their land when I was hired.

And the couple of months we spent looking for land gave me a chance to understand what their needs were," states Cott, who has a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute in New York and a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard. The husband, who spends most of his day in a factory, felt very much at ease with industrial or non-residential materials. The wife, although not uncomfortable with these materials, leaned more toward residential warmth and scale. But the most challenging aspect of all was the clients' desire for expansive open interior space coupled with their need for privacy. They don't entertain often, but when they do they wanted space for their guests.

"I wanted a kitchen to be open so I wouldn't be closed off from our guests when we entertain. But I also wanted the privacy of a dining room," explains the wife. She needed privacy when she brought work home from the office and her husband wanted a quiet place where he could get away and paint when he felt the urge. He has exhibited and his works now are displayed in their home. Cott found the design solution for all these needs in a simple wood frame L-shape that encloses all functions of the house except the main space a 30- by 30-foot living room.

For the living room roof he used a material usually found only in industrial or commercial applications sandwich panels of translucent insulated fiberglass, supported on aluminum beams, which also carry track lights. s. -w" v)i 1972. She was also brightera misfit from New York who won her place despite the admissions officer's report that read: "The candidate's personal appearance is against her. By the school's "merit system," she was tops in her medical school class.

Her adviser wrote: "Her past record is the best in the school. Her examination scores are at the very top of the school. She has functioned at a high level and has had no problems with a patient at any time. it Yet, she was dismissed by the dean on the verge of graduation. The grounds the dean gave for-dismissal were tardiness, bad grooming and an abrasive personal style.

Of course, the case before the Supreme Court won't judge those grounds. It will deal wjth the issue of due process, whether she was given proper notice and a fair hearing, whether universities and professional schools have to extend certain legal rights to their students. But the theme of this difficult, emotional story is prejudice, the most deep-rooted way in which we prejudge each other, the sort of discrimination which is universal, almost unrootable. Prejudice toward appearance. Discrimination against what we "see." The most unattractive children in the classrooms of our youth had their lives and personalities warped by that fact.

Their painful experiences of rejection nurtured in them an expectation of rejection. That expectation, 'like some paranoia, was almost always fulfilled. It is a mystery, why some "unattractive people" wear it in their souls and others don't. Why one becomes Bar-bra Streisand and another a reject. Often, along the way, some people give up trying to be accepted and become defensively nonconforming, they stop letting themselves care, they become "unkempt, argumentative, abrasive And the list goes on.

Everyone's self-image is formed in some measure by the way they are seen, the way they see themselves being seen. As their image deteriorates, their personality often shatters along with it. At that point, the rest of us smugly avoid them, stamp them unacceptable, not because of their "looks," to be sure, but because of their behavior. It happens all the time. There is no law that can protect children from this sort of discrimination.

We are all, in that sense, the products as well as the survivors of our childhood. But, the cumulative, spiralling effect of appearance on personality is worse for women than for men. If Charlotte Horowitz had been a man, surely her brains would have alleviated her physical unattractiveness. But as a woman, her unattractiveness 'was further handicapped by her brains. As Dr Esiclle Ramey, a professor at.

George Washington Medical School and former head of the Association for Women in Science, said, "If the bad fairy ends up the last one at your crib, you'll be cursed as a brilliant, unattractive woman." But this case isn't a question of the curse, the binh penalty, the "life isn't fair" sort of discrimination. This is a story of a university staff so "blinded," thai even as adults they felt that they had the right to throw away a life and a mind because they were housed in a body that was "overweight, sloppy "What's been lost in all this," says Dr. Ramey "is the contribution a brilliant human being might have made in a field which needs all the fine minds we have." You see, Charlotte Horowitz was brilliant. Everyone involved in the case, could, at least, see that. III 4 Hffl-" 11 1 ttssK vpsfy 'iWWAi rlf 1" The trartsluscent roof of the 30 by 30 foot living room bathes the room in sunlight by day, moonlight at night.

(Photos by Greg Heins) SUN, Page 17 Jimmy Carter's UFO an in-depth second look champions are more likely to be born with Mars in the rising or culminating sky sectors. Kurtz said studies to be published soon do not support this "Mars Effect," in additional areas. Biorhythms were compared with major leaguer's batting performance by Dr. A. James Fix in another Zetetic article.

Fix is associate professor of medical psychology in the University of Nebraska College of Medicine. He found no relationship. He foresaw a criticism that biorhythmic predictions might be useful for individuals if not for groups. "Aside from the argument's being statistically untenable, on a practical basis it is difficult to see how the knowledge that July 27, 1975, was an 'up' day for George Hendrick of the Cleveland Indians could console his 0-for-4 effort in hitting that day; nor should it bother Dwight Evans of the Boston Red Sox that Aug. 22.

1975. was a 'triple zero" day. He doubled and homered in three official attempts," the researcher commented. strain and anxiety, people started to interpret an everyday occurrence in a new, bizarre manner," Stewart wrote. "The process described is virtually identical to an episode of windshield-pitting that occurred in Seattle in the mid-1950s." Another kind of counter to the paranormal tide is the statistical test of sun-sign astrology described in the Zetetic by John McGervey, associate professor of Physics at Case Western Reserve University.

Trying the thesis that people born under certain signs are more likely to have certain careers. McGervey tabulated by astrological signs the birthdays of 16,634 persons listed in American Men of Science and 6475 persons listed in Who's Who in American Politics. He found a statistically "flat" pattern tending to contradict the theory. Kurtz said the committee has joined in a test of the statistical "bulge" found by the reputable French investigators. Michel and Francoise Cauqueiin.

suggesting Ihr.t sports "A book which believes in a paranormal subject sells a million copies; a book it sells 10,000." he snid. For lack of funds, the investigating has to be done free, "a labor of love," Kurtz said. The committee publishes irregularly a magazine called the Zetetic; there have been two issues so far. and another is coming in a few months With cattle mutilations making sensational headlines again, the current volume has a timely contribution by James Stewart, assistant professor of sociology at the university. He looked into the reports of cattle being discovered with parts of their anatomy missing northeastern Nebraska and eastern South Dakota in 1974.

Stewart concluded that the phenomenon, which terrified many townspeople in the area, was ro more than a "collective delusion" arising from a normal number rf cattle dying and being chewed hv predators "For reasons associated with By Joseph Egelhof Chicago Tribune NEW YORK Gazing into the western sky. JimiT.y Carter saw lumintus, moving object "as fright as the moon" about degrees above the horizon. The time was about 7:15 p.m., 6, 1969. Carter, a Lions International district governor, was standing outside waiting to speak to the Lions of Leary. about 40 miles from Plains.

In 1973, after he became governor, the future President filed a formal unidentified flying object (UFO) report. After the election last year, the Committee for the Seientuic Investigate of Claims of the Parjnermal decided to look into the "Carter UFO A volunteer investigator, Robert Sheaffer, trained as a systems analyst, did the job. He reported in April that at the precise tirre of the Carter sighting, the planet Venus was a brilliant "evening star" in the wesjtaouthwest. at 25 degrees of elevation, and the weather was clear. Sheaffer said that Venus often in-ciu "TO reports.

The planet ran get 100 times brighter the lightest star so hnght thi nime pilots have tr'tu 1 1 shotil it down. "Either an extraterrestrial space vehicle was covering up Venus, or Mr. Carter was looking at the planet." Sheaffer concluded. The Chief Executive hfid fallen under debunking scrutiny. The investigating group was organized a yer.r go by about 50 profes-sois.

ar.d magicians. Its purpose is ibii.bai th" vi of paranormal (beyon.l-.cience) th.nking The mind btndtrs l.ovc yont too far and may be endangering civilization, the committee fears. The committee is skeptical about UFOs. astrology, cattle mutilation plagues, pyramid power. Erich von Daniken.

Bigfoot. psychsc prophets, flying swarms, clairvoyance, the Ber- muda Triangle, hiorhythms, and even talking to plants Indeed, if it succeeds in establishing rational explanations for everything it disbelieves the National Enquirer wiii have no news. Debunking is not as easy as tclievir.g. For example, it took investigator Sheaffer several months to date Carter's sighting. Carter in his UFO report incorrectly guessed that it was something in October, 169.

Sheaffer. trying to find the exact date, discovered that the Leary Lions had folded earlier in 1969 and that the records had disappeared. Af'er many-letter phone tails, someone sug-. tv! that he Lions International in Oak Er ok. and there he found ihit the date of the Carter vi.it was Jan.

6. Also skepticism is poorly j-aid. said Paul Kurtz, the committee chief and a philosophy professor at the Buffalo branch of the State University New York..