September 25, 1991

The transformation of Mexico's economy has filled a graveyard with old myths: the inviolable power of big labor unions, the need for trade protection, the importance of state ownership. The lone survivor would seem to be the sanctity of oil. Mexican officials still speak in almost mystical terms about the relationship between oil and sovereignty. And in free-trade talks with the United States, Mexico has done its best to keep the issue of foreign involvement in its oil production off the table.

Professors and administrators on many campuses held their tongues and their noses through much of the last academic year as a national debate about the decline of American colleges focused on the dangers of a new leftist orthodoxy mockingly called political correctness. But when President Bush warned, in a commencement address this spring, that at some universities free speech was being threatened by "inquisition," "censorship" and "bullying," people who had been criticized as promoting their views of what is politically correct decided it was time to fight back.

Gov. Mario M. Cuomo's plan to prime New York City's economy with public works, an expansive vision of new high-tech "people movers," subway lines and huge housing complexes, is actually a melange of proposals, some bold and new but many old and languishing. The Governor presented his plan yesterday, backed by stirring music and an elaborate, handsome film, offering a $7 billion wish list to restore the city's luster.

The New York Civil Liberties Union filed suit today against the Nassau County Board of Supervisors, charging that its weighted voting system unconstitutionally deprives the county's growing minority population of political representation. The suit, filed in Federal District Court in Uniondale, echoed the civil liberties union's suit 10 years ago that led to the revamping of New York City's government.

In an apparent reaction to the shadow the Salomon Brothers scandal has cast on Wall Street, many participants at yesterday's auction of two-year Treasury notes chose to bypass dealing with the 39 institutions that are primary dealers in Government securities. Instead, they placed bids directly wih the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In releasing the auction results, the Treasury Department said 79 percent of the bids submitted by New York primary dealers for the $13 billion issue were accepted, compared with an average of 90 percent in past auctions.