Word: downplay
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...toward combatting the day-to-day abuses many victims are generally reluctant to report. However, the proposal leaves virtually untouched the existing formal grievance procedures for severe complaints. Those procedures-which rely on the discretion of the Dean of the Faculty rather than clearly stated guidelines-serve to downplay the severity of the offense. Complainants will be reluctant to come forward with serious problems so, long as Harvard continues to treat harassment as a "family matter," rather than a reprehensible and illegal form of discrimination...
...public rebuke fueled speculation that Feldstein might be on the way out. But the President later tried to downplay the incident and insisted that there were no substantial disagreements among Administration policymakers. Nonetheless, economists like Walter Heller, who served as chairman of President Kennedy's Council of Economic Advisers, feared that Reagan was unwisely disregarding Feldstein's warnings about the need for a tax hike...
...Feldstein claims he is simply emphasizing parts of the President's budget message drawn up in January--aspects which the administration now wants to downplay...
...Treasury Donold F. Regan and the Secretary of State George P. Schuitz, who apparently misses his former calling as an economist. In the opposing cold are Feldstein and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul A. Volcker, who disagree with the President's current inclination to downplay the deficit...
...still express embarrassment over Luther's anti-Jewish rantings or his skepticism about political clergy, Communist East Germany has turned him into a secular saint because of his influence on German culture. Party Boss Erich Honecker, head of the regime's Luther-jahr committee, is willing to downplay Luther's antirevolutionary ideas, using the giant figure to bolster national pride...