Seventy-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDE6r OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS Secret Research or an Open ' Where Opinions Are ree, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH. Truth Will Prevail NEWS PHONE: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1968 NIGHT EDITOR: PAT O'DONOHUE i Black Job Recruitment Needed Closer to Home IT IS EASY TO infer from superficial evidence such as employment percent- ages and number of new programs that University recruitment of Negro non- academic staff is proceeding much more smoothly than recruitment in the aca- demic area. Manager of Training and Counseling Clyde W. Briggs can point to the addition of several Negroes in high administrative training positions and research assist- anceships as evidence of his success. In the academic area there has been considerably less visible effort. It is dis- couraging to note that, Defense Depart- ment recommendations to the contrary, 25 academic departments have admitted making "no special effort" toward re- cruiting Negro staff. Two departments have declared that even proposing such special consideration is "distasteful and improper," and 18 in fact propose no such effort. The existence of these attitudes is de- plorable and the blame for their con- tinued practice can be placed on the in- formal nature of faculty recruitment in general and the lack of centralized sup- ervision and control. BUT NON - ACADEMIC recruitment is also not free from blamle. Briggs has been successful in getting Negroes into policy-making positions at the University, out he has found it necessary to travel all over the South to recruit. Although he has developed an impressive list of con- tacts at Southern Negro colleges, he has made little effort to recruit at Wayne S t a t e University, Washtenaw County This is not only a waste of money which could be put to better use in public Community College, or Ferris State Col- lege. relations or training programs, but it seems to be the most unlikely way of finding people to work who wil stay on here after their training period. In addition, importing people from Georgia and South Carolina to work at the University does nothing to improve its image within the local Negro com- munity. If Briggs concentrated more on local recruiting, he could make use of this grapevne to better the University's reputation in the community, and in- crease his office's effectiveness. A CENTRAL CIVIL rights office, such as the Steering Committee on Aca- demic Opportunity is discussing with President Fleming this week, could cor- rect the inadequacies in both academic and non-academic recruiting if the office were given full regulatory and review powers. The ddition of a complaint processing procedure in the office is essential, since the prevent channel for these complaints is in the Personnel Office, compelling employes to complain to the people they are complaining about. If the University is to erase its reputa- tion as a closed institution with only token integration, it is imperative that Fleming adopt ra hard-line approach, in spite of foreseeable objections from some University departments that their au- tonomy is being violated. --JILL CRABTREE THE ELDERFIELD Report on Classified Research should have been titled "How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Clas- sified Research," for that is pre- cisely what it asks us to do. While managing to avoid every substantive moral issue about the appropriateness of classified re- search in general, and while hedging the issue with regard to the University, the Elderfield Re- port makes a mockery of those who wish to make this University a place where humane values can flourish. Futhermore, in pretend- ing, at the outset to be acquiescing to the demands of those who say that classified research which is specifically aimed at the destruc- tion of human life must stop, the Elderfield Report is an insult to the intelligence of every person at this University. Policy I of the Report states that the University "will not enter into any contract supporting re- earch the specific purpose of which is to destroy human life or to incapacitate human beings." How noble! The problem is that the type of research excluded by Policy I does not exist. No research is undertaken "The specific purpose of which is to destroy human life or incapacitate human beings." However, there is such a thing as research, the specific purpose of which is to develop a set of m i- tary techniques or an operational or weapons system which can be used to kill or injure human beings. This is what the University is doing, on a scale exceeded by only three other universities in the nation. And this is what must stop! While Policy I might prohibit the University from making and assembling its own bombs, it cer- tainly does not prevent it from finding targets for the weapons of others. (See the report of the Committee on the Thailand Pro- jects, University Record, Dec. 4, 1967 or Daily, Dec. 5, and the series of articles in the Daily, Oct. 17- 20, Dec. 7, 1967, et seq.). Further- more, as pleasant as this arrange- ment might be, you wouldn't be able to find out about it from the Committee's report. In thirteen pages, there is not the slightest mention of Willow Run Labs, CooleyElectronics Laboratory, the Department of Defense, or any of its constituent parts. There is not the slightest mention of "detec- tion," "surveillance," or anything else about those "classified projects already being done," which ac- cording to the Committee-and for reasons it fails to give-require a different research policy from that "which would be chosen by an in- stitution in which traditionally there was no such research." Once again it is manifestly clear how the Committee has ignored the fundamental moral question; i.e. what are the consequences for the society of allowing secret re- search to be carried on within an academic community? THE ANSWER to this question may take many forms. First, classified research is in conflict with basic principles of education and scholarship: 1) Results of classified research are not published. They are not available to the academic com- munity, or even to any member of the immediate discipline who does not have a security clearance. The results cannnot be applied to areas of academic concern outside of the contractor's immediate in- terest until the Federal Govern- ment decides to declassify them. The Committee says, "As the re- sults of the research become de- classified the material is imme- diately avialable for incorporation into regular instructional pro- grams." The word "immediately" here sounds like double-think. 2) University professors and re- searchers who take classified pro- jects are required by the govern- ment to withhold significant scien- tific information from their col- leagues and students. The Com- mittee states that foreign students (and others who cannot get or refuse to get a security clearance), "may be excluded from the classi- fied portions of ta research pro- ject)." 3) Discrimination: The security clearances and F.B.I. investigations used in the selection of faculty and students to work on classified projects in- volve political criteria. The Uni- versity has no business in the area of political discrimination. Secrecy and Democracy Classified research is indefensi- ble in a university for other, equal- ly important reasons. It means an institutional dependence on, and support of those segments of the government and industry whose activities are least subject to ob- servation and control by ordinary people-precisely because they are classified research) would be in- consistent with the principle of freedom of inquiry" is to ignore the real meaning of that principle; namely, that freedom of inquiry should extent far enough so that all material published by someone at the University is available for perusal and criticism to any other member of the community. Those who say that one's col- leagues should have no control over one's own area of inquiry are ignoring the fact that the University, at present, has an un- official but apparent policy of not taking chemical or biological war- fare projects in its chemical or biological science departments. To those who would say that this too is inconsistent with freedom of in- quiry, we would reply that they may, if they desire, go to work for the government and do whatever chemical and biological warfare