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Seventy-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom
VOL. LXXVIII, No. 1 ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 1967
EIGHTH SECTION
Editorial
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Freedom
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Maintained
Entire Staff Hammers Out Unified Daily Strategy
By MARK LEVIN
Summer Supplemeut Editor
N FEB. 20, 1967, 12 men walked into a small conference
room in the Student Publications Building and voted 7-4
to reject the unanimous recommendation of The Daily Senior
Editors for The Daily's 1967-68 editor.
Three days later, the same 12 men walked into the same
room and voted 7-4 to accept the once "unacceptable" nomi-
nee, and with him the rest of the proposed new senior edi-
torial staff.
But before the dust had settled, 36 state legislators, hun-
dreds of alumni, President Harlan Hatcher, the University
Regents, the Detroit Free Press, a reporter for the New York
Times and the entire Daily staff had become deeply involved
in the crisis.
The Daily has always aroused controversy, but the 1966-
67 school year had been nore controversial than most.
The editor, Mark R. Killingsworth, '67, started off the
winter semester with a bitter attack on President Hatcher,
disclosing that Hatcher had been appointed in 1954 largely
due to the efforts of one Regent, Roscoe Bonisteel of Ann
Arbor, who had refused to consider anybody else.
HEN THE executive editor, Bruce Wasserstein, '67, wrote
a story quoting a close friend of Berkeley Chancellor
Roger W. Heyns, a former University vice president, saying
that Heyns was "seriously interested" in the University presi-
dency. Presidential Selection Commission .Chairman, Regent
Robert Briggs, accused The Daily of trying to promote Heyns
and said the article was doing more harm than good.
And the editorial director, Harvey Wasserman, '67, wrote
an editorial advocating the legalization of marijuana, which
seemed to offend the sensibilities of a number of prominent
Michigan citizens.
In November, 1966, The Daily leaked the text of a confi-
c ential Defense Department document charging that the
University is "known as one basically for 'rich white stu-
dents, " The only reaction the University administration had
to the story was that it should not have been printed in the
first place.
The Daily also printed editorials favorable to last fall's
"student power" movement, and in August, 1966, all ten senior
editors had signed a front-page editorial castigating the
University for its compliance' with a House Un-American
Activities Committee subpoena of three campus political
groups' membership lists.
ROGER RAPOPORT, '68-The Daily Senior Editors' nominee
for Daily editor--himself probably symbolized what, to
many members of the University community, was "wrong"
with The Daily.
Early in January he disclosed that the University admin-
istration was con 'dering u sino over'$4.75 million in student
tuition fees to pay for the new University theatre. He had
Anxious Faces Mark Long Hours Before Board Decision
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