Seventy-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHI1AN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
ROGER RAPOPORT:
This Is Ann Arbor, Please
- - - + ,a
ere Opinions Are Free, 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.
Y, DECEMBER 6, 1967
NIGHT EDITOR: DANIEL, OKRENT
SGC Must Keep Working
To Consolidate Student Gains
M ILE THE FORMATION of a constitu-
tional convention next term to
"consider restructuring of student gov-
ernment" is 'an 'important matter, the
present Student Government Council
must continue to work as the official
voice of the student body during the
interim,
This semester has been a vital one in
the history of SGC. While last year's
November draft-ranking crisis set the
tone for increased student decision-
making in the University community,
it was this year's Council which has con-
solidated those goals.
SGC has incorporated University rules
and regulations into its own, and has
then proceeded to alter or correct them
one-by-one in favor of the students.
Council has recognized the right of fresh-
man women in the individual residences
to determine their own hours or to elim-
inate them as they see fit, giving the
power to make other non-academic rules
for University Housing residents to Inter-
House Assembly. IHA then gave this
power to the individual house councils,
several of which have proceeded to elim-
inate or liberalize restrictions on visita-
tation by members of the opposite sex.
In addition, SGC. has eliminated all re-
strictive University student traffic regu-
lations.
JOINT JUDICIARY Council has sup-
ported each SGC move by refusing
to prosecute students who were charged
with breaking rules other than those
made by students themselves.
The battle is far from over, however.
Most freshman women continue to have
curfews (despite the request by a fac-
ulty-controlled Board of Governors of the
Residence Halls that hours be elimin-
ated.1 Most houses continue to observe
the old visitation restrictions, awaiting
action by the governing board. Few stu-
dents have had the opportunity to take
advantage of the elimination of vehicle
restrictions and it is uncertain what
action the administration might take
in light of Student Traffic Court's re-
fusal to enforce the old regulations.
Resolution of these inadequacies requires
the consistent assertion of power on the
part of SGC.
Even if SGC isn't perfectly representa-
tive of the student body, as those who
favored a constitutional convention have
asserted. Council must, in the interest of
the students, follow a policy of vigorous
action in the months to come. The voice
of the students must be heard clearly
by the incoming administration, and
there is much that needs to be said.
SGC should, as quickly as possible, im-
plement the coming report from the
President's Committee on Decision-mak-
ing to establish/ a firm base for the
actions which have been taken this
term. Council should work to make the
8-month lease in Ann Arbor the rule
rather than the exception. A bill of
rights for students must be ratified.
FINALLY, in order to provide greater
autonomy and greater latitude in the
vital area of fund-raising, SGC should
proceed with its plans for contemplated
incorporation.
Student government will continue to
exist at the University, regardless of the
outcome of the constitutional conven-
tion. SGC must keep this in mind and
act firmly and swiftly to set the right
tone for the comingnterm.Only in this
frame of mind can Council be prepared
to traverse the uncertain road ahead.
-MARTIN HIRSCHMAN
THE FRANTIC PACE of events during the past week
obscures the fact that this fall has been one of the
most constructive periods in University history.
During a time of major political upheaval over an un-
popular war abroad and a deepening racial crisis at home,
when college campuses from Berkeley to Manhattan are
being split apart, Ann Arbor has been noticably peaceful.
The University has in the short space of three months
managed to begin collective bargaining, moved to abolish
all women's hours, set up an 8-month lease for student
apartments, honored students demands in a rent strike,
and begin a thorough reexamination of classified military
research.
On the side Student Government Council has moved
to let students make their own rules, Joint Judiciary
Council has refused to enforce regulations that
aren't made by the students, and the Board in Control
of Student Publications is looking at independence for
The Daily.
ALL THIS PROGRESS is admirable in itself. But
accomplishing it without any significant disruption makes
this campus unique.
For at major schools like Illinois, Colorado, and City
College of New York students are being expelled. At Wis-
consin the campus in chaos after police bashed over sixty
demonstrators last month. Berkeley is also in chaos as
constructive chance is virtually ignored and campus fac-
tions haggle it out, while Chancellor Roger Heyns pushs
expulsion for key student activists.
THE QUESTION THEN becomes this: Why has Mich-
igan been able to make so much progress with so little
disruption? Why hasn't their been a single protest of a
truly disruptive nature here this fall? Why haven't their
been any police arrests or tear-gassing?
The answer lies in the fact that all factions here
seem to deal with change in a constructive manner dif-
ferent than other colleges around the country.
There is a delicate balance in Ann Arbor that has
made progress and peace possible. For their part the
students have moved in a rational manner on clearcut
issues that are central concerns of the University. And the
campus administration has wisely refrained from bring-
ing in police or expelling students.
Students here have used tactics appropriate to the
cause they are promoting. While the burning issue on
other campuses has been military and Dow Chemical
recruiting, this matter has been largely bypassed here.
Part of the thinking is political. Like it or not the
University is an open institution and to deny recruiting
opportunities to Dow this week is only to invite another
group to block the Peace Corps recruiter next week.
More important, as militant students on other cam-
puses have been finding out, blocking recruiters does not
draw the necessary faculty support to prohibit the ad-
ministration from calling in the police or suspending pro-
testers.
NOW CONSIDER THE WAY the biggest campus issue
this fall-classified military research was handled. Here
the issues were raised in a lengthy series of articles in
The Daily based almost exclusively on information pro-
vided directly by University officials.
At this paint student groups formulated policy on
the issues raised. A sit-in which enjoyed the backing of
the undergraduate and graduate student government
organizations, The Daily, SDS, and a group of 30 faculty
members was staged in the administration building.
is to raise questions that many faculty are grateful to
have a chance to deal with. Administrators as high as
Graduate School Dean Stephen Spurr are reportedly
against classified research. And President-designate
Fleming also has serious qualms about the matter.
In view of all this Fleming's major speech at Michigan
State University last Saturday seems poorly timed. For he
spoke at length on the issue of protesting recruiters,
which has not been an issue here, and heckling speakers,
which has been a small problem locally.
WE RECOGNIZE THAT all this was a major Fleming
concern at Madison. And we know that the implemention
of his viewpoint (blocking recruiters is "wholly incom-
patible with the basic tenents of a great university") has
resulted in cracked heads, suspensions, and a divisive
Madison campus this fall.
But is is not an issue here and may well suggest why
Michigan enjoys a better reputation than Wisconsin. A
balance built up over the past few years has promoted
constructive change without disruption. Indeed President
Hatcher can consider this perhaps the most important
achievement of his administration.
Preserving the balance means that Fleming is' obli-
gated to keep the police off campus lest he jeopardize
the productive relationship that has existed of late.
While Madison may prefer a mediator who sanctions
calling in the police to arrest demonstrators and then
turns around and bails them out with a personal check,
Ann Arbor wants none of that. We would prefer not to
have the police at all and just skip the mediation.
A second Fleming oblgation has come up during the
past week and involves academic discipline.
What must be remembered here is that a campus
judiciary unit, Joint Judicary Council has been estab-
lished to handle cases of non-academic discipline. For
its own reasons the Office of Student Affairs has jeopard-
ized the balance, bypassed JJC and gone to the academic
units to get disciplinary action.
While faculty units have traditionally had the final
say, they have generally not disciplined students for non-
academic reasons in recent years. For example, two years
ago the director of off-campus housing tried to get the
academic units to block the graduation of students who
hadn't paid their landlords. She was unsuccessful.
But now the administration is trying to revert to the
old form of discipline. It shouldn't because the handling
of such cases by JJC has helped to preserve a democratic
spirit that has made peaceful change possible here.
THE NEW ALL-CAMPUS judiciary unit being set-up
by Presidnet's Commission on Decision-Making is'the ap-
propriate vehicle for non-academic discipline.
Unless Fleming faces up to these facts Ann Arbor may
turn out like Madison.
4
From the shadows...
From the start it was not a disruptive affair. Vice-
President for Research A. Geoffrey Norman attended and
answered tough questions for more than two hours.
Obviously the administration would have been foolish
to try to break up the sit-in with police or try to expell
the 300 students. The broad nature of the affair, plus
faculty support made it imperative for the administra-
tion to let the protest run its course. At 6 p.m. the sit-in
ended and everyone went home.
Now the Faculty Senate Research Policy Committee
is thoroughly investigating the classified research ques-
tion. (It has come out with a comprehensive report on the
University's activities in Thailand). The literary college
faculty is already set to debate the matter of classified
research. Other units are moving in that direction.
WHAT THE STUDENTS have done in this instance
Letters:* Dow Shalt Not Kill
The Remnants of Humanity
=1,
1IS YEAR'S SECOND Day of Resist-
ance Monday was marked by the re-
turning of another collection of draft
cards--including 7 from the University-
and various militant anti-draft demon-
strations around the country.
If the reaction to last Oct. 16 Resist-5
ance is any portent, the reaction to Mon-
day's demonstrations will be the usual
shouts of treason by purblind patriots,
disgusted commentaries on the disre-
gard for law and order by middle-aged
moderates, and an advocacy of more
rational forms of dissent by leery lib-
erals.
And by their own revered dictums of
respectability, each of these standard
voices of the great American conscience
will be right. But it is just this very
narrow concept of righteousness which
is at the root of the American moral
failure over Vietnam.
These choral voices of respectability
are too embedded in the seclusion of tree-
shaded lanes and well-trimmed lawns
to regard Vietnam as anything more
than just another thing to be regretted
like-the death of the father of a nodding
acquaintance.
MEANWHILE neatly-manicured Sena-
tor Vance Hartke (D-Ind.) warned
that the departure of Secretary McNa-
mara provided new supporting evidence
for his thesis that a North Vietnamese
"invasion plan"-not a contigency plan
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Editorial Staff
ROGER RAPOPORT. Editor
MERkDrH EIKER, Managing Editor
MICHAEL HEFFER ROBERT KLIVANS
City Editor Editorial Director
SUSAN ELAN.......... Associate Managing Editor
STEPHEN FIRSHEIN......Associate Managing Editor
LAURENCE MEDOW.......Associate Managing Editor
JOHN LOTTIER....... Associate Editorial L1rector
RONALD KLEMPNER .... Associate Editorial Director
SUSAN SCHNEPP............ Personnel Directm
NEIL SUISTER-- - - Mna e itor
he stressed-is being readied for use
within the next few months.
And other news indicates that there is
now serious discussion in high govern-
ment circles of instituting "hot pursuit"
of the enemy into Laos, Cambodia and
-shades of MacArthur--even China.
These statements by Hartke clash vi-
vidly with the cries that the demon-
strations were irrational, disorderly, and
treasonous from those too satiated or in-
sensitive ever to be morally aroused.
Never, has a war had more rational
direction than America's growing con-
frontation with most of Asia during
which each day's "kill-ratio" is plotted
with mathematical precision by tech-
nocrats and computers working in per-
fect tandem.
LYNDON JOHNSON, aloof from all re-
straint as the result of his election
to a four year term under the orderly
functioning of American democracy, is
on the verge of again escalating the
unspeakable carnage in Vietnam because
that is the only route which his con-
tingency planners say provides a glim-
mer of hope for victory by election day.
Patriotic Americans have stood on
street corners and cheered as 525,000
"boys" equipped with the finest of uni-
versity created weaponry smartly march-
ed off to a meaningless war against the
non-existent "yellow peril" in the name
of an ideology which is only anti-.
Those who yesterday risked the right-
eous wrath of General Hershey did not
flaunt their patriotism. They were far
from orderly. And many of them were
perhaps motivated by irrational desires
for martyrdom.
But their actions were a reaffirmation
of the moral power of the individual at
a time when the power of the state is
practically unchecked. As long as there
are individuals left who rebel because
they cannot tolerate the horror of the
technologically perfect war, perhaps one
is pessimistic in believing humanity is
being phased out.
THE RESISTANCE is pathetic and mas-
ochistic because any rational man
knows the impossibility of fighting the
system. Especially a system en route to
Armageddon. Yet in a world where only
To the Editor:
VRESIDENT-DESIGNATE Flem-
ming's speech at M.S.U. (The
' y, Dec. 3) indicates that we are
ing rid of one corporate-liber-
al hypocrite only to be saddled
with another. Fleming actually
had the nerve to claim that the
University's "guarantee" of free-
dom of speech gives Dow Chemical
the right to recruit on campus.
By the same logic, the Mafia
must be allowed to recruit gun-
men an campus, and theNazis had=
the right to recruit mass execu-
tioners at German universities-
all in the name of freedom of
speech. Such absurd conclusions
stem from two fallacies: one,
Fleming's failure to distinguish ex-
change of ideas from conspiracy to
commit murder; second, Fleming's
claim that economic freedom is
part of freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech is the free-
dom to exchange ideas. It includes
the right to argue in defense of
genocide, but it does not include
the right to organize machinery
for genocide.
I will defend Dow's right to ex-
plain and defend genocide, but I
will not allow Dow to use this
campus in its perpetration of war
crimes. Dow recruiters had best be
prepared for resistance appropri-
ate to the magnitude of their
crimes:
--Steve Schlosser, Grad
The Law
To The Editor:
IN HIS EDITORIAL of Dec. 1,
John Lottier expressed the view
that by turning in his draft card
to his local board, junior Richard
Avery was freely and unequivoc-
On the back of every draft card
there is a reminder that "the law
requires you to have this Notice
... in your personal possession at
all times . . ." As with other ,laws,
it was and is Ayers' responsibility
to be aware of this requirement.
Ayers should also take respon-
sibility for the position in which
he finds himself. There are plenty
of ways in which one can clearly
apress his views on Vietnam with-
out getting into trouble. More
than anything else, Ayers has
demonstrated his right to freely
make a stupid decision.
Bill Richards '69
Adolescence
To the Editor:
I SHOULD like to comment on
John Lottier's editorial con-
cerning Richard Ayer's draft ap-
peal agent's letter. That the letter
is filled with specious argument,
prejudice, and contradiction is, I
think, beyond doubt (although it
does seem likewise a bit self-con-
tradictory for a person to return
a draft card and then appeal for
a deferment-the former act re-
jecting the difficulties of the sys-
tem and the latter expecting its
benefits).
What is unreasonable in Mr.
Lottier's commentary is his clos-
ing: "it demonstrates and is rep-
resentative of the overall men-
tality of the system and of the
hypocrisy that is America."
It is. an unfortunate aspect of
the New Left that it is given to
overstatement' and overgenerali-
zation. To what end is this blanket
condemnation of America? Is it
meant only to be inflammatory,
to arouse the anger of the old
guardists? This it will surely do.
the system may have grave de-
fects, and thus we have no right
to be complacent about it. But let
us not eliminate both baby and
bathwater.
I think it most ill-advised for
anyone, and most surely for any
respectable, serious journalist, to
tamper with the validity and ef-
fectiveness of his otherwise good
arguments by indulging in adoles-
cent name-calling.
-Joel D. Hencken '69
The Legal Mind
To the Editor:
NOW, OF ALL times, is The
Daily vital to the students of
this campus.
Morning finds 100 grim-faced,
red-eyed law students eating
breakfast below the high gothic
roof of the dim Lawyers Club din-
ing room. Each worn and cheer-
less face bespeaks the pressure
upon its morose owner as he hulks
over his food.
But then arrives The Daily.
Thirty seconds later the inevi-
table gales of laughter burst from
100 robust throats, as the edito-
rials are read. The hysteria is in-
terrupted only by shouts of,
"Read is again where he says
.," followed by new peals of
mirth; the readers eagerly turn
from page to page in search of
more drivel, and compare that of
each issue with the drivel of pre-
ceding ones.
HOWEVER, the editorial of last
Friday ("You Sound to Me Like
a Mixed-Up Boy . . ." by John
Lottier) was too much. Fifty stu-
dents lay strewn about the dining
hall until noon, spent from their
laughter, only occasionally weak-
ly chuckling. One poor devil, re-
turning to his room, recalled a
portion so terrible that he had to
be helped upstairs by two passers-
by, who thought the helplessly
giggling boy to be drunk.
So keep up the good work, Mr.
Editor, but maybe it would be
good to limit Mr. Lottier to, say,
100 words per issue. Even jour-
nalistic rubbish valuable as it is,
can be carried too far.
--Kirk Rider, '70 Law
On Braun's Sex
To the Editor:
THIS UNIVERSITY community
includes many different kinds
of people that any program seems
to be able to draw a sizeable audi-
ence. Last week I found this true
of two programs as different as
any two programs could possibly
be; Vietrock and the Campus
Crusade for Christ. Yet in both's
audience T find the warmth ofm
f0
*I
"I am the ghost of a tax boost opportunity past.. !"
ably expressing his views. If he
is not allowed to do this, Lottier BUT IS IT to be taken seriously
goes on, " . . then the nation by thinking individuals? I think
cannot really be 'free' and the not. America, it should be remem-
claim of 'Democracy' is fraudu- bered, includes Mr. Lottier him-
lent." self as well as Agent Woodward;
that the reinforcement of the deep
seated desire to have affirmed for
us what we already believe.,
It is natural of a pluralistic so-
ciety and a pluralistic university
community to have diverse plat-
formsuattempting to tell it like it
Is. But there is something tragic
about the tendency by . certain
platforms to take advantage of a
community such as this University
in order to manipulate others into
their illusory world, or to sustain
the illusion if already existent. In
particular I am referring to one
such platform, The Campus Cru-
sade for Christ.5
Through its program of mass
deception, distortion of truth, and
manpulation it renders the world
of pollyanna quite accessible
through one of the world's most
over-worked panaceas, none other
than Jesus Christ himself.
YET WHAT has been presented
to this University's students is
more the egocentricity, rather
than the Christocentricity, of
Braun.
Or else why did he apologize so
much for the way everything in
his presentation seemed to revolve
around him, and then go on to
limit his values to God, himself,
his wife, and his five children-
in that order. We in the audience
seemed to matter only in so far
as we became like him. And what
about the other billions in the
situation? Second, he talks about
being "saved," yet he never de-
scribes it, except to say that in
being "saved" we are forgiven for
being who we are. Case and point:
According to him petting (holding
hands, kissing at the door, and
putting your arm . around your
girlfriend) is bad, but it's okay to
do since God forgives us.
IMPLICIT IN this attitude is
the assumption that those who are
"saved" (or think so) are relieved
of personal guilt, while those who
are not yet "saved" suffer unbear-
able guilt and anguish for their
social attitudes and behavior. For-
tunately or unfortunately, it seems
that the quest for such a security
blanket as Braun provides in a sal-
vation-motivated faith, in which
the individual does such and such
in order for personal reward, only
points up the very insecurity and
anguish of those so quick to be
saved. On the other hand those
who don't even think or act in
termed of "being saved," tend to
be the people most responsible in
their actions, God or no God-
No, Mr. Braun, I had to sit out
the standing ovation you received,
as I had to sit out the standing
ovation your New Folk received
for their sugar coated distortion
of the prophecy in today's folk
music. The revolutionary nature
of the good news you seek to pre.
sent stands in iudgment against
U:
I
.. ~VI// W~ I
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