!t3ripatta Da ij
Seventy-nine years of editorial freedom
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JAMES WECHSLER-
Silence Spoke at the
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted irn all reprints.
-URSDAY, JANUARY 22, 1970 NIGHT EDITOR: NADINE COHODAS
Regents strike again
'HE RECENTLY released regental draft
of proposed bylaws on University de-
sion-making constitutes a direct threat
the rights of students, and an insult to"
1 concerned members of the University
>mmunity.
In an extensive blue-pencilling. of the
rlaw draft approved by Student Gov-
nment Council and Senate Assembly
st summer, the Regents .have elimi-
ated, or distorted a number of key pro-
sions.
The chief change involved a section
hich provided that only student legis-
tive bodies could make non-academic
>nduct rules for other students, and
oat only student judiciaries could try
ses which arise under those rules.
tiese sections were simply deleted.
The omission of this section is a dou-
e-cross by President Rolbben Fleming,
nd an encroachment on, the rights of
udents:
JUNTIL SUMMER 1968, some academic
units did not have rules governing
on-academic conduct, and. several at-
mpts to discipline students in their
hools and colleges had been dismissed'
r that reason.
But that summer, one and one-half
ears ago, Fleming directed the various
cans to make certain they had such dis-=
plFnary rules. At the time, he said they
ould be used only until the question of
>n-academic discipline was resolved by
ie adoption of new bylaws.
Explaining the exclusion of this section,
ie president said yesterday it would be
p to the schools and colleges to delegate
is disciplinary authority to students.
Now it becomes clear why Fleming was
eager for the schools and colleges to
nplement the so-called "interim rules"
vo summers ago. With the Regents
cquiescing, the interim rules have be-
>me permanent rules, with minimal op-
)rtunity for student objection.
HERE IS NOTHING traditional about
faculty control over student non-
cademic discipline - and for good rea-
ns. Certainly professors have no spec-
lcompetence to judge the non-academic
ctivities of students. And since conflict
the University may often pit students
gainst faculty members, it is inppro-
iate to have any professors - to say
othing of boards composed solely of
rofessors - judging students' non-aca-
emic offenses.
The institution and maintenanee of
on-academic rules ,in the schools and
>lleges seems only to reflect the insen-
tivity of the president and the Regents
the rights of students.
Other changes in the proposed bylaws
commended by the Regents further de-
onstrate that, even when faced by a
coalition of students and professors, the
Regents and administration will not al-
low the present distribution of power to
be altered.
In the sections dealing with control of
the Office of Student Services (OSS), the
Regents have made it clear they will not
give students the influence to which they
have a right.
According to the recommendations of
the President's Commission on the Role
of Students in University Decision-Mak-
ing and the student faculty bylaw draft,
policy for OSS would have been made by
a student dominated board.
But under the regental proposal, such
policy 'would be made "jointly" by the
vice president for student services and
the policy board. Fleming explains that
in case of an irreconcilable disagreement,
the unresolved issues would be sent to
the executive .officers for .adjudication.
THIS CHANGE is unacceptable. Students
have a right to control the kind of
services they will receive. It must be the
role of the new vice president to help im-
plepment student policy, not force its re-
view by the administration..
Although the present candidates for the
vice presidency say they would all resign
if they came into 'conflict with their
policy board, permanent guarantees of
this power must be written into the by-
laws to institutionalize this student right,
and to hold the candidates to their prom-
ises.
In another section on OSS, the regental
draft says the vice president will appoint
directors for the OSS units (like hous-
ing and student-community relations)
with the advice of the policy board. Form-
erly, the bylaw draft had made the con-
sent, as well as the advice of the policy
board the required procedure.
THIS PROVISION must be restored.
Only by giving the students the power
to control the OSS directorships, can the
University avoid the insensitivity and
mismanagement like that perpetrated by
Director of University Housing John
Feldkamp.
And, in another change, the Regents
eliminated the proposed power of stu-
dents, in referendum, to mandate an in-
crease in SGC dues. This move is clearly
designed to maintain the administration's
financial control over Council and should
be revoked.
On the whole, the regental bylaw pro-
posal is an abomination. Students and
faculty members must continue the co-
operation that produced the student-
faculty bylaw draft, and demand its
acceptance by the Regents.
-MARTIN HIRSCHMAN
IN MANY PLACES throughout
the nation last week there
were moving observances of the
birthday of Rev. Martin Luther
Kfing Jr.
But not around the White
House or the Presidential refuge
at Camp David.
Amid a long account of the
numerous services that marked
what would have been the 41st
birthday of the slain civil rights
leader (and Nobel Prize winner)
there appeared this cold, cryptic
note:
"In Washington the White
House was noncommittal about the
observances. Press Secretary Ron-
old L. Ziegler said: "There is
nothing official from the White
House standpoint.'"
There was, one gathered, noth-
ing either official or unofficial.
There was deadly silence, which
could only be construed as an os-
tentatious form of non-recogni-
tion. There was no intimation that
words might be inadequate; t h e
quiet seemed almost querulous.
Was the aloofness a calculated
dismissal of the multitudes who
were participating in the tribute
-and a gesture of identification
with those who did not?
Or is this Administration so in-
sensitive to the emotions of the
world in which Dr. King moved
that it never even pondered some
word or sign of communication?
Was the omission an exercise in
the *"Southern strategy" or in
human apathy? It is hard to de-
cide which conclusion would be less
tolerable.
NOT TOO LONG ago Attorney
General Mitchell boasted trucu-
letly that "many" Negro leaders
were privately fans of the Nixon
Administration but felt obliged to
remain publicly critical to ap-
pease their predominately Demo-
cratic constituencies. In an inter-
view he was quoted as saying
that, in closed sessions with Negro
spokesmen, he found them well-
satisfied with the Administration's
programs but that they persisted
in issuing public denunciations.
Mitchell named no names, and
the response of the chieftains of
a wide variety of organizations
was one of mingled anger and
bewilderment. From the moment
that the signal was given for
emasculation of the voting rights
bill (and the nomination of Cle-
ment Haynsworth), the gap be-
tween Mr. Nixon's government
and the civil rights movement -
black and white-steadily widen-
ed.
In fact there has been generous
acknowledgement of the Admin-
istration's initiation and support
of the "Philadelphia plan" to
break down restrictive union bar-
riers in the construction indus-
try.
But this single step hardly es-
tablished a unity of spirit-a n d
there were cynics who observed
that the plan found special Re-
publican favor in that locale be-
cause it tended to disrupt t h e
traditional Democratic labor-civil
rights alliance.
WHETHER MITCHELL really
believed he had heard what he
claims to have heard in t h o s e
private audiences with N e g r o
emissaries must remain a matter
of mystery and speculation.
It is a matter of record (tm o s t
recently documented this week
in a four-city survey conducted by
The aWll Street Journal) that a
major result of the Mitchell-spon-
sored massive assault on the Black
Panthers has been to stir sym-
pathy for that group in m a n y
White B
areas where the Panthers were
heretofore a fringe group.
Leaders of historically moder-
ate Negro units have joined in
challenging what appears to be a
federally-coordinated drive to
smash the organization, with min-
imum regard for due process.
In short it is difficult to detect
any evidence that the Admin-
istration .has gained - rather
than lost - ground in seeking that
;reconciliation by the President
in his campaign rhetoric.
SYMBOLIC OCCASIONS often
have large impact: last Thursday
was one which had especially in-
tense overtones.
For Dr. Kig was a martyr to the
cause of non-violence: he refused
to abandon that credo despite
many rebuffs and discourage-
ments. Yet even many whose faith
in those principles' has wavered
since his death paused in rever-
ence to him.
Surely it will not go unnoticed
that the President of the United
States took no cognizance of the
day in any way - a day on which
even the Georgia House of Re-
presetatives passed a resolution
commemorating the date of Dr.
King's birth.
ouse
There occurred the fleeting
thought last night that Mr. Nixon
might have sent a private mes-
sage to Dr. King's widow and
children. But inquiry confirmed
that not even so minimal an ex-
pression had been transmitted.
IT IS TRUE that J. Edgar
Hoover, in one of his dreariest mo-
ments, frenziedly assailed Martin
Luther King, and Mr. Nixon's
hero-worship for the FBI direct-
or has been often manifested. But
one hesitates to believe that a
dread of Mr. Hoover's displeasure
could have dictated the lament-
able silence that enveloped the
Administration.
Nor can it even be said that
any televised football game was
taking place to distract and di-
vert the Chief Executive, as one
did on the day of the peace march
in the capital.
And so we were left with Mr.
Ziegler's hollow pronouncenient
that there was nothing to be said
"from a White House standpoint."
Rarely have so few words said
so much, and seemed destined to
be remembered for so long.
T2 New York Post
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Alumni Association as ticket scalper
To the Editor:
THE FOLLOWING letter was
sent to 'Mr. George J. Slykhouse,
national chairman of the Univer-
sity's Alumni Fund.
It describes another of the dou-
ble standards of thetUniversity
administration, i.e., that it is
wrong for students to scalp tick-
ets, especially Rose Bowl tickets,
but it is perfectly proper for the
the Big Mother University to do
so. Perhaps it is also anslight in-
dication of what you can look for-
ward to as an honorable and dis-
tinguished alumnus.
Dear Mr. Slykhouse:
I HAVE RECEIVED your letter
requesting donations to the Michi-
gan Alumni Fund and am writing
this letter to explain exactly why
I am not now and will not at
any forseeable time in the future
contribute to this fund.
As Big Ten Co-Champions, the
University of Michigan Football
Team was awarded the honor of
playing in the Rose Bowl.
Having been an avid fan while
a student, I immediately contacted
the Golden Gate Alumni Club (on
Nov. 26) to inquire as to how to
get alumni tickets.
I was told by the people oper-
ating our club that only those
alumni who had made some mini-
mum donation to your Alumni
Fund, and of whom there was a
mailing list (since the donation
entitled one to an alumni maga-
zine of some sort), would be the
only ones to whom tickets would
be made available.
These donors were the only
alumni who would have an op-
portunity to obtain tickets as the
applications were being sent auto-
matically only to those on the
aforementioned mailing list.
I was advised to contact one of
the donor-alumni in the hope of
finding one who was not using
his ticket application form. (This
"donor-alumni only") policy had
been set, according to G.G. Alumni
Club President Leith, by an in-
dividual in the Athletic Depart-
ment of the University.)'
MY INITIAL reaction to this
polite form extortion was one of
anger, since I had just made my
first payment on my extensive
NEDA loans balance and also given
a token gift to the Bus. Ad. gift
solicitation which did not qualify
me as an alumni-donor_ and the
opportunity of applying for alumni
tickets for the Rose Bowl.
My reaction quickly turned to
disgust, as I realized that this
policy was nothing short of a crass
commercialization of school spirit.
This policy of distributing the
precious commodity - the Rose
Bowl ticket - is nothing more
than a gross exploitation of the
goodwill that alumni might bear
toward the University. I can rea-
sonably accept the fact that the
best tickets should be saved for
the members of the President's
Club, but to deny me the chance
of obtaining a ticket because I
have not contributed to your Fund
is an unfair economic discrimina-
tion, one that I shan't forget too
quickly.
TO CONCLUDE, Mr. Slykhouse,
you and your Fund can go jump.
-Terry M. Saigh
LSA '66, Bus Ad '68
Jan. 15
Debtor's prison
To the Editor:
NCJRA GOODEYNE went yes-
terday to debtors prison for forty-
five days. The judge who sent her
there feels that forty-five days in
a jail cell is appropriate punish-
ment for not having enough money
to pay $240.00.
The judge is not doing anything
particularly unusual or nasty. The
legal system supports him in his
judgment. Did you think 'debtors
prison went out of style in the last
century? You're wrong..
Nora was one of us who sat in
the LSA building last September,
asking for a student controlled
bookstore. We were arrested and
our trials have been slowly pro-
ceeding. Nora and eight others of
us were tried together. Why?
The reason given the jury was
that each of us had participated
in an activity which we knew
might involve someone's violating
the law. Therefore, if even a single
protester broke the law, all of us
were guilty.
AT THE TRIAL, witnesses
claimed that somebody in the LSA
building had made trouble-scat-
tering garbage, beating i up a
photographer, and keeping the
janitor from his appointed rounds.
(Aside from the garbage, which
we did our best to clean up, I
didn't see any of those things in
all the time I was in the building.)
None of us was asked if we'd.
done the evil deeds; nobody tried
to identify us as the culprits 'who
did them. The prosecutor simply
showed that we'd been nearby,
sometime that night. Did you
think that personal guilt needed
to be proved before you could be
convicted? Did you think that
guilt by association washnot ac-
cepted in our courts? You're wrong
again.
WE WERE CONVICTED. If
we're to judge from the two peo-
ple who have already been sen-
tenced, the standard punishment
is seven days in jail, forty dollar
fine, two hundred dollars in court
costs, and fifteen months proba-
tion.
Since nine of us were tried to-
gether (as in most of the cases),
the cost of the trial must have
been $1800.00 (It lasted only a
day.) Or else, the cost is meant
r h
"BTell me again how the different things are gonna' be
with Warren off the Supreme Court .. ."
Justifiable' murder
YESTERDAY'S VERDICT that t h e
murder of Black Panther leaders
Fred Hampton and Mark Clark was jus-
tifiable homicide stands as a monument
to the gross indecency which is Daley's
Chicago and which is gradually pervading
the remainder of the country. The cir-
cumstances surrounding the fatal police
raid still require extensive investigation
before the truth can be determined -
as it certainly was not in the just-com-
pleted coroner's inquest.
Everyone agrees th'at on the morning
of Dec. 4, a special unit of 14 plainclothes-
men from the Cook County State's At-
torney's office raided the Chicago office
of the Black Panther Party.
But, the official police version of the
incident, as presented exclusively to the
Chicago Tribune and as re-enacted for
CBS, claims that the officers were greet-
ed with a 12-gauge shotgun shell through
the closed front door.
Unfortunately for their credibility,
newsmen and members of the A f r o -
American Patrolmen's League who re-
visited the apartment could find no sign
of a shotgun shell in the front door. A
further examination of the apartment
led many people to conclude that many
other parts of the police explanation of
the incident were not substantiated by
the physical evidence.
BUT EVEN the assumption that t h e
police entered the building only after
The Coroner's jury was not unaware of
the lack of evidence supporting the mur-
der of these two men. They knew they
could not return a verdict of justifiable
homicide on the grounds that the police
were actually being threatened by the
Panthers. Instead, they had to reach into
the psychology of the situation to justify
the police action. They returned their
verdict on the grounds that the police
believed that their actions "were neces-
sary to prevent death or bodily harm
to themselves."
THE EXTENSION of this logic present
overwhelming .problems in deter-
mining when the police are responsible
for their actions.
This psychosis on the part of the police
is not restricted to these 14 men. It has.
surfaced before in Watts, Detroit, Cleve-
land and Newark. But this psychosis and
deadly fear of the Panthers is not caus-
ed only by the Panthers'' fiery rhetoric
- but also by statements by Atty. Gen.
John Mitchell and FBI chief J. Edgar
Hoover which label the Black Panther
Party as a subversive threat to national
security..
For once Hoover may be right. T h e
Panther psychosis which seems to be
pervading the police forces' throughout
the country is undoubtedly a threat to
internal security. It is this psychosis
which causes the actions that form t h e
basis of the charge that there is a na-
to be part of the punishment too.
And consider, reader, that if
we'd been charged with trespass-
ing-a more reasonable charge
considering the circumstances-
there might have been no trials at
all.
Consider that the charges could
have been dropped entirely, and
that police needn't have been call-
ed. We all could have saved a lot
of money in taxes and fines. But
the county prosecutor has insisted
on bringing the vague, perhaps
unconstitutional, charge of con-
tention, rather than trespassing.
MOST OF US are too poor to
raise $240.00 at a moment's notice.
Nora felt that she was in even a
worse position, since she needed
a job to pay off her debts, and
nobody would hire her before she
served her sentence. So Nora sits
in jail, while the rest of us hassle
with appeals and other legalities.
For myself, the lessons here are
clear. These events tell me that
the purpose of our courts is to
protect those who can milk the
system from those who cannot, to
preserve our inequalities.
We've been told that the pur-
pose of jail is to rehabilitate, yet
it's hard to see how a month and
a half in jail will help Nora earn
more money. For Nora, the extra
forty-five days are clearly for the
crime of being poor and power-
less.
-Fred Armstein, Grad
Jan. 21
IS
To the Editor:
IT WAS UPSETTING to read
about six American students being
barred from Waterman Gym dur-
each group will benefit mutually.
IN PURSUIT of that goal, ISA
must often remind American stu-
dents that they, as well as for-
eign students, are part of the in-
ternational scene.
Mr. Grabler and his American
friends who were turned away
from the gym should be happy to
(earn that the teaching fellow in
charge of activities that evening
was misinformed.
American students, both men
and women, are cordially invited
to join with foreign students in
both informal and team sports at
Waterman Gym every Friday eve-
ning from 7 to 10 p.m.
' -Joe Winer
ISA vice president
Jan. 21
Quaddie china
To the Editor:
IT IS MOST unfortunate that
the building director of West Quad,
Leon West, has to resort to half-
truths in order to express his ideas,
i.e. the recent circular he sent
around telling us why we are get-
ting shit instead of food to eat.
It seems that the "grabbing of
everything in sight" by the resi-
dents has led to two important
effects.
Thesfirst is that there has been
a loss of about $9,000:00 worth of
assorted china, glasses, and silver-
ware. The breakdown, as was given
to us, prices each unit at unusually
high. prices. These are:'
Glasses $ 84
Silverware $.93
China' $.68
These figures were worked out
by an illustrious engineer.
One further wonders, if he is to
take these figures as accurate, why
we have such high quality china
and silverware and such low qual-
ity food. It is our guess that Leon
thinks that food naturally tastes
better in high quality china.
One also has to think of how
much of the stolen booty will be
returned or found in the rooms
at the end of the year. However,
since Leon thought that this fact
wasn't worth consideration, we
can overlook this aspect of the
problem.
THE SECOND PRQBLEM ap-
pears tp be that the kitchen staff,
bless their hearts, just can't seem
to prepare food up to their full
ability because the residents "gripe
without thoughful criticism on the
one hand, while the other paw is
gra'_bing everything, in sight."
First of all, it is difficult for me
to see the correlation between the
cooks' abilities to prepare food and
the stealing of china by residents.
But, if Leon says it's there it is
(after all he is taller than any
of us).
This being the case, we think
that all of the staff who feel this
way should be asked to seek ems
ployment elsewhere. This might
avert the possible tragedy of a cook
getting so worked up over the
situation that he poisons the
gravey or one of the many other
quad-wide favorites.
PLEASE REMEMBER Mr. West
and staff, that you are being paid
to do a job, not to ruin the food.
We gave you too much money
for that.
-Bill Rippe '73
-Joel Winston, '73
Jan. 21
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