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Seventy-nine years of editorial freedom
Edited and rnanaged by students of the University of Michigan
Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. 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 oil reprints.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Reactions to recruiter lock-ins and trashing
)AY, FEBRUARY 22, 1970
NIGHT EDITOR: STEVE KOPPMAN
Recruiting and the'U'
HE RECENT confrontations over the
issue of the right of various corpora-
ris and government institutions to re-
it students on campus demand that
University re-examine its recruiting
idies. .
recruiting is literally an institution at
St universities. Every year, thousands
graduating students are recruited by
resentatives of business and govern-
:t who seek to hire these students for
time careers. At this University, a
1-time placement service coordinates
rui ing by arranging a time and a
ce where students, can meet and be
erviewed by these representatives on
npus.
V, r years, recruiting has been regarded
a service which the University pro-
es for its students - and for recruit-
- a service. which students desire
I which benefits all concerned.
OWEVER, A number of people at the
University - most notably SDS -
ve challenged the right of certain or-
lizations to recruit on campus. They
;ue that the University, through its
tction of recruiting on campus, lends
legitimacy to these corporations and
blic institutions -- and consequently
es at least tacit consent to their poli-
s.
ince many of the policies and prac-'
es of certain corporations are morally
)ugnant to SDS, its members feel com-
led to not only protest but to prevent
'ir appearance on campus in any capa-
y& which is directly associable with the
kversity. -
'hus, in the case of General Electric, a
rtificant number of people feel that
ause GE is a major supplier of mater-
5 for the Vietnam War and because
has sharply reactionary labor pol-
s, it should not be permitted to recruit
campus.
RESPONSE to the lock-in, a large
segment of the University community,
luding President Fleming, object to
S's actions on civil-libertarian grounds.
:ming argues that while.SDS has the
ht to protest GE's policies, they do not
re the right to deprive any student of
opportunity to meet with the GE
ruiter.
leming believes that no interest group
campus has the right to force its
*s on the rest of the University. In-
ci this belief forms the basis of Flem-
s moral objections to SDS's tactics.
)f course the GE protesters were moti-
ed by their own moral criteria. They
intain that recruiting is not a right,
rather a privilege - which does not I
xessarily have to be extended to all
side organizations. Furthermore, they
L morally justified in depriving groups,
people of their civil liberties w h e n -
to so serves the greater interest of more
ple, when taken outside of the Uni-
sity context.
'inally, SDS asserts that when, as in
case of GE, a corporation causes so
ch harm and is so destructive, a per-
would be morally guilty if he did not
in some fashion -- try to destroy the
lity of that corporation to function.
QWEVER, AFTER last weel's con-
frontation, it is clear that the recruit-
issue is past the point of debate. Each
lfrontaton further polarizes the cam-
into two opposing and uncompromis-
camps, and unless the issue is some-
how resolved this campus will beso torn
apart that the sense of a University
community will be shattered and the via-
bility of this instiution will cease.
This week a Dow Chemical Co. recruit-
er will be on campus. Presumably SDS
will try to lock him in - thereby causing
another confrontation. Moreover, GE and
Dow are certainly not the only corpora-
tions which SDS will condemn.
A situation like this, in which police
are constantly, being called on campus
is intolerable. To exist from crisis to
-crisis is not to exist at all. If the Univer-
sity is to manage its own affairs without
resorting to brute force, then a construe-
tive alternative to the present recruiting
policy must be formulated.
WHAT THEN should be done? An ef-
fecive solution which can be power-
fully argued is to abolish all campus
recruiting. The role of the University can
easily be defined in a way which would
exclude job recruiting as one of its obli-
gations. It is not necessarily vital or ap-
propriate that the University operate an
employment agency for the benefit of
some of its students.
Recruiting could be carried on just as
easily - and at no great expense - from
a hotel suite. Recruiters would publically
inform the campus of their arrival and
students interested in aspecific organiza-
tion could visit the recruiter at their con-
venience. And, while certain corporations
will still be just as morally repugnant to
some individuals, the University's hand
would be clean. Recruiting - and recruit-
ing protests - would become a private
affait, outside of the realm of the Univer-
sity.
If, on the other hand, there is wide-
spread sentiment on campus to maintain
recruiting as a University institution,
then specific actions can be taken to in-
sure that the University does not inad-
vertantly participate in or passively con-
done the policies of certain organizations
which have been freely permitted to re-
cruit on campus.
AT PRESENT, SDS is attempting to as-
sert its moral criteria as to who may
recruit on campus. Whether these cri-
teria are objectively valid and whether
they are acceptable to the rest of the
University remains to be seen. In any
event, no one has the right to summarily
reject S's position on recruiting as Pre-
sident Fleming, and the University ad-
ministration have so arrogantly done.
Last Friday, the Student Relations
Committee took the first positive action
since Wednesday's confrontation in call-
ing for a University-wide forum to dis-
cuss on-campus job recruiting and to
recommend possible alternatives to exist-
ing University policies. The committee has
urged an immediate suspension of re-
cruiting and a one day moratorium on
classes to permit widespread involvement
and a proper atmosphere for these dis-
cussions.
The University should accept the com-
mittees' proposals and subject any tenta-
tive -policies which is formulated to a
campus-wide referendum. Actions such
as these would not only defuse potential
confrontations over recruiting policies,
but also insure that the administration
will not forcefully assert the status-quo
over the heads of the University Com-
munity.
-STUART GANNES
Editorial Director
To the Editor:
I NOTED with interest y o ur
lead editorial of Feb. 19, which I
think was fairly representative of
student opinion concerning t h e
events of the past week, and in-
deed, events of a political nature
in general. It was confused.
First, you mentioned the unbe-
lievable injustice being perpetrat-
ed by Judge Hoffman and the
U.S. judicial system in the Chi-
cage 8 affair, and I believe that
you did a good job in evaluating
this horrendous miscarriage of jus-
tice. But then, out of nowhere,
came a paragraph about the SDS
lock-in and police repression in'
Ann Arbor, which I suppose you
must have felt was somehow re-
lated to the events in Chicago.
It is at this point that your xnes-
sage became muddled. I see no
correlation between these t w o
subjects.
I think it is clear that what took
place in Chicago was a farce. The
law was unfair, the judge was un-
fair, the trial was unfair. It is
frightening and protest is in or-
der. But a demonstrator must real-
ize that if he breaks the laws of
the establishment during the
course of a protest, the establish-
ment will attempt to punish him.
Now emphatically, I am not con-
doning or condemning the estab-
lishment in this case. I am merely
stating a truth, something which
must be accepted whether one is
for the establishment or against
it. So my point is, why is the fact
that the police intervened to stop
an unlawful lock-in of a recruiter
so frighteningre
I AM NOT MAKING any value
judgment on the police activities.
The fact that they have so much
control over us may appear as
being quite wrong and unfair to
many. But frightening? Come on,
now! What is scary is mobs of
people roving the streets, many
not knowing what they are there
for, many there for the w ron g
reasons, and many destroying pri-
vate property. In this respect, the
"hope of America" is just as
guilty as Judge Hoffman.
In summation, let me just say
that what went on in Chicago
was a matter of the establishment
breaking its own laws, which is
frightening. What went on in
Ann Arbor was a matter of the
people breaking the laws of the
establishment, which is not fright-
ening.
As for what is to be done? Per-;
haps what is needed is a little
more objective thinking, unmarred
by hate feelings for "the pigs" and
other meaningless generalizations.
-Steve Keller, '73
Feb. 20
Vandalism
To the Editor:
SDS's VANDALISM last night
was in direct opposition to a vote
that the marchers had taken be-
fore they left the Diag. A near
unanimous vote stipulated a non-
violent march. Unfortunately, the
SDS'ers had already stepped off
after having attempted to shout
down those who had tried to raise
the issue and bring it to a vote.
As far as I'm concerned, last
night SDS reneged as a legitimate
political organization by showing
themselves to be nothing better
than mindless vandals. When a
group refuses to debate, much less
vote upon, an important issue and
then refuses to abide by a vote
that was taken, there is no legiti-
macy in their calling themselves
Students for a Democratic So-
ciety nor in their claiming to be
waging the people's struggle.
-David L. DeMarkey, 72E
Feb. 19
Support Fleming
To the Editor:
PRESIDENT FLEMING is to be
lauded for his quick action Wed-
nesday, Feb. 18, in calling in the
police to quell SDS oppression on
campus. For much too long, our
campus Che's have been allowed
free reign to interfere with indi-
vidual rights of students, faculty,
and University guests such as re-
cruiters.
In protesting GE recruiting,
these self-appointed world saviors
succeeded in physically assaulting
a professor, breaking a number of
windows, fighting with some stu-
dents, a n d denying freedom of
movement to a number of mem-
bers of the University community.
One can only imagine the feel-
ings of outrage they must have
felt on discovering that President
Fleming had had the effrontery
to summon police.
FOR MUCH TOO LONG, our
local revolutionaries have been al-
lowed to take great liberties with
the rights' of others. It was about
time that they were awakened to
the harsh fact that they were no
longer dealing with their permis-
sive, Spockian, upper middle-class
parents. No society can remain
free and stable allowing self-
righteous vigilantes carte blanche.
We hope all future acts of SDS
brutality and violence will be
dealt with just as forthrightly.
-Michael J. Modelski, Chmn.,
Young Americans
for Freedom
-Glenn Gilbert, Chmn.,
College Republicans
Feb. 19
Trashing
To the Editor:
RETURNING FROM the firstr
half of the Chicago 8 march, I am
angry and sad. The trashing which
accompanied the march has made
it impossible for me to express my
feelings about the conviction.
By perverting this action, a
minority of the marchers have dis-
torted expression of any radical
political attitude except their own.
If demonstrations in support of
ti
-Daily-Richard Le+
the Chicago 8 (8-1+2+1-2) or
any other radical cause are doom-
ed to the accompaniment of trash-
ing and undirected violence, then
I and many others have been den-
ied (by political manipulation) our,
freedom of expression.
To those who trashed tonight,
I say, "The revolution against the
pig mentality will not be w o n
through imitation."
Our "revolutionary vanguard"
displays a politics and attitude of
belligerence and destruction rath-
er than love of the human values
of revolution.
-Terry Patten
Feb. 18
Dr. Zhivago
To the Editor:
OF LATE it seems that some old
feelings of horror are revived in
me-the feelings I experienced
while watching the Tsar's regi-
ments storm, trample and murder
the people in the streets in t h e
film, Dr. Zhivego.
-Phyllis McClure, '72
Feb. 18
Violence
To the Editor:,
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, sup-
port President Fleming in his
stand against violence on the Uni-
versity campus, and we also sup-
port him in his stand against in-
terference with therecruitment of
students by the General Electric
Corporation.
We deplore violence on this
campus, on the part of civil au-
thorities and students alike.
WE BELIEVE that it is the
right of every student to. freely
determine his own actions in pur-
suit of his career anq his des-
tiny, free from the influencedof
pressure groups, whatever t he i r
nature.
--Thomas Kuznik
-James Strichartz
-Kenneth R. Bershad
-Richard A. Booth
and 16 other Resi-
dential College
Students
Feb. 19
Achieving peace
To the Editor:
IT IS A SAD THING to hear
people lie, distort, and caricature
to win supporters for a political
position. And it is irony - not
justices -when the - slandered
party is SDS.
Many think that SDS's actions
against the GE recruiters was im-
moral because they denied certain
freedoms to students who wanted
to be interviewed. Those people
forget that freedom and war con-
not coexist.
In time of war, nations on 1 y
allow freedom to the warmakers
- not to the peace-mongers and
especially not to the foreign en-
emy. Our government is concerned
with protecting .GE's freedom to
recruit, not the student's freedom
to be recruited. Accordingly,
blocking a recruiter is intended to
hurt GE - not the student.
T HE RIGHT TO LIVE is more
fu damental than any other right.
Given that. the recruiting of cor-
porations like GE. advances the
war effort and results in death
and oppression, more people had
more rights, and more fundament-
al rights, abridged by GE's actions
this morning than by the actions
of SDS. If one believes this argu-
ment and does not support SDS,
he is a coward.
The argument ought not to be
taken lightly by those who truly
oppose the war. As freedom can-
not exist without peace, neither
can war exist without hate a n d
violence. The movement should
notj seek to end the war so much
as to end war. The latter goal, if
it can be achieved at all, can only
be achieved when people learn
to disdain hate and violence. It
cannot be achieved by trashing
and rock-throwing and fighting a
war of your own against the pigs.
To win that war, one has to hate
harder than they do - and if that
happens, what will have been won?
-Paul R. Milgrom '70
3 Feb. 18
Repression
To the Editor:
THE ONLY NAME I can think
of for "locking up" a recruiter, and
preventing other students f r o m
talking to him, is repression.
-M. K. Murray '68
Feb. 19
I
Faculty views on SDS' tactics and civil-disobedience
To the Editor:,
(EDITOR'S NOTE: The following
Is an open letter to President Flem-
ing.)
WHAT MOTIVATES faculty to
defend SDS? A member of the
Senate Assembly asked this ques-
tion at a special Assembly meet-
ing Wednesday night, referring to
an earlier letter in The Daily sign-
ed by some "radical" professors.
Behind this question there is an-
other, one which you raised at
that same meeting: What right
do these students have to break
the law,nobstruct the rights of
others, and in similar ways place
their personal, moral judgment
above laws and established proce-
dures?
These are not difficult questions
to answer, although the conse-
quences in action implied by the
answer are exceedingly so. In form,
the mass sit-in to block recruiting
is old-fashioned civil disobedience.
The Marcusean refinements do not
make that much difference nor
does the fact that what is at-
tacked is not a law but a custom-
ti
ary process. All those who oppose
such obstruction could list many
situations which, in their mind,
would justify setting conscience
above law or established procedure,
even though that would require
(as it usually does) interference
with the right of those who bene-
fit from and favor the laws or
customs under attack. #
What is so bizarre and virtually
incomprehensible to them is the,
specific targets of these attacks.
One might easily enough under-
stand and approve of civil disobe-
dience against racist laws and.
condone the illegal, sit-down
strikes of earlier times, but why
these kind of actions against Dow
Chemical, General Electric, and
the ROTC?
THE QUESTION, I think, sug-
gests the answer. Each age defines
its own outrage and obligation.
The actions of the U.S. armed
forces in Vietnam, Latin America
and elsewhere in the world, the
impact of the military establish-
ment on American life, and the
involvement of the great corpora-
tions in these and other evils of
our society are for today's students
as outrageous and intolerable as
racist, religious, and political in-
Justice are for the more familiar
civil libertarians. Many of the old
battles are, sadly, still with us,
and the time may not be far off
when liberals face again the choice
between conscience and law. Shall
we deny to our young the same
choice in pursuit of what are for
them the ultimate concerns?
Each generation has its own
characteristic moral task. What
else is significant progress? Cer-
tainly not better toasters and fast-
er jets! And the choice between,
conscience and law imposes on
every generation the same an-
guished dilemma. Outrage is bal-
ance by multiple fears-the fear of
social exclusion, the fear of pain-
ful reprisals, the fear of weakening
the laws which might one day be
needed for one's own defense, the
fear of galvanizing rightist senti-
ments. But there comes that point
when outrage surpasses fear. It
has done so for the student mili-
tants, and civil disobedience is the
consequence) It is now beginning
to do so for many of the faculty,
at least to the point of allowing
them to bear the opprobrium of
friends and colleagues, to accept
'frankly the "radical' label (which,
for many is no small thing), and
to agree to meet, plan, and act.
AT UNIVERSITIES such as
ours it is always unreasonable and
sometimes dishonest to claim neu-
trality, to argue that our campus
must not get involved in such
things, that it must not be a polit-
ical arena. The extent of Univer-
sity investments in war-affiliated
enterprises, the character of much
of its research and training, and
the multiple associations it has
with governmental, economic and
military agencies have long since
undermined the legitimacy of any
c YC , s.gtiy ~m 4'Rt nr~nta, r mw.,4',,-
sncy and the familiar and career
dependencies that await them
afterwards. They have in this
brief period capacities for freedom
and enthusiasm that, for the most
part, they will never have again.
Our traditional educational sys-
tem quite ruthlessly crushes this
freedom and enthusiasm. Rather
than nurture free and self-confi-
dent citizens, we manufacture do-
cile functionaries. Is there any
wonder that our democracy died
long ago, that our population has
rejected the continual political
advocation that any, authentic
democracy requires of its citizens?
To revive our democracy, if it
is not already too late, we must do
all in our power to promote among
our youth self-confident activism,
a sense of moral purpose, and a
concern for theI quality of 'being.
Towards theseends we must do
now what has to be done to re-
structure the government of the
University, the character of its in-
struction, and its relationships
with the neighboring community,
and the larger society.
SUCH ARE THE goals that
motivate at least this one "rad-
ical" professor. In all this I share
the revulsion felt against the kind
of personal assault that Prof. John
Young suffered, and in this open
letter to you 'I urge SDS and other
militant student groups to d-
nounce publicly such acts. Neither
personal assault nor, for that mat-
ter, property destruction has any
place in the }kind of civil disobe-#
dience I have been writing about
here.
While sharing the sentiments.
that lead to these acts of civil dis-
obedience on this new level of
moral engagement (where the
wrongs done by our military and
our corporations are as intolerable
as those committted by racist and
political despots), I would un-
hesitatingly oppose any group for
which physical violence was a
n'hraeterkt nnlc4liev nr . le.'F'or
University to lead to anything even
remotely- similar to Hayakawan
repression.
In closing, therefore, I urge you
to endorse, both as President of
the University and as an individ-
ual the recommendations sent to
you by various groups calling for
a University-wide forum to discuss
all aspects f on-campus recruit-
ing and of the University's rela-
tions with the military and with
war-affiliated corporations.
-Arthur Mendel
Prof. History
Radical College Member
Feb. 19'
Shocoed
To the Editor: ,
THE DAILY OF FEB. 17 con-
tained a letter expressing concern
over the possibility of "expulsion
from the University of SDS,"
among other matters, and signed
by a number of faculty, staff, and
students.
In the letter one finds the sen-
tence, "Regardless of the particu-
lars of the case, we consider any
move against SDS as itself a po-
litically repressive act, incompat-
ible with basic values on which
the University should stand." I
was shocked to see such a state-
ment signed by men who, by ev-
ery other indication, are responsi-
ble scholars.
When men who are profession-
ally dedicated to the use of reason
avowedly ignore the facts of the
matter in deciding questions of
pdlicy, one wonders about the fu-
ture of democracy. Surely to make
the judgment quoted. above, "re-
gardless of the particulars of the
case," is no more justifiable, or
worthy of rational men, than it
would be to decide that the Dow
Chemical Company has every
right to recruit employees on the
University campus, without look-
ing into such relevant facts as the
role of that company and other
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