Seventy-nine years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by s+udents of the University of Michigan GM: An example of excessive power 420 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 all reprints. FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 1970 NIGHT EDITOR: ROB BIER Lifting of the suspension: A temporary victor LSA DEAN William Hays' decision yes- terday to revoke the summary suspen- sion of SDS member Robert Parsons con- stitutes only a temporary victory in the fight for democratic judicial procedures at the University. The struggle for the permanent estab- lishment of the rights of students to due process and trial by a jury of their peers must now be continued. Hays' decision to revoke the suspension of Parsons was made only under the pres- sure of a sit-in by 300 angry students, and only in the light of new evidence that Parsons was not the demonstrator who struck engineering Prof. John Young at the demonstration against General Elec- tric recruiters Feb. 18. The kind of dramatic student action used yesterday should not have been nec- essary to insure Parsons his right to fair treatment. And his guilt or innocense of the charge is basically irrelevant to the issues at hand. No single person - Dean Hays or any- one else - should have the power to sus- pend a student (or a faculty member for that matter). And no group of individ- uals -certainly.not the executive com- mittee of the literary college - should have the power to order a suspension without giving the accused a fair hear- ing. Nonetheless, all of these horrors were perpetrated against Bob Parsons. A n d while Parsons' suspension has been re- scinded, Dean Hays has refused to re- nounce the mechanism which m a d e it possible. THE RIGHTS of every student remain in jeopardy as long as these repres- sive powers remain in the hands of the d e a n s and governing faculties of the schools and colleges. In the University community, only stu- dents should be allowed to try other stu- dents on charges which do not directly relate to academic competence. Continuance of the present powers of the faculty over student conduct will only mean the perpetuation of a system which allows professors to impose their non- academic values on the students. Students - and those faculty members with a sense of justice - must continue their constant vigil over the rights of students. And they m u s t continue to press for a re-ordering of University dis- ciplinary procedures that gives the stu- dents control over their own conduct. (EDITOR'S NOTE: Ralph Nader will be speaking at the University Saturday in con- nection with the Environmental 'Teach-in.) By RALPH NADER TODAY is announced an effort to develop a new kind of citizenship around an old kind of private government-the large corporation. It is an effort which rises from the shared concern of many citizens over the role of the corporation in Amer- ican society and the uses of its com- plex powers. It is an effort which is dedi- cated toward developing a new constitu- ency for the corporation that will harness these powers for the fulfillment of a broader spectrum of democratic values. Ours is a corporate society. Corporations produce, process and market most of the goods and services in the nation. They con- stitute the most powerful, consistent and coordinated power grid that shapes the ac- tions of men in private and public sectors. Yet, far less is known about the actual operations of the giant corporations than any other institution in America, includ- ing the national security agencies. The diverse impacts of corporate actions on citizens, however, are being felt and described in their torment. These impacts are not catalogued in company annual reports whose style of aggregate, numerical evaluation of company gains and losses has been mirrored by similarly parochial governmental and scholarly' assessments. Instead, corporate imprints are reflecting themselves in growing violence to our air, water and soil environments, in imbalanc- ed consumer and producer technologies that harm their users and dehumanize " their operators, in the colossal waste and depreciation of consumer goods and serv- ices and in the moloch-like devouring of a society's resources to the detriment of ,sane and humane allocation of these resources to meet the needs of all the people by superior distribution and in- novation. In other negative ways-through the power of avoidance - corporate power centers can condition or determine whether other forces will unjustly prevail over the expression of weaker but more legitimate interests in peace and justice. For most citizens there can be no re- jection of nor escape from the corporate embrace. There can only be submisison or control in varying degrees. The choice is between increasing predation or increas- ing accountability of corporate power to the people. As a bureaucratic structure, the corporation is here to stay and whe- ther it comes in private, public, utility or Comsat-type dress is less important than the dynamic relationship with its total constituency. The paramount foci should include the establishment of enduring ac- cess for affected social and individual in- terests, and through remedy against un- just treatment. THROUGHOUT THE past century, the major forms of curbing the excesses of corporate power have been external pres- sures and stimuli from government and labor. As confronting organizations, how- ever, government and labor groups did not possess the stamina, motivation a n d generic nourishment that the corporation displayed to keep its opponents at bay or accommodate their vulnerabilities.. While overcoming the regulatory state and ad- justing to the narrow goals of organized labor, the modern corporation increased its direct power, and, through an im- balanced use of complex technology, its indirect power over citizens. Now m e r e inaction, mere forebearance, and w r e a k havoc on the health, safety and well- being of people. The corporate quest for control of its operating environment has led industry ana commerce to narrow or virtually elim- inate the range of quality competition in contrast to non-price and/or trivia-in- dentured competition. The same quest has led to endemic violation of anti-trust and other economic laws and produced great- er and greater concentrations of corporate power. The intricate evolution of the legal structure of the corporation permits the increasing exercise of personal p o w e r accompanied by institutional, not per- sonal, responsibility at the most. The cor- porate shield absorbs the rare enforce- ment of the law, not the official(s) whose decisions or negligence led to the vio- lation. In addition, the ownership and management of the corporation have be- come separated and the ease of even the largest investors in exiting reduces any remaining incentives for owners to exer- cise voice and guide or discipline man- agement. Clearly the gap between cor- porate performance and corporate respon- sibility is steadily enlarged by these afore- mentioned patterns. Just as clearly, a new definition of the corporation's constitu- ency and its activation is needed. WITH ITS MASSIVE size and pervas- iveness, General Motors is a leading can- didate for the attentions of its assertive constituency - consumers, labor, dealers, suppliers, insurance -companies and all citizens who experience the forced con- sumption of its air pollution and o t h e r environmental spillages. Nearly a million and a half -of these citizens and insti- tutions are shareholders in the company. In theory they own the company: in fact they have about the same rights as the owner of company debentures. The pro- cedures, the information, the organization, the manpower and the funds are manage- ment's to deploy. But the fiction of share- holder democracy continues to plague the reality. By highlighting the fiction a new reality can be borne that will tame the corporate tiger. And verily, a tiger is General Motors. By virtue of the engines it produces and the plants it operates, the company con- tributes about 35 per cent of the nation's air pollution by tonnage. Its hourly aver- age gross, around the clock, of $2.4 million has not discouraged the company f r o m spending last year, less than $15 mililon on research and develoment for less pol- luting engines. Grossing more than any single governmental budget, except that of the USA and the USSR, GM, with its 1969 gross of some $24 billion, still cannot find the will to build the greatly safer auto- mobiles that can be built economically by free engineers. The company continues to lead the way in designs that pile up enormous and avoidable property damage in low speed (under 10 mph) collisions' and increase its aftermarket replacement sales as a result. The company is a charter member of the highway lobby that has opposed successfully the development of m a s s transit systems and pushed h i g h w a y s through cities and suburbs in the most indiscriminate manner of land use plan- ning. The market power that is synony- mous with GM has propelled the in- dustry toward attenuated competition or WHAT IS EMERGING from closer study of companies such as General Motors is that the most intractable obstacles to change for man are not technical at all but are more often associated with rigidi- ties of a beaucratic and personal nature rather than an economic incapacity of loss. The half 'century of delay in installing a collapsible steering column was q u i t e probably due to the vested interest of an authoriarian psychology than to the more conventionally adduced reasons. When the decision was made for the 1967 model cars that the collapsible steer- ing column was "in", it was finally de- cided that in any collision between man and column, prudence dictated that the column should give, not the man's rib cage. This microcosmic episode illustrates the enormous power in the hands of those who decide manufacturing priorities and product designs (the ramrodding steering column is estimated to have fat- ally injured over 200,000 American since 1900). They need assistance in making such decisions along the entire continuum of impacts on people. A few years ago, the company produced many advertise- ments with the headline "GM IS PEO- PLE". It is time to amend the caption to "GM IS FOR PEOPLE." In addition, GM is continually violating laws, including air pollution and safety laws, and it is time for shareholders to voice their concern here. For as has been said, shareholders are harmed as consumers and citizens by the very activities that they own in part. , collusion over d:sign and marketing prac- tices. Innovation has been creatively stayed to the consumer's harm and eco- nomic detriment. GM's huge financing arm. General Motors Acceptance Corpora- tion, according to Conmressional testimony, engages in deceptive, usurious and exploi- tive practices in its service to the parent corporation. Secrecy, obfuscation and con- tracts of adhesion characterize the tech- niques used to render consumers impo- tent in remedy for their complaints. These are only the surface references to GM's imprint but they suggest a fero- city of acquisitiveness which c o u 1 d ren- der an optimist euphoric at the prospect of transforming such motivational velo- cities for man instead of against man. VS -MARTIN HIRSCHMAN Editor LETTERS TO THE EDITOR GM belongs to the people Students condemn Honors Convocation WHILE THE UNIVERSITY is an aca- demic.institution, it does not stand aloof from the influence and power of the au omotive industry. Unlike the hun- dreds of 'thousands of families in South- eastern Michigan whose livelihood is di- rectly dependent on the fortunes of cor- porations like GeneralMotors, the Uni- versity has a great deal more freedom. However, ties do exist, albeit in a more subtle form. In financial terms alone, the Univer- sity is a major benificiary - and depen- dent - of the automotive industry. The University owns - at current prices - about $2,485,000 in automotive stocks, including approximately 28,000 shares of GM and 12,500 shares of Ford Motor Co. Moreover, auto makers presently contrib- ute $39,028 for various University re- search projects. Another $152,635 has been contributed by other organizations for research dealing with automotive-re- lated problems. It is obvious that the existence of cor- porations like General Motors effects the interests of the. University.. It is also ob- vious t h a t the University, as a major shareholder of GM and other automotive stocks, should actively assert itself in the formulation of GM's policy. This is a re- sponsibility which the University has either refused to accept or has simply ignored," THIS SHIRKING of responsibility can no longer be tolerated. While the Uni- versity has passively accepted GM and other automotive stocks as a "good in- vestment," GM has actively - and inten- tionally - persued policies which are de- structive to both mankind and the en- vironment. According to consumer expert Ralph Nader, GM, "by virtue of the engines it produces and the plants it operates. contributes about 35 per cent of the na- tion's air pollution by tonnage." Further- more, the $15 million the company spends each year for research and de- velopment of less polluting engines rep- resents less than a drop in the ocean of mammoth GM - whose 1969 gross of $24 billion was larger than the gross national product of many nations in the world. BUT GM IS MORE t h a n an environ- mental menace, it is a people menace too. Aside from having its share of de- fense and weapons contracts, GM often acts against the interest of its own work- ers and citizens at large. Nader points out that "GM's huge financing arm, Gen- eral Motors Acceptance Corporation, ac- cording to Congressional testimony, en- gages in deceptive, usurious and exploit- General Motors has a history of oppos- ing innovations which would be in the consume's' interests. GM has resisted de- signs which would insure the safety of automobile drivers and limit the amount of damages incurred in low speed col- lisons. GM has resisted the development of mass transit systems which would al- leviate urban congestion and air pollu- tion and also the tremendous drain on the nation's resources which the building of superhighways demands. GM resisted the implementation of collapsible steer- ing columns for fifty years - whose ab- sence in automobiles until 1967 is esti- mated to have fatally injured over 200,- 000 Americans Furthermore, says Nader, "the market power that is synonymous with GM has propelled the (automotive) industry to- ward attenuated competition or collusion over design and marketing practices." ASSUMING this institution does not wish to divest itself of its GM stock, doesn't the University, w i t h its 28,000 proxies want to voice any opposition to GM's policies. Apparently not. According to the administrations investment officer R. G. Griffith, "normally we vote accord- ing to the company's policies-we've had no occasion to depart from the policy in the past." At a time when increasing numbers of people are taking moral stands on politi- cal issues, it seems odd that the Univer- sity community finds itself unwilling to protest GM's activities. As long as the University continues to passively assent to GM's policies, it must share in the guilt t h a t are the conse- quences of GM's actions. Nader and a number of other individ- uals have begun a project known as Cam- paign GM which is appealing to the near- ly 1.5 million GM shareholders to u s e their proxies to reverse the destructive direction which the' corporation's pres- ent directors are intent on persuing. Campaign GM, run by the Project on Corporate Responsibility, is trying to in- fluence GM from the top down -- a rel- atively small group of people hope to wrest control of the management of the corporation. They then hope to change GM's charter to limit the business pur- poses of the corporation to those activi- ties which "are not detrimental to the public health, safety and welfare." If it is possible to stop the damage GM does to this country without changing its fundamental corporate s t r u c t u r e - whether it is a private or public corpora- tion - remains to be seen. Perhaps the very concept of a corporation is no long- To the Editor: The following is a copy of a letter sent to Pres. Robben Flem- ing: FRIDAY, MARCH 20, is the date of the University's annual Honors Convocation.The purpose of this assembly is to honor scholastic achievement and suc- cess. With this purpose lies an as- sumption that a high grade point reflects acquisition of knowledge. The University means well in honoring such achievement,tal- though it is somewhat ironic that in order to recognize classroom success, it cancels the very classes in which learning is assumed to have taken place. We believe that what the Honors Convocation does indeed do, however, (besides mak- ing various parents happy and proud) is to give recognition to those students who, by socializa- tion or natural inclination, are able to perform well within the system. Such performance is far from being synonymous with greatest knowledge or learning. Further, even those of us who find the system of testing, grad- in, etc., adequate for ourselves, recognize that such is not the situ- ation for many others and feel the University must find other ap- proaches and greater flexibility. An area of especially high priority is that of minority admissions. We therefore urge the abolition of the convocation. The purpose of this request is two-fold: -To demonstrate that those who achieve high grade-points do so secondarily, their purpose being to learn; and -To demand a re-ordering of academic priorities. We believe that the energy and money (in- vitations, programs, tea, etc.) used for the convocation could better and more meaningfully be used in a financial aid fund: those who have benefitted from the system giving the same opportunity to others. The Friday morning when class- es are cancelled would be an ap- propriate time for an open forum on the many problems facing the University community: recruit- ment policies, minority admissions, etc., etc. Serious debate on these issues is certainly more important than a self-congratulatory honors convocation. -Ellen P. Aprill '70 -Andrew Hoffman '71 -Jan Maisel '71 March 12 Referendum To the Editor: I PRESUME MOST persons have wondered why we cannot have a federal referendum, but. there seems to be no provision in the U.S.Constitution for such a referendum, which everyo'ne no doubt would like to use to get us out of the Vietnam mess. Because Nixon wants us to stay in Vietnam (he doesn't say that, but we know it anyway), it seems necessary to devise a practical way to secure a Vietnan referendum privilege; it seems to me that we ought to use the Michigan Ini- tiative Petition facet of our State Constitution to order all of our Congressmen (and C o n g r e s s women) to submit a law to our National Congress for such a ref- erendum ordering the soldiers to be brought home immediately; and in addition, that all of our Congressmen be ordered to vote in support of it in the name of the people of the State of Michigan, irrespective of their personal feel- ings. I did write Sen. Phil Hart some time ago and he seemed unwilling to delegate such a privilege to ordinary people. -Lewis C. Ernst March 11 - I I "... Because our bombing runs over North and South Vietnam were so successful in containing Communist aggression . A Fasting: An alternative to disruptions? By MICHAEL DAVIS Daily Guest Writer rTHE UNIVERSITY has been unable to handle its problems any better than society has been able to handle its own. It has not been, because it has not tried to handle them any differently. Inside and outside the University, we converse polit- ically in threats, slogans, police charges, bricks and jail sentences. The University is no more able to han- dle its problems today than it was two, three, or four years ago. Indeed, like so- ciety, it's today less able to than it used to be. Robben Fleming, who began his presidency as a mediator, a man of per- suasion, has become an administrative soldier, a man of force. Students, w h o once tried to treat humanely those they confronted for their rights, have become almost as cruel, instrumentalist, and wart- like as the administration they face, with- out patience, empathy or respect for hu- man weakness. I have written against this degeneration several times, I've had people compliment me on my articleshand letters, say they agreed with what I said, and then go off to dn the ou Af ite of what they agreed pany to help pass the time, especially the long evening hours. I will be carrying a sleeping bag because I w a n t to sleep in the Administration Building at night (and because I want a soft place to sit during the day). I do not intend civil disobedience, and I will not be violating any SGC rule, since I won't be in anybody's way. I won't be guilty of tress- pass unless some administrator orders me to leave. If I am asked or ordered to leave the building at any time, I will respectfully refuse. But if I am carried from the build- ing, I won't resist and won't go farther than I am carried. Then, as soon as I can, I will return to my place inside the build- ing, If arrested, I won't resist, won't coop- erate, and will continue the fast in jail. I ask that, if I am arrested, no one, student or faculty, bail me out. If I am sent to jail by order of an administrator then I will stay in jail until the jailers get tired of me or until the administrator who ordered my arrest regrets it. I WILL BE FASTING to win approval, without substantial change, of the student- faculty-proposed Chapter Seven of the Re- gental Bylaws. I've chosen this issue for Third, the issue is important for the University. The battle for the substance of Chapter Seven has gone on nearly a de- cade. Students and administrators are los- ing their composure. Since students can not be expected to renounce their rights as human beings, either the administra- tion will adopt Chapter Seven or confron- tation will get rougher and more frequent. Violence here would be good for nobody, but it would be especially bad for the Uni- versity, shattering what remains of' our sense of community. Fourth, it doesn't seem likely the Re- gents 'will pass Chapter Seven as pro- posed, unless students intervene in the de- cision making in some way. The amend- ments the Regents have so far proposed to Chapter Seven indicate little under- standing of the University, or show a con- servatism so unreflective that no amount of mere talk could shake it. Fifth, the intervention students are like- ly to engage in now - a mass confronta- tion in which ,each side treats the other as a sworn enemy - is exactly the sort of political activity I want to find an altern- ative to. The Regents need help, not a shower of stones, -Fasting can be done individually; and 49 -Fasting has symbolism that is appro- priate to the issue. I'll fast because my rights as a human being are at least as important to me as food. I AM NOT undertaking this fast lightly (though, in spite of being five-foot-ten, I only weigh a hundred-thirty-five pounds). I have thought about it over a month, tried shorter fasts, and know this fast is going to be hard. I do not expect to. be comfor- table sitting and sleeping on brick, cov- ered by a sleeping bag. But I do undertake the f a s t without complaint. It is an experiment to s e e whether there are alternatives to violence. If the Regents do not respond as I hope, I will have learned something, though not what I wanted to. If the Regents do re- spond as I hope, I will have learned what I wanted to and will have made the Uni- versity a better place at the same time. Either way, I will have tried to live outmy beliefs in practice and be more certain of myself for having tried. I hope others will join me in one way or another. We are all looking for a way out-of an absurdity and persuasive actions