.r BMir iiian DatId
Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan
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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.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 1969
NIGHT EDITOR: BILL LAVELY
University school:
Not worth the cost
IT IS MOST LIKELY the Regents will'
decide to begin a phase out of Univer-
sity School at their meeting Thursday.
This decision, although disconcerting to
many, seems to be the only adequate so-
lution to the ever-increasing 'problem of
shortage of funds.
The general conception of a laboratory
school is one of an institution that can
offer substantial benefits. to the Univer-
sity. Such a school serves as a place in
which many research and pilot programs
can be t r i e d out before implementing
them into the public school systems. It
also provides a place for student teach-
Many mindeas
TWO YEARS ago, Georgia restauranteur
Lester Maddox assumed that state's
governorship and piously proclaimed,
among other things, that male state em-
ployes must shear their hair and girls'
skirts must at least brush the knee.
Maddox's ultimatum on, dress even
silenced his own rebellious lieutenant
governor who had privately announced
he would fire any secretary wearing
skirts below the knees.
Across the nation, California Republi-
cans have responded in kind. In control
of the state assembly for the first time in
a decade, Republicans began their ad-
ministration by banling miniskirts.
"I was getting sick and tired of turn-
ing my head when one of them was at
a drinking fountain," explains Rules
Comnmittee Chairman Eugene A. Chapple.
In Colorado, 74-year-old state Rep. Ted
Gil led a fight to make the "formal sug-
gestion" that miniskirts were in "bad
form." Such defense of the public moral-
ity failed, however, in Iowa. The vote to
ban miniskirts lost 2-1.
OBVIOUSLY THE Iowans share the
sentiments of California Rep. John
Burton who eloquently argued "the con-
stitutional rights" of women who prefer
miniskirts. "More importantly," he said,
'we are imposing on the constitutional
rights of those of us who like to look."
-J.HI.
Editorial Staff
HENRY GRIX, Editor
STEVE NISSEN RON LANVISMAN
City Editor Managing Editor
MARCIA ABRAMSON ....Associate Managing Editor
PHILIP BLOCK .. ......Associate Managing Editor
STEVE ANZALONE ......Editorial Page Editor
JIM% HECK Editorial Page Editor
JENNY STILLER ..Editorial Page Editor
LESLIE WAYNE.........................Arts Editor
JOHN GRAY....... .................. Literary Editor
ANDY SACKS ... .... Photo Editor
LANIE LIPPINCOTT........Contributing Editor
MARY RADTKE ....... .......Contributing Editor
MICHAEL THORYN .......Contributing Editor
ers to practice teach and for education
school students to observe teaching meth-
ods and classroom situations.
But the University's particular Univer-
sity School fails to meet this concept of
a laboratory school. The students who at-
tend the school do not provide a random
sample for most research experiments.
Most of its students are from upper-
middle class "intellectual" families or
who are having problems in the public
schools,
The size of the sample possible is very
limited since there are only about 300
students in the entire school (grades one
through nine).
FURTHERMORE, there is the problem of
expense. The University School has be-
come a financial burden to the education
school. For the junior high pupils alone,
the instructional costs per pupil are trip-
le those in the Ann Arbor public schools.
In the Ann A r b o r public schools it
costs $848 per pupil for grades 7-9 as com-
pared with $2511 per pupil at University
School. For grades 1-6, it costs $814 per
pupil compared to $1485 per pupil at the
University School.
If the research done at" University
School provided useful data, then there
may be a case for investigating the pos-
sibility of continuing the school under
some kind of austerity arrangement. But
the school does not provide any signifi-
cant research data.
THE DECISION to close down the Uni-
versity School by June of 1970 has met
many complaints from the parents of pu-
pils and interested faculty members. They
have most vehemently objected to t h e
way in which the decision was "ramrod-
ded" through administrative channels
without allowing time for interested peo-
ple to express their views on the subject.
But quick, decisive action was neces-
sary.
If the closing of the school were delay-
ed, it would have had demoralizing ef-
fects on both the students and the teach-
ers. Many parents would have taken their
children out of the school to start them
at a school where they would be able to
continue. - especially those students who
would be entering the seventh grade in
the fall. With fewer students to defray
the' costs of the school, overall expenses
would have increased.
GIVEN THE PRESENT financial burden
and t.h e school's limited usefulness,
there seems to be no other choice than
for the Regents to approve the recom-
mendation for its closing.
-NANCY LISAGOR
THE LAST week of classes be-
fore finals is a time of judg-
ment. All too many students find
themselves with five term papers
due the same week, and half the
books for each paper unread.
So they decide to ask one or two
professors for incompletes. They
wait, uncomfortable, outside the
ofices, and when their turn comes,
they go inside and try to get the
necessary interview over with as
soon as possible.
But how do you approach a man
who has devoted his life to schol-
arship and tell him that the very
thing which gives'his life meaning
is meaningless to you? How do
you explain to the one of your
five professors who has been fair
and honest in his assignments that
you like his class the best but you
didn't do the work? How do you
explain to him that you're at the
University for a diploma, that you
will go through four more years
classes which will get worse before
they get better, so that after those
years you can finally do what
you want to do now, but cannot?
How do you say, "I do not know
what I want, except to get through
with this undying and get back
into life, so please sir be merci-
ful and help me to do it?"
I cannot say these things to the
man. So I half-lie and tell him,
sir, there is The Daily, and he
half-believes me and tells me it's
all right, but remember the re-
duction in grade. And I tell him
thank you and go away.
Most professors are very human.
They give you incompletes without
asking too many questions. They
realize that most of their students
are at the University for reasons
foreign to their own. We are
thankful to them, for they bring
an element of flexibility into the
otherwise inflexible bureaucracy
of the University.
PARENTS ARE harder to deal
with. Those who care what their
offspring are doing are usually
very unhappy with incompletes.
They just don't understand them.
I overheard a friend talking to
his parents the other day. He was
trying to explain to them why he
just had to take incompletes. (I
talked to my parents like that a
year ago, so I could know what
they were telling him. You're ir-
responsible, they say. It will be a-
blot on your record, they say. We
never took incompletes in college,
they say. Classwork is more im-
portant extracurricular activities,
they say.) But classes are not real,
he knows inside. And what dif-
ference does it make? he cries.
IT SEEMS from here that of all
the truly interesting, live people
at the University, most of them
have had at least one incomplete,
and many of them habitually take
several a semester. Perhaps calen-
dar reform would help, perhaps
returning to the semester -system
where five courses are really not
impossible to finish on time, or
the quarter system where only
three or four are expected, would
eliminate the need to spend term
breaks finishing up the term.
Perhaps calendar reform would
help, but I don't think so.
THE PEOPLE who take incom-
pletes are too often the same ones
who would, almost should take
deep joy in scholarship for its own
sake. They read, w'rite, debate
because it gives them pleasure.
But they take no pleasure in the
work they have to do for courses.
They have lost the love of schol-
arship somewhere along the way.
It was strangled in the struggle
for grades in high school; or it
drowend in a poor high school's
indifference; or perhaps it was
merely suffocated by int
courses at the Univers
To the people who tak
pletes, classes are not wh
or important, The Univ
self is not real, for sc
is dead to them,
THE DRAFT is what
and so is the war. May
and Governor WallaceF
Richard Nixon, they are
Hunger is real, and sumn
Tear gas is real, andt
and the guns, they arev
And the Pacific Ocean
and the autumn haze on
Ridge, The Rocky Moun
real, and the Sierras,
desert between. Spring
over the lake country isi
the gulls clamoring over
rocky coast where Main
into the sea.
And Chicago, paved w
road tracks, is real. And
through the smog in Ne
and the freeways, and
ways, and the dingy bus
Riding a bus to word
every morning,'is real, th
hate to do it. Laughing is
so is crying. Trying to fi
self and a place for yo
enny stile
roductory the world are about the reallest
ity. things vou can do.
ce incom-
tat is real BUT CLASSES are not real.
ersity it- And books, though we may love
:holarship them, are less real than feeling.
So many of us are not scholars,
and some of us have not the heart
t is real, to pretend to be,
ror Daley We can continue to be as hon-
and, yes, est as we can, doing our best to
all real. do our class work and trying not
her riots, to let life get in the way. But
the. clubs sometimes we can't help it, and
very real. sometimes it does. And then we
n is areal, deny our "responsibility" to the
the Blue masquerade of scholarship which
tains are has been forced upon us. And we
and the call upon those to whom scholar-
coming ship is real to aid us in denying
real, and it.
the cold It is not fair to them, and I
plunges am sorry -to have to put them in
such a position. We both play out
with rail- the game, using the convenient
l the sun dodges which are really half lies
w Jersey, and half truth.
the sub- For once, then, the truth, which
stations. is not really as hedonistic as it
k, typing sounds:
.ough you I didn't do your course work,
real, and Professor. I tried to get it done,
Ind your- but I was too busy living to finish
aurself in it on time.
A
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
'Leavin from where you ai 't never been'
To the Editor:
AS ONE OF the poets who spoke:
during the "Evening of Black/
White Poetry" of the American
Studies Association's recent con-
ference, I wish to commend Mary
Radtke on her call for a black-on-
white third dimension. How ac-
commodating this proposal must
seem to the black artist who has
worked lifetimes as an outcast in
an isolated black world; worked
his thing only to see it plagiarized
by bland white images of ,"white
culture."
"Sieve out the black fragments
from our white culture" appears
to be the cry of Miss Mary, "so we
who have been deceived will know
truth." Beautiful! But what after,
the knowing? Will there necessari-
ly arrive real appreciation from
TV-Top Ten Rah Rah America?
Or will it have to be re-robed in
Beatledom sensationalism to be.
understood as art?
MISS MARY states further that
the black poets spoke "more in
terms of human experience than
black experience." Is this to imply.
that black experience is inhuman?
Or that a human experience is not
a black experience? Miss Mary
misses the point. For example: to
quote a bit of down home philo-
sophy - a common black proverb
- "you can't leave from where
you ain't never been!" might be
interpreted by a one dimensioned
black-on-black separatist as a
justification for black isolation.,
Actually it is the reply of a black
woman to her black boyfriend
who threatens to leave her.
Perhaps Miss Mary would agree
with the manumitted theme I
read that night: Piano Solo: You
can play a song of sorts on the
white keys! You can play a song
of sorts on the black keys! To-
gether, they make harmony.
-Maurice M. Martinez
April 1
Love is Nix
t
To the Editor:
PROFESSORS DEMAND th a t
language requirements be re-
tained at Michigan or America
will return to the isolationism of
the 1930's.
War is Peace.
Love is Hate.
White culture equals civiliza-
tion. At Michigan one can study
French and German but no Afri-
can languages -'- Spanish but no
Indian languages. O u r study of
languages - "liberalization" - is
merely a study of the languages
of imperialism.
THIS EQUATION of civilization
with white culture is dominant in
the other academic departments.
The history department h a s no
course in t he history of Africa
south of the Sahara - and North
African history is treated as part
of the history of the Levant, re-
enforcing white men's attempts to
label all "advanced" African civil-
izations as white. Music here
means the music cultures of West-
ern Europe. Art is the arts of the
West. For every course on Africa,
Asia or Latin America there are
twenty on Western Europe and the
United States.
While such racism - or isola-
tionism - persists I find profes-
sors' defense of the "liberalizing"
effects of language study ludi-
crous.
-Lauri Lehne, '69
April 7
Letters to the editor should
be typed triple spaced and no
longer ,than 300 words. All let-
ters are subject to editing, and
those over 300 words will gen-
erally be shortened. Unsigned
letters will not be printed.
4? ~ .~
*~
3
pY"JtlY 4u"' T11(lv^C"u i'n 'e69 WW W ,...r
I
Ip
"Pssssst! . . . Secret peace talks are going
on... Pass it along !"
A
Student power in the hands of the Big Three
By MARK SCHREIBER
Daily, Guest Writer
First in a two-part series
AFTER SEVERAL years in the
business of organizing, I would
like to describe what it means to
be a student politician. Student
activism at the University is an
esoteric political and social phe-
nomena. The organizations, per-
sonalities and processes involved
can be discussed in terms of elite
political behavior.'
There are three primary organi-
zations on campus-Student Gov-
ernent Council, Radical Caucus
and The Daily. These three organ-
izations have raised and developed
the major issues, and are respon-
sible for the changes within the
University community initiated by
students. There are some 15-20
leaders distributed over these or-
ganizations. This handful of stu-
dents pretty well determines the
nature and direction of student
activism within any one year at
the University. The other student
groups or individuals have re-
mained amorphous student groups
or individuals-ancillary, suppor-
tive, or simply ineffectual.
ALTHOUGH THE names and
organizations i n v o 1 v e d have
changed, there has been a discern-
able continuity in the relationship
of the groups to each other dur-
ing my four years here. When I
was most intimately involved in
campus politics, the prominent
groups were SDS, SGC, and The
leadership. Individuals in Radical
Caucus espoused more moderate
tactics - strategies acceptable to
members of SGC and The Daily.
The campus leadership remain-
ed in the same hands and operated
the same way, even though the
names changed.
THE DAILY, SGC, and Radical
Caucus are informally linked.
People in one know those in the,
others, and are frequently in con-'
tact. The progress of any issue
on campus - from language re-
quirements to military recruitment
-usually depends on the coopera-
tion between these three organi-
zations.
In philosophy, there is general
agreement by those involved.
There is a common set of assump-
tions by student activists about the
University, the students' role, so-
ciety, and General Hershey. Dis-
putes are more over tactics, but
any activist knows that a com-
bined effort, if only tacit, is often
necessary to overcome the thres-
hold of administration /resistance
and student malaise.
The political inbreeding of the
three groups extends into social
contacts. Students in SGC, The
Daily, and SDS often attend the
same parties. Some room together.
Others date each other and some
have married. Political work for
student activists here carries into
daily life. The students within
these organizations thus form a
ible, barriers. SDS began the war
research issue with The Daily,
dormitory regulations and rules
with SGC, and the language re-
quirement by itself. Several cen-
tral organizers for the rent strike
came from SDS. With the assist-
ance of SGC, The Daily, and sym-
pathetic faculty, these issues have
been elaborated and expounded in
the relevant jargon. Their impor-
tance was and is developed to the
point where such concerns became
the core of student politics and
unrest at the University.
WHETHER THE Radical Cau-
cus will be able to continue in the
position as innovator is uncertain
because of factionalism. There are
not enough determined radicals on
campus to afford in-group fight-
ing.
Besides ideological stimulation,
Radical Caucus has an important
socialization and educational func-
tion. Attending Radical Caucus
meetings teaches a student what
he can theoretically do within the
University community. Because it
is both open and articulate, Radi-
cal Caucus attracts a number of
underclassmen. The caucus makes
these students question their new
environment and radicalizes them.
However, only a few of the young
students stayed with SDS longer
than a year, when SDS fulfilled
the same role. The caucus shows
more promise, since even its lead-
ership is made up of underclass-
men.
ambitious students to look towards
channels of activism other than
SDS.
STUDENTS become interested in
SGC for any number of rea-
sons. SGC may represent respon-
sibility and respectability or, per-
haps, 'the idea of being "elected"
fits into the picture of oneself. The
appeal may be in organizational
strength-committees, University
recognition, and a $200,000 budget
-and thus be perceived potential
of real influence.
It is true that SGC has become
the established instrument of so-
cial change at the University. Al-
most every alteration in the Uni-
versity's structure affecting stu-
dents has been grounded in an
SGC resolution or committee re-
port. The bureaucratic elements in
this process make student politics
appear trivial. But the result of
the inane squabble over the SGC
presidency, for example, will be
important. The president will de-
termine in good part, whether SGC
is a force or a farce. This is what
students dismiss in their apathetic
reactions to SGC elections.
UNLIKE SDS, SGC is neither
quick nor easy to enter. There is
an elaborate screening process of
interviews and election. Yet SGC
in "representative" elections has
managed to continue a fairly con-
sistent liberal-radical leaning.
This is accomplished partially, by
SDS and SGC depend, is The
Daily. The n3ewspaper is in my
opinion the most influential stu-
dent instrument. The Daily is an
institutionalized power block.
This is as it should be because
The Daily is an accurate reference
point from a liberal perspective.
The editors of The Daily know
more about the workings of the
University than any other group
of students. They filter large
amounts of ' campus information
every day. When you live with
politics, you learn to make judg-
ments, and pass these choices on
to others.
THE DAILY follows-and to a
degree directs-what SDS and
SGC have begun. The Daily de-
cides what is news in the Univer-
sity. Reporters and editors play
an issue to fit their conception of
journalistic and political impor-
tance. Perceived significance then
becomes reality to the student
reader with no other information
source. There is- little chance that
a local issue will reachmajor pro-
portions without continuous Daily
coverage.
Classified research, the lan-
guage requirement and the rent
strike oiye much of their success
to The Daily.
On the other hand, the student
strike of last term and, proposed
disruptive sit-in were killed largely
by the The Daily's lack of endorse-
ment. Either of these incidents,
by University budget cuts or dis-
approval.
The senior editors of one year
select the editors for the next
year. They are chosen on the
sophistication and radicalism of
their political views, as well as
journalistic skills. Both editorial
freedom and the political com-
plexion of The Daily were at stake
in Roger Rapoport's selection as
editor in 1967. This was probably
the most significant acknowledge-
ment of student power in the past
four years at the University.
IN AN INTERVIEW a professor
once asked me what would hap-
pen if Ta conservative group took
over The Daily. The answer is that
this is impossible. Now the Board
for Student Publications no longer
has veto prerogative over the se-
lection of editors. This means that
The Daily is insulated and de jwre
protected from external pressures.
The Daily is able to attract, hold,
and promote students. It is prob-
ably the most viable element in
the student movement on campus,
far less subject to the fragmenta-
tion of other student organiza-
tions.
W HY DO PEOPLE get into stu-
dent' politics, when they could
much easier play basketball, party
or even study? There are a num-
ber of reasons. First, many college
activists were "involved" in high
school. Politics, in the most gen-
eral sense of the word, has already