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.l rMiigan Uatt
Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNTVERSTTY OF MICHIGAN
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Stereotypes, Cliches
Mark Riot Dialogue
Where 01 nn Are Free' 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH.
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Editornals ,Printed in The Michigan Daily ex press the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1967 NIGHT EDITOR: WALLACE IMMEN
Constitutional Storm Swirls
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Around D.C. School System
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Second of Three Parts
WASHINGTON - Judge S k e l11 y
Wright's landmark decision on de
facto segregation in; public schools here
caught many by surprise, and a wave
of sympathy for School Superintendent
Carl F. Hansen followed. Moreover, edi-.
torals in both Washington newspapers,
the Post, and the Star, questioned the
method by which Wright planned to
implement the integration of the
schools in Washington, D.C. Alexander
M. Bickel in a New Republic article
posed the following:
...When courts undertake to
issue a 'go' order, as Skelly Wright
has done, they need resources
which are not at their disposal.
"Judge Wright's indictment of
the superintendent and the school
administration is rife with imputa-
tions of bad faith, but in the end it
comes to rest on a charge of com-
placency only, not on a charge of
intentional segregation."
So here was the situation: Washing-
ton had stumbled into a formidable
dilemma, and Hansen had become the
scapegoat of the city's problem.
JUST HOW DIFFICULT and unpleas-
ant Hansen's job became as his
years in office accumulated, was relat-
ed by Representative Fred Schwengle
(R-Iowa). Schwengle noted: "As a
member of the District Committee, I
worked with Carl F. Hansen for many
years. As a former educator I have the
highest respect for Hansen. He is the
finest top level administrator in the
field of education that I have ever met.
His job was made untenable due to the
nature of the various groups that exist
in the D.C. area. The fact that Hansen
had to go to Congress for appropria-
tions made it doubly difficult for him."
Schwengle added that "Congress
really doesn't give a damn about the
District." In fact Schwengle was de-
feated for re-election in 1964 (he won
in 1966) partly because "In 1964, my
opponent used as one of his charges
against me that I spent too much time
on the District committee and not
enough time on my own district. This
charge helped him to defeat me and it
illustrates what can happen to a rep-
resentative when he tries to help solve
the problems of Washington, D.C."
Carl S. Smuck, a Hansen supporter
and a member of the District school
board, told The Daily "Judge Wright
says he finds racial and economic dis-
crimination in the D.C. schools, but
what I would like to know is how is
anyone supposed to integrate a school
system in which 93 per cent of the
students are Negro to begin with. You
would have to be a Houdini to do it
and even then it couldn't be done."
Smuck also said that "Hansen had
been blamed for things he couldn't be
blamed for and that in effect he (Han-
sen) had been made a scapegoat for
factors that were far beyond his con-
. trol." Smuck then added that what
had happened to Hansen "is sickening."
Smuck added that a consequence of
Judge Wright's decision and Hansen's
resignation could be, "To relegate our
children to the junk heap."
J UDGE WRIGHT'S DECISION could
indeed have a tremendous impact
on the American educational system.
The opinion seems to pivot on a basic
conclusion he draws from hearing ar-
guments both for Hobson and Hansen.
Says Judge Wright in his opinion,
"From these considerations the court
draws the conclusion that the doc-
trine of equal educational opportunity
(Brown v. Board of Education, 1954)-
the equal protection clause in its ap-
plication to public school education-
is in its full sweep a component of due
process binding on the District under
the due process clause of the Fifth
Amendment. To fathom and apply the
content of the principle of equal edu-
cational opportunity is the court's next
project."
Judge Wright then decrees that all
the defendants (Hansen and school of-
. . . permanently enjoined from dis-
criminating on the basis of racial or
economic status in the operation of the
District of Columbia public school
system."
The decree to abolish the track sys-
tem and provide transportation for vol-
unteering students follows. In all cases
the school board must submit a report
of the progress to Judge Wright.
THE IMPLICATION of this is clear to
one high ranking school board of-
ficial: "If Judge Wright doesn't like or
approve of what the school board poli-
cy is, he will change it," he said.
Superintendent Hansen was more
emphatic. He told The Daily "that in
effect Judge Wright now becomes the
board of education if he so desires."
Hansen added, "This is not a judicial
function."
Judge Wright himself seems aware of
the broad scope covered by his deci-
sion. As a parting word in his opinion
he writes: "It is regrettable, of course,
that in deciding this case this court
must act in an area so alien to its
expertise. It would be far better in-
deed for these great social and politi-
cal problems to be resolved in the poli-
tical arena by other branches of gov-
ernment. But these are social and poli-
tical problems which seem at times to
defy such resolution. In such situatiors,
under our system, the judiciary must
bear a hand and accept its responsibil
ity to assist in the solution where con-
stitutional rights hang in the balance."
MURRAY SHEARER, principal of
Washington's predominantly white
Wilson High School, commented on the
economic implications of the decision:
"Judge Wright says there is to be an
end to economic segregation, but he
doesn't say how. I suppose that one
way of doing it would be to mix, for
example, children who came from fam-
ily incomes of $15,000 with those who
came from family incomes of $4000 un-
til there is an average income mixture.
But what are we supposed to do in
this case? Transport children from af-
fluent neighborhoods to less affluent.
ones and vice versa? It would never
work out for those students made to
move from more affluent to less af-
fluent neighborhoods would balk at
the idea."
But Shearer joined the chorus of
dissidents over the court's proper
sphere: "Judge Wright had taken on
for himself a function that was not
that of the judiciary but was of the
legislative or executive powers. That
it is the function of the judiciary to
interpret what is wrong and what is
right, but it is an executive-legislative
function to show how the correction
is to be made."
When asked about the flexibility of
the track system Shearer emphasized.
"It was indeed flexible at Wilson and
that students could take courses in any
track level they desired, even if school
authorities advised against it."
ACROSS TOWN, at Washington's pre-
dominantly Negro Roosevelt High,
principal Robert Boyd said, "I've been
with the track system since 1956 and
it is highly flexible. In the hands of
individuals who wish to use it so, this
is not necessarily so. It depends more
on the individual administrator than
anything else."
Boyd added that Superintendent
Hansen, "Never implied such rigid
stratification that pupils would be in
a position of taking courses they did
not wish to take."
He also said that, "At Roosevelt
there is a great deal of cross tracking."
Of the judicial proceeding itself, one
source in the District said that the de-
cision represented beautiful legal ma-
neuvering on the part of Hobson and
his attorneys. "In fact," the source
continued, "there is a great deal of
question as to what extent Judge
Wright already had his mind made up
before he was even asked to decide the
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Behind Every Successful Man There Stands A Woman..
Letters to the Editor
Emergency Funds
TO MEMBERS OF THE
UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY:
We the undersigned members
of SACUA, sensing a deeply felt
and widely shared desire among
members of the University com-
munity to take a contribution to
the effort required to meet the
emergency needs of displayed fam-
ilies and individuals who are vic-
tims of the recent disorder in De-
troit, have made arrangements for
receiving financial contributions
from members of the University
community for this purpose to be
forwarded to the Interfaith Emer-
gency Center in Detroit.
Checks may be made payable
to the "Interfaith Emergency
Committee" and mailed or de-
livered to the SACUA Office, Room
2512, Administration Building,
University of Michigan. A 11l
amounts received prior to August
15 will be turned over to the In-
terfaith Center on that date, in
the name of the University com-
munity. All amounts received
thereafter but prior to September
15 will be turned over to the Cen-
ter on the latter date, and the
account will then be closed unless
there appears to be good cause
for its continuation.
In view of the purpose and in-
tended disposition of these con-
tributions, we believe no question
can be raised regarding their de-
ductibility for income tax pur-
poses.
-Paul Alexander
-John Bardach
-Alexander Eckstein
-John Gosling
--Robert Howe
-Frank R. Kennedy
-Thomas McClure
-Joseph Payne
-James Wendel
-Ben Yablonky
'Rap' Control
Too impoverished a few weeks
ago to enact LBJ's rat control bill,
Congress now intends to pass a
"Rap" control bill, provide federal
aid to local police, and improve
the National Guard. This might
cost a bit more than the $2 mil-
lion President Johnson wanted to
keep babies from being eaten.
Meanwhile, plans to amend the
Federal Aid to Education proposal
to allow rurally-dominated state
legislature to reassign monies in-
tended for metropolitan school
districts proceed at full speed.
I am glad to see that the U.S.
government is following Johnson's
admonition to let the search for
a solution to the outbreaks be un-
trammeled by "conventional wis-
dom."
-Ralph Shamie
Law and Order
I suppose that in viewing the
urban unsurrection scene every-
one tends to find a new verse for
his own favorite tune, be it un-
employment, outmoded peace-pre-
servation tactics, slum despair,
revolution of rising expectations,
racial cleavage, or just plain
hooliganism. And I'm no excep-
tion. What I tend to see in the
looting, burning, and killing is the
grass-roots extension of the "doc-
trine of social responsibility" (in
which the social milieu is deemed
responsible for the actions of in-
dividuals) far past its value limit.
Am I denying the doctrine of
social responsibility? No, not ex-
actly; that would be a pretty fool-
hardy undertaking for the pres-
ent-day student of the "social
sciences." But I am worried about
what seems to be a basic contra-
diction between this philosophy
and another of the fundamental
gorders of our society: "rule of
law." (One should live overseas
for a while, in Asia, for instance,
in order to fully appreciate the
blessedness of this concept).
Is it not fundamental to social
learning that individuals be pun-
ished, preferably when they are
young, for wrongdoing (i.e. acts
sunjectively defined as detrimental
to the well-being of the society)?
And is it not fundamental to a
society regulated by law that in-
dividuals be held responsible for,
and learn to hold themselves re-
sponsible for, violations of the so-
cial order? And would it not be
impossible to sustain the efficacy
of law and regulation with the
disappearance of individual guilt?
Perhaps the situation can be
saved by providing everyone with
dignifiedbwork and worthwhile
leisure; but can the machinery
necessary to accomplish such a
monumental task be set up amid
snafoo and confusion?
I AM PESSIMISTIC enough to
contemplate our semi-deified "rule
of law" being completely under-
mined by "social responsibility" ;
and I am open-ended enough to
allow that it might be time for
"rule of law" to abdicate in favor
of some other regulator. Trouble
is I can't spy any alternatives to
"rule of law" in the hopper just
now, so I'd rather fish for a new
(rather than renewed) concept of
individual responsibility and guilt
somewhere between the beginning
of "social responsibility" and its
catastrophic end.
If you think I'm all wet, blame
it on my undergraduate institu-
tion. and on my parents who
couldn't afford to send me to Rad-
cliffe, and on the System that
wouldn't let my dad get ahead,
and on . . and on ....
-Lynn Struve, Grad.
The following editorial is re-
printed from the July 31 issue
of The National Observer:
So much that is being said and
written about the anarchy in the
cities is terribly unsatisfactory.
Take, for example, the various
explanations being put forward
these days as the cause of the
outbreaks. The most common one
is that the disturbances are a re-
sult of Negro frustrations over
poor housing in cities, low eco-
nomic standing, lack of job op-
portunities, and racial discrimina-
tion. The frustrations' are so
flammable, this reasoning goes,
that any incident can trigger ex-
plosion.
If this general argument is ac-
cepted, the way to aver't future
outbreaks is to produce some sort
of instant equality, not only in
civil rights but in economic posi-
tion as well. This is manifestly
impossible. A great deal has been
done and is being done to cope
with the Negroes' very real prob-
lems, butkmiracle-making is be-
yond the ken of even the Federal
Government. Given the best of
intentions, progress will necessar-
ily be slow. Not enough has been
done, perhaps, but can enough
ever be done by outsiders?
The unsatisfactory conclusion,
therefore, is that the cities will
remain vulnerable for some time
to come, no matter how many new
programs, funds, and fiats are
pumped out by the Federal Gov-
ernment.
ANOTHER explanation gaining
some credence these days is that
the outbreaks have little or noth-
ing to do with civil rights. Advo-
cates of this argument hold that
the troubles were fomented by a
Communist or criminal element.
Support for this theory comes
from the firecracker pattern of
outbreaks and the similarity of
tactics used.
If, indeed, this was the case-
and presumably the Presiden's
new commission will be checking
this possibility very carefully-
the cure is essentially a police
action, rounding up and jailing
the conspirators. B'ut it's doubtful
that the problems facing the cities
are that simple. Conspirators, if
there were, could cause trouble all
right, but not the ravage left in
Newark and Detroit and other
places. There had to be something
more, something that was there
before the conspirators came and
probably will linger after they
have gone.
A third explanation of the
cause of the cities' latest torment
centers on the apparent growth of
the black-power movement. Such
advocates of Negro militance as
H. Rap Brown and Stokely Car-
michael have spread their mes-
sages of racial hate and destruc-
tion well, splattering the janguage
with words that reek and wreck-
'Soul brother," "honkies," "Burn,
baby, burn."
The Browns and the Car-
michaels have demonstrated a
talent for attracting troublemak-
ers over whom the more moderate
Negro leaders have no influence
or control. And it's precisely this
element - the Negro extremists
with anarchyin theirhearts -
that makes up the hard core of
the ravagers.
STILL ANOTHER reason ad-
vanced for the widespread havoc
in the cities is, ironically enough,
the charge that local law enforce-
ment was too slow and too timid.
Negroes and whites alike in var-
ious cities have insisted that the
rioting and pillaging might have
been nipped if the police had
moved swiftly in the initial stages.
Yet, over the years, the accusa-
tions of "police brutality," shouted
from the streets and echoed in
decisions by our courts, have
made policemen the unwitting
scapegoats for all kinds of cri-
ticism. No wonder they're wary.
But even if they weren't, no
police force in any city is pre-
pared in numbers, training. or
equipment, to handle the kind of
chaos that characterized most of
the rioting. To set up local forces
that could handle such situations
would turn the country into a
police state.
If the various explanations of
the causes of the rioting are un-
satisfactory, it is at least partly
due to a kind of cliche-ridden
thinking that's being done about
the problems.
PRESIDENT Johnson promises
more legislation and more Federal
aid, although a slew of such laws
and uplift programs in recent
years has not noticeably dimin-
ished the problems. In fact, they
probablycontributed to the prob-
lem by raising false hopes that
the .politicians knew could not be
easily or quickly fulfilled, leading
to further disillusionment. Equally
unsatisfactory is the stand of
some congressmen and governors
that more repressive laws and ac-
tion ought to get first priority.
Running through all the talk, in-
furiatingly, is politics as usual.
Mr. Johnson couldn't resist jab-
bing Governor Romney for not
being able to maintain order in
Michigan, and the Republican Co-
ordinating Committee in Wash-
ington tried to score points by
blaming the whole mess on the
Johnson Administration.
What has been happening in
the cities in the past month is a
revolution, in the sense that
things after July 1967 are not'the
same as they were before and will
not be the same again. The think-
ing about the problems, therefore,
also has to change; cliches of the
past must go.
It is clear, for example, that
the multitude of Federal programs
for the cities need to be re-ex-
amined and probably overhauled.
If one of the aims of the projects
was to prevent the kind of out-
break we've been experiencing,
they plainly haven't.
Additionally, something has to
be done to prevent outbreaks, if
they occur, from getting com-
pletely out of hand as they did
in Newark and Detroit. Training
of National Guardsmen for riot-
control is a good step, even be-
latedly. A crackdown on the sale
and transport of guns is in order:
how many more people have to
be killed or maimed by snipers
for that to be clear?
THE NEGRO power structure
ought to be analyzed anew. It's
plain that a small but possibly
growing group of Negroes listens
to no one except the hate ped-
dlers, to the despair of the older,
maturer leaders. The evidence
suggests that the extremists are
becoming increasingly active. If
they cannot be reasoned with, ef-
forts must be made to isolate
them from the larger community
of law-abiding Negroes on whom
the curse of extremism invariably
falls.
Nothing good has come of the
July rampage except perhaps the
chance to see things as they truly
are, stripped of the stale stereo-
types and the crippled cliches.
OPINION
The Daily has begun accept-
ing articles from faculty, ad-
ministration, and students on
subjects of their choice. They
are to be 600-900 words in
length and should be submitted
to the Editorial Director.
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.BARRY GOLDWATER se ...
Urban Guerrilla Warfare'
There is urgent need to reorient
our thinking in regard to the riots
that are sweeping the nation; the
kiling, looting and rampaging that
has hit every sort of community
from metropolitan centers to rural
townships.
It is no longer sufficient, or
even decently moral, to view them
only as the understandable result
of civil frustrations and injustice.
Certainly such factors are in-
volved in the environmental back-
ground of the riots. Certainly
these are factors that men of good
will shall continue trying to al-
leviate.
BUT THE TIME is now past
due to put such factors into sharp
and proper perspective-which is
to put those factors well into the
background and view these hor-
rible riots as exactly what, in un-
varnished truth, they are.
They are acts of urban guer-
rilla warfare. They are violence
unredeemed by reason of any sort.
They are sheer demonstrations of
terror, by terrorists, thugs, bullies
Waterloo, Iowa, or wherever else
the flames have burned, and see
even a causal trace of rights, civil
or otherwise, in the smoke.
If we do not face these hard
facts we cannot face the future
itself with any confidence. In-
stead we will be able to look for-
ward only to more of the violent
same.
THOSE WHO NOW remain
silent in this matter actually are
loudly encouraging the most law-
less elements of our society to
continue to wage war on the rest
of the nation.
As a tragic example of that si-
lence, you need look no farther
than the strongest statement
made by the President of the
United States prior to the time
that Detroit went up in flames.
The President's strongest state-
ment to that time was only that
no one could "condone or ap-
prove" rioting.
Condone or approve is weak talk
indeed for what has- been going
that he is at war not with "social
frustrations" but that he is at war
with the people of the United
States. He must know that he is
doing in this country nothing less
than what the Viet Cong terrorists
have been doing in South Viet-
nam.
Also, our law enforcement de-
partments, in every city, large or
small, should have the fullest as-
surance that when faced by civil
warfare, that they have the firm
insurrection, or urban guerrilla
backing of the rest of us to fight
back and 'fight back hard to re-
store peace and punish the guilty,
even as they bear in mind, also
their solemn injunction always to
protect the innocent as they go
about this tough, demanding,
dangerous job.
LET US, above all, drop imme-
diately the word racial from de-
scriptions of the urban guerrilla
warfare that has broken out.
These are not race riots and the
majority of Negro Americans have
.every right to feel deeply offended
"There's
-Now,
Money Enough To Support Both Of You'
Doesn't That Make You Feel Better?."
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