Student Power: 'Commissioned' to Death?
Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily exPress the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1967
NIGHT EDITOR: MARK LEVIN
Humanizing the UIversity:
Just Bend Y our IBM Card
By STEPHEN FIRSHEIN
"Whichwill we have: Conces-
sions or riots?"
So asked a Daily editorial on
the eve of last year's student
power movement, when it seemed
that the "immovable object," as
personified by Vice-President for
Student Affairs Richard Cutler's
sweeping and arbitrary decisions,
would meet head-on with the
"irresistable force," manifested by
a new-found concern among stu-
dents about their rightful place
in the Megaversity of Michigan.
As it turned out, there were no
Berkeley-type riots, but only con-
fusing mass meetings of suddenly
activated students and a massive,
orderly, lunch-in at the Adminis-
tration Bldg. Likewise, there were
no meaningful concessions by the
administration, but only the
.placebo of Presidential Commis-
sions instituted to mull over the
ambiguous and interlocking roles
of students, administrators and
faculty.
During those troubled months
of November-December 1966, ad-
ministrators were conjuring up
images of free-love in the UGLI,
degeneration of law and order on
campus, student-backlash among
the tax-paying voters and the
big-clamp-down by state officials
a la Reagan. On the other side
of the ledger, students were plain-
ly tired of the multi-farious and
almost nefarious methods by
which the administration had
abused its students: the HUAC
subpoena compliance,. cops on
campus, the sit-it ban, the disre-
gard for the draft referendum,
overcrowded classrooms, etc. The
movement was born of these frus-
trations, and if it failed to ap-
preciably solve any of them, at
least it aired the problem for the
first time.
THE CRY WAS "student pow-
er" and predictably, like its spir-
itual predecessor, "Black power,"
it was hard to pin down and de-
fine. Critics, including many stu-
dents, scoffed at the term, noting
that five years ago, prior to the
Reed Report on student affairs,
nobody would have questioned the
basic set-up of a state university
which owed its financial lifeblood
to the grace of legislators in the
state capital.
At the same time, the more
dissatisfied students were advo-
cating grinding the wheels of the
University to a halt until their
demands were met: remove the
police from campus, abolish the
OSA-enforced conduct codes on
student conduct, remove substan-
tial authority from Vice-President
Cutler, stop submitting class
ranks to the Selective Service,
providetguarantees that no secret
war or defense research would be
carried out by the University,
transfer major policy decisions
from the administration to the
faculty and students.
Somewhere between these ex-
tremes fell the vast body of tag-
along protesters, with whose
presence, an incident was magni-
fied into a movement. But be-
cause the following was so diverse
and efforts had to be directed to-
ward simply keeping the masses
together, there was never an am-
ple opportunity for a coherent
platform to be constructed and
the shaky issues of a sit-in 'ban
and a draft referendum became
paramount.
These issues were uppermost in
everybody's mind because the ban
had been recently proclaimed, and
the draft referendum had been
but a week before the beginnings
of the movement.
So these were what the move-
ment hinged on, and in retro-
spect, these were probably the
least important issues for a con-
frontation. Admittedly they were
symbolic of a larger malaise, but
student leaders never had an op-
portunity to elucidate the vital
part of the iceberg under the sur-
face, because the movement soon
fell apart with the birth of the
Hatcher commissions.
SIX MONTHS later, draft rank-
ing is a dead issue, because every-
body will be deferred under the
new guidelines accepted by Wash-
ington; and the sit-in ban was
merely suspended with no attend-
ant improvement in the relation-
ship between students and admin-
istrators - the distrust still re-
mains.
But it became obvious to even
the most obtuse administrator
that the ban was "unwise at best;
only a few -activists would ever
use the prerogative, and- they
could be dealt with at each in-
stance instead of by a restrictive
provision which angered the mel-
low middle; people who would not
ordinarily even think of sitting
in, yet who want the opportunity
to remain. Similar to the right to
march in a picket line in ordi-
nary civic affairs-not many peo-
ple do it. but the right must be
preserved.
When the Presidential Commis-
sidns were first established, few
looked ahead to the impending
appointment of a new University
'president to succeed the retiring
Hatcher. In this light, an addi-
tional question rears its head: Not
only what will the commission de-
cide, but also to whom will the
findings be released? Aside from
the ingrained skepticism of a
student body which has seen
numerous reports ignored by the
administration, is the matter of
reception by the administration
(i.e. under which president will
the report have the best chances
for implementation?
Opinion seems to be about
evenly split on this matter. One
group feels that the burden will
be on Hatcher to make good on
the findings of his duly author-
ized commissions in the twilight
tours of his tenure. It is further
argued that Fleming will not feel
bound by a report with which he
had nothing to do and will there-
fore set up his own study group
to weigh the pros and cons on the
student role in the University.
CONVERSELY, T H E R E are
those who have given up on
Hatcher, and look to Fleming as
the better hope. They note his
generally favorable record in
dealings with the student body at
the University of Wisconsin, and
his professed belief in the right
to dissent. He would be more
amenable, they argue, to any real
reform in the student-adminis-
tration duopoly.
Finally, there exists a segment
of ultra-skeptics, who regard
neither Hatcher nor Fleming as
a vital determinate, but who look
over their heads to a generally
unenlightened assembly of oldish
businessmen with considerable fi-
nancial interests around the state
-namely the Board of Regents.
With the present political break-
down of the board -overwhelm-
ingly Republican and conservative
-there isn't going to be any re-
form it is contended - whatever
the wishes of novice Fleming or
Hatcher.
And they are probably right,
for to a great extent, the students
and the Regents work at cross-
purposes: the students -w a n t
greater emphasis on classroom
teaching, but Regents are inter-
ested in securing money grants
from the federal government and
private foundations: the students
want to exert pressure on the
high-priced, low quality city
businesses; the Regents are busi-
nessmen themselves who deal with
the city and don't want to antag-
onize its civic leaders; the stu-
dents desire to control their own
conduct; the Regents are afraid
of adverse reaction among the.
state's voters when the next elec-
tion for Regents comes along.
This is the crux of the matter,
and the conclusion is a little
discouraging. At the present time,
the Regents and the administra-
tion run the show, and the stu-
dents are at their mercy, at least
until the release of the student
decision-making report next se-
mester. With this state of affairs,
though, it would not be surpris-
ing if there were a renewal of the
now historical student power
movement.
#
IT IS FASHIONABLE these days to
portray the major university as a
bureaucratic, government - dominated,
impersonalized tool of the American
middle-class establishment.
According to Paul Goodman "stu-
dents are the major exploited class
... in the United States." Mario Savio
tells us of the "depersonalized unre-
sponsive , bureaucracy," where it is
"impossible usually to meet with any-
one but secretaries."
Others say "the multiversity is not
an education center but a highly effi-
cient industry; it produces war ma-
chines, a few token 'peaceful' ma-
chines and enormous numbers of safe,
highly skilled and respectable auto-
matons to meet the immediate needs
of business and government."
Although these charges all have a
basis in fact, the school needn't vic-
timize you. For there are many stu-
dents who have found- a way to enjoy
rewarding and productive lives at the
multiversity. The student who will
recognize and tap the extraordinary
resources of a major university can
flourish. Many students have learned
how to exploit the .school and carve
out meaningful curricular and extra-
curricular lives for themselves.
ADMITTEDLY there is some validity
to the view of the multiversity as
a government dominated dictatorship
ruled from the administration build-
ing. It is not hard to see how one can
grow to believe he is trapped into a
system where education is the opiate
of the student, who is only being
groomed for a slot at Dow Chemical
where he will build a better napalm.
Still the multiversity can work for
the student willing to bend his IBM
card. For a university bureaucracy is
suprisingly vulnerable to enterprising
students. In fact, any student willing
to extend himself can walk all over
the clumsy university establishment.
Many bright and confident students
make bigness work-in their own in-
terests.
Getting around the academic ed
tape is not that difficult. About the
only prerequisites needed are a bit of
determination and willingness to tan-
gle with the multiversity establish-
ment. Instead of listening to academic
counselors, many students have learn-
ed how to scout around and find the
best courses on their own. After all,
the numerical prospects for stimulat-
ing instruction are reasonable when a
student can choose among 3,000 teach-
ers offering thousands of courses.
When one accidentally falls into the
wrong course the solution is to trans-
fer out into a better course.
Faculty attention is often a function.
of student initiative. Even in those
dreadful 600-student introductory lec
tures, instructors are surprisingly
available for conference. They are us-
ually willing to talk as long as you're
willing to listen.
THERE ARE other solutions to the
academic deficiencies at the multi-
versity. Many students take independ-
ent-study courses, which amount to
tutorials, where the student and pro-
fessor work out the curriculum jointly.
There are also independent reading,
courses.
Still the critics argue that it makes
no difference how good the classes are
-they're all plugged into the system.
Students- are mere programs to be
shoved into the computer.
The thinking is misleading, however,
because it assumes students are naive,
ready and willing to be duped into the
materialistic American way by the
university establishment. It's the same
argument voiced by the House Un-
American Activities Committee-naive
students will be duped into Commun-
ism bymere exposure to it.
But students aren't as gullible as all
that. Not only do many make the
school work for themselves, some have
even discovered ways of using the
system to subvert itself. For example,
one group of graduate students here is
actively engaged in a research project
to study the interlocking directorates
of major American corporate execu-
tives. The study will be done via com-
puter with programs written from of-
ficial records.
Similarly, students have used official
University-sanctioned student organi-
zations in their own interests. For ex-
ample, a Daily story several years ago
about a dean of women who was not-
ifying parents of students dating in-
terracially prompted the dean's resig-
nation,
SIMILARLY THE paper recently un-
covered and printed a confidential
Defense Department equal - employ-
ment study charging that the school
was "basically for rich white students."
Students have also learned how to
combat aggressively other respects of
the University establishment. One is
a steadfast school refusal to build a
bookstore that would compete with the
"list price" commercial bookstores in
Ann Arbor. As a result a professor of
nuclear engineering and a group of
hardworking students opened up Stu-
dent Book Service which sells. texts at
a 10 per cent discount. Similarly stu-
dent demands for an 8-month rental
agreement without a premium pay-
ment have finally been honored at one
major apartment house.
Some student efforts are paying off
in the academic area. After repeated
student urging the school has begun
building the 1,200-man Residential
College. Students have helped to de-
velop the curriculum for the Oxford-
style unit which will emphasize semi-
nars and regular faculty contact. Seen
as a prototype for all future under-
graduate education, the venture is lur-
ing some teachers formerly preoccu-
pied with graduate instruction into do-
ing more undergraduate teaching. The
school has also initiated a pass-fail
grading system and is liberalizing
course and distribution requirements
to relieve some of the academic heat.
There are those who argue that
given the conflicting interests of stu-
dents, faculty, administrators and Re-
gents, the big university can never
really work. Even'if some students can
flourish in the environment the major
school itself is doomed:
MANY STUDENTS who accept this
argument have, ironically, fallen
into their own trap. They have dropped
their activist efforts to rock the sys-
tem and become totally alienated.
Since "school is hopeless," they turn to
rock 'n' roll bands, drugs, film-mak-
ing, bartending, postal work or other
pursuits. Instead of trying to change
the multiversity system, they end up
joining the passive ranks and giving
the multiversity "ogre" more room to
perpetuate itself.
But it's too early to be so pessimistic.
For there is plenty of room in the ma-
jor university for the student willing to
grapple with it. And the hope is that
the innovations rebellious students are
now prompting will lead to humaniz-
ing the big university into a place
where any student would feel welcome.
-ROGER RAPOPORT
Editor
'1
*
Youth and the War: Looking Beyond the Classroom
By DAVID KNOKE
About a year and a half ago,
the Selective Service System, with
the remarkable inefficiency that is
the province of all unwieldy bur'-
eaucracies, overlooked some quar-
ter-million youths in the draft
pool whose status was tied up in
the red tape of reprocessing. At
,thetsame time, draft calls for
Vietnam began to double and
triple to meet the giant build-up
of manpower to wage what was
openly - coming to be called by
proponents and foes alike the
"dirtly little war."~
At the time, Director of Selec-
tive Service Lt. Gen. Lewis B.
Hershey began to drop largely un-
veiled hints that college students
were to be taken, starting with
those ianking lowest in their
classes. Dormitory and coffee shop
talk across the nation grew rife
with the low-down on IV-F de-
ferments, emigration routes to
Canada or ways to enlist as a
quartermaster in Greenland,
Fortunately for the worried male
who couldn't see beyond the
nearest foxhole, the SSS found the
quarter million "lost" draftables,
the call-ups leveled off and, this
past spring, Congress extended
the draft lay; four years and did
some tinkering with its rules that
takes the pressure off the college
student.
The draft, however, is not only
the way in which the war in Viet-
nam - still "dirty" but no longer
"littlle" - has become as fixed
a part of the collegians' life as
bluebooks and TG's.
One of the provisions in the re-
vised draft law assures that any
student in "good standing" with
his school would not be subject to
the draft until he haa either been
in school five years or turned 24.
Along with the abolition of class
ank, this reform promises to ease
the pressure to. attend an easy
school or take Mickey Mouse
courses.
However, the student is faced
with the inevitable fact that,
should he drop out for a year or
attain his first degree (unless
medical or dental school lies a-
head), the draft and undoubtedly
the war will still be patiently
waiting him. The problem of what
to do may be postponed, but not
avoided.-
FOR SOME STUDENTS, the
solution is to enter one of the
several ROTC programs offered
in most large campuses and enlist
upon graduation as a second liu-
tenant. Although the pay and
prestige is attractive, the alterna-
tive has its drawback in the fact
that junior grade officers rank a-
mong the highest battlefield casu-
alties in Vietnam.
Other students have begun in-
vestigating their nervous ticks or
painful joints to see if the ail-
ments qualify among some 200 ills
acceptable for medical unaccept-
ability. Pulling homosexual or
dope-addict bit may sound in the
bull-session like a surefire dodge
but it can also irrevocably settle
one's future. Ditto going to Can-
ada as a "landed emigrant."
Protesting and working against
the war have become respectable
with the fighting in Vietnam. Al-
though the Army seldom takes
hard-core leftists, mere petition-
signers and placard wavers are
likely to find their action not
making one dent in the President's
war policies. And while- register-
ing as a conscientious objector is
the perogative of anyone, convin-
cing the local draft board of one's
sincerity is another matter.
Isolated for four years or more
in the figurative ivory tower of
campus life, the student may not
come into direct realization of
the many other ways that the war
has become one of the crucial de-
cision-makers in his life. The very
quality of the education he re-
ceives is to a great extent influen-,
ced by the drop in Federal re-
search funds which have become
diverted away from the campus.
and into the war machine.
The classic example is the $375
million atomic accelerator' at Wes-r
ton, Ill., which was to take six
years to build and to boost the
level of excellence in physical
sciences for the Midwest; the time
when Congress can vote the nec-
pessary funds is unforseeable.
BEYOND THE CAMPUS, but
still related to students' aspira-
tions, is the gradual attrition of
many of the great programs that
were to' remake America into the
Great Society, but for the funds
that cannot be spared. Congress
also has not seen fit to make the
Peace Corps, VISTA, Job Corps
and other service organizations as
alternatives to military service.
Indeed, students are inclined to
somewhat romantically consider
themselves, as Paul Goodxmian put
it, "one of the nation's discrimin-
ated minorities." Nevertheless, the
fact remains that the college stu-
dent, during his collegiate days,
still has many of the advantages
and bears little of the burden of
facing directly to the issues 'the
war has created - at least far
tess of a burden than that foisted
on his non-college attending
peers.
of
The Advent of the Domesticated Hippy
By CHARLOTTE A. WOLTER
Associate Editorial Director, 2966-67
NOW THAT TIME magazine
has dicussed h i p p i e s at
length, you may all throw this
article (or the whole paper if you
like) into the wastebasket.
But wait!
There is one great pressing un-
decided problem of the twentieth
century which Time has neg-
lected: who are the real hippies?
Now, you may not really give a
damn, but this could be impor
tant, especially if you want to be-.
come one yourself some] day.
ABOVE ALL you should remem-
ber that, with all due respects to
President, Hatcher and any un-
fortunate successor to his posi-
tion, hippies really run the Uni-
versity. Didn't know that, huh?
Oh yes, it's true. It's been this
way for about six months, now,
ever since the president of the
student body began making un-
derground movies. That wouldn't
have been so hard to take had
not the UAC (University Activities
Center), the hoppla capitol of the
campus, began' to show them,
along with sponsoring happenings,
love-ins, psychedelic dances and
the like.
But you may tire quickly of
these "weekend hippies" (the-e's
one type for you already) and
want to get down to the nitty
gritty, hard-core types. In that
case, you will have no trouble
finding your true hippy savior
among the multitudes of types
and degrees of hippy.
WHICH BRINGS us to the first
type: the love ones. These are the
people who do everything in the
name of love of their fellow man,
which is not such a bad idea
really. In fact, this reliance on
love does work. Consider the be-
havior of the cops at the Mon-
terey Pop Music Festival. They
were literally loved to death-
course, but the idea is that every-
one shares.
BUT AFTER Hashbury, what?
By now you are probably more
than a little tired of the com-
mercialism, the pot, the under-
ground movies and the psyche-
delic dances and wish for a little
peace and quiet.' You have prob-
ably also flunked out of the Uni-
versity, but don't let it worry
you. The solution is as near as
the Michigan countryside.
You can buy yourself a farm
with a large group of other h p-
pies and go away to live without
the trammels of civilization on a
hippy farm. There you can spend
the rest' of your life truck farm-
ing to make money'and get food.
You might even get married or
some other arrangement and
have lots of hippy children to
show about lovingly. Hippies do
love children.
Actually, after Hashbury and
the rest of the show, this may be
the most appealing part of being
a hippy. At any rate you will have
lots of free time because truck
farmers do pretty well, so you can
read the I Ching which you
haven't touched in some time.
EVENTUALLY civilization may
call you back as an advertising
executive because you were so
good at making up psychedelic
posters at one time, and they
have become the new wave in ad-
vertising. Or you might become a
magnate in, the music' industry
because you were lucky enough to
pick out the band which really
made it big. Well, best of luck to
you, and I'll see your kids back
at the farm in about twenty years.
But you protest! No, that's not
the way it's supposed to happen.
The hippies are supposed to go on
being the true hippies, the only
real thing, the only truly gentle
people in this country. Perhaps.
But you will remember that we
set out to find out who the real
J
i
Psychedelic music drugs the crowd into ecs tasy at the traditional Sunday Love-in,
however, is also fraught with
danger. Pot is illegal, you see, and
they put you in jail for smoking
it. Nevertheless, smoking pot is
rather important if you want to
be a hippy.
And, if you really want to get
the love thing, according to Leary
and other swamis, you have to
take LSD. LSD we are told is a
serious thing, and it probably is
if you are inclined to be' neurotic
(aren't we all). But LSD, they
say, releases your brain so that
you can really communicate with
each other and love each other.
Well, you've read Time and you
know the arguments so decide for
yourself.
"But, officer, I really didn't
know it was . . .-
psychedelic stuff, the rest of pop
music is pretty good and works
just as well. The whole idea of'
listening to music is that you
communicate with the artist while
he performs. You may even dance
in the aisles; as a matter of fact,
it's almost required. You may not
particularly wish to communicate
with Mick Jagger right now, but
give the guy a chance.
ANOTHER EASY way to be-
come a hippy is to become a poor,
oriental philosopher. Essentially
what this means is that you go
on a "macrobiotic diet" consisting
mostly of brown rice and boiled
cabbage leaves, with some saki
when you poor philosophers can
afford it. Then, having been put
in a contemplative mood by the
brown rice, you begin to read the
right? This entrance into hippi-
don has its merits, mostly the en-
joyment of long hours of contem-
plation and listening to Buddhist
music. You can starve to death
too, but, then, nothing is perfect.
BY THIS TIME you are almost
fully initiated into the ways of
the hippy, but one more test must
be passed. You must make the'
great pilgrimage to Hashbury in
San Francisco to live on the
f street without money or food or
clean clothes to really understand
what it is like to be a hippy.
You will, of course imagine that
all of California is a warm happy
paradise, forgetting that the San
Francisco summers are cold and
wet. So before you die of pneu-
monia, you will pick up some free
clothes from the Diggers' store.
A
U 4r Atr4tgau Bally
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Editorial Staff
ROGER RAPOPORT, Editor
MEREDITH EIKER, Managing Editor