I NICHOLAS VON HOFFMAN ie M'tdiigatn Daily Seventy-nine years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan The effete snobs vs. the Old 420 Maynard St, Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764 Editorial, printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. -0552 CHER WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1969 NIGHT EDITOR: JIM NEUBA - I CSJ valid ehicle for student power THE PROCESS of meting out justice has always been a delicate one. What appears as a travesty to one party often seems eminently reasonable to another. But the decisions of duly-appointed judiciaries have generally been respected. The integrity of a judicial decision has been questioned only under unusual cir- cumstances. Courts have been, in fact, virtually invulnerable, above the blasts of opponents. Unfortunately, the student judiciary which recently completed its first major investigation and handed down its first verdict, is not invulnerable at all. Its jurisdiction is now limited to those areas the administration deems are within its competence and thus the student court is unable to guarantee students a trial by a T ough luck r'HERE IS SOME form of ironic justice in the discovery of a Soviet nuclear edge on the eve of the much touted arms limitations talks. The shoe is on another foot now and the foot is in another mouth. This country, self proclaimed mightiest of the mighty, appears to have been sur- passed. Reports issuing from Washing- ton, only a few days after agreement was reached to begin the arms talks, indicate the Soviet Union has in place, or going into place, about 1,350 intercontinental ballistic missiles. That is about 300 more than this country has. And with this revelation comes pious apprehension. Officials indicate they are worried this new discovery make it dif- ficult to work out arms control agree- ments with the Russians. BEYOND THE slight queasiness in the stomach caused by the amazing prox- imity of the announcement of talks and the discovery of completely unsuspected Soviet arms, one is tempted to examine the arrogance of this country. We have long vowed to negotiate from strength rather than from weakness. Each arms build up has been coupled with cries of making the country strong so that the prospects for negotiation would be improved. Many senators justified the ABM system as a way to give the Presi- dent strength in possible arms limita- tion talks. HUT THE leaders of this country never seemed to care whether the Soviets were apprehensive about coming into talks on the weak side. After all, they're just a bunch of Reds. -C. S. jury of their peers for all non-academic offenses committed on campus. MOREOVER, CSJ may be under attack from those above the law. Strong criticism levelled at the judiciary by one member of the administration may serve as a warning signal that University of- ficials frown on CSJ's proceedings and doubt its competence. This is not to say that actions taken by the court should not be subject to review. On the contrary, CSJ's verdict in the cases of four students accused of pre- venting a naval recruiter from interview- ing engineering students last spring is open to scrutiny by competent persons, including Vice President for Academic Affairs Smith, a former dean of the Law School. But it is important that the crit- icism of CSJ be directed at the tenability of its legal stance and not at the char- acters or competence of the jurists. LIKE OTHER judiciaries, CSJ was at- tempting to consider mitigating cir- cumstances, which might demand the court render a loose interpretation of student conduct rules. By acquitting three students and convicting the- fourth and SDS, the court acted with restraint because they felt the illegal acts in- volved were conscientious ones. But without further probing into the merits of this action, one must consider, the manner in which the judiciary acted. Considering this was the first significant action taken by the student judiciary, its proceedings were commendable. It is im- possible to doubt the conscientiousness with which the members of the judiciary approached their task. They consulted University law profes- sors, spent long hours deliberating as a group and came up with a decision which they felt was rational within the law. Certainly, the conduct of the court was as controversial as this final decision it reached. From the first, the judiciary made it clear it. would hold informal hearings which could be understood with- out difficulty by thoughtful observers. That some observers felt this procedure made a "circus" out of the court should not discredit CSJ; there really is no rea- son to believe that Anglo-Saxon formali- ties guarantee the dispensation of jus- tice. INDEED there is no reason to believe CSJ is incapable of acting fairly in the future. It would be most unfortunate if the Regents were now to dismiss the student court and not accept the pend- ing bylaw which would expand CSJ's power to try all student non-academic offenses. If the Regents and administra- tion are to ignore CSJ after its first case, it will be prematurely quashing a valid vehicle of student power. W HILE IT'S TRUE t.h a t our honored Vice President only opens his mouth to change feet, we can learn from listen- ing to him. Much of what he says is coun- try club locker room guff - the cracks about the "Polacks" and the "Japs" are just so much crabgrass bigotry - but he treats of themes which should be pondered as well as ridiculed. "The effete corps of impudent snobs" speech is interesting because it doesn't de- pict the antiwar movement as subversive in the old Joe McCarthy sense. Agnew doesn't show himself as someone who sees spies under the bed. He isn't witchhunting and the people who liken these statements to what happened twenty years ago make the same kind of error others make when they compare a withdrawal from Saigon to an Asian Munich. AGNEW DRAWS APICTURE of him- self as a man surrounded by an irrational mob. The members of this mob appear to him to carry placards reading, "Fags for Freedom," "Degenerates for Democracy," "Sissies for Social Justice," "Pantywaists for Priorities," "Literates for License," "Pansies for People." This must be a terrible experience for him, this feeling he obviously has that not Moscow, the capitol of an evil yet manly ideology, but rather a horrible crowd of perverts are sexing up the society and de- stroying reason and order by the most re- volting hedonism. You may shrug your shoulders at this and say, "well, he's just exchanging red baiting for fairy baiting." But this is larger than the classic Ameri- can male insecurity; it's more t h a n the brutish pasttime of getting drunk and go- ing out to beat up homosexuals in the Bo- hemian section of town. Agnew isn't doing that. He isn't leading a mob. He's expressing a theme that hor- rifies and angers many conservative peo- ple who're threatened by the kinds of cur- rents which are indisputably loose in our society. The other night in Illinois, Gov. Ronald Reagan gave a talk in which he evinced even greater fright: "WITH THE INCREASING affluence and opulence the young men of Rome be- gan avoiding military service. They found excuses to remain in the soft and sordid life of the city. They took to using cos- metics, wearing feminine-like hairdos and garments until it became difficult to tell the sexes apart." Ancient Rome is to the fundamentalist in politics as Eden is to the fundamentalist in religion. Man was expelled from Eden, and Rome fell for the same reasons, the difference being that in the latter case it was a whole society that took a bit out of the apple. So the Governor says of Rome in another speech delivered in Washington last week, "We know it started with a kind of pioneer heritage not unlike our own. Then it en- tered into its two two centuries of great- ness, reaching its height in the second of those two centuries, going into its decline and collapse in the third. However, signs of decay were becoming apparent the end of our second century. It has been pointed out that the days of democracy are num- bered once the belly takes command of the head. When the less affluent feel the urge to break a commandment and begin to covet that which their more affluent neighbors possess, they are tempted to use their votes to obtain instant satisfaction." FORGET THE FACT that his history is hopelessly cockeyed. Treat what he has to say about Rome as an edifying myth which, like all such fairy tales, is supposed to tell us how to act now. The good socie- ty of good citizens is pious, manly in the military sense of the word, frugal, feroc- iously self-disciplined and harshly puri- tan in its sexual behavior. The internal man in such a society is well ordered and positively certain in his beliefs and his opinions; he is tight inside, unplayful. drastically limited in the plea- sures he'll permit himself, and above all, he --and it is a he, for this is a very man- dominated vision-wears a mask and a full set of clothes. The citizen of Roman Eden, the Regan-Agnew ideal American. has a public face and personality which, as businessman / father / husband / voter or whatever, he wears over his private, per- sonal often agonized self. He is, par ex- cellence, un-together man. The Reagans and the Agnews are now being assaulted by together man - as in the expression, "I'm getting myself to- gether." By the old Roman understanding, together man is a slob, and adangerous one. He's a slob because he wears no mask and no suit of clothes. He gets himself together, both his public and private faces, which means he recognized all his feel- ings, his needs, his drives, his fantastical ravings, his raveled and free form thoughts, and none of this shames him. THIS IS ONE of the reasons nudity is so popular at the moment. This aspect of it has nothing to do with shocking stuffed shirts People take off their clothes to get themselves together, to cast away t h e mask. This is also why unbelievably large numbers are into sensitivity training. Part of getting themselves together is learning how to feel and be felt, to come alive by recognizing the body and its capacities. Together man can live with disorder. When he does order thought, he does it differently from un-together man, who confuses reason with a beaux-arts formal- ity. His is the open-ended, free-form, play- full reason with strange, new logics which terrify people like Reagan, who say this of education and teachers: "Among the teachers and scholars (of old Rome) there was a group called the cynics who let their hair and beards grow, were slovenly in their dress, professing an indifference to worldly goods: and they heaped scorn on what they called the middle-class culture . . . to clearly raise Romans doubts and to ever seek and never find is to be in opposition of education and pro- gress. To discuss freely all sides of all ques- tions without values is to ensure the cre- aMon of a generation of uninformed and talkative minds." UN-TOGETHER MAN shrieks at doubt. It is sloppy, it leads to beards, to the nudity of the inner, passionate person and who once he has his clothes off will wiggle his pelvis, dance to West African rythn and go wild in the streets. Un-together man sees a straight line of casuality from mod- ern mathematics to De Konning to Watts and Columbia. All of this is made more playful and bitter because the Agnews and the Reagans know that these playful people who show off their bodies, do it in the road and un- ashamedly delight in touching, smelling and tasting, are increasingly the prime creators and maintainers of our tech- nology. Look who wears the bell bottom pants in our national family. Agnew and Reagan know who does and so they struggle and hit out, but they're unequipped. Together man is so free flow- ing that he won't stand still and fight; he won't stay in the political arena. Agnew and all those guys try to get him back into formal politics, but the line between politics and art, sex, music and clothes has become a porous membrane. The Romans draw their swords and go through the membrane curtain to attack the effete and the hir- sute, to restore the old categories, put them back on their pedestals like a row of Corinthian columns. The battle is joined everywhere but not along class lines. Rich fight rich, poor fight poor, the middle splits. The fight is for the inner space of man, and it cannot be kept in courts or legislatures. It is fought in schools, barbershops, dress stores, movie studios, suburbs. It will last a long time and will only end when the modern Ro- mans go the way of the old. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Racial To the Editor: THIS IS WRITTEN, proverbial- ly. more in sorrow than in ange', for wvhat Alexa Canady wrote in her editorial, "HRC jurisdiction over the University," I prefer to believe was a product more of ig- norance than malice. 'hat racial discrimination exists in our society is not a question. it's a fact. It also is true that the Uni- versity is Ann Arbor's largest single employer. Therefore, loi - cally, the University must be the biggest discriminator. It also is true that the Univer- sity, as the largest employer, prob- ably is doing the most to attempt to change the social inequities in our society. Has Miss Canady at- tempted to learn about academic and non-academic efforts in re- cruiting, training, upgrading, com- munity service, and education in which the University is engaged? Has she bothered to look at the evidence, including statistics? Or is she dealing in the broad gen- eralities which express a dissatis- faction al of us ought to feel with how rapidly and well society--in- cluding the University -is trying to correct wrongs? IT DOES not really help to solve anything to restate conventional wisdom about discrimination in society, implying that the problem is one of deliberate bias. Those instances can be handled. The frustrating problem is unconscious racism and, beyond that, achieving an understanding of what af- bias in firmative action means. It does not help to repeat an inaccurate characterization of the so-called "Green report." (You even have an inaccurate paraphrase of the Daily's original inaccuracy!) And it does not help-really, it's vicious ---to have a member of the HRC label black people working within an institution to help change things as Uncle Toms. -Jack H. Hamilton Assistant Director university Relations .loderauion To the Editor: STEVE NISSEN in his article of Oct. 22 concludes by asking how "sensitive and concerned people" can call for moderation in the face of the atrocities "synonymous with the American way of life." As such sensitive and concerned persons, we hope to be able to answer his question. It should be made clear from the beginning that the word "modera- tion" has to many of us involved in Students for Effective Action (SEA) the same negative connota- tion it holds for Mr. Nissen. It has a sort of "Uncle Tom" air about it. It implies that we feel we should be nice and submissive in the face of oppression. But the problem is that the term "moderate" is not one we in SEA would willingly apply to ourselves: it is rather the term others apply to us, thereby attributing to SEA University employment passive acceptance of the often unresponsive political system. WE ARE NOT about passivity. We want many of the vast changes both within and without the U~ni- versity sought by the more con- frontation-oriented p o I i t i c a I groups. And we realize, as Mr. Nissen does, that "Students, as a class, lack any real voting power in the University decision-making system," with rare exceptions. We recognize that as long as there is this lack of a meaningful vote in the decision-making, con- frontation can at times be an ef- fectixe alternative. But we also r'ealize the unfortunate natur'e of this situation. SEA WANTS a much greater role for students and all people in decisions affecting their lives. But we refuse to throw out "rational dialogue" and constructive pro- posals as a means to such change: Mr. Nissen refers to this as a "lack of political sophistication." He says that we are naive if xxe view those governing the University and the nation as reasonable, rational men who can be peaceably dealt with. The principles of democracy may be naive, but it should be made clear that lack of political cynicism does not necessarily im- ply lack of political sophistication. WE STILL FEEL that, at least in the University community, the system can be made responsive to the interests of the people. History , Af~EATIO IN~~~j~u~rFJ1 ~4 I M "Where do they get those crazy ideas ..?.. HENRY STEVE NISSEN City Editor CHRIS STEELE ... MARCIA ABRAMSON .. GRIX, Editor RON LANDSMAN Managing Editor .-Associate City Editor Associate Managing Editor -HENRY GRIX Editor Welfare mothers coopted by white liberals This year's d r i v e by the welfare mothers for adequate funds to clothe their school-age children was a com- plete fiasco. This failure best exem- plifies the ineffectuality of petitioning a repressive government through the "democratic" redress machinery pro- vided by that oppressive agency. Last year at the beginning of the learning season, some 7500 Washte- natw County welfare mothers won for their approximately 15,000 children $73.50 so their children could wear new school clothes and not have to feel ashamed of patched and ill-fit- ting hand-me-downs. But this year school has been in session for one month and these same welfare mothers find themselves try- ing to clothe their children with one- third of last year's allotment. Have twelve months so altered the mothers' temperament from aggres- siveness to docility, from righteous in- dignation to humble submission? Hardly. The anger is there, but it has been subdued; the mothers were coopted by a group of liberal white middle class professionals, who sought to purge their guilt feelings formed from years of armchair theorizing and a reluctance to commit themselves to successful actions. The white liberals were determined to conduct a "prop- er" demonstration in marked contrast to the confrontation protest staged by radicals last year. But welfare mothers are aware that even if they do protest in the socially acceptable manner, their voices are not heard and their requests are not ognized the WRC as a representative negotiating body for the mothers. Then mothers attempted to appeal di- rectly to the Supervisors but w e r e denied admittance to the meetings. And their reasoning and pleading were to no avail for their listeners were heartless, well-fed men whose families are m o r e than adequately clothed, whose first attentions are di- rected toward their businesses, and who regard the welfare mothers as a once-in-the-year thorn in their sides. The Concerned Citizens Committee for school clothing has vowed to press their demand for increased welfare al- lotments. But so what. Their efforts will be largely unfruitful because they are resolved to employ only the "dem- ocratic" processes of redress. Indeed t h e radical philosophy of confrontation when all else fails is ex- ecuted with considerably less finesse than petitioning and resolutions. And, at least in the case of the mothers. it creates a melodramatic sensational- ism, which tends to beclouds the is- They claimed there were no additional funds and drew up a resolution, sign- ed and endorsed by four district judg- es, which said that any disturbances in the County Building would meet with immediate prosecution. Yet af- ter almost two months of negotiating, demonstrating, picketing and peti- tioning, and one incidental arrest, the supervisors admitted a $124,000 sur- plus but said it was earmarked f o r 1970 expenditures. And now the mothers have no more than $27.50, and the Supervisors have not offered to do more in 1970 than allocate $5,000 for a church s t o r e front, which will act as a gratis Sal- vation Army center, where the moth- ers can get free clothing that other families have discarded. Even if the white liberals had won an increased allotment for the moth- ers it would not have resolved the basic problem. Their appeals would have been considered because t h e i r pigmentation and economic status were correct. Had their numbers been up to this point may not bear us out. But things are different now. More people are aware of what's going on and are unwilling to put up with it. WE DO NOT want a time to come when peaceful change be- comes impossible and violent change becomes inevitable. We urge others whose "lack of polit- ical sophistication" leads them to believe in rational dialogue and constructive proposals to join SEA in efforts to make this political system a democratic one. -Jeff Tirengel, '71 -Rick Curtis, '70 -Andy Weissman, "71 Dull lectures To the Editor: IT IS 8:45 of a fall evening, and how comforting it is to know that all over Ann Arbor professors are doing their best to make sure that their next day's lectures will be as dull as possible. Although there ar'e some potentially fascinating courses offered at this Univ-rsity, the professors in most depart- fnents have managed to ignore all the potentially interesting, useful material, and to concentrate in- stead on the obscure facts and ridiculous jargon of their respec- tive fields. Perhaps the most successful at- tempt in this school at making a potentially enjoyable, interesting course dull has been made by the botany department. in the course work of Botany 101. Botany 101 offers the student an unparal'led TRASTRUCTURE, so that in later life. as his student happens to take a casual glance in a microscope he may spot a Golgi body, and rec- ognize it as such. A rose is a rose is a rose. But a Golgi body is a dictyosome, and should be studied reverently. Sleep well, oh troubled student of in- troductory botany. And rest as- sured-your Botany 101 midterm of today is the Chem. 672 final exam of tomorrowv. -Kathy Peiffer, '7 Tatxint; storv To the Editor: LAURIE HARRIS summarized the Wednesday night meeting of the Graduate Assembly in the Thursday, Oct. 23 edition of The Daily. Two-thirds of her aticle discussed a GA motion on ROTC, although it was only one of four items on the agenda. At the pesent time ROTC is in vogue on campus. This xt'as an im- portant issue at the GA meeting but so were others. Over an hour was spent debating the substitu- tion of a city income tax for the present city property tax, yet one could only surmise from the ar- ticle that it was an issue of little substance. MISS HARRIS WROTE. "GA also passed a motion supporting the city income tax proposed by City Council as a substitution for the present property tax." In fact the motion was carried ove' - whelmingly and was intended to ennourage stuidents to support and cause they lack evolutionary analytic