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September 22, 1960 - Image 4

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Text
Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 1960-09-22

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01 £rlpgan gait,
Seventieth Year
AND MANAGED ST STUDENTs OF THE UNIWEKsrry OF MICHIGAN
AUTHORrry OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONs
ti PBUcATIONs BLD. . ANN ARBOR, MICH. * Phone No 2-3241
n Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
s. This must be noted in all reprints.
NIGHT EDITOR: FAITH WEINSTEIN

Crisis in Suburban Schooling

I

rnit Progress.
-tent or Hlumane.

he University
n unusually
of this corn-
-ratic society

d by most
.s orientation
Greenberg,
Trost as well,
. elation of the
academics.
uncement by'
:myna Delta of
_~tonomy" and
policies.
excellent in
niversity has
e classroom
student is
impossibly-
iy, in which
wires of the
sagreement,
raditionally
rnrelated to
s the two
ml--:ust be
t -ity is to
,community.
...a NU and
7tin intent.
v a desire to
of segrega-
The decisions
nd passively
d beards, they
rtng the more
,as picketing
?iks seem to
the Ann Arbor
:mer.
uitement prob-
-pear to have
up to $2.25.
"Ier starvation
t haircuts, the
1-g.
.-K. MCZ.

allow the local chapters some measure of
independence from their national organizations
and also offer human beings at least the
opportunity to be judged as human beings
when they rush.
The doubts remain lingering, however. The
first involves the general question of motive.
There is absolutely no doubt about the in-
tegrity of Miss Greenberg and Trost, but one
must nevertheless ask if the two important
changes are the result of outside pressures on
the fraternity systems or an actual inner-
directed desire on the part of fraternity af-
filiates. Undoubtedly both motives are present,
not only on this campus but also across the
country. Wherever the superficial motive-
"we must become academic and integrated if
we are to be allowed to stay on campus"-
exists, it must be replaced by more humane,
more sincere intentions.
THE SECOND DOUBT follows from the first.
It concerns the gap between declarations
and realities. Again, while Miss Greenberg
and Trost have acted from genuine sincerity,
one must still point out that the actual campus
situation is far from ideal. Fraternities still
tend to ritualize the playing of games more
than any other campus living units. Some
still continue anachronistic "hell weeks." They
still tend to "play it cool" rather than open
their value systems to all the pressures that
teachers and other students can bring to -bear.i
They still tend to divide their membership
according to faith or race-over 30 are almost
solidly White Christian, seven are largely
Jewish, two are totally Negro. There is, in other
words, little reason to believe that the elimina-
tion of a discriminatory membership restriction
actually eliminates racial or religious dis-
crimination.
These are the major problems the fraternity
today faces-not the false problem of how to
remain in existence on the University campus.
The local system is improving. But is must
further adhere in practice to the words Trost
used last spring at a Big Ten fraternity con-
ference: "American society has sufficiently
changed so that there is no room for carry-
overs from pre-Civil War days such as these
arbitrary discrimination clauses. We must re-
cognize that fraternities which are located on
a given campus are, in effect, guests of the
university, and that they should keep in good
faith with that University."
THOMAS HAYDEN, Editor

LETTERS:
Philosophic
Statement
To the Editor:
IN RESPONSE to the question on
the editorial page of yesterday's
Daily, "When is the college ex-
perience?"; it occurred on Sep-
tember 20, 1960, at 3:25 p.m. EST-
Sorry you missed it.
--C. Hugh Fleetwood
Cyrus W. Banning
John H. Woods
Morris Starsky
Ronald Stoathoff,
Department of Philosophy
Picketers Fence .. .
To the Editor:
I SIOULD like to correct a state-
ment made by Peter Stuart in
his otherwise excellent description
of the activities of the Ann Arbor
Direct Action Committee in Tues-
day's Daily. It was stated that
"Picketing against the Cousins
shop will resume at its expected
reopening next month. . . ." No
plans to resume picketing of the
Cousins shop have been made by
AADAC at this time.
In May AADAC requested the
Ann Arbor Human Relations Com-
mission to enter the case as me-
diator. We are currently awaiting
word from the commission. It is
our policy to attempt serious dis-
cussions and negotiations with all
parties concerned.
--Jack Ladinsky, Coordinator
Ann Arbor Direct Action
Committee
Reviewers
All students interested in re-
viewing films, theatre, music,
opera, art or books for The
Daily are invited to attend an
open meeting at 8 p.m. to-
day on the first floor of the
Student Publications Building.

large enough, too large or still has
room to grow. Some persons sug-
gest that any administration-
government, business or university
-does not think it is doing a good
job unless it is always expanding
its activities.
University President H a r l a n
Hatcher has committed this Uni-
versity to continued growth. He
feels that, as a state-supported in-
stitution, it is the University's
duty to educate the growing num-
bers of high school students grad-
uated in Michigan.
Further, the larger the school,
the greater amount of research
it can support.
However, the University hasn't
been able to expand much in re-
cent years. The state Legislature,
which supplies about one-third of
the University's operating funds,
has not upped its appropriations
considerably.
THE LEGISLATURE would like
to have greater control over the
University. At present, the Uni-
versity is a constitutionally auton-
omous body whose only formal
connection with state government
is the receipt of operating and
building funds.
A bill which several legislators
favor would knit together the nine
state-supported colleges and uni-
versities under a supervisor who
would answer to the Legislature.
It has never been acted upon.
As long as the Legislature does
not provide the University with
more funds, the University must
work within nearly the same
budget from year to year (un-
less it tries to raise more money
from outside sources).
THIS MEANS ADMISSIONS
must be held at a nearly constant
level. But greater numbers of high
school graduates are applying.
The University could be more
selective, thereby raising the qual-
ity of studenats.
Or it can cut down the number
of out-of-state students, which has
stood in recent years at about one-
third of all the freshmen. The
University is thinking of doing
this.

The University's Future:*
Expansion or Stasis?
By NAN MARKEL
City Editor
IE University's student body, counting those on the Ann Arbor,
Flint and Dearborn campuses, is approximately 32,634.
Do students lose their individuality at the University? Is it too
big to be home? Or are there enough small groups so that each per-
son may find one which he would like to fit into?
Does the University mass-produce its graduates? Can teachers
give enough individual attention to encourage their students to think
originally?
THE UNIVERSITY has never been able to tell whether it is

By MICHAEL OLINICK
Daily staff writer
O RATORICAL bigotry, cries of
racial discrimination, and the
angry faces of student picketers
reflected the problem of providing
an adequate education for 24 De-
troit area students, a crisis which
is still not completely resolved
after a summer of meetings,
speeches and conferences.
No real positive action towards
a solution came until Governor
Williams intervened at a school
board meeting of Royal Oak town-
ship's all-Negro George Washing-
ton Carver School District early
this month. He pleaded with the
members to dissolve the district
and allow the county to attach the
area to a sounder one. It was after
3 a.m. when the angered and des-
perate township people finally re-
ceived the resignations of the
board's members, the first step
toward dissolution of the district.
THE IMMEDIATE cause of this
move was concern for the two
dozen Carver ninth graders who
had nowhere to attend classes ex-
cept in their own elementary
school, under a makeshift and in-
adequate curriculum. Underlying
it was a sincere community desire
for sound and upright education.
The Carver district had been
maintaining a kindergarten
through eighth grade system,
sending its high school age young-
sters to Detroit on a tuition basis.
Last year, however, notice was
given that Detroit would no longer
accept any new tuition students
beginning September 1960 because
of overcrowding in its secondary
schools.
* , *
TURNING to its neighbors, Car-
ver asked Ferndale and Oak Park
to accept the ninth graders. Fern-
dale, long regarded as a fine school
system, examined its mammoth
new high school and claimed it
could not rescind its long standing
policy against it accepting any tui-
tion students. Oak Park, a young
suburb with a majority of Jewish
families, evaluated its excellent ed-
ucational plant and arrived at the
same decision as Ferndale.
But everything did not remain
quiet in this offspring of the urban
exodus.
While Carver began planning
for a ninth grade within Its own
borders (its only alternative after
refusal by the other districts), citi-
zens groups began to mobilize in
Oak Park. They believed that it
was a "moral responsibility" to
system. They were convinced that
accept the students into Oak
Park's system. They were con-
vinced that Carver could not offer
an adequate high school program,
while Oak Park already had an
excellent one in existence,
* * *
THE QUESTION of racial dis-
crimination arose. Many people
viewed Oak Park as a city popu-
lated by a majority who had moved
to the suburbs to abandon a white
neighborhood Into which Negro
families were moving.
The local citizens groups moved
to convince the Oak Park School
Board to change its original deci-
sion. Prof. Leonard Moss, a sociol-
ogist at Wayne State University,
worked to interest local residents
in the problem and the B'nai
Brith's Anti - Defamation League
helped spark action. Sol Plafkin,
an elementary school teacher and
defeated candidate for county
drain commissioner stirred up a

local chapter of the Young Demo-
crats to advocate the admittance
of these students in Oak Park. Dan
Berkowitz, a graduate of Oak Park
High School and a freshman at
Wayne's Monteith College. posed a
series of questions to the school
board asking for a clear-cut state-
ment of what moral responsibility
and action the board would take in
solving the problem.
* *.*
THE PRESSURE of these indi-
vidual citizens and organizations
resulted in a public meeting of the
school board. In the packed gym-
nasium of an Oak Park elementary
school, both sides presented their
views after Dr. William Emerson,
Oakland County Superintendent of
Education, gave an historical
background of the Carver district.
The Carver school district is in-
side Royal Oak Township, an area
in which the federal government
moved workers near the end of
World War II. A defense plant was
erected, "temporary" housing set
up, and a school constructed. After
the war, the government decided
to let the "temporary" situation
continue and added to the school.
The defense plant, however, was
no longer needed and $6 million in
taxable property was moved out of
the factory. Instead of selling the
building to a commercial industry
which might have moved taxable
items into it, the federal govern-
ment decided to give it to the
National Guard and remove it
from the tax rolls.
* * *
THIS LOSS of assessable prop-
erty left the Carver District with
a tax base of $2,400 per child. The
average base in Michigan is up-
wards of $13,000 and Oak Park,
Ferndale, and Detroit all exceed
the average. At the final meeting
of the Carver school board, Gov.
Williams said, "Experts feel that
such a small tax base cannot sup-
port an adequate and complete
school system."
The district has a low social and
economic level. Vice and violence
are no strangers to its residents.
Many people have termed the area
"The garbage dump of Oakland
County."
* * *
AGAINST THIS background, Oak
Park citizens debated whether or
not to accept the two dozen chil-
dren and give them a proper edu-
cation, At the public meeting,
those uwho favoredsadmission of
the students stressed the moral
responsibility to give all children
a good education. They cited the
precepts of the Founding Fathers
and charged that local prejudices
could make "Ugly Americans" at
home as well as abroad.
Those who opposed the admis-
sion claimed Oak Park could not
economically offer to allow the
students into its schools. Tuition,
they said, would be hard to collect
from an area whose residents were
mostly on welfare. Didn't Carver
still owe Detroit $125,000? Taxes,
already high, would nave to be
hiked again.
As far as responsibility goes, they
argued, Oak Park had no more
than the county, the state, and the
nation. Besides, Oak Park's con-
cern should be with its own chil-
dren.
"Although I agree that our pri-
mary obligation is to the children
of residents within the Oak Park
school district," Dr. Morris Weiss,
one of the two board members who
vote dto accept the students, said
"I could not face my wife and

children with a clear conscience if
I denied these youngsters a decent
education."
** ,
STRANGELY ENOUGH, another
man named Morris Weiss rose to
speak later. He was a former
school board member and was
proud of the Oak Park system.
"Don't think it was merely an ac-
cident," he said, "we planned It
that way."
He went on to describe the Car-
ver district as corrupt and dis-
honest, criminal and violent, fool-
ish and immoral. "The area's full
of thirteen year old whores and
hoodlums. Do ou want your
children to associate with these
kind of people?" he cried.
"Bigoted old man!" an angered
and trembling young voice an-
swered him.
. * * *
PREJUDICE WAS NOW AN
open public issue. As the young
man who had shouted at Weiss
put it, "They have been trying
to hide behind a false economic
issue to conceal their fear and
hatred of Negroes. It's a clear-
cut case of racial bigotry.'"
All the emotion and logic re-
leased at the meeting did not
sway Oak Park's decision. With
less than a week remaining before
classes started, the Carver ninth
graders seemed destined to a year
of inferior training.
A group of student picketers
formed in Oak Park to protest the
board's decision. Their intention
was to picket the high school and
stage a student walkout on the
first day of classes.
* * *
CARVER RESIDENTS ALSO
refuse to accept the alternative
of a poor education for their
children. A group led by Reuben
Harris requested and received a
chance to speak their minds at
a public meeting of the school
board. Gov. Williams, State Super-
intendent of Education Lynn
Bartlett, and the Oakland County
Board of Education accepted in-
vitations to attend the meeting
and help solve the district's prob-
lem.
Williams and Bartlett told an
audience of 600 that the state felt
that every school district should
support its own kindergarten
through twelfth grade system
Since Carver's tax base was to
small to provide this much edu-
cation on an adequate scale, they
advised the dissolution of the dis-
trict. The county would then at-
tach the area to Ferndale or Oak
Park, or parts to each.
Fearing that dissolution might
mean the establishment of a seg-
regated district within Oak Park
or Ferndale, the residents asked
Williams if this could happen. The
Governor replied that this was
constitutionally impossible and
that there was no history of school
segregation in any Michigan area,
He told the Carver residents that
any refusal to resign and let the
district be dissolved would be "A
vote for segregation."
AFTER THE RESIDENTS In-
dicated their almost unanimous
(only three opposed) wish that
Carver be dissolved, the school
board met in closed session to
discuss resignation. The meeting
reconvened at 12:30 a.m. and a
voice vote was taken of the board
members. The atmosphere was
quite, but tense, as each member
spoke his vote. Three members
favored thevdissolution and re-
signed, two opposed it and stayed
on the board.
The happy cheers of the resi-
dents were quelled by the Gover-
nor's statement that all five mem-
bers must approve the action. He
adjourned the meeting. In eight
hours the Carver school would
greet its first group of high school
students, however unprepared it
might be.
Angry Carver parents would not

ecquiesce to the board's vote.
During the night a "semi-
Vigilante" group visited the homes
of the two members who had re-
fused to sign. One gave in at 2:30
saying, 1I did not understand the
real issues involved." At 3:30 the
fifth man resigned with his terse
"I cannot stand in the way of
progress."
THE OFFICIAL RESIGNATION
came last Monday. County Super-
intendent Emerson promptly set
Sept. 26 as the date for a special
election to fill the board vacancies.
If fewer than five qualified elec-
tors indicate they will run, the
district will be officially dissolved.
Gov. Williams and a Carver
citizens committee haveaindicated
they would talk to anyone in-
terested in running for the office
and attempt to dissuade them.
It is expected that no one will
file for the election and the dis-
trict will dissolve. Immediately
following this, the county will
annex the area to Oak Park and/
or Ferndale.
Dr. James N. Pepper, Oak Park
School Superintendent has in-
dicated it would take at least two
years of litigation before the Car-
ver students could be integrated in
the Oak Park system. Citizens are
passing petitions around request-
ing trat Oak Park receive none
of the Negro students. They are
claiming that tax rates will go up
and people may flee the suburb,
initiating collapsing property

4

., ;.

nority r O

trhers are kill-
=-ave declared
ye achieved a
"anhattan, a
Russia will
'other states-
orld have not
Ct-is messy
t time of both
ions. There
ng into UN
Sappens they
" tly when the
longed and
even the
weaker ones.
e explosion
principle of a
. m can save
on that will
a the turmoil
will cause
shchev and
,he classical
on the idea
ire right to
- owers today
er the un-
thir nuclear
ions, speak-
t the small
likely to
h Lumumba
Congo are
as.Dag
too, more
In asserting
ater stake
kt._:e of any
:1 V I
; -crrR

particular nation, Hammerskijold open himself
to fire from every direction.
It takes a cool judgement, strong will, un-
ruffled nerve to run the UN show under this
fire. Our great-grandchildren, if they ever get
a chance to write world history, may be grate-
ful to a man called Hammarskjold for not
losing his nerve.
AMM ihCA "s' followed the only possible
cour"insupporting the UN action in the
Congo. Its real failure has been the failure
to move rapidly inside Africa so that the
Russians were left to make all the first moves,
and its failure inside the UN to go beyond
the mere support of Hammarskjold and to take
the offensive with a dramatic "keep out of
Africa" campaign.
This is all the stranger when you set
it within the frame of Henry Cabot Lodge's
boastful promise, as Vice Presidential candi-
date, that "we will win the cold war by
ending it." On the first great African test,
the Congo struggle, America is neither ending
nor winning the cold war. Lodge says the
American motto will be "mystify, mislead and
surprise." He lays himself open to the retort
that America's policies for eight years have
mystified only its allies, mislead only the voters,
and surprised no one.
I fear that the Stonewall Jackson motto
which Lodge quoted is a better description of
Soviet tactics than of American. Khrushchev
moved swiftly and ruthlessly into the Congo,
flew Ilyushin planes to the support of Lumum-
ba, maneuvered Communist agents and sym-
pathizers into Lumumba's inner council of ad-
visers, and is now on his way to the UN to
pose as the champion of the new African
nations.
NO MATIER HOW shockingly he insulted
President Eisenhower and the American
people at the Paris summit, he cannot be
ignored. He must be answered by an attack
which anticipates his own. For Khrushchev
is trying to follow on the African continent
the pattern of penetration, subversion, and
domination which he has followed in the
satellites and now in Cuba.
He embraces Lumumba in order the better
to strangle the Congolese people when the
incredible Lumumba has gone the way of all
pro-Communist puppets. In the first war of

THE AMERICAN STUDENT 1960:
Why This Erupn ug Generation?

4

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the
second in a four-part series of
articles on the new role of the
American student.)
By THOMAS HAYDEN
Editor
VlHE forces causing and molding
the erupting student genera-
tion are several and interconnect-
ed, ranging from the Cold War
to the rise of the Paperback Book.
Strangely enough, many of
them are the same forces which
apparently shaped the "beat" and
"silent" generations of the Fif-
ties.
They are forces and ideas which
may be traced back far in time,
to the Renaissance with its em-
phasis on kinetic focus, to the
Enlightenment and the notion of
human activity moving progres-
sively toward an ideal, then to
the development, of science and
concurrent undermining of older
idealisms and concepts of prog-
ress, to Mill and classical liberal-
ism, to Jefferson's attitudes on
liberty, human dignity, and tyr-
anny, to Ghandi's principles of
non-violent action, to Camus' con-
cept of the human struggle and
commitment.
CERTAINLY fundamental to
the rise of the student movement
is the attack on dogma begun
long ago by men like Copernicus,
Galileo, Darwin and Hume which
has gained momentum and ac-
ceptance in the twentieth cen-
tury, particularly among behav-
ioral and physical scientists. In
recent times spokesmen as dis-

Men like Philip Jacob recogniz-
ed at the same time a retreat from
adventure into secure conserva-
tism on the American campus. Ed-
mund Shower, who graduated
from Johns Hopkins last year, ex-
pressed the sentiments of the so-
called "silent generation":
If my generation seems
inert, it is not because we do
not care; it is because we feel
helpless...we are not so much
lost as rootless.
For we did not choose to
make the old ideas obsolete;
the changes which rendered
them so were foisted upon us.
Our intellectual forebears--
Darwin, Marx, Freud-have
left us with nearly barren
ground; with principles and
truths robbed of all certainty.
We are a generation that
wants to believe but dares
not. We have no firm princi-
ples to grasp for support.
THE OTHER "RETREATING"
element of the younger genera-
tion, popularly symbolized by Ker-
ouac, was also crying out: "...
What she has to say about the
world, about everybody falling
apart, about everybody clawing
aggressively at one another in
one grand finale of our glorious
culture, about the madness in
high places and the insane dis-
organized stupidity of the people
who let themselves be told what
to do and what to think by char-
latans-all that is true!"
But less than a year after such
declarations, an emotional and
moral revolution had come to

cerned that all of us, Negro
and white, realize the possi-
bility of becoming less in-
human humans through com-
mitment and action, with all
their frightening complexi-
ties...
* * *
STUDENTS, at least a large
minority of them, were becoming
actively involved in the public
order despite its complexity. They
acted often from frustration and
uncertainties, but they acted
nonetheless with spontaneity and
fervor, like men who have reach-
ed a point where it is self-im-
molating not to act.
Some observers had been pre-
dicting such a revolution in Amer-
ica for some .time-a revolution
that would reduce complexity to
moral simplicity, that would re-
store emotion to religion, that
would in fac$ give man back his
"roots."
It was within the 1960 stu-
dent that it developed fully, and
carried in application to the realm
of public affairs. Few had ex-
pected the students would lead,
although they were almost by
definition the natural group to
take up such a role.
* * *
EVERY GENERATION is some-
what disappointed with the so-
ciety they inherit, but rarely (if
at all) in the past have world
tensions been so great and world
developments so rapid and far-
reaching.
The present student generation
was born on the brink of war and

to speak and think openly was
seriously jeopardized in the uni-
versities. Hence, one may argue
the McCarthy period greatly in-
tensified the pressures on the
student which had already been
generated by the cold war and
the breakdown of old systems of
dogma and valuation.
It is a generation which can-
not avoid reading criticism of it-
self and its fathers; indeed the
media have flooded the market
with inexpensive paperbacks such
as "The Lonely Crowd," "The
Hidden Persuaders," "The Organi-
zation Man." And beyond the
realm of books, the students could
watch or read about hypocracies
everywhere: Take the Van Doren
case or the "payola" scandals.
* * *
Further, the student was not
only beset by uneasiness because
of the world of crisis, but be-
cause of a growing American con-
text of uneasiness, best manifest-
ed in the current discussions of
"national purpose."
Finally, this student generation
is infused with the traditional stu-
dent feelings: Idealism, hope, im-
patience, readiness to inherit the
world. But the world, as viewed
by many students, seems filled
with political expedience, a vac-
uum of leadership, great gaps be-
tween the rich and poor, greater
gaps between idealism and reali-
ties.
IT HAS BEEN THEREFORE, a
generation of students accurately
described as containing "tension

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