CI at au at Seventy-Third Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 11 - - UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS "Where Opinions Are Free STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG., ANN/ARBOR, MICH., PHONE NO 2-3241 Truth Will Prevail" Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in at, reprints. Each Time I Chanced To See Franklin Da I yLocal Reaction to Sorenson Proposal by H. Neil Berkson WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 1964 NIGHT EDITOR: KENNETH WINTER New Rules for Women: Welcome Flexibility REGENT SORENSON'S PROPOSAL to dissociate the University from the fraternity-sorority system has been examined from many sides, but no one has yet commented upon the reaction of Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Association. When the fraternity and sorority presidents walked out of their banquet last week after listening to Sorenson, many of them were favorably disposed to his remarks. The attitude was not that dissociation might be a good thing for the University, but that it might get the system out from under Student Government Council and the whole discrimination issue. As a matter of fact, the national sororities have specifically considered taking their organizations "off campus" because of the heat generated by the bias issue. What neither the nationals nor some of the local presi- dents apparently seemed to realize was that the fra- ternity and sorority systems would quickly expire apart from the University. IFC AND PANHEL were quick to recognize this fact, and they reacted almost immediately in opposition to Sorenson's plan. In the case of the fraternity system, this was not surprising. On the surface, at least, ,IFC finally moved last year to take a strong stand against discrimination in membership selection. Consequently, it recognizes no conflict with University policy. The sororities, on the other hand, have been strictly controlled by their archaic national organizations. The nationals were specifically responsible for the fight against SGC; they have been generally responsible for an elitist concept of the sorority system as "untouchable." Consequently, Panhel's reaction to the Sorenson proposal is particularly noteworthy. While the statement opposing dissociation from the University was rather nebulous ("contrary to the aims and purposes of Pan- hellenic Association and the individual collegiate chap- ters at the University"), the sororities took the aetion in spite of possible disapproval from their nationals. * * * PANHEL PRESIDENT Ann Wickins clearly em- phasized: "We must get away from the idea that allegiance to the nationals means absolute agreement with them." Obedience would have been a better word than agreement. Panhellenic is in a potentially explosive situation on campus. By the fall, some sororities will almost certainly be up before Student Government Council for violation of Regents' Bylaw 2.14. Moreover, the whole issue of the recommendation system has yet to be settled. As long as Panhel and the specific sororities remain tied to their nationals they will never solve their prob- lems. They could very possibly wind up off campus. In this context, Panhel's statement last week was important. It didn't go very far, but perhaps it will be followed by a persistent attempt on the part of the soror- ities to gain local control over their chapters. It's about time for sororities to become in fact the student organizations which they pretend to be. THE NUMBER of blank stares evoked by the title to this column in the past two weeks has finally beoome unbearable. The last straw came yesterday when, in three successive phone calls, one identical question floated across the other end of the receiver: "What in the world does it mean?" There must be one other person on campus who can provide the answer. Please? Anybody? AT LONG LAST, the doctrine of in loco parentis has come up for scrutiny by the University, resulting in a welcome in- crease in flexibility of interpretation. Slowly the administration is edging away from its fetish for preserving the University's "public image" by attempt- ing to protect its women students and in- stead is gradually handing back to par- ents the responsibility for student con- duct or misconduct here-and rightfully s0. The University in many ways in the past has rationalized the fact that wom- en are subject to numerous regulations while men are virtually free of restric- tions after their freshman year - i.e.: women are less able to take care of them- selves and therefore should be better su- pervised (and hence "protected") by ithe University; if women are subject to an early curfew, men are more apt to keep out of mischief (implying, of course, an impending moral decline with any exten- sion of hours); parents would be in an uproar at the thought of their daughters having complete personal freedom on a "liberal" campus. FOR THESE REASONS and others, the University has long stretched the doc- trine of in loco parentis to its limit in women's residences-setting arbitrary curfews; requiring detailed sign-out pro- cedures; curtailing men's visiting hours in the public areas of women's dormitor- ies. Although the in loco parentis doctrine supposedly holds the University respon- sible. for aspects of the well-being of its students, in fact there is virtually no means by which the University can guar- antee the "safe-keeping" of students while they are here. In its recent report to the OSA re-, questing changes in women's regulations, the Women's Conference Committee not- ed that "it is known that back door exits are being made after closing hours." For that matter, it is also known that sign-out requirements are often ignored and back doors are regarded as conven-. ient entrances for those who do not wish to abide by the common curfew. ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT POINT in the WCC recommendation states that "al- though the fact that rule is not readily enforceable is not necessarily just ration- ale for abolishing it, the problem must be approached with realism." A realistic attitude, then, is the key to the OSA's recent decisions. Other than the dubious "protective" purpose of wom- en's rules, there has been no valid rea- son for maintaining stringent regula- tions. In liberalizing many of the cur- rent regulations, the OSA apparently acknowledged that the moral issue asso- ciated with the question of greater per- sonal freedom is a false one. At long last, the University has faced up to the public image dilemma. No longer need it hide behind an arbitrary curfew or sign-out system as "proof" that it is fulfilling its paternal obligations. In- stead, recognizing that morality cannot be legislated, it has pointed up the initial responsibility of parents to instill a mor- al code in their children. ACTUALLY, the University has long been aware that its rules and the student's moral code are not correlative phenomena -a liberalization of the former cannot be said to promote the loosening of the latter. Never before, however, has the University been so frank and open about its attitudes and intentions. Never before has the University so can- didly turned tables on the public image controversy. Even the decision last year to grant apartment permission to all senior women was not as significant a liberalization as the extensive changes which are pending. Prior to that time it was relatively easy for any senior women to get "special" permission from the OSA to live in an apartment. The parallel de- cision to grant "unlimited" hours and key permissions to senior women living in the dormitories was a necessary follow-up to the apartment regulation, so that all senior women would be accorded the same relative freedom. Through its approval of the pending liberalization, the administration has in effect recognized that the prime obliga- tion of a university, after all, is to be a shaper of minds and skills. At the same time, it has called upon parents to recognize their own duty to in- still moral values in their offspring be- fore they are packed off to the University. THIS CANDOR is refreshing in that it affords the student, the parent and the University the dignity which they all deserve. It allows the student the right to be treated as an adult outside, as well as inside of the classroom. It accords par-' ents the right to know the University as it exists, not as its "image" would have it-and to know their own responsibilities to the University. Most significantly, it allows the Uni- versity to concentrate its efforts on pro- moting academic excellence without hav- ing to display pretenses of child-rearing. -MARY LOU BUTCHER LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers Speak Out on Cleveland, Atlanta, the DAC To the Editor: I WISH to make some exception to Michael Harrah's editorial "Tragedy in Cleveland" appearing in The Daily Thursday, April . In these days, it may be said that when a new public project is built to perpetuate the injustices of the system, a protest will soon follow. What is already done in the way of discrimination and seg- regation is a mockery of demo- cratic values to say the least; but to allow such things to be included in newly-constructed public build- ings and projects is inexcusable. It must not be allowed. We are rapidly nearing the time when it will not be allowed, regardless of all else. A picket of protest is only the earliest manifestation of those who are fed-up. If we think by squelch- ing the open protest we squelch its source, we are sadly kidding our- selves. There are large numbers of citizens in every major metro- politan area of this nation who are fed up. By refusing to ac- knowledge this, the nation's fa- thers attempt to make the pro- tests appear unfounded. This re- jection of credibility and legiti- macy of the protest postpones ne- gotiation and forces larger, more angry demonstrations, eventually with violent undertones. CLEVELAND FATHERS, like Ann Arbor's, cannot make the problems go away by ignoring them. The more they ignore the problem the more violent the con- ditions become. Senator Stennis and Mr. Har- rah would have a half-hearted civil rights bill dropped until violence stops. They would have considera- tion of a possible solution to the problem ignored in the name of peace when doing nothing is sure to produce only greater violence. Perhaps that would be their un- doing since more violence of the Birmingham type creates convic- tion among Negroes that mobilizes them for stronger protests in larger number with greater anger and retaliation. If it is really violence they are trying to avoid, then rush the token bill through Congress and see if the black leadership can't be bought off with it. They have been successful in this so far. One of these days, it may not work. MOST CIVIL RIGHTS demon- strators these days do not view the world on a man-to-man basis. The focus is on social groups and trends. They see the individual acting out a role within larger so- cial movements. So the tragedy in Cleveland was not between the minister and the bulldozer operator but between the civil rights movement and the city fathers. The fact is that the construction workers there have chosen to reject solidarity with other people of lower status and instead have done what they are told to do by the powers-that-be. That perhaps, is the greater tragedy.dOne sometimes wonders what side labor is really on. Why must the American desire for order and justice always be that way: order before justice; in- deed order at all costs? Is justice attained by disorder illegitimate? The question may be academic, for the temperature of the black masses is rising much faster than the white community's attempt to cool it off. As the temperature rises this summer, the kindling point may well be reached. Yes the Negro wants peaceful coexistance but after he has a job, a decentneighborhoodrand respectable schools, not before. -Frank Starkweather, '61 To the Editor: ' mTT-, m TATTVof Anril 0 an- lieve that he is unaware of the numerous peaceful protest move- ments conducted in recent months. Does he not know of the many people who are involved in human suffering protests who have no in- tention of "exterminating" those who oppose them? Must he wrong this group and, as it were, drive "his tractor" over them? * * * WE AGREE that "there is no sense to this struggle," but only if man's humanity to man ceases to exist, and we firmly do not be- lieve that it ever will. It is not ,surprising to note his agreement with the opposition and to openly say that he sees "no hurry to enact the legislation" that will bring an end to the legalized violence which has existed for so very long. It is not surprising then that he would not find those of us who protest worthy of the redress we seek. Finally, it seems most signifi- cant to us that Mr. Harrah refer- red to "integrationists" and "seg- regationists" in the third person rather than the first person. Sure- ly he must be on one side or the other, for in this, can any man be " . . . an island entire unto himself . . .?" A negative answer to this can avert the "real trag- edy.", -Singer A. Buchanan, Grad H. Lenore DuPree, Grad To the Editor: " VE+GROVIOLENCE ... would undo many years of painful progress in the civil rights- move- ment," states Robert Johnston in his editorial against DAC. I too, at one time, believed that violence was absolutely the wrong way to influence the good white man. True, a Negro cannot drink at just any drinking fountain, or sleep in all hotels-or eat in all restaurants, but I felt that through patience and passive demonstra- tions, whites would come to have at least a small amount of com- passion for athose people they try so hard to ignore. I thought that they did not really know how much the Negro suffers from his degraded position in society, and that if they could be shown how the Negro feels, they would surely change their hostile and superior attitudes. So I was patient. I watched white men set dogs on non-violent demonstrators who merely sat and sang songs. I watched policemen throw tear gas bombs at women and children who walked silently and peacefully in freedom marches. I read of ministers who were shot to death on the steps of white churches as they tried, in the name of a peace-loving God, to create true peace on earth. And I read about the atrocities com- mitted against more passive Ne- gros who don't join marches or civil rights groups out of fear, and just want to be left alone. And I realized that the white man can be just as indifferent and apathe- tic as he wants to be (re Mr. Harrah's statement: ". . . millions of Negroes and whites . . . do not look upon civil rights as a burning issue (and) must be allowed to exist in peace") while the Negro is, a priori, a victim of tragic cal- lousness and hatred. * * * JUST WHAT is "painful prog- ress," Mr. Johnston? Does prog- ress mean to begrudgingly grant one or two Negroes a place in a few universities or token integra- tion in order to mock their ef- forts? Is progress the white man saying "tsk; tsk, too bad" and then refusing to greet a Negro socially or accept him in his-home? The small concessions which have come recently have come, unfortunately, only with a real show of force and/or violence, for force, along with money (the fear of losing it and, along with it, ones total identity and security) seem to be the only thing the white man understands. I am not advocating misdirected and futile outbreaks of aggression. I am convinced that strikes, boycotts and other forms of force such as these, are a begin- ning. The white man fears aggression more than anything else because he no long r has the forces-phys- ical or moral-to back up his cowardly, irrational, or indifferent (which amounts to acceptance of the crimes) position unless he hides behind a police dog or a gun. And that's why he is going to be forced now to pay attention to the crimes committed every day in this country and not, I hope, wish the same reaction as those New Yorkers who watched pas- sively as a woman was stabbed to death before their eyes. No, force is going to be used now until the whites in this country get it through their heads that by say- ing that one segment of the world's people is inferior and not fit to live next door to them, they are degrading all human beings-themselves included. Miriam Dann, '64 To the Editor: WITH A PREPONDERANCE of the white people carrying wholly, or in some mutated form, the Negro stereotype, (of mental and physical inferiority) how is the Negro to find "a generally favorable environment?" The an- swer is that it does not exist, if you are black. The type of so-. called direct action that "reached the limit of its effectiveness" ac- cording to editorial writer Robert Johnston is non-violent direct ac- tion, as advocated by CORE. Black James Baldwin says "Non-violence is a white mans virtue." There is a more effective type of direct action advocated by the Direct Action Committee, which is violent. Violence, in this case, means if a picketer is attacked by a dog, he tries to kill it; if at- tacked by a drunk or cop, he fights back. The attack comes from outside his person, and he defends himself. This is quite ef- fective, it scares some people and lets authorities know that the Ne- gro is not going to take it much longer. Direct action is most useful when an apathetic public ignores what is happening to Negroes (i.e. as, in the North). "An increasingly severe response," as Mr. Johnston says, from white people, to direct action, might indicate that the Negro has gotten through to some whites. It also might give an idea of the latent forms of prejudice in our society. Direct action makes people take sides. I don't think it would be, in Mr. Johnson's words, "more harmful to the Negro's goals" if he knew who was a bigot and who wasn't. * * * WHAT Mr. Johnston calls "fear, dislike and distrust with regard to the Negro's aspirations" is ac- tually the work of the stereotype. The Negro, not his aspirations, since he is sub-human, and has inferior aspirations, can't be trust- ed. As for the Negro's "weak pil- lars," who do you think built them, if not the white men? The Negro has waited for the benevolent white man to give him equality for hundreds of years. He has not gotten it. Many Negroes are tired of waiting. They are go- ing to do something, anything to change this system. Direct action is the best method to fight an apathetical citizenry. But direct action better hurry, or true, large scale violence is going to happen. In fact,;it already has started. I am told that in Harlem it is a common sight to see signs that say: "Kill the whites." People are now getting killed in Cleve- land. It's time for the white lib- erals to wake up, including Mr. Johnston. -David Amante, '64 Masculine Mystique To the Editor: F I CAN JUDGE by the chatter of college students, the questions addressed to Betty Friedan, author of "The Feminine Mystique" and comments heard and overheard in the Union, "the feminine mysti- que" is still very much present and Mrs. Friedan's attack against it is still going to be misunder- stood. "The feminine mystique" is going to be defended by those who believe that Mrs. Friedan's re- defining of femininity is equal to the castration of man. This is not so! No mature woman 'wants to destroy a man; she merely wants the chance to be alive and to be allowed to demonstrate her own maturity. I propose that while we look at the feminine mystique, we also look at the masculine mysti- que. I speak not only as a college student, but also as an observor of teenagers-and especiallythe boys-on the playground where I worked for two summers in an ur- ban neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. For boys there is no sub- stitute for a man, or a father; the most alive and loving woman can- not provide a growing boy with what he needs most-a man to model himself after. And always for growing boys and girls, the man of the house-the father- will reflect a picture of therout- side world, will offer a way to set up one's own family, and ultimate- ly a system of values to live by. I submit that if we chain the mother to the house, send her man out into the world and refuse to let the two work together, we present to the growing child a lopsided picture-a picture show- ing the family as a woman and children with a father who is never around. The masculine mys- tique then becomes that of the lawgiver, the breadwinner, the dic- tator, and possibly, but not always, the ogre. While America sees suc- cess as amassing money and creating the good life, a man may gain this, but lose the pleasure of his children. And to rephrase the Bible, "What profit a man if he gain the world and lose his own son (and/or daughter)?" I DO NOT believe that the new woman that I believe in, which is I think what Betty Friedan hopes for, and hopefully in which every thinking man and woman believes in, is one that wishestoedestroy the American man. I believe it is really a question of creating new men and new women to live a new world-which must not be TODAY AND TOMORROW: Washington Change-Over by Walter Lippmann WASHINGTON IS HAVING a fairly mild case of the unease which invariably accompanies a change at the top. The, best remedy for it is to recognize it for what it is, as a normal human experience which only time can cure entirely. For no succession can be wholly smooth, human nature being what it is. Too much is at stake-too much has been lost and too much has been gained. But a suc- cession can be kept smooth enough if the principals and the supporting casts, the mind-readers and the key-hole peepers, the inside dopesters and the tale-bearers. can be made to remember that the mole- hills, which they would work into moun- tains, are normal. THE OBSCENE and wanton nature of the assassination in Dallas was such that the fact itself and its consequences were at first impossible to accept. Multitudes, even at great distances, felt at first that this could not be because it should never have been that so young and brilliant a figure was wiped out unex- pectedly and in a few minutes. For the inner circles, this was even more so. Be- cause the crime was unacceptable, grief was insufficient if it was not inconsol- oaht P_ toa' a kind of dinvovlty tn sav as I know there has been no instance of the new courtiers crowding the old ones. The terrible blow fell directly on the Kennedy circle. There are already visible those who are speculating for their own advancement on the restoration of the Kennedy power. They are the Democratic politicians who would run Robert Kennedy for the Presi- dency via the vice-presidency. And there are, of course, the Republican opponents who see, as Mr. Nixon has already made manifest, that if only a fight can be insti- gated between the Kennedy following and the Johnsonians, the Republicans will profit by it. IT WOULD HAVE been better if the at- torney general had disassociated him- self at the outset and completely from any organized attempt to unsurp-that is the right word for it-the prerogative of the President in office to say the final word about his own vice-president. The mistake has now, it would appear, been rectified. But it was a mistake, and it is the reason why the inevitable unease of almost every succession has threatened to become inflamed and angry. The unease will not, we may believe, become divisive. It goes without saying tite "'1N .1 47 , -. .. .000 , t ; A l r