Setnty-Thid Yean EIrrED AND MANAGED BY STUDENS OF THE UNIVERSrrY OF MICUOANm UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONs Where OpinionsreFre ,STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG., ANN ARBao, McH., PHONE NO 2-3241 Troth Will Preval" Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.' ty THURSDAY, MAY 2, 1963 NIGHT EDITOR: MALINDA BERK Fall Sorority Rush: A GiantStumble Backwards IlqE SORORITY" SYSTEM may be on the brink of taking one step forward and two steps backwards. F The step forward is Panhellenic Association's re-evaluation of its present rushing procedure. Sorority rush has had the effect of perpetuat- ing the large, name houses and undermining the small, less-known sororities. Panhel has finally realized that if the system is going to try to save these smaller sororities whose membership has been dropping annually, a new approach to rush is essential. However, the current movement to revive fall rush is certainly a large step backward. In 1957, the sorority system adopted deferred rush. Previously, University women had been able to pledge a house during their first semester on campus. Although fall rush had effectively filled sorority quotas, both affiliated and non-affiliated women decided to scrap fall pledging in order to allow freshmen more op- portunities to adjust to the campus and aca- demics before being thrust into the social whirl of sorority rushing and pledging. NOW THAT the foundations of the sorority system are being-questioned by University women-who are now even more interested in the academic than the social-Panhel is grasping at the straws of old ideas to pull itself out of the membership slump. On Tuesday the presidents and rush chair- men of each house iet on the spur of the moment to consider the concept of fall rush. The Panhel rushing committee has been work- ing for about two months to devise improve- ments in general membership selection pro- cedures. After much discussion, the commit- tees decided to take a straw vote of sorority leaders on the fall rush concept. It is reported that about four-fifths of those present gave fall rush the nod. But the only concrete proposal coming out of the meeting was that each house should be polled on the issue. Yesterday sorority members were asked to vote on substituting fall rush for the present spring rushing procedure or on alternatives. The sororities could consider proposals such as a fall rush for upperclass- men and spring rush for all women or any other idea the girls wish to suggest. pANHEL PRE8IDENT Pat* Elkins and Pan- hel's advisor, Mr's. Elizabeth Leslie, have stressed that this poll was merely an expres- sion of opinion and not binding. However, if the houses rallied behind the concept of fall rush as the presidents and rush chairmen did the night before, it would seem to be a clear mandate to Panhel to amend the rushing procedure. If formal fall rush is, as early rumors have indicated, the outcome, it would be interesting to see how Panhel will counter its own argu- ments of 1957 supporting deferred rush.. Panhel will probably argue that spring rush. was an experiment that failed and that it is more important to preserve the system than to preserve the ideal of allowing freshmen a semester to orient themselves to the campus. Panhel will probably say that the freshman is no better able to make up her mind in January or February than she is in September. The only valid argument of the lot is that the present spring rush is an experiment that failed. It failed not because of the time of year, but because the sorority system was not able to counter and dispell the criticisms of sorority living. Instead of changing the date of rush and keeping some of 'the same old rushing pro- cedures which will, after the novelty of fall rush wears off, continue to work against the small house, Panhel should work to informalize its rushing procedure. It should root out the superficiality of mixers. Sororities should sub- stitute a system by which women could see what sorority life is really like. Rushees shouldn't feel pressured to join out of ignor- ance of the requirements of campus social life. RIGHT NOW Panhel has before it a better answer than fall rush to save the small house from dying and ease rushing procedures for all the sororities-informal rush. This. spring, four houses have made very successful use of informal rushing. One house has gained almost as many pledges in the in- formal structure as it did in the formal period. This plan eliminates all the rigmarole of skits, fancy decorations and mint-passing. New rush rules may well cut down on these. Girls are simply invited over to the house for a meal and allowed to look anywhere in the, house and to see the girls in actual living situations. No advanced house-cleaning or menu are planned. Such a realistic approach to rush is what the system needs. There is no denying that the informal method has its problems in find- ing women with interest for all houses and in making sure that a house in better financial condition refrains from out-doing the other sororities. Panhel would have to do just as much preliminary work to institute such a plan as it" would to start fall rush this September because informal rush is a totally new ap- proach. IF SORORITY WOMEN do decide in favor of the old fall rush, hopefully they will restrict it to upperclassmen. The only argument for allowing freshmen to rush early is that the# sororities want to grab them before they have had time'to gain a real knowledge of what sororities can offer them at the University. This is a short-sighted approach at an institu- tion that is trying to develop individuals cap- able of critical evaluations based on evidence and experience. -GAIL EVANS Acting Associate City Editor (EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of a two-part series on techniques of managed news.) By ROBERT SELWA MANAGED NEWS is no black- and-white matter. Sometimes what are cited as techniques of news management are actually helpful and sometimes they are sinister. It is hard to differentiate be- cause news management often overlaps with citizen education. As Prof. Sidney Fine of the history department stresses, a president has a duty to educate the people; so does all of his administration and so do senators and congress- men and their staffs. In a democ- racy it is a function of government to bring issues to the people and to provide a significant amount {of information. Put your name on the mailing list of the Superintendent of Docu- ments and you will receive at least twice a week a long list of new government publications. T h e y range from "Arms Control and Disarmament" to "Library Service for Rural People" to "A Pocket Guide to Viet Nam" to "Steam- Electric Plant Construction Cost and Annual Production Expenses." * * * WRITE THE Department of State for information about aid to Venez ela and you may get several pounds of booklets rang- ing from "Alianza Para El Pro- greso, The Record of Punta Del Este" to "Operations Report, Agency for International Develop- ment" to "Report of the First Annual Review of the Alliance for Progress." In his speech about news man- agement toSigma(Delta Chi, Rep. George Meader (R-Mich) com- plained about "the multitude of public relations officers" who make "the grinding out of infor- mation" by the government "a big business." M e a d e r specifically complained about press handouts. * * * HIS COMPLAINTS should have been praise for the vast effort of modern federal government to provide information to the press and the people means a realiza- tion of government's educational role. This vast effort is usually helpful. i MANAGED NEWS: Opinion or Propaganda? To The Editor But it can become sinister if a too powerful government turns its machine from information to dis- torted propaganda. In between these two is the gray matter of having press releases sprinkled with quotations from the president for the purpose of "showing his compassion for the people." This is gray matter because of the conflicting values of straight information and opinion. In a democratic society based on a libertarian way at arriving at de- cisions, opinion is good. and if opinion is news management then the latter is a good thing too. The administration shall propose, the news management, His voice was more needed earlier. S*s THE DANGER of the informa- tional kind of news management' is not too much information but not enough. The danger lies in the distortion that results from hiding some of the news or releasing none at all. Then people are left to wonder and they get wrong im- pressions about what is going on. This is how the doctrine of ex- ecutive, privilege in particular and secrecy in general are wrong. But even these concerns are gray matters. While executive privilege can increase the coverup that is contrary to the democratic notion of an open society, it can- and did-counteract dangers like Mc arthyism. And while secrecy ,denies the citizenry its full means of making sound judgments, once in a while it can be defended on the grounds of national security. The real evil in this kind of news management is for a government official to release that part of the news that will boost his personal fortunes and hide the rest merely because it will hurt himself. YET TO EXPECT otherwise is to hope in vain for human beings are definitely human. Each man has a vested interest in his own job; the appointed official does not want to get too controversial, the elected official does not want unfavorable publicity and the re- porter wants all he can get be- cause the more he can get, the better is he fulfilling his role as a gatherer and transmitter of knowledge. So what results is pushing, pull- ing and tugging, and maybe this is the way it should be between government and the press. But the press should remember that the government is not the only man-, ager of the news and the govern- ment should remember that the public has a right to know and the opposition party has a right to criticize. If "news management" is at- tempted with this in mind, it be- comes even more of a gray matter than it already is. Neither black nor white, "news management," like almost everything else in life, is a question of shadows. Plato's cave is where government works and newsmen visit. , To the Editor: CARL COHEN'S editorial "A Worthwhile Challenge" was provoked by a letter sent to the Challenge membership. In spite of misquoting a passage in the beginning paragraph, his partial understanding of that letter and of our subsequent conversation is reflected in four accurately re- ported points: 1) the letter states that "the President's office had been prepared to subsidize Chal- lenge generously," warranting Cohen's observation that "the University coughed up a $3000 ap- propriation"; 2) "The Complexion of American Morality" will not be presented this spring; 3) there is a meeting this Friday to discuss the fate of the organization; and 4) both Cohen and I feel that Challenge is "worth saving." But the editorial does not correspond any further to the information that he got either from the letter or from our conversation. The membership notice clarifies why "The Complexion of American Morality" did not materialize. It points to "a sheaf of rather grim 'letters from invited speakers," and, most importantly, to the un- manageable nature of the topic. It explains that, in spite of warn- ings from knowledgeable campus leaders and faculty, "I felt that extremely careful organization could structure the unwieldly mass of material involved." I was very wrong. Cohen states that "little explan- ation (about the failure of the program) was made other than an apathetic public and a disin- terested organization." That is patently false. No one ever com- plained about n indifferent au- dience or membership. In fact, the letter explicitly states the rea- sons: "At that one panel discus- sion last fall, the futility of our participants' attempts to present a coherent analysis of the pro- gram foreshadowed the difficulties that we subsequently encounter- ed." That panel discussion was very well attended and the Chal- lenge staff prepared it with the spirit and diligence that they maintained throughout the school year. There was no apathy any- where. * * * THE WHOLE POINT is that, as the letter admits, "in conceiving of a program thathwould sub- stantially. examine the tenor of ethics in this country in a one semester series of lectures," I di- rected the organization to an issue that just cannot be presented in any way approaching the stan- dards set by former Challenge leaders. Cohen refers to a Saturday Re- view article that praises Challenge as an active, worthwhile organ- ization. My letter, in discussing that article, states that "in light of the present situation the irony is rather brutal." It continues to point out that "there is simply no justification whatsoever for perpetuating the organization just to escape that irony." Challenge exists when a presentable idea exists, when an issue of vital con- cern like civil rights or emerging nations can be profitably exterior- ized. If the people who attend Friday's meeting can provide con- tent for a structure that is mean- ingless without its substance, they might contribute immeasurably to this community. -Ron Newman, '63 Records.. To the Editor; THE CURRENT dispute over recording of police questioning in Ann Arbor may also be raised state-wide in Illinois. Civil liber- tarians here definitely favor re- cordings and will probably attempt to add a section requiring their use to the proposed criminal pro- cedure code now before the Gen- eral Assembly. A report earlier this year by the Civil Rights Committee of the Chicago Bar Association called for recordings "to eliminate the dis- putes which inevitably arise under present practices about the con- duct of interviews between the police and persons they have taken into custody. A record .. . should protect the police against false charges of improper conduct, and accused persons against un- fair treatment." * * . SO THE ANN ARBOR chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union shouldn't be afraid of giv- ing strong support to the new- fangled equipment. Its concern should be with two factors: the persons being held should be in- formed recordings are b e i n g made and city law should require all questioning be recorded. This would allow the tapes to help the accused. as well as the police by giving proof of any illegal policebtactics in the "twi- light' zone" before they take the case to court, where procedures are more definite. --Dick Ostlling, '62 GEORGE MEADER ... press handouts opposition party shall oppose, and if the give-and-take between them is regarded as attempts at news management, then let us have more of it. If the facts used are correct and if the only slant is in the opinion expressed, then the rem- edy is not to cry out "news man- agement" but to join the discus- sion. This is what Meader should have done. He was invited to a regional conference on the policies of the New Frontier. Instead of going and challenging the advo- cates of the New Frontier, he stayed home, saving his dismay for a Sigma Delta Chi discussion of and newsmen visit. REGIONAL CONFERENCE: Students, Politically Unconscious By ANDREW ORLIN Cm un~ellin v Withoniut Cl"'l JOINT JUDICIARY Council is getting a new constitution. Although 'far superior to the old one, a number of important criticisms have been made of the document and these criti- cisms deserve an airing. The most fundamental objection to the new constitution is that it fails to give the student offender facing the council the same legal. protection he would be entitled to in a court of law. No transcripts of the hearings are kept, the student is not given the right to engage counsel and his right to call and question wit- nesses is limited, though there are exceptions. As most objections to the new constitution lie in the premise that students should be granted these legal provisions, it is most im- portant to decide if Joint Judic is in grave error for not providing them." Tf -ARGUMENTS against their inclusion are one or more of the following: the Uni- vetsity is a public corporation in the eyes of the state and is entitled to treat students in the manner it sees fit in areas relevant to its role as an educational institution; Joint Judic is more a counselling agency than a court of law and therefore has no need for legal methodology; Joint Judic does follow legal practices but those of the continental tradition rather than the Anglo-American. These assertions appear to be both contra- dictory and of questionable validity. To assert that the University may treat students however it wishes is a questionable legal doctrine. Furthermore, it is beside the point, for the new constitution was drawn up by students who believe in student rights and who felt that their document embodies them. They cannot revert to an argument on Uni- versity authority. JOINT JUDIC may try to be a counselling agency but any group that hears evidence, reaches verdicts and fines or expells those brought before it is in fact some sort of court. It may be argued that the council's primary role is to counsel, that to judge is secondary and~ that nv moreie ~nrnoe 41- th a i i..r JL WJLJLV SAL v R.AV w 1i1Jt11 There are still numerous objections to this stand, however. Joint;Judic is considered to be a court by those who go before it, and the threat of fine or suspension would seem to make it difficult for an offender to regard the council as a friend intent on helping him. That the council is composed of his peers could also do more to harm than good. Then, too, even if Joint Judic were a court, it would not be prohibited from acting as a counsel, as municipal court judges often do. Council chairman Lawrence Schwartz main- tained that Joint Judic only penalized people to "make an impression" and few would deny that to penalize offences is often necessary, but to combine the judicial and counselling func- tions in a body void of much due process would appear to be the worst way to arrange things.. AT THIS POINT the third premise, that the council does follow legal procedures, is brought in. It is true that European justice is patterned along the same lines as those proposed for Joint Judie. It also may well be true that judicial procedure in these systems, where there is not the rigorous and often showman and shoddy atmosphere of two bitter antagonists, is a fair or more so than the Anglo- American system. Unfortunately, however, just at the point where the new constitution's philosophy is ready to carry the day, we notice that Joint Judic reverts to American- legal procedure in cases where suspension or expulsion is a possi- bility. This could indicate either that the mem- bers of Joint Judic do not have faith in the continental system of justice on really import- ant issues or they fear that their verdicts might be overruled by the courts if they do not use American practices. The most likely case is the former, though a council member would probably argue that the defects of continental justice were worth putting up with in all but the most important of cases because the pri- mary function of counselling is easier with this system. Needless to say, we then revert back to the questionable premise concerning a counsel- s t 7 j 1 a F 1 t f E t 8 (x y x UNITED STATES education does not foster a socially and politi- cally conscious student class. In fact, it does not stimulate any type of student class at all. This point was dramatically, driven home at the United States National Student Association's re- gional conference held last week at Wayne State University. On one side of the room sat stu- dents educated under the Euro- pean system of education. They were from Asutralia, Brazil, Mo- rocco, Iraq and the Congo. On the other side of the room s stu- dent leaders from the Uniersity, Marygrove College and WSU. And the foreign students stumped the Americans with one question: "What have you done?" The foreign students have been educated in a system where stu- dents and universities are shown great respect. They are from so- cieties where students form power- ful political and social units. These students were now ques- tioning an alternative system. The mute fact that only three schools out of nine in the Michigan re- gion bothered to attend spoke for itself. * * * WHILE the foreign participants could point to vocal and effective student actions in their countries, American students could only point to impotent telegrams sent to Attorney General Robert Ken- nedy over the Oxford rebellion. . John Felix Koli of the Congo noted that students form an in- tellectual elite in his country and "when we say something, the gov- ernment must listen; we act just like a political party." In Iraq, a teacher slapped an insolent child. The child happened to be the son of a government of- ficial's son and conseq.ently the teacher was dismissed. After stu- dent demonstrations and strikes, the teacher was reinstated. Besides mild student protests, no such action ever occurs in the United States. WHILE STUDENTS and univer- sities hold high places of distinc- tion in Europe, they hold no com- parable positions in the United States. Here, colleges are por- trayed as ivory towered castles which are apart from the society in which they reside. Professors are supposed to write academic treatises but are prohibited from speaking out against Kennedy's policy toward Cuba. Within this cloistered frame- work, American students absorb knowledge but take no part in the politics surrounding them. Some stetsiin~ be na ivrn.',, a ~..,. ed "What has it done?" Neglect- ing the national scope of the or- ganization, hewished to know what it had done on the campus and regional level. After many hems and haws, a WSU student leader admitted that even at the campus level nothing very much had been done. But this lack of accomplish- ment is not solely confined to WSU. Recently a University lead- er came to The Daily and asked the paper to "play big" the newly established Campus Travel Board. The board is im;;>ortant because it is one of USNSA's direct ben- efits to students here on campus, she said. Foreign travel can be of great educational value. But what else does USNSA do to influence stu- dents at large? S * * * CHAIRMAN of the Michigan Region Howard Abrams noted that USNSA's broadly based member- ship makes it nearly impossible for the organization to become any- thing like its European and Latin American counterparts. By ridding USNSA of fringe groups, this or- ganization would no doubt become smaller but also more active. Across the South, colleges belong to a more conservative organiza- tion than USNSA. This group stands firmly behind the doctrine of "states' rights." Their beliefs differ greatly from those held by USNSA. In that they are united firmly behind a cause, this group comes closer to Europe's National" Union of Students than NSA. Students could be made more politically conscious through an organization which actively tries to implement its goals. When American student leaders can point to accomplishments of their respective organizations, then stu- dents will become more interested. When these organizations actu- ally do something, American lead- ers can proudly answer a foreign student's question of "What have you done?" By WALTER LIPPMANN IN MR. KHRUSHCHEV'S re- sponse to our call to check the Communists in Laos and to uphold the Geneva accord of 1961, we shall have a measure of his power and influence in southern Asia. Two years ago, when he 'met the President in Vienna and agreed with him that Laos should be neu- tral and uninvolved in the cold war, Mr. Khrushchev was still the leader and big boss of communism in Asia. Is he still the big boss and the leader? Much has happened in the. past two years. The biggest event was they Chinese attack on India. There is reason for thinking that the disturbance, in Laos as well you done?" TODAY AND TOMORROW: A Me re of Pwer "What Do You Mean, I Can't Take It With Me?" as the mounting pressure of the guerrillas in South Viet-Nam are part of-the same Chinese thrust to the south. Does Mr. Khrushchev still have the power and influence to over- rule the Chinese? Presumably- for we can only speculate-the controlling fact is that the Rus- sians and the Chinese, though they have conflicting interests and theories, cannot break with each other. This probably means that the Chinese can go some way, but not a very long way, against India and Southeast Asia and, beyond that, against Indonesia. T'h e Chinese cannot force the issue in Asia to a point where not only they, but the Soviet Union as well, would be brought into a major nuclear confrontation with the United States. *** * ON THE OTHER HAND, the Russians cannot afford to exert the kind of economic and military pressure on China which will be needed to prevent the Chinese from nibbling their way forward into southern Asia. In the short view, there is the possibility of a patch-up arrange- ment which will put off a show- down. Laos is still too far from everybody, from the Soviet Union, from the United States and even from China, to make it a good place for a showdown. In the long run, the Chinese will surely keep on moving. With, their birth rate and their poverty, they are sure to push outward. Assam, East Pakistan, Burma, Southeast Asia and Indonesia are rich, poorly defended, highly sus- ceptible and very tempting. The Soviet Union will at the same time become increasingly concerned about its long, frontier with China and about the security of the'"ter- ritories which were once under Chinese suzerainty. * * , WHILE THESE GREAT devel- opments are taking place' in the Communist world, we and our allies have got ourselves into such a mess that France and the United States are seriously estranged. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. We have let our relations degener- ate to a point where the President of the United States is planning to visit Italy, Germany and Ire- land and to avoid London, lest a ;a