Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
May 25: Variations on a Theme by Lewis
.
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the inidividual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 1966 NIGHT EDITOR: MEREDITH EIKER
Two Studies of Campus Sex:
Foolishness and Good Advice
THERE ARE RARE OCCASIONS when
the best and the worst thinkers on a
particular topic present their views simul-
taneously for public consideration. Yes-
terday, however, two studies of sex and
the college student appeared-one high-
ly alarmed by current campus practices
and urging stricter regulation, and the
other soberly investigative and recom-
mending greater understanding - and
the contrast between the two is almost
ridiculous.
AN ARTICLE in yesterday's Daily, en-
titled, "Women in Men's Dormitories
Forces Love Nests," reports the findings of
Dr. Graham Blaine, a Harvard psychia-
trist. Blaine maintains that college stu-
dents are not "psychologically mature
enough for adult sexuality," but have
been pressed into experimentation with
sex by the permissiveness of college ad-
ministrations.
While supporting evidence for Dr.
Blaine's assertions was not reported (es-
pecially the definition of whatever "adult
sexuality" may be) in this article, it did
report the basis for Max Lerner's argu-
ment that college girls are using sex as a
means to "get through" to someone-a 54-
page transcript of a "racy, repetitive, con-
fused, honest, witty, pathetic, and hilar-
ious" conversation between nine college
girls.
ONE PERHAPS can forgive Mr. Lerner's
faulty sampling techniques, but it is
impossible to forgive the flights of in-
fancy that follow in his comments on
what sex should be. These remarks might
have been culled from a poor nineteenth
century novel by a contemporary Sir
Walter Scott. For example,
"Instead of the happiness of the 'ad-
justed,' sex can mean joy. Perhaps you
are walking along the beach with someone
you love, perhaps sitting with him at an
outdoor concert, perhaps driving with him
through the night along a dark stretch
of road with the mountains looming in
the distance - and you find yourself
wanting to shout aloud with joy.
DESPITE THE UNDOUBTEDLY good in-
tentions of their analyses, the problem
is that the conclusions that these men
have reached, based on somewhat shaky
evidence, are largely irrelevant to the
college student experimenting and at-
tempting to cope with sex. Both men have
assumed a moralizing posture that first
alienates their student audience (al-
though it probably will not alienate col-
lege administrators) and ultimately loses
its attention.
More important, they have assumed
that their particular attitudes toward sex
Second class postage paid at Ann Arbor, Mich.
Pubished daily Tuesday through Saturday morning.
and their concepts of the ideal sexual
experience are valid for everyone. Con-
'sider Dr. Blaine's terminology, "adult
sexuality" and Max Lerner's "exultation
and defiance." Both are highly subjec-
tive points of view on the whole topic,
and an attempt to apply them to others
can only be harmful.
Lastly, any attempt that would be made
by college administrators to seriously en-
force or encourage some of the practices
and attitudes advanced by these two men
would, rightly, be met by resentment from
students and the reply, again rightly,
that it is none of their (the administra-
tors) damned business. In the process, any
possibility that students would go to their
administration or health services for ad-
vice on sexual matters is diminished,
because of fear of reprisal or punish-
ment by the college.
T1HIS POINT brings us to the second re-
port released recently, by the Commlt-
tee on the College Student of the Group
for . the Advancement of Psychiatry -
"Sex and the College Student." This
book, after a frank discussion of the sex-
ual experiences and problems that the
student may encounter, addresses itself
to college administrators, and particular-
ly to the role they should play in these
matters.
As a review of the book in The New
Republic pointed out, "This book has been
written to advocate a kind of civilized
consideration, and it concludes with
'guidelines' aimed at 'preferable if not
ideal' administrative attitudes." Most
important, the book states unequivocably
that sex, "when privately practiced with
appropriate attention to the sensitivities
of other people, should not be the direct
concern of the administration."
This is a far cry from the angry, and
somewhat foolish outburst of Dr. Blaine,
or the emotional ecstacy advocated by
Max Lerner, and, while its hard-nosed
recommendations may have little ap-
peal to administrators who must deal with
outraged parents and suspicious voters
and state legislators, "Sex and the College
Student" offers calm recommendations to
remedy a long-neglected problem.
IT WOULD BE NICE to think that the
Blaine report will be read by adminis-
trators with the skepticism it deserves
and that "Sex and the College Student"
and its sober recommendations will re-
ceive the greatest share of their atten-
tion, but considering past experience, this
is unlikely. One can hope, however, that
the good advice in this study, when com-
pared with the other two, will have a
moderating effect on the squeamishness
of college administrators in dealing with
matters of sex.
-CHARLOTTE A. WOLTER
Co-Editor
By LEONARD PRATT
SOME PEOPLE like to compare
student government historically
at the University to a Phoenix
when it's really more like a
chameleon: it hasn't come and
gone so much as it has disguised
itself from time to time.
Current proposals for estab-
lishing a system of advisory boards
to the University's president and
vice-presidents could, if handled
correctly, turn out to be one of
the best of these permutations.
IN THE PAST there has usually
been a difference between Student
Government Council, the legiti-
mate student representative body,
and student government, those
people who were really doing
things on behalf of the students,
Actual student government, dis-
tinct from SGC, was carried on by
ad hoc student groups or, often,
by The Daily. These groups,
though not a legitimate student
government, had the information,
intelligence and will necessary to
take actions on behalf of the
student body as a whole. Some-
times these actions coincided with
those taken with SGC, sometimes
not. But in very few cases was
SGC the real motivating force be-
hind them, though it often ap-
proved them after the fact.
Though this is less true today
than it has been in the past,
largely because of the more realis-
tic interests of SGC members and
the better climate in which they
are operating, it is still true to a
surprising degree. .
In a way, this informal student
government is a good thing. It en-
sures both that motivated students
will have easy access to power and
that student governments will be
dominated by no one group or
approach. It also provides the
University community with more
fresh ideas than it can handle.
BUT IT ALSO has important
drawbacks. There is very little
continuity to this kind of student
government; as soon as the orig-
inators of the "movement" grad-
uate, it dies. Moreover there is no
legitimacy to it; there's nothing
there that a Regent or a vice-
president can easily distinguish
from other, to them, distasteful
and alarming, forms of activism.
Hence there is little hope for such
student government to be accept-
ed as a formalized part of the
University's power structure.
The fact that Vice-President for
Student Affairs Richard Cutler's
housing advisory board changed all
this is what makes it so important.
It not only expressed, but actually
was, the formal inclusion of stu-
dents in a major University de-
cision-making area, dormitory
construction.
The fact that the present pro-
posal to create similar, permanent
and nonspecific advisory boards to
all the University's major execu-
tives can change it even more is
what makes it so important.
PLANS FOR these boards are
still hazy and, as one advocate
put it, "they might just happen."
But generally the plan calls for
a group of students, who would
have petitioned to and been ap-
proved by SGC and Graduate Stu-
dent Council, to work with each of
the executives. They would be re-
sponsible to SGC and GSC, which
are themselves considering some
sort of "assembly" to unify their
work with the boards and in other
areas.
The plans certainly aren't spe-
cific enough, but as first approxi-
mations they don't sound bad.
They would give both councils
access to the information and per-
sonalities the lack of which has
prevented them from doing much
previously. It would permit the
union of power and legitimacy
that student government . has
often lacked in the past. And, for
what it's worth, the hearts of the'
students who are trying to set up
the system are certainly in the
right place. That may be worth a
good deal.
AS SECOND approximations,
however, it should be recognized
that there will be some good-
sized managerial problems in mak-
ing 'sure the system fulfills its
promise.
A major problem will certainly
be the simple staffing of the ad-
visory boards. Their members
should be selected from the stu-
dent body at large; there is no
other way to ensure the free ac-
cess which was one of the major
benefits of the system that is now
evidently passing. Yet they should
also be provided with a two or
three-week series of briefing ses-
sions on just what they are sup-
posed to be doing in their com-
mittees and suggestions as to how
they might go abput doing it; if
there is anything that will kill
the boards faster than an inbred
nature, it is ignorance,
The boards must never be al-
lowed to become a sop to campus
activists. If there's a large enough
group of students mad about
something, SOC should never ig-
nore them in the blind belief that
its advisory boards are taking care
of things well enough. If there
are that many people highly dis-
turbed, it is probably a sign that
the advisory boards are either not
working properly or are out of
their element with that particular
problem. In either case, the boards
existence must never be the excuse
for stopping wide-spread campus
participation in an issue.
IT SHOULD also be recognized
that the boards are not going to
be an immediate answer to any-
thing but the campus communica-
tions problems, and will not even
be a completely satisfactory an-
swer to that. Their simple exist-
ence will not change much. More-
over, some boards will certainly
be more successful in whatever
activities they attempt than
others. In both cases SGC and
GSC may have 10 or 20 discour-
aged people on their hands; a
good personnel manager will be
needed to keep the boards alive
and functioning under such con-
ditions.
But perhaps the most basic
problem is the one that no one
has evidently noticed yet. Almost
to a man, the students who have
created the University climate and
the specific ideas which have en-
gendered the advisory board sys-
tem will be graduating at the end
of next year. When they leave,
they must leave more behind than
some agreeable vice-presidents.
FOR IF THE current leaders
of this advisory board "movement"
do not find some good replace-
ments during the coming fall
semester, the University will lose
an effective advisory board system
when it loses them. New blood
must be brought in and given
some . experience and authority
while the minds who created the
system are here to tell them the
name of the game.
4R
A Lawyer's View of "In Loco Pare ntis"
EDITOR'S NOTE: The fol-
lowing is a condensed version of
a-speech by Dr. William W. Van
Alstyne of the Duke University
Law faculty. Dr. Van Alstyne,
an active member of the AAUP
and the ACLU, is an authority
on the legal rights of students
and universities.
Collegiate Press Service
As COURTS have felt that they
would be mistaken to interfere
with the power of parents to
punish their children for playing
with matches, so they have felt
that they would be mistaken to
interfere with surrogate parents-
colleges and universities - which
deemed it wise to punish their
students for playing with sex, to-
bacco, alcohol, politics, race, or
some other phenomenon the re-
sponsible use of which presum-
ably required greater maturity, ex-
perience, and wisdom than reckless
adolescents possessed .. .
The student has been regarded
as an infant, the college as an
extension of his parent whose dis-
cretion is virtually unlimited, and
the legal rights of students have
been defined by contracts which
uniformly provide that continued
attendance at a college or univer-
sity is almost entirely a matter
of sufferance or privilege revoc-
able at will and without cause ...
The heritage of college law has
stressed the primary value of in
loco parentis and the primary law
of contract...
IT HAS BEEN pointed out that
vast numbers of college students
are of ages to which even the
traditional view of in loco par-
entis has never applied in law .. .
The law has never fixed a uni-
form age of maturity in deter-
mining the dependence of a per-
son's actions upon the consent of
his parents.
In most jurisdictions, one may
marry without his parents' con-
sent by the age of 18. He may se-
cure a driver's license, take a
job, leave home, join political bod-
ies, associate with religious as-
semblies, and pursue a variety of
other interests whether or not his
parents consent. Similarly, he is
often individually .responsible un-
der general law well before he be-
comes 21.
In short, even were colleges pre-
sumed to absorb the power of
nonconsent of parents, we would
be obliged to recognize that par-
ental authority is not unlimited
even with respect to teenagers.
BUT THE PRINCIPAL failure
of the analogy is not a failure in
law. It is, rather, a failure in
function. I would suggest that a
university is not an automaton for
the mechanical execution of pre-
sumed parental desires. Indeed, if
it is to merit the dignity of being
considered a "university," it ought
not determine either the neces-
sity for rules or the appropriate-
ness of not having certainrules
simply by trying to reflect the
consensus of parental desires .. .
Parental opinion respecting non-
academic matters such as styles
of dress, degrees of social per-
missiveness, and the natureeof
places which students choose to
attend ought not control univer-
sity policy. A university is not the
extension of the parent, but an
institution committed to the pro-
vision of educational opportunities
and the value of critical inquiry.
Unless a rule can be shown to
be relevant to the conservation of
thesehconcerns, it is questionable
whether the rule is anything more
than an act of supererogation. In
short, the fact that a proposed
rule might reflect or not reflect
parental will is unpersuasive eith-
er that the rule is therefore right
or wrong, or-what is far more to
the point--that it is therefore rel-
evant or irrelevant to the college.
NONE OF THIS is to assert, of
course, that the student absorbs
any special immunity from re-
sponsibilities appropriately impos-
ed upon him elsewhere or by oth-
ers . . . The student who violates
a valid law limiting sexual rela-
tions or regulating the consump-
tion of alcohol is not to be pre-
ferred in court over a non-student
pursuing an identical course of
conduct.
The question is, however, wheth-
er such persons should addition-
ally have to answer to their col-
leges. The answer in each case
depends, I believe, on whether the
student had separately offended
some distinct and independent in-
terest of the college as an aca-
demic enterprise. The question is
not whether he may have offend-
ed the interests of others, for a
university is not properly the vas-
sal or agent or policeman of other
groups or associations who are
amply represented through their
own group influence and through
general legislation equally applic-
able to all.
IT SEEME TO ME inappropriate,
therefore, for a college to formu-
late its standards purely and sim-
ply to conform with an assumed
consensus of the personal and
widely differing values of par-
ents. Correspondingly, it seems to
me to be doubtful that it should
attempt to justify its authority
over students on the claim that it
is acting as an agent of the par-
ents, in loco parentis.
The propriety of its rules is
based, rather, on the reasonable-
ness of its independent judgment
that its standards are essential to
the protection of its educational
enterprise which otherwise could
not go forward . . . There is, at
heart, no one-to-one correlation
either between the powers of par-
ents and the powers of universi-
ties, nor the legitimate interests of
parents and the legitimate inter-
ests of universities. The rationale
of in loco parentis is neither a nec-
essary nor sufficient justification
of -college rules and collegiate au-
thority.
I would also suggest that we
and the courts have not been fair
in judging the proper scope of
university authority by casual in-
spection of "contracts" of matric-
ulation, for these contracts lack
nearly all of the essentials that
entitle ordinary contracts to re-
spect as the best basis for deter-
mining the legitimate prerogatives
of the contracting partiesg..is
THE APPORTIONMENT of
rights and powers by contract
characterizes progressive societies,
howeveD, only to the extent that
individuals possess a bargaining
power or the opportunity to ac-
quire such power that their ne-
gotiations with others may gen-
erally operate under conditions of
equality . . . It is a rare student
who is properly advised of the
rules he "agrees" to observe before
he signs the "contract" in which
he "consents" to those rules ....
Since handbooks typically con-
tain anhomnibus rule reserving to
the college the right to suspend
or dismiss the student for any
reason satisfactory to the college
alone, the contract is largely an
illusory promise on the part of
the college.
More importantly, however, a
student is generally in no position
to "bargain" with a college: the
contract he confronts is non-ne-
gotiable, and he lacks sufficient
influence to determine its terms
... Under these circumstances, it
is really bordering on the inde-
cent for colleges to chide stu-
dents who oppose particular rules
by lecturing to them that they
freely accepted these rules and
ought not to have matriculated if
they did not agree with them. In
any case, these circumstances do
make clear why it is that a college
may not justify the rules it main-
tains by the circular persuasion
that they are precisely the rules
to which the students themselves
subscribed by contract.
THE LEGAL reconciliation of
student prerogatives and univer-
sity powers will involve, I believe,
a frank reassessment of the dual
status of students and the discrete
interests of universities. It will
acknowledge that those who are
students are simultaneously indi-
viduals entertaining an assortment
of interests by no means wholly
of an academic character. It will
recognize that these individuals
may pursue their non-academic
interests subject only to the same
restraints as society, peer groups,
parents, and others customarily
attempt to bring to bear through
their own separate connections
with individuals who offend them,
without gratuitous university sup-
port.
It will also recognize that col-
leges are primarily places of edu-
cationaladvancement, and not the
arbiters of general standards.
When the student defaults on rea-
sonable minimum educational op-
portunities of others, he may be
disciplined by the institutions
whose business it is to conserve
and to administer these things...
RECOGNITION will obtain, in
short, that a college is not a sur-
rogate parent, a surrogate state,
a surrogate draft board, or a sur-
rogate anything else.
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Guaranteed Income: Answer to Poverty?
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By DAVID KNOKE
Special To The Daily
T'HE WAR ON POVERTY pro-
gresses under a cross-fire of
charges of mismanagement of
funds, of who should represent
the poor, of how the federal, state
and local governments would go
bankrupt if all persons entitled to
welfare benefits submitted claims,
and of how the poor might orga-
nize into an effective political lob-
by.
John Kenneth Galbraith wrote
"The Affluent Society," stating
that the United States had reach-
ed a technical level of production
which would see the eradication
of pockets of poverty within 20
years. Eight years since, the prob-
lem of distribution of material
abundance remains as large as
ever; if anything, Galbraith un-
derestimated the extent of margi-
nal poverty cases, part-time em- .
ployed and those no longer seek-
ing employment.
Estimates today range up to 34
million Americans whose income
and standard of living fall below
the $3000 anual "minimum main-
tenance level" of income for a
family of four set by the Presi-
dent's Council of Economic Ad-
visors.
WELFARE in the United States
Boulding's "post-civilized world"
describes it better.)
One approach to the re-ordering
of society that is gaining serious
consideration is the guaranteed in-
come.
The idea probably goes back to
1888 in Ralph Bellamy's uptopian-
fantasy scheme in "Looking Back-
ward," but its most recent formu-
lator and advocator is Robert
Theobald, a British socio-econom-
ist formerly associated with the
European Common Market. His
proposal, set forth in "Free Men
and Free Markets," is for a basic
economic security level of income
which an individual and his de-
pendents should receive from the
federal government if he is un-
able to earn it himself.
THE DIFFERENCE between the
welfare check and the Federal
Guaranteed Minimum Income
would be its universal applica-
tion, without prior conditions, and
an irrevocability that would free
it from the onus of gift. The FG-
MI would make the assurance of
a decent standard of living a con-
stitutionally inalienable right.
Nor would the income tax struc-
ture remain such that a family
earning $2000 would have that
amount deducted from the $3000
FGMI; the tax structure would be
revised to allow the wage earner
to retain a certain percentage of
Revolution, cybernization, or sim-
ply the Age of Automation, its
implications are frightening.
Even now, with the level of un-
employment at its lowest in years,
the trend towards computerization
and automation of factory and
clerical work is in full swing. The
employes hardest hit at first are
those with insufficient education
to find work beyond the menial
level at which they have been re-
placed by machines. The Negro,
the high school dropout, the dis-
gruntled middle-aged laborer stuck
at an unsatisfactory occupation,
the part-time employe who re-
mains at his job because he has
no security to seek a better pay-
ing, more congenial one - these
are the first to suffer from the
technological explosion.
But not even the highly educat-
ed are immune: the postal system,
the internal revenue system, many
other agencies of the federal gov-
ernment are automating and turn-
ing over workers. Routine draft-
ing skills in engineering and tool
and die construction can be done
To Help,
Not Destroy
UR COMMITMENT was to a
more accurately and quickly by
electronic hands than human.
THE OUTLOOK is for more of
the same. Computers, now on
time-sharing, will splurge like.
crabgrass, invading the law office,
the retail store, the laboratory,
and eventually the private home.
Computer technicians, administra-
tive personnel, people in service-
rendering capacities will get to-
morrow's jobs. However, the sub-
stantial part of the work force
will find itself either with unsat-
isfactory make-work occupations
or with vast amounts of leisure
time on hand.
The centralization of produc-
tion into an ever-increasing num-
ber of human hands will confront
the federal government, commit-
ted to economic welfare since, the
post World War II Keynesian rev-
olution, with the need for a re-
definition of producer-consumer
relationships.
THE BASIC IDEA of guaran-
teed income as a "right" is to
permit the security of sustenance
of life, which has previously been
so precarious to the majority of
people. Even insurance programs
and Social Security do not benefit
those for one reason or another
live on the margins of society.
With the security that a guaran-,
teed income permits, persons would
feel free to break away from for-
manner in which these people are
permitted to become recipients.
THE MOBILITY and leisure time
that a combination of aultomation
and guaranteed income would
provide, of course, present new,
unforeseeable problems.
In a world where the intelligent
elite works and the uneducated
can play, the sustaining of initia-
tive and interest in these people
would be a gigantic task. Perhaps
the government could foster an in-
terest in human and natural re-
sources, similar to William James'
proposed "moral equivalent to
war" which would have channeled
energy into constructive "conser-
vation corps" to restore the natur-
al beauty of the abused land. Be-
side such immense efforts the
Peace Corps and Job Corps would
dwindle to insignificance of imag-
ination.
Patterns of consumption could
be kept high by the demand and
means of purchase that a gratui-
tous income would provide the en-
tire populace. The material abund-
ance and social mobility would no
doubt produce a cultural partici-
pation and enrichment that would
act as a vital feedback to rein-
force the economic soundness of
the country.
TO BUILD the Great Society
upon the framework of the tech-
nological abundance of the cyber-
fit
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