Page 4-Sunday October 8, 1978-The Michigan Daily LOG BATHE WEEK IN REVIEW Presidential selection process still in doubt Things haven't changed much since last week when it looked like the Michigan. Student Assembly (MSA) would boycott the selection process for the next University president. Tuesday night, MSA decided to wait a week before deciding to boycott the Regents' presidential selection process. MSA has refused to participate in the process so far to protest the lack of adequate student representation. The Regents, who have the, ultimate power in choosing the new chief executive of the University, have presented a system which involves separate faculty, student, and alumni committees to consider candidates. The three groups - 15 faculty members, 10 *students, and 10 former students -- 'would exchange names and infor- °mation, but each group would finally forward an unranked list of as many ,candidates as it wanted. The MSA has 'proposed to the faculty Senate Advisory 'Committee on University Affairs (SACUA) that a joint committee of the ,three, groups interest groups offer one ,unified list of presidential nominees to ;the Regents. Delegates from each of the 4search committees could "narrow the .options" open to the Regents by presen- .ting a list more manageable in size than -;the one compiled by search committees in 1966. r But neither the professors nor the alumni liked the MSA Plan. Some professors expressed fear that only "compromise candidates" would sur- face through the MSA-backed process. Shaw Livermore, SACUA chairman, made a trip to the MSA Meeting Tuesday night and told students "We will suggest this option ithe MSA plan) to the faculty search committee, but at this point it is important to consider that a unified list may mean giving up the best candidates." Robert Forman, the Executive Direc- tor of the Alumni Association, said he is satisfied with the selection process as proposed by the Regents. "The Regents have been generous in sharing the responsibility with the alumni," said Forman. ce last winter. The victims were treated at four local hospitals after being exposed to the fumes. School district Assistant Superinten- dent Ralph LaJeunesse blamed "human error" for the open door. "The doors aren't part of the routine check," said LaJeunesse. He added that "there is no question" they will be in the future. Course evaluations Some students and staff members of the Office of Academic Counseling complained bitterly this week about the lack of cooperation on the part of some departments in the University with the student evaluations program. Supporters of the student course evaluation concept are pushing for increased use of evaluations in order to provide students with a maximum amount of information before they enroll. in courses. But some departments and certain professors are balking at becoming involved in the system. "Some departments seem to feel that they are above being evaluated," said Barbara Roberts, a coordinator in'the Office of Academic Counseling (OAC). Why some professors are shying away from student evaluations is not clear. Last winter term over 90 per cent of the classes and professors were rated "excellent" by students. ERA extended Congress gave supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment some long awaited good news this week when it extended the ratifiction period for the amendment by 39 months. The Senate also rejected a prosal by Senator Jake Garn (R-Utah) that would have allowed states that have already approved the constitutional amendment to rescind their support. Opponents of the amendment, including Phyllis Schlafly, national chairwoman of Stop ERA, vowed to fight the Senate action in the courts. Schlafly called the extension "a fraud which will have no legal effect when tested in the courts." However, Senator Birch Bayh (D- Ind.), chief Senate sponsor of the extension, said: "It has been clear in every court decision. . . that Congress has the authority to determine what is a reasonable time for ratifiction of a constitutional amendment." American corporations in S. Africa respond They don't like the racist system in South Africa, but executives at the banks and corporations in which the University has investments and which do business in that country say they have no intention of leaving. They said in letters to the University released with a summary this week that they think they can effect change through progressive policies. Using phrases like "orderly progress" and shunning "isolation tactics," the businesses answered a University questionnaire with a unified message: anti-discriminatory policies within American industry in South Africa is better for blacks and non-whites than withdrawal. Nearly all 47 corporations with ties to South Africa and in which the University is a 'stockholder, strongly endorsed the Sullivan principles. Written by Rev.Leon Sullivan, a General Motors boardmember, the six principles call for desegregation in company facilities and equal pay for equal work. The Regents asked that the request for informaion be sent out during debate over divestitute last March. They will look at the responses to the questionnaire at their Oct. 19 meeting. There is no indication they will reconsider their decision to leave University funds in the businesses which operate with the approval of the South African government at that time. Livermore At Tuesday's meeting the MSA decided to wait a week before deciding to boycott the selection process. Human error causes gas poisoning One hundred students and teachers at the Ann Arbor Community High School had a rougher Monday morning than most people this week. An open service door leading to a fur- nace exhaust system was responsible for spreading carbon monoxide into the school. Students and faculty began feeling ill shortly after the furnace kicked on Monday for the first time sin- l e , Ittl t ttn+ ttil How to pick a president- 1966-67 Eighty-Nine Years of Editorial Freedom Vol. LIX, No. 28 News Phone: 764-0552 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Freedom of the press In my capacity as an MSA member doing research on the students' views of the 1966 university presidential selection process, I would like to share with the rest of the student community some of the historical facts concerning the support that the 1966 process had from the Student Government Council (SGC) and other student and campus organizations. I bring this up for public knowledge and discussion because some of the regents have already argued in their meeting with MSA's presidential selection committee that the 1966 selection process had student support then and is, in a way, therefore, binding to MSA. THE WHOLE DEBATE around an appropriate presidential selection committee started in a response to President Harlan Hatcher's announced future retirement in the fall of 1967. SGC, then, took the initiative on January 27, 1966 by passing a motion that asked for "student-faculty committee which would participate in the preliminary and final decisions regarding the selection of a new By Mervat F. Hatem plan for the selection of a new president. At first, the process envisioned was based on "the establishment of three separate committees for students, faculty and alumni that defined their own needs and gave an appraisal of present and future potential of the university. After doing that, the student committee was to disand and three new committees representing the regents, alumni and faculty were to be formed to rank order presidential candidates" (the Michigan Daily, Feb. 2, 1966). IN RESPONSE to SGC's opposition and active lobbying and support given by the Daily, the selection process was modified in a way that still fell short of student demands, but which eventually became the process followed in the 1966 process." The regents invited several student, faculty and alumni organizations to participate in the selection HE FIRST AMENDMENT to the Constitution states simply that Congress shall make no law "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;" it used to ensure Americans' right to be informed. For the past few months, however, the U.S. Supreme Court 'has taken grave steps to limit the press and therefore restrict the quality and quantity of in- formation available to the public. Fir- st, the Stanford ruling determined that police may conduct a general search of newspaper offices with nothing more than a searchwarrant-easily ob- tained from cooperative judges. Now the high court has decided that New York Times investigative reporter Myron Farber may be incarcerated until he agrees to relinquish all his notes pertaining to the case of Mario Jascalevich, a doctor who is being tried for the murder of 13 patients. In 1975, Farber began an in- vestigation of 13 mysterious deaths at Riverside Hospital in New Jersey in 1965-66. Farber wrote a series of ar- ticles providing evidence that the deaths were actually murders com- mmitted by a person he identified only as "Dr. X." These articles led the in- dictment of Jascalevich on 13 counts of murder. Jascalevich claims he needs Far- the police and Jascalevich has the same access to the undisclosed sources used for the newspaper articles. Moreover, Farber asserts that if he bends to pressure from the courts and reveals his sources, newspersons, and therefore every American, would no longer be privy to anonymous sources. This is a key point. While everyone has equal access to sources, persons are more inclined to reveal secrets to news reporters because anonimity can be promised. Sources would be less in- clined. to come forward if they knew their name could be forced from a reporter in a court of law. Watergate might never have happened had this ruling been in effect in 1972. Farber was not involved in the case. He was not present when the aledged murders happened. In court his note could not be considered anything more than heresay evidence. Jascalevich is not being prosecuted by Farber. Jascalevich is not being tried on the basis of Farber's article. Farber only brought to light evidence which led police to investigate the Riverside Hospital deaths more deeply. It was the police investigation which brought Jascalevich to trial, not Farber's articles. In short, there was community-wide concern about the either of the three lists. IT IS IMPORTANT to note at this point that in addition to SGC's and the Michigan Daily's continued objection to the process as it was defined and their support of one joint presidential advisory committee, some SACUA members (The Senate Advisory committee for University Affairs which represents the faculty) also requested hit contact occur between committees preferably in a joint committee" (the Daily, Feb. 17, 1966). In short, there was a community-wide concern about the structure of the process and the guarantee that it provides O~r participationand influenceto each of the groups involved. Also, some consensus was reached at least as to the importance of having one joint presidential selection advisory committee that included all of the groups concerned. It is these same concerns and proposals (even if in some slightly modified form) that the MSA presidential selection committee is putting forward for public debate and consideration by the University community. ONE LAST POINT must be made to those who will still maintain after this review of the history of the debate that the SGC's involvement in the 1966 process constituted de-factoapproval. To these I must counter that from the point of view of the 1966 SGC, which was suffering from the university's and the regents' intransigence as to the recognition of its right to be consulted in student related policy issues, the inclusion of the students in this process set an invaluable precedent even if the process was far from being satisfactory. MSA cannot, in my opinion, be asked twelve years later to accept a process that was handed down to them by the regents without and consultation and which even twelve years ago was not acceptable to the student government. Last, but not least, if the quest for morestudent rights is to continue and if we want student government to always move one step forward, we must critically learn from the lessons of our own history and not simply be structure of the (presidential selection) process and the guarantees that it provided for participation and influence to each of the groups involved. university president. . . To ensure student particiation in the selection process of potential candidates to a final recommendation on candidates, SGC moved that one presidential selection advisory committee be formed by the regents as a body of 12-16 members. Regents, faculty, alumni and students be equally represented on this committee . . . This committee will then submit final recommendations of at least 10 candidates in preferential order for the regents" (The Michigan Daily, Feb. 2, 4, and 10 of 1966). Meanwhile, the regents, without publicly consulting any of the major groups of the university community came up with their own process by designing committees of their own members to advise the regent's committee. These advisory committees provided suggestions of the future needs of the university as well as names of candidates'' (the Michigan Daily, Feb. 12, 1966). Formally the committees were to have minimal contact with each other, but the agreed upon lists by the three committees were to later on anonymously circulate among them. In the words of the 1966 regents, "this arrangement was created as a method of avoiding formal requirements binding the boaird of regents" (the Michigan Daily, Feb. 12, 1966). The regents have in fact the right to decide on a candidate whose name does not appear on trapped us do. by it as the regents would have have Letters harti feminists' quest for why an ERA etension "equality", or if they are just trying very hard to ignore them. Rather, it is the tactics they uses The threat of losing a seat in one's state legislature because of