Page 4-Wednesday, November 1, 1978-The Michigan Doily
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Eighty-Nine Years of Editorial Freedom
Vol. LXXXIX, No. 48 News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
The rights of teenagers
Denial of Tenure: The larger issues
W ATERGATE IS long passed;
a Richard Nixon has little if any
direct effect on our lives. But in one
respect Mr. Nixon's spirit still haunts
us. By an unfortunate turn of events,
Mr. Nixon had the privilege of
appointing four persons to the U.S.
Supreme Court during his reign. The
progressive interpretation of the
constitution by the Chief Justice Earl
Warren court reversed slowly as the
former president stacked the high
court in his favor. It seeme that every
decision handed down by Chief Justice
Warren Burger evokes tainted
memories of Mr. Nixon.
This week the court decided to
reconsider a ruling made two years
ago that banned laws giving parents
absolute authority whether their under
aged daughters may have abortions.
The decision, made in 1976, struck
down a Missouri law that gave parents
veto power, through denial of consent,
of abortions for their unwed, teenage
daughters. This decision, one of the
most progressive of the present court,
went, a long way to legitimizing the
rights of young people.
For young people especially, the
question of whether to have a baby has
more serious ramifications than
perhaps any decision of their lives. It is
a decision that should be madeafter
thorough consideration of all the
options - it is a decision that lasts a
lifetime.
It would be especially tragic if young
people were not allowed to decide if
they are ready to be responsible for
taking care of a baby until it is full
grown. Parents make many decisions
for their children, but this decision is
one in which no one but persons
directly affected by it should have the
ultimate say.
A parent who is religiously opposed
to abortion or a parent acting
unreasonably , could effectively
undermine his or her child's freedom
by refusing to permit it.
It is not an infrequent occurence to
see thirteen year-old girls in the
offices of planned parenthood. In many
cases, the parents of these teenagers
would react violently if they found out
their daughter was having sex, let
alone need an abortion.
This court case has already been
ruled on by a three-judge federal court
from Boston. It invalidated a law
which stipulated that parents had to be
consulted when an unwed minor
wanted to abort her fetus during any
stage of pregnancy. The three-judge
panel ruled that the law infringed upon
the rights of "mature minors".
The recent . trend in the Supreme
Court has been to take away privileges
it had previously given. If this trend
continues, and the Court reverses its
earlier decision and gives parents the
last say over their doughters abortion,
youths will for e rest of their lives,
suffer for their p rents' mistakes.
Committee of
Concerned
Faculty
Coordinators:
Jim Crowfoot, Natural
Resources
Michael Taussig, Anthropology
Alex Wald, English
Thomas Weisskopf,
Economics
Marilyn Young, Res. College
There has been a great deal of discussion
recently within the University community
concerning Professor Joel Samoff, an
outstanding scholar and teacher who was
denied tenure by his colleagues in the
Department of Political Science. We think it
is important to focus attention on this case, in
part because Professor Samoff's contribution
to the University should not be lost, and in
part because the handling of the case raises
several issues that ought to concern us all. It
seems useful to review some of those issues
here.
1. How does the University insure that its
scholarship remains vital and innovative,
particularly in a time of budget reductions?
Generally, we attempt to maintain our
intellectual openness by having on our faculty
individuals whose work seems promising and
challenging - whether by the approach and
methodology employed or by the results
produced - but not yet fully accepted by the
discipline at large. While those who largely
follow along intellectual paths already
opened, or who reproduce results ofearlier
investigations, do make necessary
contributions; we stagnate unless we have
colleagues who do things differently, who
follow other paths, and whose results have not
yet been reproduced. That, of course,
involves a risk. The risk is the risk of all
learning: that an idea that initially seems
promising subsequently turns out not to have
been fairly fruitful. It is the very challenge of
those different ideas that stimulate the
interchange, the confrontation of approaches,
of theories, and of methodologies, that permit
current understandings to be modified and
new understandings to emerge.
It is relatively easy (though in fact never
easy at all) to take that risk, to employ
faculty who do things differently, when the
University is expanding and when the
coffers seem full. It is also relatively easy to
make those faculty the victims of the times,
when funds are scarce. Why provide salaries
for the intellectual deviants,when there are
worthy intellectual non-deviants
unemployed? But that is precisely when we
must be most concerned about maintaining
intellectual diversity! When that diversity is
most vulnerable to budgetary constraints is
the time wher we must protect it most
zealously.
2. How does the University maintain the
morale, the dedication, and the commitment
of its younger faculty, particularly in a time
of budget reductions?
Again, when funds are plentiful, it is
possible to provide a variety of incentives (in
addition to salary and fringe benefits):
generous research and leave time, travel
allowances, research assistance and support,
relatively good prospects of continued
employment, and the like. When funds are
less available, the Universityrmust fall back
on its inner, less tangible, rewards. Good
working conditions, collegiality, tolerance of
intellectual difference, flexibility of
scheduling and work loads, and so on are all
important. Equally important is the young
faculty members' sense that their work will
be assessed by rational, reasonable, and
objective standards, and that the
understandings they had when first hired will
be met. When the standards applied seem to be
arbitrary, inconsistent, personal, and
political, morale can onlyr fall.When faculty
who are told that their future at the
University will depend on the quality of their
work begin to see that their work, however
successful, has little impact on their future,
their dedication and commitment to the
University will become as much lip-service as
the original promises.
Because of the security provided by our
tenure rules, the burden of budget reductions
tends to fall hardest on our youngest
colleagues. That is very dangerous, for it is
our youngest colleagues who will provide not
only the substance of the University in the
future, but also much of its ethos. And faculty
whose initial experiences at the University
are heavily steeped in cut-throat competition,
callous and unfeeling personal interactions,
and capricious standards will come to see
those patterns as normal. What is regarded as
normal gets perpetuated. The institution,
including future generations of both facuty
and students, suffers.
We should note as well that in an era of
increasing resort to litigation, there are
issues of contractual obligation. Where young
faculty feel that their contract - defined by
letter of appointment, by communications
from chairpersons and deans, they are likely
to seek justice not within the Univesity but 'in
the courts. Although we would agree that
there are occasions when we need to be
reminded of our community obligations by
external agencies, we would prefer in general
to govern ourselves. To the extent that we
govern ibadly, as perceived by the larger
society, our ability to govern ourselves will be
diminished.
3. How do we maintain and improve the
intellectual strengths and the commitments
to serving the community of our cross-
disciplinary and other non-departmental
often the University can find faculty who are
strong in research and in teaching. And for a
major university it may be reasonable to tilt
the tmphasis in most cases toward research.
But our experience tells us that we would fall
in our committment to undergraduat
education is our adherence to tho
presumptions were blind and unvarying.
We should never permit a faculty member'
teaching and contribution to the Universit
and larger community to be so devalued tha
they play no part in the.tenure decision. A
we recognize that on occasion th
University's goals are best served by giving
teaching and service primary weight. No
always, and perhaps not frequently, but
surely sometimes.
5. How does the University insure that these
other considerations - budget restrictions,
staffing priorities, differences between units,
emphasis on research - do not become a
mask behind which personal biases and
political prejudices are disguised?
The general communication to a faculty
member not recommended for promotion is
that the quality of his or her work i
insufficient. Far too often, there is little mor
than that. Apparently by University policyj
more detailed reasons are not committed td
paper. it is not uncommon, we fear, for that
concise communication to hide the
application of inappropriate, unfair, and
undesirable standards.
It may be true that most often such
problems can be resolved satisfactorily
rwithin the unit concerned. But we are not
worried about the easy cases. We worry about
If the decisions of a few of our senior colleagues cannot, i
fact, be effectively challenged, then our protections again
personal bias and political prejudice are empty shells.
Regime of terror
MNESTY INTERNATIONAL, a
Nobel Peace Prize-winning group
committed to exposing human rights
violations and aiding victims, reported
in London, England last week on
horrible conditions in Equatorial
Guinea, a small country on the West
African coast.
Since the end of Spanish colonial rule
ten years ago, President Macias
Nguema has done his best to compete
with Idi Amin for the title of most
murderous dictator on the African
continent. In a cable to the
Organization of African Unity
requesting it's aid in restoring human
rights in Equatorial Guinea; Amnesty
referred to "a succession of arbitrary
arrests, death by torture and summary
executions," in that country.
In the first six years of his regime,
President Macias compiled a list of 319
named persons known to have been
executed and 300 more names have
been added to that list in the past three
years. Most of the known dead were
cabinet ministers, ministers of
parliament, senior government
officials, professionals, and members
of the armed forces. There are also a
reported 1000 political prisoners in
Equatorial Guinea, all being detained
without trial.
Many of the executions were
conducted in a purge just after the free
election which brought President
Macias to power in 1968. He justified
his actions by stating that his fellow
politicians were conspiring to
overthrow the government. The
executions and the rest of his savage
bidding is performed by the.
presidential guard which, like the
police and army, is headed by men who
are his close blood relatives.
The major reason the fascist exploits
of President Macias are so little known
is due to the prohibition of journalists
in Equatorial Guinea since 1970. In an
effort to further isolate the country,
President Macias deported all foreign
clergy in 1975. One year later he cut the
last link to English-speaking Africa by
expelling Nigerian migrant workers in-
the cocoa plantations.
SO confident that only he can provide
Equatorial Guinea with effective
leadership, President Macias - in a
series of decrees between 1970 and 1972
- turned the country into a one-party
state with himself as Life President.
Perhaps most disturbing is that the
Amnesty expose was largely
overlooked by the U.S. press. The
European press, however, seemed to
think, and rightly so, that the story was
significant. This is not the first time
the U.S. Press has kept Americans
uninformed. Apparently, thousands of
lives have to be lost before the U.S.
media feels obligated to inform
Americans - a sad commentary
which speaks to the growing mood of
isolationism in this country. One can
only speculate about the number of
other atrocious events about which
Americans never hear.
We can only hope that President
Carter has been informed on the sorry
state of Equatorial Guinea and that he
will extend his human rights campaign
to that country.
programs?
Many of the faculty decisions we make as a
University have to do with hiring and
retaining faculty. The content, priorities, and
style of our programs are all heavily
influenced by the faculty responsible for
them. Since our basic organizational unit is
the department, it may make general sense
for the departments to be the primary
location where faculty hiring and promotion
decisions are made.
But there do arise occasions when the goals,
or needs, or priorities of our units are at odds.
When those differences are between
departments, they can usually be addressed
at the college level. But when those
differences are between departments and
non-departmental units, the tendency is for
the department to prevail, even though the
goals, needs, and priorities of the non-
departmental unit may be equally, or even
more, important to the Univesity community
as a whole.
For example, the needs of area studies
centers and departments may diverge. As
funds for new appointments are frozen, a
department may put a lower priority on
hiring or replacing an area specialist. But for
the area studies center, that specialist may be
required to staff key courses or to oversee key
research. For the University, the vitality of
the area center, which may be one of the few
of its sort in the country, or which may
provide an essential service to the University
community, or which may be at a critical
stage of its own development, could well
exceed the importance of the department's
priorities.
Thus, there may well be occasions,
especially when funds are scarce, when the
needs of non-department units should not be
subordinated to the decisions of departments.
That could take the form of assigning faculty,
with appropriate job security, directly to the
centers. Alternatively, that could well take
the form of insisting that the departments
wigh more heavily the needs of other units,
perhaps by attaching the funds to the other
units.
4. How doestthe University fulfill its
commitment to raising the quality of
instruction, particularly at the undergratuate
level?
It may be reasonable to presume that most
those cases where personal biases an
political prejudices are integrated into th
standards applied and thus reduced les
visible. And we worry about those case
where faculty decide that a young colleagu
whose work has been of high quality simply
"does not fit.
On paper, we seem. to have various.
channels for redress.Even those channels
at least within LSA, seem so narrowl
constrained that they do not permit a seriou
challenge to a tenure decision. But, mor
important, we wonder if those channels tha
do exist serveless to secure a just income tha
to legitimize whatever was the decisio
originally taken.
In our discussions about the Samoff case, w
have again amd again encountered th,
response that "departments are neve
overturned." College Executive Committee
and senior University officials do -no
intervene in department issues, we are tol
Short of a patent and flagrant violation of
law, we are informed,the- department'
decision is final. If the decisions of a few o
our senior colleagues cannot, in fact, bE
effectively challenged, then our protections
against personal bias and political prejudice
are empty shells.
It is striking .to us that we have so little
means of reassessing prior decisions. As
scholars and teachers, we frequently hav
occasion to challenge the judgment of ou
peers and students, and to urge them t
rethink their analyses. We often expect the.
to do so. But for our own decisions - decision
that affect the present and future quality o
our university - we insist that there b
serious and obvious error, or n
information, before we agree to reconsider.
That there are amply grounds for rethinking
we might havesbeen wrong seems to be an
insufficient basis for reviewing our earlie
judgment!
Regardless of the ultimate outcome fo4
Samoff, and we reiterate that we think hi
departure will be a great loss to the
University; these issues will remain with us
Surely we ought to address them directly,
before someone else requires us to do so.
-Committee of Concerned
Faculty.
Letters to the Daily
Lines are unfair
To the Daily:
I am writing in response to a
letter by Jeff- Par-sigian that
appeared in the Oct. 25th Daily,
concerning the basketball ticket
lottery. Unfortunately, Mr.
Parsigian fails to realize that
there are many student
basketball fans, like myself,-
involved in such outside activities
as attending classes and doing
homework. It is impossible for us
to be able to set aside the
relatively large amounts of time
required for waiting in line.
I have been an avid basketball
fan and season ticket holder for
three seasons now, and feel that I
have as much right as anyone to
Tanstaafl). Simply put, the
basketball ticket lottery is the
fairest way of distributing tickets
and I congratulate Mr. Rendrew
for a sensible solution to this
problem.
-Mark Schara
"
Anti-nukes
numbers
misuses
small piece of plutonium in
everyone's lungs. to insure that
the plutonium would remain in
the lungs, and not be removed by
natural cleansing mechanisms, it
would have to be imbedded in
lung membranes. Studies have
been 'made that show that
plutonium dispersion and intake
are not the same. It is doubtful
that if several pounds of
plutonium were dispersed over a
city even a few micrograms of
plutonium would become wedged
in many persons' lungs. In fact,
most people have a little
plutonium in their lungs as a
result of weapons tests. These
tests released large quantities of
plutonium to the atmosphere.
Why aren't we all dead?
As for the section on weapons;
design would take mo
resources than are available
the Unviersity of Michigan. T
would be true even if t
University scientists started wi
weapons grade plutonium.
should be noted that weapo
grade plutonium is not a
product of the nuclear pow
industry. To obtain weapox
grade plutonium from the b
products of the nuclear powe
industry further expertise an
capital investment would b
required.
Further more, we would like
point out that at this time, 99 p
cent of the nuclear' was
. generated in this country is a b
product of the nuclear weapo
program. Hence, curtailment:
l e , ticl i ttn
IfLaI1
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editors-in-chief
Arts Editors
OWEN GLEIBERMAN
MIKE TAYLOR
To the Daily:
We must take exception to
several comments made in the
"No Nukes" article that
appeared recently in your
Sunday Magazine. Primarily we
disagree with statements
DAVID GOODMAN
GREGG KRUPA
Managing Editors
M.EILEEN DALEY
BUSINESS STAFF
NANCY GRAU ............................. Business Manager