The Michigan Daily-Wednesday, Decer

Page 6-Wednesday, December 12, 1979-The Michigan Daily

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B REAKFAST ANL' LINEN service
couldn't be found in the dorms
anymore, but soft serve and, prob-
ably, PBB could. Lettuce made
occasional appearances, depending on the
political climate.
The Hash Bash lost its politics; the bong
became a piece of furniture.
Pluses and minuses were added to the
pseudo-science of grading, creating the truly
agonizing B-plus.
CRISP taught students to bow before com-
puter terminals at least twice a year.
While North Campus began to look more and
more like a campus, the fight to save historic
Waterman/Barbour gym was begun, fought,
and lost.
A PRESIDENT WHO made a name for him-
self analyzing conflict and mediation, and who
faced student demonstrators with a bull-horn in
hand more than once, was replaced by one well
known for economics work, who clearly
wouldn't relish the thought of settling a crowd,
horn in hand.
Streaking produced goosebumps. The Killer

Sit-in shuffle to committee rag in ten st

ps

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Game produced 007s and casualties in East
Quad.
As the 70s opened, the American flag was still
being burned. It would have been hard to
visualize then, the flag of apathy that would
begin to be waved before the class of 1974 took
their diplomas.
During the first month of 1970, students
sprayed pesticides and dropped a dead bird
and several fish on the desk of an Allied
Chemical Co. recruiter; a navy recruiter was
doused with black enamel paint; following an
anti-imperialism teach-in, a crowd of some 450
marched to the County Building, cheered as a
North Vietnamese flag was hoisted up the
flagpole, and smashed a few windows of local
banks; and a group of about 30 broke into and
ransacked the headquarters of the campus
ROTC at North Hall, engaging in the campus'
first acts of "trashing."
IN THE WEEKS that followed, the rallies
and teach-ins continued. The nation's first en-

vironmental teach-in drew 50,000. Eight hun-
dred gathered on the Diag to mourn the deaths
of four slain Kent State students. And in protest
of U.S. mining of the North Vietnamese coast,
10 car loads of anti-war activists crept down I-
94, blocking traffic.
Indeed, the first successful student strike
was not in the 60s, but in April 1970. The Black
Action Movement (BAM), with the support of
an estimated 80 per cent of the University's
students, closed down a large part of the
University's operations for nine days. During
the strike nearly every political tactic was
tried, from pushing thousands of books off the
shelves of the UGLI to conferring face-to-face
with University President Robben Fleming. In
the end BAM appeared the victor, having
achieved its demands with administration
promises to increase black enrollment and
provide additional economic support to
minority students.
But generally, the bomb threats and brick

institutionalized, financial aid to minority
students was greatly increased, and non-
academic discipline would, by the end of the
decade, become practically unheard of.
Yet student power went only so far, and on
the big decisions such as tenure or program
discontinuance, students remained advisors at
best.
The students . who sought advisory roles
gravitated in the late 64s to a highly politicized
Student Government Council (SGC). In the
early 70s they went to an SGC busy reacting to
new committees and administrative decisions.
And in the later 70s they looked to a Michigan
Student Assembly (MSA) learning to initiate
action and issues.
This kind of student might have been an-
noyed by the scandal and bickering that
marred the sometimes highly internecine
parliamentary and campaign battles of MSA
and the other student governments. SGC, for

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Former University Presi-
dent Robben Fleming (lower
left) who weathered stu-
dent protest of the late
60s and early 70s, confronts
a crowd of Black Action
Movement (8AM) strike
supporters. Fleming's
immediate successor Allan
Smith (top right) has been
filling in for the past year
but will step down when
former vice-president for
academic affairs Harold
Shapiro (bottom right)
takes over as the Univer-
sity's tenth president Jan.
1' 1980.


And thi
the Uni
from bl
strike it
women'
sponsor
1971 W
Fair (c
equality
and enr

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Symbolic of the rush
of technology at the
University was the
inception of CRISP
(left) where students
make a twice annual
pllgrimmage, search-
ing for the perfect
class schedule. But as
modernization in-
creased, campus


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landmarks were lost
such as with the
1977 demolition of
the Waterman-Bar-
bour Gymnasium
(above).

dochina, black oppression in South Africa-the
concerns of the University were aired and
safely contained at polemic teach-ins and in ad
hoc committees.
Since its beginning, the University has gone
to great lengths to avoid making moral or
political stands, arguing that expressing
opinions would inhibit academic freedom and
distinct scholars and scientists from their
work. That philosophy has continually been
challenged from within by those who cried that
the University, as a center of social and
political thought, has an obligation to take
moral stands.
IN THE EARLY 70s, students and faculty
members opposed to the war demanded that
classified defense research at the University be
abandoned as immoral. But the Regents said
no, arguing that no idea, be it anti-war or pro-
war, should be denied- access to University
resources.
-Anti-war students, however, were
allowed to express their opinion during
Homecoming 1971, where demonstrators were
permitted to release 100 black balloons-meant
to represent 15,000 Asian and American war
deaths-while 75,000 football fans stood silently
and the Michigan Marching Band played taps.
The balloons drifted over a campus where
classified defense work continued.
The same arguments continually surfaced
when pressure was applied on the Regents to

take stands against corporations allegedly
polluting the environment, manufacturing
napalm, discriminating against women and
blacks, or helping to maintain the apartheid
system in South Africa. The Regents answered
by refusing to limit access to recruitment or to
drop investments in or even make statements
about the divestiture issue.
But while the University was effective in
maintaining its isolationist stance when con-
fronted from within, it was somewhat less suc-
cessful in bearing up to attacks from the out-
side. While it was able to solve inner conflict in
its academic manner of motioning, amending
and drafting resolutions, outsiders chipped
away at its proudest tradition-autonomy.
IN RESPONSE TO the anti-war demon-
strations that rocked the campus in the late 60s
and early 70s, the taxpayers of the state began
to lose patience with-and were reluctant to
foot the bill for-an institution whose members
would show anti-war slides during a chemistry
class or would spill tomato juice in the lobby of
the administration building to represent the
blood of the Vietnamese people.
The state legislature finally put its foot down
as the campuses erupted nationwide in respon-
se to the Kent State slayings. In June 1970, the
governor signed an anti-disruption act that
among other things, called for the expulsion of
students who damaged University property or
broke civil or University rules. In an effort to
stir faculty away from the picket lines, it also
included a clause demanding they spend a

minimum of 10 "clas
weeka
Administrators and
dly enamored with
greatly distressed wit
the law was clearly
Regents' autonomy t
guaranteed them in th
AT THE SAME t
tangling with the le
claiming the state ha
in setting restrictions
state students who c
requiring that all n
proved by the legi
Outlays Committee.
The Open Meetings
suit filed by the Ann
Regents out into
technically-and brot
der public scrutiny.
The federal gove
challenges to the I
Carrying the sign wa
of the 60s into the cot
issued various threa
University failed to
treatment of women a
IN ADDITION, Wa
up their producito
academic programs,
University's abilit
curriculum in its ow
up. Indeed, every dec

throwing gave way to motions and amendmen-
ts in committees and assemblies. Heady sit-ins
were replaced by tedium around the conferen-
ce table.
There was a committee to revise the campus
code of non-academic behavior. There were
hearings and committee meetings to determine
an effective policy for allowing on-campus
recruitment by institutions of questionable
moral standards. But perhaps the most
significant change was the appointment of
faculty and students to advisory positions on
the committees that made up the University
budget.
SLOWLY, CHANGES came. Pass-fail was

example, filed a civil suit in 1974 against a for-
mer president who'd just resigned for allegedly
misusing $8,000 in student funds.
BUT WITH THE tens of thousands of dollars
given to student government starting in 1971
under a new funding procedure, and with what
appeared to be a growing sdphistication among
student advisors and administrators, real
progress never seemed unattainable.
The conflicts that stirred the campus during
the 70s, were settled in-house, as they had been
handled throughout the history of the Univer-
sity.
Although the arguments were often
stimulated by distant events-the war in In-

L 970 Sept. 27: Senate Assembly moves to bar maority of
May 7: 800 meet on Diag for adminstration-sponsored classified research on campus.
memorial to four slain Kent State University students.
Sept. 13: Floors in Mosher-Jordan and Alice Lloyd go 19?72
co-ed on experimental basis.


May 23: Anti-war demonstrators dig craters on the Diag
to represent mine blasts In Indochina.
Oct. 9: Assistant Chemistry Prof. suspended for showing
an anti-war slide show to a Chemistry 123 class.
Nov. 30: Student Government Council narrowly vetoes
-Irn for. *uden dg. co-op.

April 4: Citing fraud, SGC voids its recent all-campus
election.
April 6: University falls short of 10 per cent black en-
rollment, its goal following the 1970 DAM strike.
June 20: University clears student organizations out of
the Student Actvities Building so it could be used by
administrators.

Feb. 4: President Robben Fleming tells representatives
for teaching fellows that the administration will not
bargain collectively with them.
Nov. 18: LSA faculty adds pluses and minuses to letter
grade system and gives pass/fail system grater flexibility.

July 19: Regents approve tuition increases averaging
six per cent.
I Feb. 13: Acting LSA Dean Billy Frye appointed dean.
April 1: Tuition hiked nine per cent due to insufficient
funds from the state.
Sept. 1: Gerald Ford kicks off campaign against Jimmy
Carter at Crisler Arena.

Feb. 2: School of Public Health announces plans to termi-
nate Department of Population Planning.
Feb. 22: AFSCME union strikes, over 2,300 University
employees walk the picket lines.
Jan. 26: Shivering and sputtering under 19 inches of snow,
University cancels classes.
Sept. 14: President Fleming announces he'll retire in
January after 11 years. Law Professor Allan Smith be.
comes acting president.

March 15, 16: Demonstrators advocating divestiture from
South Africa disrupt Regents meeting for two days in a
row, forcing the university to obtain a court order allow-
ing the Regents to meet behind closed doors.
July 27: Harold Shapiro, economist and University vice.
president for academic affairs, named 10th University
president.

Feb. 14: GEO strike rally draws 2,50 to Diag.

Jan. 0: County Sheriff Doug Harvey admits to undercover
spying at University and Eastern Michigan Univ:r.
c^n -eas.

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Feb. 18: Minorities occupy Adrinl -ton Buiding with { D'
a sct of siY ' r.,, r5I

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