6 Etie St$td9an Dai j Eighty-one years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan superscription The Universty as PESC-exterminator by ly n p weiner 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1972 NIGHT EDITOR: ALAN LENHOFF Miliken s proposed primary WITH THE acquiescence Wednesday of State Senate Democrats, it appears the chief obstacle blocking Gov. William Milliken's proposal to hold a state presi- dential primary has been passed. While the effect will doubtless be beneficial for those wishing a greater say in which Democrat faces Nixon this fall, it is hard- ly more than a beginning in overhauling an electoral system badly in need of reform. On the surface, admittedly, Milliken's proposal seems promising enough. State Secretary of State Richard Austin would give all the announced candidates in the twd major parties a chance to appear on a statewide May ballot provided they supply him with lists nominating dele- gates corresponding to the state's 19 con- gressional districts. The ballot would supposedly indicate each candidate's group of delegates for the given district. The overall Republican and Democratic victor would gain an ex- tra one quarter of the allocated at-large delegates of his or her party. THE IMPROVEMENT such a plan rep- resents is clear enough. Up to this time, the state legislature - which de- termines the general outline for the dele- gate selection process -- has abided by the hackneyed method of precinct elec- tions. Almost invisible elections have sent from each precinct a group of unknowns who in turn selected another group of party members to fill the allotted num- ber of state seats to the party's national conventions. Not only was it never certain who the candidate you were voting for supported, but because these elections were held midway in time between Presidential elections, there were seldom any candi- dates to identify a precinct delegate with. In all, it was a good way of keeping the election of the two main parties' con- vention delegates in the hands of party leaders. HOWEVER, the history of Milliken's pro- posal and others that preceded it indicates that the Democrats and Repub- licans contemplate very little to increase the average citizen's input into who he has to choose from for the country's highest office. In this state, as in most others, the Democratic and Republican organizations have adopted primary systems of delegate selections only when necessity dictated it. Rules that for all practical purposes elected national convention delegates two years in advance - like Michigan's - went largely unquestioned until the debacle at Chicago in 1968 forced the Democrats into a crash program of "re- form" led by presidential contender Sen. George McGovern. This commission has had little effect in making uniform rules for conducting primaries and conventions because several state parties ignored the commission's recommendations com- pletely. IT IS NOT surprising that such a pro- posal, formulated out of political ex- pediency rather than a basic desire to involve more people in the political pro- cess, has several serious flaws. It gives the state Secretary of State the arbitrary power to determine who is a candidate and discourages the candidacy of minor- ity view candidates by making it im- possible for them to run unless they have party supporters in every area of the state. Finally, there is no guarantee that delegates attached to a candidate will end up voting for that candidate at the con- vention. In the final analysis, Milliken's pro- posed state primary is an imperfect im- provement over the existing too-tightly closed system of nominating presidential candidates. Currently only 22 states plus the District of Columbia hold presidential primaries and will produce 60 per cent of the delegates for the Democratic Nation- al Convention. Insofar as the primaries increase pub- lic involvement in delegate selection and subject candidates to closer public scru- tiny, they should offset some of the more blatant methods of manipulating the convention selection process. And with the current group of candidates so de- serving of critical examination, a presi- dential primary here could hardly worsen the field. -MARK DILLEN PERHAPS THE UNIVERSITY should hire uni- formed guards to demand student identification outside every classroom. Otherwise, members of the community m i g h t infiltrate academia and sneak in some education. For free. This won't happen, though, if the University en- forces its ruling on the Program for Educational and Social Change. PESC, self-described as a "community of stu- dents, teachers, and workers within and outside the University of Michigan," dared last month to publicize a program where instructors of regu- larly scheduled courses would open up their class- rooms this semester to community members at no cost. The first day of class was barely waning, how- ever, when Vice President for Academic Affairs Al- lan Smith released a dry memorandum "correcting" the PESC statement that "all classrooms described in this booklet are open to all, and free to non- university people." After all, the Vice President pointed out, in the literary college, in-state part-time students must pay $30 per credit hour if they wish to audit a class. And the cost for non-residents is $90 a credit. Further, Smith said, as the majority of the courses offered in the PESC booklet are culled from regular university areas, the decision to open them up "is not within the province of the program per- sonnel nor the individual professor, and it is not University policy." UNIVERSITY POLICY, of course, is to restrict the availability of learning resources through narrow criteria which rigidly define students within stand- ards of class, age, and 'competence.' But PESC members see the University in a dif- ferent manner. Program participants both inside and outside the established structure have volunteered their own time, resources, and extra clasroom space to the community. Their course catalog includes a mixture of over 50 courses in anthropology, economics, English, geography, history, physics, community control, and other fields ralating in some way to social and educational change. PESC critics - critics ultimately of the broader issue of an open university-charge that an influx of people into the classroom changes the very na- ture of that classroom, and thus infringes upon the people who pay high tuition rates for a certain 'qual- ity' of education. But PESC has a response which is based on a different philosophy. "We believe first and foremost that the Univer- sity should be open and free," they state. "As a great public university, its resources belong to so- ciety and should be used as fully as possible by the people whose interests and welfare it must serve." The issue,- then, is ultimately one of the very nature of the University - its admissions stand- ards, academic criteria, and basic functions. TO AUDIT A CLASS means to sit in with no other aim than the learning itself - no credit, no de- gree, no grade. Just knowledge. For full time stu- dents, auditing is free. PESC is initially asking that auditing be free to all members of the community -that the right to knowledge be available without restriction. Actually it would be difficult to clamp down on non-students sitting in, unless there were desk- checks, guards checking identification, or other means of restricting classroom entrance. SURELY THIS PROGRAM - limited as it is - should be allowed to proceed in its effort to illus- trate that the University and the community have -much to teach each other. And the theoretical policemen of 'qualified admissions' should not re- strict and chain the educational resources which the University offers. ** *i Re port asks research plan changes 4 INTRODUCTION In March, 1971, Senate Assem- bly requested its Committee on Research Policies to "examine the question of classified and propri- etary research at the University of Michigan and to make recom- mendations for action to Senate Assembly." The Committee was also asked to "work out means of barring classified military re- search whose clearly forseeable purpose is to destroy human life or to incapacitate human beings." Part I of this Committee's report, primarily devoted to classified re- search, was submitted to Senate Assembly on September 1, 1971. At that time the Committee promised a later discussion of proprietary research in a Part II. This present report examines proprietary research, as originally intended, but should not be re- garded as Part II of the initial re- port. In September, 1971, Senate Senate Assembly's Research Policy Commit- tee completed a report early this month recom- mending new guidelines for propriety research at the University, as well as changes in the assem- bly's resolution on restricting federal classified research. This article contains excerpts from the yet-to-be- released report. Assembly changed the conditions of its charge to the Committee. The Assembly substituted its own policies for several of the policies recommended in Part I. The sub- stituted policies place greater em- phasis on ensuring "open publica- tion of results" than on "barring classified military research." It became evident during this Committee's examination of pro- prietary research under the more recent charge, that the policies ap- McCracken reviews White House years EDITOR'S NOTE: Prof. Paul McCracken,, who resigned last month after three years as Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, returned to the Univer- sity this term to resume his duties as Ed- mund Ezra Day Professor of business ad- ministration. In this second excerpted por- tion of an interview conducted by The Daily, McCracken describes his experiences as a top-level advisor in Washington. Q: The President's Council of Eco- nompic Advisors is only one of several bodies that advises the President on economic matters. How influential is the Council compared to the Treasury De- partment and the Federal Reserve Board? McCracken: Looking at the objective statistics it really ought not to have any influence at all since it's so small. It manages nothing. The Secretary of the Treasury manages the debt and has responsibility for tax policy. The director of the bureau of the .budget runs the budget side; the expenditure side. The Council does not have operating func- tions which inherently have a major im- pact on the economy. Yet over the years, the role of the council has become more important. One reason is that economic policy is much more important. I think another facet is that the founding fathers at least had the foresight to position the coun- cil in the executive office of the Presi- dent. So whom did I report to - I re- ported to the President. The only person in between was the appointment. secre- tary. This is important, you know. Another point is that the council has a good deal of status and respectability within the administration, because the various other senior people in the admin- istration don't fear us. Or they don't find themselves in an adversary relationship. Q. What was the chairman's role, your personal role in formulating administra- tion economic policy? McCracken: With the reorganization action taken in 1953, the authority of the Council of Economic Advisors is legally Q: Would you be'"able to give any par- ticular instances of things like this that were sort of shot down? McCracken: Let me give you one that took a lot of pulling and hauling before it finally got there. The bill the admin- istration put forward on rationizing the regulation of transportation. Transporta- tion is over-regulated. Over the years we have had a case of where the president of a railroad almost had to get the per- mission of the ICC to go to the bath- room. And what have we got? We've got an industry that's in a mess. Well, there are a lot of political prob- lems in this kind of thing. I think you can envisage some. We took a great deal of the leadership there. But then they'd say, "Oh well, that won't fly." Maybe we could comprom- ise a little bit, give a little ground. Bet- ter to have half a loaf than none. And this goes on until there might be a meeting of the mind. Q: You didn't enjoy all the politicking as much as some other people? McCracken: Well, I don't. I think I understood what was going on. A per- son mustn't go down to be chairman of the council with the starry-eyed notion that he will run policy. The President runs policy. Economic policy's too im- portant. A lot of other people are going to in- sist rightly on having their say. And if you understand this then the ques- tion you really have to ask is: Are they always listening? If you get shut out, then you don't have any way to in- fluence policy. But you have to under- stand that. Q: But you don't personally have to like it? McCracken: I think one of the more difficult things for a professor, for some- one who comes out of academic life, is to find himself in a position of having to defend publicly policies which intra- murally he would oppose. Now I haven't plying to classified research adopted by Senate Assembly could be extended to proprietary re- search provided certain modifi- cations and interpretations were made. These changes are also presented in this report. NATURE OF PROPRIETARY RESEARCH The term proprietary research is used to designate a subset of sponsored research projects in which the sponsor, whether- it be an industry, group of industries. trade association, non - profit foundation or association, or a unit of government, by any form of legal document retains rights with respect to input of informa- tion or output of results. Accepting the existence of pro- prietary rights does not mean, of course, that these rights are con- sistently implemented or acted up- on; ordinarily they are under- standings created to prevent fu- ture confusion over legitimate pos- session of any valued aspects of the research. The legitimacy of the sponsoring organization's rights stems from the interest it has in the research problem as well as the financing it provides to sup- port the investigation. The Committee considers clas- sified research to be a subset of proprietary research, as the gov- ernment in classified studies has rights and interests similar to those described above. The prin- cipal distinction between classi- fied and unclassified proprietary research is in the legal basis upon which any allegation of a breach of contract would stand. An unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a crimi- nal act and would result in a pro- secution based primarily upon the National Security Act of 1947 as amended, and the Internal Secur- ity Act of 1950, Title 50, U.S.C. An unauthorized disclosure of un- classified proprietary information is usually a civil offense and pro- secution would be based on laws governing contracts and laws cov- ering damages that the sponsor (or researcher) may claim as a result of disclosure. As was mentioned in its previous report, members of this Commit- tee believe it is important to de- velop general principles that will apply uniformly to all types of research, not solely to classified or proprietary research, at the University. Amount of Proprietary Research The dollar volume of proprie- tary research funded by industry or trade associations has been be- tween five and six per cent of the total research budget on this cam- m~ig Ptuh wa sd,np 1962 _n 197 fied research. we may note, would add about $5 million to the above amounts. Resolution On Classified Research By Senate Assembly In September 1971, Senate As- sembly voted to recommend to the Regents its own set of policies governing only classified research. These policies and procedures are summarized below: The following policies and pro- cedures shall apply to classified research at the University: I. The University will not enter into or renew federal contracts or grants that limit open publication of the results of research. This general policy will be suspended only in cases where the proposed research is likely to contribute so significantly to the advanc'ment of knowledge as to justify in- fringement of the freedom to pub- lish openly. In all cases the bur- den of proof rests with the fac- ulty member who proposes the contract or grant. II. The University in its en- deavors through research to broaden knowledge will not enter into any classified research con- tract mny snecific purpose or clearly forseeable result of which pointment, and (ii) two persons who indicate that they are philo- sophically opposed to classified re- search. (b) Formal approval of any pro- posed research requires at least seven affirmative votes. (c) The Committee will make full minutes of its discussions and a record of its votes. VI. It is the intent of the Sen- ate Assembly that no proposal for classified research shall be for- warded to the sponsor by the Uni- versity Administration that has not been formally approved by the Review Committee. RECOMMENDATIONS Although, the set of policies adopted by Senate Assembly was specifically designated as apply- ing to classified research, this Committee believes that policies governing research should be uni- formly applied. If these proposed policies were to be extended to all research, the acceptability of many significant investigations of a proprietary nature might be un- c rtain unless th° policies were el15rified by r-wording or interpre- tation. In ord~-r, that the academic freedom of colleagues not be lim- ited in unintended ways, this 4 4 THE INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH. where a substantial portion of the University's proprietary research is conducted. expect in any agency between the head of the agency and his immediate lieu- tenants. A little bit like the difference perhaps between a secretary and an undersecretary. The subject matter was divided into two areas with the other members each taking one of them in the immediate sense. To an astonishing degree the chairman's work was outside the council area. If there were cabinet committees I would be the chairman. Q: It's hard to imagine exactly what an economist does. McCracken: One thing the Council is not is a remote think tank. I could show you my calendar. My day began with an 8:15 meeting with the senior staff peo- ple at the White House. And it was very important because it kept us sort of public housing. That has budgetary im- plications, and it has an impact on the economy. Before you know it the Secre- tary of HUD and the director of the budget and the chairman of the council and the secretaries of commerce and labor are very much interested. So you have a lot of this kind of activity. My day usually ended around 7 or 8. Q: In the course of day-to-day opera- tions or perhaps over the long run, what were some of the minor frustrations you ran into as chairman? McCracken: Anyone who became chair- man who didn't understand that this is a council of economic advisors not a council of economic managers would find himself frustrated. As a matter of fact the President runs policy. So there can be frustrations. You find yourself re- is to destroy life or to incapacitate human beings. III. The University will not en- ter into any contract which would restrain its freedom to disclose (1 the existence of the contract, or (2) the identity of the sponsor, and if a subcontract is involved. the identity of the prime sponsor. IV. The University will not en- ter into any contract which would restrain its freedom to disclose the purpose and scope of the proposed research. This policy will permit informed discussion within the University concerning the appro- priateness and significance of such research. V. A Review Committee will consider all requests for suspen- sion of the general policy stated in Paragraph I and will determine Committee recomm-nds certain modifications of the proposed policies. As earlier observed, there are many limitations to open publi- cation in contracts for proprietary research. If the current Policy I of Senate Assembly is to be ap- plied to all research and to be im- plemented. it is necessary either to define more precisely the na- ture and extent of an acceptable limit to open publication or to re- fuse many proprietary projects. This Committee r-com ends that Policy I as recommended by Sen- ate Assembly include a phrase which more specifically delineates the nature and time of this limi- tat on. Policy I should be reword- ed. and irternretive footnotes be added as follows: T The Un~ivrity will not enter I' I