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March 24, 1972 - Image 4

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Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 1972-03-24

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Eighty-one years of editorial freedom
' Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan

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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.

FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 1972

NIGHT EDITOR: LINDA DREEBEN

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Women's rights--finally

IN A DECISIVE action, the Senate
Wednesday swept aside fifty years of
inaction on the Equal Rights Amend-
ment (ERA) and completed the bill's
congressional approval.
The constitutional measure - if ap-
proved by at least 38 state legislatures -
could strike down all protective laws for
women and finally establish exact equal-
Ity of men and women before the law.
The fifty states presently maintain a
checkerboard of laws which distinguish
between the sexes. Enactment of ERA is
sure to cause havoc in courtrooms as
scores of commonplace laws are chal-
lenged.
While Ohio women may seek to strike
down a state prohibition against female
pin-setters in bowling alleys, a more
widespread movement will most likely
arise among women across the country
in order to revise all laws which distin-
guish between the sexes, including laws
on dower rights, property rights, and
name rights.
FURTHER, the laws which "protect"
women from the jobs or hours which
they seek are all likely to be tossed about
and changed beyond present recognition.

Hopefully, the pressure women will now
apply to their state legislatures for ap-
proval of the amendment will cause each
state to move toward internal adjustment
of discriminatory laws concerning women.
State legislatures have been given a
lengthy seven years in which to act on
this amendment. In light of the strong
congressional approval of ERA, it is likely
the legislatures will take no more than
a few months to complete ratification of
the bill.
After ratification is completed, how-
ever, a two-year waiting period must
lapse before enactment of the amend-
ment.
Presumably, these will be two years of
planning toward complete eradication of
laws which unjustly distinguish between
the sexes.
THE CONSTITUTION has been main-
tained for 200 years as the foundation
of democracy - for American white
males.
Optimistically, under three years sep-
arates women from taking their places
as full citizens before the law.
-CARLA RAPOPORT
Executive Editor

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Dist. Publishers-Ballsyndicate

Reverend Jesse:

Preacg and PUSHing

ITT: Tip of an iceberg

AS THE ITT case continues to unfold,
it provides solid evidence for some-
thing that many people have long sus-
pected - the Nixon administration is less
than honest, if not thoroughly corrupt.
The original charge by columnist Jack
Anderson that the Justice Department
halted an anti-trust suit against the com-
pany in return .for a pledge of up to
$400,000 for the Republican National
Convention, is no longer a central issue
in the matter.
Of greater significance is the peculiar
reaction by the administration and ITT
officials to the charge.
ITT spokesmen started off by trying
to picture Dita Beard - the ITT lobby-
1st who allegedly authored a memo con-
necting the anti-trust settlement and
the convention pledge - as a sometimes
irrational incompetent who was not in
possession of her reason when she wrote
the memo.
However, three weeks after the memo
was first made public, Beard called it a
"forgery" and denied writing it. ITT of-
ficials immediately jumped to her de-
fense, - this same person who a few days
earlier they were actively trying to dis-
credit.
Justice Department officials, mean-
while, were stumbling all over their con-
tradictions as they first denied, then ad-
mitted, various meetings with a variety
of ITT leaders.
WHAT IS MOST disconcerting about
the whole case is that the evidence

indicates only the tip of a giant iceberg
of corruption is visible.
For example, although ITT officials
are now claiming the Beard memo was
a fake, ITT Senior Vice President How-
ard Aibel ordered the Washington staff
to destroy "documents which, if put into
Mr. (Jack) Anderson's possession could
be misused and misconstrued by him so
as to cause embarrassment to the people
mentioned therein."
These precautions, however, failed to
stop Anderson from publishing early this
week an accusation that ITT together
with the CIA plotted an army coup that
would prevent Salvadore Allende from
becoming president of Chile.
One wonders what else this company
is trying to hide.
Then, too, an investigative report into
the politics of San Diego-the city where
the Republican convention will be held-
by Life magazine showed that the White
House interceded on behalf of certain
wealthy San Diego citizens who were
faced with prosecution for income tax
evasion and violations of the Corrupt
Practices Act.
These wealthy citizens just happened
to be large contributors to the Nixon
campaign.
IT SEEMS that as far as justice under
the law goes - at least as interpreted
by the Nixon administration - you only
get what you pay for.
-LINDSAY CHANEY
Editorial Page Editor

By GAYLE POLLARD
PEACOCK PROUD, preaching pugna-
a ciously, Reverend Jesse Jackson dom-
inates Chicago's black community, as more
blacks and whites around the nation are
noticing the "Country Preacher," and his
young organization - People United to
Save Humanity (PUSH).
PUSH power permeated the country re-
cently as some 15,000 blacks and whites
paid twenty-five dollars a plate to eat
typical soul fare - ham hocks, redbeans,
and rice, cornbread and sweet potatoe pie
at Jackson's "It's a Family Affair."
Moreover, presidential hopefuls Eugene
McCarthy and George McGovern mingled
at the March 10 banquet, held to support
the organization which works for "econom-
ic, political, and social liberation for blacks
and minorities."
Other illuminaries included Harry Bela-
fonte, several Black congressmen, and a
host of black elected officials from across
the nation, but patrons ranged from the
poorer members of the black community on
to the very rich.
And although Jesse didn't do much
preaching that night, it was evident that he
had done a whole lot of planning, as
people packed Chicago's McCormack
Place.
OPERATION PUSH's program seems in-
itially involved with the economic strategy
of the black nation. The organization's
first plan of action is implementing t h e
"Economic Bill of Rights," which calls for
-"A floor on incomes for all Americans
at a level which provides for a modest but
decent standard of living;
-"Creation and maintenance of an op-
timum environment for employment and
investment in activities which enhance
the marketable job skills of the poor;
-"Elimination of racism and discrimin-
ation in all areas of American life;
-"Maintenance of maximum opportuni-
ties for voluntary free choice decisions
made by the poor; and
-"Establishment of the right to a" job
at the level of one's ability as a national
commitment."
BUT THE organization will expand be-
yond economic concerns.
Operation PUSH resembles Operation
Breadbasket - the economic arm of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
SCLC) - which the afro-coiffed. Jackson

spearheaded from 1966 until his resignation
last winter.
"Country" as Jackson is called, organized
Saturday morning church-like Breadbasket
meetings complete with a gospel choir as
he moved for more black economic via-
bility.
His cultural and economic trade exposi-
tion - Black Expo - attracted some one
million visitors to Chicago's International
Amphitheater last October. And although
he appeared successful, the SCLC hierarchy
became leary of the young leader.
A f t e r the SCLC leadership questioned
Jackson on several of his actions - es-
pecially concerning the establishment of
an independent Black Expo organization
and other activities - they suspended him
for sixty days, charging him with "re-
peated violations of organizational policy
and discipline."
AFTER RESIGNING from SCLC, a move
some blacks considered politically devas-
tating, the charismatic character kept right
on stepping as he organized PUSH last
Christmas.
But although the new organization had a
national board of directors, ranging from
Howard University's president James
Cheek, to mayor of Gary, Indiana, Richard
Hatcher, no one was certain of PUSH'S
strength.
Many of, Jackson's followers moved with
him from SCLC to PUSH. Most of his
Breadbasket meeting patrons readily swit.
ched their allegiance to a new place but

the same format at Saturday morning
PUSH gatherings.
Often over 2,500 attend to hear Jesse
preach, but could Jackson's power spread
outside of the windy city?
THE BANQUET proved that the "Coun-
try Preacher" can attract national. atten-
tion. Moreover, Operation PUSH's east
coast branch opens Sunday at a picnic in
New York city. And an exposition similar
to Expo -- the Black World's Fair -
is scheduled for September 27 to October 1
in Chicago.
But even as PUSH pulls it all together,
many black folk wonder where Jackson
will go next. Presently his appeal is wide-
spread, ranging from the admirers who
find Country handsome and sexy to these
who dig him politically, or his family way
of 'life with wife Jackie and four cliildren.
The native South Carolinian shines in
Chicago's' black community, although he
ain't everybody's favorite.
As he leads chants of I Am Somebody-
I may be poor.- but I am. Somebody --
I may be uneducated - but I am Some-
body, and "It's Nationtime," the Country
Preacher has at least started many blacks
thinking.
WHILE SOME blacks distrust him, oth-
ers compare hiim to Mardus Garvey, as a
messiah, and naturally to, Jackson's .igent,
or, slain civil., rights leader Martin-Luther
King Jr.
Whether 'he's dashiki-clad or fashion-plat-

ing, Jesse wears a large gold medallion
of King. King tapped the politicking young
man for action within SCLC. From there
Jackson gained national attention as he
began demanding that black folks be in-
cluded in the economic mainstream of life.
But even if you're one who hates the
thirty-year-old "Country Preacher," he
must be admired.
REGARDLESS of the range of, feelings
revolving around the young Rev'rend Jes,
most folks, black and white, pay attention
to him, and many expect both the dude and
his organization to keep on PUSHing.

4,i

f4

Letters: Garden's not ite in the green

U
'4

M.

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*

~U~lENr f
P1 -O 4

II

To The Daily:
WE WOULD LIKE to correct
several points in what was other-
wise an informative article on the
Community Organic Garden by
Diane Levick (Daily, March 18).
Despite the fact that "money
still remains in a Department of
Health, Education and Welfare
grant received last July", the
garden is not "financially . . . on
firm ground" as stated in the ar-
ticle.
The grant expires this June.
Most of the money has already
been committed to programs
which have been completed and to
materials that will be available
on the subject of organic garden-
ing; but these funds will not sup-
port the actual operation of the
garden this summer.
The Ecology Center, which co-
ordinates many of the garden ac-
tivities, recently mailed requests
for donations to a number of in-
dividuals who worked at 'the gard-
en last year. Hopefully the re-
sponse will help provide a source
for petty cash needs at the gard-
en site.

Harvest." The picture of the sun-
flowers appears to have been idk-
en after the first frost.
--Mike Schectman, director
Carol Cole, garden staff
member
The Ecology Center of Ann
Arbor
March 22
Women and U'
To The Daily:
THE CURRENT fracas over
HEW's misdirected directive does,
as Sara Fitzgerald points out
(Daily-March 16) uncover s o m e
serious problems in the University
administration, b u t Fitzgerald
should be careful not to apologize

when apologies are not in order.
Women cannot always be linked
appropriately with m i n o r i t y
groups; there are more females
around that males are happy to
admit and in 1972 they comprise
over 50 per cent of the population.
Fitzgerald's statement that ".
in order to get adequate numbers
of blacks and women into top level
positions, the University may have
to lower its qualifications," is not
quite true.
We do not argue that the pre-
sent educational system is the best
of all possible systems; we must
call the current standards them-
selves into question because no one
can continue to condone a system
that brutalized minority groups

and leaves them both without the
tools to compete in the present ed-
ucational set-up and without the
clout to make changes.
However, - women cannot afford
to throw themselves back 50 years
and demean their own achieve-
ments while they rail against this
system.
Although women are still sorely
oppressed, .they have at least beeui
allowed to go through the white-
male educational system success-
fully for the past 50 years. They
have tested splendidly on w h i t e
male-devised -IQ tests; they have
attended white male-run grammar
schools, high schools and colleges
and received grades commensur-
ate with or higher than those of
their male classmates; and fin-
ally, many of them .,ave battled
their way through the hidebound
miasma of graduate scaool to walk
off with the white man's holy
grail: a Ph.D.
In other words, if there is one
thing that women Ph.D.'s can say
for themselves at. present, it is
that they are eminently "quali-
fied" to perform .with excellence
as pnfessors'in the nresent educa-

Of course, women still tend to
concentrate their studies in certain
"acceptable" areas; nationally,
they make up only .7 per ivnt of
the Ph.D.'s in engineering and a
formidable 31 per cent of the
Ph.D.'s in English and. literatures.
. Despite the high percentages of
women in these areas, however,
the University's English depart-
ment has less than 7 per cent
women faculty members with t h e
rank of assistant professor or
higher; the psychology depart-
ment has 7.6 per cent women in the
same category while 22 per cent
of the nation's psychology Ph.D.'s
in 1969-70 went to women; and
the history department has only
one woman professor, or 1.6 per
cent of the faculty, while women
earned 13 per cent of these Ph.D.'s
two years ago.
Even making allowances for can-
didates who attended inferior
schools. mediocre scholarship, and
limited turnover within depart-
ments, these figures are appalling.
Somewhere in the percentage dif-
ferentials there are a hell of a lot
of qualified women whom this
U~niversty r rmuld hire 4without

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