me ait an atun Eighty-one years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan 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. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1971 NIIrHT EDITOR: ROSE SUE BERSTEIN Politics and the income tax Hoi By PAT PATTERSON [ TNIVERSITY WOMEN - are you: a) an employe of the Univer- sity; b) employed in a job classifica- lion including both men and women; c) paid considerably less than the man next to you, but doing the same work; or d) all of the above? If you answered (d), then you are in the same predicament as are 20 per cent of University fe- male employes, who are paid at least 10 per cent less than men performingrthe same job. But you have a way to do some- thing about it, and you don't have to quit or change your job classi- fication. Instead, you can turn to the Commissioin on Women's file review. THE REVIEW, currently exam- ining the personnel files of women in all job categories which include both men and women, is aimed at discovering all cases in which the University is paying women significantly less than men for performing the same jobs. And part of the file review is a formal procedure, through which women can press their demands for higher salaries and back pay. The file review procedure was established this fall in response to challenge 'U', sex THE EXPLOSIVE performance by mem- bers of City Council and Mayor Harris Monday night not only moved the par- tisan sniping that has gone on all year into the spotlight of battle. It also led to a compr~pmise move on the income tax which is only a hair more construc- tive than no move at all. The 6-5 defeat of Harris' own tax pro- posal at the hands of the Republicans was avenged - but only barely - when the Democrats came up with a comprom- ise. They suggested that, since the six Republicans on Council had eliminated any chance of a Council-passed income tax, the citizens should have a chance on the February primary ballot to "ad- vise" their administrators on how they felt about the issue. This is, as Harris says, "a darn cum- bersome way to go about it," since it would basically "prove" community ap- proval or rejection of the tax on a city- wide ballot in the same way adopting the tax, then repealing it if the voters had so indicated. THE ADOPTION of such a tax by Coun- cil and its appearance on a city-wide ballot in February, would have followed the operating procedure used in 1969, when taxpayers rejected the referendum and Council immediately repealed it. The Republicans should not have quashed that procedure. The advisory vote logistics are complex. First, if the citizens that they would accept a one tax, Council would then enact far more indicate per cent it. Meanwhile, opponents of the tax could be gathering signatures - only 2,600 are needed to force a second referendum on the issue. If the advisory vote passes in February and a second referendum is Editorial Staff ROBERT KRAFTOWITZ Editor JIM BEATTIE DAVE CHUDWIN Executive Editor Managing Editor STEVE KOPPMAN .. Editorla, Page Editor RICK PERLOFF .... Associate Editorial Page Editor PAT MAHONEY .... Assistant Editorial Page Editor LARRY LEMPERT. ...Associate Managing Editor LYNN WEINER.Associate Managing Editor ANITA CRONE........... ..... ........ Arts Editor JIM IRWIN. ............Associate Arts Editor ROBERT CONROW -............. ...Books Editor JANET FREY .... .............. Personnel Director JIM JUDKI9...........Photogral 'v Editor NIGHT EDITORS: Rose Sue Berstein, Lindsay Chaney, Mark Dilen, Sara Fitzgerald, Tammy Jacobs, Alan Lenhoff, Arthur Lerner, Hester Pulling, Carla Rapoport, Robert Schreiner, W.E. Schrock, Geri Sprung. COPY EDITORS: Pat Bauer, Chris Parks, Gene Robin- son. DAY EDITORS: Linda Dreeben, John Mitchell, Han- nah Morrison, Beth Oberfelder, Tony Schwartz, Gloria Jane Smith, Ted Stein, Paul Travis, Marcia Zoslaw. ASSISTANT NIGHT EDITORS: Robert Barkin, Jan Benedetti, Steve Brummel, Janet Gordon, Lynn Sheehan, Charles Stein. Sports Staff MORT NOVECK, Sports Editor JIM KEVRA, Executive Sports Editor RICK CORNFELD .. ..... Associate Sports Editor TERRI POUCHEY....... Contributing Sports Editor BETSY MAHON ... ..... ...Senior Night Editor TERRI FOUCHEY .. . Contributing Sports Editor SPORTS NIGHT EDITORS: Bill , Alterman, Bob An- drews, Sandi Genis, Joel Greer, Elliot Legow, John Papanek, Randy Phillips, Al Shackelford. Business Staff JAMES STOREY, Business Manager RICHARD RADCLIFFE......... Advertising Manager SUZANNE BOSCHAN . A.Sales Manager JOHN SOMMERS ......... .. Finance Manager ANDY GOLDING.....Associate Advertising Manager DEPARTMENT MANAGERS: Bill Abbott-Display Adv.: Rebecca Van Dyke-Classified Adv.; Fran Hymei -National Adv.; Harry Hirsch-Layout. ASSOCIATE MANAGERS: Alan Klein, Donna Sills, Judy Cassel. ASSISTANT MANAGERS: Paul Wenzloff, Steve Evseef, Ashish Sarkar, Dave Lawson. forced, the tax could not possibly be fin- alized until mid-June, or two weeks before the entire fiscal 1972-73 budget must be finalized. The vacillation of Councilman Robert Weaver (R-2nd ward), who cast the de- ciding votes for rejection of the income tax and passage of the advisory v o t e, raises questions about his motives. WEAVER GAVE two basic reasons f o r his peculiar stance. First, he didn't think now was the time to ask the voters to adopt the income tax, so he could not vote for the original proposal. Second, he said it is valid to take a "straw vote" among the citizens, and therefore, he could support the "advisory" referendum. This seems to be bending over back- wards for semantic principles - espec- ially since, while giving the voters a say in the tax structure, the timing on the advisory vote makes it highly improbable that an income tax can be adopted this year, even if the voters want it. Another relevant point is that Weaver comes from the predominately student second ward, and if the tax is forced to a second referendum in June, a large block of voters will be absent. Weaver should have considered this, if he really intends to represent his new constituents. While the motives behind Weaver's con- tradictory votes on the tax proposal were unclear, his action seemed typical of the political games that all the Councilmen were playing Monday. 4 FTER ABOUT half an hour of partisan bickering, symbolizing months of equivalent arguing on subjects of c i t y spending, Harris blew up. Accused by Councilman James Steph- enson (R-Fourth Ward) of having a "livid attachment" for his income tax bill, which had been defeated by them, Harris exploded. "Yes, I have a livid attachment for that issue. I'm boiling mad and I'm going to say so." He continued the tirade, calling the Republicans everything from "cheap" and "penny-pinching" to "yellow." Stephenson, in an apparently retalia- tory move, later engineered the defeat of what Harris called a "routine appoint- ment" - that of Mark Levin, '73L, to the Zoning Board of Appeals. "You've raised the level of discussion to a new high," he told Harris, "I'm go- ing to vote no for that appointment. It's a rotten appointment." QUESTIONS OF whether a personal in- come tax would be more or less re- gressive than the present property tax system, and whether the city is really go- ing to fall apart - as the administration predicts - without that tax, have little bearing on the ugliness of Monday's dis- play of partisan politics. They are important questions and bear lengthy discussion. More important, though, they should be placed before the electorate with an assurance that its vote will be meaningful. And City Council's action, complete with bi-partisan temper tantrums, effec- tively blocks that possibility. No matter how overwhelmingly citizens may vote for that tax in February, there seems little chance of seeing it enacted in the next fiscal year because of the procedural stumbling blocks created by the com- promise advisory referendum. -TAMMY JACOBS to a compliance order from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare a year before. The order directed the University to eliminate any policies which dis- criminated against women, spec- ifically charging it with u n d e r- taking an examination of employe files to correct salary inequities. Two agents, Gail Liddell of the Personnel Department and Zena Zumeta, Women's Representative are conducting the review. Under the procedure developed by the Executive Officers and the Commission on Women, an em- ploye need not file a complaint formally in order for her situation to be reviewed. Instead, she may simply place a request for review by calling Zena Zumeta, t h e University's Women's Representa- tive (764-1474). Requests will be accepted until April 15, 1972, and will receive higher priority t h a n those cases turned up through ex- amination of personnel files. All requests for review are con- fidential and no one - not even the employes immediate supervisor - will know that she has initiated Pat Patterson is a secretary of, the Office of Student Services and has been a member of the University's Commission on Women. since September. a request for review. During the early stages of the review, direct employe involvement is kept to a minimum in order to protect her from pressure - or harassment - from her supervisor. THE PROCEDURE presently being followed by the women's commission consists of several separate phases. First a computer review selects job classifications which contain both men and wo- men and predicts salary levels of men in those classifications. It then picks out those women's sal- aries within the classifications which fall 10 per cent below the predicted salary for men. Identification of such inequities is only the beginning of the pro- cess, however. For each case the computer kicks out, a careful thorough investigation must bE conducted by Zumeta and Liddell. They examine such criteria as sal- ary at the time of employment, date of employment, salary before employment, classification title education, experience, work per- formed, and supervisor recom- mendations. Should the two agents agree no evidence of discrimination based on sex exists, they prepare a state- ment to that effect for filing. Should they agree they n e e d more information before reaching a decision, they schedule an ap- pointment, by letter, first w i t h Kent State:* Mixing 0 10 justice and potics By BILL GORDON ALTHOUGH SEVERAL investigations were held following the Kent State tragedy, none could determine why Ohio National Guards- men fired into a crowd of Kent State students in May, 1970. The evidence indicated that the shootings were totally unjustified, but the Scranton Commission and the Justice Department could do no better than to speculate why the Guardsmen pulled the triggers. An Ohio grand jury, which has long been discredited, exonerated the Guardsmen for the shootings last October. Although the grand jury accepted the Guardsmen's testimony that they fired in self de- fense, the Justice Department believed the self defense claims were fabricated. The falsification of evidence and serious questions raised about the Guardsmen's intentions provided the Justice Department with am- ple justification to convene a federal grand jury. Last November a high ranking Justice Department' official said that a decision whether to convene a federal grand jury would be made before the end of 1970. The official's timing, however, was somewhat off. The Depart- ment refused to say what it intended to do about the case for over eight months, although they occasionally promised that a decision would be made soon. Attorney General John Mitchell finally announced last August that there would be no federal grand jury, and the announcement could not have been more timely. Public interest in the tragedy has waned considerably in the 15 months since the shootings. "The ap- propriate time," was also, according to the Christian Science Monitor, "late on Friday to minimize news coverage and safely after Congress had left town for summer recess." WITH OR WITHOUT the Justice Department's officials, the state grand jury was politically fraudulent. The grand jury's report, which flatly contradicted the Justice Department's summary of FBI Investi- gations and the Scranton Commission, was later ordered destroyed by a federal judge. After the state grand jury's report was released last October, the Justice Department announced it was taking under consideration the convening of a federal grand jury to investigate the tragedy. As the months passed, they had little to say about Kent. It was reported last March that the Department's civil rights division recommended to Mitchell that he not convene a federal grand jury. The recom- mendation, which needed only Mitchell's approval, was probably finalized shortly afterwards but an announcement was withheld until a time when it would have less political impact. In announcing the decision in August, Mitchell said that he con- curred with the Scranton Commission conclusions that the shootings were unwarranted and inexcusible, but said further federal action in the case was unwarranted. In an apparent reversal of his statements the previous year, Mitchell said that there was "no likelihood of successful prosecutions of individual guardsmen." That decision may not necesarily have been reached by a federal grand jury. While the Justice Department remained silent about Kent for months, a quiet campaign spearheaded by a United Methodist Church group was being waged urging the convening of a federal grand jury. A report by Peter Davies, a Manhattan insurance executive, suggested that several guardsmen had conspired to shoot the students at Kent State. THE CONSPIRACY theory may sound far fetched at first blush, but it does not take any stretching of the imagination to consider $4 4 the supervisor involved, and then with the employe. AT THIS POINT, the employe formally enters the review proced- ure, but she does not become a direct participant in the investi- gation of her case. All investiga- tion is carried on by the designat- ed agents and the content of files is not available to any of the par- ties directly involved. No publicity will be given the case at a n y stage without the consent and the knowledge of the employe. After both the supervisor and the employe have been interview- ed, a summary of results is pre- pared. Then: -If thethree parties (women's representative, personnel repre- sentative and supervisor) agree no discrimination based on sex exists a written statement is prepared for file; -If all three agree on a higher bias level of continuing remuneration, a recommendation is prepared for review and action by tho Executive Officers; -If all three agree discrimina- tion does exist, a finding to this effect is filed with the Executive Officers for review and action; -If the three parties disagree, each of the three parties prepares a recommendation which is for- warded to the Ad Hoc File Review Board for review. Their recom- mendation is then forwarded to the Executive Officers for t h e i r review and action. Should an employe be dissatis- fied with the progress of the re- view at any point, she is also free to file an independent complaint, in which case all investigative ef- forts would be her own. A formal newly re-designed Complaint Ap- peal Procedure is available for her use in appealing her case. I -Daly-Denny Uainer Reviewing the files Ibetters to The Daily Pun Plamondon To The Daily: AN ARTICLE in the Daily from Wednesday, October 20, has just come to our attention. It contains some serious factual errors. The article concerns the sentencing of Pun Plamondon in Grand Rapids for possesing false draft cards. Pun was sentenced to 28 months, 15 of which he has already serv- edi. The article falsely states that "Plamondon is awaiting appeals on his conviction of bombing a Central Intelligence Agency in Ann Arbor." Pun was never convicted of that charge; in fact, the trial never got beyond the pre-trial hearing, be- cause Attorney General J o h n Mitchell had tapped some of Pun's conversations illegally. Federal Judge Damon Keith ruled that the Justice Department had vio- lated Pun's rights, and ordered that the government turn the logs of the wiretap over to the defense (us). The government appealed t h e decision to the U.S. Court of Ap- peals in Cincinnatti, which upheld Keith's ruling. They are now ap- pealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to hear the case next March. The trial will not start until after the government's right to wiretap anyone they feel like branding a "threat to national security" is either upheld or denied by t h e Supreme Court. -David Fenton, Rainbow People's Party Nov. 6 Rehnquist nomination To The Daily: THE RECENT nomination of Assistant Attorney General Rehn- quist to the Supreme Court is ,inconsistent with Mr.CNixon's statement that he wants to fill the vacancies with a "strict construc- tionist" of the constitution. Last summer, in the wake of the Pentagon papers, I had the bene- fit of hearing Mr. Rehnquist tes- tify - in place of his boss Mr. Mitchell - before the House Sub- committee on Government In- formation and the Senate Sub- comittee on the Separation of Powers, chaired by Sam Ervin. Understandably upset by the New York Time's revelations of the truth on Viet Nam, the members of Congress requested Mr. Rehn- quist to explain the current Pen- tagon practices of over-classifica- tion, of .refusal to inform Con- gress, and of lying to the Amer- ican people. According to Mr. Rehnquist, some information had been over- classified. However, invoking the nebulous doctrine of executive privilege, he boldly asserted t h e power of the president to with- hold from Congress and the public any information which he believed should be kept secret "in thepub- lic interest." He claimed that Johnson h a d been perfectly justified in refus- ing outright to give the Pentagon Papers to the Senate Foreign Re- lations Committee, even on a sup- ervised, classified basis. He even defended Nixon's refusal to furn- ish information on American bombing of Laotian village to Sen. Edward Kennedy's Sub-committee on Refugees although, according to Rep. McCloskey, massive popula- tion dislocation results from this bombing. McCloskey asked Mr. Rehn- quist how he expected the Con- gress to be able to legislate pro- perly on the basis of improper in- formation. What of the constitu- tional system of checks and bal- ances? What of the separation of powers if a recalcitrant executive could reduce the Congress to a secondary role by merely refusing to disclose information collected and under the control of executive agencies? WHAT WOULD the reaction of Congress have been in 1964 had the truth about Tonkin-Gulf in- cident been made available? The answer, Sam Ervin, hinted, lies in the Bible: "Ye shall hear the truth, and the truth shall make you free." In effect, Mr. Rehn- quist maintained that the chief executive has the absolute discre- tion, subject to no checks either from Congress or the Judiciary, to withhold information. These views on the interpreta- tion of the constitution are far more radical and dangerous to the continuation of constitutional gov- ernment in America than anything which has come out of the far left. The gross abuse of govern- A r- I Th6 TI E165T OF AblL O~L 4CjT12_ t V G 17,'t.-. INC 8t5T 0F A&+PO$S (E(E- Th ES65T 6CF ALL P05Y56L 6 ThQ 0U6{OF At U55 [3bI&& 4 II "~('I,.. . 71 8 5~ETOF'ALL Pi3S51&,E 1, DQ 2 1 -ssc"te Pes -MCh6 CF T~ALL FROV . Pc5SI F L4 that a few guardsmen may have decided to fire to teach the students "a lesson." The evidence, indeed, raises suspicions about the Guards- men's intentions. I