Thursday, September 9, 1971
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Page Three
Thursday, September 9, 1971 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Three
The
University's
political
climate .
. .
Filtering left or right?
The occasional march
By TAMMY JACOBS
Supplement Co-Editor
Two years ago the University
was considered one of the more
activist campuses among the doz-
ens of "new left" activist cam-
puses in the nation.
During the 1969-70 school year,
the University had experienced
two invasions of the ROTC build-
ing, an LSA bldg. take-over with
107 subsequent arrests, two gen-
eral class strikes (one highly suc-
cessful, one less so), and several
rallies and marches of several
thousand people each, all led by
radical or left-liberal forces.
Last spring, a year later, con-
servatives won four out of the
seven open Student Government
Council seats, giving them four
out of 11 total seats on SGC,
which until then, had been con-
sidered liberal to radical.
Last year, one 4,000 persons
march was held to protest the
Vietnamese and American incur-
sion into Laos. But other than
that, radical /confrontations of
the previous years' type were
limited to one feeble and easily
routed sit-in, and various poorly-
attended Diag rallies.
To many, this means a dying
left, and perhaps a rising right
on campus.
But the left is not really dead
at the University; and the right,
although perhaps more verbal
than in past years, has not ac-
complished much more or gained
many more supporters than in
the past.
The left, rather, has switched
tactics, choosing to organize and
discuss, rather than take over
buildings, and call strikes. The
radical on-going organizations,
too, have died out, and the trend
is towardsdissue orientedad hoc
groups, concentrating on what
radical call the University's
"complicity" with United States
"imperialism."
And the right, although it has
several organizations listed, from
College Republicans to the local
branch of the conservative
Young Americans for Freedom,
has a smaller active following
than one would think, as many of
the members of one right-wing
organization overlap into others.
Appearances again prove de-
ceptive when SGC elections are
analyzed. Although members of
the right - wing Student Caucus
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won the council seats, the left's
vote was split between members
of the radical Student Coalition,
the two members of Young So-
cialist Alliance who ran, and Re-
becca Schenk, who also ran suc-
cessfully for SGC president.
Had supporters of the left voted
only for Schenk as a presidential
candidate, and used the vote
they gave her council seat can-
didacy for one of the Student
Coalition candidates instead, all
five Coalition candidates prob-
ably would have gained seats. In-
stead, the right - wingers got the
undivided moderate-conservative
vote.
The right-wing groups them-
selves are experiencing several
damaging inner splits, although
from outside indications such as
the SGC elections they appear
more cohesive than the left.
Much dissension occurs be-
tween proponents of traditional
conservatism and those who ad-
vocate a "laissez - faire" liber-
tarian doctrine.
Membership in avowedly right-
wing groups, according to one ob-
server, totals 200-250 people-ra-
dical "membership" as such can-
not be counted because of the
nature of the left on campus this
past year.
For, unlike the conservative
groups, the radical organized
groups on campus have virtual-
ly died as a campus political force
during the year, underlining one
of the major changes in the direc-
tion of the left.
Students for a Democratic So-
ciety (SDS) , which originated at
the University in 1961, has
changed from a 140 person group
in September, 1970 to a mere
memory.
A series of convictions forsil-
legal demonstrations by the stu-
See THE LEFT, Page 11
F7otullnever
goWong by
vUint
SGC : The right gets a foothold
Another tactic: The teach-in
The left regroups at a mass meeting
Area women's movement stays
segmented, but very much alive
The women's movement in
Ann Arbor has experienced so
many changes' in the past few
years that the question "what
do women want?" is no longer
mentioned in jokes by anti-
women's liberationists.
For ever anti-women's lib-
erationists are beginning to get
an inkling of what the women
are seeking. In Ann Arbor, as
in the. rest of the country, the
women- want, basically, to be
treated as equals rather than
as members of a "weaker" sex.
This goal includes such things
as obtaining #a job equal to
the ones a male can get - and
with equal salaries. It also in-
cludes changing the structure
of society so that -women a r e
freed from their traditional ob-
ligation to the home, hearth,
and children. And it includes,
as some women say, "not be-
ing treated like a piece of meat
-- a sex object."
Taking these points into ac-
count, nearly every woman at
one point or another "agrees"
with women's liberation. While
they may not agree with all the
shapes and forms it takes, t h e
basic goal - to end what wo-
men refer to as "sexism" -
seems widely accepted in An n
Arbor.
For over a hundred years,
women have pressed for equal
.rights, in job opportunities as
well as sufferage. And for the
most part, they've earned both
kinds of rights, at least on pap-
er.
But, during the last decade, as
Civil Rights legislation made
headlines, women, too, h a v e
become militant about turning
their paper rights into realities.
Women's liberation has b e e n
growing and its views becoming
more widespread.'
With this new popularity,
however, has also come a divi-
sion among women. Women
have formed small groups ac-
cording to their political and
social beliefs, and in s o in e
cases, around very specific wom-
So You H
Beer
Jann
aloS ,
421 E.
You can Vi
SERVING YOU
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and the
-C C f1YFY T -
en's liberation oriented issues.
Ann Arbor's women have ex-
perienced this tendency tow-
ards division, and it hit its peak
this year. During the 1970-71
school year, Ann Arbor wom-
en's groups reached their low
point in terms of unity and co-
hesiveness, but at the s a m e
"rigid" structure of the teach-
in, which they called "anti-
women."
But the opposite reaction,
however, came from other
women at a Regents' meeting
the same month, when a group
that had banded together in a
continuing effort to form a
last fall when the Department
of Health, Education and Wel-
fare (HEW) completed an in-
vestigation of University j o b
opportunities prompted by a
charge filed by FOCUS, an Ann
Arbor women's group of pro-
fessional women.
HEW upheld FOCUS' charges
that the University was dis-
criminating against women in
its job opportunities and cut
off all government contracts to
the University for a two-month
negotiation period.
Ultimately,sthe University
committed itself to an "Affirm-
ative Action Program" to es-
tablish equal opportunities -
one result of the program was
the formation of a new group.
The University's official "Wom-
en's Commission" was created to
formulate plans and safeguard-
ing results of the action pro-
gram.
Another group specifically in-
volved with the University's of-
ficial treatment of tis women
employes is PROBE into the
Status of Women at the Uni-
versity, a group which sees it-
self as a "watchdog" over t h e
University. A large part of
PROBE's membership consists
of University office workers;
and the group concentrates on
doing investigative work into
University policies.
Although women will p r o-
bably unite on a few specific
issues in the coming year, it is
most likely that the movement
will continue to grow.
TC
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Women dramatize their views on sexism
time, the number of small
groups multiplied rapidly.
Towards the end of the year,
these small groups spend most
of their time in small discus-
sions and "consciousness-rais-
ing" sessions,,- talking things
out among themelves. There-
fore, they disappeared, to a
large degree, from the public
eye.
However, earlier in the °1970-
71 school year, during the fall
term, the women's movement
had erupted with a burst of
activity.
In October, a "Woman's
Teach-in" was held, which fea-
tured workshops, small semin-
ars, and a few keynote speak-
ers. An unscheduled feature of
the teach-in offered a glimpse
at how divided the women's
movement was in Ann Arbor.
The proceedings of one key-
note panel were disrupted by
over 120 of the, 600 persons pre-
sent, led by a radical women's
caucus that had formed at the
teach-in. The demonstrators
said they were protesting t h e
University-financed free child-
care center for the community
called for support presenting
their ideas to the Regents.
The vast majority of the
300 persons present came up to
the Regents' podium to de-
monstrate their support, a n d
although the Regents rejected
the child care plans, it was a
rare show of male-female soli-
darity for what is usually c o n-
sidered a "women's issue."
Women's groups also made
their mark in a meaningful way
I, II
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