Eighty-one years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
--reporter's notebook
Wednesday afternoon at 2 p.m.
0
jonathan miller
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.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1971
NIGHT EDITOR: MARK DILLEN
Faculty influence examined
A FACULTY COMMITTEE charged with
finding out how faculty government
might "more decisively affect University
financial and organizational policies" has
released its report.
While there is a temptation to dismiss
its significance and regard it as merely
a device by which the faculty may seek
to further its own interests, the report
does contain a better-than-average de-
scription of some of the problems en-
countered in decision-making at the Uni-
versity. And it can serve as a primer
for those who have complained about the
University's misplaced priorities and lack
of faculty and student input in budgetary
decisions.
Basically, Senate Assembly asked the
Committee on Faculty Rights and Re-
sponsibilities to make the report because
the faculty had become increasingly dis-
tressed by the University's dismal finan-
cial situation.
In particular, average faculty salaries
had not increased as quickly as at other
colleges in the country. In fact, in a little
over five years, the University had fallen
from 17th to 35th among the nation's
colleges in average faculty compensation.
IHOUGH ADMINISTRATORS had as-
sured the faculty that everything pos-
sible was being done to increase faculty
salaries substantially, most salaries were
not even keeping up with the rate of
inflation. Furthermore, the Administra-
tion contention that it was the state's
fault that requests for salary increases
had not been fulfilled did not seem entirely
convincing to faculty members, and the
method of recourse resorted to by many
faculty groups around the country found
new support here: Unionization.
This was the context in which the com-
mittee was started last February. Now,
the panel thinks it has come up with a
way to maximize the faculty's voice. This
path, they believe, lies in avoiding union-
ization because it might alienate admin-
istrators, whle working toward some sys-
tem that would achieve similar ends.
They propose further to form new com-
mittees and prod currently existing ones
in such a way that problems of faculty
not getting enough money will not recur.
In outlining this, the report backs it's
proposed policies with a good view of how
the lack of faculty input in the past has
been damaging, and it well documents
the case for providing some better insti-
tutional means than currently exist to
placate, if not completely satisfy, faculty
wishes.
However, the report itself contains sev-
eral flaws - the inevitable result of try-
ing to tinker with the present imperfect
bureaucracy.
BASICALLY, THE COMMITTEE advo-
cates that it be set up as the agent
for "consultative negotiations with the
administration officials on salary levels
and other faculty compensation matters."
While this would not entail a collective
bargaining outlook that comes with fa-
culty unionization, they say, it would
"aim at fulfilling similar goals."
But these goals, presumably the highest
of which is to get increased paychecks,
have been pursued vigorously by faculty
members in the past with little success.
Existing committees operating in an ad-
visory capacity have either remained idle
when crucial budget decisions were being
made or simply were not heeded.
There is no reason to suspect that ano-
ther committee will do any better. The
most effective faculty lobbying in the
past has been of an informal nature and
even that was to little avail when propor-
tionately diminishing state support pro-
vided insufficient funds for the kind of
raises faculty members are seeking.
Similarly, the committee is on only
slightly more solid ground when dealing
with the issue of how faculty long-range
input into decision-making might be in-
creased.
THE MAIN impetus for faculty involve-
ment in decision-making came only
as a result of their own worsening finan-
cial state. There is no reason to believe
they would commit themselves to devot-
ing more time than they have given so
far to a cause in this regard of less im-
mediate effects.
In addition, though it is hard to dispute
the need for faculty involvement in long-
range planning, the committee naively
ignores placing clear definition on the
role they would play and assumes what-
ever input they provide would be bene-
ficial.
Thus, the committee's background in-
formation should be required reading for
all who have been complaining about the
lack of faculty input. But if a more com-
mitted faculty does not resolutely devote
its concern to the long range issues of
faculty influence, the plan alone will be
sorely deficient.
-MARK DILLEN
A RESIDENT FELLOW in a University
dormitory is having her wages with-
held because she has refused to take an
oath supporting the constitutions of the
United States and the State of Michigan.
The law the resident fellow is osten-
sibly breaking is a 1951 Michigan Statute,
titled Oath Of Employes Of State and Its
Governmental Agencies, Act 22, 1951: "An
act to require employes and persons in
the service of the state and its govern-
mental agencies to take and subscribe to
The Fellow, who asked that her name
be withheld, is holding out. against sign-
ing the oath on grounds of principle -
even though state law provides that she
could lose her job.
The continued employment of this wo-
man has raised the spectre that certain
high ranking University officials may seek
to have her removed from her free dorm
room and cut-off permanently from her
$700 stipend.
Despite the "irregularity" of this fellow's
continued employment, top University ad-
ministrators at first denied that she in
fact existed at all. Charles Allmand, an
assistant to vice-president for academic
affairs Allan Smith, said that "as far as
I know, everybody .whoagets an appoint-
ment has signed this oath."
"This must have slipped through," he
added, explaining that a careful system of
checks is normally able to prevent such
things from happening.
Edward Hayes, University personnel
manager, also said he "doesn't think (the
situation) exists," and said that he had
Engineering School Dean Gordon Van-
Wylen hosted such an affair for several
prominent guests Monday night, charging
the elegant meal to his department's funds.
Following the dinner, his guests - Gen-
eral Motors President James Roche and his
top associates - accompanied their host to
the plush lower level of the house for
"business discussions." What we wonder is,
who really wined and dined who?
* * *
W HEN STUDENT Government Council
WiuTmember Brad Taylor attended the
Student and Youth Conference for a
Peoples Peace last winter, he says he
registered under an assumed name.
Rather than "Brad Taylor" appearing
on the conference rolls, a "George Mete-
sky" affixed his signature.
Brad, who attended as a Young Amer-
icans for Freedom reporter, later testified
against the conference for the H o u s e
Internal Security Committee, prompting
yesterday's recall ballot.
Taylor said recently he attended under
the assumed name because he "didn't want
to get on any FBI list."
How can you be in two places at once
when you aren't anywhere at all?
* * *
THE BRAD Taylor recalldrive has some
gung-ho supporters, or so it seems
from the experience of Economics P r o f.
Ronald Tiegen last Saturday afternoon.
Prof. Teigen made the unfortunate mis-
take of telling a youthful leafletter to de-
sist from sticking recall Taylor pamphlets
on the glass door of the Economics Bldg.
on the diag. To Teigen's astonishment, the
young man whipped out a switchblade and
brandishing it, chased the learned aca-
demician into the building. The assailant
stopped at the door, but before depart-
ing he registered final disapproval of Tei-
gen's rebuke by kicking in the glass of the
doorway.
Police are investigating.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Tom Rieke, as-
sistant director of the University's in-
formation service office said, in a moment
of unabashed honesty this past week, "The
practice of public relations is the prac-
tice of strategic omission."
KEEPING ONE STEP AHEAD OF THE
ADMINISTRATION DEPT: Anticipating
that the University might seek to trans-
fer control of its Willow Run Laboratories
to a non-profit organization - as President
Fleming suggested this week - a Daily re-
porter last month asked high acknowledge-
able Lansing source if the State Govern-
ment might be willing to take over the
research facilities.
"Hell no," he scowled. "We can't let the
University pawn off any of its deadwood
on us," he said, referring to the lab's re-
cent problems in securing new Depart-
ment of Defense research contracts.
* * *
TAIL END UNPRONOUNCABLE DEPT:,
Sympathies are extended to Susan T.NZy-
tkewick, wherever you are, for losing yout
place at the end of the city phone book.
The latest edition, published yesterday,
gives the honors to a P. Zyniewicz.
Alcoholics anonymous retains its first
place listing.
checked with the payroll department and
they, too, were unaware of it.
These officials all seemed perturbed
when a newsman queried them, and some
hinted darkly that what the Housing
Office might not want to go through with,
they may.
INNER AT Inglis House, the Univer-
sity's official guest resort, is always
a sumptuous affair. Tucked away on High-
land drive, University officials and their
guests can relax and dine in old world
style, safely cloistered from the noisy
campus behind heavy oaken doors.
Letters: Gargoyle
To The Daily:
THIS LETTER is being written
n response to the article "Good"
Humor: Laughs sold at others' ex- '
pense" by Lynn Weiner which ap-
peared on the editorial page
(Daily, Nov. 13) .-
We, the editorial staff of the .
Gargoyle, strongly protest the pub-
lication of this article, due to its
appearing prior to the sale of the
magazine. Our feelings on t h i s
were known by the author of the
article, and we consider the Daily's'
printing of the article to be a
demonstration of unethical jour-4
nalism. Miss Weiner had been of-
ficially denied access to this is- -
sue of the magazine before the
publication date of November 17.
1971. Nevertheless, she obtained
possession., of one copy which had
accidentally slipped out and i t s
rounds of the Daily staff room and
proceeded to write the article. It
is now our fear that an article of .
this typse coming out before the
Gargoyle goes on sale will cause a
certain amount of prejudgement *
against us. - l
We also feel that the article, in
its remarks about the Gargoyle.
was biased and in no way attempt-
ed to give a clear picture of the
magazine. For example, the Gar-
goyle is a humor and satire maga- "What is this? . . . Afreez
tine. This point was never made
in the article. The comparison of
the two cartoons, which were re- lice search for M&M chocolate comic b
printed in this article, is absurd, mess." Racism was definitely not Care N~
One was a political cartoon from intended to be the "point" of these point c
what is essentially the American jokes. The point was that the ize the
Nazi party, the other a humor man being hassled by the police progra
cartoon taken from an advertise- had his handsup in the air, palms overly
ment and carefully edited (the open, in the same position as the pearan
punchline being deleted) before children in television's M&M com-
being printed in The Daily. The mercials. Thisicartoon was oi- THE
author never bothered to say that ginally printed in The Yahoo, ano- which
the cartoon was taken out of a ther college humor magazine, and uations
jewelry ad, which is the pointof it was neither their intention nor them.I
the cartoon as originally printed ours to have the caption refer to privileg
Miss Weiner further writes, "The the fact that the man was black will be
creators of the two cartoons (one In fact, this interpretation never en so we
of which was our cartoon) are occurred to any of' us until after
white males," and there is, in ad- the magazine had been printed.
dition to this, an implication," in Let
the article that the whole maga- The "Abortion Kit" piece which be m,
zine is written by people of the was mentioned in the article is rector
same group. On the Wednesday satirical (a fact which as mention- Raffe
night before the article appeared ed before seems to have escaped licatic
Miss Weiner came into our office Miss Weiner). Part of the inten- Michi
and asked the editor specifically if tion of this material was to point ters
there were any women writers on out some of the ugly conditions space
the staff, and was told "yes". women are forced to put up with not
There was mention of a cartoon because of existing abortion laws. Editor
in the magazine of a black being right
arrested with what the author con- The "Abortion Kit was based on mitte
siders to be a racist caption, "Po- an ad now appearing in many
responds to criticism
4 r
e or a snow-job?"
)ooks for Kenner's "Easy
M'anicure Set". The main
f the material was to satir-
way in which women are
mmed from childhood to be
concerned about their ap-
ce.
GARGOYLE is a magazine
aims humor at existing sit-
Sand quite often satirizes
Naturally people of under-
ged and/or minority groups
involved, by the same tok-
vill the white males to whom
ters to The Daily should
ailed to the Editorial Di-
r or delivered to M a r y
rty in the Student Pub-
ons business office in the
igan Daily building. Let-
ishould be typed, double-
d and normally should
exceed 250 words. The
rial Directors reserve the
to edit all letters sub-
d.
Miss Weiner refers. Her criticism
of the Gargoyle gives the impres-
sion that all the humor in the is-
sue is aimed at those minorities.
and this is false. The magazine is
much more balanced than the im-
pression she gives.
There is one point on, which we
will agree with Miss Weiner some-
what, that at times people cannot
laugh at themselves, and it is a
pity. We have only two things to
add to that; one, that this refers
to only some people, and, two, this
can quite often reflect more on
the people than on the humor.
-The Gargoyle editorial
staff
Mark Cohen, editor
John Van Wambeke, asst.
editor
Al Milgrom, art editor
Pete Wells, bus. manager
Nov. 15
F"TTOR'" NOTE: Lynn Weiner
reonds that she spoke to the
Gargoyle editor before writing her
column, and that he did not indi-
cate he felt its publication was un-
ethical. She also notes that a sec-
tion of her column clearly indicat-
ing that the Gargoyle's intent was
satiric and that it has often print-
ed what she considers much better
humor than the examples she criti-
cized, was cut because of space
considerations.
RIP .on school crisis
To The Daily:
WE as members of the Human
Rights - Radical Independent
Party, see the recent events in the
Ann Arbor public schools as aris-
ing from two basic causes - rac-
ism and class bias in the schools,
as well as in society at-large, not
simply isolated incidents as view-
ed by the school administration.
Through tracking and other de-
vices, the schools are used to bene-
fit the sons and daughters of up-
per middle class whites. T h i s,
unfortunately, leaves blacks and
working class whites often com-
peting for whatever is left. Thus.
when Blacks begin finally to make
some progress toward equal and
nondiscriminatory education, work-
ing class white students see this
occurring at their expense. In
reality, the interests of blacks and
working class whites are the same
in this situation.
Party members noted the fail-
ure of the news media to recog-
nize this salient fact. By stressing
acts of violence by black students,
ignoring those by white students,
refusing to report acts of brutal-
ity by the police, and suippressing
pertinent facts about the situa-
tion (e.g. at almost all the con-
frontations black students were
both provoked and vastly out-
numbered), the media served only
'to sharpen the antagonism b e -
tween blacks and whites.
HR-RIP stressed that it is ap-
, parent once again that the estab-
lished political parties have re-
fused to address themselves to an
important and controversial issue
in the community.the willingness
of these parties to ignore such is-
sues is just one more reason why
people can no longer look to these
established parties to provide so-
lutions to the problems which our
society faces.
The Human Rights -- Radical
Independent Party feels that dis-
cussions, assemblies, and dialogues
at the schools are not real solu-
tions when the basic structure of
the school system remains un-
changed. HR-RIP calls for a total
revamping of the educational sys-
tem so that it serves the needs
of all the students, and reaffirms
its platform position calling for
community control of schools
where students, staff, and parents
make decisions related to t hi e
schools. Only such far reaching
solutions will begin to deal with
these recurring problems.
-Steering Committee
HR-RIP
Nov. 16
Dial-A-Bus
To The Daily
DIAL-A-RIDE may be bringing
peace of mind to chicks who find
it an inconvenience to carry mace
or a .38 when out after dark, but
it is destroying the peace of mind
of many who know better than to
go out at all. I refer to those who
spend their evenings glued to the
tube, only to be treated to the an-
noyingly frequent frequency over-
rides of the Dial-a-Ride radio
dispatcher.
How about it, DAR? We tube
freaks would appreciate a change
in your VHF freqs!
-Richard W. Ingalls, Jr.
Nov. 12
The Editorial Page of The
Michigan Daily is open to any-
one who wishes to submit
articles. Generally speaking, all
articles should be less than
1,006 words.
Power and the Pay Board
4
IN RECENT DAYS, we have been assail-
ed with the details of Phase II, and
assured that the 'new economics' works in
the interests of the American people as
a whole.
THE AUTO WORKERS, the longshore-
men, the striking coal miners -
these workers have highly organized un-
ions with the capacity to effectively crip-
ple major sectors of American industry.
By satisfying the demands of these pow-
erful unions, the most organized strata
of the laboring population will, in ef-
fect, be bought off.
I
Severa
trying t
the new
working
at least
granted
feet.
l leaders of organized labor are
o persuade their followers that
economic blueprints, while not
to the advantage of labor, will
allow most concessions recently
to the major unions to take ef-
-
{t
United Automobile Workers President
Leonard Woodcock, for instance, told a
UAW conference that "our strategy has
been essentially successful." He pointed
to the fact that all UAW contracts "are
in full effect in all their terms," and that
conracts currently being negotiated would
be able to match the settlement won in
last year's strike against General Motors.
The terms of that contract are far above
the guidelines set forth by the Pay Board
last week.
Woodcock put his finger directly on
why the UAW and other major unions
would be allowed to receive much more
favorable terms than the Pay Board is
likely to allow for most American workers.
It is a question of power.
Editorial Stafff
ROBERT KRAFTOWITZ
Editor
JIM BEATTIE DAVE CHUDWIN
Executive Editor Managing Editor
STEVE KOPPMAN............Editorial Page Editor
RICK PERLOFF .... Associate Editorial Page Editor
Woodcock himself said that the people
who were going to pay "through the
nose" during Phase 2 "were the low paid,
the weak and the helpless." Those 60
million Americans who do not belong to
unions, and the millions more who work
in less powerful unions than the UAW -
they will not be the exceptions from the
stringent wage guidelines.
Jack London noted the very same ten-
dency in his little-read novel, The Iron
Heel. The steel workers, the miners -
they were paid enough so they wouldn't
growl. The weak and the helpless, the
people of the abyss, as London called
them - their needs were disregarded.
They did not have the power to revolt,
so they were ignored. And since the pow-
erful strata felt satisfied, there was no
protest.
We must not allow this to continue in
real life. There is already a great division
between the weak and the strong, the
organized and the unorganized. But to
allow this division to widen further will
probably spell the end of unified protest
against the Nixon Administration's unjust
anti-labor practices.
THIS DOES NOT mean that the some-
what more equitable contracts being
given to the powerful unions should be
rqeennd * nn tho nntrarv it means that
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