i 420 Mayna [ 'w 33~i Pat Eighty years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan why then thCis restlessness? Remembrances of things past rd St., Ann Arbor, Mich News Phone: 764-0552 Eitoridls printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1971 NIGHT EDITOR: MARK DILLEN The'U' judicial system THE PASSAGE of the new University judiciary system by the Regents yes- terday should be greeted with cautious optimism by the University community, for, although, .the system is far from perfect, it is a substantial step in the right direction. The judiciary, formulated by a com- bination of faculty, student and admin- istrative representatives, has many ad- vantages over the present system of the controversial Regents- interim . discipli- nary rules. Perhaps the most basic dif- ference is that the new system allows for a jury of the defendants' peers, plus a panel of three, judges-one lawyer, one student, and one faculty member-to hear the case. HE INTERIM rules procedure allows adjudication of cases solely by a hear- ing officer appointed by the president of the University, scarcely an impartial of- ficial in cases brought by the University against a student. In fact this "'impar- tiality" proved, a pretense the first time the interim rules were employed. For on Wednesday John Eustis was declared guilty of violating two of .the three rules invoked against him, in blatant conflict with the evidence presented. "" ,'or example, Russell Downing, the Uni- versity s e c u r i t y officer who brought charges against Eustis based his com- plaint on an incident in which Downing accused E'stis of..grabbing his (Down- ing's) hat and hitting him with it. But five witnesses .called by Eustis' attorney Denny Hayes testified that they were standing near Eustis at the time of the alleged incident and did not see Eustis grab the hat. In his ruling, though, former state Su- preme Court Justice Theodore Souris, who was :hearing the case, rejected the testi- inony of' these witnesses as "contradic- 'tory," precisely as Peter Forsythe, the University lawyer for Downing, had asked in his closing statement. And the disturbing thing about this choice of whose testimony would be ac- oepted and whose would be rejected was that it appeared to be made on the basis of the poitics of the witness. The testi- mony of radicals was uniformly called contradictory, while that of University officials was, strangely enough, accepted as stated. .Perhaps a jury of Eustis'. peers would have 'judged differently. But this basic right to trial by jury of peers is clearly defied by the rules-while, on the other hand, the new judicial system guarantees this right. indeed, the further definition of "peers" to nean a jury of randomly selected stu- dents, if the defendant is a student, and randomly-selected faculty members, if the defendant is a faculty member, adds to the fairness of the new system. ANOTHER IMPORTANT facet of the new judiciary is that is establishes a University Court of' Appeals which will be composed of six students and six fac- ulty members Under the present sys- tem, the only appeal to the interim rules is to the Regents. Appealing of the Regents a conviction of violating rules which the Regents themselves set up seems by definition a hopeless case. In a case in which the University challenges a student, appeal- ing the case to the University's govern- ing body is a contradiction in itself. The new Court of Appeals, by its even stu- dent-faculty split, will be a far more rep- resentative, and, hopefully, unbiased body for appeal. Still another important aspect of the new judiciary system is that it will apply not only to students, but to faculty and administration as well, as opposed to the interimr ules; which can be invoked only against students. The new systeri,.therefore, provides for a more uniform application of University rules, ani 'ess possibility .of using them as poiltical weapons against students. THE JUDICIARY functions in conjunc- tion with the Rules for the University' Community, which are being slowly but surely finalized by University Council, a student - faculty - administration commit- tee. The University Council rules and the University jud cary, once finalized, will it has jurisdiction. Hopefully, the Regents will then approve the system on a per- manent basis. However, before that time comes, there are many facets of the new system that will have to be dealt with. FIRST OF ALL, until the University Council rules are finalized and ap- proved, the new judiciary system will be technically used to enforce the interim disciplinary rules still in effect. These rules forbid the "use of force or violence against any member or guest of the University community; interference by force, threat or duress, with the free- dom of movement of any member or guest of the University; disruption or unauth- orized interruption of a class; disruption or interruption of a duly authorized Uni- versity activity; . . . continued occupa- tion of a University facility after being ordered to leave by the President or his agent; and defacement, damage to or theft of University property." Sanctions stipulated in the interim rules range from warning to expulsion. The interim rules, even 'when admin- istered under the new judiciary system, are unacceptable, especially when con- trasted to drafts'of the University Coun- cil rules. Such drafts include more spe- cific descriptions of prohibited acts, rather than leaving the power of sanc- tion totally to the judiciary, as the in- terim rules do. For example, one of the most contro- versial of the interim rules is the rule which forbids occupation of a building after a president's warning, thereby au- thorizing the president as sole judge of whether occupation is legal or not. One of the drafts of the University Council rules, in contrast, specified that the oc- cupation must "create a substantial risk of interference with a significant Uni- versity function . . . " although this clause is still being debated. In the interim rules, building occupa- tion can be punished with anything from 'warning to expulsion, whereby in the present. University Council rules draft, sanctions are specified at warning, cen- sure, fine not to exceed $50.00 and work assignment. THE UNIVERSITY Council rules hope- fully will be finalized within the next few months, completing the improved ju- dicial system, and replacing the interim rules, at least for a year. However, even when the representative judiciary system is completed, several problems in its structure remain. This judiciary was a compromise, with the Re- gents having the final sy, and as such, it still has unsatisfactory areas. According to the new system, jury trials will be presided over by a lawyer from outside the University community along with one student and one faculty asso- ciate judge. The plan the Regents approved allows for the presiding judge alone to decide questions of law, with only rulings of decorum to be made by a majority vote of the three judges. This is in contrast to the student-faculty-administration com- mittee's proposal, which would have the panel decide all such rulings by a major- ity vote. The acceptance of the regental deci- sion on this aspect of the judiciary is disappointing, for it gives too much po- tential power to the outside judge in what s h o u 1 d be a predominantly internal system. ANOTHER FLAW in the s y s t e m is the regental plan for selec- tion of officers for the judiciary, which was approved, again, instead of the com- mittee's plan. The Regents' plan, basically, calls for officers of the system to be selected by the Regents after prior approval of a slate of double the number of vacancies by Student Government Council and Sen- ate Assembly. The committee's plan suggested that interviewing boards propose a slate equal to the number of vacancies and the slate would then be approved or rejected by SGC, Senate Assembly, and the Regents. The committee's plan is obviously less cumbersome, and gives a more equal say in the choice of officers than does the regental plan. OUR YEARS ago, there were three rooms to the cafeteria in the basement of the Union. And for a wandering freshman search- ing for the keys to the magical "university life" he had read about in magazines, the three rooms of- fered a glimpse at the spectrum of alternative styles waiting for him, as well as the only ten cent scoop of ice-cream on campus. For behind the hallway with its cluttered bulletin board and the soft Muzak coming from the ceil- ing, the three rooms of the MUG were a temporary respite from the confusion outside. And while the MUG could be seen as a whole, each room had its own character. THE FIRST ROOM, near the side door, was dimly lit and filled with orange imitation - leather booths. It oozed with privacy and served as a congregating place for the few blacks and freaks at the University then. The second, much brighter and decorated in the fashion of an of- fice cafeteria was usually filled with students reading newspapers or homework assignments as they munched and sipped their meals. It was a place to talk politics, of the classroom or the nation-an informal extension of Mason Hall. And the third room was more or less a spillover for the first two. Of course there were some who im- mediately gravitated to the third room. Its immense round wcgden tables were ideal for a professor who felt stifled by the drabness of a classroom. And its walls, paneled with varnishedroak,tprovided a quiet recluse from the bustle of the University campus. SO IF you came to the MUG at the height of lunch hour, bought your food in the cafeteria of the first room but couldn't find a cushy booth or a trim table, the only re- course was to carry your tray to the third room and find a seat among the relics of the Univer- sity's past. For the walls and tables are in- deed relics. Carefully preserved under coats of varnish, their sur- faces bear the marks of an earlier era. The boards proudly display the carvings of fraternities and clubs of an older generation. Occasional- ly the "scores" of a victorious foot- ball season would be skillfully etched into the wood, saving the glory of old moments for posterity. The tables are also covered with carving, though generally less ela- borate than the walls. In a mo- ment of inspiration, a student' would boldly chisel his initials and class year on the surface. For in- stance, H.B. '41 lies near the edge of one table. Sitting in the third room of the MUG at my favorite old table, I have often wondered who H.B. '41 was. The letters on the table of- fered no clue, they were hardly different than a hundred other initials close by. I could only speculate on H.B.'s identity. What name those letters stood for and what kind of a per- son actually was are still a mys- tery to me. In any event, unlike some students who have passed through the University in the past thirty years-to become statistics on alumni files-H.B. can rest as- sured his mark will probably re- main, at least as long as there is a cafeteria in the Union. which is more than most of us can ever say. FOR IT IS much easier to stay anonymous at the University than to leave your unique mark. Most of us come to the University, spernd four formative years here and walk out with a lot of memories, a degree, and if we are lucky, a few cherished friendships. On the other hand, the University takes from us its identity. Like a huge, impersonal bus lumbering down a highway of time the Univer- sity is a vehicle which responds to the touch of its drivers and the emotions of its passengers without actually fusing with any of its fellow travelers. Since its soul is always chang- ing, the University is in a sense a reflection of ourselves, its image corresponding to the collective identity of its "passengers." But in another sense, the Uni- versity maintains a presence and a continuity which extend beyond any individual or group which make up its community at any given moment. Like the bus on its trip, the University shelters a complex set of social interreactions within its walls though to those on the outside it appears as a unified whole. Somehow the University as an institution has a life of its own and a posture which rests on tra- ditions more deeply entrenched than the moods of the moment. And those of us who agree to come on board fall under the influence of this presence, our actions be- coming filtered through an insti- tutional lens outside of ourselves before they reach our own con- sciousness. And even as we change, and in turn seek to change the nature of the institution, perhaps the scope of our thinking lies within the realm of the style of life we en- counter as we arrive in Ann Arbor. For in coming to Ann Arbor, we accept many assumptions which are implicit in the concept of a "university community." We ac- cept the concept of an academic community dedicated to certain social goals: we accept the idea of a university community as the proper environment for "educa- tion" and learning to take place. So if we rebel, it is not against these underlying assumptions but rather because of our dissatisfaction with how they are being carried out. Certainly, however, qualitative changes have come about and the University as an institution and a community is tremendously dif- ferent from what existed here four years ago. From the ivy-covered school considered the best frater- nity campus in the nation in 1968, to our current image as a counter- cultural island awash in a sea of provincialism, we have ridden the waves of change to a shore few could predict or even imagine a short time ago. WHEN I ARRIVED at the'Uni- versity in 1967 it was lily-white in every sense of the word. There were dress codes in the dorms, women had a twelve o'clock cur- few and Harlan Hatcher's idea of meeting students was to let them visit his house three times a year for tea. Looking back, it is difficult to comprehend the scope of what has happened during such a short period of time. The multitudes of issues brought before our eyes boggles the imagination. And two of them-the War in Vietnami and the Black Action Movement-have been responsible for such incredi- ble changes in consciousness that their full effects have not yet be- gun to be felt. It would be easy for an observer to believe that a political and cul- tural revolution had taken place were it not for the deep ties which bind this University to its past. For though two of the rooms in the MUG are no longer around, the styles of life they represented stil flourish. Moreover, most students still enjoy the anonymity of ;living in a large university community. Perhaps it is appropriate that the surviving room in the MUG is the one most steeped in tradition and most tied to the past. For.tle para- dox of all that has occurred is that we, the changers, are the tran- sients in Ann Arbor. When our trip is finished we step off the bus, perhaps leaving it transformed And perhaps transforming it as we leave, but assuredly departing as contributors to an old institution rather than creators of a new one. SO WHILE our "mark" on the University may seem unrelated to H.B.'s scratches on the table, I wonder how we will be remember- ed in another thirty years. i Letters to The. Daly The virtues of wr LSA faculty To The Daily: AT THE RECENT governing faculty meeting of the literary col- lege, the faculty displayed be- havior that was completely anti- thetical to the pursuit of an open, free, and enquiring intellectual community. The Governance Committee of students, after working for almost a year in end- less hours of debate and discus- sion of major questions facing the college, finally decided that they could not come to one committee position, but that they had a responsibility to present the dif- ferent ideas and models that they had formulated as a result of their work for consideration by t h e Governing Faculty. The faculty at least owed the members of this committee t h e respect and consideration to dis- cuss at length the major issues brought to light by those propos- als. But this is not what happen- ed. These men, "experts on higher education devoted to the better- ment of their professional goals," could not see fit to sit still for more than two hours to discuss a major issue that has been around in the form of mailings and dis- cussions among colleagues for eight months., The attempts by certain faculty to railroad through a substitute proposal from the very beginning of the open discussion were nega- tive in approach and spirit, and completely lacking in courtesy to the members of the Governance Committee only two of whom were allowed to speak in discussion af- ter the opening presentation. The fact that there was bare a quor- um for this important meeting, and that many of the professors did not have copies of the pro- posals (available at the door and mailed to them several times) in- dicates the nature of responsibil- ity in the traditional unrepresen- tative faculty meeting. The Ad Bd.'s recently-disclosed decision to refuse registration to 100 students for next fall is ano- ther' poignant example of t h i s brand of vacuum decision-mak- ing. Early last semester under the pressure of increasing numbers of applicants and closed courses and the dubious argument that I e s s ninth semester students would al- leviate these problems significant- ly. the members of the Ad. Board adopted this policy in a rather haphazard fashion. They never got final approval by the Executive Committee which til the sudden announcement to the students concerned. Certainly there are other meas- sures, as Prof. Mendel's r e c e n t letter indicated, that would be far more fair to those already in the collegeaand which would face more honestly the larger questions of the need to use the resources of the college more efficiently. What can be done to improve this ghastly situation of inepti- tude and neglect of the basic wel- fare of students and the academic community as a whole that exists as a result of this decision-mak- ing structure? In the specific problem of Governance, we re- commend that, at the currently scheduled special meeting of the Governing Faculty, on Tuesday, the professors entrusted with the running of this college exercise their responsibility and consider again the two proposals on their merits. allow a full dialogue be- tween the members of the Gov- ernance Committee and t h e m - selves (as occurred at the o p e n hearings), and that they take the time and energy to consider and think before they rule. It would be difficult at best to work with any proposal decided upon by the fa- culty in such an undiplomatic and negative fashion as occurred at the last meeting. We would further urge that if Proposal I is still too great a change for the Faculty to accept (although we feel that it is the best one by far), that Pro- posal II be accepted without amendment. This is important be- cause its size is necesary to pre- vent its recommendations f r o m receiving the same ill-considered treatment that the Governance Committee is now receiving. In the specific situation of the 8 term limit we strongly urge that this decision be revoked by the Executive Committee, b o t h because of its doubtful substan- tive contributions to the real prob- lems of resource allocation, and the underhanded and undemo- cratic manner in which it was established and sprung on those unsuspecting students. -The members of the LSA Student Government Selective service To The Daily: WE ARE THE parents of a member of the freshman class and we are writing in reference to the revision of the Selective S e r v i c e Act. We are opposed to the provision just approved by the House of Re- presentatives, and now under con- sideration by the Senate, which permits the President to abolish student deferments . . . retroac- tively to April 23, 1970. The stu- dents who are now college fresh- men will be the first students since World War II to have their edu- cation interrupted. In the present situation this seems unwarranted . . . for it comes at a time when the draft is being phased out and the administration's goal is zero draft by 1973. The terrible irony is that the students who are now college freshmen will be the only class to be affected. To abolish any student defer- ments is punitive, but to abolish them retroactively is reprehensi- ble. No other deferments have ever been abolished retroactively. Bombard President Nixon with letters and telegrams. We must eliminate the retroactive aspect of the new Selective Service Act. -Mr. & Mrs. Herbert Gross April 5 protests revitewed The following article represents the position of the Ann Arbor Student Mobilization Committee. FOR SOME TIME now the strategy of mass mobilization has been dis- missed as, at best, outdated and at worst hopelessly ineffective. This view is especially prevalent on college campuses across the nation where the Student Mobilization Committee has been given scornful glances by many radicals and pleasantly cynical shrugs by veteran marchers. Yet, we feel this view to be mistaken. The antiwar movement is not dead. A recent Harris poll indicates that a majority of the American people think the war is morally wrong and that 61 per cent want all the troops out by the end of 1971 or before. This sentiment can and will be mobilized in coming months through a variety of antiwar actions. PERHAPS IN 1967, at the time of the March on the Pentagon, we really did feel that we could take the screws out of the war machine with one massive outpouring of antiwar sentiment. So we rallied, marched and surrounded the head of the monster. But the Pentagon did not fall apart, much less-for those who were looking-the entire oppressive government apparatus. Some of us got gassed, many of us had fun. But none of us could truthfully say'that the war machine had been dismantled. But we kept on marching. And we kept on feeling more and more helpless and more and more engaged in a futile action. Until finally, in 1969, in the largest demonstration that the capital had ever seen, they told us 'that Nixon was watching the football game while gas floated down Pennsylvania Ave. 0 1 ago ~ THE POINT can =be belabored. Nonetheless, it raises important questions. First of all, it has been naive and presumptuous of us to think that a few demonstrations each involving several hundred thousand people were going to end the war. It is an affront to the millions of people in Southeast Asia who have died in what is at least a 20 year struggle for liberation. Secondly, at this point mass marches are 'not going to end the war. But we never should have operated on that assumption. It was the ac- ceptance of that premise which led to subsequent disillusionment. The war is going to end literally when Mr. Nixon, or any other man speaking for vicious and powerful economic and political interests is forced to withdraw by what may amount to overwhelming military pressure ex- erted on this country's and South Vietnam's fighting forces by Southeast Asian liberation forces; and when the broad sectors of the American peo- w ple refuses to support the war and its debilitating economic effects'. All this does not, however, mean demonstrations do not have an immediate effect. MASSIVE SHOWS of opposition to the war are appreciated by Indo- chinese liberation forces. Nixon's military options are limited to an intensive bombing of the North, a massive invasion of that area or the 4 use of tactical nuclear weapons to create a radioactive barrier across the Demilitarized Zone. It is in great part due to the visible antiwar sentiment that mass demonstrations have embodied that he has not made use of these options. We must once again make sure they are not used. Massive demonstrations also show Americans that there is opposi- tion to the war. For the unaware, the marches confront them with the t reality of moral dissent to this country's foreign policies. For the waver- ing it gives them more conviction. And for the committed, it not only proves that this nation is not morally bankrupt but it justifies their further efforts to build a just society.