- why thei this restlessness?
Iie id&wan Baait1
Eighty years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Striking GM:
Still standing on the line
by Stuart gannes
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.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1970
NIGHT EDITOR: LYNN WEINER
Forming a new 'U' judiciary'
WITH THE MAKEP of campus judici-
aries perplexing universities across
the country, it is not surprising that a
committee working on the problems here
for more than four months is only now
approaching a solution.
The task is difficult because m a n y
questions of rights, responsibilities, prin-
ciples and politics are involved. As a min-
imum, though, any university legal sys-
tem must be fair, practical and accept-
able to all segments of t h e university
community.
To be fair a university judiciary should
be' impartial toward a 11 defendants,
should safeguard constitutionally-guar-
anteed rights and should conform to com-
mon law traditions ingrained in our con-
cept. of justice.'
One of the most important traditions
is the principle of trial by peers. Trial by
peers'incorporates ;into judgments the
values and extenuating circumstances,
unique to the defendant's group. More
importantly, trial by peers helps prevent
oppression, or even the appearance of it,
by outside forces.'
To be practical a university legal sys-
tem should be speedy, simple enough to
'allow' people with a minimum of legal
training to participate in it a n d ade-
quately streamlined to require a mini-
mum of bureaucratic structure and prac-
tice.
However, a system that trades speed
for thoroughness, simplicity for fairness
and streamlined structure for impartial.
ity is undesirable. Practicality is import-
ant, but justice is vital.
The most difficult, and perhaps most
essential, requirement is that it be ac-
ceptable to all groups in the university
community. Even if a system is just and
practical, if it is not supported by a large
number of the people it governs, the sys-
tem will not work.
A judiciary is held in respect because
of the moral authority it yields. A legal
system w iI c h has neither respect nor
moral authority invites non-cooperation,
defiance and disruption.
THE REGENTS ;Interim Disciplinary
Policy is such a system. Although ex-
pedient, the interim rules adopted by the
Regents last April are neither fair nor
acceptable to significant numbers of stu-
dents, faculty members and administra-
tors.
Enacted without any consultation with
these groups, the interim rules' provide
for an outside hearing officer, appointed
by President Robben Fleming, to decide
guilt or innocence and to assess sanc-
tions.
During proceedings the defendant may
,e suspended from school by Fleming and
the hearing officer has the power to limit
the number of witnesses, to restrict pub-
lic attendance at hearings and to con-
duct them without the presence of the
defendant. Because of these features, the
interim rules are undesirable..
There are certainly doubts whether any
hearing officer appointed by Fleming, a
party to many of the issues that arise on
campus, can be fair and impartial.
Further, t h e r e are serious questions
whether the interim rules provide for due
process. Although a report by the Ameri-
can Bar Association says the system does,
enough students a n d faculty members
have charged the interim rules do not
safeguard constitutional rights to c a s t
doubt upon the rules.
Most importantly, the interim rules do
not conform with the old tradition of
trial by peers. Rather, an outside hearing
officer is brought in with little knowledge
of the values, political conditions and
life style of the people he judges.
By using someone f r o m outside the
community, the interim rules raise the
fear of repression from the outside..
Whether these fears or doubts are valid
or not, with a judicial' system appear-
ances are just as important as fact.
THEINTERIM RULES, therefore, a r e
obnoxious and must be replaced. Wise-
ly, the committee studying a new judicial
system has decided to steer a different
course. Under their nearly completed pro-
posal, students would have a choice of
the method under which they would be
tried.
Under one of the options, if both par-
ties to a dispute agreed, a student could
go before Central Student Judiciary
(CSJ). CSJ provides for trial and sen-
tencing by ten student judges appointed
by Student Government Council.
This procedure allows for trial by peers,
and past experience with CSJ has shown
it works. CSJ's main problem, the slow-
ness of its deliberations in a couple of
cases, has resulted f r o m jurisdictional
questions caused by the administration's
refusal to recognize its authority.
An all-student jury in which six ran-
domly selected students judge guilt and
assess penalties is another option envis-
aged by the committee. A similar but per-.
manent student panel would probably be
established for less serious cases.
The jury approach would be practical
as hundreds of years of jury trials in civil
courts has proved. And as CSJ has dem-
onstrated an all-student version of such
a legal system is workable. In addition,
access to lawyers helps insure that the
decisions made by student judiciaries will
be legally sound while trial by peers re-
moves the fear of outside interference.
N VIEW OF the fact that the Regents
have!expressed a liking for their in-
terim rules, it is important that all mem-
bers of the University community support
the proposal n o w before the judiciary
committee.
In finalizing the plan, committee mem-
bers must not compromise the principle
of trial by peers. The committee should
continue its present course toward a fair,
practical judicial system acceptable to all
members of the University community.
Anything less is a sellout.
-DAVE CHUDWIN
.. ae-WILLOW RUN
IT WAS RAINING so hard last Thursday afternoon, that around
12 o'clock one man picketed the entrance to General Motor's Chevy
assembly plant in Willow Run. Cassady,, who had the only umbrella,
checked the ID's of people trying to get -in the plant grounds, while the
rest of the men sought out the protection of a near-by tent where they
could sit and joke about jobs and women.
-And on that rainy Thursday afternoon, with picket duty until
two o'clock, there wasn't much to do except sit around and talk. The
men told stories about how they got ploughed the night before, how
their "old lady" got pregnant, about hunting trips they'll go on now
that the strike has started.
As their talk continued it seemed that many workers, were actually
relieved that the strike was finally here. Work in the plant this summer
was reaching the point of insanity. GM, anticipating the strike had
many shifts working nine hours a day and six days a week on the
new 1971 models. And by the time the strike finally came, the
men were worn ragged from gruelling assembly line jobs which grind
their emotions into apathy.
So, with the Temory of work still fresh in their minds, and last
week's pay still owed to them, it wasn't hard to be cheerful about
being on strike. Sure, they'll be talking about bills and payments soon
but at this point nobody was really hurting.
THURSDAY WAS THE THIRD day of a strike of indeterminate
length. Nobody knows when work will resume. Some men expect to be
back in two weeks while others wished 'their foremen a merry Christ-
mas. Talk to the workers on the picket lines, talk to union officials,
talk to the GM management, talk to labor specialists . . . And you'll
get as many guesses estimating the strike's length as the number of
people you talk to.
"The $40 Cassady gets each week from the UAW isn't much when you
have a wife and kid to support, but if the strike is over soon Cassady fig-
ures he'll get by if he's careful. The first thing he plans to do is stop sha.
ing to cut down on razor blades. In the meantime, his only obligation for
union assistance is to stand on the picket line Thursdays from 10 till 2."
*
-4
Cassady thinks the strike will last about three weeks. He reasons
that "GM has $400 .million in the Vega (its low-priced Chevrolet) and
it can't afford to lose that money." Besides, he says, "after three weeks,
the workers will get the heebee-geebees," because they'll have run
through their savings and pressure the union intoaccepting any com-
pany offer.
AT ANY RATE, Cassady isn't looking for a job right now. He says
he has important things to do around his trailer-home-like installing
screen windows and "a lot of little things." Besides, with GM on strike,
decent jobs are impossible to find.,
The $40 each week Cassady gets from the UAW isn't much when
you have a wife and kid to support, but if the strike is oyer soon Cassady
figures he'll get by if he's careful. The first thing he plans to do is
stop shaving to cut down on razpr blades. In the meantime, his only
obligation for union assistance is to stand on the picket line every
Thursday from 10 til 2.'
The picket line wasn't very imposing last Thursday. Around noon,
as the drizzle developed into a steady rainfall, the workers slowly drifted
into the tent. UAW strike poster demanding early retirement, equity
and justice, lay in the mud of the road-side culvert, slowly soaking up
the rain.
Cassidy, with his three-day-old beard and beaten-up umbrella
stayed outside as the lone picket to check the people who drove up to
the gate. The management's salaried employes, who are required to
show up each day despite the strike, occasionally enter or leave the
plant. They; drive up in two's and three's, always in a late-model
Chevrolet, white shirts, dark ties and crew-cut hair. They smile as
Cassady checks their IDs, say something to each other, then drive off-
into or out from the plant. According to GM's public relations man,
the men attend lectures on safety and management' techniques each
day during the strike. According to Cassady: "They sit around and play
cards or something."
Cafeteria employes who show up for work are turned away from
the line. Workers coming for last week's pay checks have to be told
to come back on Friday afternoon. The UAW's international repre-
sentative from the factory pulls up in a sleek big sedan to ask how
things are going.... And the rain gets harder.
By 1:30 a steadydin of husky voices from inside the tent begins to
compete with the last showers of the rain storm. Men with nothing
better to do are arriving for their stint on the picket line which begins
at 2:00. As the tent fills up, waves of laughter come through the canvas
walls as each juicy anecdote is retold. Husbands betray wives and wives
betray husbands .... Laugh at the other guy while you have a chance.
AS CASSADY FINISHES up his time on the line, a blue State
Police patrol car slowly cruises by the gate. Earlier in the week there
was trouble at Chevrolet's gate and at the Fisher Body plant next door.
The account in the Ann Arbor News said: "(Washtenaw County)
Sheriff's deputies arrived after receiving a report that approximately
25 pickets were stopping cars and opening trunks and creating a con-
dition of general harrassment....
Cassady's version is somewhat more real: "This was the first strike
for a lot of men and they didn't know how to play it cool. They thought
that being on strike gave you the right to stop anybody." Eventually,
Sheriff Harvey's men came "with dogs and all" and "roughed up some
boys." However, "don't get me, wrong, Harvey has a job to do."
Cassady understands how the men got all worked up for their
first strike. But veteran workers take things more calmly. Cassady
began working at Chevrolet when the plant was built in 1959. Like
many autoworkers'in Michigan, he left his family in West Virginia
to come to Detroit to get a good day's wages. As a mechanic in he
plant, he works the bugs out from newly assembled cars.
WHEN CASSADY FIRST STARTED working, GM paid him $2.35
per hour. When he went out on strike last week, he was making $3.80.
In the meantime, of course, with increasing prices, it is doubtful
whether Cassady's real wages have risen more than two per cent -
in total - during a time when the nation's productivity (and GM's
slice of the pie) have risen tremendously. As ,far as 'the money he
takes home, Cassady says "That's not too much for eleven year's work."
Now, after -more than a decade- in Michigan, Cassady says he
has "this here Cutlass (his Oldsmobile), a wife, a kid and a house
trailer." His ties'in the state are few, for Cassady's soul never really
left West Virginia. He' drives down there for all his vacations and
he talks about the hills and the forests near his home with a possessive-
ness which can only be described as love.
Although he's at home in the Chevy factory, Cassady is. a stranger
to his home in Michigan. In eleven years, he has gone to Detroit three
times - "and got lost each time." If the UAW wins its "thirty years
and out" retirement proposal, Cassady will be back in West Virginia
whanh s i fty4. 1#-.hrpon
R
Tent City: U' vs. peaceful protest
-Daily-Sara Krulwich
TENT CITY, which has functioned as
both a symbolic reminder of Univer-.
sity insensitivity to local housing prob-
lems and as a temporary residence for
about twenty- people, is fighting for its
life after reports late last -week of a case
of infectious hepatitis on the Diag camp-
ing site.
Strikingly, though, University officials
like Vice President for Student Services
Robert Knauss freely admit that' the hep-
atitis case is not the real problem: Tent
City, like Stockwell Hall where the in-
fected person also spent considerable
time, has been safely disinfected, and
residents have. been innoculated.
What continues to threaten the exis-.
tence of Tent City are alleged inadequa-
cies in toile't and shower facilities. And it
is hereY that the University has shown
gross indifference to the fate of Tent
City residents.
Rather than assisting the residents of
Tent City by making toilet and shower
facilities available in surrounding Uni-
versity buildings -- nearby Waterman
I 1-f tit 7 n t
Gymnasium for example - Knauss has
told residents that their presence on Cen-
tral Campus will simply no longer be tol-
erated.
Instead, he has suggested they move to
some out-of-sight North Campus location
- a step he knows would be antithetical
to the campers' objective of dramatizing
the housing situation.
Knauss has also raised the specious is-
sue of t h e predominantly non-student
composition of Tent City, presumably in-
dicating a callous belief that the Univer-
sity has no obligation to protect non-
students in matters of politics or health
-- or housing itself.
THE UNIVERSITY could easily provide
adequate facilities for Tent City, and
could effectively fight unwarranted legal
action by county health officials on the
grounds that such action would impinge
on the University's constitutional auton-
omy.
Instead, the, University administration
has hastened to capitulate to political
pressure, expressing the intention of tak-
ing its own legal action against Tent City
WHO'S DOING WHAT?
Learning games students play
1'
By MARK DILLEN -
0K. SPORTS FANS, its time
for another go at that annual
game - "What are THEY going
to do on campus this year?"
THEY, of course, are those lovable
groups of commie, hippie. pervert,
radicals - in other words, the en-
tire lit school.
But first, in the spirit of the
academic community in which we
live, there have to be some
ground rules before we can play:
First, no one can play who has
intelligently examined the radical
groups on campus. Since this ex-
cludes no one - including radi-
cals - everyone can still play.
But this rule, like most rules, will
do no more than frustrate those
who see themselves more intelli-
gent than the rule-makers (which
we all do). Thus, we are prepared
to start, being' good and frustrat-
ed.
the first, move (if you ask why it
shows you're starting to get frus-
trated) and as usual, issues "An
Appeal to Reason," and "A Pre-
diction of Calm." (Administra-
tions get away with this because
everyone knowsgthey 'e reasonable
and all-knowing)
The newspapers of the nearby
metropolis get to make the next
move. They send a reporter over
who writes "An In-Depth Analy-
sis" which shows: a) there is a
potential for violence because, b)
t h e University is no longer an
"Ivory Tower." This comes as a
great shock to parents, alumni,
and Regents (somehow the only
difference between these groups
is their names). Parents run for
local school boards as "Strict
Constructionists"; Alumni run for
Regent urging "A Return to Nor-
malcy"; regents run from their
office by saying "the kids need a
good spanking," and anyone in
They issue a statement calling for
"Class Consciousness in the Strug-
gle AgainstRepression," and then,
tired, go home to Royal Oak for
the weekend.
THE LAST STEP in the game
is determined by The Issue and
is the trickiest to foretell. The
Issue is first known as the Prob-
lem and is ignored until it Rises
to the Surface of Debate. This is
usually done w h e n someone in
power (especially the University)
being reasonable, decides to dis-
cuss The Problem with students
and finds, surprisingly, that the
students know more than they do.
The only way out is for the Ad-
ministrationto admit it is wrong,
in which case the administration
loses. However, the administration
never loses or else it couldn't be
an administration (Catch-22). In-
stead, they alweys s e e m to be
lucky enough to draw the John-
son-Nixon Wild Card of Consen-