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Eighty-three years of editorial freedorn
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Politics threatens legal aid program
420 Maynard St., Ann'Arbor, Mi. 48104
News Phone: 764-0552
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1973
Real input put out in the cold
TJHE LSA FACULTY has once again
smashed a proposal which would
have allowed students a significant voice
in college affairs.
It is hardly surprising: periodically,
post mortems must be made of proposals
which would give students even a small
amount of decision-making power.
But the similarity of Monday night's
literary faculty vote to previous actions
denying students any kind of self-deter-
mination does not make it any more
palatable. Whatever liberal faculty mem-
bers may say of the "need for student
input," their refusal to give that input
teeth makes a mockery of those pious
statements.
The governance plan offered Monday
by English Prof. Marvin Felheim and LSA
Student Government Vice President
Chuck Barquist would have established a
representative unit of 50 faculty mem-
bers elected from their departments and
50 members elected from the student
body.
ISTORY PROF. SIDNEY Fine said the
plan would result in a "conflict of in-
terest," since students would have a role
in determining academic requirements.
That criticism applies at least as well to
the faculty, since at present they can
decide what their teaching-their pro-
duct-will be like without consulting the
students who pay for their services.
Fine apparently views the monthly fac-
ulty meetings more as social gatherings
than as decision-making forums.
He commented that the faculty meet-
ings were "virtually the only opportunity
faculty members have to get together,"
and that he'd "hate to see that go down
the drain."
Unfortunately, there is no opportunity
at all for faculty and students to get to-
gether and rationally discuss the issues
affecting them both, and both segments
of the community can ill afford this ex-
clusive kind of comraderie among the
faculty.
FACULTY MEMBERS can hardly be ir-
ritated at student apathy and lack
of interest in academics if they deny stu-
dents the opportunity to participate in
making decisions which affect their lives
and futures.
And Philosophy Prof. Carl Cohen ut-
tered the mind boggling opinion that, "It
does not follow that everyone who has an
important role is entitled to an equal
voice."
Cohen said that the matter of student
participation was "put to rest for the
third and-I hope-the last time."
As one student pointed out after the
meeting, "As long as this issue is not sat-
isfactorily resolved, you can be sure that
it will come up again."
By TERRY ADAMS
(Editor's Note: The following is the
second article in a three part series on
legal services for the lower classes.)
THE ORIGINAL NIXON administration
proposals to create a National Legal
Services Corporation in order to "remove
the program from politics" were very sim-
ilar to those proposed by Congressional lib-
erals. Most people were convinced that only
some slight compromise to give the Presi-
dent fuller authority to appoint the Cor-
poration's Board of Directors was necessary
to get a bill that would allow local project
attorneys to go ahead doing what they had
been doing with less fear of local politicians'
complaints.
But, no one foresaw that after the 1972
elections the Office of Economic Opportun-
ity would be taken over by the Young
Americans for Freedom's Howard Phillips.
He became acting director (since his name
was never submitted to the Senate for con-
firmation, he held the office illegally) and
appointed a covey of old colleagues from
the right-wing group to staff and "consul-
tant" positions.
J. Laurence McCarty became acting di-
rector of the Office of Legal Services with-
in OEO; he's an insurance company law-
yer from Boston with no experience in
the legal services program and a founder
of the American Conservative Union. Per-
haps more important was the appointment
of Marshall Boarman as director of the
Evaluation Services Division within OLS;
he's not a lawyer, but is a Ph.D. candidate
in philosophy at the University of Pennsyl-
vania. You can get a look at what appeatls
to be a first draft of his dissertation in
the March 1, 1973 issue of the Congressional
Record, page H1291, kindly inserted for the
public by Representative Jack Kemp (R-
Buffalo Bills).
THIS REMARKABLE document, and a
later more elaborate version, is Boarman's
evaluation of the present legal services
program. Although couched in abstract and
befuddled terminology, the point is as sim-
ple as Russell Long states it - "The gov-
ernment shouldn't pay people in one agency
to sue people in other agencies or to try
to change the system that supports them."
Making public policy is for legislators, not
courts. So the upshot is a recommendation
to design a legal services system that will
never challenge the political or economic
status-quo in the course of its handling of
cases for the poor.
The technique of the Boarman report is
strikingly similar to that of the Uhler Re-
port to Governor Reagan two years be-
fore. Factual assertions are compounded
with misquotation, anonymous assertions
of wrongdoing, and blatant distortions. The
vision of how the legal services program
really works at the local level and how a
legal case arises seems composed of equal
parts of Perry Mason and paranoid fan-
tasies about cabals of revolutionist poor
people and their lawyers.
USING THE UHLER report as ammuni-
tion, Phillips began pressuring the White
House for a new approach and began feed-
ing speeches to sympathetic Congressmen
about "abuses" in the present program.
The approach Phillips favored is typically
called "Judicare", in which the client can'
go to any lawyer in the community and
attorney jobs thoroughly unattractive to
politically-minded lawyers by prohibiting
them from engaging in any form of politi-
cal activity on their own time.
Second, the bill limited the sorts of legal
representation that could be given - no
lobbying of any sort, no representation of
groups of poor people, and no advising of
clients to engage in strikes, boycotts, or
picketing.
And third, the bill attemptea 'to destroy
the major source of information and assist-
ance available to project attorneys in con-
ducting law reform litigation by prohibit-
ing any funds from going to the legal
services "backup centers" which specialize
ip various areas of poverty law.
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"The Boarman report's vision of how the legal services pro-
gram really works at the local level seems composed of equal
parts of Perry Mason and paranoid fantasies about cabals of
revolutionist poor people and their lawyers."
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that lawyer will bill the government for
the fee.
Experiments in Wisconsin indicate this
approach is six times as expensive per case
as the project approach; there is some very
sketchy evidence that the white rural poor
slightly prefer the Judicare approach to
the project approach, but it's at least pos-
'le that the difference is due to the pri-
vate attorney's greater skill at conning
In either case, the practical effect of
Judicare at this point would be that only
a sixth as many clients would be served
as are currently. The political effect would
be to so widely distribute the legal prob-
lems of the poor that no single lawyer
would become informed or expert enough
in them to attempt any major law reform
litigation.
THE WHITE HOUSE, however, did not
favor the Judicare approach, at least not
beyond an experimental level, and sub-
mitted to Congress instead a Corporation
bill that proposed imposing severe limits-
tions on the conduct of local projects and
their attorneys. Although Congress had
more than a dozen other Corporation bills
before it, word had come from the White
House that the President would veto any
bill but his own and everyone decided to
just wait for that bill before acting.
The Administration bill, HR 7824 51815,
had three basic thrusts. First, to make staff
THE LARGELY liberal House Committee
:,n Education and Labor rewrote the Ad-
ministration bill to the maximum extent it
thought possible without ensuring a Presi-
dential veto. This was done largely by fol-
lowing Rep. Marvin Esch's (R-Ann Arbor)
tactic of neutralizing the restrictions on
types of representation by adding phrases
like "except when necessary to effective
representation in accordance with the Code
of Professional Responsibility."
But the restrictions on project attorneys'
political freedom and the prohibition of the
backup centers stayed in. The revised bill
was reported out to the full House by an
11-3 vote.
At this point the lobbyists from the exist-
ing legal services projects, largely drawn
from the backup centers, made very handed
use of the fact they had won over the
staff of the Education and Labor committee
to their position, and obtained a report
on the revised bill which described the
bill's intentions in a thoroughly distorted
way.
The restrictions on staff attorney political
activities were said not to be intended to
interfere with First Amendment rights; the
restrictions on type of practice were said
not to be intended to limit an attorney's
freedom to do whatever was in the best
interests of his client; and provisions clear-
ly aimed at the backup centers were said
to be aimed elsewhere and the money de-
signated for judicare experiments were
said' to be intended for the backup :enters.
THAT REPORT killed any chance of a
compromise with the White House on the
bill itself. Phillips, armed with this betrayal
of the tacit agreement the Administration
had had with the committee members, con-
vinced the Administration to quietly with-
draw from the agreement and to instruct
House Republicans to vote for a series of
amendments to restore the bill to its ori-
ginal form.
When the 11-hour debate took place on
June 21, the committee bill's supporters and
its floor manager William Steigler (R-
Oshkosh, Wisc.) - seemed stunned and
quite disorganized. An easy majority of
Republicans led by Albert Quie of Minne-
sota and conservative Democrats led by
Edith Green of Oregon returned all of the
original restrictions and made them even
stronger, adding prohibitions against parti-
cipation in educational desegregation, abor-
tion, and selective service cases.
THE MARATHON session was reportedly
conducted in a circus atmosphere, with
cheering, applause, hissing, booing, cat-
calls,, and laughter as various members
spoke. The mood is typified by passage of
Wayne Hays' (D-Flushing, Ohio) amend-
ment prohibiting legal assistance from be-
ing given to "indigent, abandoned Water-
gate defendants".
Senator Nelson's Subcommittee on Em-
ployment, Poverty, and Migratory Labor
of the Committee on Labor and Public Wel-
fare has drafted and reported to the Senate
floor a revised S.1815 which is virtually
free of all the restrictions in the House-
passed bill. It is to be voted on this week
by the Senate, and probably will pass with
only one amendment (prohibiting lobbying).
The two bills will then go to a conference
committee, which will probably be strongly
liberal and quite disposed toward the Sen-
ate version.
AT THAT POINT there will be three
crucial questions remaining; (1) to what
comparative extent will the House and
Senate respectively insist that its conferees
support its own version? (2) Will the House
pass the significantly more liberal bill like-
ly to emerge from conference committee?
(3) Will the President veto a bill signifi-
cantly more liberal than that passed by
the House?
If you would like to see the legal services
program continue as a strong and effec-
tive advocate for the poor, I urge you
to write your representatives and urge
them to support the Senate bill as strongly
as possible.
Terry Adams graduated from the law
school last year, and has worked as a volun-
teer for the Washtenaw County Legal Aid
Society.
A
Boycott Farah pants
FOR ALMOST 18 months, workers strik-
ing against Farah Manufacturing
Co. have waited.
They have been intimidated with guard
dogs. Two of them were struck by cars.
And those still at work inside the pants
manufacturing plants have been threat-
ene~d with "harsh treatment" if they be-
come active in union affairs.
The Farah strikers are demanding
that the Amaglamated Clothing Workers
of America be 'allowed to represent
them. But company President Willie
Farah, is adamant: There will be no un-
ion at his company.
Farah ha.s no job security, no job ad-
vancement, no sick pay, no maternity
benefits, and one pay rate: $1.70 an
hour. The only wonder is that it was
only on May 9, 1972, that workers finally
walked out.
Almost all of Texas-based company's
workers are Chicano, and 85 per cent are
TODAY'S STAFF:
News: Charlie Blugerman, Cindy H i l I ,
Bill Heenen, Charlie Stein, Ted Stein
women. The achievement of union recog-
nition at Farah, many observers think,
could have wide ramifications for Chi-
cano workers and undrganized workers
throughout the South.
'THE PRIMARY means used by striking
workers to force union recognition
by the company is a nationwide boycott
of Farah pants, which turned a $6 million
profit in fiscal 1971 into an $8.3 million
loss in fiscal 1972.
Recently, a local Farah Strike Support
Committee was established which has
since brought the boycott to the city. The
committee is currently picketing three
stores which sell Farah pants.
It is hard for many persons to realize
that the fight for union recognition still
goes on, more than 30 years after the
organizing drives of the 1930s. But the
fact remains that the majority of the
U. S. labor force is unorganized, and that
some of those workers, such as the Farah
strikers and migrant farmworkers, are
among the most exploited in the country.
THE LOCAL picketing takes place at
Fiegel's on Wednesdays from noon
to 3 p.m. and at Checkmate and Marty's
on Fridays from noon to 1 p.m.
We urge that clothing shoppers go
elsewhere until these stores no longer sell
Farah pants.
Letters: A mass movement to impedch
To The Daily:
THE AMERICAN people have
had it with Richard Nixon.
The intricate system of subter-
fuge, political persecution and lies
which has charactedized the Nix-
on presidency is falling apart.
Today, Richard Nixon stands
naked before the American people.
But as the antiwar movement and
the insurrections by Black people
in the sixties have proven, t h e
American people cannot sit back
and rely on Congress. It must be
the swelling demand of great num-
bers of people which will offer
Congress no other choice than to
follow through with Nixon's im-
peachment.
The present spontaneous anger of
the people of this country 'must
now be combined with an organiz-
ing campaign, in order to bring
millions of people into action. In
Ann Arbor, the Impeach Nixon
Committee, if developed into a
mass democratic organization, can
be the apparatus to thus mobilize
people. We are calling for every
dorm hall or floor, co-op, sorority,
fraternity, class, orfanization and/
or union across campus to take a
position in support of impeach-
ment, and to sent a representative
to the weekly meetings of the Im-
peach Nixon Committee.
The committee meets every San-
day at 1:00 p.m., on the third floor
of the Michigan Union, in the
S.G.C. office. It is important that
each representative consistently
report the information from t h e
meetings to her or his constituency,
in order to insure a continual
democratic process.
The strengths of this organizing
structure are clear. With the in-
volvement of large numbers of
people we would be able, for in-
stance, to call a one-day morator-
ium of classes each month until
TF 's: Teachers, not simply
graduate students at the rU'
Editorial Page: Zach Schiller,
Wilbur
Chuck
Nixon is Impeached; demonstrat-
ing our unified anger to people
across the country. Only mass con-
cern and involvement today can
insure that future administrations
do not trample on our elementary
democratic rights.
THROW THE BUM OUT!!
BUILD THE MASS MOVEMENT!!
-Annie Gladstone
Mark Leitson
of the Attica Brigade
Nov. 6
no surprise
To The Daily:
THE GOVERNING Faculty's de-
cision to reject the Governance
Proposal at Monday's meeting un-
doubtedly came as no surprise to
those who had followed decisions
made by that body during the last
few years. The proposal would
have allowed for greater student
participation in the University de-
cision-making process, most not-
ably through voting parity on the
Governing Faculty itself. T h e
proposal's rejection can be seen
as simply another in a long line of
faculty decisions made in the spirit
of preventing certain forms of stu-
dent input into the University's de-
cision-making process.
There were, of course, objections
to the proposal on other grounds,
especially on the question of re-
presentation by department of the
faculty who would serve on this
body. But these issues seemed of
less importance than that of ou-
dent parity.
The truly upsetting aspect of the
proposal's treatment was its out-
right rejection at the end of a
discussion period made possible
only through some astute manipu-
lation of Robert's Rules which had
prevented its immediate tabling.
No mention of some other less
drastic form of action, such as
referral to committee for modifi-
cation, was ever made.
Evidently, those faculty mem-
bers who voted against it are in-
terested in maintaining a status
quo in which student participation
in determining certain facets of
t'ieir educational experience is held
to a minimum. If this is the case,
these faculty members s h o u l d
reali7e that this state of affairs
contributes in part to a widespread
student concern with finding ways
to "get around" regulations or for
finding"easy" sections or classes
in departmentsthey wouldn't oth-
erwise deal with.
Granted, these courses of action
may be to the students' detriment,
but given the fact that they have
very little input into the making
of the rules or regulations, they
have no other alternative if unsatis-
f ied with things as they are. This,
is not to say that adoption of such
a proposal would eliminate at -
temots to circumvent rules. But I
would argue that as the amount of
student participation in these areas
increases, the incidence of at-
tempts to avoid the constraints of
the system decreases.
It would be trite to mention that
a preoccupation with avoiding rules
may characterize other areas of
American life today, and that this
mentality may have had its roots
in the prior experience in rule-
avoidance of those who today make
it a practice. The most rewarding
form of action will be the one that
most people choose, and if getting
around the rules is more effective
than helping to make them, i t s
easy to guess what sort of results
we can expect from decisions such
as the rejection of this proposal.
-Patty Hahn '74
Nov. S
Arts Page: Jeff Sorensen
Photo Technician: Terry McCarthy
(Editor's note: The following article was writ-
ten by Doug Brown, Sandy Silberstien and John
Nelson of the information committee of the Or-
ganization of Teaching Fellows.
* * *
FACULTY, undergraduates, graduate students, and
staff are all affected by the current teaching fel-
low crisis. Although every one of these groups is
periodically singled out to meet the needs of execu-
tive budget balancing, at the present time, teaching
fellows are especially hard hit. United support for the
University's 1,600 teaching fellows is in order to
protect one and all from arbitrary executive rule.
A number of recent administrative decisions have
combined to make the financial situation of teaching
fellows quite grim:
" Tuition increase of 30 per cent for in-state and
20 per cent for out-of-state;
" Cost of living increase of 20 per cent with only
a 2.75 per cent wage increase spread over the aca-
demic year;
* Loss of resident tuition status;
" Obscure residency requirements with few TF's
granted resident status;
* Loss of in-state tuition benefits for the term
following a two-term appointment for TF spouses.
Financial arguments in support of these actions are
unclear at best. In fact, during the last fiscal year
the University's "Financial Report" showed that re-
venues exceeded expenditures by $4 million. Further-
more, the number of students requesting in-state tui-
tion on the basis of the recent Supreme Court decis-
ion is reported to be considerably lower than the
administration's projected figure. Thus, an anticipated
loss of tuition revenue has not materialized and a fin-
ancial justification for the University's economy at
the expense of teaching fellows is lacking.
2 and 3 shall be retroactive to Sept. 1, 1973); 4) be-
ginning with the Fall term of 1974, payment of a
living wage and a complete tuition waiver, with
present benefits to be continued; 5) an end to racial
and sexual discrimination in the hiring of TF's.
TEACHING FELLOWS are not simply graduate stu-
dents who receive a "stipend" from the University.
They are family breadwinners and working teachers
who are essential to smaller class size and the ad-
ministration of larger lecture courses.
Considering the extent to which the quality of under-
graduate instruction depends upon the calibre of
teaching fellows and the recruitment of new graduate
students relies on the attractiveness of fellowships,
it is strange that the administration bureaucratically
characterizes the current situation as "a money prob-
lem". That is to say, just compensation of teaching
fellows should be contingent upon budgetary con-
venience, and not the well-being of the entire Univer-
sity community.
Certainly if teaching fellows are worthy of the in-
structional responsibilities they now fulfill, they de-
serve just compensation, not the budgetary crumbs
which are available from year to year. Despite its
massive size and mechanical, bureaucratic admin-
istration, the University is an organic institution
where all members are injured when one important
group is so shoddily treated.
BECAUSE TF's are at the bottom of the teaching
hierarchy, dependent on both department professors
and the administration for yearly appointments, it is
assumed by the administration that teaching fellows
cannot organize effective protest over this year's set-
backs. The administration, typically, would rather
wait and "tough it out". But the economic pressures
are so great that teaching fellows are forced to see
themselves as an exploited group that unites in the
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