z: 140. hit Wcahjz Daityj Eighty-two years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Capital punishment: Stone age cruelty? 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, FEBRUARY 15, 1973 Classified research continues CLASSIFIED RESEARCH has always been an issue characterized more by emotion than rationale. Although the University supposed the issue would be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties concerned by breaking official ties with Willow Run Laboratories they were wrong. There are several major issues in ques- tion. First, the problem of University pro- fessors maintaining major responsibilities at Environmental Research Institute of Mich. - ERIM - formerly Willow Run) taints the administration claim that the separation is "total." The academic com- munity, through its years of protest, de- bate and voting, barginned for more than a mere formality. The spirit of the Wil- low Run settlement rested not in the legal ownership of the research facility, but in the undesirable influence secret weapons research would have on an aca- demic community. Conversely, the University Administra- tion should not engage in the equally un- desirable business of dictating what pro- fessors may or may not do with their "free or consultation time." Such prac- tices would lead to an era of witch hunt- ing and a disappearance of the educa- tional freedom that must be inherent in any learning environment. Simple adherence to the existing rules applying to all private institutions would fulfill both of the above conditions. Spe- cifically, this would mean ending such contemptable associations as the Keith Raney research project involving four University academic departments, along with faculty and students. Also Prof. Em- mett Leith also an ERIM employe, whose dual responsibilities are a point of con- flict should be made to decide where his passions lay. According to the statements of executive officers prior to the Willow Run separation, tenured faculty were to be prohibited from carrying major re- sponsibilities at ERIM. Second, in an unprecedented act of philanthropy the University administra- tion has "decided it would be appro- priate" to literally give away well over one-half million dollars of technical equipment. According to Vice-President for Finance Wilbur Pierpont, the Univer- sity obtained funds for the equipment CHRISTOPHER PARKS and EUGENE ROBINSON Co-Editors in Chief ROBERT BARKIN..................Feature Editor DIANE LEVICK..............Associate Arts Editor DAVID MARGOLICK ...........Chief Photographer MARTINPORTER...............hMagazine Editor KATHY RICKE................. Editorial Director ERIC SCHOCH .....................Editorial Director GLOR~IA SMITH .................... ..Arts Editor CHARLES STEIN .....................City Editor TED STEIN....................Executive Editor MARTIN STERN ....................Editorial Director ROLFE TESSEM .......... . ...........Picture Editor Photog raphy Staff DAVID MARGOLICK ...........Chief Photographer ROLFE TESSEM.....................Picture Editor DENNY GAINER ................Staff Photographer THOMAS GOTTLIEB...........Staff Photographer KAREN KASMAUSKI...........Staff Photographer Today's staff: News: Robert Barkin, Penny B l a n k, Marilyn Riley, Sue Somm er from the government for the specific purpose of Defense Department research. The administration's explanation is that the equipment should remain for the use it was purchased. However, the University has more than repaid for the equipment. We developed the hidious electronic gadgets that per- mitted Phantom jets to smell-out the "enemy;" we developed the radar, the infrared heat sensors, the surveillence technology that the Armed Forces used to obliterate Vietnam over eight years of moral deprevation. The University has done the Govern- ment's dirty work, and now that it's finally over they seem to believe that we still have a debt to pay. The University owes the Defense De- partment nothing! AT TIMES when budgets are cut back each year, faculty salaries requests are slashed by the state legislature, department programs are curtailed for lack of funds, and tuition and housing costs soar upwards, theUniversity has negligently increased the burden through their equipment "give-a-way." Activism -on campus has apparently ended. Yet, issues relating to the pocket book can hopefully succeed in generat- ing concern where problems of social idealism fail. Pressure must be applied for some reversal of the give-away. Third ,an absolute policy banning part- time teaching appointments of privately employed persons conducting research which would be prohibited under Univer- sity policy must be established. A University teaching position is not simply a source of part time employment. It involves becoming part of what can be loosely defined as an academic com- munity. Fortunately, a university is not an omnibus corporation ,a legal third person. Rather, its identity is derived from the students and faculty. THE UNIVERSITY has established a policy of not accenting research, the result of which may destroy or incaoaci- tate human life. More simply, the policy prohibits weapons development. This in- dicates a moral judgement that such re- search is undesirable in a University en- vironment. Is it any less undesirable to invite into the. University a person ac- tivelv engaged in research the school has officially prohibited? Or have the ideals of higher education slipped so low that we are ready to install time clocks in denartment offices. Finally, of the many dark mysteries that surround the issue of classified re- search, no one snecific issue can compare with the auestionable ethics the Adminis- tration has demonstrated by their general secrecy. Although the University has virtually eliminated secret research, we may soon find that we have a classified administration. In an institution funded with state money, and operated to edu- reate the residents of the state, the execu- tive directors seem to possess the old no- tion that the majority of their work is priveledged information. The words "no comment" from executive officers are offered at times when the students and faculty seek and deserve frank and open comment. This seems symtomatic at all levels of administration, from the presi- dency down to the University. On the national level, secrecy is objec- tionable. On the University level, it is contemptable. -RALPH VARTABEDIAN By JACKIE VAUGHN III PERHAPS THE most eloquent and rational statement regard- ing the value and desirability of capital punishment was made by Thomas Jefferson: "I shall ask for the abolition of the punishment of death until I have the infal- libility of human judgement de- monstrated to me." If there exists a more inhumane, barbaric and senseless act than taking a human life, it has not been shown to me. If mankind has ever devised a more heinous a n d wasteful system than taking one life for another, it has not been shown to me. To quote a recent statement by the American Civil Liberties Union: "To retain the theory that the death penalty is not cruel is to ignore the persistence of individual and collective c o n- science which says that d e a t h imposed by the force of the state is the ultimate cruelty upon the person whose life is taken." Exactly what is it we hope to accomplish when we punish a hu- man being by taking that per- son's life? Is it rehabilitation? If so, then we had better realize that the person we ostensibly wish to rehabilitate is no longer around to undergo treatment. Is it deter- rence? If so, then we had better realize that there exists no sta- tistics which prove the death pen- alty to be a significant and con- clusive preventative measure to any crime. Is it to remove the person from society? If so, then we had better realize that jails serve the same purpose. Is it ven- geance? If so, then we had better realize that we are not God. Some people arepresently calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty (which has been out- lawed in this state since 1847 - 126 years.)t Aconstitutional amend- ment to this effect was introduced in the state Senate Tuesday. The sponsors ask that the death penalty be made mandatory (and so avoid the recent Supreme Court "arbitrary" ruling) for persons committing such crimes as kidnap- ping, assassination of public offic- ials, and killing of police and fire- fighters. Why people convicted of these specific crimes? Why police killers, for example? Are police- men a special class of people? Are police dropping like flies in the streets (eight policemen were kil- justification for killing :nay be ob- tained from various sources: t h e Bible, the courts, the church, his own conscience or sense of moral propriety. What we are t)ereforc talking about is not merely the death penalty and the rightness or wrongness of it, but rather the larger issue of killing human be- ings for whatever reasons under any circumstances, for if we sanc- tion and condone one form of kill- ing we must sanction and condone all forms. Jew, Vietnamese, M-16, gas chamber, policemen, "ordin- ary" citizens- no man is great- er or lesser, more right or less right, more justified or less jus- tified than any other man. THERE ARE therefore two basic questions we are dealing with in the debate on capital punishment. One is inherently intellectual, the other moral in nature. Since 1847, when Michigan abolished in disgust all capital punishment (except that for treason, which was eliminated in 1963), this state has been a lead- er in the fight against man's in- humanity to man. To retrogress and reinstitute the death penalty for any crime would be to erradi- cate all progress we have made in human relations and moral en- lightenment in the past 126 years, ignore the teachings of scholars, criminologists, penologists, attorn- eys, and theologians, and act in' our own worst interests. The case for the reinstatement of capital punishment basically rests on three unsteady and un- wise precepts: deterrence, retri- bution and removal of dangerous people from society. In each area, the effectiveness of capital pun- ishment has never been proven. In addition, the evils of capital pun- ishment far outweigh any "prac- tical benefits." Capital punishment as a means of deterrence is an outmoded concept; to restate the question of Clarence Darrow: "What was the mental state of mind when the homicide was com- mitted?", or in other words, sta- tistics have unquestionably prov- en that most murders are com- mitted irrationally. No deterrence could ever hope to cope with most murders. Also, most murders are committed by persons who know their victim or live in close prox- imity to him. For example, in De- troit in 1971, 31 per cent of all murders were committed within the family! As for the killing of police and public officials, these homicides usually are committed by alleged criminals on the run, in the first instance, and by persons of severe- ly deficient or deranged mentali- ties, in the second. As for retribu- tion, it simply cannot be argued that we have the right to take the life of another human being for any reason; we are not God. Removal from society is another baseless ar- gument: Better that we place mur- derers in institutions (not prisons) and study them closely so as to possibly prevent future murders. IN SUM, we simply cannot al- low ourselves to be dragged back into the Stone Age by those whose sense of moral justice is obscured by their lust for vengeance. Jackie Vaughn III is the 18th District State Representative. ... . .1 4 I "Is a policeman's life more precious than that of any other human being?" led in Detroit last year, as oppos- ed to 690 "ordinary" citizens)? Is a policeman's life more precious than that of any other human be- ing? Some apparently would naive- ly answer yes. WHAT WE MUST do in any dis- cussion of the death penalty is to first ask ourselves this: have we the right to take the life of a hu- man being, ANY human being. Many would answer, "No, butb.." There invariably is interjected that "but," always meaning im- plicitly that "we" do not have the power of life and death over ano- ther human being, but neither does the person who takes another's life. My answer to that is that we accomplish absolutely nothing when we self-righteously end the life of another who has taken a human life. For countless centuries, man has been taking the life of his fellow man, thinking all the while that hie is justified: he has fought "h o I y wars" in the name of his god to erradicate the "pagans" or "hea- thens". He has rectified a dishonor done to his name or the reputation of his fair damsel. He has wreak- ed violence on an army whose poli- tical persuasion (or ratherthat of its leaders) is different from his own. He has established guidelines stating when it is permissible to take a human life. He has given himselftortother men the power and authority to judge who shall live and who shall die. Throughout all this, he has act- ed on the assumption that moral Battling them old cosmic boring blahs. with SGC By PAUL TRAVIS YES, IT IS sort of dull these days. President Robben Fleming is out of town, the war may be over. So what is a poor campus politico to do? Work in the up-coming city elections? Naw, it's too relevant and sounds like work. By George, I've got it. Let's dump on the Student Government Council some more. Yes folks, SGC (Super Games Club) is the eternal target for bored (and boring) campus politicos. When you have nothing better to do, attack SGC and you are sure to feel better. Better than chicken soup. As I said, things are boring these days. And so we are seeing a strong drive to change SGC. Two major plans are in the works which could strengthen or possibly destroy council. First is a petition drive to get the question of voluntary funding for SGC on the ballot.' This would make your contribution to SGC a matter of choice, like the funding for PIRGIM. If you thought that council was wasting your money on stupid projects like the Michigan Student News, a poor excuse for a newspaper, or;giving money to help the North Vietnamese, or setting up a costly new election process, you could cut them off the next term. Without a cent. Like an illegitimate child. i Letters to The Dail- 4. Critic criticized To The Daily: Il DOES SEEM that Ms. Jan Benedetti (Daily, Feb. 11) is out to overwhelm us all with her mon- umental incompetence as a critic of the Theatre. Her review of the New York City Center Acting Company's re- cent touring production of Maxim Gorky's Lower Depths is a case for Dante. Gorky's lowest depth can't match it and I do believe that she has scored the all time [ow, even for The Michigan Daily.' There are no absolute rules for reviewing a theatrical perform- ance, but there are a few basic re- sponsibilities which every reviewer takes upon themselves when they presume to place their utterances before the public. The first respon- sibility is that the reviewer shall take with him to the theatre suf- ficient knowledge of the medium they are reviewing to make intel- ligent distinctions between t h e various elements which, all com- bined, produced the finished whole. This knowledge allows them to pre- scind any or all of these elements. depending upon how much detail the reviewer is willing to engage himself, and allows latitude to the critical faculties, depth being a function of individual perception and/or sensitivity. Fifth Ward candidates Editor's note: The following persons are candidates for City Council in the Fifth Ward. FIFTH WARD: Democrat Mona Walz uncontested (Richard Stoneman, though listed on the qualified as a candidate since he no longer quirements.) HRP John Minock uncontested Republican John McCormick uncontested ballot, has been dis- meets residential re- In terms of a dramatic presenta- tion it assumes that the reviewer shall: 1 - distinguish between the text and the production, 2 - dis- tinguish between acting and direct- ing, 3 - display some knowledge of the various technical elements which go into a stage performance, I - understand the limitations of the particular performance in question, 5 be sensitive to, or at least aware of the problem of style and 6 - be sufficiently at- tuned to audience reaction and/or participation to gauge the effec- tiveness of the particular produc- tion in question as vehicle of dra- matic communication. One hardly knows where to be- 'gin with Ms.eBenedetti's review, as she apparently labors her pen in total ignorance of any of the above considerations. She opens her review quite con- lescendingly by referring to Ann Arbor as 'this theatrical wasteland of quantity without much quality." Her not-so-clever metaphor quite ignores the fact that Ann Arbor has hosted some of the true lum- inaries of the stage. Her remark is not only insulting, but it is un- true. That much of what one sees on the Ann Arbor stage is mediocre, even badl, can be granted, b u t given the currentbstate of theatre in this country, it is simply d i s- honest to refer to Ann Arbor as a "theatrical wasteland." It is by comparison to other places of even incomparable stature, a veritable oasis, but perhaps Ms. Benedetti has not been anywhere else. She further indulges the p e r- formers by refusing to compare them 'to Sir Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. This is true magnanimity, but why she chose to even suggest the comparison of a contempar- ary live stage rendering of a piece of nineteenth-century Russian na- turalism to a twenty year old Eng- lish film of an Elizabethian drama is something I will leave to the reader to figure out. This awesome critic has passed judgment on an entire production without so much as one word of explanation, description or exam- ination. How could she do this? Life just isn't safe any more. In the final paragraph Ms. Bene- detti gets around to the production itself, but it is less than a f o o t note. After crediting "many beauti- ful moments in this production," she summarizes, "Director Tum- arin, using designer Douglas W. Schmidt's cage-like set of old brisk and rags, arranges the actors like BUT THE CLEVER people over President Bill Jacobs introduced a motion at the last meeting to place on the ballot the question of voluntary funding for all the school and college governments. Tit for tat, so to speak. If SGC has to fight for its money, it is only fair that all the other governments struggle also. But enough of these petty mat- ters. The big brouhaha in campus politics (if anything can be big in campus politics) is the all-new, improved, supercharged, without phosphates and cyclamates, struc- ture for SGC. This insane plan proposed by entails an even more complicated R. Nagey of the Engineering Coun- cil election and an absurdly large council. Would you believe that the new plan calls for a council con- sisting of 39 people but only 30 votes? Bill Jacobs at SGC were not caught napping: Editorial Page: Linda Rosenthal, Stern Arts Page: Herb Bowie Photo Technician: John Upton Martin TCWt~T 7o sA PgcAv'% 17r IMM(? TuP&) FO CO4-0Z NielHOUS6. amV IF HE ")CT COME~ TO MY ROUSE 3 CW C50O TO HIS HOUSE. $EaAUSE I E) Hou~e- tA:TT IHE. FAIR~S 60 TO O7U!W5Y Y LOOAJT , HARP. t The present council with only 13 members has enough trouble get- ting anything done. Imagine 39 members. Definitely insane. The ar- gument for this plan is that it will enlarge SGC constituencies. But really, would you people in the School of Public Health feel any bet- ter if you had a seat on this new council with only one-quarter of ,a vote? That's right, this new plan gets down to one-quarter of a vote. HERE IN brief is the plan as I can decipher it: You, the student, would become part, of'three different groups and vote in three different elections. Each group has 10 votes on a 30 vote council. One group is determined by where you live - University owned and operated housing (four votes), Fraternities and Sororities (one vote), and independent housing (five votes). Another group is judged by your status in school - Undergraduates (six votes), Rackham Graduate student (two votes), Professional (non- Rackham) Graduate Student (two votes). The last group is determined by your school - LSA (four votes), Engineering and Education School (one vote each), Medicine, Law, Bus- iness Administration (one-half vote each), The remaining 10 schools (one-fourth vote each). Isn't that a pretty picture? You will be represented by three groups of people, each with different voting strengths. So if you are a Social Work graduate student living in an apartment you get to have someone represent you as a tenant (one vote), as a non- Rackham graduate student (one vote), and as a Social Work student (one-quarter vote). Sounds simple doesn't it? But just imagine the hassle of having a roll call vote. It could take up to half-an-hour. What a drag. ONE WOULD think that people would try to simplify council and the election system. But these paper shufflers never give up. As an expert paper shuffler once said, "Build up the paper work so only you know what is really going on. It's the best job security a person can have." It wasn't enough to set up an absurd sticker voting system for the last election. But imagine trying to screen people voting in three different elections. Who is to prove that I live in a house? Maybe x ,t AM? LIK& my ' MMy poOT o COHE4 TO ROVS l.