Eighty-two years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Pigskin guide to playing political favorites
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News Phone: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
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TUESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1973
Disclosing faculty salaries
IT'S STARTING to sweep the state.
Through court suits and pressure by
constituents ,state-supported colleges are
being forced to release staff salary lists,
including names, ranks and salaries.
First came Delta College, then Michi-
gan State University last winter, and
most recently Saginaw Valley College.
The last case is of particular import-
ance to this University. Bay County Cir-
cuit Court Judge Leon Dardas ruling in
the case said that state-supported
schools must open their salary records
to the public. Saginaw Valley adminis-
trators said they would appeal the rul-
ing, but now, apparently sensing they
would lose the case, have gone ahead-
and released the lists.
WHEN UNIVERSITY administrators
were asked last summer to release
the salary data, they hid behind a pos-
sible Saginaw Valley appeal, saying they
felt it was unwise to release the data
while the issue was up in the air.
it isn't anymore-and University ad-
ministrators ought to prepare themselves
for their own round of legal action.
What would happen if University sal-
ary lists were made public?
It would, of course, cause some conster-
nation -- primarily among those at the
top salary levels, who would be forced to
Justify their salaries to their colleagues
receiving lower pay. And when the issue
came up, Senate Assembly strongly op-
posed the disclosure-but then, the ma-
jority of Assembly members are found at
the upper pay levels.
But it would also mean that the public
could find out if the University's affirma-
tive action plan for the equal hiring of
women and minorities is really working.
It would mean the public could find out
if its money is really being used to add
the prestige of well paid faculty members
to the University, instead of their teach-
ing abilities. It would make the Univer-
sity's promotion and hiring standards
open for public scrutiny. It would make
the University a more "open" place to
work, live and study.
CERTAIN MEMBERS of the Board of
Regents have said they would be
willing to make the salaries public-if
only to increase their own understanding
of what goes on at the University. And
other members of the board may be per-
suaded to go along-particularly if pres-
sure is applied by groups within the Uni-
versity.
Perhaps the board will move voluntar-
ily - as the Michigan State trustees did
-to publish the lists in their entirety.
Otherwise they may be faced with a court
suit-either from The Daily or another
interested party. It would be a shame if
the Regents found themselves acting as
the opponents of the public's right to
know.
-SARA FITZGERALD
Editor
By CHARLES STEIN
SUNDAY'S SUPER Bowl was for
most people the culmination of
another fabulous football season.
The two best professional teams in
the country fought it out for the
national title before an estimated
75 million viewers, and in some-
what anti-climactic fashion, t h e
Miami Dolphins emerged on top.
But to the amateur sociologist -
as opposed to those like Tom Wolfe
who get paid for bullshitting - the
events surrounding the game were
in many ways far more interesting
than the action that took place be-
itween the goal lines at the L o s
Angeles Coliseum.
For the Super Bowl story of 1973
once again, to my mind, provided
an illustration of one of my favor-
ite generalizations. Namely t h a t
sports and politics, two of Amer-
ica's greatest institutions, are in
many ways almost magically inter-
related.
No one person in America comes
closer to embodying this merger
than our own chief executive and
football fan, Richard Nixon - a
man who was to play a major role
in the Super Bowl story.
FROM HIS DAYS as a gutsy but
talentless lineman for Whittier Col-
lege to his phone calls to winning
coaches, Nixon has maintained a
passionate interest in the sports
world.
In recent years, this interest has
led the Presidenat into a new po-
icy of picking favorites in b i g
games. Last year, Nixon gave the
Presidential endorsement to Don
Shula's Miami Dolphins and even
went so far as to send Shula a
sure-fire offensive.play to be used
in the Super Bowl.
The play lost 13 yards, but it was
the thought that really counted.
At the time, most people asumed
the President's decision to back the
Dolphins was simply based on home
town allegiance. With at least a
part-time residence in Key Bis-
cayne, the President could, after
all, justifiably claim to be a Flor-
idian.
But such reasoning . underesti-
mates the political animal that is
Richard Nixon - a man who does
everything from making love to
watching football with an aware-
ness of the political implications
involved.
1972, as we all remember, was
an election year and Republican
strategists were telling the Presi-
dent to play up the fact that he
was indeed a Floridian. His ties to
the state were fairly nebulous at
the time so what better way to de-
monstrate his faith than come out
strongly for the Dolphins.
THE DOLPHINS got trounced in
that contest by the Dallas C o w-
boys, but Nixon managed to carry
both Florida and Texas anyway for
what it's worth.
4 . .
WllffM
4-
Why Richard Nixon latched on to
George Allen is certainly not dif-
ficult to understand. Allen, in his
field, is the enemy of creeping per-
missiveness. His defense of the old
ways - God, religion and country
- led him to the top.
Aside from his obvious admira-
tion for Allen, Nixon was probably
also a bit envious of his counter-
part. Envious because one gets the
impression that Nixon would love
to run the country like Allen runs
his football team.
Allen, for instance, could lead
his team in prayer, provide them
with the inspiration to go into bat-
tle and most importantly be re-
warded for his tyrany with the un-
dying love of his disciples.
How different it was for t h e
President who despite his b e s t
efforts still has to contend with the
nagging criticism of his oppon-
ents. Much to the President's cha-
grin, bothersome Senators a n d
Congressmen cannot simply be
traded away to other ball clubs.
While the parallels between Nixon
and Allen to this point have hope-
fully been illuminating, no c ,om-
parison of the two men can be
complete without a look at their
other side - the seamy side.
THE SEAMY side of Richard
Nixon is certainly a familiar one
to the American people: the Rich-
ard Nixon of the Watergate affair,
the milk-scandal, the red-baiting
of the early days. The side of our
President isn't above stooping to
underhanded tactics' to maintain
the advantage.
While less, publicized, Coach Al-
len has a seamy side as well. Only
last week, football commissioner
Pete Rozelle fined Allen $5000 for
a number of rule violations includ-
ing trading the same draft choice
twice.
The story didn't get big play
in the press, perhaps because it
didn't square with the, picture of
Allen the fans around the country
have come to know and love. The
sportswriters, and broadcasters in
particular, tend to be more charit-
able than their colleagues on the
news page.
What emerges from this compar-
ison is a picture of two great
American institutions, dominated
by men who profess a belief in
God and morality but who are not
above throwing their beliefs out the
window if it is in their best inter-
est.
George Allen's Redskins got beat
Sunday. If sport and politics ar e
indeed magically interrelated, just
think of the staggering political im-
plications of Sunday's game.
If I were Richard Nixon, I'd start
worrying.
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Race ID and job applications
The Dolphins were back in the
Super Bowl Sunday but this time,
the President wasn't in their corn-
er. He had deserted the team and
come out strongly for their cpnon-
ents, the Washington Redskins.
Once again, home-town loyalty
was offered as an explanation for
the President's decision, but cyn-
ics like myself weren't buying it.
There had to be a political con-
sideration behind the decision.
Could Nixon be trying to boost
his popularity in Washington D.C.?
After all, it provided some of Mc-
Govern's few electoral v,'es I a s t
November. Purely electoral poli-
tics, however, no longer mattered
to Richard Nixon. His interest had
to be on another level, perhaps
philosophical.
This theme eventually Provided
the answer to my speculation and
it came in the person of Redskins
head coach - George Allen - the
other major character in the Super
Bowl story.
Allen also was a talentless line-
man in his college days playing in
the 165-pound-and under division
'It' worth a try.'
right here at the big U. The divis-
ion, which no longer exists, w a s
designed for those feisty little play-
ers who wanted to play big t i m e
football, but just didn't have the
size to make it on the varsity level.
IN LATER YEARS, Allen went
on to take a coaching position at
the President's ilma mater -Whit-
tier College.
Like Nixon, Allen has risen from
these obscure ranks to the top of
his profession, inheriting the med-
iocre Washington Redskins from
the great Vince Lombardi and lead-
ing them to a division title in his
second year as coach.
Yet Allen was the heir to Lom-
bardi in a far more significant way.
He was cut from that mold of foot-
ball coach who demands complete
control of his team in every as-
pect of life - both on the field and
off. He was a strict disciplinarian
who tolerated no nonsense' from his
players and the dividend apparent-
ly was success.
Allen, however, has incorporated
one element into the game that
THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL
TH @ All rights reserved
P'ublishers-Hail Byndieat
even Lombardi himself overlooked.
That is religion. Yes, religion.
After each game, Coach A 11 e n
had his boys kneel down in- the
locker room and thank God. The
sight of 40 sweaty giants bowed
down in prayer position undoubted-
ly made quite oan impression on
the fans around the country and
certainly added to Allen's prestige
in fundamentalist circles.
Back at the Merrick Jewish Cen-
ter, I was always taught that such
behavior constituted using the
name of God in vain. When I never
fully grasped the concept, I gath-
ered it meant you couldn't ask God
to help you pass a test or get a
hit in the next Little League game.
MUNDANE TASKS like these
were just not in God's league. He
was much too busy parting t h e
Red Sea and making manna fall
from the heavens to worry about
such trivial matters.
If God thought Coach Allen was
using his name in vain he didn't
show it, as the Skins managed to
win more than their share of
games.
A
J
I
ASKING A JOB applicant his or her
race was once considered a discrimi-
natory action-to such an extent that
laws were passed forbidding such re-
quests.
But in these days of affirmative ac-
tion, to know if an institution is dis-
criminating against blacks, one has to
know how many of its employes are
blacks, compared to how many applicants
were blacks. Therefore, the situation has
become much more complex.
The University, long embroiled in dis-
crimination charges, counter - charges
and self - proclaimed attempts to equal-
ize employment opportunities, is present-
ly facing the moment of truth: to ask
or not to ask.
And the truth seems to be that there
is simply no 'right' answer.
NELLIE VARNER, the University's af-
firmative action director, summed un
the problem at the December Regents'
meeting. If the University maintains its
present position of not asking racial iden-
tification, she says, the institution is un-
able to answer questions from the watch-
dog Denartment of Health, Education
and Welfare.
On the other hand, if the University
asks racial identification, it leaves itself
open to discrimination charges-and the
legality of. the reauest to indicate race
is itself Questionable.
Aside from the issue of how to get ra-
cial figures for HEW affirmative action
files without asking is the issue of hiring
itself.
Should the University know which of
its applicants are black, so that it can
put into effect an affirmative action pro-
gram of hiring more blacks? Or could
that turn into reverse discrimination
against qualified whites?
VARNER INDICATES a loophole in the
question, by saying that most job ap-
plicants are interviewed anyway. But
that's merely dodging the institutional
moral question of whether or not to ask.
Since the question is a widespread one,
appearing in various permutations at
every level of business or government
hiring, the University's opening step in
its search for a solution is a valid one:
It is sending questionnaires to the other
Big Ten schools, in hopes of finding a
way of knowing a person's race without
asking (or observing).
One alternative that has been suggest-
ed is to ask a person's race on a detach-
able part of the application. Judgment
on whether or not to hire the person is
made without knowing that person's race,
but the detached racial identification is
available at HEW's bidding, to give them
information on how many blacks applied
for a certain job.
This alternative answers the HEW
problem, but totally ignores the much
trickier question of whether or not it is
advisable for an institution to make spe-
cial attempts to hire blacks. Assuming it
is advisable, racial identification by de-
tachable form would be useless.
THE ANSWER, or at least an acceptable
solution, seems to be using the old
cop-out: Making racial identification an
optional request, as University attorney
Roderick Daane suggests.
That way, the same problem is handed
to the job applicants-would the Univer-
sity, at this time, be more or less likely
to hire someone who lists himself or her-
self as black?
-TAMMY JACOBS
Managing Editor
Charles Stein
for The Daily.
is a night editor
Student perspective from France on the war
I
By LIZ SYMONDS
IF ONLY French journalism could
follow the national French tra-
dition of inefficiency: here in
France, phones don't work, black-
outs are common, mailmen go on1
weekly strikes, but Le Monde is
delivered each day. So each morn-
ing, along with cafe au lait and
croissants, you can digest the ar-
ticulate dispatches of Le Monde's
Washington correspondents, w i t h
the latest Kissinger quotes a n d
bombing figures.
Unfortunately for someone who
is disgusted with the war and es-
pecially unable to do anything
about it Le Monde prides itself
on its thoroughness: unwilling to
be content with just a front page
spread on the war, it covers pages
two and three with all of the glor-
ious details.
It's really a self-defeating pol-
icy - after reading careful ac-
counts about the victims in Hanoi,
along with a Saigon opinion on "the
necessity of the bombings to lead
to a peaceful solution to the war,"
you can hardly stomach the sports
stories on page 13 or the page 16
news on the price of steak in Par-
rs.
SO YOU FINISH reading, s i t
back, and feel the usual frustra-
tion, multiplied by a few thous-
and miles. You can join the bi-
weekly protests in Marseille, b u t
would feel out of place, due to an
unfortunate accident of national-
ity . . .
Worse, the impassioned prose'of
Le Monde can even affect non-
fluent American comprehension,
and fan the old, almost trite, anti-
Nixon feeling to an inexplicably in-
tense hatred, as each administra-
tion action - the light-at-the-end-
of-the-tunnel election fraud, t h e
Joyeus Noel bombings - becomes
more unbelievable and absurd.
At this point, even writing seems
hackneyed. How many anti-Nixon
pieces can people stand to read
over their Rice Krispies? But writ-
ing is the only recourse - you're
not in the U.S. anymore, can't get
indignant with fellow students, or
at least relieve some of the tea-
sion and make a stab at efficacy
by going to another-yes another
- demonstration.
FORCED INTO quasi-political in-
activity during this year in France,
you feel more guilty than ever
about the times that personal af-
fairs at home took precedance over
anti-war work. You can only use-
lessly regret that you did only tok-
en campaigning for McGovern be-
fore coming to France. And vow to
be political as hell when you get
back to Ann Arbor. And read Les
Socialists Avant Maro ever more
carefully, because maybe all those
insistent French Marxists y o u 'v e
been meeting are right: you will
have to work for a bigger goal than
"Peace now" when you get back.
As for the nagging doubts about
revolution, today's Le Monde (Jan.
4, 1973) provides one possible justi-
fication: "I prefer not to put a red
cross on my (hospital) roof," (said
the North Vietnamese hospital di-
rector). "That's all I'd need to do
to make the Americans bomb me."
Liz Symonds is a junior at the
University who is studying, in
France this year.
0
Letters to The Daily
Super Bowl: Super bull
Protest support
To The Daily:
AMERICANS are faced with a
critical necessity to respond to
President Nixon's increasingly il-
legal and immoral actions in Viet-
nam. Members ofLSA S t u d e n t
Govt., Judith Lashof, Mark Gold,
and Jay Rising, aware of the ur-
gent need of the Ann Arbor Count-
er-Inaugural Committee for office
space, (to which SGC failed to re-
spond), could not in good con-
science delay in providing such
space.
Although the issue could not be
presented to the entire council un-
til its Wednesday meeting, by pro-
viding this space on Monday we
feel that the LSA-SG has acted in
the best interest of the majority of
it's constituency and in accordance
with their desire to do all that is
reasonable and possible to end the
atrocities the United States is com-
mitting in Vietnam.
By granting AACIC permission to
share the LSA-SG office, President
Jay Rising acted within his capac-
ity as an executive officer during
an extended vacation to a situation
requiring an immediate response.
Precedent for this decision exist-
ed, and the issue was brought be-
fore council at the first meeting of
the year, at which a motion allow-
ing AACIC use of the office was
passed.
These actions were unquestion-
ably legal. We further believe that
it was our responsibility to provide
important emergency assistance to
AACIC. We stand by those convic-
responsible nature. Now, however,
the LSA-SG has taken an action
which clearly demonstrates that it
has chosen to adopt immorality as
its watchword and fairness as its
antagonist.
Much to the complete surprise of
the Responsible Alternative Party
members of LSA-SG it was just dis-
covered that, for the past several
days the Ann Arbor Counter-Inaug-
ural Committeee has occupied the
LSA-SG office, and has continuous-
ly made use of its phones and
equipment.
It must be emphasized that LSA-
SG did not give permission to the
AACIC to use LSA-SG facilities,
Further, the AACIC is not even a
recognized student organization!
No, this was a cheap, unconscion-
able, and blatantly political scheme
of the LSA-SG President and his
cohorts Judy Lashof and M a r k
Gold, a scheme to which he surely
knew many members would be op-
posed.
The question is not whether or
not Rising acted in accordance
with the LSA-SG Constitution in
taking his action, nor wether or not
the AACIC could have located of-
fice space elsewhere.
What is at stake is the question
of whether or not it was ethical
for the LSA President to have tak-
en it upon himself to turn the LS 4
office over to a group, the func-
tion of which is totally divorced
from that of LSA-SG. We resent
the fact that such a crude and sur-
reptitious action was taken.
This is to serve notice to a n y
LAST SUNDAY should have been a ban-
ner day for drugstores open on Sun-
days throughout the United States. Mil-
lions of viewers and radio listeners prob-
ably rushed out during half-time of Super
Bowl VII, or, as it should be referred to,
"Super Bomb VII", to garner all the No-
Doz they could just to stay awake for
the rest of the game.
The game that the press had hyped up
to the point of extinction stunk worse
than a stink bomb. It was dull, boring,
and lackluster; in other words, just an-
other football game. The television cov-
erage was, for the most part, atrocious,
the sole highlight being a shot of NBC's
John Chancellor sitting in the stands
listening to the game on radio.
football's "Super" event. In its initiation,
the Super Bowl was a rivalry between
two leagues, the National Football
League and their counterpart, the Amer-
ican Football League. There was more
than just a lot of money at stake. There
was pride on both sides because the con-
tenders represented leagues which were
just then settling their long standing
dispute over the player draft.
The New York Jets' victory over Balti-
more in 1969 and Kansas City's shellack-
ing of Minnesota in 1970 are Super
Bowls to remember. But when the two
leagues officially merged into (the pres-
ent day) conferences, the Super Bowl
lost all of its original meaning. The first
nost-merger contest involved two aging
I
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