Eighty-two years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Pigskin guide to playing political favorites 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, 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. 0 1 **4 - - 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 * ~5A'~W1 W%~