Page 4-Wednesday, February 15, 1978-The Michigan Daily
Eightv-Eight Years of Editorial Free doi
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Vol LXXXV111, No. 113
News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Griffin changes his mind
LSA: Hardly a
VIS SENATOR Robert Grif-
. fin's announcement Mon-
day that he will seek re-election this fall
was a surprising development. It com-
pletely reversed his initial decision,
made last April 30, to retire from public
life.
The Senator's new decision means
;that the state's Republican party will
field a strong team as it heads into this
iall's elections.
The Democratic party willa encoun-
ter its own problems trying to defeat
the strong and popular Republican
slate of Governor William Milliken and
Griffin. But Griffin's candidacy has
even caused some dissention in the
rormally unified state Republican
block.
Phillip Ruppe, the Republican
Congressman who represents the Up-
per Peninsula, clearly has a right to
feel shafted. Ruppe was induced by
Griffin himself to forsake re-election to
the House of Representatives, in order,
to pursue the Republican nomination
for the U.S. Senate. Oakland County
Prosecutor L. Brooks Paterson, an-
other Republican, must also feel
peeved at the Griffin turnabout.
Voters in the state should take Grif-
fin's contradictory candidacy into ac-
count when casting their primary
ballots in August. Can a public official
"I t A -f- -
who asserts in April that 22 years in
public office are enough and that his
position places too much of a strain on
his family life now give a full commit-
ment to six more years of taxing work.
Griffin may have attained the
second highest rank in the Senate's
minority party, but his political record
leaves much to be desired.
In 1959, for example, Griffin co-
authored the Labor Management Dis-
closure Act - an act so regressive that
it even sought to limit picketting by
strikers. During the-Senator's tenure,
Michigan has ranked in the lower third
of all states in the return of federal tax
revenue to the citizens of the state. In
1972, Griffin exploited the anti-busing
and racist sentiments in Detroit's
suburbs to defeat state Attorney
General Frank Kelley in the Senate
race.
Most recently, Griffin cast the only
vote opposing the Panama Canal
Treaties - in the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee's endorsement.
Whatever the Senator's motives
were to retire last April, his motives
are certainly different now. The initial
confusion being displayed by both par-
ties as a result of Griffin's decision is a
tribute to the man's 22 years of power in
Washington.
It has been said that the government which
governs the least governs the best. If this is
true then students in this University's largest
college have the benefit of a superlatively
structured ruling body.
The members of the Literary College
Student Government (LSA-SG), are, for
the most part, serious and concern-
ed about affairs of the College
but they are trapped in a weak position
because of the ill-defined role they play,
because they must function in the shadow of
this campus's central student government,
MSA (Michigan Student Assembly) and
because pervasive apathy forces them into an
uphill battle against their own constituency.
THE NAME of 'student government' is, in
general, a misnomer. Rarely does any
student possess any real governmental
authority. Instead, the role of a student
government is to lobby for the students in the
academic decision making process and to
raise funds to support its own existence.
Usually, as a side effect of the latter, it is
called upon to donate some of that money to
other student organizations.
In the case of LSA-SG, however, this last
"side-effect" has become a major function,
while for the most part its primary raivi
d'i're has been delegated to other bodies.
Because of an automatic 50 cent per term
donation made by every LSA student, LSA-SG
boasts an annual budget of roughly $12,000.
With its administrative and internal costs
coming to only half of that, the body is forced
to spend more than half of its meetings en-
tirely in considering fund requests from a
broad heterogeny of organizations. Every so
often debate bogs down in trying to establish
priorities for who should get the money. But a
year-old resolution on this subject goes
ignored as funds are doled out to admittedly
political groups-politics is at the bottom of
the current priority list.
THE GOVERNMENT debates at length,
finally deciding to withhold $60 from a certain
fund request that would have gone for a dan-
ce, and then voted to spend $300 to put new
mailboxes in their office.
Clearly, a long hard look should be taken at
LSA-SG's budgetary decision making
process. In fact, one must question why LSA-
SG gets these funds in the first place if they
do little other than give them away in this
disorderly fashion. Surely they're performing
a service and they do carefully consider each
request, but they really can't claim to have a
clear program of what to accomplish in a
given year with a given volume of money.
While they spend so' much time haggling
over money, the duty one would expect to be
their primary concern, lobbying in the
students' interests, goes neglected, because it
has been delegated outside of the central
body. All lobbying for students goes on within
the College's student/faculty committees. LSA-
SG appoints the students to these committees,
but once appointed, a representative has no
rea "obligation to consult with the govern-
ment.
THUS, A student on one of the College
committees represents no one but himself.
There is no mechanism by which LSA-SG can
meet as representatives of the LSA student
body at large, decide what would best suit the
students on an issue and then require that the
student representative on the College com-
mittee involved take a particular stand.
For example, when the Curriculum Com-
By Steve Gol4
- w
mittee was debating distribution
ts, one of the student represe
casionally took the side of less
position adverse to the general fe
SG. The "government" howev
recourse.
The control exercised in the pi
terviewing and appointing com
didates is aguarantee only ofc
not that the appointee will al
agreement with the elected body.
IF [SA-SG is to break out
role, it must stream-line its fun
apparatus by establishing andt
specific goals. Further, it'must
authority as sole elected o
representing LSA students in c
munities. it must stop debating
instead take up policy and str
student lobbying effort.
The second major obstacle toI
fectiveness is its relative lack ofs
the campus giant, MSA. Most L
government
who are aware of any student government
organization turn toward MSA. Indeed, since
MSA represents all th students in the
University, while LSA constitutes almost half
of them, their goals often overlap. But, where
LSA-SG has tried to take a stand on issues
that go beyond the College itself it usually fin-
ds MSA stealing its thunder.
On a few occasions, for example, LSA-SG
members have discussed the issue of South
African divestment with College and Univer-
sity officials but their voices are lost in the
melee of other student organizations, like
MSA.
IT IS wasted effort for LSA-SG to deal with
anything outside the literary college, for they
will find every time that MSA or some other
body is already there.
Finally, like many groups here and
elsewhere, LSA-SG faces a constituency that
just does not seem to care. Only 420 of LSA's
16,000 students voted in last term's election,
leaving the "representatives" without
anything that can be called a mandate. They
have held open meetings for student input
where no one has shown' up; committee
positions are often filled only because active,
word of mouth recruiting brings people in to
apply.
For this, there is no clear solution. But, the
rate at which even elected members drop out.
or simply don't show up at meetings, should be
a clear sign that the problem is not just that
students perceive LSA-SG to be a do-nothing
organization (if they perceive at all), but that
often, their perception is in fact true.
ALTHOUGH these problems still face LSA-
SG, several steps have recently ,been taken
down the path to becoming a viable student
,-- government. Beginning in the next few mon-
ths, a newsletter will be distributed to LSA
students in order to make them aware of their
government. Several amendments to LSA-
SG's operating procedures have been passed
and some of them successfully serve the
cause of streamlining and organizing
meetings.
At the same time, current LSA-SG mem-
bers seem to have done an admirable job in
promoting the eause of students. Carol
Srequiremen- Rosenberg and Bob Stechuk successfully
stati - upheld flexible distribution reauirements in
flexibility a the Curriculum Committee. Steve
eling of LSA-, Diamond reports that the LSA Academic
ver, had no Judiciary is regaining stature in handling
cases of academic misconduct. Pamphlets
such as one called "Dis-orientation"' and
rocess of in- films on topics such as grievance procedures
amittee can- have been produced to show students how to
competence, make the best of their undergraduate ex-
ways be in perience in LSA.
But these were largely the dedicated efforts
of several individuals, rather than the unified
of its weak. efforts of any student government. Without
d allocation these individuals, no appartus exists to
carrying out guarantee to LSA students that they are re-
exercise its presented imteir College
rganization
college com-
dollars and Steve Gold reports on Literary College
affairs for the Daily. LSA-Studet Goer-
nment meetings are held ever Wed-
LSA-SG's ef- nesday at six p.m. in the MSA chambers,
status next to 3rd floor Michigan Union, and are open
LSA students to all students.
;. 5. rican pressure
IT MAY NOT be on the formal agen- U.S. Congressma
da, but when University Regents Detroit, as well, has
scoot into town for their monthly meet- a petition demandi
ing tomorrow, the issue of investments divest all holdings
in South Africa is likely to be on their operating in South A:
minds. As more and mor
The pressure is building up on the officials express
University to divest itself of ail funds
associated with corporations in apar taRgnthat the Univers
theid-ridden South Africa. tied up in that countr
I" A University-sponsored forum ont
the investments question, which took A formal Regents
place the first week in February, sum- vestments issue is
; med up the campus opinion as one of their March meeting
general opposition to the current invest- pressure they're gel
ment policies. definitely influence
t The Committee on Communications, Make your opposi
which hosted the forum, voiced its ob- African investment
sections to the South African invest- - so there will be
ments Monday. month.
is on
n Charles Diggs of
added his name to
ng the University
s in corporations
frica.
e organizations and
imilar views, the
scientiously main-
sity keep its money
y.
s decision on the in-
not expected until
g, but the dosage of
tting now will most
their votes then.
tion to the South
policy known now
no hedging next
Are demonstrators who protest the
-appearance of a South African
-spokesman on campus just as 'bigoted"
:as the system the spokesman represnts?
'Mike Norton seems to think so. In a
colorfully written article on February
:'7th's editorial page, Norton called
%tudents who protested Deon Erasmus's
appearance at the forum on corporate
investments in South Africa "hoodlums"
who, he said, were out to suppress free
debate in Ann Arbor.
UNFORTUNATELY, the article not
only distorted what happened at the
forum; it also obscured a larger theme
which emerged repeatedly from the
presentations on South African invest-
ments.
The Washtenaw County Coalition
Against Apartheid supports free speech
as much as Norton does. We do feel that
apartheid, condemned time and again by
world opinion, is not a matter for debate;
and we did protest Erasmus's invitation
here as irrelevant to the topic of invest-
ments.
We did use cardboard signs, chanting,
and picketing to demonstrate against
Erasmus, because we feel apartheid is
(to use a Norton word) "unbearable."
Despite this, we did not try to shout
Erasmus down. He continued speaking,
and free debate was trot suppressed..
All of this, however, obscures a more
important issue.
The University's Communications
Committee designed the forum to have a
final "Summary and Conclusion" session-
in which divergent viewpoints would be
expressed. Significantly, not one of the
panelists at that session spoke against
the conclusion that the Regents must
break all financial ties with corporations
doing business in South Africa.
The conclusion flowedinevitably from
four days of testimony indicating that
this University, the corporations it in-
vanctcin and the TT1_Snvernment ar
Apartheid isnot
a, debatable issue
By Andy Feeney
-That Mobil and Texaco (in which the The corporations were discussed again
University owns shares) not only are on Tuesday, as Selby Semela of the South
building South Africa's stockpiles of African Student Movement and Fred
oil-the only strategic material Pretoria Dubey of the African National Congress
lacks-but also are propping up the both urged U.S. business to leave thier
illegal Smith regime in Rhodesia, despite homeland, whatever the cost to Africans.
Corporate performance in South Africa
is 'abysmal'. . . Apartheid is getting worse,
Under sharp questioning, he admitted
that after 52 years in South Africa, GM
has hired exactly 4 Africans in salaried
positions.
The painful picture that emerged
from the forum showed high-technology
U.S. firms employing relatively few
Africans and treating a very few of them
fairly well, while lending massive
technical, financial and moral support to
the white minority government.
It showed corporations persisting in
this course, despite repeated calls by the
international community for peaceful
economic pressure against South Africa,
large because of high profits to be earned
from apartheid. And It showed this
University, which would at least like to
call itself a non-racist institution, caught
squarely in the middle.
Hence the Thursday Summary and
Conclusion panel's recommendation: un-
til the corporations withdraw from South
Africa, the University should withdraw
from the corporations.
A Divestment Oversight Committee
should also be established, the panel
noted, and the University should use its
research capacity to help other in-
stitutions probe U.S. ties to apartheid.
We suggest that students and faculty
who are genuinely concerned about
human liberties focus their attention not
on a loud but peaceful 15-minute protest
inside Rackham, but on urging the
Regents to follow the recommendations
of the University's own panel.
In the year the Regents have already
spent studying divestment, dozens of
South Africans have been arrested,
many have died in prison, and 19
organizations have been banned. Further
delay is truly an exercise in "campus
bigotry," however disguised.
The Coalition Against Apartheid urges
all members of the University com,
munity to inform themselves, to sign our
- Health Service Handbook
By Sylvia Hacker
and Nancy Palchik
QUESTION: I hear that there was a vaccine for the German
meals. I am not sure whether or not I ever had it and al-
though I am now single, I would eventually like to have children.
I worry about getting the German measles when I am pregnant
and risking congenital defects in my children.
ANSWER: Your concern is well-founded and one shared by
many women. There is a vaccine which can immunize you
against the German measles (rubella) and, in addition, a
laboratory test which can determine whether or not you have, in
fact, had this disease. Both are available through our Im-
munization Clinic here at Health Service.
Many women are uncertain as to whether they have ever had
rubella. Rubella is a common childhood disease, but one that if
often overlooked or misdiagnosed. Often children have the
disease in mild form. They may have a slight flush or just not
feel well for several days. The only way that you can determine
with any certainty whether you have ever had and are now im-
mune to rubella is by means of a rubella antibody titre. Inciden-
tally, we have found that many women who feel "sure" that they
have never had rubella, discover much to their surprise after
they have the antibody test, that they did in fact have this
disease. It seems that 85 per cent of adults have had rubella and
have positive titres.
If you wish to put your mind at ease come to our Im-
munization Clinic for a rubella antibodyatitre. A blood sample
drawn at Health Service will be sent to State laboratories in
Lansing where the actural test is performed. You should receive
your results in about two weeks.
If your antibody titre indicates that you have never had
rubella, there are some things you need to know about getting
the vaccine. The rubella vaccination is a live virus vaccine.
Although, it is safe and protective for other adults and for
children (and, in fact, is recommended for all children over the
age of 12 months), it should not be administered to pregnant
women. This is because of the possible risk of fetal abnormality
caused by the vaccine virus, which can cross the placenta and
infect the fetus. Although the risk of abnormality should be
much lower from the vaccine virus than from the wild virus, the
theoretical risk remains. This means that a woman must not be
pregnant at the time that the virus is administered, and, further,
must not become pregnant-for 3 months following the ad-
ministration of the vaccine. If pregnancy did occur within 3
months of immunization, we would strongly advise an abortion.
A sexually active woman who is not using adequate contracep-
tion should not receive this vaccination. If, however, you are not
sexually active, or will not become pregnant for 3 months
not better,
and the corporations are bank-
rolling the process.
UN -sanctions and the declared policy of
the U.S. government;
-That IBM (in which the University
owns shares) is helping South Africa
computerize its army, its pass system,
and its notorious prisons;
-That GM and Ford (in which the
University owns shares) are providing
Vorster with moral support, technology
and foreign exchange, as well as multi-
million-dollar factories which South
Africa can convert to arms production in
case of "emergency."
Also on Wednesday, a GM spokesman
defended his firm by citing its alleged
dedication to upgrading African jobs.
Dubey suggested the cost might be
small: U.S. firms employ only about
100,000 Africans, out of a population of
20 million.
On Wednesday, Tim Smith of the
National Council of Churches noted:
-That Mobil and Texaco (in which the
University owns shares) not only are
building South Africa's stockpiles of oil
- the only strategic material Pretoria
lacks - but also are propping up the
illegal Smith regime in Rhodesia, despite
UN sanctionsrand the declared policy of
the U.S. government;
-That IBM (in which the University
owns shares) is helping South Africa