Page 4-Friday, February 17, 1978-The Michigan Daily
Giving SPACE to minorities
htc Mitbi3rn Bai g
Eighty-Eight Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
By Bruce Brumberg
Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 115
News Phone: 764-0552
I Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Oh, those gaping potholes
A LONG WINTER of snow, plow-
ing and salt has taken the final
toll on Ann Arbor's roadways.
Almost every street from State to,
the smallest lane has a surface which
closely resembles that of the moon.
Minor filling and patching after the
spring thaw will not suffice. Local
roads need major repairs - a fact
citizens cannot ignore any longer. One
ride on the bumpy thoroughfares is
proof enough of the need for renovation.
While the need for these repairs is
obvious, the city's inability to fund
them is just as clear. To repair even one
mile of a' single street costs nearly
$350,000. Multiplied by the city's nearly
'400 miles of roadways, the cost
becomes almost staggering.
Year after' year, however, city
voters have failed to pass any millage
,increase which would fund road
repairs, leaving the city with no choice
'but to perform patching jobs with the
;little monies it has.
At Moonday night's session, Council
finally agreed to place a road repair
nmillage increase on the November
ballot.
the April ballot was eliminated because
of what was said to be a lack of time to
familiarize the public with the issue
prior to the election. It seems unfortu-
nate that repairs should be further de-
layed, but Council sees the time period
before the election as crucial.
With November still nine bumpy
months away, Council has taken ituupon
itself to conduct a public education
campaign to convince voters of the
need to pass the pothold repair millage.
This, coupled with uncomfortable
drives along local roads for the city's
driver throughout the summer should
lead to a victory for the millage.
As Councilman Louis Senunas (R-
Third Ward) said at Monday's meeting,
convincing the public to support the ad-
ditional millage might be aided by the
delay in fixing potholes. "Let the people
fall into a few," he said, "then they'll
realize" how sorely a major street
repair program is needed.
In fact, delaying the repair might be
a good thing for everyone. If drivers
can't speed through the city because of
the gaping potholes every ten feet,
there will be a lot less aggressive
driving, and as a result, fewer acciden-
ts.
Affirmative action programs,
established to insure the ad-
mission of previously excluded
minority students to professional .
schools, have been met by
emotional, legal and political
reactions.
Now, in the landmark case of
Bakke vs. The Regents of the
University of California, the U.S.
Supreme Court must decide if the
affirmative action 'policies of
special preference and ad-
missions quotas for minority ap-
plicants are constitutional.
The Bakke type of special ad-
missions program is problematic
for two reasons: First, it assumes
minorities need a segregated
evaluation process in order to
gain entrance to professional
schools; and second, it assumes
that the sole measures of merit
are reflected in standardized test
scores and college grade point
averages. The issue has been fur-
ther derailed by "either/or" ex-
tremism: either you favor a
preferential quota system giving
minorities a "break", or you do
not. If you do, then you are again-
st individual merit and the main-
tenance of academic standards;
however, if you do not, you are a
racist. But whether a radically
preferential admissions policy is
the only way to -enable more
minority students to practice
medicine or law is debatable.
Consider Temple University
School of Law in Philadelphia,
which has what appears to be a
balanced and successful ap-
proach to professional school
admissions. Temple's special
admissions program, in the wor-
ds of the dean, Peter J.
Liacouras, "seeks out and
carefully, individually and affir-
matively selects those applicants
- minority and majority group
members - who have an out-
standing performance record and
an exceptional aptitude for the
study and the practice of law, not
necessarily reflected by their
LSAT scores."
The Temple Law School's
Special Admissions and
Curriculum Experiment
(SPACE) program insures that
applicants with the best in-
dividual merit and the highest
aptitude for the practice of law
and community leadership will
be seriously considered for ad-
mission. The program is not
college GPA of- 3.80 or above;
students with exceptional and
continuous economic
deprivation; those with excep-
tional and continuous leadership
ability demonstrated in substan-
tial college or community ac-
tivities; and applicants with
exceptional physical disability.
Admission is competitive within
the six SPACE categories, so
that being in one of them does not
insure admissions.
To be accepted by this
discretionary route, the SPACE
Committee must find evidence
that the applicant's LSAT scores
The Temple program is affirmative
action at its democratic best - a
students have been admitted
through the SPACE program. In
a student body of 1115, women
constitute 36 per cent, not the two
per cent of 12 years ago. Minority
students still comprise less than
ten per cent, with blacks making
up eight per cent of the total
enrollment. But ten years ago
they comprised one per cent.
Advocates of racially preferen-
tial admissions systems argue
that any program which avoids
being color-conscious will
promote hypocrisy and en-
courage a university to accom-
plish indirectly what it may not
do directly. But as Carl Cohen,
professor of philosophy at
Michigan, observes: "The racial
count that results may not bd the
same as that produced when
racial preference is used, but
perhaps it ought not be. Even if
the count were the same, the in-
dividuals would be different, and
that makes all the difference."
The Temple program is affir-
mative action at its democratic
best-a program that pursues in-
tegration without granting
special privileges to some groups
at the expense of others. This
program exhibits a proper balan-
cing of the various competing in-
terests consistent with the main-
tenance of high admission stan-
dards, as well as providing in-
dividuals from all groups in
society with an equal opportunity
to enter a profession on the basis
of individual merit. Those are
qualities any University can en-
vy.
program that pursues i
without granting special
ntegration
privileges
to some groups at
the expense
of
others.
racially exclusive or quota-
based. It accounts for ap-
proximately one-fourth of the
students in each entering class. It
goes beyond the applicant's
statistical credentials, which are
the basis for admission for the
remaining three-quarters of each
entering class.
Applicants who consider their
backgrounds exceptional may
request a review by the SPACE
committee. Reviewers consider
six categories of applicants:
black, Hispanic, American In-
dian, Asian, or any other group
under-represented in the legal
profession; non-minority groups
with admissions criteria
equivalent to the first category;
do not adequately measure his
potential in law school and the
legal profession. Following a
comprehensive review, the
SPACE Committee then recom-
mends for admission those can-
didates who it feels present the
best objective qualifications
among all six categories.
Perhaps the most important
feature of the Temple program is
a student body that includes men
and women from every racial,
ethnic, religious, and aconomic
class. The program is open to all
applicants. No racial or ethnic
group is considered deserving of
exclusive preferential treatment.
The proof is that approximately
twice as many whites as minority
An
Albert
earlier
Wheeler
suggestion1
to place thej
by Mayor
millage on
Blruce Blrit tit berg
fre(fItie i otribiaor
I)rtilv 's EditorialI page.
to the
The President's initiative
LETTERS TO THE DAILY
Distortion on Middle East arms
,PRESIDENT CARTER does have a
taste for drama, it turns out.
Getting tired of watching the coal
k strike drag on and efforts to end the dis-
pute fail, the President took a powerful
itiative and called union and industry
egotiators together for a rare White
k p£qrf erenc .
w ien it looke as uT the coal opera-
,s~ere going spurn the meeting,
arter threatened to denounce them to
the nation - certainly a formidable
challenge to any company's public re-
lations. Negotiators for both sides saw
the President's leverage and hurried to
the Oval Office.
e« That series of events - and the fact
that Carter called 12 governors to
a Washington yesterday to discuss the
energy problems resulting from the
coal strike - is evidence that the Presi-
4 dent may finally be grasping the
9 dimensions of his office. It's a good
t sign.
a Carter could, if the strike continues,
choose to invoke provisions of the Taft-
Hartley Act, which would force miners
,back to work for what is called a "cool-
ing off period." But he would do best not
to use those provisions. The Taft-
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Hartley Act has never really worked
before; striking workers usually stay
on the picket lines, and often the back-
to-work order incites violence.
The new round of coal talks may not
prove fruitful right away, and the
nation could start feeling the pinch of a
coal, shortage, but at least we won't
have to say that our President stood by
and did absolutely nothing about it.
Now, there's an improvement.
CORRECTION:
In yesterday's article, "The 'U's unknown
links tb apartheid," by Thomas Detwyler, the ac-
companying diagram shows Continental Oil Cor-
poration doing business in South Africa, when in
fact, it is Continental Illinois Corporation
(banking) which has business interests there.
Continental Oil should not have been underlined.
Also, Edward E. Carlson is Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of UAL, Inc., not United Air-
lines. The airline company, on the board of which
Carlson also sits, is a subsidiary of UAL, Inc. The
1975 sales shown are those of UAL, Inc. The Daily
regrets the errors.
To The Daily:
As is common in much of the
American press today, the
Daily's editorial of February 9
("The Mideast Arms Picture")
makes several false assumptions
that distort the realities of the
Middle East situation. it is impor-
tant that these assumptions are
pointed outineorder to better un-
derstand the problems that
prevent peace in the Middle East
today.
Firstly, the editorial claims
that "Israel has maintained a
stubborn negotiating posture"
and has not negotiated "fairly
with the Egyptians." On the con-
trary, Israel always desired
direct negotiations with Egypt
and other neighboring Arab
states that would lead to peace
and security. At present, Prime
MinisteryMenachem Begin
stresses that "everything
is negotiable," a far cry
from a "stubborn posture." In
audition,. ne has drawn up plans
for Palestinian self-rule in the
West Bank, and return of the
Sinai territory to Egypt. These
plans include obvious con-
cessions and are 'positive steps
towards successful negotiations.
The editorial's second false
assumption is that an American
A clipping for
Israel's wings
By Richard Gross
5 f A( H4OME UJrr~o t1'f,
TEL AVIV, Israel - Israel's
condemnation of the U.S. pro-
posal to sell warplanes to Egypt
and Saudi Arabia came as no sur-
prise, but the furor over the num-
ber of aircraft has clouded the
real issue: the change in Ameri-
can policy.
Never before has the United
States offered such sophisticated
offensive weapons to the Arabs,
particularly Egypt. A previous
proposal to sell defensive Hawk
missiles to Jordan had so many
strings attached that King Hus-
sein dropped the idea.
Israel is unwilling to accept
changes in American policy that
do not coincide with its own inter-
ests, as limited as those interests
may be. ,It thus is more con-
cerned with the policy shift than
fighters to Egypt, according to
the sources, is a desire to keep
President Anwar Sadat from
returning to the Soviet fold.
He expelled the Soviets from
Egypt in 1972 but he now is repor-
tedly in need of space parts for
his Soviet-built MIGs.
The F-5Es are no challenge for
most of Israel's aircraft and even
in Sadat's own words are con-
sidered by military analysts to be
"10th-rate" warplanes.
Of more concern to Israel is the
proposal to sell 60 McDonnell-
Douglas F-15s to Saudi Arabia.
They could, in the Israeli view,
wind up in Egyptian skies in time
of war with Israel. And they are
the best planes in the West, even
without all the ultrasophisticated
avionics.
sale of weapons to Egypt would
be "insignificant.' Any weapons'
sale to Egypt would set a
precedent and would be a
"significant" change in
American arms policy in the
Middle East. This precedent
could easily lead to future arms
sales to Egypt and to an
escalated arms race in the Mid-
dle East.
The Daily feels that the United
States should use arms sales to
apply pressure to Israel.
However, this is again falsely
assuming that Israel has been the
intransigent, party. President
Carter wisely believes that the
United States' role in the Middle
East negotiations should be that
of mediator, not arbitrator. Such
an arms sale with the purpose of
pressuring Israel would distin-
ctly change this position. The
United States should not be using
scare tactics, as the Daily ad-
vocates. This would be detrimen-
tal to peace efforts.
-Debbie Salinger
Jeffrey Colman
mixed up text
To The Daily:
Due to a printing error, the text
of our Wednesday guest editorial,
"Apartheid is not a debatable is-
sue," does not follow the copy the
Coalition Against Apartheid sub-
mitted to the Daily.
Although the overall meaning
of the piece was not changed, we
would like to correct two points:
First, we did not attribute
remarks concerning Mobil,,
Texaco, Ford, GM and IBM both
to Ted Lockwood of the
Washington Office on Africa and
to Tim Smith of the National
Council of Churches, but to Smith
alone.
Second, the error obliterated
what Lockwood said summariz-
ing the recent Clark Report on
South African investments put
out by the U.S. Senate.
Sen. Clark's report, Lockwood
noted, concluded that U.S. cor-
porate performance in South
Africa is "abysmal" in terms of
bringing about meaningful
change. The Daily picked tr Atis
point in excerpting our r tial
for highlighting purpos . ut the
information was lost in t..ext.
The point is important because
of widespread corporate claims
that U.S. firms somehow work
from within apartheid to change
it. The Clark committee only
verified what the U.N., the World
Council of Churches and the OAU
have been saying for 15 years;
onl , _4.. -r.n ala (T4' v-
called on the Regents to cut all
financial ties to firms operating
in South Africa.
As Prexy Nesbitt of the
American Committee on Africa
summed it up atthe forum, the
UM must now decide, "Which
side are you on?"
- Andy Feeney,
Secretary Washtenaw County
Coalition Against Apartheid
ban radioactive waste
To The Daily:
Readers who are concerned
about radioactive wastes should
know that the Michigan legisla-
ture is considering banning dis-
posal of the wastes. Although the
federal government considers
Michigan to be an excellent can-
didate for the "hot dump," local
residents, the governor, and the
attorney general are opposed.
The ban legislation has already
passed the Senate and is now
being considered by the House
Public Health Committee, which
will make a final decision next
week (the week of Feb. 20.) Let-
ters urging a total ban on the
burial of radioactive wastes in
the state should be sent to the
House Public Health Committee,
c/o Rep. Raymond Hood, State
Capitol, Lansing. Readers
wishing to have extra impact
could also send letters to the
following members of the com-
mittee: Rep. Connie Binsfeld;
Rep. Wilbur Brotherton; Rep.
George Cushingberry, Jr.; and
Rep. Jackie Vaughn III.
A few letters now could prevent
risking the health of Michigan
residents for many generations to
come.
- Steve Freedkin
Energy Project Director
the solution
To The Daily:
George Mendenhall, a Univer-
sity of Michigan teacher, has
studied and researched past
civilizations to ascertain the
reason and cause of their down-
fall. He has found that there are
designs of growth in all principles
(laws) of action (conduct) of
people. Laws have a design of
growth built into them just the
same as all seeds have an ab-
solute, positive growth, and all
acts (deeds) of people have an
absolute, positive growth result.
The design of growth from
seeds cannot be altered
(changed) by any person on ear-
th. This is not true of .acts of
people. A wrong act or principle
used that is creating an un-
ri :ci mh a a inn ,- ifr nr..in
. "
--~''
2 "
!
COMMENTA R Y
it is with the aircraft themselves,
diplomatic sources say.
The Israelis, the sources said,
refuse to consider any other
American objectives in the Mid-
dle East other than keeping
Israel militarily strong and eco-
nomically viable.
"Israel has conditioned itself to
think only in unitary terms, not
regionally," one source said.
"The Israelis are predictably
upset," another said. "Egypt is
no -longer in the non-lethal cate-
gory of weapons supply, and
Prime Minister Menachem
Begin has accepted an invitation
to go to Washington in March and
apparently hopes he can convince
President Carter to change his
mind about a policy shift that
means giving to the Arabs what
the United States thus far has
given only to Israel.
The outcome most certainly
will affect the future course of
peace negotiations between
Egypt and Israel, which now are
stalled and awaiting a new U.S.
effort to reactivate them.