y, October 13, 1977-The Michigan Daily I £ dian.Dati Eighty-Eight Years of Editorial Freedom 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109 1. LXXXVIII, No. 31 News Phone: 764-0552 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Trax credits woud make ere S egem r ces l Beyond the Bakke case By GALE SUMMERFIELD and RANDY SCHWARTZ Recently, several people have submitted articles with differing opinions on the Bakke Case. But no one has yet provided the statistics on the current status of minorities in the medical profes- sion, or questioned the over-all exclusiveness of medical school admissions. These are two points we would like to address so as to show the importance of defeating the Bakke decision, and of pro- tecting and expanding programs for affirmative action. To what extent have such pro- grams succeeded in correcting centuries of injustice? Is it now TAKE A STROLL some day down the corridors of the pres- tigous University Hospital. If af- firmative action programs have actually gone too far, and mi- norities are being given a "free ride" into the medical profession through "reverse discrimina- tion," then why are their num- bers there so insignificant? Why are they so better represented on the custodial as opposed to the medical staff? The thousands of people who have stfruggled in past decades specifically to achieve minority quotas would look rather disfavorably upon their repeal. Without quotas, the privileged can judge applicants according to pushed by Senators Packwood and Daniel Moynihan (D-N.Y.), has come under attack in recent days, further threatening its passage in this session of Congress. SOME OPPONENTS of the tuition tax credit plan say that Congress could aid financially strapped students more directly - not through the tax credit system -- but through an al- ready existing program of grants from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). Instead of initiat- ing an entirely new program, it is ar- gued, Congress could simply raise the number and level of the HEW grants, which are based on family income. But as is now a common view, HEW is already bogged down with bureacratic paper work. A new influx of grant ap- plications would simply create a moun- tainous overload for the department. Imagine the back up there would be if everyone who would have been eligible for the tax credit program applied for' a Basic Educational Opportunity Grant (BEOG). The tuition tax credit plan would relieve the bureacracy in that portion of our government, allowing HEW to concentrate on mat- ters more basic to human survival. The BEOG program is not made to serve the volume of people who would otherwise benefit from a tuition reim- bursement plan. The argument we are likely to hear most when the tax credit bill comes under scrutiny this fall will be that the plan's estimated annual cost of $4.7 billion renders it unaffordable. But think about that. This is a bill that would drastically reduce the financial burdens on any student comtemplating college. It would practically guarantee a higher education for many members of low-income families. It is not a han- dout. Rather, it helps offset today's over-inflated costs of education and- rekindles that old saw about a "land of equal opportunity." stances. To repeal quotas would be to repeal the gains in social justice made in the 1960's. WE MIGHT well ask why Bakke is directing his suit again- st minority admissions instead of against the special admissions of less qualified students whose families donate large sums of money. The real indication of one's potential as a doctor is a history of using to greatest social advantage the tools with which one finds oneself surrounded, and a commitment to provide good health care to the people of one's community. These are traits which have been shown in par- ticular by minorities.I Allan Bakke, a 34-year-old NASA engineer, was rejected at each of the 14 medical schools to which he applied in 1973 and 1974. Despite his privileged prep- school background and under- graduate training, Bakke's' scores on standardized entrance exams were not adequate. Yet because they were higher than a few accepted minority students, he was encouraged by a UC-Davis administrator to file suit charging "reverse discrim- ination." Thus, an individ- ual who repeatedly failed to convert past privilege into future privilege in a prestigous institu- tion, is moved by certain elemen- ts within that institution to turn around and challenge those appli- cants who struggled against even greater obstacles. There is some- thing truly sad about this victim of an educational system which provides all too few opportunities for people to go to school in the first place being deluded into thinking that others victimized by that same system are to blame for his misfortune. REGARDED in that light, one sees that the problem is not sim- ply that minorities are underrep- resented in positions of privilege, but that positions of great social need are positions of privilege in the first place. "We're not run- ning an admissions committee. We're running a rejections com- mittee" says Dr. Colin Campbell of the University Medical School.s Each year, the Davis medical school admits but 100 students of the thousands who apply. While the people of our nation cry out for decent health, care,'medical, school admissions policies are still determined by what will profit the rich and the powerful. Their schools remain structured in such a way that they can accommodate only a select few students, and therefore the social benefits accrue only to an elite. As with all similar in- stances of economic injustice, the elite attempts to divide the dis- contented populace by pitting one group against another. But all these groups alike are victims of a lack of popular control over the distribution of economic re- sources. And as one way of di- verting attention from that state of affairs, the elite dupes people into believing that one or another race is receiving unfair advant- age. The Bakke Case is a typical ,case of the ruling class trying to cut back on the gains made by minorities, and incite prejudice on the part of whites. The Bakke Case is a typical example of insti- tutionalized racism. Racism is not the product of evil minds. It is the product of a system that needs to keep people divided, and keep minorities sub- jugated so as to be able to make more profit off their lower-priced labor. If we want to destroy: racism, we must remake the society which creates it. The widespread desire of youth to study medicine should be trans-- lated into an effort to convert' universities from exclusive cor- porations into community cen- ters accessible to large numbers' of all nationalities. If we need more and better medical care, if we need more doctors and other" medical workers, we should fight for an expansion of admissions and to get schools to establish programs geared toward cheap. medical care rather than towards- overly specialized training. But, in the short run, we must not fail to recognize the critical importance of affirmative action in compensating for historical oppression and allowing for op- portunities for minorities that previously didn't exist. Even though affirmative action programs have barely begun to correct racial discrimination, we cannot, in good conscience, sur- render the'ground that has been gained in this struggle. Let us therefore defend these programs. Unite to defeat Bakke! 1. Medical Committee for Human Rights, The Bakke Case. pp. 1-2. 2. Fight Back (newspaper of Revolutionary Student Brigade),10/7, p.5. 3. MCHR. p 8. 4. MCHR, p.5. 5. MCHIR, p.8. 6. Michigan Daily,10/2/'77, p.. Gale Summerfield and Ran- dy Schwartz are members of the Revolutionary Student Brigade. AP Photo SPECTATORS LINE up to get seats at the Supreme Court in Washington yesterday, where justices heard arguments for the Bakke case. Only about 50 persons were allowed inside the chamber. desirable to institute "color- blind" admissions to medical schools? "The facts shine a lot on the answer to these questions ... While the physician/population ratio for the U.S. is 1/700, the ratios of minority physicians to minority populations are roughly as follows: Black 1/3800, Native American 1/20,000, and Chicano 1/30,333. The Black physician/- population ratio has remained at 1/4000 since the 1930's,", The claim that affirmative action has gone too far becomes ludicrous. their own capricious standards, and they can do so under the guise of pure meritocracy. A Lawyers' Guild survey of more than 100 law schools indicates that minority enrollment would plunge by 75 per' cent if there were no affirmative action pro- grams.2 Affirmative action, which is but'a first step in com' batting inequality, insists that we must actively bring oppressed peoples into the mainstream and judge them by standards appro- priate to their historical circum- Letters to- The Daily Editorial positions represent a consensus of The Daily Editorial Staff Letters should be typed and limited to 400 words. The Doily reserves the right to edit letters for length and grammar. TALL ZY 'J1U F 772 v ,Y / O2S Evl29/l/r To The Daily:fader plan If the hotly debated Fader plan had passed the LSA faculty vote last spring every incoming LSA freshperson might have had three required courses of English composition to look forward to in completing his or her degree. The plan was not passed, but is pres- ently being reworked by the Eng- lish Composition Board (ECB) and an advisory committee both chaired by English Prof. Daniel Fader. For the past weeks the LSA student government has been trying to secure student rep- resentatio on this committee' which would so greatly affect the undergraduate curriculum. In early September, Dean Billy Frye requested of the student government three to five nomina- tions from which Dean Frye him- self would choose a representa- tive to the ECB advisory com- mittee. The request for a single representative to a committee of twenty faculty members, a com- mittee which is merely advising another all faculty hoard hardly shows a desire for or even the recognition of the right to student participation in the English com- position question. The student government has objected to this limited represen- tation in a letter to the dean and has tried repeatedly to meet with Dean Frye to discuss the issue. He has agreed to one more stu- dent seat on the twenty-two mem- ber committee and to eliminate the administration level screen- ing, but he has failed to find the time for a meeting. The reluctan- ce of Dean Frye points to the issue of overall student represen- tation at the university. Curriculum Committee, the English Composition Board, and the recent proposal of the Ad- ministrative Board to initiate a Freshman Seminar program next fall are a few of the curricu- lum innovations that will affect LSA undergraduates. For all these changes the process, as reported in the Daily, is basically the same. These committees discuss problems in the college and work their recom- mendations into proposals that are presented to the faculty. The crucial presentation, however, is before the LSA Executive Com- mittee. The Executive Committee meets behind closed doors and does not make the minutes from those meetings available. Some of the advisory committees do have student seats. But student representatives generally obser- ve that the real policy decisions and analysis go on in private meetings and discussions bet- ween administration members before even hearing the views of the committees. The need for a joint effort of students and faculty in evaluating the LSA undergradu- ate education has been establish- ed through the advocacy of past student governments and student groups on campus. Has the ad- ministration forgotten the steps it has taken towards a more equal representation of students? The Student Government in anger does not want to point fingers however. If the faculty committees are truly concerned with the education the under- graduate is receiving today, if the experience of the student is really the basis for the changes in re- of situations can forget that ob- jectivity is not merely the result of a trained and intelligent mind, but the result of subjective view- points working over an issue. , We hate to see the same close- mindedness and political exclu- sivity forming without checking the policies that will determine the education of every LSA un- dergraduate. carter To The Daily: I would like to express several disagreements with the political cartoon on the editorial page of today's Daily (Sept. 30). (The ar- tist is Jules Feiffer, Field News- paper Syndicate-Ed. note.) I almost refrained from re- sponding at all, not wanting to waste energy on such a display of political ignorance or bias. I do think it is appropriate to criticize in a rational, construc- tive manner, but much of the an- ti-Carter reaction spewed out on the editorial page of the Daily from day to day is as incred- ibly unfactual and misleading as it is distasteful and amateur. FIRST OF ALL, Carter does not support any bill or amend- ment forbidding anyone, rich or poor, to have abortions. As far as government funding of abortions is concerned, why should he im- pose upon taxpayers the respon- sibility of this when many if not most people have doubts as to the moral value of this practice? (I personally am skeptical of a view that supports human liberty, equal rights for all and peace, and next is crying out for money to perform a very ugly and very violent act upon human nature.) The accusation that Carter ac- cepts unemployment at high levels is pretty untenable since he has already supported more labor legislation than the Con- gress has been willing to enact. Considering the recent advan ces with the Soviets the charge that he is allowing the arms race to continue is totally wrong and also indicative that the artist is not very aware of political even- ts. The last jab at Carter is like- wise, ill-founded since he has been putting pressure on several governments, indiscriminate of their political ideology. THE ATTEMPT to picture Jimmy Carter as the typical two= faced, uncaring southern Baptist bigot is unfair, totally un- justifiable and indicative of a new breed of bigot just as dangerous and irresponsible as the Phyllis Schaffly/Anita Bryant/Bill Buck- ley type. Naturally they have a common enemy - reason, justice, honesty and people like Carter whom they have a pecu- liar need and fancy to deprecate. Methinks people in glass houses should not throw stones. Arthur Arroyo September 30 LIFE rr ,(Olk EFAI 10 w M RX TO (TJFV O+ r u Oi )FAltz ,510 5 Usk.