1k Mtfrligan &tt
Eighty-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Ml 48109
Tuesday, April 12, 1977 News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
New studentrecordsaspolicy
fals uaccptalyhor
Black Salvation - s
Black Elements Seen as Renewing Jaded Faith
THE NEW student records policy
passed by the Regents last month
falls far short of our expectations.
While it will facilitate the processing
of record requests and clearly defines
how and by whom requests can be
made, it fails to include the right
of students to see everything in their
files. Anything less than complete ac-
cess is unacceptable.
Students still may not inspect or
challenge medical and professional
counseling records, financial informa-
tion, letters of recommendation from
counselors and teachers received be-
fore January 1, 1975, and personal
notes and comments put in by teach-
ers and counselors.
It is argued that if these type of
records were made available for stu-
dent perusal, they would lose much
of their objective value. Further, ad-
ministrators and faculty fear that
students who read recommendations
written about them that they don't
like, may seek retribution.
These are valid arguments. But
they place the focus of student rec-
ords in the wrong places. These files
are compiled for the student's bene-
fit, not for faculty administrators.
Students have a right to see every-
thing contained in their record. In-
accurate files can be terribly. dam-
aging throughout one's life. Without
the right to challenge damaging and
inaccurate information, students are
at the mercy of the arbitrary whims
of people that wield tremendous pow-
er over their future.
PUT TEACHER and counselor con-
fidentiality, as well as students'
rights must be protected. Since teach-
ers and counselors who wrote notes
for students' files prior to January
1, 1975 did so under the assump-
tion that students would not be per-
mitted to see those files, students
should not be given access to this in-
formation. However, any such notes
should be removed from the record
and destroyed, since they could have
a damaging effect on the student's
futurg.
It is clear that the new policy was
compiled with the sole intention of
complying with the federal Family
Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
It does nothing to improve student's
rights to see their files. Under these
conditions we condemn the Regents
for failing to secure vital 'student
rights, and hope that they will re-
consider their poor decision.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is
the fifth and last installment of
a five-part Easter series on
black religion, regarded by
some as a "saving remnant."
By GEORGE W. CORNELL
AP Religion Writer
Somehow, by an odd chem-
istry of life, strength is wrought
on the anvil of difficulties, and
wisdom sharpened in the coils
of pain. Tears clear the eye.
Hard times can toughen. Those
who have been tried, buffeted
and tested take on the surer
stride and richer spirit.
They've plumbed the depth.
They've got "soul."
It's a quality often ascribed
to blacks and it's not just in
style but in content, an essence
weightily regarded as needed
by whites as a bracer to faith,
as the quickening, curing force
to a vitiated humanity.
"It is only in extreme situ-
ations that man becomes aware
of what he is," says philoso-
pher Karl Jaspers. It deflates
pretenses and arrogance. It ex-
alts simple survival. It height-
ens gratitude for life. And
blacks have traveled those "ex-
treme situations," felt that re-
fining fire.
Through their tempered in-
stincts, "the world might be
saved from the selfishness,
greed and subjugation" which
blight it, says the National
Committee of Black Church-
men. The thesis holds that
blacks, through their adver-
sities, may be a special in-
strument of God - a contempo-
rary "saving remnant" to re-
new a jaded white society.
The concept has arisen not
only in religious thought, both
among some whites and blacks,
but it takes on added relevance
in a world whose shrinking re-
sources demand a shift away
from the affluent pattern of
white consumerism, and the
view also shows up in reflective
historical analysis.
"American blacks have re-
discovered in Christianity cer-
tain original meanings and val-
ues which Western Christendom
has long ignored," writes noted
world historian Arnold J. Toy-
nbee. They found that Jesus
"camne into the world not to
confirm the mighty in their
seats but to exalt the humble
and meek."
With "their genius for giving
spontaneous aesthetic ex-
pression to emotional religious
experience, they may perhaps
be capable of kindling the cold
grey ashes of , Christian-
ity. . .until the divine fire glows
again" and becomes once more
"the living faith of a dying civ-
ilization."
However, the concept lies not
just in black intuition for wor-
ship, but the profoundest reli-
g i o u s insights. Somehow,
strangely, help is rendered
through the helpless, recovery
through the disabled. It's a
paradoxical thing, but it's the
Biblical vision. The highest
truths emerge through the low-
liest victims, the enslaved, the
persecuted.
Out of the Egyptian bondage
rose the banner of freedom.
Through the slain prophets and
/- t.%: 13 ... t r v'
14
.-refL ~
Let city know how you
feel about new zoning plans
ALL TOO OFTEN, decisions which
affect our lives are made with-
out our approval-or even our knowl-
edge. Politicians and bureaucrats, cer-
tain that they alone know what is,
best for us, tend to disregard the
voices of their constituencies unless
forced to listen by political pressure.
The Ann Arbor City Planning De-
partment has just announced several
proposed amendments to the city zon-
ing ordinance which, if approved, will
have far-reaching consequences for
almost every resident of the city --
students and longtimers alike.
Among the proposed changes are:
a measure to restrict the living den-
sity of rental properties in student
areas, a proposal to create several
new zoning categories which would
provide for alternative life styles, and
a number of changes which will de-
termine the extent and direction of
growth both in the downtown area
and the surrounding neighborhoods.
The Planning Department has al-
ready made use of suggestions, criti-
cisms and information from a num-
ber of citizen groups and community
leaders before drawing up its recom-
mendations. But before it presents
those recommendations to the city
Planning Commission, the depart-
ment is making another bid for citi-
zen input.
A SERIES OF public meetings and
hearings on the proposed ordi-
nance changes will be scheduled dur-
ing the months of May and June,
and Gene Katz of the Planning staff
- who supervised the drafting of
the proposals - has made a public
request for more citizens' options.
The Daily strongly urges every stu-
dent who rents or owns property -in
Ann Arbor to become acquainted with
the proposed changes (an explanatory
article appears on Page One of to-
day's Daily) and to make his or her
opinion known to city officials.
It is rare indeed that we are ask-
ed for our suggestions in any matter
so important to the future of our
community; to waste the opportunity
would be shameful.'
Bwsiness Staff
DE13ORAH DREYFUSS ...... Business Manager
COLLEEN HOGAN ......... Operations Manager
ROD KOSANN .................... Sales Manager
ROBERT CARPENTER ........ Finance Manager
NANCY GRAU .. . .............. Display Manager
CASSIE ST. CLAIR . . ...Circulation Manager
BETH STRATFORD ... ..... Circulation Director
Phoiegraphy Staff
ALAN BIMINSKY ANDY FREEBERG
Co-Photographers-in-Chief
BRAD BENJAMIN ...... ... Staff Photographer
JOHN KNOX.......... Staff Photographer
CHRISTINA SCHNEIDER .. Staff Photographer
martyrs rang the courage of
conscience and caring. Through
the crucified broke the light of
a redeemed humanity.
"For the Lord. . .adorns the
humble with victory," says
Psalms 149:4. Jesus, in Mat-
thew 20:16, puts it: "The last
will be first, and the first last."
It's a puzzling equation, an
upsidedown process. But it in-
timates the possibility that
through the rugged pilgrimage
of black people, out of the cries
and needs of the dark-skinned,
have-not hosts of the earth,
stems a key to an enlivened
faith, to harmony among the
races, to that longed-fortrecon-
ciliation of humanity, the be-
loved community.
"He was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised
for our iniquities,"the ancient
Jewish prophet put it in his
mysterious "suffering servant"
passage of Isaiah 53. "Upon
him was the chastisement that
mnade us whole, and with his
stripes we are healed."
Not that blacks are super-
faithful, a notion their scholars
firmly repudiate. They affirm
that religion at its core has no
coloration, neither black, white,
red nor yellow, but they main-
tain that through the harrowing
black experience has sprung a
particular refreshening in-
gredient necessary to the age,
a "new wine" that is dis-
tinctively black.
"The gift of Negritude," Pope
Paul VI termed it, saying the
church needs it.
"God is calling us to be mis-
sionaries to today's white gen-
eration," says black theologian
Gilbert Caldwell. "They need
us more than we need them."'
Indeed, worries were wide-
spread in the predominantly
white churches that their vital-
ity had waned, that the Chris-
tian ardor had cooled and gone
pale in an atmosphere whipped
by secularizing winds and a
sterilizing rationalism that
shrinks reality to mere for-
mulas and techniques, that the
poetry, the wonder, the flame
of conviction had run low,
It was also increasingly rec-
ognized that the industrialized
white societies of the world
were caught in a get-more, con-
sume-more vertigo that saps
psychic strength, that chases
hollow idols of more wealth and
power, that deepens the chasm
between mainly white Western
technocracies and the poor,
mainly black and brown two-
thirds of the world, that threat-
ens the very capacity of earth
to sustain its people and casts a
shadow over the human future.
It was an enfeebling com-
oination, a gaping wound.
"A spiritual poverty," Mother
Teresa of India said in reaction
to conditons of affluent Ameri-
can whites.
However, greater black inter-
action with whites was devel-
oping not only in the churches
but in American culture gener-
ally and in the closer U.S. con-
cern with the striving of Afri-
can people for their rights.
Also, the realization grew that
spiraling Western consumption
was not the answer, that sim-
pler, sparer habits were neces-
sary and healthier. "We may
be entering a timne when white
illusions of economic in-
vulnerability are radically
eroded and wnen that happens,
what whites have seen as the
experience of others will also
become their experience, which
is the black experience," says
black religious historian Law-
rence Jones.
In other ways, convergences
were expanding in the mainly
w h i t e U.S. denominations,
which have hung on to an aver-
age 2 per cent black member-
ship, more than 2 million
among 110 million white mem-
bers.
Most black members were in
predominantly black congrega-
tions, but a growing sprinkling
of blacks participated in mainly
white congregations. Also, the
white denominations now had
vigorous black caucuses and
black affairs units injecting
black influence into denomina-
tional processes,
Blacks have increased exten-
sively among executives, staffs
and delegations of the mainly
white denominations, including
the interdenominational Nation-
al Council of Churches, often
through "affirmative action"
programs. Any absence of
blacks has become a white em-
barrassment.
Most of the largely white,
major Protestant denomina-
tions also in recent years have
elected blacks to their top
posts.
Even greater cross-fertiliza-
tion came in ecumenical set-
tings where blacks have be-
come a rising force. Churches
of the dark-skinned under-
developed "third world" in 1975
moved into a narrow majority
in the assembly of the World
Council of Churches, whose
chief executive officer, the Rev.
Dr. Philip Potter, is a black
American.
Indeed, statistical projections
indicate the surging growth of
Christianity in Africa will shift
the numerical center of gravity
of the faith from its mainly
white European-American sec-
tor to the mainly black conti-
nent by the end of the century.
Just what are the special
qualities blacks have to contrib-
ute? Scholars cited these val-
ues, among others:
-A lived sense of suffering
and tragedy which in Biblical
perspective is inherent in the
struggle for righteous ends, a
hard reality which a pampered
white generation tends to reject
but which black theology vi-
vifies.
-A greater independence
from society's class pressures
and status obsessions because
of prolonged black exclusion
from such trivializing pre-
occupations that trap many
white church people.
-A more concentrated, God-
centered emphasis, character-
istic ofblack churches, in
which God is not a mere in-
tellectual abstraction as he
tends to be among whites, but a
mnighty, acting, caring force in
human events and history.
-The proved skill of the
black church in organizing and
mounting strategies for social
reform and of developing lead-
ers for it, a risky work which
middle-class white churches
are inclined to shun.
-A heightened appreciation
of freedom because of black
suffering for it.
-A help to whites in freeing
them from uneasiness in com-
pany with the poor and socially
deprived, enabling congrega-
tions to become more lovingly
inclusive of various classes in
accord with the Christian ideal.
-A strengthened apprecia-
tion in preaching of the emo-
tional, intuitive elements that,
at bottom, control human deci-
sion-making in contrast to the
intellectual rationalizing domi-
nant in white churches.
.-An open, freer, participato-
ry spontaneity in worship that
could add dynamism to the
generally sterile formality of
white services, a seeming se-
renity that sometimes masks
empty detachment.
-The broadened under-
standing and capability that
comes of shared differences in
background,experiencesweak-
nesses and strengths, deepening
awareness that none find full-
ness in isolation, that each is
enlarged by the other.
-The black church's tenacity
in holding on to ancient moral
values amid modern fluidity
about them among whites, such
as the strong black rejection of
abortion and homosexuality.
Chiefly and distinctively,
however, the black religious ex-
perience offered a direct, im-
mediate identification with a
1 o n g-oppressed people, ex-
emplifying the exploited and
downtrodden on whom the Jew-
ish-Christian Scriptures focus
the story of salvation, thus pro-
viding a closer intimately felt
kinship with it.
Black people are "the con-
munity through which the Op-
pressed One (Christ) has cho-
sen to make his will known to
the world," says black theo-
logian Jamnes H. Cone.
The implication was that
somehow, out of the baffling,
enigmatic yet powerful process-
es of deepest reality, only the
broken could make humanity
whole.
Reaching the objective came
hard, yet it urgently beckoned.
Three demons against it
strode the modern world -
poverty, racism and violence.
Yet the dividing line of all
three was race, the impover-
ished dark masses alongside
the wealthier white few, togeth-
er with the potentials to vio-
lence sown by that harsh imba-
lance of enough.
Since all three ills bore the
stamp of race, the corollary
loomed that the way out, the
amelioration of the distresses
of the age, depended somehow
on a new, reciprocating fellow-
ship of the races.
That was the underlying
need, the resuscitating direc-
tion. Whatever its mneans,
blacks would have to contribute
to it, and also whites. Both
would have to provision it. For
both it was the high goal.
It was the vision of that "be-
loved city" toward which the
Book of Revelation points, the
blessed society in which God's
creatures, black,red, yellow,
white, 'tan, pink and freckled,
all loosed from the chains of
bigotry, share alike in a rain-
bow of felicity, graced with mu-
tual enhancement and enlarged
life.
It was a drea, yet ot just
a dream.aFor God "has mnade
known to us in all wisdom and
insight the mystery of his will,"
says Ephesians 1:9-10, ". ..his
purpose which he set ,forth in
Christ as a plan for the fullness
of time, to unite all things in
him, things in heaven and
things on earth."
It was a plan for black and
white together in which the Op-
pressed One does, indeed, carry
out the decisive work.
"For he is our peace, who
has broken down the dividing
wall of hostility," says Eph-
esians 2:14-19. "So then you are
no longer strangers and sojour-
ners, but you are fellow citi-
zens. . .of the household of
God."
i
Letters
to
the
FIORE O Akee ": Q EVlv 1 ME B *wv 46EZ.-t;,1Rr
"t'-
To The Daily:
Kevin Switzer
warn us that
crusade is a se
human freedom
a joke. The Vil
the gay press
reported some
consequences of
On March 15,
activist, Ovidio(
committed suicid
er appearing on
guage radio shoe
ant's propagan
show, Ramosi
saying, "It'si
these Christians
tred for us." Tf
watched Anita
Phil Donahue S
talked to his par
down on him ft
Police think he
the next day.
gay rights In the midst of this se
tragedies, Dade County C
sioners are reportedly
is correct to second thoughts about sp
Anita Bryant's taxpayers' money to he
rious threat to referendum on the gay
, and not just ordinance. The influenti
lage Voice and ami Herald editorialize
have recently "Gay Rights is not a5
of the tragic issue," and urged that th
her hysterics. nance be rescinded p
a Cuban gay further study. In respon
(Herbie) Ramos Gay Coalition has vov
le in Miami aft- raise the $400,000 need
a Spanish-lan- the June 7 referendum, a
w to rebut Bry- sent out a nation-wide
da. After the for funds to pay not of
was depressed, the referendum but also fi
incredible that licity to counteract B
hold such ha- ravings.
he next day he Checks to underwrite th
Bryant on the tion should be made out
Show, and also "Dade County Board of
rents who came Commissioners," with ch
or his gayness. publicity made out to the
killed himself tion. All money can be
Dade County Coalitionf
en active in set- Humanistic Rights of
division of the P.O. Box 414, Miami, FL
oalition for the At the U-M, where w
hts of Gays. A Just overwhelmingly pa
nual Gomez, al- gay rights referendum
e Latin group, student election, those of
rebombed after believe in civil rights f
s conference a people have the respon
Ramos' death. to speak out and act
;ued a statement Anita's holy war.
-ries of To add to Ford's own useless-
ommis- ness, he threatened to veto all
having Veterans Administration educa-
pending tional benefits if veterans, who
)ld the were graduate students were in-
rights cluded in the 1974 package
al Mi- wherein benefits were extended
d that from 36 to 45 months. This, of
$400,000 course, is discrimination by edu-
ie ordi- cation - not rewarding veter-
pending ans who had their B.A.'s and
se, the B.S.'s before they served on ac-
wed to tive duty while at the same time
ted for rewarding those who did not and
nd has who served in positions of les-
appeal ser responsibility.
nly for The mere idea that an Ameri-
or pub- can president could make such
ryant's a bizarre judgment is bad
enough, but Mr. Ford then re-
he elec- versed his stance of graduate
to the veterans just a few weeks be-
County fore Election Day, 1976 when
ecks for he was trailing in the polls and
Coali- needed to drum up a few votes
sent to among veterans. Fortunately, it
for the didn't work. Lucky Michigan,
Gays, now he's all yours.
33133. Timothy Whalen
e have
ssed a correction
in the To The Daily:
us who . I want to correct a statement
or gay attributed to Dean Gronvall of
isibility the Medical School in an arti-
against cle which appeared in the Mich-
i an Daily on March 30, 1977.
ang The statement is taken from a
Dail
Pathology and Audiology (AB-
ESPA) rather than being provi-
sionally restored. As stated in
a November 30, 1976 letter from
the Chairman of ABESTA, the
primary basis for extending ac-
creditation rather than reaccre-
diting the program was "to al-
low time for clarification of the
administrative picture at your
institution.'"
Since the future certification
status of our students is affect-
ed by the accreditation of our
program, it is important for
them to be assured that at no
time was our accreditation lost.
As stated in a May 27, 1976 let-
ter from the Chairman of AB-
ESPA, "as long as the appeal
procedures are in progress your
program will still be considered
as accredited."
Donald J. Sharf, Ph.D.
Acting Director
Section of Speech
and Hearing Sciences
AFSCME
To The Daily:
We have been informed that
the University Administration is
refusing to recognize Joel Block,
the President of AFSCME 1583,
as the representative of his
members and is forbidding him
to meet with his members while
they are on the job. The mem-
Hash Rash
To The Daily:
Bart Plantenga's letter scorn-
ing the hypocrisy of those criti-
cal of the Hash Bash is absurd.
Absurd not because those he
says are hypocrites are in fact
saints, but rather absurd be-
cause he could see so much re-
deeming social value in 5,000
pre-pubescent potheads.
Can Mr. Plantenga seriously
believe that this assemblage of
middle-class, suburban youth
came here to make a political
statement? Or that their social
awareness extends much beyond
.the latest Kiss album?
The sad fact is that most Hash
Bashers are very much like the
"athletes, frats (and) cheerlead-
ers "Mr. Plantenga derides.
They all do their own thing.
Just how oppressed can some-
one be who cruises into Ann Ar-
bor in a late model car, any-
way?
Lee Kirk
SYlL
To The Daily:
I wish to address this letter
to the Spartacus Youth league
in response to their letter in
the Sunday edition of The Daily:
Whv don't vou find- anotherP
I
Ramos had be
ting up a Latin
Dade County C
Humanistic Rig]
close friend Man
so active in *th
had his car fir
holding a press
short time after
The Coalition iss
denouncing the1
bombing as "a
-Dan Ts
' Rks, -i ' a