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Eighty-Six Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mi 48104
Friday, February 27, 1976 News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Pump N Pantry shooting:
Awaiting thorough inquiry
Frye flunks on affirmative action
i
;
I
MAYOR WHEELER HAS raised the
possibility of an FBI or Grand
Jury investigation into the recent po-
lice shooting of two black youths.
The shooting left one dead and an-
other wounded after an alleged rob-
bery attempt at the Pump N Pantry
on Broadway.
The sort of investigation suggested
by Mayor Wheeler must take place
but should be accompanied by one
conducted by a citizens' committee,
the makeup of which could be de-
termined by city council.
If the officers were not within
the law, they must stand trial for
murder as would any citizen who
takes another's life.
Participation by citizens in an in-
quiry would insure a higher degree
of fairness. The citizens would act
as a check on possible cover-ups by
a government - sponsored investiga-
tion. And citizen input would be a
plus because the issue has sparked
much concern In the community.
THE GOAL OF the investigation
would be to determine if the po-
lice officers acted within the law in
firing on 18-year-old Larry Edwards,
who was killed, and Richard Bullock,
also 18, who was wounded.
City policy on the use of firearms
by police stipulates that officers
must exhaust all other means of ap-
prehending a suspect before firing.
From the police report, it is clear
that the officers began firing their
weapons almost immediately and
failed to use other means of appre-
hension.
This certainly did not leave much
time for catching the suspects by
means other than the use of fire-
arms, for example by chasing them.
FROM REPEATED TESTIMONY by
friends and relatives of the two
young men, it is clear that officer
Pressley is a neighbor of the Bul-
locks and is acquainted with Rich-
ard. Robert Edwards, Larry's 17-year-
old brother, who was apparently
standing outside the Pump N Pan-
try during the incident, said that
Bullock stumbled while fleeing
through the broken front window
and looked up at Pressley.
The area is well lit, and there is a
good chance that Pressley knew per-
fectly well who the suspect was.
If Pressley did recognize Edwards,
there was little reason to shoot--
TODAY'S STAFF:
NEWS: Steve Cischke, Lois Josimo-
vich, George Lobscenz, Jeff Ristine,
Tim Schick, Karen Schulkins, Dav-
id Whiting, Michael Yellin
EDITORIAL PAGE: Marc Basson,
Stephen Hersh, Jon Pansius
ARTS PAGE: Jim Valk
PHOTO TECHNICIAN: Steve Kagan
the police would have been able to
arrest him later at his mother's
home.
The investigation must answer
these doubts that the officers' con-
duct was proper.
It is important that police guilty
of wrongdoing on the job face more
than a temporary suspension or
transfer to a desk job. A simple verb-
al or written criticism, as offered by
the city administrator, is not ade-
quate and merely would sweep the
incident's dirt under the rug. An
open ended in-depth investigation is
the only acceptable way of handling
this situation. And until the investi-
gation is concluded, the officers,
George Anderson and Tom Pressley,
involved must be transferred to desk
jobs, off the streets.
POLICE SHOULD BE made to rea-
lize that they must be held ac-
countable for their actions if those
actions do not come under the their
authority. The investigation is vital
to demonstrating this. An officer's
badge and uniform cannot serve as
a shield from prosecution for illegal
acts.
The incident also raises the broad-
er question of civil control over po-
lice. As the number of shootings by
city police rises (police also shot a
youth in August suspected of bur-
glarly), it becomes apparent that
some sort of citizen's board should,
be established to oversee police ac-
tivities, to investigate similar shoot-
ings and to act as a check on police
authority and power. The police pur-
port to serve the people and law and
order, so it is necessary that the peo-
ple have input into police activity
and law enforcement.
The police have a public to answer
to and that must always be kept in
mind.
Editorial Staff
ROB MEACHUM BILL TURQUE
Co-Editors-In-Chief
JEFF RISTINE.Managing Editor
TIM SCHICK . .. Executive Editor
STEPHEN HERSH. Editorial Director
JEFF SORENSEN... Arts Editor
CHERYL PILATE.Magazine Editor
STAFF WRITERS: Susan Ades, Tom Allen, Glen
Allerhand, Marc Basson, Dana Bauman, David
Blomquist, James Burns, Kevin Counihan,
Jodi Dimick. Mitch Dunitz, Elaine Fletcher,
Phil Foley, Mark Friedander, David Garfinkel,
Tom Godell, Kurt Harju, Charlotte Heeg,
Richard James. Lois Josimovch, Tom Kettler,
Chris Kochmanski, Jay Levin. Andy Lilly, Ann
Marie Lipinski, George Lobsenz, Pauline Lu-
Hens, Teri Maneau, Angelique Matney, Jim
Nicoll, Maureen Nolan, Mike Norton, Ken Par-
sigian, Kim Potter, Cathy Reutter, Anne
Marie Schiavi, Karen Schukin, Jeff Sebat
Rick Sobel, Tom Stevens, Steve Stojic, Cathi
Suyak, Jim Trobin, Jim Valk, Margaret Yo,I
Andrew zerman, David Whiting, Michael Beck-
man and Jon Pansius.
By DAN TSANG
THE ELEVATION OF Billy Frye to
the post of permanent LSA Dean has
raised again the question of the Univer-
sity's committment to affirmative ac-
tion. Attention has been focused almost
exclusively on the procedure for select-
ing the Dean. Largely ignored has been
the extent of Frye's own commitment
to affirmative action, and the perform-
ance of his college in that regard.
Frye was quoted February 16 in the
University Record saying that the "fun-
damental approach" to achieving great-
er representation of women and minori-
ties in LSA departments must be two-
fold: "not just hiring (faculty) but train-
ing graduate students and thereby ex-
panding the pool of qualified young
scholars from which to hire."
However, Frye's own action a month
earlier indicates he is not acting to in-
crease the number of graduate students.
Frye sent a January 16 memo to depart-
ment chairpersons and unit directors in
LSA notifying them that "five per cent
of this year's teaching assistant allo-
cation will be deducted from your next
year's allocation" in order to meet part
of the overall five per cent departmental
budget cut for next year.
FRYE ADDED, "IF you wish to
make some part of your five per cent
budget cut by additional reductions in
the graduate student assistant category,
we will consider this with you."
By dictating a five per cent TA re-
duction, as well as encouraging further
cutbacks in TA funding, Frye makes ob-
vios that his concern about the number
of grndduate students is merely rhetori-
cnl. With thesenvisioned cutbacks, there
will be fewer graduate students able to
afford the luxury of a University gradu-
ate education.
Already, from data supplied by the
University (later claimed to be "pre-
liminary") we know that for Winter
1975, women and minorities were under-
represented in graduate student assist-
antship (GSA) positions in 34 out of 35
college fired off a memo to Vice Presi-
dent Frank Rhodes, a document which
is revealing for. the discriminatory as-
sumptions it makes about women and
minorities.
CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING ex-
tracts from the memo:
1) The Economics Department "was
interested only in candidates with a
strong mathematics background. . . .
minority economists tend to prefer the
less quantitative, more policy-oriented
sub-fields in economics .
The memo provides no evidence to
substantiate the assumption about mi-
nority "preferences". Employers mak-
ing these assumptions seldom try to see
if they are valid and almost never ques-
tion why a certain minority group mem-
ber may be dissuaded from getting a
"quantitative" education.
2) "The science departments in partic-
ular have found that many minority ap-
plicants are of Asian origin, often for-
eign nationals, who apply for positions
for which they do not have the specific
qualifications. It appears that some of
these people are so anxious to remain
in the U.S. that they respond to job
advertisements rather indiscriminately."
IT IS ASSUMED here that objective
judgements are made as to who is
qualified. Minorities and women are of-
ten considered unqualified because of
their race or sex. Another assumption is
that the Asian foreign nationals will go
out of their way to get a job to en-
able them to stay in the U. S. No evi-
dence is given to support this allegation.
There is no apparent reason that Asian
foreign nationals are more likely than
foreign nationals from other areas to ap-
ply for jobs they are not "qualified"
for. If indeed it is true that Asian for-
eign nationals have a hard time gain-
ing permanent residence, it may be be-
cause they have been refused jobs for
discriminatory reasons similar to those
manifested by LSA.
A final assumption is that Asian for-
eign nationals are American minorities.
This leads to serious inflation of the
Frye
'Already, from data supplied by the University (1 a t e r
claimed to be "preliminary") we know that for Winter
1975, women and minorities were underrepresented in
graduate assistantship positions in 34 out of 35 LS&A de-
partments or units. In addition four LS&A departments
had no minorities enrolled as graduate students.'
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lishing as much as men, in spite of
the fact that they are generally found
in positions where research and publi-
cation can only be more difficult to
produce. There is no conclusive evidence
to support the myth that men publish
more."
A FURTHER ASSUMPTION is that
the number of publications is a valid
criterion in hiring. It must be remem-
bered in practice that a person who pub-
lishes advance chapters from his disser-
tation as articles is more likely to get
a job than a person who merely publish-
es one dissertation (an example cited
by Abramson). Furthermore there is no
evidence to suggest that the number of
publications is a good predictor of teach-
ing ability. Of course, we all know that
the University is a research institution,
and that it downgrades teaching. If in-
deed this selection criterion has discrim-
inatory effects, it should be discarded,
and certainly it cannot be used to justify
lack of affirmative action.
4) "It is unfortunate when depart-
ments lose good male candidates be-
cause a position cannot be found for
a wife who is also a first-rate scholar.
Conversely, women reject offers because
their husbands cannot be placed at Mich-
igan."
Other parts of the memo suggest that
this equality of concern for both hus-
band and wife is more apparent than
real. The following are quotations from
all the examples where marital status
is mentioned in the memo: "the other
(woman) would only come if her hus-
band were offered a position also. This
was not feasible"; "A year previously
the Department of Zoology found an ex-
cellent black female candidate for a
position but was not able to find a place
for her husband and therefore lost her";
"Several departments which have been
successful in the University in hiring fe-
males recently have benefitted from the
help of other units in the University
in finding appropriate positions for the
husbands."
Note that there is no instance of a
minority male reported to be "lost" be-
cause his wife could not be placed.
Prevalent is the myth that the wife "be-
longs" to the husband; that the man can
relocate, but if the woman is going to,
we must be concerned about the man.
ABRAMSON NOTES THAT in such in-
stances, the woman's qualifications or
even willingness to relocate are ignored;
instead, attention is focused on finding
a job for her husband. "Since no job
could be found for her husband, she
was denied the opportunity to make up
her own mind," writes Abramson about
one instance. "Such thoughtfulness is
almost never found in reverse."
The memo does have some laudable
points, such as the commitment to pro-
vide departments with travel funds to
recruit minority and female candidates.
It alsoDmakes the following statement,
which. Dean Frye might want to ponder:
"A "good faith' effort to comply with
HEW procedures may be meaningless if
departments still conclude at the end of
an elaborate search that a white male
candidate is the most qualified. The test
of affirmative action should be the num-
ber of offers made to women and minori-
ties and the number actually hired."
One might want to add, "genuine of-
fers, not of the Jewel Cobb variety."
'A "good faith" effort to
comply with HEW proced-
ures may be meaningless if
departments still conclude at
the end of an elaborate
search that a white male can-
didate is the most qualified.
The test of affirmative ac-
tion should be the number
of offers made to women
and minorities and the num-
ber actually hired.'
A FINAL ILLUSTRATION indicates
the most current LS&A position on af-
firmative action. It is taken from LSA,
Winter 1976,sa college publication that
came out last week. It goes: "The U-M
Affirmative Action program seeks to in-
crease the number of both "minority per-
sons and women at all job levels. Aca-
demic women, for example, are under-
represented in administrative areas be-
cause of their scarcity and lack of seni-
ority."
Of course. Jewel Cobb was refused an
administrative position because she lack-
ed "seniority" (tenure?). "Scarcity"
and "lack of seniority" in fact are syno-
nyms for discriminatory practices, some-
thing LS&A apparently has yet to catch
on to. From published and written state-
ments by Dean Frye and other LS&A
officials, it is clear the LS&A has no
understanding of what affirmative ac-
tion means. The college seems not to
recognize that affirmative action is aim-
ed at the elimination of discriminatory
past practices. The Dean is not likely
to make any substantive effort to coun-
ter sexist and racist attitudes and prac-
tices in LS&A departments for he would
be jeopardizing his relationship with the
faculty., After all, most faculty, we're
told, support him as Dean. Why not?
They are mostly white, male, and ten-
ured.
Dan, Tsang is currently studying of-
firmative action among graduate em-
ployees.
LSA departments or units. In addition
four LSA department had no minorities
enrolled as graduate students. The
Graduate Employees Organization
(GEO), now newly-affiliated as AFT/
MFT local 3550, has all along insisted
that the University fulfill its affirmative
action obligations for GSAs. GEO has
argued for active recruiting of women
and minorities as part of the Univer-
sity's program for GSAs. The Univer-
sity refuses to do that, and without ac-
tive recruitment, it is unlikely that cur-
rent figures will show any improve-
ment. Given GEO's militancy on affirm-
ative action, it is no coincidence that
TAs are now considered expendable by
Dean Frye.
The University's affirmative action
"progress" report for 1973-4 found that
11 LSA departments "did not set goals
for hiring minorities". In response the
data, and may give the impression that
the University is meeting affirmative ac-
tion goals when in fact it is not. For in-
stance, less than 16 per cent of Asian
GSAs was found by GEO to be U. S. citi-
zens. As a result, GEO notified the U.S.
Department of Health Education (HEW),
which ruled that non-resident aliens
must not be included in the data. The
University has now agreed to comply
with the HEW ruling insofar as regards
GSAs; it is unclear if it will do the same
for other employees.
3) "Three non-minority women were
considered but eliminated, again be-
cause of lack of publications."
The myth here is that women tend
not to publish as much as men. In fact,
Joan Abramson argues in her new book
The Invisible Woman: Discrimination
in the Academic Profession, that "there
is evidence that women may be pub-
Letters
'el'
dears
To The Daily:
IT IS SADDENING when the
media misrepresents an event,
or series of events, to the point
of suppressing the issues. From
reading your editorial on Sat-
urday, February 21, 1976, con-
cerning the LSA Deanship
Search committee, one might
surmise that the only reason
undergraduate students were
not represented was because of
a personal squabble between
President Fleming and LS&A
Student Government President
Amy Berlin. This is not only
an inaccurate assessment of
the situation, but it also totally
ignores the major issue at hand:
the right of students to choose
their own representatives to
college committees.
First of all, a correction is in
order. The failure of undergrad-
uate students to be appointed
to the committee was not the
result of "procedural haggling"
between Mr. Fleming and Ms.
Berlin; it was a conscious ac-
tion by Fleming, and a response
by the entire LSA Student Gov-
ernment. Mr. Fleming demand-
ed a list of six names for the
committee, of which he would
select two as representatives.
In complying with the spirit of
an agreement made with the
LS&A Executive Committee,
which gave the LSA-SG the
power to appoint student repre-
sentatives to all college com-
in the selection of the dean.
THE EDITORIAL further mis-
represented the issue by assert-
ing that "where the blame lies
is unimportant." On the con-
trary, Mr. Fleming's actions set
a very dangerous precedent of
administrative interference in
the selection of student repre-
sentatives to college commit-
tees. We feel that the right of
student governments to appoint
representatives to college com-
mittees is a necessity for effec-
tive student participation in col-
lege governance.
The LS&A deanship search is
over. While the Daily's advo-
cacy for the implementation of
affirmative action guidelines is
of vital importance the issue
of student representation should
be regarded as equally crucial.
Debra Fisher,
James P. McFadden,
Richard Brazee
and others
February 26, 1976
Singles Workshop
To The Daily:
WE WERE SURPRISED, sad-
dened, and a little angered to
read the article about Bob and
Margaret Blood's Singles Work-
shop written by Ann Marie Lip-
inski (Sunday. February 22).
Our experiences with Bob and
Margaret as individuals and
with the groups as a whole
to Tho
seems clear to us about how
beneficial a workshop is to any
particular participant: those
that expect to grow, to learn,
to trust, and to love find the
space and the support to do so.
Those that enter with cynicism
will leave with synicism.
L
Daily
Bill Mahde
Helene Rot
Jill Weese,
Lori Rotten
February 2
tenberg,
iberg
3, 1976
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