S£f&n tanit 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.' :":::"L.'.": t.... ....... .... ...t '":.: F;L.t:FFFF " F '."f'.^.':.........F , ,!: :: . ... 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 5 4 s/ zr try , _ n