Poge 4-Safurday, Aprilt2T,'1979-The'M1chigbn'DoHt
~michigan DAILY
Eighty-eight Years of Editorial Freedom
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News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
Letters
MSA Elections head
needs more power
Regents ignore
own resolution
Y ESTERDAY'S Regents meeting was
one of the University's darkest hours
- a session in which the school's ruling
body displayed its complete disregard for
the University community by voting to
keep its investments in two corporations
promoting the racist apartheid system in
South Africa.
And while the Regents' anti-divestiture stance
has been aired so many times in the past, yester-
day's vote was the most tragic of all; the Board
showed that it was even unwilling to abide by a
resolution it passed in March, 1978.
That resolution said the Regents would divest
from any companies not making genuine efforts
to comply with the non-discriminatory Sullivan
Principles. Specifically, those guidelines urged
companies to equalize working facilities for their
white and black employees, place more non-
whites in managerial positions, and work toward
providing equal and fair education for the
children of black employees.
But the Regents yesterday re-defined the intent
of that earlier resolution. The two corporations,
Black & Decker and G. D. Searle, both revealed
that they had not affirmed the Sullivan Principles,
but claimed they comply with the spirit of those
rules. Under the new definition of the resolution,
that response was sufficient for five Board mem-
bers.
But the Regents, like any other public body,
cannot be allowed to violate their own resolutions.
If this practice becomes a ritual, the public would
not be able to trust its representatives.
Furthermore, as anti-apartheid activist Anne
Fullerton's 22-page report indicated last month,
many of the reforms in the Sullivan Principles
cannot be implemented due to the repressive
policies of the South Africa regime. And if those
guidelines are opposed by the South African
government, how can Black & Decker and G. D.
Searle claim their reforms are effective?
Many observers expected the Regents to divest
yesterday in order to conciliate student
protesters. But the shocking decision must be
very frustrating to the coalition of students who
have worked for nearly two years.to force the
University out of South Africa.
Students may at least be encouraged by the
positions taken by the three Regents on the losing
side of the debate. Regent James Waters (D-
Muskegon) took the biggest step, publicly calling
for divestment of all University holdings in cor-
porations operating in South Africa. Regent
Gerald Dunn (D-Livonia) has apparently waited
long enough for proof of reform from those two
companies - he introduced a motion to divest
from Black and Decker and G. D. Searle. And
Regent Sarah Power (D-Ann Arbor) also voted to
divest from those two companies.
Students should continue the struggle to get the
University out of South Africa.
To the Daily:
Now that the furor of the
Michigan Student Assembly
(MSA) election has died down
somewhat, I would like to
publicize some excerpts and
summarizations from my final
report as elections director.
Copies of the report are available
at the MSA office during normal
business hours.
The election was held as plan-
ned in April and was conducted to
the best of my ability subject to
Central Student Judiciary (CSJ)
final certification rulings. But,
there were two major problems
with the- election. The first
problem occurred when some
MSA poll sites hadt to be closed
(though MSA indicated on their
literature that sites were subject
to change, this still was a big
problem). The second problem
was unmanned pollsites which
led to the possibility of ballot box
stuffing. The validation process
is designed to prevent these
things from happening. Part of
these problems was due to a lack
of election pollworkers which
were not my responsibility to
contract and their lack of ability
to read the sheet of instructions,
that came with each ballot box.
But these are problems which
happen in every election.
THE TREASURER Brad
Canale never filed a report with
me, so I am not clear as to the
exact figures of the budget. But,
he told me informally that it was
around $5000. I authorized Brad
to pay all election bills. Tim
O'Neill, who was hired by MSA to
count ballots, was also supposed
to file a report with MSA and
myself, but failed to do so..
Given the fact that I was hired
only two and a half weeks before
the election, I did what I could
under the circumstances. Unfor-
tunately, the division of authority
was not clear enough, as I was
left scrambling for pollworkers
at the last minute, a task I
thought was Brad's. There were
other duties of which I was not in
charge yet later was held respon-
sible. I suggest withholding
O'Neill's salary until he turns in
his report.
To spare the next elections
director the hassles that I went
through, both physically and
mentally, I recommend that
either the next director be hired
at least 6-8 weeks in advance of
the election and be given com-
plete control over the procees
(which I was not), or that MSA
have an outside group to run it,
such as the American Arbitration
Association.
IT WOULD BE better for all
concerned if an outside group ran
the election because then clearly
no MSA member or party-af-
filiates could be accused of ballot-
stuffing. The group would have to
be given complete control over
the process, have two months to
prepare and have extensive
knowledge of the MSA election
code and constitution. This would
guaranteeimpartialityrand
student elections director
wouldn't have to worry about cut-
ting classes.
I don't feel the cost would be
any more than what's budgeted
now for anelection and it would
eliminate most of the confusion
for all involved.
It was impossible to try to run a
decent election with the amount
of time and administrative power
that I had. Things were too
rushed for anyone to have done a
proper job and MSA's help turned
out to be more detrimental than
useful. Reports were not filed,
workers not hired, and instruc-
tions not given because of a lack
of preparation and other
problems plagued this election.
I DON'T wish to blame anyone
because I do believe people were
working on my side and not for
chaos, but I do feel that I have
caught a lot of unnecessary flack
from several people and
organizations. While this is to be
expected for anyone in a position
of authority, I still contend I had
the least amount of personal con-
trol over the budget, workers,
poll sites and the election in
general than any other director
but received a lot of criticism.
The responsibility lies with
MSA. There simply wasn't
enough time to run a good elec-
tion. It was a miracle that this
election even went off as well as it
did. MSA definitely should have
hired an election director sooner,
who would have had a clear
division of authority.
This report is not meant to
criticize MSA or accuse anyone of
irresponsibility, but to present
the facts and to make suggestions
on how to improve the system. I
hope MBA will seriously consider
everything I have said and that
we can learn from the mistakes
everyone made. I have, and I
hope the next MSA elections
director has better luck than I
did.
--Emily Koo,
MSA election director
Rock and Roll
To the Daily:
Mike Taylor's recent article
about free radio was an in-
credibly biased and limited View
of radio and Rock and Roll. Mr.
Taylor's obsession with Punk
Rock clouds his music judgment
ability. He says that groups like:
The Clash, The Patti Smith
Group, the Ramones, George
Thorogood and the Destroyers,
Sonic's Rendezvous Band, the
Mutants, and the Romantics
represent what rock and roll is.
In fact, he mentions only one true
rock and roll band: George
Thorogood and the Destroyers.
Mr. Taylor obviously doesn't
know what rock and roll is. Chuck
Berry is rock and roll. Bob
Seeger, J. Geils, Lynyrd Skynrd,
Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones,
among others are what rock and
roll is all about. Punk rock is
nothing more than a 1970's off-
shoot of the 1960's radical acid
rock. Unfortunately, whereas the
acid rock of the 60's had relevan-
ce, punk rock doesn't fit in
today's society.
As for Mr. Taylor's point about
free radio, I found it narrowmin-
ded and not well thought out. Is it
more important to play odd and
sometimes unbearable music or
is it more important to give the
people what they want? When
FRN member Joel Burtler says,
"There should be more Detroit
bands on the radio," she ob-
viously nevers listens to
WWWW's local hour on Mondays,
where Detroit area bands send
their tapes in and get air play. It
seems as though the Free Radio
Now group wants to change radio
programming whether the
majority of people want it or not.
-Ken LaFerele
April 12, 1979
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