The Michigan Daily
Edited and managed by Students at the
University of Michigan
Thursday, May 19, 1977
News Phone: 764-0552
University's investment
policy needs change; now
fHE UNIVERSITY has over $64 million invested in cor-
porations with financial ties to the racist minority
government of South Africa. The Administration and the
Regents seem completely, satisfied with the situation.
They shouldn't be.
Today, students will address the subject of Univer-
sity investments at the regular Regents meeting. They
need our support.
The Regents have said the University always votes
with management, or sells the stock in question, as an
explanation of their vote last week against a stockhold-
er's resolution which would have forbade Ford Motor
Company investment in South Africa, had it passed.
The Regents and administrators have said our invest-
ments would expedite the demise of Prime Minister John
.Vorster's regime in South Africa, and would provide an
economic base for the black majority when the inevitable
change of power finally occurs.
But, they are mistaken.
Actually, every dollar we and other investors pump
into South Africa breathes just that much more life in
the oppressive white-minority rule there.
Although it is true the industrializatidn of that coun-
try has raised the salaries of block laborers, the salaries
of their invariably white bosses have jumped at a much
greater rate. So, the deplorable disparity between black
and white wages increases.
And, while investments in South Africa have grown
steadily in the past five years, the government steadily
has grown more oppressive, at a comparable rate.
LAST WEEK over 100 blacks died in skirmishes with
police and soldiers in South Africa.
Last week hundreds of block children died from mal-
nutrition or because of poor medical care in South Africa.
Last week blacks still were not allowed to go into
the "white areas," and they still have no say in govern-
ment in South Africa.
Last week, this University tacitly approved Ford Mo-
tor Company's support-through-investment of that re-
gime.
Rather than sell its stock, the University should in-
itiate and support stockholders resolutions which could
require Ford to divest itself of any and all financial
dealings with politically repressive countries.
Students recognize the promotion of human rights
through strategic foreign investment as more important
than making a buck Students also recognize the poten-
tial financial power the University could wield - if it
wants to. The Regents must also recognize there moral
obligation.s
The students, which have already secured spots on
the agenda, will address this issue, even though the
Regents had no intention of discussing it.
The Regents must realize students cannot morally
support this University's investment policy. The Regents
should not support that investment policy, either.
We, as students, as Americans, must protest the
University's present stance.
Pardon me, sir. Would you like to be born again?
Ludicrous Lou loses
line on
By JEFF RISTINE
Lou Gordon made a fool out of
himself the other night, and in
doing so taught his viewers a
valuable lesson about the right
and wrong ways to discuss the
issue of recombinant DNA re-
search.
Gordon, Detroit's premier tel-
evision talk show host, utility
rate hike foe and liberal gadfly,
departed last Saturday from his
customary guest roster of poli-
ticians, sexual therapists, book
peddlers and assorted freaks to
invite a pair of scientists for a
joust over genetic experiments
w i t h recombinant DNA. Dr.
Frederick Neidhardt, a profes-
sor and chairman of our own
University's microbiology de-
partment, was to have.faced an
MIT-scientist in a gentlemanly
point-counterpoint.
As regular viewers of Lovable
Lou's twice-weekly program on
Channel So know, however, guest
and host end up shouting at each
other as often as not. Gordon
employs a prosecutorial inter-
view style that makes Mike Wal-
lace look like Joe Garagiol,.
Philadelphia's Frank Rizzo and
former M i c h i g a n Governor
George Romney have stalked off
in angel during their chats with
(DNA) learning
Gordon, and other subjects have combinant DNA research, as c
been reduced to flustered, em- posed to the broad category
barrassing speechlessness. DNA research or, as Gord.
It wasn't Logical Lou's offen- tried to phrase it, DNA.
sive style that ruined last Sat- Lightweight Lou also had
urday's program, however. It be told bacteria have genes a.
was his utter ignorance of vir- all living things have gene
tually every aspect of the re- When Neidhardt t r i e d, wi
combinant DNA question, and scale models, to show Gord.
his unwillingness to acknowledge how the size of a single stra'
it. Before the end of the pro- of DNA compares to the size
gram, the two scientists, their a cell, the point flew past Gt.
d e b a t e aborted by continual don like a Concorde SST. Anu
hostus interruptus, resorted to at the end of the program, when
unsuccessful attempts to teach both scientists were vainly at-
Gordon the most elementary as- tempting to summarize their ar-
pects of j u n i o r high school guments, Gordon suddenly be-
biology. gan haranguing them for failing
RECOMBINANT DNA re- to discover a cancer cure.
search involves the transfer of "I'm all confused and I'm try-
a DNA fragment from one or- ing to sort this out," Loquacious
ganism to a bacterium of an- Lou finally admitted.
other species, thereby altering NO ONE COULD have learned
the latter's genetic characteris- very much from the program,
tics. Most of the controversy but it did make clear the poten-
surrounding the experiments has tial damage from wild debate
focused on potential risks and over a complicated issue. Many
benefits and whether the re- aspects of the recombinant DNA
search should be regulated or research question have yet to be
banned. \ resolved (whether protective
Gordon opened his interview laws are necessary, for exam-
with the two scientists by as- ple), and the public will need
serting recombinant DNA re- spokespersons far more inform-
search could create "little green ed and articulate than Lou Gor-
men or pointed-ear men or a don -to advance both sides of
poined-ear Dr. (sic) Spock," a the argument. If talk show hosts
ridiculous s t a te m e nt which continue to frame the genetic
would embarrass even the most experiments in terms of Frank-
ardent opponents of the genetic ensteen monsters and pointed-
experiments. ear Mr. Spocks, recombinant
DNA research will be adjudi-
LUDICROUS LOU p u r s u e d cated by emotion, not facts.
this angle even further, asking That means pretentious, self-
Neidhardt whether recombinant righteous "opinion leaders" like
DNA could be used to create Gordon will have to stop regard-
"a human being," "some kind of ing the recombinant DNA issue
Frankensteen (that's the way he so personally. Lowbrow Lou con-
pronounced it) monster," or "a tinually expressed fear about
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." If what might happen if someone
Gordon knew his subject as well "crossed my genes" with an-
as he knew monster movie met- other organism.
aphors, the program could have Which, come to think of it,
been a success. could revive a popular style of
I'm not saying Gordon should humor:
have memorized the structure What would you get if you
of E. coli or mapped out a chro- crossed Lou Gordon's g e n e s
mosome, but get this: it wasn't with a particular tree known for
until the interview was nearly its strong, du r a b 1 e, whitish
over that Gordon realized the wood?
scientists were discussing re- (-q snodusod v :Jamsuv)
We need
your help
.: Attend Regents
meeting -
1:30 p.m.,
Regents Rm.
Admn.,
Contact your reps
Sen. Donald Riegle (Dem.), 1205 Dirksen Bldg., Washing-
ton, D.C. 20510
Sen. Robert Griffin (Rep.), 353 Russell Bldg., Capitol hill,
Washington, D.C. 20515.
Rep. Carl Pursell (Rep.), 1709 Longworth House Office Bldg.,
Washington, D.C. 20515.
Sen. Gilbert Bursley (Rep.), Senate, State Capitol Bldg.,
Lansing, MI 48933.
Rep. Perry Bullard (Dem), house of Representatives, State
Capitol Bldg., Lansing, NI 48933.