V6YE TALK.- 5p1A) T, 5YWmLw. 86MOCO OF ~a rA$ASA rs aL Orzq M The Michigan Daily Edited and managed by Students at the University af Michigan Thursday, August 11, 1977 News Phone: 764-0552 'U' ties with South Africa must stifl be questioned ON MAY 12, 294 Stanford University students were ar- rested for protesting that institution's investments in corporations with financial ties to South Africa. Two days later, at a Ford Motor Company stockholders' meeting, representatives of those student protestors forced a vote on the question of whether Ford should retain its holdings in South Africa, or pull out completely. The motion lost by greater'than a five to one margin, and two million of those votes to stay in South Africa came from the University of Michigan.. All told, the University has over $40 million invested in corporations that have financial ties to South Africa. In May and June, several groups of concerned students ask- ed the Regents to reconsider the University's financial support of the racist regime of minority leader John Vor- ster. Some groups demanded the University immediately divest itself of those holdings, while others asked the Re- gents to consider using its votes and influence at stock- holders' meetings to urge the corporations themselves to pull out. THE REGENTS and administration listened to the speak- ers during those months, but little-action was taken, Finally, University Vice President for Financial Affairs James Brinkerhoff met with student representatives, and a representative of the African National Congress (which has observer status in the U.N.), and promised there would be a campus-wide forum in the Fall in which spokesper- sons both from the corporations, the white minority gov- ernment in South Africa, the African National Congress and others would all be invited to present their views to the campus community, including the Regents and admin- istration. However, since that promise was made, the matter has been all but forgotten by the campus. With Fall rapidly approaching, thousands of students will be returning to town with little or no knowledge of this situation, and un- less we can reach them, the forum may be doomed. Brinkerhoff has assured us this week the forum will be a reality this Fall, but that won't be enough to convince the Regents to stop supporting the racist minority govern- ment. We have to attend those forums and appear at Re- gents meetings to let them know our feelings. The Re- gents have the final power, but without our plodding and protesting they will act. The oppressed people of South Africa need our help, so let's not let them down. Let's keep this issue-alive in the Fall, and convince the University to change its investment policy. Kids now taking folks to their days in courts By CONNIE BRUCK A 15-year-old girl in Washington asks a juvenile court to declare her "incorrigible" and place her in a foster home of her choice. She and her par- ents'have been feuding-over whom she dates, whether or not she may smoke-and she considers these differences irreconcilable. The judge, apparently concerned that she might otherwise run sway from home, grants her re- quest. His decision, appealed by the parents, is upheld by the State Supreme Court. In Massachusetts, a number of pregnant teen- agers join as unnamed plaintiffs in a suit attack- ing the constitutionality of a state statute, which requires a minor desiring an abortion to gain the consent of both parents or a court order. The case will be heard by the U.S. Supreme-Court in the fall. AND IN CALIFORNIA-in a case that will soon come before the state Sppreme Court-a 14-year- old youth challenges the law which allows a par- ent to commit a child to a mental hospital without any hearing. The inevitable contest has begun. Across the country, youth advocates are declaring that chil- dren, too, have their inalienable rights, which cannot be infringed upon-whether by state, school system, or even their own parents. This last claim, however, raises the most difficult and unique issue thus far in children's rights, and un- derscores how thin movement differs significant- ly from earlier liberation movements. The key question, of course, is what constitutes an abuse of parental authority. Parents have their rights, too, and their prero- gative to raise their children as they see fit has always been protected, the family's autonomy zealously, guarded against intrusion by the state. Should parents and kids start drawing up cam.- tracts to regulate family quarrels? Some youth advocates have even suggested the next frontier for children's litigation might well be tonsillec- tomies, special schools, even summer camps.. This is the fractious future some lawyers and judges have begun to fear and fantasize about- a state of insurrection in which' each and every parental mandate would be subject to challenge. "People who are against children's rights al- ways invoke this outrageous, absolutely incorri- gible spoiled brat who just says to hell with you whenever his parents ask him to do anything- and they're afraid that this sort of individual is now going to have power," says Peter Bull, at- torney at Legal Services for Children in San Fran- cisco. "But the fact is that it's very unusual for a child to want to confront a parent-children m- ture gradually, and until a certain point, they want to be dependent." The most-active area of children's legal repre- sentation is custody battles-where the family unit is already breaking up, and the judicial me- chanism is in gear. Echoing a growing trend across the country in the last year or so, the Cali- fornia legislature in January gave courts the dis- cretionary power to appoint attorneys for children in custody battles. Consider, for example, the case of Alice, who was thirteen when her parents decided to divorce, about two years ago. Alice's natural mother had died when she was four, and her father remarried two years later; but his new wife never bothered to go through formal adoption proceedings. ALICE DESPERATELY wanted to go live with the woman who had been mother to her for al- most as long as she could remember; but the court ruled that as neither natural nor adoptive mother, she had no legal standing in the case, and awarded custody to the natural father. Alice confided her troubles to her teacher, who in turn told the story to a lawyer friend, Liz Cole, then practicing in San Jose, Calif. "It really made me mad," Cole recalled, "so I mouthed off about how the kids should have some rights-it just wasn't fair. I said that while I could see how the mother had no standing, I thought the child ought to. Next thing I know, I get a call from Alice-wanting to hire me as her lawyer." TODAY, ALICE is proud of having fought for her right to be heard, but she stresses that her victory was not a simple one. It was, after all, not some oppressive state law or school regimen that she prevailed over, but her father. Such triumphs are tempered. "Until now," Alice declares, "you just took what you got if you were a kid-it's been like that for- ever, I guess. But it seems only commop sense that kids should have as many rights, and be re- presented if they're in a bad situation. This isn't a question of kids marching and organizing-they can't, anyway-it's just a matter of people having to think differently: like, that kids are people too." To attorney Gabe Kaimowitz -of Michigan Legal Services in Detroit, progress in children's rights seems slow indeed. "The U.S. Supreme Court has said in a number of decisions that the Fourteenth Amendment is "not for adults alone'-but that doesn't mean that the Constitution is for cil- dren," Kairnowits complains. "It means that they will decide inch by Inch, case by case, circum- stance by circumstance, whether this child is A person."