The Michigan Daily
Edited and managed by Students at the
University of Michigan
Friday; May 9, 1975
News Phone: 764-0552
Women publicly abused
Affi1rmative action vital
for administrafive posts
THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION committee's sweeping re-
view of the literary college (LSA) deanship crisis has
stirred sharply different responses among administrators
and faculty members. Some protest the panel's criticism
of the adminietration and zoology department as unduly
harsh, while others call for even stronger indictments
of those persons responsible for the University's failure
last January to hire black woman educator Jewel Cobb
for the LSA deanship.
However, the University community appears united
in its supnort of the panel's recommendation that "af-
firmative action he nursued more energetically at allj
faculty levels, in LSA, including department chairper-
sons."
The report reveals the shameful statistics on the
University's failnre to fulfill it commitment to affirma-
tive action. In TSA only. about five per cent of full pro-
fessors are women or minority persons. Only one of the
more than fift, denartments and administrative units
within LSA is headed by a black chairman and none by
a woman (aside from the Center for Afro-American
Studies, the Woman's Studies Program, and the Center
for the Use of Learning Skills).
THE WOMEN'S COMMISSION has strongly endorsed
the lon overdne recommendation, urging the Uni-
versity to pav more than its current-lip service to affirm-
ative action. The Regents must act on Recent James
Waters' (D-Mnskeon) susestion that they keep a clos-
er watch on affirmative action.
A letter sisned by virtually all denartment chair-
persons that disagreed with some of the investigative
panel's conclusions. expressed general agreement with
th committee's finding that roagrass on affirmative ac-
tion has been too slow. In some cases action has been
non-existent. The University has been filing its commit-,
ment to affirmative action away in the low-priority
file for too long. It must be scooted to the top of-the list
The University must heed history professor and LSA
dean searchship committee member Godfrey Uzoigwe's
charge that the university "believes that women and mi-
norities are only capable of holding certain minor posi-
tions." It is a situation that Uzoigwe declares "bath'the
minority and women faculty members will not tolerate
for much longer." It is a situation which no one in the
University community should allow to continue.
By SUSAN HILDEBRANDT
ANN ARBOR has become a
crazy town - an unsafe
town. Years ago it was one of
the counter-cultural centers of
the country, setting the pace for
other cities and, for times yet
to come - or so we thought.
It was alive with vital people
refusing to accept the unjust
standards of an unhealthy so-
ciety and attempting to liberate
not only themselves, but others.
At some timein the past sev-
en or eight years, these people
have disappeared into oblivion
and all vestiges of the p as t
have been replaced by the hip
commercialism that once was
reserved for places that could
only vainly imitate the Ann Ar-
bors of the United States.
Politically restless winds, car-
rying a message of peace and
hope for the future and for all
opnressed peoples, positioned it-
self over the town, clouding
dreams of equality and libera-
tion. Tranquility has never been
an actuality in Ann Arbor, but
at oge time it was a goal and
it threatened only those who
stood to lose material wealth.
WOMEN, perhaps, more than
any other group, are paying the
price of this transition, as many
men, blind to the necessity of
the Women's Movement, feel
threatened by the Cause and ie-
fuse to accept women's deter-
mination to equalize the sexes
and to become recognized as
independent and capable mem-
bers of society.
These narrow-minded men il-
lustrated their naivete and/or
stimidity in various sexual ways
against women, thus perpetua-
ting archaic and stiffling atti-
tides about women and t a e i r
societal position. This is evi-
dent in virtnally every city, su-
hnrb and town of this coantrv.
However, for a town with a
no'nalstion of approximately
100.000. romnrised of self-pro-
fessed liberal males unable to
extend their "beliefs" to wo-
men, Ann Arbor can claim an
tuns'ally high rate of sexual
abuse nernetrated against mem-
bers of the female sex. As one
of the women residents of this
increasingly dangerous town -
dengeroits for those of us who
resent being laced in the posi-
tion of attack - I am sick to
death of being the obja.ct of
some lonely idiot's pe, versity
and I live in dreaded fear cf
rape, a position that I' find un-
necessary and grossly unfair.
I HAVE confronted three dif-
ferent and repulsile (can they
be anything but repulsive con-
sidering the circumstances?)
exhibitionists - one while s't-
ting in the hallway of a Uni-
versity b-ilding awaiting a three
o'clock class; one while des-
cending a parking structurn lo-
cated in a busy section of cam-
pus; another as I sat in nay
tivingroom gazing in'o space.
(A trouserlesi man in the ad-
jacent house pressed himself
against the window, diiplayng,
among other things, a sick
irin).
"A refusal generally
is met with a shrug and
nothing more, but the
rape statistics in Ann
Arbor prove that this
is not always t h e
case."
I fail to be amused or im-
pressed by these men who feel
a need to expose themselves to
unsuspecting women, for what-
ever reason. It is accepted that
males engaging in this form of
perversion are relatively harm-
less, posing no physical ,hreat
to their victims, yet the emo-
tional effects certainly cannot
be labeled as such, and sexual
abuse directed toward myself
and other women has not stop-
ped at this seemingly unsubstan-
tial point.
MY PRIVACY has bemn ir-
vaded on numerous ocis'oa by-
men who choose to saitisty the-r
sexual drive or some mental
or emoti snal void by peering
into the windows of in nlose
or by maktng obsele and ob-
noxious telephone calls during
the late h.,urs of the night. As
the receiver of these frigh en-
ing assaults, I am unable to pre-
pare myself for the esi.uneac-
es even though I hav becomn
adept at scaring areser ing
"Peeping Tom" and ar silcnrc-
ing verbal assaulte's. And. u-
like many other fame er
semi-sympathetic men, I do
consider this method of obtama-
ing gratification through the use
of my physical and emotional
being to bu dehumanizing, de-
grading and defini'e.y assault-
ing. I have yet to be raped,
but the mental tor-ire result-
ing from compiling-lesser sex-
ual abuses cannot be mitch less
devastating than the effecti of
sexual intercourse committed
through sheer force.
Perhaps I feel this way be-
cause I have been frequtently
grabed, tinched, sqteezel and
kissed by strangars nt* h e
streets while attending to my
own affairs and intri-AhI upon
no one or askyng in no ay,
physically or verba'y, for such
abuse.
WOMEN ARE rarely able to
walk the streets of this town
without confronting verbal har-
rassment in some farm ranging
from espousals of sexist term-
inology and sugges'ions to ac-
tual threats. On one occason,
some attention starve:l m e n
looking for some fun found it
humorous to threats me with
the emergence of concealed
knives if I did not comply with
their sexual wishes. A refusal
was, and generally i's, met with
a shrug and nothing more, but
the rape statistics in Ann As-
bor prove that this is not al-
ways the case. So fir, I guess
I have been lucky, if one could
call the extent of these assaults
fortunate.
The fear of further abuses in
any form, which so deg.-trde
women as people, has invaded
my waking and sleeping
thoughts. I have yet to uncovir
the reasons for this behavior by
males -- perhaps l:>neliness;
perhaps enactment Af threaten-
ed feelines about one's ass- so-
cietal position: perhaps vindic-
tiveness. Choose any rational-
ization - they're equally anger-
ing yet saddening - as sadden-
ing as it ever it t; witnss
cruelty and mental as emt ion-
al instability that provoke these
types of actions.
I AM TIRED of t .in- that
I elicit this behavit in so-ne
way - I on't - and I'm tared
of having to curtail my activi-
ties so as to protect myself. I
would refuse to do so ry uong-
er, but I would be the' only per-
son to pay the cons.umences.
Ailitter
letter can
and ohrul
ly JOSEPH TUCLIHNSKY
TFI ONLY thing certain about a pleas-
ant spring walk along a country road
is that everywhere you look you'll see
the evidence of a throw-away society -
and nothing so frequently as cans and
bottles that once held beer or soft dripks.
Maybe that's why principled legisla-
tors keep reintroducing bills to ban one-
trip bottles and cans, despite one of the
most powerful opposition lobbies ever
pit together.
The opposition coalition includes, as
you might expect, the manufacturers of,
cans and throwaway bottles, the bottlers
and brewers who don't want to change
their processing lines, the grocery chains
who don't want to use more space for
storing returned bottles or more money
paying employees to handle them.
And, not surprisingly, the Chamber
of Commerce and the various industry
associations are in there lobbying.
BUT IT MAY not have occurred to you
that labor is also a big part of that coa-
lition. Maybe you've read that lots of
pobs in bottling plants were lost to
automation with the introduction of
throwaway bottles. Or you figured that
the reason the industry opposes the bills
is that a return-and-rense system is.
more labor-intensive.
All very true. But the unions that
represent employees in can and bottle
manufacturing want to save every job,
and proving to them that more new jobs
will be created than old jobs ended
doesn't comfort them one bit. They're op-
posed, and so is the AFL-CIO to which
they belong.
The Teamsters are opposed too. No
one seems to know why, since all the
evidence indicates that a returnable- bot-
Pirgim Reports-is a regular serv-
ice of Public Interest Research"
Group in Michigan. Joseph Tuchin-
sky is a Pirgirma staff member.
ties system creates more trucking and
warehousing jobs.
Industry, retailing, and labor make a
formidable coalition when they get to-
gether. Lash year they kept the bottles
bill from even coming to a vote in the
House committee.
The bill4 HB 4296, would put a 10c de-
posit on every beer and soft drink con-
tainer sold in Michigan, require retailers
to give refunds on brands and sizes they
sell, and ban pull-tabs. It's that simple.
IN FAVOR OF it are every organization
concerned with the environment, all the
consumers organizations, lots of local
and county governments that want to
save litter pick-up and land-fill costs,
the Governor, farmers who like their
land unlettered and don't like their cows
getting cut on pull-tabs that get mixed
in with silage, and people who think
America should be less wasteful of ener-
gy and natural resources while we still
have some.
The proponents have lots of good ar-
guments.
-Energy. Reusing containers uses
about half as much energy as making
new ones.
-Resources. Reusable bottles have
scarce materials such as steel, lead,
aluminum, andsoda ash for glass.
-Cost. Refillable bottles cost less be-
See POTTLE, Page 5