0 OPINION 0 Page 4 Tuesday, September 29, 1981 p The Michigan Daily r I.- Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan One year and $50,000 later Vol. XCII, No. 17 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Education gets a break UNIVERSITY STUDENTS, ad- mninistrators, and faculty breathed a collective sigh of relief last week when the state senate "discovered" an extra $20.8 million to help spare the state's schools and colleges some of the severity of an- ticipated budget cuts. The funds were reclaimed from an extraneous account containing some $23 million collected as "railroad delinquent taxes" and set aside to pay' for such projects as bicycle paths and recreational land improvement. While such intended uses for the fun- .ds are understandable, the Senate must be commended for its continuing efforts to eliminate the state's $135 million deficit at minimal cost to education. Vice President for Academic Affairs Billy Frye has said that cuts at the state level are the leading cause for the UJniversity faculty's meager 5:5 per- -cent salary raise, a cut the University can ill afford. At a time when Michigan's leading industry is slipping quickly down the financial tubes, taking the state's over-all economy with it, it is refreshing to see that legislators recognize the importance of the University in formulating new economic directions. A respected, productive faculty draws funds into the state, including tuition payments and research grants, which would otherwise not be available. With the University being seriously examined as the primary center for robotics research nationally, higher education in Michigan may well be a contributing factor in the state's economic tran- sition toward advanced technology. Even this slight easing of legislative pressure on the state's schools to cut back on already scant budgets signals a change in attitude that must be con- tinued. Education in Michigan in a valuable resource and the need to preserve its' quality should continue to be a top priority for state legislators. Ex- cessive cutting today may only lead to disaster tomorrow. What do you do after you've sued the University for a million bucks and lost? If you're Jonathan Marwil, you get a job in a fish market making filets. And you teach part-time for a while. And you work feverishly to finish the book you are writing. It's been a year now since Jonathan Mar- wil, once an assistant professor in the humanities department of the engineering college, lost his million-dollar suit against the University. ACTUALLY, WHAT he was seeking was a tenure review-that all-important assessment of a professor's work by his Witt { colleagues that determines whether he will enjoy the lifetime job security that tenure brings. The million dollars was just a side issue. What he got instead of a million dollars or a tenure review was two years of legal agony and $50,000 in legal bills. Jonathan Marwil thought he was entitled to a tenure reyiew back in 1979. After all, he had been teaching for six years as an assistant professor without tenure, and it was pretty much standard procedure to get a review af- ter that length of time. THE FACULTY'S grievance board agreed with Marwil. So did the executive committee of the faculty Senate Assembly. So did a num- ber of his colleagues in the humanities depar- tment. But the higher-ups there didn't like Jon Marwil-they said he was too "abrasive," that he wanted to change things too much, that he just didn't fit in well, that his research wasn't up to snuff. They could have taken the easy way out-just given Marwil his review and then denied him tenure. That's the smoothest way to get rid of someone you don't want in your department-it's secret, it's legal, and it hap- pens dozens of times a year throughout the University. BUT FOR SOME reason the department leaders decided against this answer. They simply denied Marwil a tenure review and gave him notice of his termination. Marwil sued, a complicated civil suit followed, and most everyone involved got a little dirty. That, in a nutshell, is the celebrated Marwil case. It doesn't really matter now who did what to whom, or whether Marwil's research was deficient, or whether he was abrasive-as Marwil says, the case is behind him now. What does matter are the sticky questions-still unanswered after a year-that the case left behind. Questions about due process in the University. And about grievance procedures. And about what a faculty member can do if he feels he has been wronged-short of filing a costly (and usually futile) lawsuit. AS MARWIL LEANS back in his chair, talking about the odd jobs he has taken in the past year to support himself, it is hard to imaginethat this amiable, balding 41-year- old was ever the evil, aggressive upstart he was made out to be by the University's lawyers during the trial. He's been applying for teaching jobs in the humanities without success-there's not much demand for history professors these days. Especially history professors with lots of experience-it's much cheaper to hire someone fresh out of graduate school. And then there's the problem of 'being blackballed. While Marwil can't point to any specific case in which he suspects the Univer- sity. has blackballed him in the academic community, he knows his suit can't be helping him as he applies for jobs at other schools. AFTER ALL, WHY risk hiring a potential troublemaker? With hundreds of applicants for any one job, it's much easier to simply discard Jonathan Marwil than to take a chan- ce. Marwil knows all this. He knows it's publish or perish. That's why he's been devoting most of his time to a book about Frederic Manning, a little-known Australian novelist. He hopes to find a publisher for it soon; with a fresh book under his belt, he will have a better shot at a teaching job. Surprisingly enough, Marwil has been on the payroll of the University since losing his lawsuit. He served as a judge in the Hopwood Essay Contest. "I got my check," he smiles, "so apparently the machine that makes out the paychecks didn't go 'tilt.'" DOES HE FEEL he was tilting at win- 0 6 Jonathan Marwil dmills, suing a University that rarely fights in court unless it is sure it will win? "No, not at all," he answers quickly. "I cer- tainly think about the case , at times, and sometimes, thinking aboutsindividuals and situations, I feel a rush of anger. But it's notO something that lasts. I'm glad I did it; I have no second thoughts. "I'm glad the case is behind me, but I'm a little sad it seems the case is behind, the University. The financial problems of the last few years have overwhelmed people to such an extent that other problems-like the lack of an effective grievance procedure-have gotten very short shrift."! IN THE END, Marwil concludes, the case came down to a question of tolerance, or the lack of it. A university, he says, thrives on dif- ferences of opinion and differences in per- sonality-otherwise it will dissolve. "If you haven't got a high rate of toleran- ce-not love-just simply tolerance for strange birds, then the university setting is not for you. Because the world of the univer- sity, the world of the mind, the world of in- tellectual action is always going to be a world of strange birds. You are continually going to meet people you might not like." I like Jon Marwil. And I can't help thinking the engineering humanities department might have been a slightly better place had a few administrators been willing to tolerate him. Witt's column appears every Tuesday. ILA tl they negot in E 3 erta rema powe negot level in rec Rel were ter le of Ro condi worse The that Y ween recen harsh of the But harsh seem, cepte shoul over t The bers ndermining arms talks. aS.T WEEK, the United States and that in order to negotiate successfully he Soviet Union announced that with the Soviets, one must negotiate finally had agreed to begin from a position of strength. iations to control nuclear forces It is in order to achieve this position urope. While the announcement of strength that the administration has inly comes as good news, there embarked on one of the largest ins a question of how much the military buildups in history. 'rs can accomplish in the -But there are problems with the tiations, given their increasing 'notion of first attaining superioity in of antagonism toward each other order to later attain arms reduction. gent months. Negotiating from a position of ations between the two nations strength is a pleasant enough idea eroding even before Jimmy Car- when dickering over the price of a used ft office, but with the ascendency car, but it just doesn't work like that )nald Reagan to the presidency, for bombs. A condition of superiority tions have become considerably 'can create a tremendous incentive, in fact, for one side or the other to ac- tually not negotiate. charges and counter charges When a condition of superiority have flown back and forth bet- exists, the side 'which is inferior Moscow and Washington in doesn't want to negotiate so long as t months have been especially there is a possibility it can catch up. -and frighteningly reminiscent For the stronger of the two, there is a rhetoric of the Cold War. desire to take advantage of even more troubling than the superiority, to be extremely reluctant words is an attitude, which in negotiating away what it has already s to be more and more widely ac- attained. d in Washington, that America . Hence the Reagan administration, d strive for military superiority by attempting to take some sort of ad- he Soviets. vantage over the Soviets in order to argument of some of the mem- expedite negotiations, may, in fact, be of the Reagan administration is setting them back. .1 Weasel By Robert Lence, - TIPAYOU o- RoAC:wF Mf-AS5ER ciAMFetihN' W ~ i) N x) M~~ ~EPL. $,sc P, fZACW 6 ' 1 fo M P4~ LS.E, AA *1 wH4V AREY o 3vf ~I T? ;OMFE1ThN& FOR MY FMI-LaJ HUM j EiN~$ ... L vAhNrrz CEOOP cOF Tf-CCMMVJ1'(Y-- CL kWANT ~j FEA-Y CREPM) \'1 r Go WHERE AF-E Yoct CaUttJ( la 1 t ICI t 7 t rt6 J r? A REw EF 8EATt.F-MAN 1 ACS wI I tqs 0 I LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Bullard heralds, chance for change Iv; . 1 I. ( J , l K y / / , ; J / / t / ' 9 / ~~r KjIi ; . V . " To the Daily: Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking -about 1982. Not generally noted for planning ahead, I now must suffer an on- slaught of disbelievers. "Why 1982?" they ask.3 Well first, 1982 is the year I graduate and secondly, the 1982 congressional elections will be the voter's first chance to revoke a Republican "mandate," the most exaggerated. and overworked concept of our time. Ann Arbor, given its relatively intellectual make-up, has the chance to help avert a conserr vative disaster and send a progressive representative to Washington. One such candidate, State Representative Perry -Bullard, has already entered the race. I believe the '82 election will focus on differing concepts of justice. Mr. Reagan and his comrades view government regulation, affirmative action, and national health insurance as unjust, while supporting repressive dictators and the death penalty are somewhat just. by usurping the Court's powers of Constitutional interpretation. Likewise, conservatives seek to violate the free exercise of religion by prohibiting the federal courts from hearing cases involving school prayer. Affirmative action is in 'the' process of being reversed, despite, a 50 percent black teenage unemployment rate and yet another report displaying that the wage of full-time working women is only 50 percent that of their male counterparts. Desegregation seems a dead issue as suits are dropped or set- tled with only superficial promises of reform, as dramatically exemplified in Houston and Chicago, despite a recent report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights stating that busing does help in- tegrate segregated communities. The Unjted States appears destined to remain the only ad- vanced nation in the world without a national health program, despite mediocre ratings in terms of infant mor- tality (13th in the world) and Reagan tax and budget cuts will only exacerbate these inqualities, frequently by literally taking food out of the mouths of the poor, or ex- changing it for ketchup or relish. The Energy Action Educational Foundation reported last mpnth that the Republican initiative to accelerate gas -decontrol would more than eat up the Reagan tax cut through 1984 for a typical family earning $20,000 a year. Families earning over $100,000 annually, however, will obviously come out well ahead. Implementation of these proposals combined with decreases in student aid and education in generalsmeans a less egalitarian, less mobile and hen-' ce a less democratic society. Is this President Reagan's or Carl Pursell's view of justice? Abroad, the conservative view of justice is equally warped. In order to battle Soviet influence, President Reagan has chosen to back repressive dictators all over the world. One need not be a historian to see that when the more publicized cases in point. As the administration throws tens of billions of dollars at the unusable neutron bomb or an antiquated bomber, aid to the poor abroad will be slashed. This aid was never an overly generous amount anyway, with the United States donating only 0.19 percent of its gross national product; less than any other industrial democracy except Italy. Perhaps El/ Salvador will teach the;law- makers that stability in the Third World requires morereform and less brute force. As of today, the Reagan ad- ministration has alienated the people of Western Europe, Africa and Latin America, not to men- tion China. America's greatest supporters are now the unstable dictators it keeps in power. Reai security can only be an illusion if the United States promotes its policies in isolation. I hope the people of Ann Arbor will avoid viewing their interests as necessarily antagonistic to those of other Americans and work toward the creation of a just and strong society. Represen-