0 OPINION - 4 Page 4 Ghe f , C t,6,a n :43 tt Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan 420 Maynard St. Vol. XCI, No. 4042ManrSt Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board The hazing punishments Sunday, October 19, 1984 Feiffer %1AL.P The Michigan Daily . FR 1104WK.. CW51461kY.2 W 1F1Te5 THAT ARC' HOKUM,.. z; r IW Osws 'tL1T AID* HOKVJN... 10 T WO YEARS AGO at the annual Michigan hockey team banquet, an equipment manager presented a mock award to one of the upper- classman players. The award was a bag of hair-"Something left over from your freshman year," the player was told. The audience, consisting of players, their families, coaches, and athletic department administrators, laughed. The hair-whether it was genuine or just a wig-represented the body shaving the player had received as a freshman team member. It stood for the hazing that he and all other Michigan hockey players had been through. And it clearly indicated-because it was the subject of humor at a team banquet-that many people associated with the Michigan hockey team have known about the hazing of freshman players for at least a few years. And have done nothing about it. Now it has been learned that Athletic Director Don Canham-who on Tuesday sounded as if he had never heard of any hazing incidents in Michigan athletics-has punished the hockey team for last Sunday night's hazing of several freshman players, one of whom was brought sick, naked, shaved, and freezing back to his dorm. The problem is, Canham's punish- ments are both inappropriate and inadequate. Canham.has prohibiterl all hockey team members from entering any local bars for the rest of the season (the inappropriate part) and suspen- ded three team leaders from par- ticipating in this weekend's series against Bowling Green University (the inadequate part). Although the athletic director may have the practical authority to prevent players from visiting bars-he- can control virtually every aspect of the athletes' lives merely by threatening them with expulsion from Michigan teams-he does not have the moral authority to do so. University-imposed punishments should proscribe only University-related activities; they should not apply to the private lives of any students. (It should be noted that the stay-out- of-the-bars order differs from rules governing social life that athletes agree to abide by when they are part of a team: The former is an example of ex post facto manipulation; the latter, of mutual consent.) The suspension of three players is lit- tle more than a token punishment, designed more to mollify the public than to drive home a message to the team. Nearly fifteen players (about half the team) participatead in last week's hazing; to single out three for punishment is woefully inadequate and disgustingly expedient. Canham wouldn't suspend all fifteen guilty players because that would have meant forfeiting. the Bowling Green games; he opted for the finan- cially efficient decision instead. We believe the Michigan hockey team should be required to forfeit the next home game series as the only ap- propriate punishment for an act that Canham himself called "a serious matter" that "will not be tolerated by this University." Nearly half the hockey team is guilty of direct participation in the hazings. The rest are guilty because they have known about the tradition of freshman hazings-indeed, all have been victims themselves-and have never spoken out about it. Clearly, all should be punished in a manner that will really hurt-it will take the drastic action of several for- feitures to crack the vicious hazing tradition. If Canham is truly serious when he says, "It will not happen again, I can assure everyone of that," then he must go beyond punishing this year's hockey team. He must establish a clear hazing policy that prohibits hazing of mem- bers of any Michigan athletic team. That policy could most effectively use peer pressure-which played a large part in preserving the hazing tradition-to prevent any future assaults. One simple rule would do it:' If any member of any team par- ticipates ineany hazing activities, his or her entire team must forfeit a significantly record-damaging number of games. Some may argue that such game for- feitures are unfair to fans and opposing teams, as well as being economically unsound. But do not those arguments forget what collegiate athletics are supposed to be about? When we've reached a point where ticket sales and win-loss records are more important than correcting a brutal, inhuman tradition, we are in a sad position in- deed. Don Canham and the' University have a tremendous opportunity to prove to the world that some scruples are more important than revenues. We hope they are brave enough to 'em- brace it. coI%1v Y a EFNDNKN. HamAS -piW5CF AQlb PoY1s1Et HOKUHI-S. 1 !/ torrHI HIS FOR SOWe OfHER .c~w? Ig I i d 0 Free speech, free screaming From The Michigan Daily, January 25, 1977: To the Daily: I attended the Andrei Amalrik lecture on January 17, and I just read about Tom Hayden's (more recent) lecture in the Daily. On both occasions, members of Trotskyist groups on campus disrupted (he proceedings by using the hall as a forum for their own opinions. Ihave writ- ten to express my dismay with this behavior. I freely admit that I am not a Com- munist, and thus, perhaps I am unfairly predisposed ... (But) most of the mem- bers of Amairik's audience came solely to listen to the man explain his theories and beliefs.... It was undemocratic of the Trotskyists, to use their favorite epithet, to deny the audience that right by launching boisterously into five-minute lectures of their own... Obliquity. By Joshua Peck Group, according to their signs. I'm told that members of the Washtenaw Committee Against Registration for the Draft took part in the disruptions as well, and I imagine that the perennial loudmouths of the local Spartacus Youth League chapter were out in force too. But the point is not the specific goals of the groups in question; it is the general practice of disrupting lectures and their consenting lecturees. In analyzing the problem, it might help to look at the fringe groups' own justification for their persistent obnoxiousness. EARLY IN SEPTEMBER, my distinguished co-editor and I went to a Spar- tacus Youth League happening at (where else?) East Quad. I had planned to play sullen observer there, not wanting to get tangled up in any niggling debates about the merits of Marxism-Leninism over Trotskyism- Maoism. But when the assembled radicals started discussing their growing concern about the re-emergence of the KKK and Nazi movements, my ears perked. It sounded like they were getting close to assailing their op- ponents' First Amendment rights. They proceeded to do just that. The principle under which the SYL operates is that freedom of speech is a fine idea, so long as it is not abused. Sounds all right, until the SYL defines "abuse": Any speaker who by SYL standards is a "criminal" does not have the right to express himself freely. That rules out representatives of the U.S. government, to name just a few, being granted a forum. Any speaker or demonstrator who ad- vocates violence against the wrong targets is not afforded First Amendment protection either, say the Sparties. That eliminates the Klan and Nazis. It is, of course, possible to advocate violence and still to win the ap-w proval (and even the accolades) of the SYL, so long as the people the speaker wants to punch out are the "proper" victims: factory owners, running dogs for the imperialist state, landlords. You know the sort. 'I'M NOT SURE how widespread this mangling of the First Amendment is among leftist factions, but evidence that many adhere to it is abundant. All you need to do to witness the principle in action is attend an array of talks by political speakers. Over the last few years, you could have heard ob- trusive heckling by diverse groups during speeches by numerous Soviet dissidents, for- mer U.S. Ambassador to Iran William Sullivan, Israeli Cabinet member Yigal Allon, Gerald Ford, Carl Pursell, and so on. All these gentlemen, and, no doubt, many others, were pronounced unworthy of First Amendment protection, and were therefore forced to shout angrily at the few hecklers while the many who came' to listen waited, patiently or otherwise. When I have pressed chronic interrupters on the First Amendment issue, pointing out, that freedom of speech is guaranteed to all, comers, not only to those whom society or its, subsets find acceptable, I have been dismissed as a "bourgeois" thinker, hateful. because I cling to archaic abstract values', while (I can hear the shrill voices now) "your brothers are dying in the streets." AM I AS insensitive to suffering as all that? Or are First Amendment rights more impor-' tant to freedom-even economic freedom-the Sparties would concede? I do believe thatthe First Amendment is more important than any momentary con- cerns that, say,. Klan rhetoric might reach overly gullible listeners. Yes, it's difficult to find it within myself to insist that even morons like the Klan leadership, or Moonies or Ronald Reagan should be able to spread@ their foolishness unimpeded, but I think strict adherence to freedom of speech still has far more benefits than it does drawbacks-and, not just for idealistic reasons. If even a small contingent of civil liberty lovers consistently press for the free airing of all viewpoints, no matter how objectionable, we may someday see a tyrant overthrown In a revolution incited by one lonely, perceptive visionary. If we allow First Amendment or- thodoxy to fade, that visionary may find him/herself without a precedent for deman ding a forum. That is why I was the first Jew@ on my block to congratulate the American Civil Liberties Union when that heavily Jewish organization took the Nazis' part in the Skokie Illinois controversy two years ago. That's pragmatics, not ideals. THE PROBLEM IN contending with vocal leftists at political rallies and such is that using the instrumentalities of law to shut them up-a technique which occasionally has been used-furthers the anti-First Amei- dment cause. Legally, it ought to be the com- munist dissenters' right to disrupt any speech they want, so long as their methods are stric- tly vocal. I would be forced to defend the SYL's freedom to interrupt Ed Muskie or anyone else, if it came down to a court battle or even a detached political discussion. But dammit, I do so wish they'd have let Muskie's admirers hear him out. To doso would have helped Ann Arbor become the open marketplace of ideas we're always talking about. And that is what most of us-even the extreme left, somewhere down deep-would really like to see. Joshua Peck is the co-editor of the Daily 's Opinion page. His column appears every Sunday. If and when the Trotskyists become popular enough to attract listeners to their own lectures in large numbers, I will raise no questions. Until then, I insist and demand that they leave the rest of us. alone. That crudely written missive is the first thing I ever had published in the Daily. In- terestingly, the problem it addresses is still a pressing problem on campus, even these three years later. SURE AS MOSQUITOES in August (not a bad metaphor, at that), 45 members of various political groups, most of which are probably somewhat left of Perry Bullard, made it nearly impossible for Ann Arborites and interested out-of -towners to hear the speeches of Secretary of State Ed Muskie and others who spoke at the 20th Anniversary Peace Corps celebration last Tuesday in front of the Michigan Union. The particular people doing the shouting and chanting on Tuesday were members of something called the Revolutionary Workers LETTERS TO THE DAILY: The icers should press the charges To the Daily: With all respect for Bert Hor- nback and Leo McNamara, both of whom I know and admire, I must disagree with their letter in Friday's Daily (October 17). Not point by point, but in tone. And my disagreement is not specifically with them but with the general opprobrium being cast currently at the Michigan hockey team by people who, for the most part, know neither the players nor the history of the team. I have had the privilege of being friends with Michigan hockey players for several years. They sit on my desk in the LSA academic counseling office; they nme to my hno eand T lasts a few hours, and afterwards the freshmen are part of that close-knit group of friends. Sophomores live, by choice, with juniors and seniors who initiated them the year before. I am not defending initiation in principle; -having suffered it twice myself I know how un- pleasant it is. My own belief is that initiation is an unnecessary holdover from days long past. In the case of the hockey team, I've been told it is a continuation of an English public school custom brought over by the Canadians. I'm not in favor of it, but I under- stand why they do it and know there is no lasting resentment af- terwards. My strnncxscfviaun,1 i, ifn,. exaggerated version in the Free Press, a paper often unfriendly to the University. That, of course, is the version that has been widely disseminated and has caused people to feel anger and contempt for the Michigan hockey team. So Where dide To the Daily: There are more students per capita in the Second Congressional District than anywhere in the United States. The University of Michigan in the 1960s was considered revolutionary and set many tren- ds for the rebellion against "the M a group of intelligent, friendy, talented young men are made to look like Nazi storm troopers. Press charges? Perhaps the hockey team should press libel charges. -Isabel Reade October 18 ctivism go? those tax cuts which will not take valued dollars from students and/or faculty, and will fight: hard for legislation which is salient to University students. Students cannot fall into the, comfortable role of apathetic onlooker because if we are the most liberal, the most informed; Ams