41
OPINION
Page 4
Sunday, October 17, 1982
The Michiqan Daily
The Michicon Da.....Tl.
Beicher,
HE SWEET aroma of marijuana once
swept over Ann Arbor. Those who inhaled
the "evil weed" did so with near impunity. The
$t fine seemed a small price for a "big grin."
But those days may soon be gone. Ann Arbor
Mayor Louis Belcher says he wants the $5 pot
law-one of the most progressive in the coun-
try-repealed. First Belcher will introduce the
law to the City Council, which must vote to put
tle proposal on the April ballot.
'
research,
going
0
to pot
Councifmember Lowell Peterson, for one,
has promised to fight Belcher to the ,last,
desperate puff. But in the past, when students
actually went to the polls, their vote put the $5
law into existence. Now, with apathy running
as rampant as Derby Days and Greek Weeks,
the repeal stands a chance of succeeding. -
Belcher said he wants the repeal because of
increased drug abuse in city high schools. All
those River Rats and Pioneers were just too
stoned to study. A few prominent local parent
organizations-Tough Love being the oddest-
have put their full political clout behind the
repeal drive, which by all signs has just begun.
But Peterson called Belcher's anti-drug
drive "grandstanding." Belcher is up for re-
election in April, and his fate may hang with
that of the repeal.
Until April, all those who like the smile of
seedless, the cool of Colombian, and the high of
Hawaiian better smoke up before it's too late.
If repealed, those caught puffing will be fined
$1,000, put in jail for a year, or both.
Winter of discontent
PROTEST ON the-outside and protest on the
inside set the mood for Thursday's Regen-
.t t tDaily Photo by JON SNOW
The $5 pot law: A thing of the past?
ts meeting.
In between the fussing and fighting-from
students protesting in Regent's Plaza to ad-
ministrators squabbling in the Regents'
room-the Regents managed to pass a record-
breaking $285 millionbudget. The University
will get to be a big spender even in hard times
with a little help from this year's 15-percent
tuition hike and a less than anticipated
enrollment decline.
Much of the conflict at the meeting, however,
concerned the salary increases for non-faculty
staff. The increase itself was born of con-
flict-it was largely the results of months of
griping by discontented clericals and
technicians left out in the cold when the
University granted professors a $5 million pay
hike inSeptember.
Regent Gerald Dunn, who cast the only 'no'
vote on the budget, wanted an across-the-board
raise for the staff, not the increases based on
performance that the administrators proposed.
Regent Nellie Varner seemed; to dislike the
plan too, even though she voted for it, when she
complained, "That will mean some (non-
As the president cuts away at the budgets of
government bodies that traditionally support
scholastic research, University faculty mem-
bers have found it increasingly difficult to
finance their projects.
Only one sacred institution-the military-
has escaped the Reagan ax unscathed, and the
Pentagon continues to fuel an increasing
proportion of the country's, and the Univer-
sity's, research projects.
Defense research on campus shot up 14 per-
cent in the 1981-82 academic year. Although
Pentagon work still represents only a small
portion of total research at the University, last
year showed the first substantial jump in
defense spending on campus since 1972, when
the University decided to drop most of its
military work on ethical grounds.
One other source of research money that
showed a dramatic increase this year was the
private sector. Like many other universities
across the country, the University of Michigan
is relying more and more on corporations: to
pay for campus research, often granting the
corporations exclusive rights to research
-results in return for cash.
University administrators insist that the
faculty must look to places such as the private
sector and the defense department for support
if the institution is to maintain its quality.
That may be true, but many academics ob-
serve that shift with a degree of sadness. They
fear an increasing amount of research will be
done not merely for the advancement of
knowledge and the improvement of the human.
condition, but for the financial interests of the
elite and the destruction of human lives.
Coming apart
HAROLD SHAPIRO must have gazed out
his office window, surveyed his campus,
and realized that something wasn't clicking.
Students, staff workers, and professors all
seemed to have something to-complain about.
If it wasn't tuition hikes, it was budget cuts. If it
wasn't program reviews, it was salaries.
So, in his annual State of the University ad-
dress last Monday, Shapiro pleaded with the
f
faculty staff) will not get any increase at all."
Regents got other gripes off their chests at
the meeting. Regent Sarah Power lashed out at
declining state support to the University. What
with the current rash of aid cuts and deferrals,
Power said, state aid amounts to little more
than "a house of cards-monopoly money."
Varner complained that raising tuition may be
cutting out poor'er students. She also expressed
concern that defense spending on campus was
increasing.
The angry, disgruntled mood of the meeting
spread to the public comments section. One
student bleakly summed up the University's
winter of discontent with, "Tuition is going up,
financial aid is going down, and the Pentagon is
taking over."
Research ups and downs.
EAGAN administration priorities hit
home once again this week as Univer-
sity statistics showed a drop in research last
year-the first in nearly a decade.
6
I
Shapiro: Pulling together
rest of the University to cooperate. "It's a time
of sacrifice and commitment," Shapiro im-
plored, and everyone must pull together as a
community in these hard times.
Apparently, however, a lot of people didn't
buy that argument. The very day after Shapiro
spoke, student government leaders were plot-
ting how best to cause more trouble for ad-
ministrators. Michigan Student Assembly
members vowed to put up a tough fight over
coming budget reviews and cutbacks and
swore that Shapiro and his budget cronies
would face stiff student resistance in the
future.
But the students lost their first battle. Their
rally on Regents' Plaza Thursday, which the';
leaders promised would be formidable, fizzled.
Fewer than 100 students showed up to chant
budget slogans as the Regents went about their
business of making the University "smaller but
better" inside the administration building.
The Week in Review was compiled by
Daily staff writers A ndrew Chapman, Julie
Hinds, David Meyer, and Barry WMitt.
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Sinclair
Vol. XCIII, No. 34
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor. MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
\
Of
OUR
COURSE)
WAE'LL isE
CQNIS(oER BL
Sweets for the sweetest
SWEETEST DAY came and went transactions to the size of PIRGIM
yesterday and the appropriate donations. For a $5 donation, you can
gifts-a bag of chocolates from drop a 100-level class, for $15 a senior
Drake's, a card with cupids on the seminar, and so on ...
front from Hallmark's-were + To Don Canham: we thought of the
distributed around campus. But in the all-pro turf, we thought of a mega-
fever of artificially-inflated affection, million dollar Athletic Department,
a few University notables received but somebody beat us to it. What can
nary a gift. So here's a few mushy and you get for the man who has
irreverently heartfelt presents to some everything?
of our favorite folks. " To protesters of defense-sponsored
* To Mayor Louis Belcher: a roach research on campus: definitive proof
clip. And advice to use it quickly before that research with military application
his efforts to repeal Ann Arbor's $5 pot is actually going to be used on a laser-
law succeed. powered can opener.
* To Harold Shapiro: a big, sloppy . To the Pentagon: definitive proof
hug from every undergraduate. He that that laser-powered can opener has
seemed to need one at Monday's State a military application.
of the University speech when he . And, last but not least, to Mom and
forlornly called for unity. Dad: 15 percent higher grade point
" To PIRGIM: an even better way to averages-to make the 15 percent
get funds than being put on University tuition hike a little easier to swallow.
tuition bills-a new plan linking CRISP
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LETTERS TO THE DAILY:
Covering part of Hatfield's speech
To the Daily:
Your article on Sen. Mark Hat-
field's speech on arms control
(Daily, Oct. 12) neglected to men-
tion his most provocative
remarks.
As the Daily correctly repor-
ted, Hatfield lashed out against
the billions of dollars wasted by
the government on the arms
race.
But he did not stop there.
During the question-and-answer
period following the speech, the
senator was asked about univer-
sities that support military
research. In response, he
stressed his fear of the co-
dividuals have found themselves
prostituted, forced to refrain
from that kind of inquiry."
In particular, Hatfield ex-
pressed concern over military
research at his alma mater Stan-
ford, and although he felt it
"presumptuous" to speak direc-
tly about the Unive:'sity of
Michigan's research, the im-
plications were obvious. That the
Department f Defense funds
professors here is no secret (ac-
cording to your own newspaper,
defense research stands at $5.2
million and continues to grow).
If professors risk the chance of
prostituting themselves by ac-
says, "In a situation like this,
professors are bound to go 'a-
whoring," and I don't see
anything wrong with that."
The importance of Hatfield's
comment was heightened even
more by the irony of the scene in
the auditorium. Hatfield was
lavishly introduced by none other
than President Shapiro, who
stayed on the stage throughout
Sounds like
To the Daily:
Mark Gindin's article on the
Opinion Page ("Modern-day
Rohin Hnnd .de or ., 1n;1-
the evening.
Perhaps the biggest irony.
however, was that the Daily --in
light of its attempts to expose
military research on campus --
failed to give notice to the views
of a well-respected senator on the
very subje,'t.
--,lonathan Weiss
Oct. 14
ai libertarian
didates such as Ted Kennedy.
Don Riegle, Ronald Reagan
(assuming he goes for a second
term) .liamBlnchea r ]ic