4
OPINION
Page 4
Sunday, January 23, 1983
The Michigan Daily
Pot law, registration: A call to arms
I
THE ANN ARBOR City Council drew the
battle lines Monday night for the upcoming
city elections: It'll be Conservatism vs. Apathy
to see which of America's two greatest powers
will take credit for obliterating the city's last
remnant of war-era progressivism.,
On the one side is Field Marshal Louis von
Belcher and the forces of evil fighting to rid
their territory of its most corrupting influence:
wicked marijuana. - Opposing them
is ... almost nobody. Students this week
weren't too uptight about the possibility that
Ann Arbor's liberal,$5 pot law might be voted
off the books in April.
A few students and Democratic party
lieutenants threatened that the pot law ballot
proposal would drive thousands of students to
the polls to save a favorite pastime-while
booting the Republican Chiefs of Staff out of of-
fice. But GOP tacticians have determined that
an attack fom the central campus area is
unlikely. Instead, the wily Field Marshal ex-
pects to mount a counterattack from many
concerned adults in town who often don't.par-
ticipate in the city's internal conflicts. In fact,
von Belcher expects his right flank to be so
strong that the Democrats-who have gained a
few council seats in recent years-will be for-
ced into a hasty retreat.
Meanwhile, students continue to resist being
drafted into the voting ranks, preferring to lay
dormant in the dorms.
What's it all mean for this story's hero, the $5
pot law? Death, destruction, rape, pillage,
murder. All the carnage of war.
Nuke 'em all.
Three students at the University of Min-
nesota, who are not so eager to run off to war at
a moment's notice, but cannot afford a college
education without federal aid, have challenged
the regulations themselves. .
Their suit in federal court charges the
regulations assume a student is guilty until he
proves himself innocent. The regulations
stipulate a student must prove he has
registered before he can be eligible for aid. The
university's Regents have blocked the suit.
What's the government's response to the
small revolt against its regulations? The same
old pat answer it has given to challenges to
registration: The law is the law-even if it's
wrong.
Adding a clause
M EMBERS OF THE University com-
munity are secure in the knowledge that
University by-laws protect them against
discrimination. Members, that is, who don't
happen to be gay.
Although the by-laws contain non-,
discrimination clauses concerning age, han-
dicaps, and veteran status, nothing about
sexual preference is mentioned. Many gays
live in fear that disclosure of their preference
will cost them a University job.,
To change all that, a group called Lesbian
and Gay Rights on Campus (LaGROC) has
proposed that the University amend its by-laws
to include a non-discrimination clause based on
sexual orientation. The Office of Affirmative
Action currently is investigating the LaGROC
proposal for its legality and implications.
The proposal could have wide-ranging effec-
ts, since the University's non-discrimination
policy is committed to including non-
University organizations involving students
and faculty. If the amendment is passed, for
example, the army, which discriminates
against homosexuals in its recruitment prac-
tices, might lose its right to recruit on campus.
I
'U' dorms: Still a steal at 5.95 percent more?
''3'r
} V
'Von' Belcher: To the battleground.
Sign up or pay up
THE ANSWER the federal government has
offered poor male students who refuse to
register for the draft is simple: no registration,
no student aid. But University officials are not
so sure whether they should buckle under the
pressure of a heavy federal hand or help
students get out from under it. .
Several other universities have set up alter-
nate aid programs for students affected by the
Selective Service's desperate attempt to coerce
the more than half-million refusniks to
register. Due to a tight budget and the
"serious' issue involved, the University has
decided not to set up such a fund, at least for
now.
Virginia Nordby, director of the University
affirmative action program, said she will
present a "position paper" to President
Shapiro after the investigation is completed.
After that, many University employees may be
able to finally come out of the office closet.
Bargain boost
A NOTHER YEAR, another housing rate
hike-if the University Housing Commit-
tee has its way. This week, the committee an-
nounced its bargain rates for boosting next
year's University housing costs by 6, er, 5.95
percent.
We can see the commercials now. "Yes,
folks. Eight months in a Markley cell block. 420
gourmet meals prepared in the elegant con-
fines of the West Quad cafe. Hundreds of
neighbors providing 10,000 watts of easy
listening while you sleep."
All this will be yours next year in a standard
double room for only $2,499 ($149 more than this
year). The increase, however, is notoffic-
ial yet. Administrators and the Regents mustJ'
approve the recommendation before it goes in-
to effect.
Although the panel admits that inflation will
boost housing costs by only 2.65 percent, it says
the fees must go up even more to pay for the
residential hall staffs, an expense that will no
.longer be covered, by the University general
budgets.
And if the news is bad for Quaddies, it's even
worse for those living in "non-traditional"
halls. Room and board in places such as Oxford
housing and Henderson housing, will increase
by nearly 10 percent. You guessed it-=9.95.
The Week in Review was compiled by
Daily staff writers Julie Hinds, Kent Red-
ding, Bill Spindle, and Barry Witt.
_ _
Eie andmg bt an t o a n
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Wasserman
f
Vol. XCIII, No. 93
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
", UNWLO'iENNT
OUT... s CAN'T PPAY
The wrong solution
SELIK HO UE, AND
OUR KID NAiTO QUIT
COLLECE
I -Ilk
y-ThgN&S COLD
3 WORSE-
Aa
_ _ _ _ .
Y/ouCOULD HAVE
1 AD-NS JOg
J.-
=~
UNBEARABLE. THAT'S the only
word to describe the state finan-
cial crisis council's recommendation
that $13 million in aid to the University
be cut to help balance the state's
books.
There simply is no way the Univer-
sity can, sustain itself in the face of
such a massive aid cut. And there's no
reason it should have to. State Senate
Majority Leader William Faust is
planning to propose an alternative - a
tax increase - later this month. The
two percent tax increase he will
request is not an easy way out, but it's
the best one available.
Although the state faces a budget
deficit of an estimated $850 million and
an economy that is dead in its tracks,
massive cuts to vital state programs
and institutions is not the answer. This
university, in particular, cannot
tolerate such large outright cuts and
still maintain anything resembling its
current level of academic excellence.
Over the past several years, the
University has shouldered more than
its share of the state's financial bur-
den, absorbing $30 million in outright
cuts and $26 million in "deferrals."
Adding another $13 million to that
would be devastating. University
President Harold Shapiro was on
target when he said, "The proposed
cuts would serve to immobilize the
very resources that can offer any hope
for the state's future."
In proposing these cuts, the financial
crisis council obviously was not
thinking very much about the future.
Granted, the state needs immediate
solutions to solve immediate problems.
But the long-term ramificiations of the
crisis council's proposal are clear - it
would cut the budget to the point where
the state's institutions can no longer
function.
It's difficult to ask the already hard-
pressed taxpayers of the state to fork
over more money. It may not seem to
make much sense in the short-run. But
Sen. Faust's plan, however unpopular,
is the only option that has the future of
the state - as well as today's problems
- in mind.
BERKELEY, Calif. - When
the Phi Gamma Delta house here
at the University of California
held a "military brawl" one
recent weekend, with five tequila
shots required for admission and
mock warfare part of the fun,
Keith Zafren stayed away. In-
stead, he took a girl dancing '50s
style at an off-campus ballroom.
His fellow fraternity brother,
Christ Good, spent the evening at
a youth ministry retreat.
"The whole purpose of the
fraternity is straight out of the
Bible," says Good, "Christian
brothers living together, building
each other up in Christ." But that
high purpose, he believes, has
crumbled to "drunken excess and
enjoyment."
GOOD AND ZAFREN ceased
to partake of that sort of fun when
they discovered that religion
gives them more satisfaction.
Both are members of the Campus
Crusade for Christ International.
Good says he stays on at the
house "to be an example and of-
fer others a place to turn to." His
brothers are searching for what
he feels he has found: fulfillment
and happiness.
The two-both handsome,
athletic sons of well-educated
families-are among thousands
of similar students across the
country who recently have
turned to fundamentalist
Christianity, convinced that they
have found the answer to man's
most profound questions and that
their most important task is to go
out and convert others to their
beliefs.
This campus, famous as the
seedbed of social and political ac-
tivism, now has Bible study
groups in dormitories and resid-
Clhristian
movement
goes- to
college
By Rasa Gustaitis
u
1
established on about 70 cam-
puses, and The Way, an Ohio-
based group, has been described
by some Christian leaders and
cult-watchers as a destructive
cult, ranking in size with the
Church of Scientology and the
Rev. Sun Myung Moon's
Unification Church, though it
keeps a low profile.
Catholic and mainstream
Protestant churches also show
growth on many campuses, as do
some Jewish organizations, par-
ticularly those that offer a close
community. But the most
dramatic gains are being made
by newer groups that affiliate
with no traditional faiths, put lit-
tle stress on theology but much on
fervor, and recruit aggressively
among students.
Though in numbers this is a
small movement compared to the
anti-nuclear phenomenon, it
draws nower from the extranr-
munity, an escape from the
pressures of too much liberation,
a sense of meaning and purpose.
Zafren is one of many students
who turned Christian through the
influence of teachers or coun-
selors - particularly
athletes-during adolescence.
Born Jewish but with a father
who "disallowed talk of
religion," he was 14 years old and
in tennis camp in Carmel Valley,
Calif., when he heard a counselor
listening to a tape by Hal Lin-
dsey, author of "The Late Great
Planet Earth."
"I started to 'question him and
we stayed up til 2 a.m. talking.
For the first time I heard of
Christ and I knew in my heart
that's what I needed," he said.
Zafren's search ended during his
freshman year at Berkeley when
he met the director of Campus
Crusade.
FOR ZAFREN becoming a
tainments that prevail among
their peers.
Maranatha members in Seattle
and Boston, who are di scouragd
from dating and told that God will
provide them the proper mate
when the time is right, told of
satisfying friendships they can
now enjoy with members of the
opposite sex within their com-
munities.
MAINSTREAM campus
pastors, however, are uneasy and
even alarmedat the spread of the
new fundamentalism, which they
cannot dismiss simply as a cult
phenomenon. They worry about.
the lack of historical depth and
understanding among the
movement's leaders, the tenden-
cy to discourage questioning and
independent thinking, and they-
style of recruitment, which often
is hard-sell.
The Rev. George Schultz,
pastor of the University Lutheran
Chapel in Berkeley, worries that
the new groups "mix up what it
means to be totally committed.
Instead of to God, the commit-
ment is to the group. They create
a form of idoltry. The group it-
self becomes the idol," he says.
Schultz and other traditional
pastors also note the absence of
social concern in most of the new
Christian campus groups at a
time when such concern is in-
creasing in mainstream chur-
ches.
ZAFREN says he believes that
people should work on major
issues such as nuclear arms, but
that for him to do so would be
4 a waste of my talents and
time." He says that, according to
the Bible, "it's going to get worse
and worse. Take it as a sign that
the end is near."