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."