4
OPINION
Page 4
Friday, October 21, 1983
The Michigan Daily
Edie s tdesatn y Miga
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Stewart
HEY MAN I YOU
HEARD OF THlE
f VE-YEAR PL I?
Vol. XCIV - No. 39
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
YA1A! TMNT's
WREiN IT TAKES
FIVE YEARS TO
GRADUATE 1
NO, NO, MAN! GEE, U oFM: S
1 MEAN BILLY VICE PRESIDENT
FRYE'S FIVE-YEAR TOOK FIVE YEARS
PLAN J1To GRADUATE'?
i$
Nop
Martin Luther King Day
The right step forward
:
f, -l
jr z.
W HEN PRESIDENT Ronald
Reagan signs the bill the civil
rights movement will have its day -
its long, long overdue day. The impor-
tance of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s day
is that it celebrates the progress King's
movement made and will continue to
make. It celebrates the strength of this
nation - that change for the better is
more than possible.
National holidays are and should be
ladden with symbolism. All nine
current national holidays are, in-
cluding the two that are specifically
named for individuals. George
Washington's day is as much a salute to
the nation's first president as a salute
to the presidency and to the ideals of
Washington's time. Indeed,in several
states Washington's birthday is
celebrated as President's Day or
Washington-Lincoln Day. Likewise,
Columbus Day celebrates the
discovery of the New World and its
promise.
um'S the'
984 HERE we come. The Reagan
administration scored againsthis
week in its all-out effort to stifle
security leaks, even it if means using
Orwellian tactics to track them down.
A Justice Department official, said
earlier this week that it would be en-
tirely appropriate for federal agencies
to randomly select employees for lie
detector tests, even when there is no
evidence of a security breach. Em-
ployees who refused to take the tests
would not be given access to classified
information.
In this federal government muscle
flexing game, it appears that the
Reagan administration has the bases
loaded and are just waiting to drive in
the winning run.
The administration led off with a
radical new secrecy agreement which
more than 100,000 officials are
scheduled to sign. Those officials must
agree to have federal officials review
any book, article, speech, or other
material they write about intelligence
activities.
Last March the runners advanced
with President Reagan's order for ex-
tensive use of polygraph tests in
federal agencies. Those tests,
however, were only to investigate
known security leaks.
L
So will Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
champion the fight against
discrimination and the contributions
blacks and other minorities have made.
and will make to the success of the
United States. The day honors the man
and his dream, but only because the
dream is shared by so many...
Perhaps this honor would have come
earlier had the mistakes of King's op-
ponents not happened. The FBI wire
taps and smear campaigns aimed at
discrediting King should not have been
a barrier preventing the proper
celebration of the civil rights
movement. Those illegal activities
against King only fueled the fire of the
Jesse Helmses of the world who are so
insensitive and opposed to the ideals
King represented.
King's day is another step - a sym-
bolic step- toward reaching the goal
of his dream: that his children will be
judged not by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.
vord in 1984
This week's Justice Department
ruling significantly expands that
policy.
What is frightening is the ease and
decisiveness with which officials can
now use these indecisive tests. During
the same congressional hearing as the
Justice Department statement, a
congressional researcthoffice released
a study which seriously doubted the
ability of polygraph tests to detect lies
in these situations. In fact, the
reliability of polygraph tests has long
been dubious, even under the best
circumstances.
Now, despite considerable evidence
that the tests are unreliable, federal of-
ficials claim the right to use them
whenever and wherever they please,
and without the slightest provocation.
Are these precautions worth the
relatively small gains in national
security? Or are federal ad-
ministrators so afraid of the Soviet
Union that they have to use Soviet.
methods to quell their fears, as one
former federal official said at the
hearing?
A comparatively open government
may be one of the longest running
American traditions, but President
Reagan seems to be preparing to run
under the "Big Brother" banner in
1984.
WRONG, MAN!...
IT'S ABOUT, LAKE,
AMS AND LK
CUTTING PROGRAMS,
AND LKE, ThE ENP OF
LIBERAL EDUCATION
ITSgLF1 i
wows
AND YOURE PART
OF IT, MANI IYOU
GOTTA' UO gWE-
THING I; YOU' RE
PART OF THE FIVE-
yAgA PLAN 1 1
* s
"
LL r
A
'ft
I
GOLIIY, wE'
DOE~S THAT
W~AH wE wo
TIME? 1
'N'T
4
.. ..
LETTERS TO THE DAILY:
Dean defends School of Education a'
To the Daily:
The editorial applauding the 40
percent cut for the education
school ("Education school: 40
percent cut necessary," Daily,
September 22) is, of course, a
matter of opinion. We in the
education school differ, but we
are nevertheless working to put
into action the budget reductions
recommended to the regents.
What is not a matter of opinion
is the assertion in the third
paragraph of the editorial that
the School of Education is not
ranked nationally among other
education schools. Every
nationally recognized poll in the
last 15 years has placed the
Waffling.
on Watt
To the Daily:
Sunday you ran an article,
"Watt honored in Forks, Wash."
(Daily October 16), describing an
event, and quoting individuals at
that event who support or suppor-
ted James Watt. But why? Both
Friday's and Saturday's (Oc-
tober 14 and 15) paper ran with
rather rude and demeaning car-
toons depicting Watt as a buffoon
whose idiosyncrasities have him
goshing frogs, pulling the legs off
funny little bugs, and shovelling
cowpies. Should I infer, as a daily
Daily reader, incredulity?; that
like James Watt those supporters
in Forks,_ Wash, are buffoon's
who goosh frogs, pull legs off fun-
ny little bugs, and shovel
cowpies. In short some editorial
constancy is wanting.
More importantly though I am
disappointed that perhaps the
final word we have of James Watt
via the Daily is one of support
for his environmental policies. As
offensive and insensitive as Mr.
Watt's comments regarding
women, blacks, Jews, and crip-
ples were, his greater offense
was toward our environment and
the management of our natural
resources. As secretary of the in-
terior, Mr. Watt fostered what
might be described simply as
laissez-faire industrial ex-
ploitation embellished with token
concessions for those ethically
and ecologically opposed to the
systematic denuding of the ear-
th/us.* As Mr. Watt leaves the
Department of the Interior we
should not be musing about what
he did, does, or may do with fun-
ny little bugs; but thinking and
working on what we need to do to
ensure a clean environment and
adequate resources in the future.
- Blair Tily
October 17
We encourage our readers
to use this space to discuss and
school among the top 10 or 15 of
the more than 800 colleges of
education in the United States.
The most recent of these
studies appeared just last spring
in the American Educational
Research Journal. It ranked us
14th in overall research produc-
tivity and10th most improved
since 1975. The distinction of a
national ranking is an honor we
have shared in the past with
many University departments.
Despite a 40 percent budget cut,
we are determined to make the
School of Education even better
in the future.
We understand the Daily's view
that when enrollment drops, a
school's budget should be cut,
and when enrollment increases, a
school should have money to hire
new faculty. However, the School
of Education can remember
times, during the tremendous
teacher shortage of the 70s, when
our enrollment increased without
any increase in faculty. The for-
mula seems to apply only on the
down side: Don't increase when
times are good but cut when
times are bad.
I hope that the Daily will be
consistent when other schools ex-
perience such enrollment
declines. We are not as sanguine
about using enrollment as a han-
dy index for budget increases and
decreases.
- Prof. Carl F. Berger
October 11
Berger is the dean of the
School of Education.
_
..!
Blacks' fears overblown
To the Daily:-
I am writing to strongly protest
the sensationalism and
misrepresentation that charac-
terized your October 11th story
("Firings, Resignations Alarm.
'U' Blacks,") which I saw for the
first time yesterday. Not only did
your story fail to demonstrate the
"alarm" referred to in the
headline, but it seemed designed
to create "alarm" even if little or
none existed. Certainly I did not
convey to your reporter any sense
of "alarm" on my part. In fact,
my expression of "concern" was
explicitly linked to the general
issue of Black faculty and staff
recruitment and.retention rather
than to specific case(s) in point,
about which I declined to com-
ment. My remarks quoted in the
Daily were reported in a context
that completely misrepresented
the sense of my conversation with
the reporter. This is not the first
time one of your reporters has
misrepresented a conversation
with me, but-it is likely to be the
last time one of them will have an
opportunity to do so.
- Niara Sudarkas4
October 1
Editor's note: Due to an
editing error, Prof. Sudarkasa's
comment that she had no
specific knowledge of circum-
stances surrounding the recent
susjnsions and resignations
was eliminated from the story.
The Daily regrets the error.
U' treated director cruelly
4
Editor's note: The following is
a letter sent to University
President Harold Shapiro.
Dear Mr. Shapiro:
I am a systems analyst at RCA
Cyclix Communications Network
in Memphis, Tenn. I am also on
the board of directors of the Mid-
South Peace and Justice Center.
At the University of Michigan I
was a James B. Angell Scholar in
1980. That same year I received a
"Student Achievement" award
for community service.
During the process of
preparing for careers, I and hun-
dreds of other University studen-
ts had the advantage of having
our education expand beyond the
narrow constraints of Frieze
Building classrooms and Angell
Hall lecture rooms. My education
included . working with and
becoming a part of the lives of the
people in the Pontiac Heights,
HiKone, and Maple Road housing
projects in Ann Arbor and the
Grove Street projects in Ypsilan-
ti. We fed, taught, and learned
from children who were poor and
poorly educated yet lived in the
shadow of a "Great University."
The Community Services Depar-
tment was our link to these
children, and the means through
which I received a more multi-
dimensional education.
When I first attended the
University in 1970, Project Com-
munity was essentially Tom
Moorehead. At that time, we
students doing work in the com-
munity received no credit hours,
work-study pay, or any other
support from the University..All
we could really count on was the
full, tireless support of Mr.
Moorehead - who made his of-.
fice our office and meeting place.
We called on him before dawn if
vehicles wouldn't start or doors
were locked. We called him
nights and weekends when sup-
plies were low or problems arose.
We saw him as our advocate, and
the advocate of the community at
the University. He was not only
concerned with our projects and
the people our projects touched,
he was also deeply concerned
about us, our personal growth
and development.
When I returned to the Univer-
sity in 1978, community services
had grown and diversified
tremendously. But I found that
Mr. Moorhead was still at the
center of the activities, still
providing the same tireless sup-
port and personal concern.
As an officer in the Black
Student Union during two
decades at the University, I have
registered my strong disapproval
of several policies of the Univer-
sity - investing in corporations
operating in South Africa,
refusing to enroll a fair propor-
tion of black students, refusing to
bring in an adequate number of
black instructors and grant them
tenure, etc.
Your ouster of Tom Moorehead
is the most crass, outrageous ac-
tion of your administrationrin
many years, and is the one that
personally hurts me the most
I'm sure you've gone to great
lengths to secure a rationale to
"justify" this action, bel
whatever it is it can't negate1'
years of trying to bridge a
widening gap between a univer-
sity for the "elite" and an im-
poverished community.
I, and others like me, received
recognition and awards for our
work with community services -
Mr. Moorehead stayed quietly in
the background. Now I see slan
derous charges against Mr 4
Moorehead making headlines -
while Mr. Moorehead is forced to
quietly resign.
I enclosed the plaque that Vice
President for Student Affairs
Henry Johnson presented me for
"outstanding contributions" to
the community and the letter
from Mr. Johnson that accom-
panied it. I believe you deserve
special recognition for the cruel
and disrespectful way of ending4
the career of the only Community
Services director the University
has ever had. I only wish I had a
duplicate to present to Mr.
Johnson.
- Randolph Potts
Memphis, Tenn.
October 16
BLOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed
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