4 OPINION Page 4 Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Thursday, November 10, 1983 LaBan PU-rTN (IDEALS' TO PRACT)C-EA r iF . The Michigan Daily Vol. XCIV-No. 56 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board PSN stokes the furnace U NIVERSITY PRESIDENT Harold Shapiro said yesterday that taking over a research laboratory is an "inappropriate" action in a university community. The message is not a new one. It is inappropriate for students to hold any authority, to exercise any power at the University: This seems to be the administration's bottom line. And as long as they continue to hold that line, sit-ins, like the one in Prof.' Thomas Senior's research laboratory this week, will be necessary for studen- ts to have any real voice in University policy. It is a long established University policy that students don't get a say in decisions, even if those decisions affect them most. Sure, students can give as much advice as they want. They can speak at public hearings, they can talk at committee meetings, they can even meet with administrators. But there is little guarantee that anyone will listen, much less take action as a result. As long as students have no formal pull, they will be forced to exert pressure by working outside the system. They have to change the system by jamming it, and turning up the publicity heat until it behaves dif- ferently. Students have to harness power from outside the system to get a real voice, and this is what the Progressive Student Network's sit-in has started to do. They have succeeded in stirring up a good deal of publicity. Most of the state papers picked up the story, as well as at least one national radio station. And through this publicity PSN has rallied a small amount of campus support, at least enough to keep the military research issue smoldering, if not bur- ning. Perhaps this demonstration will have some small effect on the Univer- sity's attitude toward questionable projects such as Prof. Senior's. In all likelihood, however, it will not unless debate continues after the event is forgotten. But at least these students have made an appropriate statement-a statement with some punch to it. rrM t1 f(f 4ft r. ". I. Woof I ~'Ef 4 4 Jf4 i LETTERS TO THE DAILY: PSN aims at 'ill-conceived goals' Democracy in the pink "M< EWS OF my death has been Ngreatly exaggerated," some- one was overheard as saying the other day. The speaker? Why, none other than Ms. Democracy. Certainly, if you've been taking a gander at various political situations in the world these days, you'd think that if Ms. Democracy wasn't dead or dying, she was very ill. She had stop- ped breathing a long time ago in Eastern Europe and almost all of Asia. She is being suffocated in the Philip- pines and Afghanistan. And President Ronald Reagan felt he needed to give her a helping hand in Grenada. There are other examples pointing to Democracy's demise; most of the news hasn't been good for her. It wouldn't be unreasonable to conclude that she was only surviving in her traditional homelands, the United States and Western Europe, along with a few other holdouts. But the lady got two doses of much- needed medicine recently when Turkey and Argentina held long- overdue elections that yielded vic- tories as important for the winning parties as for the democratic process in both nations. The success of these elections goes a long way toward proving that the people of Turkey and Argentina want and are capable of caring for Ms. Democracy. In Turkey, more than 92 percent of eligible voters voted in the first elec- tion there since a military coup three years ago. They voted a majority of the 400-seat parliament to Turgut Ozal's conservative Motherland Party. The military's party finished a distant third, despite the endorsement of Turkey's president. In Argentina elections brought an even more stunning result. The Peronists suffered their first defeat in an election ever. Raul Alfonsin, a moderate, won a six year term as president. He promised to curb the military by curtailing the draft and opening the files on more than 6,000 missing persons many suspect the outgoing military regime murdered. Alfonsin faces a difficult economic road; inflation is running rampant and if he doesn't bring it under control he won't become the second president in 53 years to complete all six years of his term. The good news, though, is that Ms. Democracy is making a recovery. To the Daily: There are times when issues and events threaten the Univer- sity as an institution. One such current issue is the campaign to prohibit military-sponsored research at the University, as dramatized by the Progressive Student Network's occupation of Prof. Thomas Senior's laboratory, which according to quotations in Tuesday's Daily ("Protestors support PSN sit- in," November 8), is apparently endorsed by the Michigan Student Assembly president and vice-president. A related issue is the attempt to place before the voters a referendum prohibiting all research in Ann Arbor even remotely related to nuclear war; including, for example, research on improving com- munication with submerged nuclear-powered submarines, the least vulnerable leg of our nuclear deterrent. Broadly in- terpreted, it might also prohibit the pro-arms control activities of the Office of International Peace and Security Research. There is not space in this letter to debate all the issues raised by these matters, but I feel strongly that I must go on public record as opposing these ill-conceived goals and the methods being used to coerce Prof. Senior to remove himself and his research from the University. There is no reason to ban any kind of research from our cam= pus so long as it is non-classified, open, and consistent with the goals of the University to further and transmit knowledge. These goals include widely agreed upon notions of morality but must and do allow for informed disagreement concerning how to preserve peace and security. The military has a role to play in these matters, and military- sponsored research, like technologically related research generally, sometimes contributes to a better, safer world and at other times exacerbates the dif- ficulties associated with self- preservation and cultural advan- cement. There are those, I know, who would ban basic research in elementary particle physics (my primary field) on this campus because its principle funding agency is the Department of Energy, half of whose budget is concerned with the development and production of thermonuclear bombs. There are those who would ban the ROTC from the University as somehow undeser- ving of a place here or as incom- patible with the University's goals rather than as a means of providing the nation with college- educated military officers from anreec nr ha hn the miliB primary motivation behind my personal commitment to the development of an un- dergraduate course on nuclear weapons and nuclear war; a development which has, by the way, been supported by the Department of Physics and the College of LSA. I am much encouraged by the concern among students and staff Peterson's To the Daily: I was shocked to pick up today's Daily and read the way your reporter coveredmy remarks ("Protesters support PSN sit- in," Daily, November 8). My phrase, "vote the bastards out," was intended to be a purely sar- castic comment on a position ad- vocated by one of the hecklers in the crowd, and was in no way in- tended to express my view of Rep. Carl Pursell or President Ronald Reagan. Although it is very difficult to undo the damage done by misreporting, let me try. (In- cidentally, I represent the First Ward, not the Second, as you reported.) One of the several loud hecklers at my brief talk pestered me with questions about Profs: P To the Daily: We have just heard that the laboratory of a prominent University research scientist, Thomas Senior, has been blockaded by students. We un- derstand that this blockade is in protest of his research in the field of nuclear weaponry and of military research at the Univer- sity in general. This blockade is the logical outcome of the failure of the regents to ratify democratic processes in the University earlier this year. After extensive consultation and debate last win- ter and spring, the Senate Assembly voted to extend the guidelines for classified research to non-classified research, with the intent of preventing such research from destroying human life. This vote by the elected representatives of the University faculty was vetoed by the regents last summer, possibly under pressure from the White House. In light of this, it seems that the student action is consonant with the decision of the Senate Assem- bly. Accordingly, the blockade requires that the faculty call for renewal of the Senate Assembly BLOOM COUNTY on this campus over these issues, but am beginning to worry that normally healthy student ac- tivism may contribute counter- productively if it threatens the fabric of the University or challenges the rights of in- dividual faculty to pursue research falling within certain broadly-defined goals. I urge colleagues and students not to sit silently by and allow this to hap- pen. In closing, I appreciate and en- dorse the editorial concerning "The Day After" ("Preventing a real day after," Daily, November 8). -Martin B. Einhorn November 9 Einhorn in a professor of physics. 'bastards' rates sarcasm who really runs the federal research budget, I responded that the president and Congress did. He then insisted-or at least that is what I heard over the ob- noxious shouting of the other hecklers-that, in truth, the only thing we citizens can do about U.S. policy is to wait until elec- tion time and vote the incumben- ts out of office. I responded by invoking the silly, misguided bat- tle cry of so many groups, right- wing and left-wing, to wit, "vote the bastards out." I used this phrase as a sarcastic gibe at what I think is the futility of the all-or-nothing approach apparen- tly advocated by the heckler. We can do much more than just wait for elections, work to elect or defeat a particular candidate, and then sit on our hands for the next two or four years. "Democracy is too important," I went on to say, "to happen only every two years." I pointed to the important successes of the civil rights movement, which used direct action-between elec- tions-to make its gains. I do think we need a different congressperson and a different president. I did not intend, however, to stoop to the level of some of the hecklers, and to start calling people names. I sincerely hope that any misunderstandings that might have resulted from the mistake in reporting in today's Daily can be overcome. -Lowell Peterson November 8 I 6 SNsit-in logical. . initiative. It also requires the faculty to ask a more satisfying response to the issue of military research from University President Harold Shapiro and other responsible officials. -William Alexander Bert Hornback, John Reiff Michael Taussig November 7 Alexander and Hornback are professors of English; Reiff is a professor in the Residential College; and Taussig is a professor of an- thropology. THIS TS 14E PEN THAT t""?t'c S DEt~t kCN4~LV RAC-G 4N USED -io Si&M LFG4SLATION EV2Si&N"Acri.N A NATIONAL HOLID'AY IN H-ONOR COP SLAA1t4 CiML FRI - T Lt,. O : MvARTIlN LUITHER K(NG-JR, 00 Religious leaders agree . . . a To the Daily: The following is an open let- ter to University President Harold Shapiro: The elected faculty represen- tatives in the Senate Assembly voted last spring on a guideline which would have extended the ban on research aimed at the destruction of human life to in- clude non-classified as well as classified research. The Michigan Student Assembly had also endorsed this extension. The regents of the University, however, voted against this policy at a time when many students and faculty were away from campus. The act of civil disobedience in which a group of students is currently engaged is a clear indication that this issue will not go away. As campus ministers, we call upon President Harold Shapiro to seek the widest possible discussion of this issue throughout the University com- munity and to ask the regents to reopen the question. -Michael Brooks November 9 This letter was cosigned by 24 other members of the Association of Religious Counselors at their meeting the morning of November 9. by Berke Breatsed U 4 A - ~r ~AA4A# hi4 i I