4 OPINION Page 4 Saturday, January 26, 1985 The Michigan Daily I Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan The University's motives 4 Vol. XCV, No. 96 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Shuttle secrets T he rumors about the recent space shuttle launch are flying faster than the craft itself. Will it carry a communications satellite? If so, can that satellite detect Soviet troop movements? Will this satellite and others like it someday serve as an early warning system for Soviet missile launchings? Only a few select Defense Department and administration of- ficials know the answers to these questions-and they're not telling. Thursday's shuttle launch marks the first secret military shuttle mission in- to space. It also illustrates that the Reagan Administration intends to move the arms race into space. At a .time when relations between the United States and the Soviet Union are particularly tense, the move into space could be a detrimental step. The optimistic negotiations between the two countries at Geneva make the Reagan Administration appear com- mitted to peace. Though the talks are reassuring, when the Pentagon con- tinues to develop more effective war- time methods at the same State Department discusses defeats the purpose. time the peace, it It is not that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing but, more frighteningly, that the ad- ministration is perfectly aware of what's going on. It appears President Ronald Reagan is more committed to military superiority than he is to cooperation and negotiation. It is clear sincere efforts to negotiate with Soviet leaders will remain at the bottom of the administrations's priority list for another four years. The threat to the Soviet Union posed by a 5,000-pound intelligence gathering device orbiting the earth will not go unnoticed by that country's leaders. Unless the United States is willing to back up efforts to negotiate with ac- tion, relations between the two world powers will continue to suffer. Unfortunately, it also means that the prospects for slowing of the arms race will continue to decline. By Robert Honigman Third in a series offour articles. During 1977 and 1978, I decided to read the Michigan Daily from 1958 down to the present to discover why the University had neglected student housing. It was like a detective story. Student housing was the victim, and the University was obviously the perpetrator - The Nature of the University but what was the motive, and were there ex- tenuating circumstances? As I read the Dailies I noticed one per- sistent theme: students, and sometimes even faculty, regularly charged the University with placing administrative convenience ahead of social or educational goals. This was not a canned accusation, but was made by students or faculty long familiar with some particular issue and speaking out of personal experience. For example, when Mary Markley was opened as a women's dorm, the University announced that it was rescinding senior women's right to live in off-campus housing. This was for their own good, the University assured them. A few years later when the University desperately needed dormitory space for its expanding freshmen populations, it quietly dropped residency requirements for first senior, then junior, and finally sophomore women - and almost overnight, two major dorms were made co- ed, so that male freshmen could find extra accommodations as well, the relaxation of in loco parentis went smoothly because it was administratively convenient. Gradually, from dozens of issues scattered over time - each significantly different and isolated from the rest - I gained the im- pression that every policy of the residence halls was based in some way on ad- ministrative convenience and efficiency. The dormitories seemed to be like giant machines built around the convenience and safety of its operators. No wonder, despite decades of complaint, the University refused to abandon its pre-paid institutional food system in the dorms. It was the easiest and most forgiving kind of food system to operate. There was no point in making the dorms too comfortable because space was needed for incoming freshmen. High turnover made the dorms easier to run. Gradually four reasons emerged as to why the University didn't built adequate housing to match the expansion of its student population in the 1960s. First were the economic benefits which ac- crued to long-term residents of Ann Arbor (which included faculty and University of- ficials). Property values doubled and even tripled during the 1960s. Property tax revenue rose as well, enabling Ann Arbor to fund a fir- st class school system - while high rents ef- fectively kept lower income families out of the city and out of its schools. Since students wre forced to find part-time jobs to pay for high rents, the city had a good supply of cheap intelligent labor - and the University as a major employer benefited from this greatly as well. A second reason lay in the academic at- titudes of the faculty. They believed that a major research and graduate education university, such as Michigan, shouldn't be expanding its undergraduate population. The College of LS & A in the mid-1960s, in fact, voted to freeze freshmen enrollment. The faculty didn't want more undergraduates - so why build more housing for them? Moreover, University officials themselves were actively lobbying during the 1960s and 1970s to get the state to change its funding methods so that the University would no longer be so dependent on freshmen and sophomores for revenue. If successful, it meant that un- dergraduate populations could be reduced, and the University could concentrate on a smaller but better graduate-professional research university. A third reason for not building a housing community for students was political. The 1960s were a time of great student activism - activism that damaged the reputation of higher education and caused serious criticism of the research ethos that dominated major campuses. Activism arose out of student communities - but could be dampened if students were scattered geographically over a wide area and were burdened with difficult financial, transportation, and social problems. Off- campus housing was a form of Siberian exile for students in the 1960s. But probably the most important reason for not creating and sustaining a student com- munity was that the University - like other universities and colleges throughout the nation - was being operated as a business. Prsestige supplied the profit motive, and everything in the University was subor- dinated to earning prestige. A business can be an educational experien- ce. Students can learn good work habits, technical skills, and how to follow orders. 4 They can enjoy competition and bask in real world accomplishments.tBut a business is in- compatible with a community. It has dif- ferent values and different goals - where one exists the other cannot. There is no sound business reason for giving students good housing or even good classroom instruction if the money can be better spent elsewhere - on research and graduate studies, for example. Only things which help the University in its competition for prestige receive top priority funding. Creating a coun- 4 ter-culture, a student community with its own needs and priorities, would be counter- productive - like a manufacturing company encouraging an employee's union. The principle of the residence halls - that is, running an institution for the ease and con- venience of its operators - applies to the University as a whole. Prestige is a form of wealth for non-profit institutions, and the University is as ob- sessively concerned with accumulating 4 wealth as any business organization. When I analyzed the role of prestige in the University, I reached the third level of under- standing - discovering and tracing the secret vein of greed that runs through every policy and value of the institution. But one troubling problem remained. How can an institution so corrupt be staffed by people who are individually kind and sen- sitive? Why are evil institutions run by good men and women? That is the most difficult thing of all to discover. Honigman, a University graduate, is an4 attorney in Sterling Heights. Tomorrow: "Students governing quality" Buckle down I t will cost twice as much money for forgetting to wear your seat belt in Michigan than it does for being caught with marijuana in Ann Arbor if a proposal passed by the state senate passes the House next week. On Wednesday the Senate voted 25-9 to require Michigan drivers and front seat passengers to wear seat belts or pay a fine of $10. The fine would be raised to $25 next year. That decision came largely in response to a federal mandate that requires automobile manufacturers to install air bags or similar safety devices in all cars unless two-thirds of the nation's population were covered by man- datory seat belt laws. There is a fine line that exists bet- ween proper governmental regulation of public activities, and interference with private activities of citizens. The Senate decision calling for mandatory seat belts crosses that line. It is true that seat belts save lives. The state legislature, however, does not hold the responsibility to ensure that individuals heed that good advice. The state may make information on the benefits of wearing seat belts available, but in a country where rights and freedoms are held sacred, citizens have a right to ignore that ad- vice. In the case of the mandatory seat belt law, the federal government has impinged upon the states' rights to determine their own legislation; and the state of Michigan has turned around and impinged upon the right of private citizens to choose whether to heed safety precautions. If the House passes the proposal, as it is expected to do, the decision will represent another blow to the freedom of individuals in Michigan. Those freedoms must begin with the in- dividual. Provided a citizen's action does not interfere with the freedoms of another, the government does not have the right to prohibit, restrict; or regulate that action in any way. Bering _ I ( 1 y-DoTHAT ...IH EH H EHI.. HI A AILY /?85@ VOO-DOO - THAT YOU DO -"50 WELL YA' AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET!" I LETTERS TO THE DAILY Studentsshouldunite against Williams To the Daily: I am outraged by Williams In- ternational's recruiting visit to our campus on Friday, January 18th. Friday marked the 43rd day of an indefinite sentence served by two University students for blocking the gates at Williams In- ternational in Walled Lake, the country's major supplier of cruise missile engines. Their nonviolent and momentary students, Williams is pitting student against student in a moral conflict. It is essential that all students, not just those inter- viewing through the School of Engineering, be aware of the work Williams does, and the moral implications of that work, as well as its fluence on negotiations.- destabilizing in- arms control --Charlotte Cotter January 22 BLOOM COUNTY by Berke Breathed All IW /C t n I X -0/0 I/fll 'AA'T YR P/2N 20 Y/AI /MIT MAf116 UlMl QWVV GIiV V6P .11/ST , Ey 7NArIM76 M1nl-Crl4 I/tr - -I I II~UUM..J'~ NIX ii .J