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OPINION
Page 4
Tuesday, November 12, 1985
The Michigan Daily
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
On the guidelines
Vol. XCVI, No.49
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
Underenrollment shame)
"We have also come to this
hallowed spot to remind America
of the fierce urgency of now. This
is no time to engage in the luxury
of cooling off or to take the
tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make the real
promises of Democracy. Now is
the time to rise from the dark and
desolate valley of segregation to
the sunlit path of racial
justice...
-Martin Luther King Jr.
March on Washington, 1963
A T THIS UNIVERSITY,
gradualism is the drug the ad-
ministration offers to cure all ills.
Gradualism has proven effective in
tranquilizing, pacifying, and
paralyzing the strongest of
movements. It has tamed the rage
of the mighty Black Action
Movement into the tiny trickle of
Affirmative Action standards and
scattered minority services that
exist today.
22 years since King's call to ac-
tion, the proportion of black
students to white students at the
University reflects only half of
their presence in the nation's
population. Of those few students,
only one quarter of them will
graduate in four years and one half
in five years. The four-year
graduation for whites is twice as
high.
In 1970, the administration in-
troduced gradualism to pacify the
organizers of a campus-wide strike
demanding representative
minority enrollment. It promised
the BAM strikers 10 percent black
enrollment by 1973, and, in good
faith, the protestors accepted the
pledge.
15 times since then, the ad-
ministration has issued its yearly
tally of minority enrollment
figures. 15 times it has reported
failure. 15 times the administration
has offered excuses. The ad-
ministrators throw up their hands
and wish themselves better luck
next year, satisfied with the
slowest of change.
On paper, the University is doing
what it must do to increase
minority enrollment.
Last year was the first full year
Associate Vice-President for
Academic Affairs Niara
Sudarkasa was able to work
specifically toward increasing
minority enrollment. The ad-
ministration approved an ad-
ditional $1.4 million scholarship
fund for qualified minority studen-
ts, and Sudarkasa issued a report
on minority recruitment as the fir-
st of three scheduled reports on
minority life at the University.
Sudarkasa's report was not ap-
proved by the administration until
three months after it was finished.
As a result, the additional scholar-
ship fund was unavailable for use
as a recruiting tool until most high
school students had already picked
colleges.
The percentage of blacks
enrolled at the University rose to
5.2, an increase of one tenth of one
percent from last year. In num-
bers, 24 more black students than
last year are here now. At an in-
stitution of over 30,000 students, a
mere 24 cannot be reason for self-
congratulation.
Their admission is a step in the
right direction, but a tiny one. If
the University ever intends to
meet its own goal of 10 percent
black enrollment it must be ready
to try new approaches to an ugly,
old problem.
Roderick Linzie, minority
enrollment researcher for the
Michigan Student Assembly, has
proposed various measures aimed
at increasing black, Hispanic, and
Native American enrollment at the
University. He asks that equal at-
tention be given to retention of
students as is given to their
recruitment. The attrition rate for
blacks is staggering; only 29.4 per-
cent of them will earn their
degrees in four years. For whites
and Asian-Americans, that figure
jumps to over 50 percent. Clearly
black students have unique dif-
ficulties which must be addressed
in a more effective and innovative
manner.
The services the University
provides are helpful, but must be
radically altered to maximize ef-
ficiency. According to Linzie, these
resources must be centralized to
invite increased student use and to
improve communication between
offices.
Linzie further advocates im-
plementation of Project FAR, a
program in use at other univer-
sities which identifies those
students most likely to drop-out
and gives them special attention.
This program would demand,
however, that the University make
an attempt to create a more per-
sonal environment. Linzie conten-
ds that the cold, impersonal at-
mosphere of the campus keeps
minority students from graduation
and keeps potential students away.
One viable alternative for the
administration is the creation of a
University-wide commission of
students, faculty, and ad-
ministrators to deal with minority
issues. The commission was
promised by University Vice
President for Academic Affairs
and Provost Billy E. Frye in Oc-
tober of 1983, but never
materialized.
Last year's initiatives indicate
the University may finally be ad-
dressing the problem of black
enrollment. Nevertheless, the
nearly insignificant increases in
this year's enrollment shows it has
a long way to go. Until the Univer-
sity acts to fully utilize the resour-
ces it has allocated for minority
recruitment, including pressing
Sudarkasa to stick to her schedule
and addressing the problem of
retention, the numbers next year
will be no better than this year's.
For now, the University has been
patting itself on the back for the
meager increase it was able to
achieve, but the gradual success
such "increases" prophesy is too
distant to be acceptable.
By Paul Josephson,
Eric Schnaufer,
and Ingrid Kock
President Shapiro has announced the
composition of the Ad Hoc Committee on
Classified research. Drafted in 1972, these
guidelines ensure that University research
can be openly published and are intended to
bar research that could lead to the destruc-
tion of human life.
If this committee weakens the present
guidelines or calls for no guidelines, the
University of Michigan will do much more
highly-classified weapons research. The
present guideline review occurs when
federal research initiatives such as Star
Wars indicate that the Reagan ad-
ministration desires increased University
weapons research and after the Regents
have endorsed the Star Wars initiative.
Due to the circumstances surrounding the
formation of the guideline review, it may be
impossible thatthe guideline review com-
mittee can satisfy all segments of the
University community. Last July, then Vice
President for Research Alfred Sussman
rejected Professor Raymond Tanter's
research project because of its secret
classification and because there were no
assurances that research results could be
openly published.
Professor Tanter's project was the first
project ever rejected under the University's
classified research guidelines. The project
would have been rejected according to
guidelinesat almost all major research
universities.
The Regents are using this solitary rejec-
tion as an excuse to question, i.e. dilute, the
entire research review process.
Specifically, the Regents asked whether the
guideline clause calling for open publication
of researchresults could be weakened and
called for a re-examination of the guideline
clause which bars research intended to
destroy human life.
In calling for the review, the Regents are
flagrantly ignoring the consensus of student
and faculty opinion. The Faculty Senate and
the Michigan Student Assembly, the
representative bodies of the students and
faculty, have indicated that the present
guidelines are still desireable for the
University community and, in fact, have
voted that the guidelines should be extended
to cover unclassified research.
However, since the guidelines are going to
be reviewed, President Shapiro, charged by
the Regents with organizing the review
committee, should have selected committee
members representative of the University
community. Only a committee with un-
biased and representative members can
legitimately review University research
Josephson is MSA president,
Schnaufer chair of MSA 's Personnel In-
terviewing Committee, and Kock is
MSA 's military research advisor.
policies. Unfortunately, the irregularities in
both the selection process for and com-
position of the committee clearly
signal that the committee is charged with
gutting the guidelines.
The foremost irregularity in the commit-
tee's selection process is President
Shapiro's refusal to appoint MSA's and the
Faculty Senate's nominees. MSA
nominated two students, Sean Laane and
Marisella Velez. President Shapiro appoin-
ted only Sean Laane. Instead of Ms. Velez,
President Shapiro appointed Thomas Bat-
tle, an engineering student. This violates
the All-Campus Constitution of the Student
Body which gives MSA the sole authority to
nominate students to Presidential and other
University-wide committees.
The only reason given to MSA for Ms.
Velez's rejection by the administration was
that Ms. Velez was ineligible to serve on the
committee because she was a member of
the Research Policies Committee.
However, this factor should not have ex-
cluded Ms. Velez from serving on the
guideline review committee because a
member of the RPC, Rebecca Eisenberg
was selected to serve on guideline review.
The failure to select Ms. Velez is ad-
ditionally suspect considering that there is
only one woman on the twelve member
guideline review committee.
President Shapiro also overlooked the
majority of nominations of the represen-
tative body of the faculty. According to
SACUA only three of SACUA's over 10
nominees were chosen. By overlooking
MSA's and SACUA's nominees, President
Shapiro was able to hand pick 8 of 12 com-
mittee members.
The minutes of the October 21, 1985 RPC
meeting reveal that the administration was
not truly interested in appointing SACUA or
MSA nominees. Rather, it was interested in
selecting committee members who will
recommend the changes requested by the
Regents. According to RPC meeting
minutes, Vice-President Linda Wilson-
stated that "members of the committee
would be from areas where classified
research might arise." Thus, the ad-
ministration seeks not to consult the
University as a whole but those who would
most profit from weakening or eliminating
the guidelines.
Furthermore, three of Shapiro's appoin-
tees have made public statements against
research guidelines. James Lesch ad-
ministers Department of Defense reasearch
on campus. In an August interview, Mr.
Lesch stated he would prefer that there
were no research guidelines because they
made his job difficult. Mr. Lesch thus has a
direct conflict of interest in serving on the
committee. Two of President Shapiro's ap-
pointees were spokespersons for "Citizens
Against Research Bans", a University-in-
dustry lobbying group organized to defeat
the Nuclear Free Zone. These three men are
not impartial committee members.
The irregularities in the committee go
beyond the selection process and committee
composition. President Shapiro is trying to
pre-determine the committee's agenda. Not
review
only has he selected the chair, but he has
also specified that the committee
reevaluate the guideline clauses calling for
open publication of research results and
barring University research that could lead
to the destruction of human life. A Univer-
sity committee designed to review research
guidelines which have existed for thirteen
years should determine its own agenda af-
ter hearing testimony on all pertinent
issues.
President Shapiro has also imposed a
strict deadline for thecommittee's recom-
mendation. He has asked that the commit-
tee render its report and recommendations
by the end of this semester or the beginning
of the next. Since the committee meets for
the first time this week for Shapiro to
suggest, much less set a deadline for
December demonstrates that the ad-
ministration wants the committee to rub-
berstamp its position. It is impossible for a
committee to thoroughly review the
classified research policy in less than a
month. We may legitimately speculate if
the committee's recommendations are
already being drafted in the basement of the
Administration Building.
The University community needs to be
aware that once the final recommendations
of the committee are made, there will not be
time for general University input on the
issues. When asked at the RPC meeting of
October 21, whether the Regents would
have an open discussion of the findings,
Dr. Wilson replied that "the best way for
student and faculty to participate would be
to meet with the committee." The commit-
tee has so little time to work that it' does not
have adequate time to meet with students
and faculty.
Moreover, it is difficult to meet with the
committee when the committee's meeting
are closed. The first meeting of the Ad-Hoc
committee is November 12, 1985 at 4 p.m. in
President Shapiro's office. According to
Judy Nowak, Administrative Assistant to
the Ad Hoc Committee on Classified
Research, this first meeting is closed. Since
the committee's recommendations will af-
fect the very nature of the University,
students and facultyhave a right to attend
this and all other committee meetings.
The Michigan Student Assembly has
requested that President Shapiro take into
consideration a number of changes before
the committee first meets. These requests
include: (1) that James Lesch resign from
the committee because of his conflict of in-
terest; (2) that all meetings of the commit-
tee be open to the public and minutes of the
meetings widely disseminated; (3) that
President Shapiro explain the committee
selection process; (4) that President*
Shapiro not interfere with the committee by
setting deadlines; and (5) that the MSA
nominee Marisella Velez be appointed to the
committee.
It is imperative that the University and
Ann Arbor community support MSA's effor-
ts to ensure that the committee conduct an
impartial and fair review and make
recommendations that will best suit the
University of Michigan.
Chassy
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