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OPINION
Page 4
Thursday, November 13, 1986
The Michigan Daily
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E e nd manaedbtesa nivs tyoi
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Vol. XCVII, No. 51
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board
All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily.
Recognize disabled
A DIRECTOR has finally been
hired for the Office of Disabled
Student Services which has been
running for more than a year with
only temporary management.
Unfortunately, disabled persons
have had to bear the brunt of this
bureaucratic delay.
During the absence of a full-time
director, basic services for disabled
students were maintained, but the
program suffered in other ways.
The interim appointees were hired
to assume only administrative
:duties; the lack of a director
:prevented formulation of new
services and the improvement of
existing ones. Another
consequence of this gap in
leadership is that many students
remain unaware of the office or its
*functions. The office must
establish a stronger connection
with those that it serves by
publicizing services and surveying
disabled students and faculty to
*determine where improvements are
needed.
The University has instituted
some valuable services, such as a
'convenient transportation system
.for the disabled, but has failed to
address other areas. Computer
'services and equipment for visually
impaired or blind students are
:inadequate. New students need
more qualified aids to orient them
with the campus. Building access
and insufficient sidewalk ramps are
still serious issues for disabled
students.
Considering difficulties with
improving the service network for
the disabled, it is inexcusable that
the Office of Disabled Student
Services functioned without
sufficient leadership for over a
year. The low salary designated
for the position contributed to the
delay in hiring a trained director.
Throughout last year, a good
number of qualified applicants for
the job were forced to reject it
because of the pay.
The classification for this
position, determined by the
Personnel Office and the Office of
the Vice President for Student
Services, should be reevaluated to
establish an incentive for the new
director to remain at the University
and avoid any future struggles to
fill the position. The Office of
Disabled Student Services is
largely responsible for determining
the quality of life for disabled
students at the University. Sadly,
the present status of the director's
position within this pay system
reflects faulty priorities.
It is encouraging, however, that
a qualified woman, Darlys Topp,
director of both the Career Center
and Handicapped Student Services
at Hope College in Holland,
Michigan, will be taking the
position with the intent of initiating
new programs. Still, funding is
necessary to implement changes.
The Office of Student Services
must acknowledge the many needs
of disabled students, and determine
the budget accordingly.
Mexico,
By Daniel Blank
Recently, in an attempt to restore
unity to his unprecedentedly divided party,
Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid
replaced Adolfo Lugo Verduzco, his close
friend and leader of the Partido
Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), with
Jorge de la Vega Dominguez, who was
occupying a low level government
position after failing as a rival of de la
Madrid for the presidential nomination in
1982.
The political backdrop behind de la
Madrid's decision is a mosaic of external
pressures and internal dissent. It appears
that the main right-wing opposition
party, Partido de Accion Nacional (PAN),
may merge with a coalition of left wing
parties in a broad front to demand a fair
presidential election in 1988. The PRI
rarely admits defeat in an election, but the
often sloppy rigging has become
embarassingly obvious, and for the first
time, hotly contested. At the same time,
a problematic division has emerged
within the PRI between the "technocrats"
(de la Madrid and the high officials of his
administration), and the "politicians"
(more traditional, regionalistic elite).
Moreover, a third faction, the tendencia
democrdtia has been gaining strength by
Blank is an LS&A junior working
on an interconcentration Program
honors thesis in regional development,
specializing in Latin America.
faces
party
criticizing de la Madrid's apparent
weakness toward the many problems
currently facing Mexico.
The chief complaint of the tendencia
democrd'ia has been the content of the
new debt package negotiated with the
International Monetary Fund and the
United States Treasury. The recent drop in
the price of oil was a disaster that
necessitated the rescheduling of Mexico's
foreign debt, but the issue of having the
schedule of repayment tied to the world
price of oil was sidestepped. In addition,
Congress has just passed a new tax on oil
imports, which will severely cut
Mexico's revenue from the United States,
its main buyer.
The debt plan itself has become the
object of great skepticism. An increasing
number of experts are contending that it
simply will not work. Mexico was
previously encouraged to borrow
domestically, and maintain a high interest
rate to avoid capital flight, and as a result
debt swelled to $24 billion. With interest
rates now close to 100%, total interest
payments will absorb about 94% of the
government's budgetary revenue. New
borrowing will not finance new
investment to fuel growth, but will be
consumed in interest payments.
Meanwhile, during a time of rampant
inflation and growing unemployment, the
US House of Representatives has
approved the Simpson-Rodino bill, which
severely penalizes US farmers who
employ illegal aliens. Approximately 4
million Mexicans now work illegally in
the United States, and the immigration
rate of 600,000 per year is expected to
increase as unemployment rises. The
United States has traditionally been an
alternative source of employment for
workers in northern Mexico, but the
Simpson-Rodino bill would cut off this
safety valve that has kept wages and
working conditions near bearable levels.
If this option were, to disappear, even
greater unemployment, and protest of de
la Madrid's weakness, would follow.
Finally, the recent crackdown on the drug
trade is ill timed. For better or for worse,
marijuana and poppies are the only
profitable export of many Mexicali
farmers, and disrupting their trade puts
even more stress on the Mexican
economy.
Mexico is facing the first major
division of its main party since its
revolution. The tendencia democrdtia has
been capitalizing on the increasing
external pressures, including many from
the United States, that have been heaped
upon de la Madrid's shoulders, and is
calling for more open participation in the
selection of the PRI's candidates. The
President's chosen candidate could
traditionally be counted upon to succeed
him as a matter of course, but the
elections of 1988 might see a
compromise candidate chosen by de la;
Madrid that follows suit with the
replacement of the head of the PRI, a
desperate attempt to patch differences and
keep the his party securely in power.
split
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Security extremes
SECURITY GUARDS' ASKING
students for identification cards
while on University property may
be a means of ensuring University
security but it can be carried to
extremes. Ostensibly, security
guards can determine whether or
not various people belong on
University property by asking for
student ID.
The case of Roderick Linzie,
however, demonstrates that
University security has no qualms
about carrying that power too far.
Linzie, a graduate student in the
Sociology Department was
studying one morning in his office
in the LSA building when guards
requested to see his student ID.
Ordinarily students would not
mind showing guards ID, but
Linzie was tired of showing his ID
to guards. He had shown it to
guards three times previously in the
week and refused to show his ID
on the grounds that the guards,
with their loud radios, should not
be able to interrupt him in his office
every night.
As a result of Linzie's refusal
to comply, he was followed out of
the building by Campus Safety.
When he entered a car to leave,
Campus Safety Shift Supervisor
Robert Davenport reported the
license plate. A writer for the Daily
happened to be on the scene from
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the time Linzie refused to show ID
to the time he left the LSA.
Most disconcerting is the fact
that security guards never asked the
Daily writer to show ID during the
whole incident. The "security
guards and the Daily writer have
light complexions. Linzie is black.
The guard on duty the night
that Linzie refused to show his ID
admitted, as Linzie charged, that
security had changed the guards on
the LSA shift frequently and that
guards had checked his ID and
would continue to do so every
night. Not surprisingly, Linzie
reports that he no longer studies at
the LSA.
The security guard company
on contract with the University to
do building security pays too
poorly to retain enough people to
do its job properly-$3.50 an
hour. These guards make much
less than people in Campus Safety,
whose salaries range from $15,000
to $24,000.
The University administration
believes that security should have
the right to ask students for their
student identification at any time.
It doesn't seem to matter that
ultimately it is students who pay
the price for security guard
turnover by having to live with
repeated ID checks by different
guards.
LETTERS:
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Daily coverage of 'U'
council is faulty
To the Daily:
Since the last article on
the University Council ("'U'
Council head warns against
code intransigence," 10/9)
several significant
developments, concerning the
Council have failed to appear
in the Daily.
This article intimated that
the students on University
Council were straining the
Council's progress. (The
Council, a body of three
students, administrators, and
faculty, members, is writing
a set of rules and regulations
governing the non-academic
lives of community members,
i.e. the code.) This is
another attempt to blame
students for what actually
is the administration's
intransigence. Students are
administrators' and Regents'
scapegoats. Recent Council
events demonstrate how the
unequal treatment of students
The administration which
has three spots on the
University Council, has
failed to have a full
constituency on the Council
since early September.
Currently the administration
has only one
representative on the Council.
Further, on the same day of a
student resignation from the
Council, which MSA
immediately replaced with a
new student, an administrator
resigned from the Council.
However, the Daily not
only failed to report the
administrator's , resignation,
but has yet to report that the
Administration has left two of
its three positions vacant.
Other than the lack of
administrators on the Council,
the administration has
recently expanded its
unwillingness to participate
in the work of the Council.
Issuing copies of the first
until the Council has put
together an entire package.
One must ackowledge the
Administration's
unwillingness - to provide
input into the Council's
proceedings and wonder why
the Daily has failed to
report this lack of
participation.
This letter serves two
purposes. First, to call
attention to the diligent
work of students on the
University Council and
MSA's participation in the
Council's proceedings, while
the administration has all but
abandoned the Council.
Second, this letter alerts
one to the unequal treatment
of students and
administrators in the Daily' s
coverage of the University
Council.
-Ken Weine
Chair, Student Rights
Committee
MSA
November 9
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