4 OPINION Page 4 Thursday, November 13, 1986 The Michigan Daily 1 'a A m 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 YOUR. LINFIL11Y PAr= "WES FoP2CE MY D©OTOP To CLOE 15 PRAGT1CG. T2D U KE TO £SEE THEPDATATo ?PROVE TK~=- NCRASE AQ JUFIE c/ W\ 'NT9 OUT OF EUSINS f' J 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 EN'T yO U &E1TIN & R LITLE 9T Fe9DNN0 6~ 0 =.-IAS. 9D q A 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: 4 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 -. all, I I