I OPINION Page4 . Thursday, January 7, 1988 The Michigan Daily LETTERS Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Don't alienate other views Vol. XCVIII, No. 67 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board. All other cartgons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. Whose First LAST MONTH before winter break, the University administration's weekly tabloid, the University Rtcord, made some ominous references in regard to the anti-CIA protest of November 25th. The University Record has explained that graduate student taar.old Marcuse stands charged wvith assaulting a police and a Public Safety officer. Yet, in the first University Record report of the event on December 7th, no mention Was made of the fact that University ]public Safety officer Robert Patrick ticked Marcuse in the groin. At the Same time, the article states that demonstrators knocked down director of Public Safety Leo heatley and injured another Safety pfficer. .A subsequent article on December -14th mentions that Marcuse alleged that Patrick kicked him in the groin, but it still does not mention the v4itnesses who also saw t h e kicking. Unfortunately, the Uni- versity Record's one-sided cover- age is indicative of the University's general practice in the field of civil liberties. :The University Record states that atministrators at Career Planning ad Placement "planned to accom- t odate the demonstrators by allowing them to sit in the office's .waiting area." Such a statement is intended to make the University adiministration appear reasonable atid the demonstrators unreasonable fcr not demonstrating in the designated area. Yet, the statement actually proves that the University either does not understand the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights or does not care to. The First Amendment states specifically that government authorities, such as administrators at public universities including the University of Michigan, cannot ab- ridge the rights of the people to peaceably assemble for the purpose of protesting government policies. The First Amendment does not say, "it's OK for the people to demonstrate, but only in a manner and place the government approves."~ Indeed, the First Amendment restricts only government actions against the people. Technically, an individual or protester cannot violate the CIA's First Amendment rights because the CIA does not have any First Amendment rights. Of course, one is entitled to believe that "free speech" should be a right of the government. Yet, the University's one-sided interpretation of "free speech" results in defense of CIA "rights" at the expense of the students' First Amendment rights. In the past, for instance, President Shapiro con- Amendment? demned a Rackham Student Government (RSG) resolution which "banned" certain Reagan officials including George Bush from the campus. (University Record, 10/21/85) He condemned the RSG for passing a resolution, but he did not condemn Public Safety and Ann Arbor police for physically blocking and eventually arresting protesters who never got to confront the CIA. It boils down to saying that the University sees that it and other government agencies have "rights," but students do not and the University admin- istration has chosen to speak on behalf of government rather than its students. Likewise; University Public Safety Director Leo Heatley's public statements at the November 25th incident prove that the University authorities feel they have the right to circumscribe the right to free speech and peaceable assembly in public buildings. Some authority- lovers would like to portray the anti-CIA demonstrators as violent since Leo Heatley claims to have fallen to his -knees as 30 -demonstrators filed by that day. Yet at this.same incident Heatley told demonstrators that they would have to assault him to get to where they wanted to go to protest to the CIA. By saying this, once again Heatley hoped to conjure up images of marauding and violent radicals. In reality though, Heatley's statement is further evidence that the University administration system- atically violates the First Amendment. Word for word what Heatley said was that it was impossible for the demonstrators to assemble peaceably in a certain place in a public building where the- CIA. was recruiting. For trying to deny the people their right to demonstrate in the Student Activities Building, Heatley and other government officials are lucky that they did not receive much harsher treatment. The "founding fathers" clearly stated the ultimate rights of the people in dealing with-government authorities who try to usurp the people's rights. The attempts of the University authorities .to rewrite the Fii-st Amendment are intolerable. Whether it be following protesters from demonstrations, taking down banners or trying to dampen anti- CIA protests, the University au- thorities are acting lawlessly and setting themselves up, sometimes Sintentionally, for justified reprisals from the people. It's time that the University authorities stop treating civil liberties as mere abstractions of political philosophy and start.living by the First Amendment. To the Daily: I have been reading The Daily since I was a first-year student. My favorite section of- the paper is not Bloom County; however, it is the let- ters section of the Opinion page. During the the past three and one half years I have pe- rused- this section with both interest and amusement, react- ing to the often biased and ineffectual letters therein. Often I have felt like writing in re- sponse to some of these sacred scripts known as personal opinion, but I never do because I realize that my opinion would be just another fading scream in the ocean of "University awareness." Something has finally hit my nerve and I feel it deserves attention. The recent array of letters concerning the issue of racism on campus and beyond has been one of the more heated debates in my recollec- tion. Once again, these letters usually express the authors profound arrogance and naive belief in the absolute truth of their argument. Granted, what do you expect from a college student? While reading the letter "Color blindness is not racial equality" (Daily, 11/23/87) my feelings on the character of Daily letters were once again reinforced. What spurred me to respond to this letter was not its content however (which I will address in due course), but .the position of the author. Mr. Harris' letter was an unnecessary attack on the character of Mr. Kushner, the. author of the letter Mr. Harris was responding to. I read his letter "Racists shouldn't accuse others" (Daily, 11/17/87) and felt that it raised some interesting, if not valid, points. I am not saying that he is right or wrong. In an issue like. this one of the few things that . can be safely concluded is that racism is wrong. I also think it is safe to say that the conclu- sions that Mr. Harris draws are wrong. The first thing which upset me was the holier-than-thou stance taken by Mr. Harris. He accuses Mr. Kushner of ignorance, and then states that,"I will proceed to educate you, Mr. Kushner." Class is in session everyone! Mr. Har- ris is teaching Getting Facts Straight 101, Harsh Reality 261, Double Standards 101 and Color-Blindness 125. Well thanks a load, buddy, but who made you king for a day? For anyone to think that he/she holds a monopoly on the truth is to be equally as ig- norant. It appears that Mr. Harris has something to teach us all. But the gist of it all is that he doesn't teach us any- thing. While his classroom examples present valid and relevant historical events, they are poorly argued and ineffec- tual. They are neither con- ciliatory nor nurturous,causing the reader to react rather than reflect. I could dissect his entire letter but this would be too wordy and presumptuous a dis- play. Mr. Harris boldly states that,"I believe it hard, if not impossible, for a minority to be racist." Right. To think that sub-cultural arrogance and feelings of superiority do not exist is a foolish assumption. No single sub-culture or racial group is benevolent. I feel it safe to'conclude that Mr. Kushner, because of his last name, is Jewish, and therefore is part of a religious (and some would say racial) minority. Mr. Harris proves to us his igno- rance when stating that, "You, insensitive. As a member of this minority I know that there are Jewish racists. Sorry Mr. Har- ris, but there are probably Afro-American racists and Na- tive American racists. Addi- tionally, Mr. Harris labels Mr. Kushner, "the type of mislead boy..." It is obvious to me, and hopefully to others, that Mr.. Harris' weak argument is the result of blind zeal and emotion, not of constructive logic. The best part of his letter is the statement," The only way this country resembles 'the great melting pot' is in the way we see the scum rising to the top and everyone on the bottom getting burned." Am I to conclude from this that the only ones with any power, wealth or status in our society are inherently evil, or maybe they've just been " mislead" ? Get with it. Your letter teaches us nothing. You conclude that all the ignorant should "wake up and smell the coffee." Sorry Mr. Harris, you serve a bitter cup. This is the worst part of all. If Cornelius D. Harris is MSA Minority Affairs chair then the fight against racism at this university has got major problems. Do you think that the approach that you take is going to win anyone over to your way of thinking? .I hope not. It frightens me to think that a person such as yourself has made it to this position of power. Don't get me wrong. I admire your dedication and your goals; it's just your methods that I distrust. If you were true to your position you would have recognized that Mr. Kushner held some interest about racism on campus, and should have stated something along the lines of, "I sympa- thize with your situation but Daily headline insensitive To the. Daily: I'd like to thank those who were responsible for the head- line "Asians take suicide pills before probe," (Daily, 12/2/87). When I glanced at the front-page headlines, my initial reaction was one of wonder and amazement. "Wow,"s Ithought, "that must be some probe if all those 'Asians' take suicide pills when faced with it. Imag- ine that." I wondered how many hundreds of people had died. I wondered if this event was some mysterious Eastern tradition or recent trend which we in the West have only re- cently unearthed. I wondered if perhaps this was. an "Asian"d Jonestown. Next, I wondered why "Asians" would take sui- cide pills while "Caucasians, Blacks, and Hispanics, etc." wouldn't. The implications were intriguing. Then I read the article. How surprised I was to learn that re- ally only two "Asians" had taken suicide pills and only one had actually died. Furthermore, the focus of the article was not the nature of their race, but their suspected involvement in terrorist activities. In fact, race had nothing to do with the probe. Upon learning this, I felt mildly disturbed. In fact, I imagined that the author of the headline had been perpetuating the myth of the tendency of "Asians" toward suicide. I even imagined that the author of the headline had thought it much more important that the pair had been "Asians" than that they were being held responsi- ble for the disappearance of the jetliner. I imagined that. the headline was misleading and should have read "Couple take suicide pills before probe," or "Suspected terrorists take sui- cide pills before probe," or "Couple held in disappearance of KAL flight 858 take suicide pills." Then I thought about how often thoughtless slips of the pen create misleading sentence, and also about the general in- sensitivity to the issues of Asians as a minority group. Having considered these last thoughts, I decided that I should not call whoever had produced this evocative head- line thoughtless, insensitive, racist, or careless. Instead, I would like to thank him or her for creating such a colorful Destroying To the Daily: The recent incidences of de- struction of the shanties, which are a symbol of protest to the conditions suffered by the ma- jority of South Africans, has got me in a piff. The violence and inconsiderateness of the acts bothers me, but what is much more pressing is the dis- play of ignorance and short- sightedness. Those shanties exist as someone's physical testimony to their right to freedom of ex- pression, a form of protest we in this country hold so dearly. The most prominent freedom that saves this country from the agonies of the damned is our right to public protest, and the willingness of Americans to exercise that right - often at great personal costs. In destroying another's ex- pression you are not trampling on anothers's ideological or moral statement (though your example is in keeping with the actions of the South African government), but rather you are trampling on our collective right to freedom of expression. Carrying out your actions to still feel that you hold some misconceptions about racism. Why don't you come check out a UCAR meeting in order to explore the problem further?" What you did instead proba- bly alienated Mr. Kushner and others from the anti-racism movement on campus. Nice going. While you may be working for a solution, you are also part of the problem. You divide people when they should be brought together. Attacking racists (or anyone) head on will only make them recoil. The solution to the problem lies in the promotion of cooperation and friendship among people off all racial, religious and sexual qualities. Stereotypes will diminish when people see that they are false, not only when they read about them. I agree, education is of the ut- most importance. Ignorance is a crime. -Brian Halprin . November 23 and racist headline and (to borrow a line form an anecdote related by one of my professors) would like to tell this person, "I have seen your headline and much like it." -H.A. Kuno December 4 expression their extreme bodes poorly for the future of our country, for denigrating our freedoms at their margins serves to elimi- nate those freedoms as a whole. We need to be ever vigilant against theherosion oft ohur rights through t h e marginalization of our ability to protest what we perceive as injustice. Hopefully the day might come when you will see the need, and achieve the moral fortitude necessary, to engage in peaceful protest. A part of me hopes that you will be de- nied your opportunity, but only so that you will look back with disdain on the ac- tions of your college days. (I must confess to a small streak of vengeance running through me). But more sincerely I would rather you reevaluated your actions of today, and in- stead of working to chip away at our freedoms at the margins, you would begin to work to uphold that which so many before us have striven for. -Patrick Regan January 5 I 1 S;% .".::i.+t .~",.':r, . '* .* .... .. '.[.r. tn' } "}:r^i;v".'::r: The Daily welcomes letters from its . readers. Bringing in letters on personal. computer disk is the fastest way to publish a letter in the Daily. Readers who can not bring their letters in on disk should include their phone numbers for verification.Call 747-2814. for- details. lr=mmwftvwm"%mwo" Airt'O~I - $L s *wmaeno Gam reseting an estaisI men t of rdA3 ,ionv or prohi-b ting the free excercise -y.. y-. -- -----.---.. -: ---. .* - - :: : c x : * ~ c :: :. ,.,. j{ : : : ::-%::::: %:i.:"{: ::.;;:,yr .:.JJ.': " " y 3. "l " y.. iJ:;%; .}.:":;y. .: