4 OPINION Page 4 Wednesday, February 17, 1988 The Michigan Daily 4 Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Steiner remarks reexamined Vol. XCVIII, No. 96 420 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. ,Boycott Sports Illustrated MONDAY, THE ANNUAL Sports to gain recognition in the largest Illustrated swim suit edition ap- sports magazine is to be an object peared on newsstands in Ann Ar- rather than an athlete. It is institu- bor. This publication exists under tionally sexist that a sports maga- ; e pretense of selling swim wear zine represents women as objects for women. Not only is this objec- for the appraisal of men. tively false, but the magazine is Sports Illustrated is for men. It damaging to the status of women reflects and perpetuates male culture everywhere. in the same ways that national ;i It is absurd to claim that a maga- sports coverage does. Sports per- tne with a readership that is over- petuate the ideas of fraternal sepa- (helmingly male is used to sell ratism which lead to the "keeping svim wear to women. Men gener- women in their place" mentality. ally don't buy women's swim suits, Providing substantial representation 4nd men do not "read" the swim of women only once a year in this suit issue for that reason. manner, Sports Illustrated exempli- Sexist objectification of women fies our patriarchal society's sexist sells magazines; this issue outsells ideas of the roles of women. Ill others of the year. It is the mod- It is not necessary to censor sexist els who are being displayed, not the material directly. If the profitability swim suits they wear. This is being is removed from printed material, done for large profits and the en- publishers will have no motive to grandisment of the male egos be- publish either sexist magazines or hind the magazines publication. advertisements. The Sports Illus- Defenders of the issue ludi- trated swim suit edition makes crously claim that swimming is a money. If it did not, it would not sport and the subject of this issue. exist. Not only is there no coverage of By purchasing Sports Illustrated Women's swimming, but the people support and perpetuate in- coverage of women's sports is un- stitutional sexism. Institutional deniably low in all sports media, sexism prevents equal treatment of including Sports Illustrated. women and perpetuates discrimina- Sexual objectification discredits tion on the basis of gender. Boycott women athletes. The primary way Sports Illustrated. By Barbara Ransby Three weeks ago, UCAR held a number of protests in response to a series of comments by Dean Peter . Steiner of LSA. We deemed those comments racist and insisted upon an apology, retraction (disavowal) and a disclaimer by the Uni- versity President. When this was not forthcoming we called for Steiner to be relieved of his duties as Dean, which would simply mean he would resume his faculty duties in the Department of Eco- nomics. Over the past few weeks, ques- tions have arisenregarding the nature and context of Steiner's comments and the definition of racism itself. We felt it im- portant to outline our position more care- fully. In the case of Dean Steiner's comments we felt the need to respond for several rea- sons. First of all, there was not one, but a series of extremely insensitive and offen- sive comments made by the Dean which we interpret as racist. For those of you who may know Dean Steiner personally, we are not doubting that some of his in- tentions may be good. Nevertheless, the comments which we shall enumerate later, taken precisely in their context, are, in the judgement of a large sector of the Black campus community, interpreted as racist. That is, they reflect a biased and negative attitude toward a racial minority and suggest that members of that minority group, on the whole, are essentially different than, and in some ways inferior to members of the majority group in this society, i.e. whites. The first comment was made by Steiner in the context of outlining LS&A Affir- mative Action goals and policies at which time the Dean commented that "our chal- lenge is not to change this university into another kind of institution where minori- ties would naturally flock. I need not re- mind you that there are already such insti- tutions - Wayne State and Howard Uni- versities among them. Our challenge is not to emulate them, but to make the es- sential quality of the University of Michi- gan available to more minorities." This is insulting and problematic on a number of levels. First of all, even if we substitute a more suitable verb for "flock," such as "attend" as Dean Steiner has suggested, the message is the same. The University of Michigan's Affirmative Action goal is not one that seeks to encourage large numbers of minorities to apply to, be attracted to, gravitate to, attend, or "flock" to this uni- versity. There is only one logical interpretation of this comment; while U of M does, in fact, desire to attract more mi- norities, it must be cautious not to attract too many ; otherwise, its essential quality will change, presumably for the worse. It is also a rather disparaging reference to both Howard and Wayne State. Steiner's "explanation" of this comment is that he was simply referring to the plurality within the American educational system and that Howard and Wayne are different schools: urban, less international and less research oriented than U of M. Even if we accept these distinctive descriptions as being fully accurate, this explanation fails to grasp or address the most objectionable part of the comment. We do not challenge that different institutions have different missions, areas of expertise, and focus. What we do object Barbara Ransby is a UCAR steering committee member. to is the suggestion that these academic differences should have any correlation whatsoever to race. Why would Michigan's reputation as a premier research institution be lessened by the "influx" of large numbers of minority scholars? Clearly, unless we see minority scholars as inferior or less capable re- searchers this should not be the case. It is important to remember that Dean Steiner did not say we do not want large numbers of less qualified scholars to "flock" here. Rather, he expressed concern regarding "minority" scholars in particular. This comment implies that there should be a tacit ceiling placed on the number of Black or other minority group scholars al- lowed to attend the University of Michi- gan; hence, if they "flock" here, it will diminish the quality of the University. This resembles the caps placed on the number of Asian American students at West Coast colleges, or the more blatant quotas that limited the number of Jewish students accepted into Ivy League schools before World War II. If the University takes its own propaganda seriously, the excellence this "U" strives for will only be achieved when large numbers of minorities do indeed "flock" to Michigan and create the kind of diversity we ostensibly seek. The second offensive and racist com- ment made by Dean Steiner was in a re- cent LS&A newsletter. The comment stated that before Blacks could excel in higher education, they needed to have a "revolution" in their attitudes toward edu- cation similar to that of white women over the past decade. Why is this quote racist? It assumes one of the principal ob- stacles to Black advancement in academia is attributable, not to systematic and his-* toric policies of discrimination and exclu- sion coupled with growing economic dis- parity between the races, but to Black's themselves. It is a classic example of "blaming the victim." Of course, some Blacks may have negative attitudes toward education, but there is no evidence what- soever to indicate that such attitudes are more prevalent among Blacks than whites or any other group, for that matter. In fact, this comment is particularly in- sulting and ill-informed given the fact that the thirst for knowledge and quest for for- mal education has been a central theme in Afro-American history for 200 years. Slaves risked their lives to learn to read and after emancipation thousands of Black freedpeople flooded the public schools set up by the Freedmens Bureau. More re- cently, a focal point of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s was the effort to desegregate public schools in this country and give Black school-children equal access to public education, a victory won only two short decades ago and not without much bloodshed and suffering on the part of Black Americans. In fact, it took hundreds of federal troops and nine courageous Black children to integrate Little Rock High School in 1955. Many of these children were spat upon, chased and assaulted by vicious racist mobs. It is against this historical backdrop that we find Dean Steiner's comments about negative Black attitudes toward education particularly biting and insensitive. . A third example of DeanrSteiner's in- sensitivity to the issue of racism is re- flected by an example in his recently re- issued economics textbook..The example is offered in a section on how personal bi- ases and belief systems can potentially in- terfere with scientists attempts to be fully objective. The objectionable (dare we say racist) example suggests that liberal scientists have declined to investigate the possibility that there may be differences in intelligence based on race, because of their liberal and idealistic beliefs. The quote reads, "Many (scientists) have strongly held values, and they may let value judgements get in the way of their as- sessment of evidence. For example, many scientists are not prepared to consider evi- dence that there may be differences in in- telligence among races because, as good liberals, they feel that all races ought to be equal." Lipsey, Purvis and Steiner, Mi- croeconomics, 1988. Untrue. Scientists have not declined to investigate racial differences in intelligence in recent years because of their liberalism. They have declined to investigate this subject because exhaustive research by ge- neticists and social scientists has already demonstrated that there are no such differ- ences correlated to race. Further, they have challenged the very notion of a quantifi- able thing called intelligence or a scientifically definable system of racial classification. The most prominent and,, respected scholar among this group is Dr. Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University, a guest lecturer at U or M two years ago who attracted an audience of more than 2,500. The example used in Steiner's textbook, while it does not take a position on the subject of race and intelligence, does clearly suggest that such a topic is a legitimate area of scholarly inquiry, totally ignoring the exhaustive literature which has long resolved this debate. Such an in- quiry would be as futile as a major study of whether the earth is round or square. These three quotes, coupled with a record of inaction with regards to Affirma- tive Action is why UCAR sat-in for 26 hours in Steiner's office, demanded a pub- lic meeting and ultimately called for the Dean's resignation. Finally, in addition to Dean Steiner's racist comments, we are even more dis- turbed by a history of inaction and a set of statistics that are perfectly consistent with his statements. For example, there are no Black assistant or associate deans in LS&A, and none have been appointed by Dean Steiner in his entire seven year tenure; there is only one' tenured Black woman faculty member "throughout the entire school of LS&A (all departments); out of the ninety offers made to new LS&A faculty last year, only three offers were made to Blacks, and the executive board of the College of LS&A has been all-white ever since most Black faculty members can recall. In the University at large, the statistics are just as disturbing. Out of all professors at the University, only three percent are Black, yet the ranks of the University's service and maintenance employees are more than 27% Black. Seemingly, we can recruit Black basketball players and jani- tors much better than we can recruit Black scholars and students. Clearly, these statistics belie the notion that there is, no correlation between "racially offensive" comments and "racially offensive" hiring and recruitment practices. Not only do we urge Dean Steiner to re-examine these policies and their wording more carefully. We intend to. I 4 4 4 4 End 'Star Wars' now LAST WEEK, the Pentagon suc- kessfully completed the most costly and complex experiment yet for President Reagan's dangerous and destabilizing Strategic Defense nitiative (SDI), better known as Star Wars." . High testing costs in the SDI pro- gram creates a bureaucracy and qonstituency with a budget-busting price tag to boot. Consequently, ture policy makers will find it difficult to halt President Reagan's trogram. This bodes ill for arms control. "Star Wars" will not work in the 1topian fashion that the President claims. SDI is a pie-in-the-sky idea and few physicists say it could function as a defensive shield against nuclear weapons. The claim that SDI proponents is that the could function as a partial shield against nuclear weapons and also defend us against nuclear arms used by terrorists is also false. In the unlikely event of a nuclear terrorist attack, the method would not be an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch, but a bomb dropped from an airplane or brought over in a suitcase. And the partial shield will not de- fend us from a partial nuclear attack because a partial nuclear war is an impossibility. More likely is an all- out nuclear war. In this case, a par- tial shield of strategic defense causes the enemy only to send even more nuclear weapons through the air. SDI, then, is only a costly way of accelerating the production of ICBM's and other long-range nu- clear missiles in a new round of the arms race. But even more disconcerting is the slim chance that SDI will func- tion as the President and his col- leagues envision. In this scenario, SDI could become more than a de- fensive shield: it could give the U.S. the ability to launch a first- strike nuclear attack. This upsets and destabilizes the present nuclear balance. Testing and experimenting with the Strategic Defense Initiative may seem innocent. But it will institu- tionalize a weapons system which is prohibitively costly, probably use- less, and potentially destabilizing. q LETTERS Accept sexual orientation Zinn Divest the rest 4 THE UNIVERSITY BOARD of Re-, gents' victory over the Michigan state law, which required all state universities to divest from South Africa, is tainted by their obvious unwillingness to complete this pro- cess themselves. The Regents should have divested all holdings and chosen another issue to assert the University's autonomy from the state. They must now mandate that all remaining funds be immediately removed. The University successfully ar- gued in the Michigan Court of Ap- peals that the 1982 state law which mandated divestment violated the Tyni.w:r.t:... ri ..: t .r of - r- -. the University left invested is com- paratively small, any money that benefits South Africa tacitly sup- ports the disgraceful system of apartheid that oppresses the region. The investment also represents University profits made off the people of South Africa. There is no excuse for keeping investments in South Africa. One would be extremely hard-pressed to find a justification for the violent subjugation of the Black majority of the region by the white minority Botha regime. Blacks in South Africa live in a society that grants them no rights, deprives them of art r.al lifr nlann- r:-1I' tol" To the Daily: We are members of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (Parents FLAG) in Ann Arbor, and we are writing in support of the University of Michigan student's group Lesbian and Gay Rights on Campus (LaGROC). LaGROC has been lobbying for five years to revise the Regental Bylaws concerning discrimination, to in-clude the words "sexual orient-ation" as one of the minorities the university agrees to protect. The regents voted recently (January 1988) to endorse a 1984 "policy statement." We believe this policy stops short of being supportive, and should instead add "sexual orientation" rights to commensurate with those which heterosexual people take for granted. If the regents believe in the "policy statement" that they recently endorsed, and are indeed concerned with equal opportunities and non- discrimination for lesbians and gays as well as for other mi- norities in the university community, then we as concerned parents and friends urge them to take a firmer stand in this matter. Other universities, including Yale, Stanford, and Ohio State already have existing bylaws which protect gay students. The University of Michigan needs to take more of a sAn me .nr, in n:.. - n. n:- 11 PESNALYITHN Illil'jr Na F