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OPINION
Page 4 Monday, March 7, 1988 The Michigan Daily
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CIA has no right to recruit
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Vol. XCVIII, No. 104 420 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.
Code terminally flawed
r UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT Robben
Fleming's Revised Policy on
.Discriminatory Acts includes many
L specific flaws. A major problem
1. with Fleming's revised acts policy
(RAP) is its vagueness as to what is
discriminatory harassment, or more
importantly, what is punishable
behavior.
In the preamble of the RAP,
discrimination is defined by
Regental bylaw 14.06 and the
Presidential Policy Statement of
March, 1984. The first is a blanket
list of groups not to be dis-
criminated against; the second is a
statement against discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation.
There is a need for these broad
statements. However, nowhere in
Fleming's document does it spell
out which acts warrant punishment
and which punishments are most
applicable to specific crimes.
President Fleming's proposal
divides the campus into three tiers:
housing, educational and academic
centers, and public forums such as
the Diag. The RAP cites three
examples of public forums, but
there must be a more detailed list of
whichtareas on campus would re-
ceive this most protected treatment.
It is unclear whether the protections
given to public forums would
translate into protections for
protesters, to whom the
administration has been hostile.
The subsection, dealing with
University housing has nothing
more than vague definitions of
punishable acts which leaves the
ultimate question of "offensibility"
to the Vice President for Student
Services. This is especially
disturbing because Fleming's RAP
considers University Housing the
least protected area in regard to free
speech.
A complete outline detailing
punishable behavior is necessary
before this or any similar proposal
is brought before the Regents for a
vote.
Another disturbing part of the
RAP reads: "More detailed
procedures consistent with these
principles [of formal procedure for
complaints of harassment] will be
described in a separate document."
Basically, this allows for President
Fleming to change any procedural
order after the Regents have voted
on the proposal. The inherent
danger of this loophole need not be
explained, other than to say it
excludes student, staff, and faculty
input into this most crucial section
of RAP.
Although Fleming's introductory
stement asserts that staff and
faculty have a separate policy, the
proposal does not spell out the
pplicy, and does not address the
Sothetical case of a student-staff
dohflict. Any discrimination policy
intending to improve the campus
atmosphere must encompass staff,
{> faculty, and students.
% A major disappointment of the
WRAP is the proposed role of
students in the mediation of a
harassment conflict. While it
appears that students do have some
power, comprising two-thirds of
the formal hearing board, in practice
this could well be only a pretense.
r The decisions of the student-faculty
board, however, mean nothing
because it is unclear if its verdicts
are binding.
A rnc r rnnlhn1A nnolAr onrd
nominated to the board would be
capable of understanding the
complexities of discriminatory
harassment.
A procedural objection to both of
President Fleming's proposals is
that he usurps the power of the
now-defunct University Council, a
collection of students and faculty
members mandated by University
bylaw 7.02 to review any policies
regulating student behavior.
Fleming dismisses U-Council in the
opening remarks of his revised
proposal by saying that his proposal
is embodied in spirit in Bylaw
14.06 and the Presidential Policy
Statement. In Fleming's mind, U-
Council has no need or right to
review his detailed policy.
This argument is insufficient
because this policy is obviously
new. Although U-Council has been
criticized by the administration for
failing to write a code. Fleming, by
ignoring the Council, betrays any
interest he- claims to have in
receiving input on his proposals.
Fleming should reform U-Council
rather than circumvent it.
Some aspects of President
Fleming's revised proposal merit
conditional praise. At the end of the
- document, there is a section titled
"Additional Efforts To Address
Discriminatory Behavior." His
suggestions in this section are, for
the most part, interesting and
viable. The President includes a
plan to "develop an overall
education program for students
dealing with issues of peer
harassment and providing
information, definition, support,
identification of resources and
exploration of behavioral
alternatives ... directed toward, but
not restricted to" new students. The
proposal also includes a
comprehensive list of resources
available to victims of dis-
crimination, and a more varied set
of possible punishments for
discriminatory acts than the first
proposal.
Unfortunately, Fleming stops
short of the mandatory class on
racism and sexism that student
groups have been advocating,
except for its imposition as a form
of punishment.
The revised proposal
unacceptably mandates academic
sanctions as possible punishments.
It does not address nor assess the
causes of racism on this campus.
The call for education is too weak
and indefinite. At no point does the
RAP justify anyone on this campus
- student, faculty, staff, or
administrator, passing judgment on
anyone.
Previous Daily editorials have at-
tacked the intentions of Fleming's
proposals: imposing academic
sanctions for non-academic
conduct, blaming the ignorant for
their ignorance instead of educating
them, and refusing to address the
major manifestations of racism on
this campus such as abhorrent
minority recruitment and retention,
low minority faculty representation,
and weak financial aid services.
Racism has not been solved at
other universities by such
disciplinary conduct codes or acts.
The institutional racism at this
campus is a bigger and more
inherent problem than a disciplinary
act could ever hope to tackle. The
imnlementatinn of an act such as
By Kristin Vanden Berg
I am writing to respond to the SACUA
statement criticizing the protest of CIA
recruiting at the Law School on Feb. 26,
1988. I fully recognize SACUA's right to
disagree on the substance of t h e
demonstration, but would like to respond
to several aspects of the statement which I
find disturbing.
First, we must examine the term
"rights" which is used so casually by
SACUA in its condemnation. Just what
"rights" do students have to interview
employers on the University of Michigan
campus? This is precisely the question
being raised by the protesters. The
Committee cannot be arguing that there is
any inviolable, constitutional "right" to
interview on campus with the employer of
one's choice. It seems clear that the
University could hold no interviewing on
campus at all, requiring students to fend
for themselves for job prospects.
Although students may have rights vis a
vis other students to have equal access to
interviewers who have come to campus,
the substantive decision to admit an
employer is a question which is open for
debate.
The CIA protesters were arguing that an
organization which routinely violates
international law, assassinates people, and
works for the overthrow of democratically
elected governments is not an appropriate
organization to have access to the campus
interviewing process. We must debate this
issue and make an overt, substantive
decision as a University community. No
Kristin Vanden Berg is a member of the
National Lawyers Guild.
one's free speech right to disagree with the
protesters is denied. But neither SACUA
nor would-be interviewing students can
control the debate by claiming that some
objective right to interview exists and is
being interfered with.
SACUA claims to be troubled by
anything which would prevent students
from interviewing with the employers of
their choice. Yet the University draws
substantive lines all the time.
Organizations which discriminate based on
race, sex or national origin are not allowed
to interview here. This is a substantive
decision. I would like to think that even if
not required by law to have an anti-
discrimination policy, the University as an
enlightened institution would not allow
such interviewers on campus.
Protesters thus raise a legitimate issue:
whether the CIA violates some
substantive behavioral standard which we
choose to set. Until this question has been
answered, students have no "right" to
interview here on campus. Nothing
interferes with students seeking out the
CIA and applying to it. The address is
easily located. But, all students at the
University have a strong interest in
choosing whether CIA presence is
appropriate. All students have an interest
in questioning whether certain organi-
zations should have the right to use
University facilities and legitimization to
encourage students to work for them.
In addition, while SACUA argues that
appropriate opposition is limited to
leafleting and picketing, I suggest that
this fails to recognize the full range of
legitimate dissent in our society. The
chanting and eventual entry of some
individuals into the recruiting area
constitutes minor civil disobedience. Such
civil disobedience is a long-standing,
legitimate part of this country's history of
political protest. Such civil disobedience
has been responsible for significant
changes throughout our history, including
the acquisition of important civil rights by
blacks in this country. It is hard to see in
SACUA's condemnation of this kind of
civil disobedience any place for civil
disobedience at all. What smaller legal
confrontations could there have been?
The National Lawyers Guild, as an
organization, took the position that CIA
presence should be opposed, and organized
a picket for this purpose. The organization
neither encouraged or discouraged civil
disobedience, believing that such a choice
should be left to the strength of individual
beliefs. But this does not mean that we
view such actions as inherently
illegitimate. Individuals with political
beliefs strong enough to risk arrest for
trespass might well be be commended
rather than condemned.
In closing, I would like to praise Dean
Bollinger's handling of the protest and to
praise the law school faculty for its
support of him. The Dean engaged in
meaningful dialogue with protesters about
their concerns, and the process toward
some overt decision on this issue has been
begun. Contrary to the implication of
SACUA's statement, the protest has
opened new channels of political debate
rather than stifling them, benefitting all
students by promoting a more truly open
University. If SACUA had been similarly
open to hearing the issues instead of
apparently relying on a newspaper account
of events, it may well not have leaped to
such a hasty and apparently ill-considered
condemnation of student protest.
El Salvador week shows U.S. abuse
'
By Julie Laser and
Jackie Victor
March 6 through 13 is El Salvador
Week at the University. El Salvador Week
has been organized to better educate our-
selves about El Salvadorsand to raise
material aid for the University of El Sal-
vador, medical supplies, and displaced
people.
El Salvador receives very little press
coverage in the United States, but receives
two million dollars a day from the United
States Government, the third largest
recipient of U.S. funds in the world. Over
seventy-five percent of these funds are al-
located to the Salvadoran military. The
United States Government proclaims El
Salvador to be a bastion of democracy
even though elections in El Salvador are
riddled with fraud, extortion, and open in-
timidation. The United States government
chooses to ignore the Salvadoran govern-
ment's appalling human rights record,
which has been publicly condemned by the
the United Nations Human Rights Com-
mission.
A civil war in El Salvador began in
1980 after the failure of the civilian-mili-
tary junta, headed by President Duarte, to
make any reforms at all in El Salvador. At
the hands of the Salvadoran military and
right-wing death squads, there have been
65,000 civilians assassinated, 7,000 civil-
Julie Laser and Jackie Victor are Co-
Chairs of the Michigan Student Assembly
Peace and Justice Committee.
ians have been disappeared and 1.2 million
civilians have been displaced in the last
eight years in El Salvador.
On August 7,1987 the five Central
American Leaders signed the Arias Peace
Plan. However, the Salvadoran military
and right-wing death squads have increased
their activity after the signing of the Arias
Plan. From the inception of the peace plan
to mid February 1988, 165 civilians have
been killed by the military and right-wing
death squads. There has also been an in-
crease in the military presence on the
streets, in the university, in the market
places and in helicopter manoeuvres over
residential and rural areas.
President Duarte came to power under a
broad platform of social reforms for El
Salvador. One of Duarte's major proposals
was land reform, however currently in El
Salvador only two percent of the popula-
tion controls over sixty percent of the
land. President Duarte also promised better
economic conditions for the Salvadoran
people but inflation has reached a record
high of forty percent and unemployment
has also reached the highest level in Sal-
vadoran history of over sixty percent.
The extensive amount of funds appro-
priated to the Salvadoran military has
caused the further reduction of the already
dwindling social programs in El Salvador.
The health system in El Salvador is in
shambles. Most of the medical equipment
and facilities in El Salvador are for the use
of the Salvadoran military and those who
can afford private care. There are only six
public hospitals in El Salvador which of-
ten are so short of hospital beds that
women share beds. The infant mortality
rate is one of the highest in the Americas,
one out of every three infants do not sur-
vive their first year of life.
Education is not a priority for the
Duarte government. Only fifty percent of
the school age population in El Salvador
receives any sort of education at all. In
general, sixty percent of the Salvadoran
population is illiterate. From 1980 to
1984 the Salvadoran military occupied the
only public university in El Salvador, the
University of El Salvador. During this
military occupation the university equip-
ment that could be used by the military
was plundered, and books and buildings
were burned and systematically destroyed.
Over 1,354 students have been killed in El
Salvador for demanding better social
conditions.
Considering the extreme repression by
the Salvadoran government and the suffer-
ing of the Salvadoran people, why is it
that the United States government persists
in supporting the Duarte government?
Why do we hear virtually nothing from
the media about El Salvador?
This Week, University of Michigan
students and the Ann Arbor community
will have an opportunity to find out more
about the situation in El Salvador. Most
everyone in El Salvador and outside of El
Salvador are in.agreement that the Duarte
government could not survive even a week
in power without the United States mas-
sive amount of economic support. Cer-
tainly two million dollars a day could
greatly improve the lives of the Salvado-
ran people if it was properly allocated.
I
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LETTERS
Kaplan undermines equal opportunity
I
To the Daily:
I've been thinking about our
commitment to equal opportu-
nity. I do believe in it, and I
want us - as a university
community - both to believe
in it and to live by the princi-
ple upon which it is based.
I don't think that Stanley
Kaplan - whatever it is -
agrees with me. I don't think
that Stanley Kaplan agrees
with the idea of equal opportu-
nity. Capitalism doesn't agree
with that idea, really; and
Stanley Kaplan - whatever it
can pay to get unequal oppor-
tunities, or privilege. I don't
believe for a moment that what
Stanley Kaplan - whatever it
is - sells is worth anything;
it's just a bit of behavior
modification technology which
any intelligent human can
practice on herself or himself
without paying $550 for it.
And for those who don't trust
their own intelligence, ex-pro-
fessors McConnell and Paps-
dorf offer professional behavior
modification therapy more
cheaply than Stanley Kaplan
legislation," as it were to
guarantee my advantage.)
Suppose several hundred
Michigan students who can af-
ford to hire Stanley Kaplan -
whatever it is - gave their
money instead to the Univer-
sity, to supplement financial
aid for minority students:
"opportunity" students. A
hundred contributions of $550
each would mean $55,000.
Five hundred such would mean
$275,000. That would provide
greater "opportunity" in this
world for a number of students.
seeking admission to law
school, medical school, busi-
ness school, divinity school, or
anything else.
I am asking Professor
Charles Moody, the Vice-
Provost for Minority Affairs,
to accept donations from those
among us who otherwise
might violate their principles
and seek to undermine the idea
of equal opportunity by en-
rolling in 'a Stanley Kaplan
course.
(I am privileged, too - I
knnw that: even thonh I
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