Ninety-eight years of editorial freedom
Vol. XCVIIi, No. 129 Ann Arbor, Michigan -Monday, April 11, 1988 Copyright 1988, The Michigan Daily
Women find
By VICKI BAUER
First of a three-part series
LSA senior Meredith Vermillion
scales down seven stories of the
Dental School Building with a pack
of students trailing behind her.
No, Vermillion is not a daredevil
trying to break a record, nor is she in
training for a trip to the Himalayas.
As the Battallion Commander of
the University's Army Reserve
Officer's Training Corps, Vermillion
leads first-year and sophomore cadets
in one of their weekly lab exercises.
THE UNIVERSITY'S ROTC
program trains students to become
officers, specifically 2nd lieutenants,
in the Army, Navy, Marines, or Air
Force. By teaching students how to
Women
In ROTC
equal
Air Force ROTC; and 11 of 163
"midshipmen" in the ROTC Navy
are women, three of whom also be-
long to the Marine Corps.
ROTC admitted the first women
in 1972. And though women are
still a minority in the ROTC pro-
grams, they say they are treated
equally to men.
Overseeing all Army ROTC
members, Vermillion holds the
highest position awarded to a cadet.
She is a daily reminder to the cadets
in Army ROTC that a woman can
serve as a role model and reach a top-
level position, one not held by a
woman in over four years.
BUT VERMILLION said
male cadets do not resent her posi-
tion.
"I don't get any flack," Vermil-
lion said of the male cadets. "I am in
the authority position. To go against
me would be going against a supe-
rior."
ROTC Army cadet Greg Gilbert,
an LSA junior, said, "If she's quali-
fied for (the position) then by God,
she should have it."
He said women and men are
treated equally in the ROTC. "I kind
of forget they are women and treat
them the same," he said.
Company Commander of ROTC
Navy Kelly Pastva also asserts her
authority over the 70 "midshipmen"
she leads, 11 of whom are women.
treatment in ROTC
Pastva also belongs to the Marine
Corps, a smaller division of the
Navy.
P A S T VA, an engineering se-
nior, said she does not feel uncom-
fortable as a woman in a tradition-
ally male field.
"For me, it's an honor," she said.
"I was the only woman last year. I
look at it as having the chance to
stand out among the rest. A lot of
women don't want anything to do
with it, but I can handle the stress,
pressure, and demand for perfection."
But Pastva said she must work
twice as hard as men for recognition
and is an easy target for criticism. "I
don't have the opportunity to melt
into the woodwork. The men are al-
ways looking for something that's
wrong," she said.
ROTC Army cadet and LSA se-
nior Brigette Seeger agreed: "Women
sometimes have to go a step farther
to prove themselves."
SEEGER SAID she remem-
bers being treated in an inferior
manner by the male officers during
training last term. "Some of the
male officers were walking me step
by step through the training. It took
them three or four weeks before they
could see I could do it on my own,"
Seeger said.
Women and men are expected to
fulfill the same basic requirements in
the ROTC programs, but women
See ROTC, Page 3
be officers while they work toward a
college degree, ROTC trains 75 per-
cent of the nation's military officers,
said Lt. Colonel Charles Narburgh
of Army ROTC.
At the University, 22 of 94 cadets
are women in the Army ROTC; 23
of the 108 cadets are women in the
I
Htjacrers
threaten
massacre
in Cyprus
LARANCA, Cyprus (AP) - The
hijackers of a Kuwaiti jumbo jet
started to hurt passengers yesterday
after authorities refused to refuel the
plane and release pro-Iraniani
bombers imprisoned in Kuwait, the
flight engineer said.
In Lebanon, a pro-Iranian group
threatened to kill American and
French hostages if any attempt was
made to storm the plane.
THE statement from the Islamic
Jihad was delivered to the Reuters
news agency in west Beirut, along
with photographs of journalist Terry
Anderson, -an American, and Jean-
Paul Kauffmann, of France.
"To the families of the hostages,
we declare that we shall execute the
Western captives in Lebanon if the
plane and holy warrior (hijackers)
aboard is subjected to any military
foolhardiness," the statement said.
In Cyprus, the Arab hijackers,
who have killed one passenger since
seizing the plane Tuesday, threatened
to kill their captives in a "slow and
quiet massacre."
A NOON deadline passed
without any slayings. But one
minute before a second deadline
expired four hours later, the
engineer, relaying the hijackers'
0 messages to Larnaca Airport control
tower, said: "They've already started
to hurt one of the passengers." He
gave no details.
The hijackers also threatened to
force the pilot to take off and crash
into Kuwait's royal palace.
There are believed to be 53 people
still aboard the Kuwait Airways
Boeing 747, including three mem-
bers of Kuwait's ruling al-Sabah
family and at least six hijackers.
SENIOR Palestine Liberation
Organization officials in Cyprus met
with the hijackers four times yester-
day. The PLO is believed to be a key
factor in negotiations to end the six-
day ordeal.
PLO leader Yasser Arafat arrived
in Kuwait from a visit to Moscow.
Informed Palestinian sources in
Cyprus said he would be meeting
Kuwaiti leaders about the hijacking.
The plane landed in Larnaca on
Friday. Flight 422 was comman-
deered Tuesday en route to Kuwait
from Bangkok with 112 people
aboard and forced to land in Mashhad
in northeastern Iran, where 57 people
we~re released.1
VP considers hiring
professional CBN head
By STEVE KNOPPER
A "professionally trained" station
manager may succeed the student
currently supervising the Campus
Broadcasting Network if Vice Presi-
dent for Student Services Henry
Johnson pursues an option he circu-
lated last week.
In a letter sent last Wednesday to
student General Manager Paul
LaZebnik, Johnson suggested that
the CBN Board of Directors post-
pone the selection of next year's
general manager. Johnson said the
University's executive officers dis-
patched him and Union Director
Frank Cianciola to investigate other
ways of operating CBN.
But according to the CBN
Constitution, passed in 1984, that
position must be filled by a student.
Though the University's Board of
Regents holds WCBN's license, di-
rect authority over management
must come from station workers, the
Constitution says.
SOME STUDENTS have
criticized Johnson's letter, deeming
his suggestions an attempt to regu-
late student radio. LSA sophomore
Bill Adlhoch, a CBN director, said
Johnson and other officials are at-
tempting to censor "any kind of al-
ternative voice," and that they want
"tighter control over students."
Michigan Student Assembly
Student Rights Committee chair
'We would want to ex-
plore the best possible ed-
ucational environment for
the station.'
- Michigan Union Di-
rector Frank Cianciola, on
the possibility of hiring a
"professionally trained"
station manager for the
Campus Broadcasting
Network.
Sarah Riordan, an LSA sophomore,
said hiring a professional general
manager would "ensure that the ad-
ministration's concerns are reflected
in WCBN's policy decisions."
Riordan said she plans to intro-
duce a resolution at Tuesday's MSA
meeting demanding that any CBN
manager be a student, or at least re-
flect student interests.
Cianciola, though, emphasized
that the letter is not the final word
for the station. "We would want to
explore the best possible educational
environment for the station," Cian-
ciola said. The position could also
be filled by outside volunteers, or
tied with academic departments, he
said.
JOHNSON was unavailable for
comment yesterday, but Director of
Major Events Kevin Gilmartin, ap-
pointed by Johnson to the CBN
Board, said the job was too demand-
ing for a full-time student.
"There are problems when no one
is there on a day-to-day basis,"
Gilmartin said. "The whole thing
hinges on the General Manager. Of
the last four or five general man-
agers, almost all have said some-
.thing about the impossibility of that
task."
LaZebnik agreed, saying there is
"a need for someone to be down
there more than part-time." The sta-
tion must adhere to Federal Com-
munication Commission guidelines,
he said, and a professional manager
may be more qualified to enforce
them.
But LaZebnik said, "Students'
needs are the most important thing."
L A Z E B N I K said the CBN
Board of Directors will discuss the
letter at its meeting this Wednesday.
Until he received Johnson's letter, he
said, the Board was planning to elect
a new general manager to start in
May.
Adlhoch said Johnson's letter was
a further administrative attempt to
control campus radio, referring to
incidents involving WCBN and
WJJX during the past few years.
Forward march Doily Photo by ALEXANDRA BREZ
Michigan State Senator Lana Pollack (D-Ann Arbor), left, marches along
Huron Street in the March of Dimes' Maize and Blue walk Friday. Ann
Arbor Mayor Gerald Jernigan also took part in the march. See story,
Page 2.
WAND rallies against weapons research
By DAVID SCHWARTZ
If research has no peaceful purpose, it has
no place at our University, the campus chapter
of the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarma-
ment told a crowd of about 200 students and
community members at a rally last Friday.
"Where the government money is, that is
where the University is going to beef up its
departments," said Sandra Cooley, WAND co-
coordinator and a junior in the School of Ar-
chitecture and Urban Planning.
WAND members organized the rally to
protest the University's research guidelines,
said co-coordinator Devon Anderson. Last
April the University's Board of Regents voted
5-2 to repeal guidelines that restricted research
potentially harmful to human life.
"WE HOPE this will raise people's
awareness, so we can get things done when
school starts again in September," Anderson
said.
In addition to voicing opposition to the
weapons research at the University, WAND
encouraged students, faculty, and staff to sign
postcards saying they would not donate money
to the University until strict research guide-
lines are established.
The signed cards will be presented to the
University's Board of Regents during the
public comments session of this week's re-
gents' meeting.
University Physics Prof. Daniel Axelrod
also spoke to the crowd, condemning the
University's lack of research guidelines and
rebuking the notion of academic freedom.
Proponents of academic freedom say profes-
sors should be allowed to conduct any kind of
research they wish.
UNIVERSITY Political Science Prof.
Raymond Tanter disagreed with Axelrod's
statements in an interview after the rally. He
said restricting research is synonymous with
censorship. "Once you assert the right to
regulate so-called military research, you have
opened the way for regulating all research," he
said.
Axelrod also criticized University Biologi-
cal Chemistry Prof. Isadore Bernstein for his
current U.S. Army-funded research project,
which examines the blistering effect of mus-
tard gas on human skin.
"It is a project to torture and kill animals
so the army can figure out how to better tor-
ture and kill other people," Axelrod said.
BERNSTEIN denied he is conducting re-
search that will be applied to weapons in the
future. "All the information that derives from
our project will be in open scientific journals
available to anyone," he said.
UCAR steering committee member Barbara
Ransby and Natural Resources Lecturer James
Burchfield also spoke at the rally. Ransby
outlined the connections between racism and
militarism at the University, and Burchfield
talked about the environmental hazards
associated with weapons research.
In addition, a theater group called the Nu-
clear Family acted out a skit depicting the
dangers of allowing weapons research to per-
sist on campus.
Coluambia prof. to
speak at graduation
Sz ~By LAWRENCE ROSENBERG
N ID E - A Columbia University Professor
of International Relations and former
.....y of Education Willia national advisor on Soviet affairs
e.ett's plan to fund Catholiwill be this year's main commence-
l cation abandons the public ment speaker, the University an-
nounced Friday.
OPINION, Page :4 Prof. Marshall Shulman, who re-
ceived his A.B. degree from the
ass marketing hippies of legit- University in 1937 and went on to
late following? The Grateful obtain his master's and doctoral de-
.find success in.the '80s, grees from Columbia, will address
SPge the graduating seniors in Michigan
Russia and the United States are un-
dergoing a change, it makes him a
particularly attractive person to
have."
Honorary Degree Committee
member Richard Kennedy said that
Shulman was chosen as the keynote
speaker in January. The honorary
degree committee - which chooses
each term's honorary degree recipi-
ents and graduation speaker - is
comprised of six to eight faculty
members, two students, and four
': .'