4 OPINION Page 4 Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan 420 Maynard St. Vol. IC, No. 127 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. aw School bo co Wednesday, April 5, 1989 The Michigan Daily 4 Open letter to Duderstadt To President Duderstadt: On April 9, the Jewish National Fund (JNF)will be holding a dinner to award Rep. Carl Pursell the Tree of Life for his public service. The Jewish National Fund is a discriminatory organization which leases expropriated Palestinian land in Is- rael to Jews. You, .as president of the University of Michigan, have accepted the position of Honorary Chair for the dinner despite the JNF's violation of Palestinian human rights. Much of the land that the JNF leases was confiscated from Palestinians by the Israeli government in its efforts to "clear" the land for Jewish settlements. In this process, over 300 Palestinian villages were completely razed and their residents were forced to flee for refuge. Over this stolen land, the JNF has been planting trees to solidify Israel's control of the ter- ritory in hopes that the world will quickly forget the land's former owners. Recently, the Israeli government has given the JNF land seized from the Druze population of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights; as with all of its land, the JNF is leasing it these lands exclusively to Jews. The JNF has also helped establish military outposts used by Israeli soldiers to main- tain Israel's iron fist over the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories. Since the JNF's discriminatory policies regularly violate Palestinian human rights, President Duderstadt should withdraw as Honorary Chair of the dinner. The Tree of Life to be awarded is a reference to trees the JNF uses to secure Palestinian lands for Jewish Israeli settlers. To the JNF, the tree may symbolize life; to Palestinians it represents disinheritance from their home- land. It is not a symbol or an award a rep- resentative from the University of Michi- gan should endorse - which is precisely what your presence accomplishes there. You represent our University, and your name appears without explanation alongside that of the University on the JNF invitation to the dinner. We call upon 4 you to be consistent with your promises of a nondiscriminatory University by resigning as the Honorary Chair of a dinner symbolizing the stealing of Palestinian land, and the subsequent forced separation of Palestinians from their homeland. -Palestine Solidarity Committee General Union of Palestinian Students Palestine Aid Society Palestine Democratic Youth Organization El-Birah Palestine Society Arab Student League American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Muslim Student Association *Latin American Solidarity Committee Lesbian and Gay Rights Organizing Committee Free South Africa Coordinating Committee Student Organizations United for Peace People Organized for Women, Equality and Rights United Coalition Against Racism ITHE UNIVERSITY of Michigan Law School currently employs four tenured woman professors, one of whom is also the Law School's only Black tenured professor. With about 37 tenured white men, the percentage of women is less than 10 percent, and people of color make up less than three p-rcent of the tenured faculty. To draw attention to the severe un- der-representation of faculty who are women, people of color, or openly lesbian or gay in law schools, a group of 35 schools have organized a national boycott of law classes for Thursday. Locally, the boycott is being spon- sored by the Black Law Students Al- liance, Hispanic Law Students Associ- ation, Asian American Law Students Association, National Lawyers Guild and Women Law Students Association. Aptly titled, "Unequal Treatment Under the Law: Racism, Classism, Homophobia in America's Law Schools," the event highlights the irony of an educational industry which claims to teach and promote justice while :excluding a majority of U.S. citizens from its ranks. The discrimination prevalent in the nation's universities is especially ap- parent in the more advanced colleges: law schools, medical schools, business schools. Law school statistics are in themselves a worthy introduction to our lopsided justice system. Instead of attending classes, law stu- dents should write letters to their pro- fessors, explaining the nature of the problem and why it must be addressed. Students who must attend should wear a black armband to show solidarity, and tell their teachers and classmates that business as usual cannot go on while the problem goes unaddressed. The University has been inundated with Michigan Mandate rhetoric, heralding the course of the University towards a "diverse" future. But Presi- dent Duderstadt has repeatedly stressed the need for long-term, gradual goal shaping rather than immediate action, in an attempt to slow the progressive movement of activist students on cam- pus. In adopting such a strategy, the administration denies the potential for progress now. Change is a frightening thing for people in power. This can be overcome, however, if it can be made clear that the political price of main- taining the status quo exceeds the benefits of planned delay. For this reason statements such as the national law school boycott are important means of improving the climate for change. If you're a law school student, con- sider joining the boycott or taking up the issue in class. The more reluctant your professor and classmates are to discuss racism, classism, sexism, ho- mophobia and other forms of discrimi- nation at the University, the more ur- gent the need for that discussion. 4 4 4 Daily building attacked ON THE MORNING of March 31, the day after an editorial entitled "Remem- ber" was printed to commemorate the anniversary of Palestinian Land Day, vandals broke into the Student Pub- ications Building and spray-painted "Long Live Israel," "Jew Haters Will Pay," and "PLO Daily" on the walls. Coming two weeks after the torching of the shanty which symbolizes the wretched living conditions of most Palestinians, the violent act of spray- painting should surprise no one. Israeli violence and suppression of Palestinian rights reverberate here in Ann Arbor. The threat of violence contributes to the current climate of intimidation and hatred at the University. The individuals or groups responsible for this act could only. be inspired by the desire to limit debate on the issue of Palestine/Israel. Acts of intimidation and terror, and illegitimate accusations of anti-Semitism, are designed to restrict discourse and President Duderstadt has exacerbated the problem by expressing concern for only one side of the debate. When the Daily was accused of anti-Semitism because of its anti-Israel editorials, Duderstadt saw fit to write, "A call to reason, tolerance and civility" in the University Record, as well as a letter to the Daily expressing his "concern," and warning the Daily to be more "sensitive," and not to print material which could be interpreted as offen- sive. Where is Duderstadt's concern for tolerance and civility now? He has made no statement in response to the destruction of the shanty or threats to the Daily. The possibility of a constructive fo- rum around this issue is held hostage by these attacks. Until a truly free and open debate is realized, this process will remain severely hampered. I' A Palestinian family (left) stands beside the remains of its home, destroyed as punishment-for participation in the intifada. Th Israeli army destroys houses (right) in the West Bank. Over 300 Palestinian villages have been razed. Lettersto the ditor..::::::4 ;1 +:... ..J.. t t t ! - t_ ' -- te - Kittrie wrongly acquitted To the Daily: The report by the MSA Ethics Committee regarding Zach Kittrie is flawed in sev- eral respects. The committee was charged with deciding whether Kittrie had violated MSA ethics rules and whether he had undermined minorities associated with MSA. I had previously issued a report to Student Body President, Mike Phillips, denoting eight inci- dents in which there was sub- stantial evidence to implicate Kittrie. The report by the Ethics Committee found that the evi- dence which I presented was wrong in two cases, and that there was an ethics violation in another case. The Committee did find the information gener- ally correct in five of them, but that there were no ethics viola- tions in these cases. The report by the Ethics Committee cited testimony from only one mi- nority; I believe that the com- mittee would have come to a different conclusion if the members had taken testimony from more of the minorities involved. In the two cases in which the committee found that the in- formation which I had pre- sented was false, the committee based its decision on testimony from white administrators. They did not take testimony from the minorities involved, had embezzled $70,000 from MSA. The committee did not consider this an ethics viola- tion. Finally, in the only case in which the Ethics Committee reported that it did hear testi- mony from a minority, Kittrie was alleged to have acted as spokesperson. The person re- ported to the committee that the facts which I had stated were true, and that I had missed some incidents which would have supported the charges of racism. The committee reported that further inquiry may be warranted on this issue, but that it did not support the charge of an ethics violation. The people mentioned in the previous paragraph were unde- niably undermined. Even ex- cluding the two cases that al- legedly contained falsified facts (although we have to ask why the committee did not take tes- timony form the minorities involved), we are still left with a scenario in which Kittrie undermined nine persons, six of whom are minorities. This figure only reflects the number of people involved and not the number of incidents. Given that only about 20 percent of MSA members are minorities, the probability that at least six out of the nine people would be minorities is about three in one thousand. On the positive side, I can state that the problems with Kittrie seem to have ended ever since the investigation began. Unfortunately, other members of MSA whose treatment of minorities is much worse than Kittrie's have become more nrnn. nant ton, D.C., I've often wondered whether or not students from a predominantly white middle class institution possessed any political consciousness for protest, demonstration or any spirit for politically motivated riotous behavior. The victory celebration on the night of April 3, 1989 - or should I say riot - settled any doubts or suspicions I might have had. At Howard our riotous spirit was always motivated by some pressing social issue that af- fected our university life, as was seen several months ago when students demanded the resignation of Atwater from the Board of Trustees; however, at this university the victory riot was clearly unnecessary, fool- ish, and lacked sincere social motivation. A colleague of mine com- mented that the police could do nothing, but if the ethnic char- acteristics of the students in- volved had been darker (ie., Black, Hispanic, Arab, etc.) than the normative standard for American beauty, baby let me tell you, they'd have thrown tear gas, smoke bombs, and any other bomb they could think of. It's funny how things work. Middle-class white American students have no problem celebrating and rioting when students of African de- scent are shooting basketballs for their university, but they are passive and nonreactive when they are needed to sup- port social causes and strengthen racial relations and issues of "diversity," (there's that word again) that affect our common academic exnerience. Groups condemn vandalism To the Daily: Although we condemn recent anti-Jewish statements that have appeared on the Daily Opinion page, we condemn the vandalization of the Michigan Daily offices. This criminal act is a step backward for stopping anti-Semitism and all other forms of racism and dis- crimination. Free discussion must be maintained. Problems are not resolved by vandalism and actions such as the de- facement of the Daily building are not to be tolerated. -Hillel, Involved in Michigan Polit- ical Action Committee (IMPAC), Progressive Zionist Caucus, Tagar, United Students for Israel March 31 on you University of Michigan for tolerating it. -Mark Wilson April 4 f Due to the volume of mail, the Daily cannot print all the letters and cnlmns it 4