OPINION
4
ARTS
9
SPORTS
10
What's wrong with savings & loans?
Shame on you, Patrick Swayze
N Who is Michigan's Mr.
Tenacity - on ice and off?
Ninety-nine years of editorial freedom
Vol. C, No. 37 Ann Arbor, Michigan -Thursday, October 26, 1989
Ex-Pres.
Ford
speaks
on abortion, elderly
by Christine Kloostra
Daily Staff Writer
Former President Gerald Ford was
featured as the keynote speaker last
night at a fundraising dinner for an
expansion project at a local nursing
home.
Ford, a University alumnus, was
in Ann Arbor to promote the Glacier
Hills Nursing Home at 1200 Earhart
*Rd.
Before the dinner, Ford addressed
a wide variety of issues during a
press conference, ranging from abor-
tion to a political blunder in the
1976 presidential debate against
Jimmy Carter. During the debate, he
had stated that the Soviet Union had
no control over Poland. But, in view
of recent reforms in the Eastern
Bloc, Ford said, "maybe I was right
after all and they were wrong."
Asked about the abortion issue,
Ford said, "My own view is that
there should be a right to an abortion
if the woman's life is in jeopardy,
and in cases of rape or incest," and if
he were still a member of Congress,
he would "probably have voted for
that proposal that would provide fed-
eral funding for those three specific
cases." The proposal was recently
vetoed by President George Bush.
Ford recently returned from a con-
ference on the role of former presi-
dents in the U.S. He said, "Each in-
dividual former president has- to
make his own choice of what he
wants to do. Each will have different
interests and should be free to pursue
them."
Since his defeat in the 1976 pres-
idential election, Ford said he has
traveled to 176 college campuses and
answered more than 7,000 questions
from faculty and students. "I like
that," he said.
Ford said he was supporting the
Glacier Hills project because he
strongly believe, in "private funding
facilities that help in our health care
problem."
The center, the only non-profit
nursing home in Ann Arbor, is ex-
panding in response to a critical
shortage of nursing home beds in the
county, said Nicolas Meima, execu-
tive director of Glacier Hills.
"As a society, we know that our
federal or state governments can't
take care of all the needs of the
elderly. The compassion of the
community is reflected in the quality
of the care of its elderly," Meima
said during the press conference.
Ford also addressed the changing
role of the younger generation in car-
ing for the growing population of
senior citizens. "When I was young,
sons and daughters took in their par-
ents and grandparents. Times have
changed. It is now the responsibility
of sons and daughters to help provide
good retirement homes and nursing
centers,
Field trip
Second graders from Mack Elementary School in Ann Arbor climb up the steps of the Museum of Art for a tour
of the museum.
House backs Bush's veto
of abortion assistance bi11
WASHINGTON (AP) -
President Bush's veto of a bill to
provide abortion assistance to
impoverished victims of rape and
incest was sustained in the House on
yesterday as a 231-191 vote to
override him fell 51 votes short of
the necessary two-thirds margin.
Though narrow in scope, the bill
carried symbolic importance in the
widening political struggle over the
abortion issue, and proponents took
their loss with a vow to keep the
president's feet to the fire. "The
president won a legislative victory
today with use of a legislative
minority," said Rep. Les AuCoin,
D-Ore. "He will put his party at
tremendous risk in the next election,
and some of his allies on the House
floor will not be returned."
The vote left intact an 8-year-old
ban of federal financing of abortions
for poor women, except when their
lives are threatened.
The disputed provision would
have permitted Medicaid abortions
for women who are victims of rape
or incest, and who "reported
promptly" to authorities. It was part
of a spending bill that now goes
back to the House .Appropriations
Committee for revision.
Abortion rights supporters picked
up a net 15 votes on the override
See ABORTION, page 2
Former President Gerald Ford speaks
the Kalamazoo room of the League.
DAVID LUBLINER
at a press conference yesterday at
'U' minority enrollment task force faces recurring issues
Lby Marion Davis
Daily Minority Issues Reporter
In 1970, the University's Board
of Regents adopted a goal of 10 per-
cent Black enrollment in response to
demands made by the student Black
Action Movement.
Today, the Black enrollment fig-
ure is 6.5 percent.
On Oct. 10, University Provost
Charles Vest announced that he
would appoint a Task Force on Mi-
nority Student Recruitment and Re-
tention. "There is a growing need to
provide coordination of the expand-
ing number of programs in the Uni-
Gould to
.speak at
Rackham
tonight
by James Herron
Celebrity is a rare thing for scien-
tists, and for paleontologists, one
ould suppose even rarer.
Steven Jay Gould is a remarkable
exception. Gould lectures at Rack-
ham Auditorium at 8 p.m. this
evening.
Gould is widely considered within
the discipline to be one of the pre-
eminent evolutionary theorists, but
his notoriety derives from a different
source. Gould has been the loudest
pokesperson for the evolutionists in
vw
versity that reach out to students of
color," Vest said at the time.
The task force will be charged
with promoting communication, co-
ordination, and mutual support
among pre-college recruitment pro-
grams and those that help students
achieve their full potential after they
enroll at the University.
But many of the issues facing the
task force have been proposed before
- in a 1984 position paper by
former Vice President for Academic
Affairs Niara Sudarkasa.
In the paper, Sudarkasa argued
that although poor secondary school
preparation is often cited as a reason
for low Black enrollment, there are
enough qualified in-state Black stu-
dents to significantly increase the
University's undergraduate enroll-
ment.
In 1970, some in the administra-
tion questioned whether the 10 per-
cent goal was sound, and doubted the
availability of a pool of qualified
Black students to fulfill it.
If the proposed 10 percent Black
enrollment goal were compared to
the Black proportion of college-
bound students, Sudarkasa pointed
out, "It is clear that Blacks are under-
represented at the University of
Michigan... Blacks have consistently
constituted about 10 percent of the
college-bound population in the state
of Michigan."
In the report, Sudarkasa said mi-
nority students can be scared away
from the University because of a
"selective, expensive public institu-
tion image" and often perceive it as
too "costly and inhospitable."
More importantly, she concluded,
"If the University could provide the
financial wherewithal to enroll a crit-
ical mass of Black students, there
would be less complaints of alien-
ation and anomie, and, give a sup-
portive environment, these students
would begin to feel more at home..."
The report recommended that
more personalized communication,
rather than massive and intimidating
"college fairs," be employed in mi-
nority recruiting efforts. ,
Five years later, Vice Provost for
Minority Affairs Charles Moody said
he feels personalized communication
is important and is already being in-
corporated into the admissions pro-
cess.
Moody said he will meet today
with the Office of Minority Affairs
staff to discuss the task force and "to
see how and what we can do to deal
with the issues of recruitment."
Vest said the important measure
of success for his task force will not
be the number of minorities en-
rolled, but the number of students of
color who make it to graduation.
"This requires not only continuous
improvement in recruitment of stu-
dents of color, but also increased at-
tention to the programs, activities
and environment that enhance their
chances of academic success," he
said.
Quake leaves 13,000
homeless; aid totals
billions of dollars
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -
More than 13,000 people were
reported homeless yesterday, and
officials warned more houses could
be lost in landslides near earthquake.
Children in the badly damaged
Marina district returned to classes in
their reopened school-turned-shelter.
As Congress moved forward with
relief packages worth billions, a
survey found many Bay area
residents gave low marks to the
federal response to last week's
devastating quake.
California's Office of Emergency
Services (OES) raised its count of
displaced people to 13,892, nearly
after her apartment was severely
damaged. "The aftershocks are really
getting on my nerves."
Some students were upset to find
175 displaced people still in their
school when it reopened.
"It's sort of weird," said one
student. "We can't get to the gym.
The yard is split in half for the Red
Cross."
Landslides in the Santa Cruz
Mountains have already claimed
scores of homes and geologists
warned of worse to come.
Because of the rain, huge sections
of land in Santa Cruz County
cracked by earthquake fissures are in
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