OPINION
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Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
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Vol. C. NO. 1 Ann Arbor, MI 48109
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of the Daily.
Not hard to do better
Friday, September 8, 1989 The Michigan Daily
Palestinian schools reopen
HILE THE Duderstadt adminis-
tration and its supporters wipe away a
sentimental tear at the early departure of
LSA Dean Peter Steiner, activists for
rogressive change on campus cele-
rate the end of an era marked by
hypocrisy and institutuional racism.
The incoming dean, political science
Srofessor and former director of the
institute for Public Policy Studies Edie
4oldenberg, must overcome the un-
ound practices and policies of her pre-
decessor.
SDuring his tenure, Steiner cautioned
the University not to become "another
kind of institution where minorities
Aould naturally flock in much greater
etmbers," and his racist and sexist
edmissions policies and hiring practices
Ocked up those words.
Sor example, there are still no
.icano or Chicana professors in the
qllege of LSA.
4xLast year, Steiner chaired a
committee which overturned the
rnanimous recommendation of two
scarch committees and refused to hire
in eminently qualified Black woman
4ociologist, who had a tenured position
at another university. He also helped
undermine the implementation of an
LSA graduation requirement for the
study of race, ethnicity and racism.
As Goldenberg takes office she'll
%eed to change policies for hiring and
tetaining women and people of color,
dismantle heavily Westernized stan-
dards for hiring faculty to ensure an
environment which is supportive of
members of underrepresented groups.
The exodus in recent years of highly-
talented people of color from prominent
academic positions at the University
should serve as a warning to the new
dean.
Goldenberg also needs to reshape ad-
missions policies to stop relying on
standardized tests which have been
proven to contain race, class and
gender biases, and have been judged
ineffective in measuring success in
college. Judegement of students should
be based on their record and potential,
with clear goals toward shaping a
University community which accu-
rately reflects the population it claims to
be serving
The dean of LSA has the responsi-
bility of seeking out and respecting the
input of students in decision-making -
a process to which Steiner was
particularly indifferent - and
supporting student organizations which
work to improve the education and
atmosphere at the University. Gol-
denberg's dote for the proposed race,
ethnicity and racism requirement is a
welcome sign; her support for anti-
racist and alterbative education will be
crucial to the development of the col-
lege.
Dean Goldenberg takes office with
some good recommendations (Steiner's
notwithstanding), and a good deal of
expectation. She has pledged to
"understand the issues and consult
broadly" as she gets to know her new
job. For the sake of the University that
understanding should be deeper, and
that consulting broader and in better
faith, than that of Dean Steiner.
by Steve Ghannam
Amid skepticism over the seriousness of
Israeli intentions to keep West Bank
schools open, some 200,000 West Bank
students returned to school July 22, fol-
lowing a nearly two-year period of contin-
ued military closure with a brief two-week
interlude in December 1988. Students at-
tended at the most 23 days in the 1988-89
school year.
The Israeli "civil administration" an-
nounced that students of elementary and
graduating high school classes are to be al-
lowed to resume classes at the point of the
curriculum where they had been forced to
stop earlier in the year. The military has
made no mention of West Bank and Gaza
universities which have been closed since
the start of the Palestinian Uprising.
Meanwhile, the return of preparatory
students to school is contingent upon the
"maintenance of order," according to Israeli
officials. They claim the schools are being
used as "centers of incitement and vio-
lence," (i.e., opposition to the occupation)
particularly during the Palestinian
Uprising.
What this means, of course, is that
Palestinian children who have spent their
entire lives under military occupation are
not allowed to speak out or demonstrate
against it. Palestinian students are ex-
pected to accept such policies and live
with the continuous fear of another school
closure whenever the occupation authori-
ties decide.
What seems unclear to the Israelis is
that a primary objective within the overall
Palestinian struggle for freedom and inde-
pendence is securing the basic right of ed-
ucation for Palestinian youth. Therefore,
numerous Israeli attempts to close the
schools, while collectively punishing all
students, only reminds Palestinian youth
that the occupation will always close their
schools when it wishes; can never offer
them a secure future; and demands that
they collectively demonstrate against such
an occupation. This contradiction within
Israeli policy only fuels the Palestinian
Uprising.
Another contradiction in Israeli policy
concerns the Palestinian campaign for al-
ternative education which grew out of frus-
tration over repeated school closures by
the Israeli government. Alternative educa-
Congressional resolution, the Nielson
Amendment, calling for the Israeli gov-
ernment to open Palestinian educational
institutions was passed amid several dis-
senting voices among pro-Israeli congres-
sional lackeys. Few world leaders can
openly side with the Israeli explanation or
decision concerning school closures. By
opening the schools, the Israelis believe
they will lessen international pressure and
improve relations with the West.
Equally important, the school openings
have a psychological effect on two fronts
producing similar results: the interna-
tional media, and the indigenous
Palestinian population. By opening the
schools the Israelis hope to create an im-
age of stabilization and control in the
Occupied Territories, as well as the illu-
sion that the Uprising is now on the
downswing.
The Israeli's hope the international press
will concentrate on school openings to
signifying a new process of stabilization
rather than the dramatic increase in human
rights abuses: the expulsion of eight
Palestinian political prisoners and the in-
crease in random settler vigilantism
against Palestinian villages to name a few.
Recent moves for opening Palestinian
schools do not fulfill the basic right of
education for the Palestinian population.
The underlying problem, clearly, is the
Israeli occupation itself, the very apparatus
which will always deny the right of educa-
tion for the Palestinian population so long
as Palestinians demonstrate for their free-
dom and independence.
Closing the schools is a symptom of
the occupation. Opening them acts as a
pain-killer. The occupation is the disease.
So long as this disease is allowed to
fester, the Palestinian population can only
be expected to rise up against it.
Steve Ghannam is a member of the
Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC).
*1
0
tion is a key objective of the self-help
"popular committees" in the West Bank
and Gaza. A recently issued Israeli military
order stated that any form, even the con-
cept, of alternative education is a crime
and grounds for imprisonment. Hundreds
of committee organizers as well as educa-
tors and students have been imprisoned.
Why then, if the Israeli government is
now so concerned about providing educa-
tion for Palestinian children, is alternative
education a crime and these educators still
in prison?
The Israelis have their own reasons for
opening the schools at this time. A pri-
mary reason is international pressure com-
ing from even within the U.S.
Congressional hearings. A recent
Help stop the rape culture
By Sharon P. Holland
Israeli smokescreen
6N JULY 30 the Israeli High Court of
Justice "intervened" on behalf of
lalestinian rights for the first time
swince the Intifada began 22 months
ago. In a smoke-screen decision the
court ruled that Palestinians have the
tight to appeal to Israeli civil and
military courts before their houses are
blown-up or bulldozed by the Israeli
army.
Though civil libertarians herald this
ruling as a landmark decision, and
Israeli defense officials privately con-
demn it because they fear restrictions in
tjeir attack against Palestinians, the
decision in its practical effects is quite
hollow.
In the first 20 months of the Intifada
over 270 homes were destroyed by the
Israeli military. The collective punish-
ment of families and communities by
the military has been used as a tactic to
intimidate and to impede the Palestinian
struggle for self-determination. Usually
the military demolishes homes of al-
leged participants in the movement,
most often before a formal charge has
been brought against the accused.
Usually it is not the accused who is
punished, but rather family members,
for the accused are either in jail or dead
(NYT, 7/31/89). Family members
dften have less than one hour - in
40me cases as little as 15 minutes - to
collect their belongings before their
house is razed by the Israeli army.
Although it appears that the move on
tie part of the High Court is landmark
ii that it would restrain the military
from bull-dozing without court ap-
proval, it still does not deny the mili-
tary's carte blanche terrorism.
Houses can still be sealed off from
their occupants for indefinite periods of
t me, forcing people to live in tents
outlide of their homes. The Court is
Aso considering extending the period
of administrative detention in which
,aspects can be held without charges or
trial from six months to one year.
Giving Palestinians opportunity to
appeal to the Court of the system which
is in fact the oppressing them is quite
ironic. In all actuality Palestinian
homes are no safer now than they were
before - they might stand a little
longer, but the families can still be
dislocated.
In all probability such a move on the
part of the High Court is rather an act
to blow smoke in the eyes of the inter-
national community which is outraged
by the treatment of the Palestinians by
the hands of Israel. South Africa,
Israel's ally, also creates such media-
hype over Court decisions which ap-
pear to be positive.
Earlier this year, the South African
court ruled against the government's
attempt to relocate 9,000 people into
the homeland, Bophutatswana. The
court decided that before the
government could force the relocation it
had to prove that such a move was nec-
essary. Though the court ruled against
the move, the army, following the
government's policy of making South
Africa for whites only, pursued the
move. These activities have not been
covered by the mainstream media
which was blinded by the court's petty
liberal acts of good faith. The forced
relocation of South Africa's 25 million
Black residents into the slave-economy
homelands continues, even if it is
unapproved by the courts.
It appears that in all reality the Israeli
High Court decision was nothing but a
bone thrown to silence those who op-
pose Israeli occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza. The terrorism by the
Israeli government against those who
oppose its policies continues.
On the same day that the Court made
its decision three Palestinians were
killed. The death toll continues to
rise...the houses continue to be razed.
It was the winter of my junior year in
college when I first witnessed what rape
could really do to a survivor, to a friend
and to a community. On ray campus we
were preparing for a Take Back the Night
March -- it would be my first time orga-
nizing as well as attending any woman-
centered event on campus.
That night we walked a route through
campus and stopped for a moment of si-
lence at sites where sexual assaults had oc-
curred. We were prepared for about 5 such
stops along the route. What happened was
astonishing - over 25 women stopped
our silent demonstration to speak about
their own experiences of sexual assault.
This couldn't have been easy for women
attending such a small Ivy League institu-
tion which often showed little respect for
its women - outnumbered 5 to 1 by men
- who were actively recruited for private
parties such as the "rape and pillage night"
held by the campus "Eating Clubs."
During our four-hour march in the rain
I also heard about a woman who was as-
saulted in front of one of the above
"Clubs." When she escaped from her as-
sailant, she knocked on the first door she
came to; when a man opened the door, she
asked for help and he said, "do you really
think that you'd be safer in here than out
there." He shut the door.
That night empowered me tremendously
as a woman. As a woman of color, it sad-
dened me a great deal. I knew several
women of color who had been assaulted
but did not feel empowered to speak, did
not feel empowered to move from the pro-
tective shadows of the crowd. The reason
for this reticence became all too clear at
the end of the March.
When we neared what students there
called "Club" row, the men on the street
were ready for us. They had been sitting
outside drinking and partying for four
hours. They yelled, "Go get raped" at the
marchers, along with other similar state-
ments. But, their most insulting, degrad-
ing and racially specific statements were
reserved for the women of color on the
march. For us, there was special treatment
like, "Go get raped you nigger bitch" as
well as "you especially asked for it, didn't
you, you whore."
When I left my former University, the
Women's Center there was demanding a
rape crisis counsellor and a centralized
grievance procedure for sexual harassment
cases. It was also in the process of advo-
cating for a woman who was sexually as-
saulted in one of the "Clubs" - ironi-
cally, the same one which turned away a
woman who had just been assaulted on the
street. When I arrived at Michigan, I found
that the same problems existed here that I
faced at my old University. I eventually
found the Sexual Assault Prevention and
Awareness Center (SAPAC) and became a
counsellor on its 24-hour crisis line. I
I know I will never forget what hap-
pened to me and other women of color on
that street in late April of 1986. I work on
the SAPAC crisis line because I think the
presence of women of color is important
in any woman-centered organization if it
challenges notions of white feminism and
expands the working agenda. I also work
on the line, because I want other women
of color to know that I am there.
Most importantly, I am there because of
my own personal experience with rape cul-
ture -- I was in a battering relationship for
some time and have survived. If I can do
nothing else with that experience, I can at
least take what I once thought was a
weakness and make it into a strength.
That's why I'm on the line.
Sharon Holland is a graduate student in the
English Department and a member of
SAPAC's 24 hour crisis line.
0
"Operation Rescue" means:
Harassment and intimidation
0
By Camille Colatosti
"Are you a communist?" an anti-choice
protester asked me.
"Why are my politics your business?" I
responded. We were both standing near the
door of Womancare Clinic in Ypsilanti. I
escorted clients into the health clinic; she
harassed them as they tried to enter.
The car of another client pulled up, and
we both approached the driver's door. "I'm
with the clinic," I said. "Would you like
an escort?"
The patient was young, maybe eighteen
years old, maybe twenty. The anti-choice
woman started shouting, "Don't butcher
your baby! They'll tell you lies in there!"
"Don't harass her," I shouted.
"I can harass her if I want to," she
replied.
tivists engage in verbal and often physical
assaults against women. They call clients
names like "whore," "bitch," and
"murderer." They grab clients and, by
physically blocking their entrance through
clinic doors; interfere with their right to
obtain medical care.
"Both the means and the ends," writes
Phillip Green in a recent article in The
Nation, "do harm to particular women and
intend that harm. Forcing your way
through a restrictive and abusive picket
line [of anti-choice activists] while preg-
nant is not harmless; risking giving birth
is not harmless; changing your life to
have an unwanted baby is not harmless.
Pregnancy itself is not an assault, but
forced pregnancy is. In short, the Civil
Rights movement was a movement of
civilly disobedient persons... But there is
nothing civil about Operation Rescue"
a woman's life.
In addition, despite the fact that fetal
lungs do not develop an independent capac-
ity until at least the twenty-third to
twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, medical
tests, including an ultra-sound and possi-
bly amniocentesis, must be performed on
a fetus thought to be twenty weeks old in
order to determine viability. These tests
have negative physical and emotional ef-
fects upon women, making the termina-
tion of a pregnancy more stressful than it
needs-or ought-to be.
More importantly, these tests drive up
the cost of an abortion at least two hun-
dred and fifty dollars, making the price of
an abortion even more prohibitive than it
already is for poor women. Since the pas-
sage of the Hyde Amendment in 1977, no
federal medicaid funds can be used for abor-
tion services. Last fall's proposal A ended:
*1
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