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Page 4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, March 28, 1990
l he Srrigan aflu
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
420 Maynard Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
ARTS
NEWS
OPINION
763 0379
764 0552
747 2814
PHOTO
SPORTS
WEEKEND
764 0552
747 3336
747 4630
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.
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City Council
Consider Ackerman, Marsh before you vote
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ANN ARBOR CITY COUNCIL ELEC-
tions will be held next Monday, April
2nd. Two candidates for council seats
deserve special consideration before the
vote is taken
Valerie Ackerman is a Democrat
running in the Second Ward. Acker-
man is committed to environmental
protection in the Ann arbor area, and
promotes a progressive stance on local
issues such as housing and drug abuse.
With respect to the environment,
Ackerman calls for:
: Controlling development and im-
proving roads in order to preserve the
natural features and beauty of the land.
Retaining wetlands and green
space that are of particular ecological
value to the Ann Arbor area.
Implementing long-term waste
solutions. Ackerman believes that full-
scale recycling is necessary, and advo-
cates a regional Materials Recovery
Facility (MRF) to begin addressing the
solid waste disposal crisi§: In addition,
Ackerman wants to clean up the con-
tamination resulting from Ann Arbor's
inadequately-constructed landfill.
Ackerman supports the call a Zone
of Reproductive Freedom in Ann Ar-
bor, and believes that drug abuse must
be dealt with at the source of the prob-
lem. She holds that problems such as
low self-esteem, feelings of hopeless-
ness, and disenfranchisement from so-
ciety must be addressed with solutions
providing far more resources toward
education, prevention and treatment.
Ackerman recognizes the need for
more housing for the low-income citi-
zens of Ann Arbor. She believes that
building more parking structures
should not take precedence over the
construction of affordable housing.
Ackerman maintains that the city must
initiate public and private enterprises to
create more low-income housing op-
portunities, and she plans to hold the
state and federal governments account-
able for part of the housing solution.
Ackerman also wants a Citizen's
Review Board established to oversee
the functioning of the Police Depart-
ment. With respect to international is-
sues, Ackerman calls for continued
commitment to the city's Sister City
relationship with Juigalpa, Nicaragua.
Also worthy of special mention is
Fourth Ward Democratic candidate
James Marsh, who is a third-year Law
student at the University. Marsh has
opposed an increase in Ann Arbor's
long-standing $5 pot law, and has
lobbied the current City Council to put
a solid waste referendum on next
week's ballot.
Marsh has taken a strong stand on
the environment and has endorsed a
plan of mandatory recycling for the city
of Ann Arbor. He has endorsed a law
designed to protect certain lands from
development, and his push for envi-
ronmental reform earned him the sup-
port of the Huron Valley Greens.
Marsh also attended the University
as an undergraduate, and would be a
councilmember willing to stand up and
fight for student concerns.
Please give special consideration to
Valerie Ackerman and James Marsh be-
fore next Monday's election.
Prr W1 \~
*=
Daily must do more
about lifted editorial
To the Daily:
The Daily has yet to adequately respond
to the charge of plagiarism printed in the
editorial criticizing Steve Cokely
(2/26/90) in which several passages and
the entire idea were lifted from the New
Republic.
There is no question that the editorial
constituted an act of plagiarism - which
can mean "borrowing" actual passages
verbatim, as well as specific ideas, with-
out attribution - as I will make clear.
Here are the two passages - the first
from the New Republic of August 8 &
15, 1988; the second from the Daily's edi-
torial.
From the New Republic:
"[Cokely's] November speech was one
of a series of four speeches delivered be-
tween 1985 and 1987 at the Final Call..--
In the four speeches, Cokely had vehe-
mently attacked both Jesse Jackson and
Harold Washington for retaining Jewish
advisors. He had alleged that Jewish
physicians were injecting black children
with the AIDS virus. He had denounced
Christopher Columbus as a Hispanic Jew,
described the cross as a symbol of white
supremacy, and accused Jews of creating a
'secret society,' the purpose of which is to
form a world government controlled by
Jews that would oppress blacks. 'The
Jew,' Cokely had stated, 'hopes to one day
reign forever.' The ADL did not protest
Cokely's right to make such speeches. It
insisted only that he should not remain a
paid employee of the acting mayor."
The Daily's editorial ran, in part:
"Between 1985 and 1987, Cokely made
a series of four anti-Jewish speeches at the
Final Call... Cokely accused Jewish
physicians of injecting Black babies with
the AIDS virus, attacked Jesse Jackson and
then-Chicago Mayor Harold Washington
for retaining Jewish advisors, and said
Jews have created a 'secret society' for the
purpose of forming a world government
controlled by Jews that would oppress
Blacks. 'The Jew,' Cokely stated, 'hopes
to one day reign forever.' ... The ADL did
not protest Cokely's right to make such
comments, but insisted he not be a paid
employee of the city."
There is not a single line in the two
paragraphs of the editorial's "background"
which is not lifted directly from the New
Republic article. (Although there were a
few painfully obvious attempts to cover
up the plagiarism, one of which resulted
in an unfortunate error, when the Daily ac-
cidently changed a reference to
"Washington" - meaning Chicago Mayor
Harold Washington - to "the U.S. gov-
ernment.")
The Daily is a student newspaper; mis-
takes are inevitable. But the plagiarism in
this case is so obviously deliberate that
the "mistake" defense is inadequate, espe-
cially for an unsigned editorial. As a regu-
lar reader, I hope the Daily takes whatever
action is necessary to prevent this kind of
embarrassment from happening again.
Judy Ruttenberg
SA sophomore
As stated in an earlier apology, parts of
the Daily's editorial on Steve Cokely
should have been attributed to the New
Republic. - Ed.
Get rid of Dave Barry
To the Daily:
Why is it that, at a university of the
size and supposed scholarship of the Uni-
versity of Michigan, the Daily's Opinion
Page cannot find enough people whose
writing they find worthy of print.
The Daily is a University paper, and
until now it was written, edited and pro-
duced by students. Now the Opinion Page
has started running David Barry's view-
point from Miami.
No student or student group ever mer-
ited such special treatment as to be al-
lowed to print their viewpoint regularly
once a week. So why is someone who
writes a humorous article about issues un-
related to the university given this forum?
Is he representing white men who work
for Florida newspapers? If so, I think this
opinion is already very well represented.
I'm sure that the Editor of the Opinion
Page could have found a student who
would be happy to write a regular column
for the money Barry is receiving (and this
is a lot of money).
I am insulted that the Opinion Page
thinks there is not enough diversity of
views on this campus to fill up one page
of the newspaper.
Dawn Paulinski
School of Education junior
Ugliness of shanties
is necessary reminder
To the Daily:
I'd like a beautiful campus as much as
the next student. Tulips and modern art
and rotating cubes set my heart and aes-
thetic sensibilities quivering. But I also
understand the need for blatant ugliness,
especially when such ugliness directs my
attention away from hypnotic blooming
flower beds and re-focusses my thoughts
on the vile crimes of racism and ethnic
bigotry.
Until recently, I had believed that the
luxury of ugliness as protest was protected
not only by the First Amendment, but
also the University administration. Yeah.
Sure.
Regent Thomas Roach finds the
shanties on the Diag to be ugly. He has
called his desire to remove/demolish/de-
stroy them a "campus beautification" is-
sue. Such removal, he has stated, has
nothing to do with free speech.
Yet what Roach and his supporters fail
to recognize is that these shanties, by be-
ing quite unattractive, to say the leat
deride not only bigotry prevalent on
global level, but also question the admiin
istration's failure to address and eliminat
racism on campus.
Or perhaps they do recognize this latter
purpose of the shanties. Perhaps they
know that the political message behind the
shanties directly protests the administra-
tion's laissez-faire attitude towards institur
tional and societal racism. Perhaps Roach
and his supporters realize that the term
"campus beautification" might be a viable
euphemism to describe a movement de
signed to silence any criticism of the rp-
gents.
Regent Roach and his ilk are not sin-
cere about beautifying our campus. Th
UGLi, the LSA, and the Frieze buildings
have not been slated for demolition. I have
heard of no plans to prohibit or restrict 14e
miles of grotesque banners which strangle
the trees surrounding the Diag. The sculpO
ture in front of the Fine Arts Museurm
(which, by the way, looks a lot like a
pushed-over shanty) has not been soldfor
scrap. Roach is sincere about silenctng
any kind of protest which sticks in his po-
litical gullet.
The shanties are damn ugly; so is what
they condemn. To remove them or restrict
their construction is censorship. Such
"beautification" would make this Univer
sity look far worse than any rotten woo
or splattered paint.
Eric Baumann
English Languages and
Literature graduate student
BSU misses the mark*
on racism course
To the Daily:
On the subject of a required course on
racism, I find statements by member df
the Black Student Union in favor of such a
course sadly ironic.
One BSU member, Crystal Gardner
said, "White people need to be more edu$
cated on racism... If they learned Black
history, there would be a lot less racism
because there would be a lot more respect
between the groups."
If members of the BSU were really in-
terested in eliminating racism, they would
not be inviting people like Steven Cokely
to this campus to spew his frightful hate-
filled lies about Jewish people and whites
in general.
If anybody on this campus needs a re-
quired course on racism, it is the members
of the BSU.
Sanford Per
third-year Law student
Presiden-tial debate
Sunday April 1
{
{
8
8:00
p.m.
Michigan Union Kuenzel Room
* Meet the candidates
* Open to the public
Be an informed voter
. Sponsored by LSA Student Government and The MiChigan Daily
Action VP candidate criticizes
the Conservative Coalition.
By Angela Burks
After spending some time
around the Michigan Student
Assembly offices, attending the
meetings, and serving on one of its
committees, I became really con-
cerned and somewhat angry.
MSA is controlled by the Con-
servative Coalition Party. For ex-
ample, a couple of weeks ago,
someone called MSA and the per-
struction of symbols of human
struggle. A CC member said he
wanted the shanties down because
"they are ugly." Racism, harass-
ment, and people being beaten to a
pulp is very ugly. I am really glad
that he is not Black and not in
South Africa because he would find
out what ugly is really quick.
People struggle every day. I
guess he and other members of the
important; if it did not exist where
would we be standing?
We need a committee to encour-
age the amount of attention given
to the area in which we live. We
need to do more than fund Earth
Day - every day must be an earth
day.
The CC has failed to bring
diversity to its committees. It really
bothers me when I go to MSA and
Asian males, five Indian males, five
handicapped women, five white
women, five African American
women or men? I guess the CC
doesn't think five exist on this
campus.
It's as if they feel students of
color or other minorities are not
dynamic leaders. Outstanding mi-
nority leaders do exist at the Uni-
versity (Karen Mines-MPA, Devlon
president," because throwing all the
minorities on one commission and
having a Black president who voted
against the proposal of Martin
Luther King, Jr. Day, just ain't
gonna get it.)
* The CC is against the dis-
crimination and -harassment code.
Someone could be called a nigger,
chink, jap, or spic and not go
Why they are called a coalition I
do not know , because I don't know
what coalition they are represent-
ing. They make me angry and qf-
fended. I am an out-of-state student
and my mother makes too many
sacrifices to write that $18,000
check for me to sit and watch these
injustices quietly being done g
this campus.