Page 4- The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 20, 1990
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
420 Maynard Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
NOAH FINKEL
Editor in Chief
DAVID SCHWARTZ
Opinion Editor
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.
University cops
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Students should protest
WHAT SHOULD PRESIDENT DUDER-
stadt and his administration do when
students continue to embarrass them by
protesting injustices at the University?
How is the University's Board of Re-
gents to silence students who persis-
tently demonstrate against tuition in-
creases, institutionalized discrimina-
tion, and lack of campus democracy?
How can they stop the wave of bad
publicity which dangerously tamishes
the University's image?
The solution for the administration
is simple. First, abolish the University
Council, the only forum where stu-
dents had a democratic voice, and
which had persistently vetoed any mea-
sures restricting student freedom. Sec-
ond, wait until summer, when the ma-
jority of students are away from cam-
pus, and vote to establish a fully
armed, deputized, private police force
to quell any "unacceptable" student be-
havior. And finally, implement an all-
encompassing code of student non-
academic conduct, which will, no
doubt, come soon.
Though not all students are skeptical
of a private University police force,
there is an abundance of evidence
which should elicit concern. For ex-
ample, the University claims a private
police force will be better equipped to
fight crime on campus than the Ann
Arbor police, but no one will say how.
Armed officers of any sort will be inef-
fective against crimes like acquaintance
rape and dorm theft, which students
have labelled their biggest concern.
Also, the University's cops will
enforce regental bylaws, so armed offi-
the regents'
decision
cers will likely be called upon to break
up political rallies or boisterous frater-
nity parties.
Despite the evidence, many students
remain unconvinced of the dangers of a
private, University-controlled police
force, and are ambivalent about the
whole concept. But that ambivalence
may cost students, because they will
end up suffering financially for a
change that in no way will reduce crime
on campus.
An armed police force doesn't come
cheap, and ironically it is the students
who will be forced to pay the costs of
their own repression. In the past, the
University paid $500,000 a year to the
city of Ann Arbor to patrol campus and
protect students. To fund its own
force, the University will pay the
salaries of 24 deputized officers, pay
for their training and equipment, and
pay to organize a new bureaucracy to
oversee the new force. Additionally,
the University is planning to build a
new facility to headquarter its private
army.
The final cost: between $3 million
and $10 million initially, and at least
$2.5 million in subsequent years. This
cost will undoubtedly make its way
onto students' tuition bills in the form
of yet another double-digit increase in
the cost of a U-M education.
Today is the first regents' meeting
of the semester, inconsiderately
scheduled during Rosh Hashanah; still,
students should join the rally, at 3 p.m.
today on Regents' Plaza, to protest an
armed University police force.
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Ac4&4& PREciNCT 'FVE CFoRmEiRL THE
5TODENT
UNIO 00 1
Asian Americans should qualify for minority grants
By Benjamin T. Lo
Recently, while walking to my Argu-
mentative Writing class, the headlines of a
poster grabbed my attention. Printed at the
top of a large, rectangular, navy blue
poster with boldface gold and white letters
was the heading, "Minorities Interested in
Graduate Studies In Political Science:
Consider Michigan."
As a minority student and a political
science major contemplating graduate
school, I was naturally drawn to the poster
hoping to find some valuable information,
such as who to contact for an application
for admission or who to call for learning
about scholarships available to help defray
the cost of graduate education.
I eagerly continued to read the poster,
but I was abruptly shocked to learn that I,
an Asian American and a political science
major, did not qualify for a minority fel-
lowship in political science sponsored by
the University. To be considered a candi-
date for one of the financial grants, my
background had to originate from one of
the minority groups "least" represented in
graduate schools nationally: that is, Afro-
American, Native American, Hispanic
American and Puerto Rican.
To deny Asian Americans access to
programs specifically targeted for minority
students based on race and not academic
ability is totally unjust and unquestion-
ably ludicrous. What is even more abom-
inable is the logically invalid rationale be-
hind the decision of the University admin-
istration that Asian American students are
not "least" represented in graduate educa-
tion nationwide.
Eight years ago, after having investi-
gated the enrollment of minority students
Lo is an LSA senior majoring in Political
Science.
in graduate programs at Michigan and
across the nation, the former Dean of the
Rackham School of Graduate Studies con-
cluded that Asian American students would
no longer be classified under the heading
"minority student" due to the fact that a
large number of Asian American students
were pursuing graduate degrees in the med-
ical, business and engineering schools.
Asian American students no longer
merited any special considerations granted
to minorities because Asian Americans
were "over-represented" in graduate pro-
grams across the nation.
To deny Asian Americans access to programs
specifically targeted for minority students based on
race and not academic ability is totally unjust and
unquestionably ludicrous.
As a result of this presumptive general-
ization and this fallacious reasoning, I, a
Asian American student who is not majo
ing in the natural sciences, not studying
engineering or business, am unfairly de-
nied access to a fellowship for minorities.
Without any regard to my academic record,
I have been excluded from competing for a
minority fellowship because my race is
supposedly "over-represented" in non-lib-
eral arts graduate programs.
John D'Arms, the present dean o*
Rackham, must reexamine the University
The reasoning behind this decision,
however, is overtly fallacious, and as a re-
sult, Asian American students are denied
the advantages and privileges offered to
minorities at the University.
Why should the number of Asian
American students not enrolled in the
Rackham graduate program influence the
decision to exclude students with Asian
backgrounds who are concentrating in the
liberal arts from receiving any benefits?
It appears that there is no causal rela-
tion between minority students enrolled in
professional schools and in the liberal arts
graduate program. It also seems, contrary
to the position espoused by the former
dean, that the majority of the humanities
and social science departments are charac-
terized by a dearth of Asian American stu-
dents.
policy on the definition of "minority" stu#
dents. Additionally, if the Michigan Man-
date proposed by University President
James Duderstadt, which promises a' ra-
cially diverse Michigan campus by grant-
ing more money for minority faculty hir-
ing and more financial assistance for mi-
norities, is to reach fruition, then the ad-
ministration must also reconsider the sta-
tus of Asian American students.
To restrain Asian American student,
from participating in programs designated
for minority students based on race and on
fallacious reasoning is not only unjust,
but also discriminatory. Asian American
students are indeed minority students and
deserve to receive all the benefits available
to people who originate from racial back-
grounds.
Overcrowding
'U' should rethink its class scheduling policy
MSA president urges students to protest 'U' police
AS THE SEPTEMBER WIND BEGINS
to breeze in over the University, it
brings along a familiar autumn topic of
conversation. Every University student
knows the various "distribution re-
quirements" that need to be fulfilled for
graduation; however, more foreign to
students is how to get in to required
classes that have already been closed.
At the beginning of every term, the
University is overrun with lines at
CRISP, the Scheduling Office, and
professors' offices, where students vie
to get into that one course they need to
graduate, or the ECB required course
for first-year students. And when the
students succeed in overcoming the
predetermined size limit for these
classes, overcrowding ensues. At the
heart of this semi-annual circus is a
series of failings that start with the
professors, and runs right up the chain
of the University's bureaucracy.
The Scheduling Office distributes
sites for classes based on several fac-
tors, among them average enrollment
for a class and a professor's seniority.
Both of these arrangements. though
"prestigious" buildings on campus,
such as Angell, Mason, and Haven
Halls, and will accept a smaller room in
that complex over a room in the Mod-
em Language Building (MLB), a less
prestigious venue, that is better
equipped for large classes.
These scheduling policies, combined
with the scarcity of large lecture halls,
make it difficult for students to enroll in
desired classes. And, when students
somehow manage to secure overrides
from their professors, the additional
problem of classroom overcrowding
arises. Often, students are forced to sit
on floors and in aisles, creating a
condition that both inhibits leaming and
is a potential fire hazard.
The University has to deal more ef-
fectively with class scheduling. The
heads of the various departments
should get together with the heads of
CRISP, the Scheduling Office, and the
Registrar's Office to work out a policy
that is based less on spoils and the sta-
tus quo, and more on the reality of the
overcrowding.
By Jennifer Van Valey
Let's make two things clear right from
the beginning: 1) We all want a safer
campus and community, and 2) the deputi-
zation of privately controlled campus offi-
cers will not do this. In fact, deputization
poses an increased threat to the safety of
students on campus.
How can this be true? In order to un-
derstand this, the issue must be contextu-
alized within the history of the Univer-
sity's attempts to repress student expres-
sion. This debate does not, therefore, focus
on what will make this campus safer;
rather, it focuses on how the University
can best control student protest.
For 20 years, the University adminis-
tration has been moving toward increased
control over students in the form of a code
of non-academic conduct, a protest policy
defining acceptable means of protest, and
the last piece in the puzzle, a deputized po-
lice force.
Van Valey, an LSA junior, is president of
the Michigan Student Assembly.
Of course, the police force is the criti-
cal piece because it gives the University
an independent means of control, freeing
them from reliance on the Ann Arbor po-
lice to do their dirty work. It also allevi-
ates their reliance on a democratic system,
allowing them complete autocracy in pur-
suance of their repressive agenda.
The issue becomes complicated, how-
ever, because the University is not inter-
ested in halting all protest on campus. In
fact, a certain amount of protest, around
issues that appear only nominally related
to the University - such as El Salvador,
reproductive rights, etc. - is healthy, and
helps the University maintain the fagade of
a liberal and open-minded institution.
It is only when protest focuses specifi-
cally on deficiencies in the way the Uni-
versity is run, such as protest on issues
ranging from the low retention of student
of color and homophobic remarks by re-
gents, to lower tuition, that it must be
controlled. A private police force is the
perfect solution.
The police force will be empowered to
enforce state laws and regental ordinances.
The University claims that the regental or-
dinances in question are those dealingq with
things like speeding on campus, littering,
and parking.
While this is true, they conveniently
omit the previously mentioned ordinances,
dealing with student life off-campus and
student expression. These are the ones
with which students should primarily con-
cern themselves.
Through an analysis of the Univer-
sity's history of pushing for a campus po-
lice force, it becomes clear that the very
real problem of safety on campus is being
used opportunistically to dupe students
into supporting their own repression. It is
also clear that, ironically, the only way too
stop the administration is through student
mobilization and protest - the very thing
the administration instituted the force to
prevent.
Student should protest against armed
cops on campus, tomorrow at 3 pm on
Regents Plaza.
INFA funding isnt
fnig- and 1 personally have a hard to
run again, the irrelevant matter of the
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