Page 4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 31, 1990
belirigan 1aiiy
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.
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Objective test?
Proposed changes won't remove bias from SAT
EVERY YEAR, HIGH SCHOOL JU- Unfortunately, the suggested revi-
niors and seniors become preoccupied sions will only further marginalize
with the three most devastating letters those groups adversely affected by the
of the alphabet: S, A, and T. Required current system because the proposed
with application to most U.S. colleges changes will enhance the tests biases,
and universities, the Scholastic Apti- not eliminate them.
tude Test strikes terror in the hearts of One of the more drastic proposed
many students because of the large role stru thesor ddai tsen
it often plays in the admissions pro- structural changes is to add a written
cess. the essay to the test. An essay will reflect
If the SAT fulfilled its assigned role the same socio-economic disparity that
as a purported gauge of a student's exists presently. Students in inner-city
ability, it could be chalked up as one schools - which receive less funding
more of the nasty hurdles that seem in- per student than most schools else-
ttndayesigned to make adoles- where -will not get the same quality
cents miserable. But the only detectable of education needed to adequately pre-
design in the SAT involves its eco- pare them for the SAT. These schools
nomic, gender, and cultural biases. As are attended disproportionately by
a result of these biases, the SAT is un- people of color.
able to adequately determine how well Adding the essay will not alleviate
people will perform in college, and the need for quality education in high
therefore does not serve its original school. The essay, like the questions
purpose. presently used on the test, will reflect
As Phyllis Rosser has shown in her this socioeconomic bias.
.xieThe proposed essay will discrimi-
study, Sex Biases in College A dmis- nate not only on the basis of economics
sions Test: Why Women Lose Out, but will also reflect cultural biases.
young women in both high school and Since an essay has no concrete answer
college have higher average grades than more discrepancies are likely to emerge
young men. "If the SAT predicted and cultural differences in writing
equally well for both sexes, girls styles are likely to be ignored.
would score about 20 points higher tesrctal chn re bi
than boys (on the SAT), not 61 points The structural changes that are being
lower," she wrote. considered will not rid the test of its
The preliminary results from the discriminatory nature. In order to do
1990 SAT back up Rosser's statement: so, the changes must address the biases
boys scored a mean of 429 on the ver- inherent in the kind of aptitude the test
bal section as opposed to girls, who measures.
averaged 419; on the math section, the Even if these proposed revisions are
mean for males was 499, compared to adopted, the SAT should not regain the
455 for females. respect and authority that it once, and
Since various critics have proven the still all too often, has. This Univer-
SAT's discriminatory nature, the Col- sity's admissions office should use
lege Board has proposed structural different criteria for admission, such as
changes to alleviate the disparity. students' academic and extra-curricular
Whether or not implementation of these performance in high school, and not
alterations will take place is currently tests with proven gender, racial, and
being debated. socio-economic biases.
Drug folly
l
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Recycle U-M ur
By Julianne LeSage
Today, you and I face a future in crisis.
We are all too familiar with the common-
place news about environmental degrada-
tion. What is not so familiar to some of
us is the political and economic issues
that control the outcome of environmental
pocies.a
The burden of suffering resulting from
the interplay of these issues has been dis-
proportionately directed at people who tend
to lack the political and economic clout to
defend themselves against this abuse.
It has become easy for us, as privileged
college students, to brush the news of en-
vironmental degradation aside, make a to-
ken donation to an environmental cause to
ease our conscience, and then burrow back
into our books. Turning our backs will
not change the fact that currently three out
of four toxic dumps in the South are lo-
cated in low income and minority com-
munities.
Closing our eyes will not erase land-
fills and toxic wastes sites, which contain
substances we have all produced or con-
sumed, and tend to be situated in areas
where people do not enjoy the advantages
we take for granted. We all contribute to
the problems.
LeSage, a Business School senior, is a
member of Recycle U-M and a tenant of
Planet Earth.
Daily gives only 1
To the Daily:
On Monday, Oct.15, a female Univer-
sity student was assaulted on the Diag.
The assailant shouted racist slurs and
threatened her with a handgun before she
fled the scene.
On Saturday, Oct. 27, another female
University student was assaulted on North
Campus by a man who attempted to pull
her into his car.
On Sunday, Oct. 28, a third student
was attacked near Hill Street. Fortunately,
this student, like the first two, was able to
escape without serious physical harm.
Are these incidents news to you? Then
you obviously haven't been reading the
Ann Arbor News. The News was the only
place where these assaults were reported,
though they had been included in the local
police record. The Daily did not cover any
of these campus-related stories, despite its
excellent history of following up on News
articles the day after they are published.
I would like to believe that these omis-
sions are just examples of sloppy journal-
ism. I would also like to believe that the
Daily staff is dedicated to printing an hon-
est and unbiased account of the most im-
portant events occurring around the Uni-
versity.
Giving the Daily the benefit of the
doubt, I'll assume that there probably were
lots of other important and newsworthy
items on these days keeping its reporters
from covering such trivial harassment and
assault cases.
Then I opened Monday's Daily to find
this "shocker" - a photo of police arrest-
ing a South Dakota State University stu-
dent. Did this student shout racial slurs?
Did this student threaten somebody with a
handgun? How does an arrest there affect
me? I don't know the answers to these
questions, because the Daily didn't print
anv of the facts conce'rning tisig e e
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Viewpoint
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Two
77 "Il
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"ges respect for the environment.
Yes, all of us. We all are obligated to
find solutions. Our apathy to these reali-
ties magnifies the environmental conse-
quences for all of us. It is time for us to
stop ignoring our responsibility.
During the weekend of Oct. 5-7, more +
than 50 University students joined more
than 7,000 student activists at the Student
Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) +
Conference held at the University of Illi-
nois. A critical focus of SEAC's agenda,
which all of us who attended have brought
back, is the need to broaden the active stu-
dent support for the environment, and to
learn to organize across lines of class,
race, age, sexual orientation, gender, reli-
gion, and culture.
We must embrace all organizations,'
and all individuals, and recognize the un-'
derlying cause that we all have a stake in:
environmental preservation.
Thursday at noon, Recycle U-M, inw
conjunction with many other student or-
ganizations, will be holding a Rally for.
Unity, on the Diag. Recycle U-M focuses
on empowering individuals to affect
change in their lives through tangible,
means related to issues of recycling. 9
Many other ways to create positive
change exist and we invite all student or-
ganizations and individuals to come to-,
gether to express their environmental con-
cerns and offer suggestions for a diversity
of solutions.
This is the beginning of a growing movement for
unified student initiatives on the issues that impact
our future. This is not a granola movement. This is
everybody's movement.
Until society's root inequalities are
changed, piecemeal approaches to envi-
ronmental problems can only shift the
harms, not heal them. Since our return
from the conference, coalitions between
environmental student organizations on
campus have been building. It is now time
to outreach beyond groups who typically
characterize themselves as environmental.
. ..
This is the beginning of a growing,
movement for unified student initiatives
on the issues that impact our future. This
is not a granola movement. This is not
someone else's movement. This is every-
body's movement. And this is your call to
action. Be present on Thursday, sing with
us, and we will begin to teach each other
the ways to make a difference.
Focus of 'war'
must shift to achieve any success
FROM THE MOMENT THE UNITED
States adopted a military metaphor for a
profoundly social problem, it was per-
haps inevitable that the "war on drugs"
would be fought against the wrong en-
emy, with the wrong allies, and with
tactics that fundamentally conflict with
peace-time national interests and poli-
cies. A recent agreement with the Peru-
vian armed forces marks the opening of
a new front in that war -and consti-
tutes a blunder reminiscent of our first
steps into Vietnam and Central Amer-
ica.
Waming bells should have sounded
in 1986, when President Reagan de-
clared narcotics a threat to U.S. na-
tional security and dispatched troops to
Bolivia. Or later, when U.S. pursuit of
foreign drug traffickers - in gratu-
itous violation of international law -
began fueling anti-American sentiment
and embarrassing U.S. allies in the re-
gion.
This activity came to a head last De-
cember, when U.S. troops invaded
Panama to capture a relatively minor
player, whom the United States may
not be willing or able to prosecute
anyway.
The future course of this disaster
was signaled in April, when the United
States signed a $35 million aid agree-
ment with the Peruvian Defence
Forces, providing for the establishment
of a U.S. military base and the training
:and equipping of six Peruvian army
battalions in the coca-growing Upper
Huallaga River Valley region.
The agreement came near the end of
the tenure of President Alan Garcia,
who during his five year term was un-
able to establish civilian control over
Peru's brutal armed forces. All candi-
dates to succeed him, including current
President Alberto Fujimori, have disas-
and Amnesty International for their
massive human rights abuses, are an
inappropriate object of U.S. military
aid.
The Peruvian front is part of a
"supply side" approach to narcotics
traffic, which is widely recognized as
an exercise in futility. In fact, the U.S.
government's war on drugs has not
interfered with the accelerating drug
trade. Cocaine imports were about 24
tons a year when Reagan appointed
Bush head of the drug war in 1986,
rising to 85 tons by 1984 and more
than 200 tons by 1988. With five
percent of the world's population, the
U.S. consumes about half the hard
drugs on the world market.
Yet North American officials and
their constituents are reluctant to attack
the "demand side" here at home. Exter-
nalizing the threat spares politicians the
prickly task of addressing the horren-
dous social and economic conditions
that exist in this country's inner cities.
Few politicians are willing to advocate
social introspection, fearful of its po-
tential for troubling and unwanted in-
sights.
The externalizing tendency parallels
a widespread preference in this country
for coercive over compassionate solu-
tions, just as Bush's 1988 campaign
platform called for more prisons, and
stiffer penalties for users.
The military strategy also adds one
more contradiction to the already inco-
herent U.S. policy towards Peru and
other South American debtor nations,
putting them at further risk by demand-
ing economic austerity and export cen-
tered growth under free market condi-
tions. When a country's exports be-
come too competitive with U.S. pro-
ductions, the United States raises trade
barriers and invokes punitive sanc-
propaganda and neglects the news
cause, so be it. The agenda is ultimately
more important than the facts.
The Daily calls itself a newspaper. The
people who write for the Daily are called
"reporters." This separates the Daily from
journals and magazines, which call their
staff "editorialists" and "columnists." For
most students, the Daily is the only
source of campus news. As such, it should
be unbiased, truthful, and complete. The
Daily is none of these.
I am sure that the students at the Uni-
versity would find it educational to read
about the assaults occurring on campus.
They might even find it interesting to
read about a student arrest in South
Dakota. The facts surrounding these cases
would help students make independent and
educated decisions concerning their Uni-
versity's future.
The students here deserve better than
the Daily. Concerning the issue of police
deputization, they deserve the facts. The
Daily has given us only propaganda.
Until the Daily begins to print news
rather than vacuous political teasers, it
does not deserve the title of newspaper.
The New York Times carries the slogan
"All the news that's fit to print." Perhaps
the Daily should accept the slogan "Only
the news that's fit to propagandize."
Gary A. Curran
M.D. -Ph.D. Program
'U' breeds elitism
To the Daily:
"You are the elite! If you can't answer
the question, who can?"
This is a quote that has been used more
than once by one of my professors in a
rather large lecture hall. It is a quote that
signifies, I think, more than just a few
people at this university.
course not. I always thought people prob-*
ably said that because either they could not
get in themselves or just did not like the
school personally, but not because Uni-
versity students really did think they were
superior.
Now why would Michigan students
think they are better than most schools in
the country? Could it possibly be a small
factor that when they get in here that is
what they are told? What exactly is the in!
tent of these statements made by profesW
sors? Is it to push students intellectually
and give them confidence?
What happens when these "intellectual
elites" are out in the real world and have to
work with people that maybe did not even
go to college or, heaven forbid, went
somewhere like Ohio State? Will they
consider these people equal with them? Or
will they be more in tune with remember-
ing what they were told when they were in
Ann Arbor? Could education be paradoxio
cally promoting social prejudices?
Could you possibly imagine if students
here were taught that they are not better
than everyone else, but rather they are
more fortunate than many. That some
people are born into poverty, and some are
not. That some people are born with de-
fects, and some are not. That some people
can afford to go to expensive schools, aqd
some cannot. If U-M students went into
the real world with these feelings, would
people still say U-M students think they
are better than everyone else?
The issue here is not whether people
get to this school because of hard work or
luck, because most students do get here by
hard work. The issue is the attitude mast
students give off once they are here.
If you did not go to this school which,
would you prefer: relating with Michigan
graduates that had an elitist attitude ora4