0 Page 4 -The Michigan Daily-Thursday, November 15, 1990 G1be £i43can iBailj 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 Administration defends campus cops Unsigned editorials represent a mnajority of the Daily's Editorial Board. All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. Join the fikghtd Students should speak out against deputization By Shirley Clarkson Your letter of Oct. 30 expressing con- cern about a campus police force has been received and noted. While we appreciated your position, we would also point out that a scientifically designed survey of campus opinion conducted by the Institute for Social Research revealed both deep concern about campus safety and broad support for additional law enforcement of- ficers. Our subsequent interactions with a broad array of constituent groups bear out the survey findings. For over a year now, the issue of campus safety has been broadly studied, discussed, and debated. We have had a report from respected members of the community recommending a wide array of actions, the majority of which we are trying to implement as soon as possi- ble. An account of these actions and plans is contained in a recent article in the Uni- versity Record (10/22/90). An update will be published shortly. The creation of a campus police force is only one among many actions that will help us achieve our safety goals. We know that one of the most effective ways to im- Clarkson is the University's Executive Assistant to the President. This piece was sent in response to a letter sent by Michi- gan Student Assembly President Jennifer Van Valey, Rackham Student Govern- ment President Tracey Ore, and Gradu- ate Employees Organization President Chris Roberson, and has been somewhat edited for space. prove campus security will be through ed- ucation about prevention for all members of the community. However, in creating a campus police force, our actions are hardly unique. Every other public university in the State of Michigan has its own police force and so do almost all other universities in the country. The explanation for this fact is that universities have unique needs and concerns which can best be addressed by specially selected and educated security personnel who are sensitive to human rela- tions, who answer to the university com- munity, and who operate within its poli- cies and authority. Our actions are not intended in any way to curb dissent, which is protected by proud Michigan tradition and by the Re- gentally-approved guidelines of the Civil Liberties Board. In addition, I want to make clear that our planning is being done in close cooperation with Ann Arbor po- lice and other city authorities. Proceeding with deliberate caution, we have added eight officers since June who are now undergoing a ten-week course of rigorous training and education to prepare them to be responsive to the special sensi- tivities and values of the University com- munity. This training includes instruction by the staff of our Office of Minority Affairs, Office of Affirmative Action, Sexual As- sault and Prevention Center, and the Gay Male and Lesbian Program Office, among others. We agree with you that communication on this issue is important, and I think we agree that the administration has not done well at explaining its actions. But students have been and will continue to be involved in security policy development, planning, oversight, and extensive education pro- grams aimed at crime prevention. We continue to hope that our elected student governments will want to be a constructive part of this process along with other student organizations, residen- tial housing representatives, Greeks, and others to achieve the broadest possible in-0 volvement of the entire campus. In this connection, I would like to point out that we have tried repeatedly to engage the MSA leadership in discussion of this and many other issues of mutual concern. For example, over the past two months, we have made frequent call and sent messages to President Jennifer Van Valey to arrange our regular monthly meetings with her, members of her admin- istration, and President Duderstadt and to initiate other formal and informal interac- tions between the University Administra- tion and student government. Regrettably, we have received no response at all. Therefore, your peremptory demand for forums and interactions within the next two weeks is puzzling. The tone of your letter and the timing you propose does at least raise the question of whether your* demands are linked to partisan strategies in connection with the MSA elections on Nov. 14 and 15. Engineering senior Shana Milkie cheers; "U of M doesn't need armed cops," she officers without gus. STUDENTS INTEND TO SEND A LOUD message to the University's Board of Regents today, with a protest at 1 p.m. on Regents' Plaza. The protest, sponsored by the Student Rights Commission of the Michigan Student Assembly, will coincide with the monthly Regent's meeting in the Fleming Building. Every student has seen "No Cops! No .uns! No Code!" scribbled in chalk all over campus, but few fully understand the issues involved, and the motivation behind the administration's push for a code of inon-academic conduct, and a deputized .campus police force. The power to regulate students' non- -academic lives has over time shifted from the student body to the administration. Y'The administration, in recent years, has turned a deaf ear to students in the formu- lation of University policy. The only direct student input in creat- ing University policy was taken away last December, when the regents disbanded the University Council. Comprised of student, faculty and administrative representatives, the University Council w'as established to formulate a set of rules governing stu- dents' actions outsider the classroom, specifically protest activities. Because student representatives were on equal footing with other council members, they were able to stall administrative ef- forts to institute a non-academic code of conduct. JOSE JUAREZ/Daily at the Sept. 19 Regents' Plaza rally. said, "but compassionate security Now the council is gone, and the ad- ministration has the ability to construct and implement a code without the stu- dents' input, and, more importantly, with- out student knowledge of their efforts. They have taken advantage of these abili- ties. The Free Speech and Protest Policy, the Interim Drug and Alcohol Policy and the policy regulating union activities at- tendance have all been implemented since the demise of the council. As the administration has increased its control over students' behavior through these policies, officials have realized they need some mechanism to enforce the rules. The regents' move to deputize University security officers provides this mechanism. Society has saddled our government with the responsibilities of creating and enforcing the laws that govern our behav- ior. However, we have always made sure that these laws do not exceed the limits of necessity, and do not infringe on our rights to free speech, privacy, and a fair trial. The University's efforts to encroach upon students' lives outside the classroom violates these basic civil rights, and stu- dents must stand against these violations. Students have an opportunity today to be heard by the administration. All stu- dents are encouraged to attend the rally and to demand the rights they are due as stu- dents at this university and as citizens of this nation. Students analyze the ISR report By Mark Buchan President James Duderstadt has recently been touring classrooms answering ques- tions about deputization. Under the guise of employing scientifically derived data, Duderstadt has systematically misrepre- sented the findings of the much-touted (but rarely read?) Institute for Social Research (ISR) study on "Perceptions of Safety and Security." Talking at East Quad recently, Duder- stadt claimed this study found that "two- thirds" of the campus community sup- ported an armed deputized police force. This is a woeful and, we are forced to con- clude, deliberate lie. In light of the admin- istration's cavalier use of the report, a ra- tional analysis of the study's findings is needed. A The ISR survey questioned 1200 members of the university community - 300 each from faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students - on issues related to campus safety. Initially, the partici- pants were barraged with questions about how safe they felt on campus. They were then asked to respond to a "list of [ten] possible actions that could be taken to improve the safety and security on cam- pus." The three actions most selected were: expanding escort service programs, increasing outdoor lighting and counseling programs related to acquaintance rape - all Buchan is a graduate student in classical studies and a member of the Michigan Student Assembly's Student Rights Com- mission. which received a 90% approval rating. The issue of increased security is more com- plex. When asked if there should be "more visible security personnel on campus grounds and in buildings," 80 percent agreed that there should be. But when then asked if the Department of Public Safety should be expanded "to include police offi- cers with the power to make arrests," the approval rating dramatically dropped to 56 percent, 9th out of the 10 suggested pro- posals; only limiting access to university buildings ranked lower. The survey showed that a dramatic number of people were worried about dep- utizing security officers. It also showed that deputization was the second lowest priority of people surveyed. The next logi- cal question that should have been asked was whether these officers should be armed; given the uneasiness shown over even deputizing them, it is more than likely that even fewer people would have favored actually arming the security offi- cers. If the administration had used the survey responsibly, it would have imme- diately acted upon the mandate to increase lighting, escort and educational services. The tenuous majority in favor of deputiz- ing a presumably unarmed police force shows that this issue warrants much fur- ther investigation and discussion among the entire university community. This has long been the position of the MSA's Stu- dent Rights Commission: to increase funding of educational, lighting and escort programs, and to hold public forums on the issue of deputizing cops. The administration has acted somewhat differently. They initially ignored the most popular actions, but in response to student pressure, and the ensuing bad publicity, they implemented some of these programs - albeit in a very limited way. However, they also began immediate plans for a 24- person armed security force, and declared all discussion on the issue of deputization closed. Neither the ISR report, nor the recommendations of the task force do not excuse these actions - let alone spending vast resources on such a controversial pro- ject. The Students Rights Commission in no way endorses the findings of the ISR report, nor its methodology. One glaring inadequacy was its failure to ask people's concerns on police harassment; if they had asked dozens of questions about police brutality before suggesting the implemen- tation of campus safety measures, it is probable that even fewer would have sup- ported armed cops. However, it is clear that administration officials have deliberately distorted and downright lied about the findings of their own survey and task force. They have treated the issue of campus safety in a irre-@ sponsible and prejudiced manner. It is a chilling fact that armed cops will be not be accountable to the students they harass, but to the same, deceitful administration bureaucrats. Y9 / W I ° CDC / 1'