Page 4-The Michigan Daily- Monday, March 22, 1993 c E , u Ygttn + ttil 420 Maynard Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan iiilL11 JosII Dunow Editor in Chicf ERIN LizA EINIIORN OpinionEditor Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily editorial board. All other cartoons, signed articles and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. "a .4N ) THtsJu ST l °YE -f-- -__ NADH7H ' UPSET ,K S i Ho N.1 SEES FALLS iH OVEPTiMrlE O 7"Ti- &OUTH C SY R$,fbj K y S7AT /NS-rT5Tv'h FoR TJE j&1 N ,z CHA~k/6, ISr '4'r T 7 & AicST %uk r4~y V,11r4 8Y A P/&A?1E TEAM ov, . ' l~o, _, t'2 (r " -_ A'~l =1li r VJ' . a { /4 .fr-4 4' L , - - c '-'.,L , - 00 - , I j r : - ,I. . x. ..4 t C ,A C_ 0 DRASTIC MEASURES MSA has potential, but T IS Now illegal to stage a protest on the Diag without obtaining permission from the Uni- versity seven days before and advancing. several hundred dollars. The University has paralyzed student rights by inventing its own legal system to govern the lives of students - with no system of appeal. The campus police force carries guns but reports only to the Univer-- sity Board of Regents andd is not directly accountable } : to the community. s The student Union ad- mits only certain people at K. certain times if they carry certain identification. City police emitpoison- ous tear gas and mace to control gathering student celebrations. We can only scream so The Daily congr long before realizing no MSA President1 one is listening, give up and Vice Presid' and go home to study. If Good luck - yo we think about this polic need it. state called Ann Arbor ne t where our voices have been silenced for years, we only grow discouraged.. The need for strong student government is greater now than perhaps ever before. Newly elected Michigan Student Assembly President and Vice President Craig Greenberg and Brian Kight have a huge task before them. A pathetically low 8.8 percent of students. bothered to vote in last week's MSA presiden- tial elections-lowernumbers than the smaller representative election in the fall. This is a sign that past student governments have failed to represent student interests - whatever they may be. In any case, Greenberg and Kight must re- member that although in the eyes of the campus and the administration, they do not represent anyone besides the 40 percent of the 8.8 percent of students who voted for them, they do have a responsibility to make something of student government. MSA has the potential to do more than pass silly resolutions and dole out money to student groups, but the structure has to change and representatives need to think beyond this week's protest and last week's tuition raise. Think about the unreasonable -those projects that have never been tried before because previ- ous assemblies have considered them too difficult. University officials have become so used to passing ridiculous restrictions and codes with- out an organized student response, that it is time to take drastic steps. If MSA became more productive, it could gain respect from the stu- dent body and administration, eamgreater turn- out at election time and successfully represent the student voice. IE DI structures must change Here are some ideas: Progressive presidential candidate Jason Hackner(who should seriously consider seeking appointment to one of the many representative seats likely to open on the assembly) did not win a very large percent of votes during the election, but Greenberg and Kight should take a long look at some of the projects he had in mind. For .example, Hackner said he had initiated discussion with { administrators about the pos- 4:- sibility of students owning the Michigan Union. Alumni presently own the Union and cover expenses . by renting rooms for wed- dings and proms, but all those rooms should be for student use. If students owned the atulates new Union, outside forces could Craig Greenberg not create rules - like the ent Brian Kight. present Union access policy u're going to - that requires all Union entrants on weekend nights to present a student identifi- cation card and bring no more than two guests (who also must show some form of identifica- tion). For Black Greek Association members who hold parties in the Union, this policy is ridiculously restrictive. MSA could work to create a student book store to offer cheap used books to students. Although the Student Book Exchange is a good system, many students are forced to wait in line for an hour only to find the books they need are not there. With labor provided by students, to sell books to students in a student union owned by students, many overhead costs would be elimi- nated and it could cut the profits of the giant monopoly Ulrich's has established in Ann Arbor. There is a huge need on campus for low- cost child care available to students, faculty and graduate employees. All local childcare facilities exist for profit and parents are finding it increas- inglydifficult to balance the financial and energy demands of classes with the needs of children. If MSA pushed to coordinate the efforts of students and faculty to run low-cost childcare in the Union, it could make a serious impact on the lives of people on campus. Some of these ideas may seem like pipe dreams - too expensive, too difficult. But the time has come to make a drastic change. The administration will not listen to MSA until MSA is worthy of respect. Students won't vote in MSA elections until they see what MSA is able to do. It's still unclear whether or not Greenberg and Kight have the leadership skills and initiative to revolutionize MSA. But its time for some new ideas. We'll be watching - and waiting.. Rapists, not women, should stay home 0 by Kim Yaged ISA Junior Remember Wendy Shanker's article, "Sexual Independence Has Consequences" (3/11/93)? She said, "It's time for us to take more responsibility for our actions," and asked, "What are you going to do about it?" The topic: the overly disputed issue of rape. There has been a lot of conversation vol- leyed back and forth about the issues, but aside from these two quotations, all that Shanker's remarks seem to accomplish is marring the progress of the evolution of societal views on rape. So,she's tiredofraving liberalsscreech- ing about who's not doing what for so and so. So am I, and action does accomplish more than just blaming the next one. But what do we achieve by taking an already inflammable topic and putting the blame on women? It certainly is not in the name of truth. I personally am notacquainted with any rape survivors who were to blame for what happened to them. Nor am I familiar with a largeportionofrapescommittedby women. Shanker claims to not be blaming women, but her argument suggests otherwise. Her article is detrimental and nothing more. No, this is not a world of "shoulds," "I wishes" and "if onlys," but it's often neces- sary to use the ideal caseas the goal to strive for in order to attain even the slightest amount of progress. Besides, asking for "women [to] be able to wear whatever kind of clothes they want, dance in whatever provocative way they want, rage all night, and stillgethome safeand sans intercourse" is not such an intangible thing. My own mother used to take the New York City subway from Greenwich Village to Brook- lyn at 2:00 am without any sort of harass- ment. That is not to suggest that assault and rape did not occur then, but that my mother was able to do things such as this remains the reality. Sure, common sense, as Shanker so vehemently stresses, dictates this, that, and the other thing, but so what? What's a woman doing "walk[ing] alone through a parking structure at4:00 am, on a Saturday night?"Something that is her business,I am sure. And if something were to happen to her, the question, "What were you think- ing?" would not come out of my mouth any more quickly then if it had been a man in the same situation. Shanker's argument seems to deny the entire premise that rape is a crime of vio- lence, not sex. It is a method of empowering as opposed tothe result of sexual arousal, as seems to be suggested in Shanker's pro- vided case scenarios in which the woman gets "all dressed up in sexy clothes." In fact, none of the rapes reported to SAPAC in 1993 were committed by strang- ers. Consequently, how can Shanker seem- ingly assert that a woman's attire, sexually appealing or not, is the source of these criminal acts? Does she not realize thatrape on campus is being committed by the people you see walking through the Diag, the ones you sit next to in class, the guy you think is cute? Shanker's remarks are just disturbing: "[Desiree Washington has] an added re- sponsibility as a woman to look out for her own safety,"a point comes when consent is no longer an issue," and "If you don't want to [take responsibility for your ac- tions], stay home and wash your hair." She has succeeded in recommending closeting for the few women who feel strong enough to assert themselves while perpetu- ating the female stereotypes of vanity and frailty. Perhaps most inflammatory is Shanker's self-appointment to savior status when she states, "Maybe it's going to have to be me who spreads the common sense." Thank you, but judging from your remarks thus far, I would like to continue thinking for myself. How about, instead, telling all the rapists to stay home and wash their hair, so we can go out? Yaged is a Daily Arts staffer. S 0 6 FREE SPEECH Even fascists have First Amendment rights D SPLAYING UTTER CONTEMPT fortheFirst Amendment rights ofothers, thecounter- demonstrators at Saturday's SS Action Group rally in front of Ann Arbor City Hall attacked Nazi protesters with iceballs and large machine parts. The counter-demonstrators shamelessly violated SS Action's rightto peace- fully protest in public and tured to justify their ugly and reprehensible use °, violence with three fallacious arguments. First, they maintain thata flee speech does not exist in oursocietyforindividualswho A support racism. Ironically,. these same anti-neo Nazi pro- testers freely used their First Amendment rights to deny their opponents' right to free speech, shouting slogans like "No Free Speech for Fascists" for over two hours in front of City Hall. Second, anti-neoNazi pro- testers demonstrated their be- lif that they, as private citizens, have the right to use violence to iringe onthe rights ofothers. -A:-i nt..:..,a i: m...o -.:v-:1i .2.- m - ffn cause groups like SS Action advocate violence and genocide, they should not be allowed to express these views in public. Interestingly, the Trotskyist League, the group that organized the Coalition, also advocates violence. Its members claim that "the only way to destroy the fascist threat permanently is for the working class to overthrow capitalism." Fortunately, the First \ < k * Amendment protects the rights .of both groups to freely ex-