4-The Michigan Daily- Tuesday, April13, 1993 bE Ahdir n aig 420 Maynard Ann Arbor, MI 48109 r .. 11 JOSH Dul3ow Editor in Chief Ed b Univ liitnA AnA mhn-%t gA reaI a1 managedi ERIN LIZA EINHoRN y students at theO n OpnionEditor versity of Michigan 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. 4A - * L ) jO if~ / ~ . i4Q M 0 IVE ISSUES . 'U' must investigate professors comments U NIVERSITY STUDENTS HAVE the unique subjective. However, Goldbergredistributedthe opportunity to experience a concept al- cartoon toward the end of the term with a most as old as the United States itself- caption on top reading, "AND DON'T FOR- the "marketplace of ideas." But inthe classroom GET." Since many students had previously told setting, this term becomes tricky to define when Goldberg they felt the cartoon was extremely the line between academic exploration and the sexist, the second distributionof the cartoon was creation of hostile environments blurs. insensitive and made many students uncomfort- This important and controversial issue lies at able. the heart of a disagreement between University The authors cited a myriad of other examples Prof. David Goldberg and several campus orga- condemning Goldberg. When discussing the nizations including Rackham Student Govern- SAT s, Goldberg allegedly said he would as- ment and the Baker-Mandela Center for Anti- sume minority students' SAT scores are 55 Racist Education points lower than (BMC). Students in white students and Goldberg's Sociol- Students chargeGoldberghas created that "it should be ogy 510 statistics anatmosphere of tension nd hostility more like 100." class have charged inside the classroom that hinders the When a student that the professor learning experience of students." questioned whether repeatedlymaderac- the inconsistencies ist and sexist com- in SAT scores could mentsinclass andhas created"an atmosphereof be attributed to a cultural bias, Goldberg alleg- tension and hostility inside the classroom that edly commented; "If SAT's are culturally bi- hinders the learning experience of students." ased, why do those Chinese do so well? Is it The students have written to the Department biological then? After thousands of years of of Sociology, the' Affirmative Action Office, inbreeding, anything is possible." and President Duderstadt requesting that Goldberg responded to these and other Goldberg be barred from teaching required So- charges by posting a scathing attack on the ciology courses. In addition, they have asked accusations: "These comments are not made that the University and Department of Sociol- lightly since I was-asked 'How do you intend to ogy take action against Goldberg based on an change?' before I had even seen a copy of the investigation into his past conduct. Many of the accusations. Charged. Condemned. And prob- student s'charges against Goldberg are ambigu- ably never able to crawl out from under this ous, and punitive action should not be taken nightmare." Moreover, Goldberg presents em- unless itis demonstratedthat Goldberg harassed pirical data intended to demonstrate that no or intimidated groups or individual students. relationship exists between gender or race and However, enough evidence has been presented grades in his class. to justify adetailed University investigation into It is extremely difficult to judge whether the situation. Goldberg has harassed certain students or if he The authors of the letter accusing Goldberg just represents a different political perspective present several instances of his "offensive and than what University students are accustomed insensitive" behavior. For example, Goldberg to.Whileimposing a"speechcode"onGoldberg gave the class a cartoon depicting a caveman would severely restrict academic freedom and carving dice - the dice represent statistics. violate his First Amendment rights, the Univer- Hovering over the caveman is a cavewoman sity still must examine the matter closely. who exclaims, "What kind of childish nonsense Unfortunately, the University still does not are you working on now?" Goldberg explained have auniform faculty harassment policy to deal that the cartoon was intended to make fun of the with these issues. The university should first triviality of statistics, and in essence, himself. develop acomprehensivepolicy-with student But the authors of the letter - many of them input -to handle these matters and then launch students in his class - disagree. They charge an investigation into Goldberg's activities. Un- that the cartoon shows a nagging and ignorant til such a policy is in place, the conflict between woman who can't possibly understand the intri- academic exploration and harassment will con- cate nature of the man's work. Goldberg'sinten- tinue, and - as in the Goldberg case - every- tions and the meaning of the cartoon are highly one will end up as victims. PerspeCtives There are brothers ... down to swing if Reed be., You simply will not believe this. It was two weeks ago. Typical day with a not-so- typical Ann Arbor sun bearing down upon my brow. Trucking down the street, my feet, my fingers responding to that beautifully immutable urban drum ( Look Ma! No headphones!) that invariably pounds through my head. Again I'm procrastiiating (my forte), trying to plug my wintery counte- nance into a gorgeous day. You know, checkin' the vibes around this place. Mind- ing my own business. A blaring, screeching sound enters my own sphere shoving my own "Mental Hip Hop" (gotcha!)outof the frame. Along with a few other cars I see two white guys idling in an old beat up Palamino. They didn't look like your typical col- lege students. In fact they looked like they were straight from the Louisiana Bayou. Both of them were wearing bandannas that clung sweatily to their foreheads. One even had a pack of cigarettes rolled (I'm not lying!) up into the sleeve of his t-shirt. And for my glorious ears their stereo system served up a nice heapin', helpin' of some southern fried country music. Everybody tunes into something. So what. Cool. Big deal. I averted my attentions elsewhere. Then I heard it. A word. That word, loud and clear, wafting over thedin of the voices, the music,and revving engines right into my perking ears. "Boy."What?!! Ispun around thinking to myself it must have come from one of the car stereos. Nope. That was clearly someone speaking. I looked at all of the occupants intheir cars to see what was going down. Nothing. I turn away again. content that I could find no speaker but a little more than alarmed. Than T ho,%rA anrvathtnrr orrnt" «TTair n ~+ S nen i neara sometnmg uaam. ny, Boy!" Racial flashback. I look at the cars and my eyes settle on the two guys in the Palamino (Neanderthal Man and his faith- ful corn-fed companion Cro-Magnon Boy) and the sickening sneers on their faces. Asinine grins and those sloping foreheads told me all that I needed to know. I didn't T Brien Meeks say anything but simply glared at them. One of them tried to emulate my facial expression. Hecameoff laughing and look- ing something like an ape. But in his eyes I was supposed to be the ape. After that I damn near lost it. I dropped my bag, told them to get the "fuck out of the car and say the same shit to my face." After hearing this they peeled off inastinky cloud of sweat, dust,andprofani- ties; their Confederate Flag (I'm not kid- ding) waving senselessly behind them. Inreplaying allthisin my mind ananger gripped me.-consumed me for the rest of the day. I know exactly what I would have done. If they had approached me Iprobably would have tried to beat the fuck out of them. I would have liked to leave 'em lying broken, bloody, bruised and senseless on the asphalt. Or maybeeven worse It's scary sometimes to find out what you are capable Ut. Deep down I know that such action wouldn't accomplish anything. Iknow that I would end up with some heinous police record. I'dcomeoffasjustanother enraged Black animal lashing out; a mindless beast. And people like Neanderthal Man and Cro- Magnon Boy would have my angry dis- played as fuel for their fire. I would be just another brother behind bars; with nothing to do and nothing to say. What good would all of my anger do me then? The strongest of words just can't penetrate a five-by- seven foot cell. I ck n't know if I'm just desensitized to violence or if methods like Dr. King's seem archaic and outdated in this violent society. I understand that violence doesn't work all of the time. Most times it's a disgusting display that equals nothing but a rage that feeds upon itself.And it almost never solves anything. I know, I know. Brothers need to know how to move; how to organize anddealwith problems correctly. I realize that these is- sues require a unified movement on a large scale; skirmishes and confrontations don't solve a thing for Blacks. Yet I'llbe the first to say that you won't find me singing "We Shall Overcome." You will never see me flicking up my hand, peace sign in the air and shit, praying while my bloody head gets split open by someone's club. Most of us do not roll in such a way in this day and age. Many of us are committed to avoiding a repeat of the shit in L.A. But beneath many an exterior there are brothers that are'down to swing if need be. Meeks' column appears every other T useday on the Opinion page. Merely condemning murder not enough, take a stand VIINORITY APPUCANTS ?ecruitment efforts, financial aid must continue Fe rit n ef n NUMBER OF applications from of 1993, the University has taken only atiny first underrepresented minorities for the Fall step toward achieving a diverse, multicultural of 1993 increased by 13 rcent, accord- campus. Although sincere and successful at- to a report released by the fice of Under- tempts have been made to encourage minorities iduate Admissions last Wednesday. In addi- to apply and attend the University, there still is n, minority student admissions increased by no effective follow-up plan to ensure these .3 percent last year. These statistics show that, students stayoncetheyenroll. Although Admis- r once, the University is on the right path to sions Office officials claim the University has hieving a multicultural community. maintainedhighminority student retentionrates These increases reveal an aggressive recruit- thus far, with even more minority students on :nt campaign aimed at encouraging minori- campus,the University mustintensify its efforts s to apply to the University. In the past, the to keep the students in school through gradua- imissions Office has struggled to reach out to tion. norities in cities around the country. The Financial assistance plays a large ,roll in To the Daily: I believe Peter Thompson's commitment tc upholding the sanctity of human life, as expressed in his Perspectives column "Doctor killed by one man, not all pro-lifers"(3/25/93). Mr. Thompson, co-director of Washtenaw County Rescue, distances himself and his organization from the murder of Dr. David Gunn-in Pensacola, Fla., and asserts that Dr. Gunn's murderer, Michael Griffin, is not representative of the move- ment. Mr. Thompson depicts Griffin as a violent, frustrated man who acted alone. While such a depiction may be true, it ignores the rhetoric and action that characterizes the pro-life movement; rhetoric that legitimizes the sort of extreme violence that occurred in Pensacola Of course, most pro-lifers are not fanatics who advocate murder to furth, r their cause, but this doesn .solve the more moderate aui.,vists from responsibility. Unfortunately, such moderates respond to the violence of their counterparts by denying any complicity and distancing themselves from the Michael Griffins of their movement rather than acknowledging some respon- sibility and working to avoid such violence in the future. Mr. Thompson, if you are a moderate and non-violent voice in the movement, where were you when your compa- triots in the movement; distributed "Wanted".posters depicting Dr. Gunn - as they've been doing to physicians throughout the country? Where are those moderate pro-lifers when the families and homes of physicians are targeted for harassment? Are you working to stop the bombing and burning of medical clinics in the name of your movement? Where are. you when your compatriots attempt to justify Dr. Gunn's murder by telling us how many "babies were saved?" Where are you when all this baby-killer rhetoric fuels the frustration and violence of all the Michael Griffins of your movement? Do you assume no responsibility for an environment that normalizes and legitimizes bombing, arson and murder? The time to distance yourself was before the killing of Dr. Gunn, while the "radicals" of your movement were creating this charged and violent atmo- sphere. Wr Thompson, you and your organization are a part of the pro-life movement. By not taking a firm and active stand against the rhetoric, the harrassment, the behavior that many people do consider, violent, you are allowing the more extreme, the more vocal, the violence-prone people among you to represent you. Those who created this movement and who take an active role in its progress bear responsibility for the actions done in its name. Ai this point, just saying that Griffin doesn't represent you isn't good enough. Kight responds to Daily editorial To the Daily: A recent editorial, "LGMIBi taskforce; MSA moves forward; must avoid pointless debate," erroneously reported that I had opposed the establishment of a lesbian, gay and bisexual MSA task force. For the record, I voted for and supported the estab- lishment of such a task force. I made a point of order suggesting that the part of the task force resolution which created two co-chairs may have been out of order. Although I agreed that establishing co-chairs for the task force was both beneficial and necessary, I felt that MSA's rules should be amended rather than conve- niently ignored. I will offer amendments to the MSA Compiled Cde at the earliest opportunity to explicitly allow task forces to be headed by co-chairs. Below: The growth in the number of underrepresented minorities that have applied and been admitted to the University for the Fall 1992 and Fall 1993 terms. *9:XX retention rates. Financial con- straints and the burden of huge' debts serve as one ofthelargestbar- riers for top out- of-state minority students. Fur- thermore, this campus has yet to establish an at- mosphere free from racial ten- sion. The Univer- sity has made nominal attempts to improve this atmosphere through efforts such as the Race andEthnicity Re- quirement and Martin Luther KingDayfestivi- ties. But there is .,271 Applications increase Admissions increase 'UC insensitivity brins financial consequences To the Daily: Over the last four years, I have grown increasingly disgusted with the attitudes that the University's adminis- trators and Regents seem to hold toward students. Where to begin? Two years ago, an incredibly expensive campus police force was deputized without regard for student held during exam times, vacations, and holidays. Today, the University is still fighting to justify its closed- meeting search for President Duderstadt. And for three years in a row, the University has demonstrated its commit- ment to free speech and diversity of opinion by still a long way to go before the minds of every l n stirzr trti I akinor then I encourage vou ___-