4 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, January 24, 1994 UFlw Sidtilgn&dI Sharp as Toast 420 Maynard Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan JOSH Dulow Editor in Chief ANDREW LEVY Editorial Page Editor Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the majority opinion of the Daily editorial board. All other cartoons, articles and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. 'C F, 7 rt r f 7 2 /ii rv 7--" FoR41iyf ME, FATH-ER, FoR, SINNED. +a , I v V v 9, iii r ! f ! rs- w.. rir. w - /r f C r4 r^ r7 f, r 'r 'p ip an 11 9' R1 tuition rs are a conflict of interest This week it became official - the University administration has bought MSA, which was once the student government here on campus. MSA President Craig Greenberg announced at last Tuesday's meeting that both the MSA President and Vice-President will be awarded tuition waivers of $2500 per term, beginning this semester. While we are not opposed to the funding of student leaders to achieve a stronger MSA, several conflicts exist in the administration's tuition waiver scheme. Stu- dents should be concerned with this latest develop- ment: $10,000 of their tuition money will now help fund the so-called 'education' of two student lead- ers, but will in actuality buy the administration a degree of influence over students. The reasoning for this "scholarship" seems too simple. To be an effectiveleader of MSA, one must devote a tremendous amount of time to the task. Greenberg claims to spend nearly 50 hours every week on MSA responsibilities, and there is no rea- son to doubt him. This time commitment eliminates the possibility of having a part-time job, valued at $2500 per term. Would the President or Vice-President have a job if they were not on MSA? Clearly, this answer will vary from individual to individual, yet there is an easy method to account for this. The money awarded to the MSA leaders must be need-based and not simply handed over blindly. If it is obvious that a student leader does not need $5000 every year to pay for college, the money can be spent much more appropriately - perhaps to help other student lead- ers. This leads to the administration's motives which must also be questioned by students and MSA. It seems hard to believe that the administration - namely Maureen Hartford- is solely looking out Amendingkthe e 0 Administration. makes amer for the continued financial status of MSA leaders. The administration has a huge stake in the tuition waivers; the leaders of MSA are now working for the administration. Furthermore, the agreement, as it stands now, doesn't include explicit guarantees of continual funding regardless of MSA's political actions or other external factors. Such an agreement would guarantee that the administration would not have an undue influence over MSA. This is a must, and should be negotiated immediately. While there is nothing wrong with the admin- istration wanting a stronger student government, there are other ways to achieve this. The admin- istration, as a gift to MSA and to all University students, can open a $150,000 student leader endowment fund. Interest generated from this fund would continually reimburse student lead- ers on a need-based scale. A neutral, independent body would distribute the scholarship money, removing the funds from the pernicious clutches of Maureen Hartford's office. Still, there are inherent problems whenever student leaders are funded by administrators. There are other student organizations with lead- ers who put in just as much time. And what about an MSA President and Vice-President who don't spend 50 hours a week working for the student government? While the current President and VP clearly do put in a tremendous effort, it is con- ceivable to imagine individuals neglecting this work and still earning $5000. The tuition waiver system is now a gigantic conflict of interest. MSA and the administration must work to eliminate this conflict while ad- dressing these numerous concerns all University students share. sCode idment process tedious lr * I - 's actions justified One year after the University instituted the State ment of Student Rights and Responsibilities (SSRR), students will finally have a chance to, propose amendments to it this Thursday. Although this opportunity could conceivably allow students to have input into this important policy, in reality, the amendment process is stacked against students. The SSRR faced student opposition from its very conception, and this opportunity to amend the code, which comes only after it has been, in effect, law on this campus for over a year, is not an adequate avenue for the University community to express their true feelings about the SSRR. It is certainly not what it is purported to be .- a step toward making the statement a reasonable policy to govern the students, faculty, and staff of the Uni- versity. On January 27, in the Pendelton Room of the Union, proposed amendments to the SSRR will be reviewed by a hearing panel, composed of at least 26 of the, 50 student jurors already involved in the SSRR's disciplinary process. The student hearing panel will consider amendments proposed by the Michigan Student Assembly, any University ex- ecutive, any of the student jurors, SACUA, or any amendments accompanied by a petition with 500 signatures. Amendments which are approved by a simple majority of the jurors will be presented to the Board of Regents for a vote at its February monthly meeting. The University has created an amendment pro- cess that leaves students in the dark. Because the SSRR has proceeded surreptitiously from its incep- tion, students have never had the opportunity to. know what aspects of the SSRR need to be fixed, and what aspects need to be scrapped. Many Free- dom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for docu- ments relating to cases prosecuted under the SSRR have been repeatedly thwarted by the University, and the SSRR's Kangaroo Court only meets be-.- hind closed doors. Moreover, not only has this secretive process insured that students won't be able to amend properly the problems in the SSRR, but allowing only amendments accompanied by 500 signatures to even be presented provides a tremendous disincentive even for the most in- formed student., In short, the University community is hindered by a lack pf information. Only recently has any information at all been available about how these student jurors are trained, or many other aspects of the Statement's inner workings. How can the ad- ministration expect the University community to propose reasonable alterations in the Statement, when they have never really had the opportunity to understand how it works at present? Of course, even allowing for the assumption that students will be given more information on the history of the SSRR, this process still begs yet another unanswered question: if all SSRR pro- ceedings are held behind closed doors, how can the University community rely on student jurors to decide what amendments are worthy? Even if Hartford and Antieau haven't made an explicit effort to persuade student jurors, just by the fact that two persuasive individuals, both with a pro- SSRR bias, are in constant contact with the student jurors indicates that there decisions on "worthy" amendments could be called into question. Only time will tell for certain. By KAETHE HOFFER As a recent Swarthmore graduate, I have been fascinated to witness the ways in which people in this community have been grappling with a problem about which they seem to be tremendously uninformed. One letter to the editor (1/19/94) suggested that President Bloom's decision - to offer to finance a male student's mandated semester away from Swarthmore - is evidence of contemporary, spineless acquiescence to the forces of political correctness (and implicitly the hegemonic power of hysterical feminism); while an editorial in the Daily ("Out of my hair" 1/20/94) alleged that the same president was instead sweeping the problem of sexual harassment under the rug, not giving women their due, and circumventing modern notions of justice in favor of exercising a totalitarian authority to rid himself of unpleasant problems. I would like to suggest that a more helpful analysis can be made of the events at Swarthmore by considering the long and short-term goals President Bloom may be trying to serve. On a fundamental level, Bloom's position entails a commitment to the education of all the students to matriculate at Swarthmore. To the extent that a student engages in behavior that creates significant problems for another student, the administration has an obligation not to behave as a completely neutral body (something that we legitimately expect from our courts of law) but as a body invested in creating an environment that is safe for all members of its community. When a woman (or man) wishes to be free from continuous attention - whether it is intended to be of a flattering or a frightening nature - she should be able to express her wish to their admirer (or stalker) and have it respected. No women (or men) are demanding that other people refrain from initiating conversation of making introductions; people are merely saying that if they have rebuffed a sexual overture, and then made explicit a request to be left alone, their wishes should be heeded. Most people are more than sensitive to rejection, and after a gentle let down, will go their merry way without attempts to retaliate or wear down the resistance of the person they wish to be with. But when, as at Swarthmore, a woman's clear desire to be left alone is ignored, and the man takes Hoffer is a first-year Law student and 1992 Swarthmore graduate. it upon himself to let himself into her room, rifle through all her belongings (so that he can later accost her and tell her that "he knows all about her"), wait on a bench outside the entrance to her dormitory for hours on end, follow her, announce the fact that they will "be together," and in general make it very difficult for her to simply go about the business of being a first- year student at a college she earned the privilege of attending. Shouldn't she be able to expect that the college will recognize a duty to step in and help resolve a conflict she did nothing to encourage (unless going to a party and responding to a person who initiates what seems like a harmless conversation is just asking for it). What the administration did do was step in, and let the man in question know that his attention was unwanted, and as he didn't have a right to her time or energy, he needed to respect her wishes and stop pestering her. It was only after he blatantly ignored both a request by his resident assistant, and a demand by the Dean to leave the woman alone, that he was brought in front of Swarthmore's highest judicial committee. While the committee was split three to three on whether to call his "attention" sexual harassment, they did recognize the woman's right to be left alone, regardless, and ordered the man to make every effort to stay away from her. Shortly thereafter, he blatantly ignored the committee's demands, and moved straight from notoriety in the sleepy village of Swarthmore to notoriety in the nation's headlines. While offering to pay for a student's semester at another school seems at first blush to be a strange way of punishing someone, Swarthmore's main goal is, as it should be, not simply to be punitive. The woman involved in the case just wanted to be left alone, and not be continually punished for having the misfortune of being attractive to this man. Not only would expelling the man cut all of Swarthmore's ties to him, thus destroying their hopes of facilitating healthy changes in him, but the woman involved would appear, both to the man and many others, to be a "hypersensitive bitch" who ruined someone's education because she couldn't deal with being hit on. If he were expelled, there would also be nothing to prevent him from living near the campus to continue acting on his infatuation, and the woman would be on her own to deal with the problem, on her time, and with her resources. It is also clear that letting him stay at Swarthmore, even if he were to receive counseling, would not be. sufficient. He has made it clear that he does not care about her desire to- be left alone, or the college's desire, that he respect her wishes. Swarthmore was right to suspend him for a semester - the woman deserves to be left alone, and it is punitive to expel someone from a community (even for a limited time) that they clearly want to be a part of. And although it is legitimate for Swarthmore to mete out a certain amount of punishment, what Swarthmore should be (and is, I am arguing) really interested in, is creating a safe community where its students can pursue their education to the best of their ability. Swarthmore has no interest in sabotaging the man's education, and a great interest in his returning to Swarthmore a more mature and responsible person, thus their requirement that his return is contingent on his receiving counseling (this should not be confused with a duty to keep him on their campus to facilitate that change). It is not radical to think that a person will be more likely to make personal, emotional, and educational headway if they are not just lying around, our of school, possibly unemployed, and very bitter. Especially since Swarthmore already made a significant financial commitment to his education (a full scholarship at Swarthmore is work' far more than $10,000 per semester) financing his semester at a different school is actually a fantastic way of- increasing the odds that 1) he will not simply loiter around Swarthmore's campus and continue to pose a headache for the victim of his attention and that 2) he will return to Swarthmore more capable of being a positive member of the community. This analysis will no doubt be unsatisfactory to those who prefer punishment for punishment's sake (as long as it is absolutely, totally, clearly, beyond a shadow of a doubt proven that someone is guilty of a horrific crime). Real life doesn't work that way, however, and people like college administrators are forced to navigate carefully and cautiously, and sometimes with a great deal of creativity, through a world full of people who are increasingly quick to jump into antagonistic "for me to win - you have to lose" positions. I say Hurrah to those willing to respect their classmates, without creating * additional negative repercussions for women (and men) who have the guts to believe that they are entitled to their own space, and a little peace of mind. Dedicated to the vision of Dr. King By LESTER P. MONTS I wish to thank the campus and community for a successful 1994 Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) Day celebration. The events of the Sym- posium sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Academic and Multicultural Affairs and the many speakers, workshops and exhibits ar- ranged by campus units addressed the issues that characterized and revital- the Symposium Planning Commit- tee, and the Committee Co-chairs Catrina Smith, undergraduate student in LSA and the School of Music; Karen Downing, Associate Librar- ian, University Library; and Ralph Williams, Arthur F. Thurnau Profes- sor of English. Our gratitude is also extended to the students who organized and par- ticipated in the Symposium events: velop a scheduling structure that will allow maximum access to Sympo- sium events. My office is committed to creat- ing opportunities for people to ex- press their diverse ideologies and re- late them to Dr. King and the ideals he represented. In order to accomplish this goal, we must all work together unselfishly to rededicate ourselves to the vision Moralism not factor in abortions To the Daily: John Schauble's letter ("PC terms can't mask truth about abortion," 1/21/94) was amusing, if onlv fnr its unbridled both society and themselves by not having a child they don't want or can't provide for. Do you want to see a society where poor and neglected children grow up in an environment that doesn't want them, where there's no one to tell them that killing isn't a mav t cMnp rnrhlpmcnr that cex their bibles and see the real world. You'll never need an abortion. You don't understand how vulnerable women (especially poor and educated ones) are as child- bearers and as slaves to a male- dominated society. You don't know what an unloved child goes through in i n(n-...n,;rrn pmrnunmet I '.