4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, March 19, 2002 OP/ED U be +ikigau &dlg 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 JON SCHWARTZ Editor in Chief JOHANNA HANINK Editorial Page Editor Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE "These are the forgotten people ... the underprotected, the undereducated, the underclothed, the underfed. - A March 18 article in The Nation, quoting Edward R. Murrow's historic documentary, "The Harvest of Shame, "about agricultural workers in Florida. The article concluded, "Unfortunately, little has changed since then." T'Che.e ,44ng'w r sie, u~ J 4- soied S oonv. 7it J .3 -' 4- GE0 Can cac. c e Y I J u ia. J a ' " a' , -a -cS ... $ ,' SAM BUTLER Tim SOAPBOX 40 My education is more important than your children AUBREY HENRETTY NEUROTICA he Graduate Employ- ees Organization's latest contract negoti- ations and last week's dugout-style chants for soli- darity-in-the-face-of-the- evil-oppressor have been wildly entertaining. It's been delightful to see the Univer- sity searching in vain for a subtle way to call GEO organizers whiny little brats, the undergraduate GEO cheerleading squad insisting that depriving graduate student instruc- tors of childcare is a crime against humanity and the vocal opposition voicing insightful words of dissent (e.g. "GSIs suck!"); I could hardly decide who to laugh at first. I am pro-GSI; I recognize the contributions they make to my education. I am pro-union. I am pro-GSIs-having-unions. There's nothing better than a group of people whose express purpose is to damn the Man (or the University, as it were) whenever it sees fit, even if the Man/University in question is benevolent and not in need of damn- ing. The Man and the University tend to be honest more often when they think others are watching. Unions have high self-esteem. Unlike indi- vidual workers, who are small and weak and mumbly, unions do not ask nicely. Unions demand. But once the demands surpass a cer- tain level of absurdity (a completely subjective level which only I and others I deem of com- parable intellectual prowess are capable of identifying), the battle hymns start to sound suspiciously like whining. Stifling student GEOFFREY GAGNON G-oLO Ask any 22-year-old waitress who is paying her own rent and tuition and taking out her own loans if she thinks GSIs should have access to free childcare. She will say, "Childcare? They're going to graduate school for free. Cry me a fuck- ing river. And hand me that ketchup while you're over there." Is it because she lacks a full understanding of the plight of the downtrodden GSI? Does her blase attitude toward profanity prove that she is not only simple-minded, but also bitter and morally bankrupt? Maybe. But maybe she has a point. Remem- ber that her working conditions are horrifying compared to the GSI's slightly cramped com- munal office space and that she earns less money per year than the average GSI, even if you don't count the tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, the resume filler and the personally edifying teaching experience the GSI gets. With her meager income alone, the waitress must also eat and finance her education. From her per- spective, GSI Joe has a pretty sweet deal. You can (and many will) blow this argu- ment out of proportion. You can say, "So, what you're saying is that anyone born into a rela- tively stable household should not strive to improve her life just because she has it so much easier than that the kid down the street with the dead mother, deranged father, alcoholic older sister and schizophrenic younger brother" as smugly as you please, confident in the knowl- edge that you are better than me. Of course that isn't what I'm saying. Weren't you paying attention before when I was going on about how great unions are? It's just that when GEO starts shaking its fist about its right to unionize and its entitlement to free childcare, it starts looking like the multi-mil- lion-dollar-apiece cast members of marginally funny sitcoms striking because their lattes are always cold by the time the star-struck intern can run them across the street from Starbucks. Easy on the hyperbole, you say. This is differ- ent. This is not about lattes or millions of dollars. This is about children. Don't I think everyone has a right to free childcare? Would I like to tell little Jimmy why I don't think mommy's school/work should pay for him to go play with the other kids and expand his brilliant little mind while mommy is working and going to school? This is not about children. It's not. If it were only about children, GEO zealots would suck in their guts and take out a loan like everybody else before crying injustice at the University. All things considered, they would still probably graduate in shallower debt than people who paid their own tuition. GEO framed its demands in terms of children so it would be harder to dis- agree with .them. (What? Are you saying you think people who have children should not have equal access to education? You worm!). I am not saying that and I am not a worm. I am a student who has not lost sight of how lucky she is to be here despite the daunting tuition bills that periodically show up in her mailbox. I like children and unions and GSIs. But I can't stand people who whine. I Aubrey Henretty can be reached at ahenrett@umich.edu. activists contrary to free speech s Palestinian stu- dents rallied in demonstration last Friday at the Ann Arbor fed- eral building or as graduate student instructors clamored in the Diag in recent days F for a fair contract, it's likely that few on campus gave any thought to the freedom they exercised. Protests and demonstrations may be time time-honored Ann Arbor traditions, but as they come under attack elsewhere, few are sound- ing the battle cry for their defense forcing some to question what universities value these days. The fact is student freedoms are facing a fight of their own on college campuses all over the country. The Chronicle of Higher Educa- tion reported last year that the battle over stu- dents' rights to free speech is more than a war of words - it's fast becoming a fight waged with policies that silence protest and minimize the rights of student groups. The publication reported that Georgetown, Kansas State, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Mississippi, just to name a few, had all enacted rules regulating how, when and where students can exercise free speech. According to some of the policies in place at schools like the University of West Virginia, administrators can decide that demonstrations are allowed only in designated "free speech zones." Such policies that create special areas for demonstration are required to control traffic and noise that would disturb the school. Yet, the absurdity of a policy that silences demonstration for the supposed good of the campus ignores the obvious damage such policies have on the very essence of a univer- sity community. Fear of student activism is as old as student activism itself and certainly nothing new to this campus, or perhaps any other. And while one can only hope that the type of paranoia that spawned the University-sponsored infiltration of student groups undertaken here in the 1960s is merely a historical tidbit relegated to a by-gone era, fear of student protest is alive and well on other campus- es. So much so that conventional idea that acade- mia should value ideas, discussion, dissent and free speech is being turned upside down. Consider the alarming news that rolled out of East Lansing last spring when labor activists at Michigan State learned that one their own was actually a university police officer placed within the group in order to monitor its activities. The Michigan State group, Students for Economic Justice, had been targeted by campus and police officials who were smart enough to figure that there could be trouble when World Bank Presi- dent James Wolfensohn spoke at the school, but too dumb to realize that their "student" mole should stop patrolling the campus as a police offi- cer if she was to be an effective informant. In the end an embarrassed administration had botched the "undercover" portion of their undercover investigation when the officer was spotted, and subsequently photographed in full uniform. In a story that has likely forced many in Michigan State President M. Peter McPherson's camp to question what makes them look worse - foiling their "undercover" operation, or launching it in the first place - the realities of the situation are easily lost in the comedy of the affair. McPherson has made no bones about the fact that he authorized the investigation to thwart any attempts the group might have planned to disrupt Wolfensohn's speech. And what's perhaps most alarming is the fact that the debacle didn't put an end to the practice of infiltration. Citing the need for a policy on the matter, the school's board of trustees decided that they'd better end the controversy by making it very clear that deceiving student groups to keep an eye on their activities is appropriate if the president deems it so. The board's Septem- ber decision came after 59 members of the school's faculty expressed their shock to McPherson in a letter that called the practice of infiltration "contrary to basic principles of political association and free speech." I'd echo the sentiments of these educators and go a bit further. Regardless of constitutional notions of assembly or speech, the board of trustees - a group of elected state officials - have given the green light to those who seek to trample the sort of sacred foundations that higher education should uphold. The community of a university as a place of intellectual engagement centered on the free exchange of ideas suffers at the hands of those who dismiss the importance of protecting basic notions of assembly and free speech. For a uni- versity to send a message to students that margin- alizes the importance of informed debate or restricts dissent is more than just wrong - it's downright damaging. Geoffrey Gagnon can be reached atggagnon@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 4 BAMN failed to respond to real critiques of itself To THE DAILY: Agnes Aleobua and Ben Royal, members of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, asserted in a viewpoint yesterday that their orga- nization's "divisive rhetoric" and "radicalism" are the main sources of The Michigan Daily and the general campus community's criticism against them. What Aleobua and Royal referred to when they wrote of "a trend of negative coverage" against BAMN is actually an awakening of the campus community as to the true nature of their organization - that is, BAMN is a front group for the Revolutionary Workers League, a Detroit- based, sectarian, Trotskyite organization. This awakening began in fall 2001 when stu- ters on the group's sectarian nature and its adher- ence to the socialist philosophy espoused by Leon Trotsky. Yet, the efforts to diffuse its influ- ence on campus activism rests on two issues: The control of BAMN by individuals who are not University students and BAMN's frequent attempts to speak as the sole voice of minority students. The discovery that BAMN is run by two non-student, socialist organizers - specifi- cally Luke Massie (age 31) and Shanta Driver (age 46) - has serious implications in reguards to who represents activism on campus. Also, the fact that Miranda Massie, lead attorney for BAMN's student intervenors is the sister of Luke Massie is not without significance. But the most salient point comes from BAMN's repeated attempts to act as the sole rep- resentation for minority students on campus through their oft-heralded "new civil rights movement." rest of the campus community. JIM SECRETO LSA senior Secreto is the co-chair of the American Civil Liberties Union, aformer Daily editorial board member and former MSA vice-president. $1 feel wid help the AATU help student-renters To THE DAILY: Yesterday's editorial about the importance of the AATU on campus (Voting matters) was right on point. The vast majority of students here at the University will rent at some point during their time in Ann Arbor. These renters need to be able to count on the AATU being there when they run into unforeseen difficulties with their landlords or management companies. I want to personally E #?4J #Tzr#>Tr -cs~ i kktv :