OP-ED Thursday, September 21, 2006 - The Michigan Daily - 5A JACK DOEHRING TiME SIGNATURE VIEWPOINT The East University divide VIEWPOINT MCRI supports rights of individuals BY ALEX DZIADosz The sharp angles and glass paneling of the Executive Residence at the Ross School of Business present a mod- ern and muscular contrast to the quaint maroon brick of East Quad and the Residential College. The buildings straddle East University Avenue, separated by a no- man's land of 50 or so feet. On the sidewalks, the two cultures meet like opposite poles of campus life. Ralph Lauren and buzz-cuts mingle with Salvation Army and dreadlocks as uncomfortably as Apple power cords and Thinkpad sockets. A small number suffer identity cri- ses - business students with RC friends, or vice versa. They fill pin-covered messenger bags with trade analy- ses, mix zip-up sweatshirts with polos. The reluctant union of the two worlds presents an opportunity to explore a recurring question in higher edu- cation: Should students be learning to think or to act? The University is a schizophrenic crucible for this sort of debate. Our pre-professional programs - law, medi- cine, engineering, business and even architecture - are perennially ranked among the nation's finest. Yet we do not deny the value of a liberal arts education, even going so far as incorporating the RC - ostensibly a mini- Oberlin College - into a campus defined by behemoth lecture halls and zealous sports consumption. Fundamentally, both the Ross School and the RC teach students how to deal with American life, often touching on the inevitable interactions between cor- porations and the public. The subject of advertising is a good example. It is a frequent topic of discussion in both schools - you can even major in it at Ross. Both. encourage students to be conscious of the American role as consumer. Both separate the consumers from the consumed. The difference is in application: The RC teaches students to be aware of manipulation. Ross shows how to manipulate. This divergence has lead to a subtle rivalry of conde- scension. The standardRC perception is that business stu- dents are unthinking, emptysautomatons, contented solely with therobotic pursuitof wealth.Ionceheard an acoustic guitarist describe the phenomenon ina bitter recollection of his days in corporate finance: "Nobody's driven, but everyone drives" Conversely, Ross students tend to view RC students as ineffective,the kind of kids so absorbed in stoned political analysis that they forget to vote. In other words, everyone's driven, but nobody drives. There is a hint of truth in both of these perceptions. But like most stereotypes, in the end they overreach. The relationship between the two schools - both phys- ical and intellectual - is ultimately symbiotic. Thought without action is masturbation; action without thought is disaster (see: Iraq War, American auto industry, etc.). The ideas contained in this article would have never seen an audience had the process of writing, editing and publishing not occurred. Ross and the RC are opposite parts of a whole. Think yin and yang. In the film "Half Nelson;' "The Notebook"-sweet- heart-turned-crackhead Ryan Gosling offers a helpful way of thinking about the concept. He bases high school The Ross School and the RC are better neighbors than you might think. lessons on dialectics - the practice of synthesizing con- clusions from the conflict of opposite theses. He teaches that tension is often productive and argues that Western thought is most dangerous when it rejects the compat- ibility of opposites. I aminclined to agree.This type of intolerance towards contradiction may be helpful in hard sciences, but it can also be destructive. It obstructs our ability to cooperate and learn. Americans - from the kid with the life-size Kenneth Lay cutout in his room to the Kropotkin-spout- ing anarcho-communist - are at their best when they tolerate and learn from their opponents, both real and perceived. Perhaps more than chance placed the two buildings so close. Dziadosz is a Business senior and Daily managing photo editor. BY STATE REP. LEON DROLET This November 7, Michiganders will see the most important ballot proposal to appear on the ballot in decades, among the most important in Michigan's history. Proposal 2, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, will amend the state con- stitution to "prohibit the use of preferences based on race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, and skin color in public education, public employment, and public contracting." Proposal 2 is of such great importance because it fulfills a promise left empty in America - the promise of equal treatment under the law. The idea of equal treatment under the law is the foun- dation of Western civilization, but it has long been ignored when controlling factions thought it was convenient to do so. For centuries, governments have classified their people into groups in order to control them. The Romans separated their subjects into ple- bian and patrician. Feudal lords separated their followers into serfs, peasants and nobles. Euro- pean settlers classified humans by race, subject- ing Native Americans and Africans to slavery. Regrettably, these classifications were carried over into the founding of America and have haunted this great nation ever since. This is why Proposal 2 is so important. It will once and for all establish the rights of the indi- vidual, the right to be sovereign over his or her own life without being classified and coerced by government. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s made great strides, coming awfully close to the demo- cratic equality that is so desperately needed. However, today we are still classified by the gov- ernment. Unfortunately, the practice of affirma- tive action was corrupted and turned into a new practice of classifying Americans based on race. Affirmative action was first used in a noble sense, to ensure the elimination of race as a factor in a government classification system. The term was first used by President Kennedy in Executive Order 10925, issued on March 6, 1961. The order stated that government agencies and contractors were to take "affirmative action to ensure that the applicants are employed, and that the employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." Unfortunately this once-noble term has been corrupted over the past 40 years and is now com- monly associated with racial preferences. The rights of the individual have been subverted, and instead, the government attempts to engineer what it deems best for the collective. The use of race and gender preferences is truly unjust, hurt- ing both those they attempt to help and those they discriminate against. When government fails to adhere to equal treatment under the law, everyone is hurt. Our government's history with racial categori- zation is so invidious and divisive that it almost tore our nation apart. Grouping citizens is how governments have oppressed them throughout time. Voters must realize that justice can only be reached when we recognize the sovereignty of the smallest minority - the individual. Michiganders must vote yes on Proposal 2 to fulfill the age-old promise of equality before the law; the opportunity will not come this way again. Drolet (R-Clinton Township) is a Michigan state representative and co-chair of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. LETTER TO THE EDITOR Send all letters to the editor to tothedaily@michigandaily.com. Wear a helmet or else To THE DAILY: After reading Laurel Chartow's viewpoint on bicycle helmets (A public service announcement, 09/19/2006), I had to write in with my own experience. One week before school started, I was in a bike accident near Mott Children's Hospital, down the hill from Markley. I still don't know what happened, but I do remember regaining consciousness in the emer- gency room, in a neck brace, on a backboard, with a tube in my arm, awaiting the results of a CAT scan. I remember seeing my mom - a nurse - at my bed- side and how worried she was. I remember seeing my dad, brother and pastor alongside her. They told me that I had a concussion, and that I had just snapped out of a temporary amnesia, which had prevented me from remembering anything that had hap- pened during the past two weeks. I walked out of the emergency room that day; it was a miracle that I had only a concussion yet no internal injuries or broken bones. I was riding a path that I had followed twice a week that summer. But I was riding without a helmet. If I had worn a helmet, I would have emerged with scrapes and a bruised pride. Without the helmet, I came out in the aforementioned state, with an added concussion and scar. I encourage all bikers to wear helmets, especially with the increased traffic around campus both on the sidewalks and in the streets. It might not look cool, but it will protect the brain that you are investing thousands of dollars in. Brian McNally Engineering junior VIEWPOINT Another setback on the road to peace BY PAUL ABowD The road to peace in the Middle East was bombed out again this summer. Hamas and Hezbollah were popularly portrayed as insti- gators bent on disturbing the peace. Mean- while, Israel couched its violence in the language of reluctant self-defense. This way of imagining the conflict, however, is short-sighted for its failure to consider the preceding decades of Israeli occupation in Palestine and Lebanon. Israel's persistent denial of Palestine's right to exist, either as a sovereign state or as a people, remains a root cause of resentment and violence in the region. Resistance to the Israeli government comes in response to its foreign poli- cies, which, like those of its U.S. spon- sor, have had little regard for human rights. In much the same way that Native Americans were justified in fighting expanding American settlements or as Algerians were compelled to use vio- lence to end a dehumanizing French colonial regime, Palestinian and Leba- nese people have every right to resist an Israeli military that encroaches on their livelihood. Try though the colonizer might to criminalize the colonized, the resistance of an occupied population is justified in self-defense from the aggres- sion of their occupier. However, there are different types of resistance, which should be evaluated separately. Despite Hezbollah's legitimate grievances, its use of rockets on civilians was indefensible. Along the Gaza border, however, the Hamas attacks were on military outposts - a justified method of resistance to Israel's stranglehold over Palestinian com- munities. In any case, the scope of Israel's response to each attack was disproportionate. In the wake of the Hamas attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert refused to negotiate with the democratically elected Palestin- ian government and instead authorized the kidnapping of dozens of Hamas elected offi- cials. The invasion of Gaza targeted civilian centers and destroyed Gaza's only power plant. In Lebanon, diplomacy could have addressed Hezbollah's list of demands. Though Israel was forced to leave southern Lebanon in 2000, it retains control of the Shebaa Farms, continually violates Leba- nese airspace and holds thousands of Leba- nese citizens in Israeli prisons without due process. Israel responded to these grievances by launching another incursion in a long his- tory of bloody invasions, conjuring memo- ries of Ariel Sharon's 1982 "butchering" of Beirut, which devastated the city and took tens of thousands of lives. This summer, the Israelis were armed with fresh ship- ments of American weapons and empow- We are more intimately connected to these injustices than our consciences can permit. ered by an American administration that bought them the time necessary to launch an attack. Even so, Israel's invasion was a failure. The offensive was not only immoral but also ineffective and has exacerbated a con- flict that should have been addressed with humane negotiations. Further, Israel's pro- digious military force has been exposed for its ineptitude in asymmetrical conflicts. Though Israel attempted to divide Leba- nese factions by blaming its destruction of Lebanon on Hezbollah's rocket attacks, Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasral- lah, instead garnered unprecedented soli- darity against Israel's abominable war. Employing collective punishment on the Lebanese people, Israel forced nearly 1 million civilians (of a population of roughly 4 million) to flee their homes for safety. More than a thousand civilians, many of them children, did not escape the bombs. The Israeli war machine killed several U.N. peacekeepers in an attack on their outpost and prevented humanitarian aid from reaching war-torn villages. Israel drained the lifeblood of ordinary Lebanese civilians, destroying power plants, refiner- ies, bridges, airports, hospitals and factories. In a diabolical act of terrorism, the Israeli Defense Force dropped leaflets on civilian areas warning them to evacuate - but then proceeded to destroy the major roadways used by potential exiles for evacuation. In weeks,Israel decimated a nation while evok- ing condemnations from every corner of the global community, including an August report from Amnesty International that declared the attacks a war crime. Thousands of Israeli citizens gathered in Tel Aviv this summer to protest, and hun- dreds of IDF reservists signed petitions demanding the resignation of Prime Minis- ter Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz.. There is much we can do to show our solidarity with these principled voices. As members of the global community, we should demand that Israeli officials be held accountable at the Internation- al Court of Justice. More narrowly, as American taxpayers, we are responsible for ending U.S. military aid to Israel, which has facilitated the occupation for far too long. We must make it clear to Congress that their unflinching support for Israel can no longer be offered in our name. Israel receives far and away more military aid from our government than any other country in the world - and has used it with grave consequence. As students,we are also tiedtothe conflict by the University's investment of our tuition dollars. As of June 2005, the University held investments in major arms producers who sell Israel and other nations their high-tech arsenals. We are more intimately connected to these injustices than our consciences can permit. If we as a nation are serious about fighting terrorism, let's begin by holding our government accountable for the state terror- ism that it perpetrates and funds. Abowd is a LSA senior. I 1 7 lio ;;p lirol , li;a GGP - Sports Rehab Do You Want to Work With Athletes? Logan's Department of Sports & Rehabilitation is designed to assiststudents in the management of injures & assist in the treatment of patients in a clinical setting, Master's Degree in Sports Science & Rehabilitation Unique Dual-Degree M.S/D.C. & Independent Graduate Degree Formats Develop Skills in the Assessment, Treatment, Conditioning & Injury Management of Athletes Work with Professional, Collegiate & High School Sports Teams Learn from Eperts in Sports Medicine & Sports Chiropractic Treat patients in the state-of-the-art BIOFREEZE@ Sports & Rehabilitation Center If you are looking for a career in healthcare offering tremendous personal satisfaction, professional success and an income commensurate with your position as a Doctor of Chiropractic, contact Logan University today! Attention Students! Meet the Regents. You are invited to meet informally with members of the Board of Regents at a RECEPTION Thursday, September 21, 2006 10:30-11:30 a.m. Wolverine Rooms Michigan Union Light refreshments will be served