4 - Tuesday, November 28, 2006 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com KATIE GARLINGHOUSE Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890 413 E. Huron St. Ann Arbor, MI 48104 tothedaily@umich.edu DONN M. FRESARD EDITOR IN CHIEF EMILY BEAM CHRISTOPHER ZBROZEK EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS JEFFREY BLOOMER MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Raising the grade 'U' must become more accessible to low-income students T he University received a report card last week. It didn't come in the mail, but in a study of flagship public uni- versities by The Education Trust - and the University's marks show definite room for improvement. The grade that stuck out was the glaring "F" the University received for providing (or rather, not providing) adequate access to low-income students. The worst debate on campus 4 4 I hile the study's techniques were in 1992, the perhaps not the most precise and Dearb imaginable, the failing mark the have less a University received shows that it is strug- Ann Arbor gling to maintain any semblance of a repu- campusesv tation as an affordable public institution. appearance With the continual increase in the cost of income stu higher education in this state and around Despite t the country, the University needs to edu- need to be t cate students about financial aid options University and implement measures to lessen the anx- dents and iety many prospective students have about choose to a paying for their education. this institu The study looked at each state's top pub- There ar lic university, and the findings have been can take to hard to swallow for many administrators dents. Bett around the country. Most schools received options cot failing grades in at least one of the study's stand that three key categories: minority student be much lox access, minority student success and low- need. As tl income student access. While these low out, many s grades should serve as a wake-up call to of financial public colleges and universities, the organi- gesting tha zation's grading scale may not reflect real- dents know ity completely accurately. It is clear that the available to nonpartisan organization, whose slogan is appear far 1 "closing the achievement gap," has good Without intentions with its report. The methods it long trend used, though, are less than perfect. state gover For starters, the study's method for this institut determining accessibility to low-income accessibilit students was comparing the number of Pell Proposal 2, grants distributed to students at a specific versity to r school to the number distributed through- ties, will m out the entire state where the school is The Univer located. This method provides at best a lim- ways to gi' ited perspective on students' financial situ- money - R ation. Another problem with the study that of requirin hurt the University of Michigan's grade designate a is the technique used for comparing data cial aid wo from 1992 and 2004 to assess long-term marketing trends. In assessing the number of students about the a at the University who received Pell grants a place in th ally in the M Hamas is an obstacle to We must r the situation peace in the Middle East inmisleadi Michigan D TO THE DAILY: experts like Yesterday's viewpoint (A flawed democra- situation. O cy, 11/27/2006) follows the trend of the hate- community ful and baseless divestment movement that um B to shas unfairly singles out and demonizes Israel by misrepresenting the current situation in the Nate Fink Middle East. We simply do not have the word The letter wr allotment to address all of the fallacies that MSA represe have become disturbingly familiar on this David Kur campus. The letter wr First and foremost, Hamas - the democrat- member of Is ically elected government of the Palestinians - is an internationally recognized terrorist organization supported by the authoritarian T regimes of Syria and Iran. Hamas is sworn to 1 the destruction of the state of Israel and the ethnic cleansing of its Jewish population. Infact,just weeks after Israel's August2005 All readers disengagement from Gaza - a painful conces- the Daily. I sion for peace - Hamas responded with Qas- name, colle sam rocket attacks on southern Israeli towns. versity affili Continuing this trend, this past weekend Pal- estinian terrorists violated a cease-fire with rocket attacks shortly after an agreement was Letters sho reached. What is Israel to do? Michigan D Most recently, Hamas has adopted a tactic length, clar made famous by Hezbollah over the summer: become the brainwashing civilians to act as human shields encircling terrorist homes targeted by Israel. This tactic is far from peaceful resistance; it is Letters will a human rights abuse. Israel must protect its received an citizens and do what the Palestinian govern- ment has failed to do: dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, a universally recognized pre- Letters sho requisite for peace. edu. Editors The University should be proud to invest in umich.edu. Israel, America's only time-tested democratic organization included the Flint orn campuses, both of which effluent student bodies than the campus. In 2004, those two were left out, giving the false of a drastic drop-off in low- dents. hese failings, the study doesn't erribly refined to tell us that the is not accessible to many stu- that many Michigan residents ttend other schools because of tion's sticker price. e obvious steps the University be more accessible to all stu- er advertising of financial aid uld help more students under- the cost of the University could wer depending on their financial he administration has pointed tudents underestimate amount I aid available to them - sug- t making sure prospective stu- about the several sources of aid them could make the price tag ess overwhelming. a drastic reversal of a decades- of decreased support from the rnment for public universities, ion will continue to grapple with y for a long time. The passage of by making it harder for the Uni- each out to minority communi- ake its challenges all the greater. 'sity must continue to look for ve out more need-based grant egent Kathy White's suggestion g donors for building projects to portion of their gifts for finan- uld be a good start. But clever strategies to provide assurance ctual cost of education also have ie fight for accessibility. Middle East. recognize that true education about n in the Middle East is not found ng viewpoints on the pages of The Daily. Instead, we should turn to Brigitte Gabriel for insight on the n Monday at 8 p.m., the University is invited to Angell Hall Auditori- re in Gabriel's knowledge. iter is an LSA junior and an ntative. zmann iter is a LSA junior and a trae IDEA. f there's any university in this country where you'd expect to find students engaged in a productive discussion about the Arab-Israeli con- flict, it would be here. Our university has a large Jewish student population, a heritage dating back to the days when Jews barred from of Ivy League insti- tutions by discriminatory quotas chose to come to Michigan instead. Ann Arbor's prox- imity to metro Detroit's Arab-I population, the largest in the nation, ensures that a sizable con- tingent of- students will CHRISTOPHER be concerned with advanc- ZBROZEK ing Palestin- ian causes. Yet listening to what passes for dia- logue about Israel and Palestine on campus over the past few years, I've grown cynical about the prospect of any rational discourse on the issue. Here, the attacks, accusations, indict- ments and defamations that typically characterize the debate mirror a simi- larly depressing cycle of violence in the Middle East. One suspects there's a continuous chain of retaliation for the response for the reaction for the reprisal for the retribution ... and so on, quite literally ad nauseam, going back at least until 1948. My first experiences on campus with discussion of the conflict were uniformly negative. A Palestinian Solidarity Movement conference in the fall of 2002 advocating divestment from Israel brought to campus speak- ers who many Jewish students saw as anti-Semitic, including one who had probably provided support to terror- ists. Advertisements purchased in this newspaper to publicize a pro-Israel website tried to propagate the dubious belief that all Israelis are upstanding moral citizens deeply committed to the tenets of liberal democracy, while all Palestinians are would-be suicide bombers whose thirst for Jewish blood could never be quenched, no blood libel pun intended. Those extreme instances could perhaps be blamed on agitators - the conference organizers and those who bought the ads - from outside the Uni- versity community. Watching years of animosity between students on both sides of the issue, though, has left me with little doubt that these students generally view their ideological coun- terparts with disdain, distrust and disgust. The gap in understanding is perhaps most striking in the viewpoint pieces pro-Israel or pro-Palestine groups seek to have published in The Michi- gan Daily. Regardless of which side a viewpoint promotes, it takes one of two approaches. Many viewpoint authors simply argue that the other side's immoral actions are entirely to blame for the conflict, neglecting to consider their own side's failures and atrocities. Others take amore nuanced approach, arguing deceptively for the importance of dialogue. The general argument in those viewpoints can be summarized as follows: "We must have dialogue. Both sides should move past unproduc- tive rhetoric. The other side is a bunch of genocidal maniacs hell-bent on the destruction of my people. We ought to sit down and talk responsibly." As an editor whose duties include choosing and editing viewpoints, I'm routinely told by both sides that I'm biased. Itso happens that I don't really have a favorite between the two sides. I have no religious or ethnic ties to either side of the conflict. I'm appalled at the oppression and violence Israel inflicts on innocent Palestinians, and I'm disgusted at terrorist attacks that kill innocent Israeli civilians. I would like to see people there stop killing each other, but just about everyone professes to believe that. Nevertheless, it seems there are stu- dent leaders on both sides of the issue who are convinced that the Daily is out to advance one agenda and suppress the other. If I believed everything in my e-mail inbox, I'd come to the con- clusion that I must be both a Zionist and an anti-Semite. These accusations of bias smack of a dangerous contemporary definition of "media bias" as "anything with which you do not agree." There might be an argument, however, that I am indeed biased - against both sides. Having read countless pages of the unproduc- tive, unhelpful things students on both sides of the issue routinely say, I'm inclined not to talk about the conflict at all. Let the Daily discuss issues more directly relevant to campus - Proposal 2, the Michigan Student Assembly, heck, even University President Mary Sue Coleman's wardrobe - just let's not deal with Israel and Palestine. That whole Enlightenmentidealofarational discourse between open-minded par- ties sincerely searching for the truth breaks down when one adds in the ulti- mately irrational factors of blood, reli- gion and revenge. But if more interested participants in the discussion have their irratio- nal flaws, I too have mine. I believe, against much of my experience in nine semesters at the University, that there are moderate students on both sides who genuinely want to improve dia- logue and understanding. I suspect, however, that these moderates are too busy defending themselves against criticism from more extreme mem- bers of their communities to make much progress. A colleague of mine tried last week in her column (Tongue tied on the Middle East, 11/22/2006) to argue that students here obsess over the particular words used to describe the Arab-Israeli conflict at the expense of any meaningful conversation. She's Jewish, and that alone was enough for some students to criticize her other- wise neutral plea for dialogue. Mean- while, a Jewish student e-mailed her There's no rational discourse about Israel and Palestine. to lament that she described herself as "pro-Israel" instead of "Zionist," prov- ing her point about semantics displac- ing substance. The online responses on the Daily's website to nearly any article that touches on Palestine or Israel frequently devolve into crude attacks, though I'd hope some of the more offensive comments come from bigoted bozos with no University ties. Yesterday's viewpoint (A flawed democracy, 11/27/2006) and today's letter to the editor are one more round in this same endless and endlessly unproductive debate. The animosity we see here, mind you, is at a university thousands of miles removed from the Middle East, where there are no language barriers between the two sides, where violence is not a daily threat. As an American without a horse in this race, I at least have the luxury, if I choose, to decide a rational discourse on this issue is impossible and to ignore the whole mess as I go about my life. Those who live in Israel or Palestine, and those with close ties to the region, can't do that. Their choices, essentially, are a productive dialogue or an endless vio- lent conflict. I pray that they don't find the discussion as useless as I have. Christopher Zbrozek is a Daily editorial page editor. He can be reached at zbro@umich.edu. 'I I I I I I Letters Policy A blessing and an opportunity 4 are encouraged to submit letters to Letters should include the writer's ge and class standing or other Uni- ation. uld be no longer than 300 words. The aily reserves the right to edit for ity and accuracy. Submitted letters property of The Michigan Daily. be run according to timeliness, order d the amount of space available. uld be sent to tothedaily@umich. can be reached at editpage.editors@ ERIN RUSSELL |( THE COMMENTSC.TMADE AT AMR. PicHARO, COME PEOPL.E THE IAUBH FACTORYWERE SAY THAT YOU ARE A RACSCT WAY OU OF LINE. I WANT TO ANO THAT YOUR APOLOCY 18 APOLOGIZE TO THE BLACK ONLY AN ACT TO CAVE YOUR COMMUN"Y AN CCUPE RE ATION. WHAT is YOUR THEM THAT AM NOT RESPONSE? A RACICT. E verywhere but Michigan, where the passage of Proposal 2 put a silver lining on an oth- erwise dark cloudElection Day 2006 was somber for Republicans. While it had the author- ity to govern for eight years r (andcontrolled the House for JAMES 12), the Grand Old Party and DICKSON its legislative- agenda didn't exactly set the world on fire. Between an unpopular, expen- sive and (some say) unnecessary war in Iraq, excessive tax cuts during that war and ethics scandals too numer- ous to mention, Republicans have all but lost the faith of the American peo- ple. If the Republicans were a football team, they would have fumbled on the goal line in every game since 2002. Enter the Democrats. In their mis- sion to be everything the Republi- can Party isn't, they fielded a slate of fresh-faced candidates who were everything the GOP is - pro-mili- tary and anti-tax. It can hardly be said that Democratic electoral gains were a mandate - or even a quali- fied endorsement - for liberalism. No, it's more likely that 2006 was a protest vote - against Bush, against the "party of scandals," against any- thing representing the status quo. When you combine the abject failure of the Republican Party to lead effec- tively with the type of candidates the Democrats used to fill their national slate, all we really know from break- ing down the results of Election 2006 is that Americans were unhappy with the nation's direction, and they blamed the GOP. Put simply, the "Revolution of '06" this was not, which places Democrats in a dubious position looking forward to the 2008 presidential election. The Democratic Party can no longer claim to suffer from a stifled legislative agenda and a harsh political climate. With Democratic majorities in both houses, President Bush has no choice but to play ball. The question is whether the Demo- cratic Party has an original agenda and vision for the country or whether it continue to be a bunch of outside- looking-in minoritarians, even from a seat of power. Will we see Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) or Barack Obama (D-Ill.) risk all-too-important poll numbers to further the ends of their political base this close to a presiden- tial year? Will the Democrats' bark- ing for change manifest itself with a bite of social programs and universal health care? I don't know, and you probably don't either. Of all the things we know from Election 2006, it's unclear - and probably untrue - that Americans are in any meaningful sense more liberal (or less conservative) than they were two years ago. And the reason we don't know is because the Democratic Party has never made us choose. Lib- eral ideas aren't even on the table, and they won't be in the next two years. To anyone naive enough to believe that Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) becom- ing Speaker of the House means the dawn of liberal rule, I ask: What's the Democratic position on Iraq? Gay marriage? North Korea? The econo- my? On all of these issues, Democrats have had the chance to carve out and defend liberal positions, and they have declined to do so with any flare or conviction. Simply being "the other party" may have worked this election cycle, but it cost John Kerry dearly in 2004. And it'll kill in 2008, because Democrats will no longer be able to claim they were denied the opportu- nity to lead. The Democratic Party won big in 2006 because Americans preferred to trust the devils they didn't know instead of the ones they did. But if the Democrats can't figure out what they believe, and quick - all while handling the task of governance with grace and, yes, compassion - then America may be prepared to make that same gamble again in 2008. In this space, I've written about Election2006 as awatershed moment. I'll now go a step further by saying that, for the Republicans, November 2006 will be looked upon asa blessing in disguise. Not only are the Republi- can Party and conservative ideas out of the spotlight for the time being - thank God - but Democrats will now have their time in the sun. I know bet- ter than to assume they'll do anything but fry in it. James Dickson can be reached at davidjam@umich.edu. r AAY ALL 0FTHEM ARE #/0'P4 '6CEPC! 1THINB5 C WEBE BETTE FIFTY YEAR$ AO! BACK THEN, NO ONE HAO T O#/4 AI'OLOBIZE TO A #/B'.'9 BBEP^ Editorial Board Members: Reggie Brown, Kevin Bunkley, Amanda Burns, Sam Butler, Ben Caleca, Devika Daga, Milly Dick, James David Dickson, Jesse Forester, Gary Graca, Jared Goldberg, Jessi Holler, Rafi Martina, Toby Mitchell, Rajiv Prabhakar, David Russell, Katherine SeidElizabeth Stanley, John Stiglich, Neil Tambe, Rachel Wagner.