The Michigan Daily-Friday, July 25, 1980-Page 3
Firing decision 'not easy'
By HOWARD WITT
Special to The Daily
DETROIT-Firing Jonathan Marwil was "not an
easy decision to make," a visibly upset engineering
humanities department administrator said yesterday
in federal district court here.
Humanities Prof. Ralph Loomis, a member of the
department's administrative committee and
defendant in Marwil's suit against the University,
seemed to be fighting back tears as he explained he
thought there was an element of unfairness in
Marwil's case.
LOOMIS VOTED TWICE-in May, 1978 and again
in April, 1979-not to grant Marwil a review of his
qualifications to receive tenure and not to reappoint
him beyond his sixth year at the University.
The element of unfairness, Loomis said, did not
arise out of any violations of University rules by the
administrative committee.
Rather, Loomis said, "I felt he shared the
predicament of all non-tenured appointees-he was
on probation until the tenure point."
LOOMIS TESTIFIED HIS overall concern was for
the good of the department, which he thought would
be best served by terminating Marwil's contract.
Administrative committee members have cited
what they alleged to be Marwil's frequently
intemperate and contentious behavior, as well as
questionable scholarly production and worsening
him before his contract was completed.
THE 40-YEAR-OLD former assistant professor,
who has been off the University payroll since May 31,
1979, is suing the Regents and three humanities
department administrative committee
members-Department Chairman J.C. Mathes and
Profs. Loomis and Dwight Stevenson-seeking a
court-ordered tenure review.
The University contends applicable University-
wide policies on contract termination were followed
in Marwil's case and that department administrators
were justified in terminating him because of his
detrimental effects on the department.
Loomis, Stevenson, Humanities Prof. Thomas
Sawyer, and former Engineering Dean David
Ragone all testified yesterday there is no engineering
college custom or rule requiring a tenure review in an
assistant professor's sixth year of employment.
The four, following similar testimony Wednesday
by University President Harold Shapiro, also
maintained there is no University rule that
prohibited giving Marwil notice of non-
reappointment in his fifth year at the University.
See DECISION, Page 6
studentevaluations, as reasons for their concern
about Marwil's effect on the humanities department.
Marwil charges the committee members violated
department and College policies and customs when
they denied him a tenure review in his sixth year as
an assistant professor and decided not to reappoint
Bargaining
progresses
in AATA
bus strike
By ELAINE RIDEOUT
As picketers marched through art
fair crowds yesterday, bargaining of-
ficials for striking transit workers and
AATA management began to see eye to
eye on some issues for the first time
since the strike began four weeks ago.
"We've made some progress," said
Transportation Employees Union
(TEU) Vice-President Shelly Ettinger
after yesterday's eight-hour session.
She said negotiations had reached a
point where actual bargaining was
taking place for the first time since the
union contract expired June 30.
ETTINGER SAID the two sides
* moved closer together on an insurance
package, although no agreement had
yet been reached on disability compen-
sation. "We made a lot of progress in
the areas of transfers, filling work
vacancies and management rights,"
she added.
The union official said AATA presen-
ted its second economic proposal in two
days at yesterday's bargaining session,
increasing its previous wage offer by 10
cents.
"With that 10 cent wage increase we
have currently been offered a total
raise of 26 cents an hour," said Union
President Harry Kevorkian at yester-
day's Liberty Plaza rally. "That's not a
decent wage."
YESTERDAY'S rally was half-
hearted in comparison with the spirited
demonstration held at City Hall two
weeks ago.
Commenting on the low attendance of
union members, Union Steward Mike
Shane said that many have been forced
to abandon the picket lines in search of
See TRANSIT, Page 7
THESE MARIJUANA CIGARETTES are kept in supply at University Hospital for cancer patients' use. The joints help
relieve nausea associatead with cancer chemotherapy.
Hospital uses marijuana
for cancer patient tests
By MARYEM RAFANI
For about a month, the University has been obtaining
marijuana cigarettes from the U.S. government and
distributing them to a select group of people.
The University is not pushing drugs to the public. About
six cancer patients at University Hospital are being
provided with the joints as an experimental treatment for
the nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy.
DR. CHARLES KOLLER, medical school assistant
professor and one of a group of Michigan doctors involved
in the marijuana program, said, "We really haven't ob-
served enough to draw any conclusions yet."
One of the program's major goals is to discover whether
marijuana itself is more effective in fighting the
.chemotherapy side-effects than THC-a marijuana
derivative that is still being used inother states.
"The patient's response to the marijuana depends on
whether he has smoked it before. The people who have
smoked it before seem to handle it better. Some people in
past studies were overdosed with THC and had some bad
experiences that they would not have had with the
marijuana," Koller said.
THE MARIJUANA USED- at University Hospital is
grown on a plot of land at the Research Institute for
Pharmaceutical Services at the University of Mississippi,
and rolled into cigarettes at the Research Triangle Park
in North Carolina.
The University program is part of a cooperative study
by doctors from all over the state. Michigan is the only
state in the nation to use marijuana in a cancer study-it
is the only state to have a "Medical Marijuana" law which
allows the use of pot for both research and treatment.