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Opinion
Page 10 Friday, June 19, 1981 The Michigan Daily
The Michigan Daily
Vol. XCI, No. 32-S
Ninety Years of Editorial Freedom
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
Reluctant assent
THE DAILY RELUCTANTLY supports the
recommendation of Academic Affairs
Vice-president Bill Frye that the University's
geography department be discontinued.
At the same time, however, we harbor grave
misgivings over the largely closed and
secretive process by which the decision was
reached, and vigorously urge that a more open
and judicious method be established regarding
similar determinations in the future.
It has been obvious several years now that
the geography department, once ranked among
the best in the nation, was in increasing trouble.
Some of its most accomplished professors have
retired or relocated without adequate
replacement, and its student enrollment con-
tinues to dwindle. The department's budget has
shrunk concurrently with its declining
quality-thus effectively quashing any hope of
geography's reclaiming its former reputation.
Proponents of discontinuance offer
reasonably persuasive arguments questioning
the 1980s validity of the geographic
discipline-which always endured as a kind of
all-encompassing educational grab bag. It
would be relatively simple for students to gain
geographic knowledge in other, overlapping
subjects-such as geology, archaeology and
history.
We feel economic realities necessitate fun-
damental cuts within the University. The
geography department, with the smallest num-
ber of majors in the social sciences at
Michigan, and boasting a higher per-student
cost than most other departments, seems the
most logical of potential sacrifices.
Nonetheless, Frye's approach to the issue
remains highly questionable. The vice-
president acknowledges he supported ter-
mination from the first day of review-long
before the obligatory process of hearings was
held. Though Frye professed to maintain an
open mind throughout the hearings, the depar-
tment's eventual demise was foreshadowed
from the start.
The administration largely failed to en-
courage student and faculty input on their
decision-indeed, the review process remained
a virtual mystery until after the fact. Frye was
still holding "persuade me" discussions this
past Monday after his recommendation was
written, typed and signed.
A final lesson emerges from this long and
painful process. Perhaps in the future, when a
department begins to decline, the University
should come to its aid quickly rather than per-
petuate its ailings by gradually, systematically
cutting allocations. With a little preventive
care, the patient might not have become ter-
minal in the first place.
Never another closet!
By Jane Rosenthal
This year marks the twelfth
anniversary of the Christopher
Street Rebellion in Greenwich
Village. Twelve years ago gay
people fought back every night
for a week against police
harassment at the Stonewall Inn,
a gay bar.
Lesbians and gay men com-
memorate this event every year
as Lesbian-Gay Pride week,
because that rebellion market
the end of an era of shame and
hiding and the beginning of an
era of pride and openess for us. It
is in that spirit that we urge the
lesbain and gay male com-
munities to join the Lesbian-gay
pride march march and rally
June 20th, 1 p.m., at the Federal
Bldg.
" YOU SECULAR HUMANIST!"
NO l" F
X --
M GOO H 4OaHIS FAc6 -r -q e" e .' -9( .f s -rkasrT
It is only through unity and ac-
tivism that we have achieved the
small gains of. the past twelve
years, and it is only through unity
and activism that we can protect
those gains and move forward in
the 1980s. Let none of us be
misled: lesbians and gay men are
under attack. Today violence
against gays is escalating -
especially in San Francisco,
whereattacks have increased 400
percent in the last year.
Today gay baths in Toronto are
being raided with sledgeham-
mers. Today the Senate is con-
sidering the so-called "Family
Protection Act", introduced by
Reagan crony Paul Laxalt; this
bill includes a ban on providing
any government funds, such as
unemployment benefits, food
stamps, welfare, etc., to "known
or suspected homosexuals".
The sum of all the provisions of
the FPA is anti-Black, anti-labor,
anti-gay, and anti-woman. we
cannot sit by quietly and be vic-
tims - we must fight back,
vocally and forcefully.
The attacks on lesbians and
gay men are not an isolated
phenomenon. It is no coincidence
that they come at a time of
economic crisis, of layoffs and
war build-up. And it is not an ac-
cident that in this period we are
also witnessing a horrifying
escalation of vicious racist at-
tacks on the Black community,
from Buffalo to Atlanta.
Homophobia, racism, and sexism
are weapons used to keep
working people divided and
powerless, to turn us against
each other, and to prevent our
uniting against our real enemy.
It is absolutely crucial that
lesbians and gay men, as fighters
for liberation, lend our strength
and dedication to the struggle for
the liberation of ati people. For
we are all people - black, brown,
yellow, red, and white - and we
cannot win, any of us, alone. That
is why the theme of our march
and rally this-year is not just
celebration, but action; not just
action, but action in alliance with
all people working for a better
world.
It is not an exaggeration to
compare what we are facing now
with the situation in pre-war Nazi
Germand. Government,
business, and religious leaders.
spout the rhetoric of fear, hate,
racism, and heterosexism. Let us
show them, this week and every
day of our lives, that we have
learned the tragic lessons of that
other time. Let us stand up and
fight back. Never again the pink
triangle, never again another
closet!!
Jane Rosenthal is a member
of the Outreach & Community
Action Committee of Gay
Community Services.
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