Opinion
Page 6
The Michigan Daily
Vol. XCiI, No. 12-S
Ninety-two Years of Editorial Freedom
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
Educating bigots
BIGOTRY AMONG adults is a sad fact of
life that many choose to ignore-if they
are not the object of its senseless hatred. But to
see those same unreasoning biases perpetrated
in children stirs one to outrage.
School officials in a comfortable town outside
of Boston acknowledged this week that a group
of a dozen eighth-grade boys .formed the
"Nigger and Jew Hater Organization of
America." The group,,some of whom. were
student council members, was caught and war-
ned after defacing chalkboards and a Jewish
student's notebook with swastikas and the
group's initials.
Are warnings and punitive measures
enough? Did anyone ask the students why they
spewed such hatred?
Many fatalists argue that since bigotry is an
evil that has no reasonable basis, reason cannot
be successfully used to flush it from a person's
mind. While that may be true for adults, whose
biases are often set in concrete, children must
not be written off in the same way.
Education was designed to enlighten and
open minds, not reinforce or let stand precon-
ceived prejudiced notions of ethnic superiority.
Only through education can such views be
reasoned away. Parents and educators have an
obligation to destroy the seed of bigotry, lest it
grow to become a mind-polluting weed.
Sadly, narrow-minded fools still plague those
unfortunate enough to be targets of such abuse.
And the world probably will never rid itself of
abhorrent beliefs and racist organizations. But
it can try to raise and keep an army of more
reasoned individuals, ready and willing to en-
sure that bigots do not prevail.
'THIS 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE?
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Thursday, May 20, 1982
The Michigan Daily
Stewart
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let me
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LETTERS TO THE DAILY:
Teaching cia
To the Daily: who can be
The thought just occurred to to in the nea
me that the University of Studentsu
Michigan could be the best least from t
university in the world if it wan- difference d
ted to be. Now that the powers in a 500 stu
that be have revealed how they ching a wor
are going to make the University winner on
smaller but better, we should not privacy ofy
be satisfied with half measures Obviously, s
and should insist that they go all watching th
the way. The University can can turn up
become the best in the world frame equ:
simply by eliminating all but the replays, foci
most important faculty - those of the profes
who have won a Nobel Prize or an enormou
.I wa3 thinking
Something more
along these lines.
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ss by video tape
reasonably expected
r future.
wouldn't suffer in the
this approach. What
oes it make if you're
dent lecture or wat-
d famous Nobel Prize
video ttape in the
your own residence?
tudents are better off
e video tape. They
the volume, freeze
ations, get instant
us in on the nuances
sors face - and save
us amount of time
An endangered species
Tothe Daily:
I realize the University of
Michigan must make spending
cuts in response to the state's
financial crisis. As a concerned
alumnus, I do not feel these cuts
should he made at the expense of
the School of Natural Resources.
On what basis, is this school
singled out for review? Does
anyone argue that foresters,
planners, and resource managers
are not desperately needed in
today's world? University
graduates can be found
managing towering forests in the
West and advising boards of
directors in the towers of the
East.
The school is consistently
recognized among the finest in
the country; the faculty is out-
standing and is doing nationally
recognized research. Morale
among students, staff, and alum-
ni is high.
Each week of my un-
dergraduate career I met, on in-
dividual basis, with the head of
my program (Behavior and En-
vironment), Dr. William Stapp.
Keep in mind he is an inter-
nationally prominent professor,
chosen by the United Nations to
chair its Environmental
Education Conference in the
Soviet Union in 1978. Such
dedication to students was the
norm among the faculty of the
school..
The present "review" of the
art, educaton, and natural
resources schools is a code word
for drastic cuts and possible
elimination. The quality of the
schools under review shows the
lie in the University's "smaller
but better" slogan. These schools
have been chosen because they
are small and therefore
preceived as weak.
A more rational alternative to
the elimination of quality schools
would be a university-wide freeze
of administrative and faculty
salaries until the financial crisis,
passes.
Residents of Michigan and
members of the University com-
munity, take note: A fine
program that benefits us all has
just become an endangered
species.
-Daniel Ezekiel
commuting. Our Nobel Prize
winners could record all their
tapes once a year, and then
maybe answer questions
screened by assistants, in sort of
an Ann Landers column in the
Daily.
Of course, faculty who bring in
more than twice their own
salaries in grants or who produce
patentable inventions or
processes which can be licensed
will be retained, but just think,
with the 100 million dollars a year
save by letting go of the regular
mediocre faculty (in comparison
with Nobel Prize winners) you
could afford to pay your 100 odd
faculty a million dollars apiece
annually. They won't even need
grants. They can buy their own
labs and books. But the money
and prestige will roll in like never
before.
Think how nice the campus will
be without all the students
milling around or even the
faculty for that matter. Think of
the utility bill savings, the
janitorial and administrative
savings - enough to hire thirty or
forty more Nobel Prize winners.
Each Friday we could have a
tea, the 100 or so top ad-
ministrators, the Regents and the
100 or so Nobel Prize winners -
taking time out from the busy
labors in their offices and labs.
And if a few of them just want to
wander around smiling all
day and smelling the flowers, so
what? Just smiling and nodding
to them on the street will infect
our students with new en-
thusiasm (if they ever physically
come to Ann Arbor).
There's no reason why we can't
start right away on this idea.
Sure, smaller is better, but why
settle for merely being better,
when there's an opportunity to
become miniscule but superb?
-Robert D. Honigman
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