4- The MicigmnDaily Summer Weeky-Wednesday,May5,1993
ECATOR IN CHIEF Unsigned editorials presentthonnf 420 Maynard Street
HopeCalata majority of the Daily's editorial board. Arbor, Michigan 48109

C T 1 1[ 11

OPINION EDITORS
Sam Goodstein

All other cartoons, signed articles and
letters do not necessarily reflect the

Edited and Managed by
Students at the

4


Flint Jason Wainess opinion of the Dai.
ly' University of Michigan

To the Board of Regents, President Duder-
stadt, and the rest of the University administra-
tion:
Every year, the Spring/SummerDaily Opin-
ion Page kicks off the new term with a plea for
mercy. We ask you, the University administra-
tion, to listen to the concerns of students and act
accordingly.Weaskyoutocarefully consider the
repercussions before raising tuition, enacting
conduct codes and suspending civil liberties in
general. And we ask that the summer--for once
- won't be a time to force- feed these changes
while most students aren't around to voice their
reservations.
As youmustknow, every year ourpleas seem
to fall on deaf ears. Two years ago, it was
deputization.Last year, plans to enact therestric-
tive Diag policy were underway and the surrepti-
tious search for a new Vice Provost for Minority
Affairs took place.And who can forget the begin-
nings of the wholly unjust Statement of Student
"Rights" and Responsibilities (definitely not the
studentwhowassuspendedfromgraduateschool
without justification under the jurisdiction of the
Code)?
But this year we have decided to beg no
longer. We are going to attempt to relay to you

The Administrative
Blues
To the Administration: enlist student input, for once

some of the positive steps we think you have
taken and we are going to outline some of the
changes we hope to see in the future.
Unfortunately, we found it difficult to find
many positives to dwell on, but there are a few.
The two newly elected regents, Rebecca
McGowen (D- Ann Arbor) and Larry Deitch (D-
Bloomfield Hills), appear to be diamonds in the
rough. They have demonstratedarefreshing will-
ingness to listen to the concerns of students and
work for change, demonstrated by their atten-
dance at last month's Michigan Student Assem-
bly(MSA)meeting.Inaddition,McGowenis the
first Regent in memory that can be seen fre-
quently wandering around campus. These types
of interaction with the student body have been
severely lacking from University politics for a

long while and we hope the new regents will set
a trend for the rest of you administrators. While
the political positions of the new regents happen
to usually fall in line with ours, this is not the
reason they presentpromise.Instead, we applaud
the fact that they are listening to the people who
truly make or break this University - the stu-
dents.
This brings us to the first of our suggestions
and constructive criticisms that we hope you will
useas aguide to the future.While wehavemyriad
political suggestions for you (from repealing
Bylaw 14.06 to axing the Diag policy), we will
stick to the basics.
Takethetime toenliststudentinput.Itisnot
difficulttodo.Simplyhanging outintheDiag and
talking to students will help you make decisions

more than any Thursday afternoon seminar at-
tendedby five studentsatbest. Youholdthekey
to the future and surely the people who under-
stand their needs best are the people with the
needs, i.e. students.
Make sure that student input includes stu-
dents of all races, religions, sexual orientations,
etc. The University has a bad reputation within
many minority communities. While programs
such as the Michigan Mandate are a solid first
step, the University needs to begin opening its
arms in ways not consideredconventional. What
better way to begin the healing process than
through dialogue?
When andif youbegin talking to students and
finding out their views, we think you'll find that
the road ahead is along and arduous one.For this
University to continue to thrive, the undergradu-
ate experience must become amorepleasant one
- for all of us involved. This means that the
administration must become a proponent of
student's rights.
There is nothing better than spring in Ann
Arbor. We ask you, for once, to allow students to
return to an atmosphere better than the one they
left.The timeisnow to beginlistening tostudents
and acting accordingly.

4


National Service
Clinton's plan will benefit all Americans

Bosnia-Hercegovina
The United States must stop the genocide

k<s the price of higher education rises and a
llege degree increasingly becomes a
luxury often unavailable for low and middle
income families, President Clinton unveiled his
national service plan which aims to make post-
high school education available to all. Highlight-
ing the plan isafederalprogram that wouldallow
up to $10,000 in student loans. Students would
repay these loans by performing two years of
community service, at aprice tag of $5000 per
year.Furthermore, those performing community
service, which can be done before, during or after
school, would get a stipend roughly equal to
minimum wage -85 percent of which will be
paid by the federal government, the remainder
coming from local funds. If paying off the loan
with cash ismorm desirable, borrowers can make
regular payments based on a percentage of in-
come, or pay some cash and perform some com-
munity service.
The program, which was one of President
Clinton's major campaign promises, will put
25,000 to work by 1994 and 150,000 to work by
1997, at an eventual price of $3 billion per year.
National service, while far from providing af-
fordable higher education to all, is a noteworthy
first step. To the delight of fmancially strapped
students across the country, we finally have a
president that understands and is willing to act to
help students cope with escalating tuition rates.
Because the federal government, instead of fi-
nancial institutions, will lend to students partici-
pating in the program, borrowers will benefit
from the lower interest rates to be offered by the
government,estimatedat abouthalf apercentage
point less than that of most banks. By having the
option to work off loans, many students will be
freed of the burden of having college debts,
coupled with high interest rates, to pay off for the
first two decades of their post-graduate life.

Because the government currently protects
banks from defaulted student loans, the feds are
saddled with a projected tab of $2.5 billion per
year to cover the banks. Critics of the program,
whocry for deficitreduction(although they offer
no specific plan detailing how to better Clinton's
current budget) and consequently find this pro-
gram wasteful, should realize that the national
service proposal will actually save the govern-
ment up to $4.3 billion in paybacks to banks
through fiscal year 1998.
Moreover,opponentsofnationalservice con-
tinually pointout thatcommunity servicealready
exists -in the private sector. While this may be
true, national service clearly helps everyone.
Students benefit from receiving loans that they
can actually pay back and the community ben-
efits from the substantial contributions students
have to offer.
While the national service initiative will pre-
servetheavailability ofloansandgrants basedon
need, the program will make loans available to
any student, regardless of family income. This
will greatly benefit many middle-income stu-
dents who fail to qualify for substantial financial
aid.But perhaps the mostrefreshing aspect of the
initiative is the fact that those working off loans
through community service will have, complete
withtheirminimumwagestipend,availablehealth
care and child care assistance.
While the University was not included ina
"pilotprogram" to test the initiative this summer,
students should be encouraged by the Clinton
administration's effort to make school more af-
fordable. Although we were not one of the 15 to
17"guineapigs,"eventually the University com-
munity will benefit fromthenationalservice plan
as paying off loans on the ever-increasing tuition
rates may eventually be a realistic goal to stu-
dents, instead of a long-term dream.

W hile Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan
Karadzic signed yet another peace plan,
threatening to resign if it is rejected today by the
Bosnian-Serb parliament, President Clinton ap-
parently decided that enough is enough. Finally
realizing that Serbian words hadno correlation to
Serbianactions,ClintonannouncedthattheUnited
States would begin air-raiding artillery lines and
would lift the absurd arms embargo on the
BosnianMuslims,asameansofstoppingSerbian
aggression in the former Yugoslavia. These two
measures are long overdue.
For over a year the westernworld has silently
watched as Serbs shelled helpless Bosnian
villages and performed brutal ethnic cleansing, a
practice thought to have disappeared from Eu-
rope after the fall of Nazi Germany. Of course,
had President Bush made amore concerted effort
to establish peace a year ago, before 130,000
Muslims had perished, Clinton would not be
forced to balance possible American fatalities
with further ethnic cleansing. However, now is
no time to whine about predecessors, and simi-
larlynotime to putup with another broken cease-
fire by the Serbs. If the parliament does not ratify
the peace plan, or the Serbians do not keepa
promise to end the mass killing of innocent
Muslims, the United States, regardless of the
stance taken by the remainder of the western
world, must take action by allowing the Bosnian
Muslims to arm themselves and beginning air
raids on Serb aggressors.
However, the President must proceed with
caution.While theemotionof thesituation can be
overwhelming and the urge to take action power-
ful, Secretary of State Warren Christopher has
correctly outlined criteria that he feels must be
metbeforeintervention:aclear goalor objective,
a high probability of success, a clear plan dictat-
ing when and how to exit,and the approvalof the
American people. The first three of these objec-

tivesare well-founded. Because nobody wants to
repeat the quagmire the US got locked into in
Vietnam, where we could not get out before too
many soldiers were killed, we must understand
our objective, how to achieve it, and where to
draw the line. If arming the Bosnian Muslims and
raiding by air do not work, is the western world
prepared to send ground troops in? Understand-
ably,Clintoniscurrentlyagainstsendinginground
forces,butitisapossibility thatmustbeleftopen.
Stopping the Serbs will probably require some
sort of multinational peace keeping unit and
American troops willhave to play anintegralrole
in the mission. But the fourth condition outlined
by Christopher, the support of the American
people, makes little sense. If the support of citi-
zens was necessary to begin military campaigns
in the past, millions more may have died at the
hands of Hitler before the United States inter-
vened.
As we look back upon World War H, it
becomes clear that the United States ignored
reports of genocide and left millions to perish in
the concentrationcamps.Whilethecircumstances
are not identical, the point is the same: The
standard for genocide should not be in the mil-
lions. Being the lone superpower in an anarchic
world brings responsibility. Europe's impotence
is not an excuse for our apathy.
Moreover, those who claim that the United
States cannot enter every war should realize that
this is more than war, this is genocide. While
nations will have their historic battles, and cul-
tures will clash without the intervention of the
United States, genocide is an exception. It is a
relief that President Clinton has decided to take
action, albeit far too late, and it is wise to want
clear objectives. However if the Serbs do not
accept the peace plan, or if they break the terms
that theyagreeto, thetalkmuststopand the action
must begin.