Wednesday, June 28, 1995 - The Michigan Daily -5 enying the facts In making its case against the introduction of erican ground trops into the Bosnian conflict, gressionalpolicymakers andpunditshavetrivialized minimized the bloody, grotesque, genocidal three- old Balkan war beyond all reason. The war in Bosnia is more than heartbreaking, and ch more than a simple civil war. The Bosnian Serb sos have violated the Geneva Conventions and ic precepts of intemational law by setting up bmtal cconcentrationcamps, shellingcivilianpopulation rs,strangulating the once elegant and multinational italof Sarajevoand by ignoring the willofthe United lions and the resolutions of its Security Council. e Serbian military has contributed manpower, plies and logistical support to the Bosnian Serbs pursuit of a Greater Serbia - a figment of Serb ionalistic mythology. Upwards of a quarter of a Ilion innocent people have been killed, mostly snian Muslim civilians. Seventy-percent of ereign Bosnia-Herzegovina (recognized by the sited States, the General Assembly and the rest of est in 1992)has been illegally seized, occupied ethnically cleansed. These are the facts. They aresad and brutal and now, erifiable part of the historical record. And today, the snianSerbs stillrefuse toacceptagenerous peaceplan t would divvy up Bosnia and give the Serbs almost f of the land that is not theirs. True, the Clinton administration's Bosnian policy beenabysmal.TheClinton-EU view is tocontain the ,andtosolveitthroughdiplomaticmeans,nottofight Yet the thorough lack of real leadership by President oninfailingtoformulateafuImUN-NATOresponse unequivocal Serbian aggression should, and cannot rationalized or defended. A total withdrawal of UN peacekeepers and the mmencement of sustained NATO bombing of the rbs,asproposedbytheMajorityLeaderandpresidential didate Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kansas) though would doubtedly induce an even wider Balkan war. This uld make the introduction of a truly sizable gund rce by the United States and its NATO European allies uch more likely, to act to prevent utter chaos and to ct Greek, Hungarian, Albanian and possibly even ussian intervention. Recent polls indicate that more Americans would pport a strong NATO effort to supplement or assist ROFOR forces in Bosnia than a pull-out of acekeepers inthefaceofcontinuedSerbintransigence. is imperative that both political parties recognize that ur national interest lies in a stable and secure Europe, es in preventing a wider war, but also in defending temational human rights. So for the international ommunity to impose civility on the warring parties, ially on the Bosnian Serbs, resoluteness is needed, omWashington toParis.We, as Americans, must face e reality that some American ground troops may be alled upon, in addition to air support and military aterial, to roll back Serb gains. Serious diplomatic fforts now underway to further isolate Belgrade and ussianfromMr.Karadzic andthemoremilitantBosnian erb leadership can be excelerated. To apitulate.,acquiesce and abandon a united, moral esponsetoSerbtenacity,militancyandterrorisnothing ess than a crime. Manyonthepoliticalstagesuggestasingularplanof ted punitive air strikes. If that doesn't work, they fferup isolationism. Yet the sole use of air power in the agingof warhasneverbeensuccessfulinitsownright ever. Both the Persian Gulf War and the Rolling ndercampaigninSouthVietnamhavedemonstrated is. The Bosnian crisis is not a hopeless one; but resented with the circumscribed options currently on e tableitseemsso. High schoolhistory booksteachus hat the First World War erupted in the Balkans in 1914. It is a volatile, jam-packed, ignitable region. Kurt aldheimandhisconfederatesevenhelpeddeportJews r this region in 1944. Knowing this, we must be principled in checking Serbian-inspired evil. Has humanity learned absolutely anything from history?AnythingatalM?Isethnichatredasall-consuming and everyday as it appears? NurABLE QUOTArBE "Regent Baker always seems to have been as bit preoccupied by his concers of sexual orientation ..." -Pes. Dudeiytadt en Baker's question ofDean Machens' ability to be interm provost View point Students must be unted in code input By Anne Marie Ellison important togotothemwithsomething aady written, Though campus events have slowed down rather than getting their involvement from the outset. considerably,thereisstillanissuerequiringourcollective 3)Theprocessisextremelysecretive:Thisnewcode attention: the code of non-academic conduct is going will be discussed and written in closed staff meetings through some major changes over the summer. These taking place in the Fleming Administration Building. changes require ou effort to unite as students, as wellas Only those whoareinvited mayattend. A few weeks ago within ourorganizations. Wainess, Short and former MSA Student Rights In April,the Board of Regentsstruckdownourcode Commission chair Vince Keenan were denied entrance of two years, the Statement of Student Rights and to ameeting. Though just a preliminary organizational Responsibilities. Instead, they sent Vice President for meeting,this was atroublingindicatorofthe attitude that Student Affairs Maureen Hartford back to the drawing will be taken throughout the process. board, to start again. And they mandated that she gain 4) The office and its employees often characterize studentinput,mentioning a few studentsinparticular- any vocal, anti-code student leaders as having a political Michigan Student Assembly President Flint Wainess, agenda. If caring about student rights is a political Student Civil Liberties Watch chair Pamela Short aid agenda, I would hope that we all have one. myself. 5) Judicial Advisor Mary Lou Antieau, who poorly With little effort toward true student involvement, interpreted the last code, is supervising this project over Hartford has given a group of four, employed by her the summer. As the person who may be regarded as the office, the charge to write a new code. The process of downfall of the old code, she has no place on the drafting gathering student input is left up tois members. committee. Ihave been amongthosefourandl'mconcernedby Whadolsuggestiresponsetothisshoddy treatent what I see there. (The other three involved are graduate of student interests? I invite everyone to participate in a students: two previously worked in the Judicial Affairs student attempt to put together a code thatwe have some office and the other is not - nor has she ever been- say in. Because it's clear we're going to have a code, we astudentatthe University.)Despitetheregentsconcern have to find something we can all live with. that the new code not be legalistic, at least half of these Join in open, public, documented forums and students have a background in the law. meetings to discuss the theory and philosophy, as well as There is very little respect for the student body in the practice of a code. They'll be infomal, t esearching process and its rhetoric as it currently develops. This meetings in the summer. Much of the real work must small work group intends to hold primaily closed wait until the fall,when the majority of students return to meetings.Itwillgatherinput-ratherthaninvolvement campus.Insteadofblindly acceptingtheopportunitythe - in a highly controlled environment: the plan is to administration will offer us, let's do something to gather input in June (before writing a code) in focus contribute to our own governance. groups and meeting sessions withstudent groups.We'll I ask that you not legitimize the Office of Student be invited toshare our opinions. Then,having written a Affairs' ay of doingthings. When invitedtogive input code, the group plans to get feedback from students in for your group, RSVP and tell them thanks, but no the fall. That's how our last code was written, and the thanks.Because every student voice that'snmomentaily results were not exactly successful. considered in the code-writing process, the easier it Among the problems in the current proposal, there becomes to justify a poor process and a poorer final are several specific concerns: document. Don't be the scapegoat for an oppressive 1) Most students aren't on campus during the codeinthefuture-anddon'tlegitimizethesemethods summer.Whileitmaybemoreefficienttodoitnow,the and procedures. interests of the governed won't beaddressed. Also, the Pleasejoinme,MSA andotherstudentgroups inthis Daily isn't around full time to document an open and stand for student rights. public process. Iamoften told that participating inthe drafting ofthe 2) The process isnot inclusive: input fiomminority code is not an issue of democratic involvement in our groups is gathered as if an item on a checklist. Among own governance. Together, let's try to change that. the group of four, minorities are not well represented, -Elison is the chair of the Michigan Student nor are undergraduates. Many have said that Assembly StudenttRights Commission. Meetingsfor undergraduate students didn't generally understand discussion of the code will take place at 9:30 p.m. anything about conduct codes, so it often became on Tuesday ttights at MSA throughout the sunter. by Matt Wimsatt // f 1A ...-- -- Racis'm is liatent The recent discovery of hidden racist messages printed in high school yearbooks in both Connecticut and Bloomfield Hills should come as no surprise to anyone. It is absurd and dangerous to believe that racism is a thing of the past or that it is contained to only certainsregions. Racismlives and thrives hidden in the hearts of many, and it surfaces itself in coded messages everyday. What greaterexampleofthe prevalenceofracism thantwoinstancesofgraduatingseniorsfromwealthy suburbs inputting messages such as "KillAllNiggers" into their yearbooks. More proof that formula of "money plus education" does not always equal "sophistication" - sometimes it produces nothing but pure trash. Due to the slip up of these scumbags America is taking another hard look at the ugly underbelly beneath its spacious skies and amber waves of grain and wondering - how could this have happened? If high schools can help students master the complexities of chemistry and biology, why can't they teach the simple concept that it is wrong to hate someone based on the color of their skin? Regardless of whether bigotry and prejudice are learned on the streets or in the homes, our nation's schools should show no tolerance for its purveyors. Schools needto take these incidents asa serious sign that they need to rethink their approach to teaching concepts like bigotry, prejudice and multiculturalism.Officials at Lasher High in Bloomfield seem baffled as to how their students could have committed such a heinous act. After all, the school sponsors special fieldtrips tothe Holocaust center, a multicultural retreat for students, and even a half-semester course about prejudice. While these programs certainly mean well, they are simply not enough. Lessons about prejudice and multiculturalism need not be isolated from other classroom subjects. Given only in small occasional doses, these lectures are all too easily forgotten. Instead, core social science courses such as English and history should incorporate a multicultural teaching approach. It is indeed a form of institutionalized racism to teach the social sciences exclusively from a Eurocentric perspective. Yet, many high schools omit African history from the curriculum and rarely assign books from minority authors. Schools that limit theircourses to studying only European culture must realize that they are providing an environment that actually fosters racism through ignorance. By not focusing on contributions of minorities, our educational system is sending out the message that these groups are not important enough for study - that they have accomplished nothing. Quite the contrary. In fact, I wish all high school students were requiredtoreadRalph Ellison's"ThelnvisibleMan" and MayatAngelou's "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings'The sheer power oftthese two talented African American writers, it seems to me, could defeat even the coldest, lowest form of racists and erase any doubts in the capabilities of African Americans. Unfortunately, if Republican state legislators had their way, writers like Ellison and Anglou might never appear in classrooms. Ironically, the controversy in Bloomfield Hills occurred in conjunction with a hotly contested debate over a proposed new statewide English curriculum for high schools that stresses multiculturalism. Republican opponents claim that incorporating different ethnicities will detract too much from classic Americantexts.(Apparently we'retobelieveAmerica consists solely of a homogenous breed, and learning about other cultures is not something that should occur in the Great Melting Pot.) Could it be thatifor these Republicans "American" means "white?" This glaring misconception is self defeating. The study of American culture is that of Africans, Asians and Hispanics. A true education would recognize and seek to include these groups. Maybethenracismwillonlybe adisantmemory preserved in a dusty old yearbook.