The Michigan Daily - Monday, June 9, 2003 - 5 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Double the pleasure, double the standard JOHN HONKALA TOO EARLY IN THE SUN 'U' and SCOTUS need to stand up for diversity To THE DAILY: Though the NBC television special on the University's affir- mative action cases was adequate, it focused only on blacks (and whites), even though Latina/os (now the country's largest minori- ty) and Native Americans are also affirmative action recipients. But some University figures were even worse than NBC. Prof. Carl Cohen said there were better race relations back when there were fewer blacks in college. (Maybe more blacks calling him "sir?") Really! How many blacks would agree? And when has Cohen called for the rescinding of University alumnus admissions privileges, which go massively to whites? When some of us last year publicly called for the University to consid- er appointing the first minority (or woman) permanent president in its history, where was "desegregation- ist" Cohen? Or does he luxuriate in a white male status quo? And as for the University administration, especially after choosing white male Terrence McDonald to be LSA dean, the University will owe us, and the United States, a very serious explanation if they don't choose a woman or underrepresented minority to be the new Law School dean, seeing how well- qualified the two women, and one minority, candidates are. If we can't truly practice diversity, why should the U.S. Supreme Court believe anything we say? Must we create the impression that we're afraid to appoint a talented, out- spoken figure like Randall Kennedy, the black Harvard Law School professor? Fear, like mind- lessness, is not a viable option. Justice Lewis Powell was any- thing but mindless; his brilliant "diversity, but not quotas" Regents of the University .of California v. Bakke pro-affirmative action deci- sion is his monument and should rest undisturbed. (One prays, hard, that Justice O'Connor - or any Justice - does not try to become chief justice by selling out Powell, Bakke and the United States in order to curry White House favor.) And we would best honor Powell's greatness by integrating the Uni- versity hierarchy further, and now. "Justice delayed is justice denied." - Martin Luther King, Jr. DAVID BOYLE Alumnus Real reform needed in Palestinian leadership ( TO THE DAILY: As someone who cares deeply about the Middle East and hopes to see a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, I find it alarming that there hasn't been any commotion regarding the recent "reforms" in the Palestinian Author- ity. Specifically the fact that these forced reforms, which were enacted to promote democracy and end cor- ruption in the Palestinian Authority, have for the most part done nothing to change the situation. I agree with the point made by many that Yassir Arafat's rule has been largely undemocratic and plagued with corruption. I also agree that a Palestinian prime min- ister and new cabinet were needed in order to alleviate these prob- lems. However, the selection of Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian prime minister was a major mis- take. Abbas is known all over the occupied territories as one of the most corrupt members of the Palestinian Authority, who has even used his position in govern- ment to give businesses owned by himself and his friends monopo- lies in industries such as gasoline importation. This would be the equivalent of Enron heading a commission to end corporate cor- ruption in the United States. To make matters worse, Abbas holds very little popular support among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (4 percent according to a recent CNN report). It is also disturbing to con- stantly see the media describe Abbas as "Washington's guy" or "Tel Aviv's guy," but never as Hebron,Ramallah oreJerusalem's guy. The Israeli government has constantly talked of the need for a democratic Palestinian leadership, but has never once mentioned hav- ing an open election amongst the Palestinian people to decide who should be the Palestinian prime minister. The current undemocrat- ic nature of the Palestinian Authority isn't being cited by Israel in order to correct the prob- lem and help the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state, but rather to discredit and hurt the Palestinian cause. For the sake of a just and lasting peace in the Mid- dle East, itsis vital to have a Pales- tinian government that is elected by and accountable to the Palestin- ian people before any other. MOHAMMED ELGHOUL LSA junior Vice Chair StudentsAlliedfor Freedom and Eauality magine a power- ful, high-ranking public official from Detroit notori- ous for his penchant to have a few too many cold ones. In fact, let's say that penchant has earned that prominent offi- cial a citation for driving under the influence and the embarrassment of stranding a city car on some deserted Delray railroad tracks after a night on the bottle. And let's say this fellow is not shy about his drinking and prefers to joke about it with his "posse" of city wags and buddies in the press. Let's also assume this black Democrat has wiggled his way out of a few other alco- hol-related scraps that none of us know about. Imagine this badass elected offi- cial has no problem boozing it up with his boys and bragging about getting kicked out of restaurants. If there really were such a man, you can bet that beyond the kneejerk Coleman Young comparisons this man would be dragged through the mud by the media and most of Michigan's suburban popu- lace, and that a recall vote would be short- ly forthcoming. Not that he wouldn't deserve it; that sort of behavior is simply unacceptable from an elected official. But now let's change Detroit to Oak- land County, Delray to Pontiac and black Democrat to white Republican. One would hope that our reaction wouldn't change, that we wouldn't look the other way and chalk up those actions to the man's "irreverence" and "color." Sadly, that's precisely the reac- tion that Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson's latest brush with the law is getting. He was caught again last Monday night, weaving all over the road in his county-owned Cadillac. My favorite part about this is that Pat- terson is trying to explain this away by claiming he made the mistake of mixing painkillers with alcohol. Oh really? A mis- take? Now, I'm not saying that Brooksie likes to mix his downers, but then again you'd have to be living in a hole not to realize that mixing the two is going to give you one hell of a buzz. Sounds to me like he's got a bit of a drinking problem (for which he should seek help) and one big fat ego (for which he should also seek help). Lucky for Patterson, the friendly police officers on the scene gave him a lift home and called ita night. But unfortunately for the rest of us, all of the above - the restaurant behavior, the DUI, the railroad tracks-- all happened to Patterson. Yet, he remains in office unsullied by scandals that would ruin the careers of other men. Meanwhile, Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick finds himself embroiled in a scandal that is quickly turning him into a cross between ex-Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley and Tupac Shakur. What Kil- patrick did - firing the deputy chief heading an investigation of a party the mayor allegedly threw at the Manoogian Mansion - was just plain stupid. We should know what really happened. But unlike Patterson's latest brush with the law (which by the way actually endan- gered other people's lives), Kilpatrick's misconduct is a) alleged, and b) being blown so far out of proportion that the scandal is threatening to further taint Detroit's already infected national reputa- tion. He has been called a "thug" and an embarrassment to the city. Kilpatrick will survive, but his reputation may not. The difference here is that Patterson doesn't have a so-called posse (ie. big black friends) or a diamond earring. He isn't from Detroit, and most of all he's not black, he's white. Sure he gets his fair share of tsk tsks and head shakes, but he throws in a one-liner about his golf swing and everything is okay. Patterson, they say, can joke his way out of anything. Well, I for one am not laughing. Say what you will about Kwame's alleged misconduct, but I'd take a Manoogian Mansion party any day over a repeat drunken driver tooling around suburban streets in a tax-funded Cadillac. Forgive me if I'm making this too sim- ple. But from here, I see a white man with a history of drunkenly misbehaving, breaking the law and endangering others getting described as "colorful." Mean- while, Detroit's black mayor is being dragged through the mud and called "thuggish." You can't pretend that some- thing's not afoul there. Honkala can be reached at jhonkala@umich.edu. It's a good thing DANIEL ADAMS ADVANTAGE? PUs. This week, a half-empty social sched- ule has left me watching a lot of television. I expect- ed to watch my summer ration of unintelligent and completely harm- less cable TV. What I got was even better - the round-the-clock cover- age of Martha Stewart and her legal troubles. Watching her get hauled off to jail was oddly gratifying, like watching the witch melt in "The Wiz- ard of Oz." Yeah, you loved it too - I can't find a single person who didn't take the same perverse pleasure in watching her arrest. There's no real reason for my dislike of Stewart as I've never really watched her show, or really paid any attention to her at all. Up until tonight, I couldn't even tell you what she did wrong. No matter, because there is a separate list of charges the United States has against the defendant. Ms. Stewart is charged with the following: She's perfect to a fault and never with a hair (or a spat- ula) out of place. Her cookies never burn. Her linens do not stain. Her plants do not die. She reminds every working house- wife that her valiant efforts undoubtedly fall short when compared to Martha's robotic efficiency and skill. But most importantly, she is an aggressive business owner, who hap- pens to be a woman. That bitch. Sure, the real charges are insider trad- ing. But how many Securities and Exchange Commission cases generate this kind of media coverage or public interest? Unlike Enron, Arthur Andersen and Adelphia, there isn't a sense that Americans take issue with the crime at hand. Insider trading doesn't really res- onate with most people - it's easy to do - understandable even. C'mon, if some- one gave you advice that would prevent you from losing thousands of dollars, you'd probably take that gamble. Besides, this incident pales in com- parison to the kind of dishonest activi- ty that slips (ha!) through the system all the time with much less fanfare. I'm not even speaking in legal terms here - I'm just talking about the kind of malicious, horribly abusive, down- sizing crap that this proud nation was built on. Rejoice that Enron was caught in the act, but realize that Enron was one of many. Undoubtedly, there are bigger fish out there than Martha Stewart, but there are none that are quite as fun to catch. Is this fascination with nailing Stewart connect- ed with the current public intolerance of corporate scandals? I doubt it. No, this is a personal vendetta. The real fun in all of this is watching Martha Stewart, the wholly unlikable succubous of a house- wife, be escorted around in handcuffs. Congressional leaders are itching to get a piece of this woman in a way not seen even after the Enron flunkies turned boxes of evidence into pulp. At the bottom of this, my real issue with Stewart isn't the crime she com- mitted; more likely, I just don't like to see a powerful, ambitious, aggressive woman succeed. How do I know that? Ask yourself how you would feel if she were a man - suddenly the words usually associated with Martha Stew- art like "anal retentive" and "abusive" become instead "hard driving" and "competitive." If Martha Stewart had a penis, we wouldn't all be collectively calling her "that bitch;" we'd be buy- ing her book. This all seems connected to the recent exposure civil rights have got- ten in the public debate. People are talking again about racial discrimina- tion in the workplace and in society as a whole. But left out of this discussion have been the rights of women, as though their struggle ended with Title IX and Hillary Clinton. It has not. Women are still paid less than men and in the case of Stewart, respected far less than men. Stewart built her empire from the ground up and gave a sense of pride and style to millions of viewers. So powerful was her name recognition that it gave even the stan- dard K-Mart fare credibility. By male standards, she would still be respected as a captain of industry, a leader. Unfortunately for Stewart, she's a woman. Given the tone of the public, that seems to be the most serious charge against her. Adams can be reached at dnadams@umich.edu.