PACE SIX . - . THE MICHIGAN DAILY bAY, APR.TT; 9.?_ 1 n PAGE sir THE MICHIGAN DAILY TTJE~DAY. APIflT. P~ Ii r - I. w~ A rrI (PAID ADVERTISEMENT) 0 4 A Sta ement of cts We, the students who have been accused of violating a University regulation because of alleged connections with the McPhaul dinner, wish to make the following statement: We contend we did not break any University regulation. We exercised our constitutional right as citizens to hear a speaker at a private dinner. We could not possibly have violated the regulation in question, which reads: No permission for the use of University property for meetihgs or lectures shall be granted to any student organization not recognized by University authorities, nor shall such permission be granted to any in- dividual student. As it is now written, this regulation is a restriction upon the discretion of University authorities to grant the use of University property. Since no student is in any position to grant permission for the use of University property, he can- not possibly violate this regulation. If anyone is guilty, it is the individual or individuals who gave permission for the use of the room in the Union. Secondly, we have been taught to believe in a govern- ment of laws and not of men. This means that laws should be enforced impartially and in a non-discriminatory manner. In our case, however, the opposite seems true. Though we have been told that the Union is University property and though the University regulations state that "the Committee on University Lectures is given jurisdiction over all public lectures and addresses held in University build- ings"" we.know that meetings and lectures have been held regularly both by students and non-students in the Michigan Union without the consent of the Lecture Committee. This rule has never been applied, at least to our knowledge, to those who rented rooms. Therefore we fail to see why it now should be applied to us. Those of us who attended this dinner merely heard a man speak. We conducted ourselves civilly, paid our dinner bill, and did not act in a disorderly manner. We stress this fact because while the University has been particularly zeal- ous in attempting to find a regulation which we allegedly have violated, it has at the same time decided to take no action against the students who participated in the riot of March 20. Yet those students destroyed private propery, invaded dormi- ories, brought out the whole Ann Arbor police force and vio- lated innumerable University rules. While we are not at all advocating that the University should punish those victims of "Spring-fever," we feel that its leniency in sucli a case indicates that the University uses a double standard. Thirdly, the University has indicated that in-as-much as it does not know who the host of the dinner is, it holds all those who attended it guilty. Some of us have been told that if it had this knowledge it would drop charges against the other participants. In other words, it is applying the prin- ciple of collective punishment in lieu of finding "the guilty one." Fourthly, we contend that the procedure used in invest tigating this case was quite arbitrary. While the University took six weeks to decide that a rule had been broken, it gave some of us an average of fifteen minutes to "defend" our- selves. Some of us were not permitted to make statements. Some of us were told we could only answer questions "yes" or "no'' or "I don't care to answer." We were placed in an atmosphere of intimidation. One of us asked whether the investigating committee realized it was intimidating students. He was told that students would be intimidated if necessary to enforce Unversity regulations. Some of us were asked many irrelevant questions, such as "Do you know ... . .?' Those questions made us believe that the University was trying to find some of us guilty by association. Our confidence was violated in that the special investigating committee handed the transcript of our testimony ovei- to the members of the Joint Judiciary Committee after giving us the impression that our testimony would be strictly private. The members of the Joint Judiciary Committee had copies of the testimony, but denied a copy to several of us who requested it for our de- fense. We further contend that the hearings represent politi- cal discrimination. The University saw fit in the case of Senator Taft to interpret liberally the rule which states that University regulations "are designed to serve the educational interests of the academic community rather than the political interests of any party or candidate." Yet it interpreted most stringently the rules in the case of Mr. McPhaul. In view of the above facts, we are appealing to the stu- dent body and to the faculty members for support. We urge everyone to contact President Hatcher asking that the charges be immediately dropped. Signed: JOAN BERLER MARGE BUCKLEY VALERIE COWEN SHELLEY ESTRIN GORDON MacDOUGALL DOROTHY MacKAY ETHEL SCHECHTMAN BOB SCHOR ED SHAFFER MIKE SHARPE STEVE SMALE We wish to thank the many students -and faculty members who so generously contributed for this Ad. - ;:: - - F w r ,£ . d y 1 A k, / enIII ul