Page 4 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, January 28, 1991
Sig 1Ach4Pan aIlTU
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
420 Maynard Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
NOAH FINKEL
Editor in Chief
DAVID SCHWARTZ
Opinion Editor
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Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board. All other cartoons,
signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily.
Michigan Mandate
Second phase only promises even more rhetoric
PRESIDENT JAMES DUDERSTADT
established the Michigan Mandate in
1987 under the pretense of creating a
"truly diverse" University community.
The mandate plan - which Duderstadt
stressed was not a blueprint, but a
"vision" of the future - aimed to
achieve this "diversity" by increasing
minority student enrollment and mi-
nority faculty hiring.
However, the Mandate's failures
since its inception show that it is little
more than rhetoric, designed to boost
the University's image instead of di-
versifying the community. The Man-
date's first phase did little to increase
minority presence on campus, and the
second phase announced by the admin-
istration last week hardly promises
more.
Phase one's only concrete result
was the creation of a committee which
focused almost exclusively on minority
recruitment. But in the quest to bring
more minorities to campus, the com-
mittee neglected to make sufficient ef-
forts to keep them here. The lack of at-
tention given to minority retention has
all but negated their efforts, and the
number of minority dropouts is twice
as high as the University average. As a
result, the actual number of minorities
at the University has hardly increased
since 1987. Duderstadt's "vision" of a
multicultural University proved to be
little more than a fantasy.
On paper, phase two is almost iden-
tical to phase one. The Council on a
Multicultural University, established
last fall, will supposedly address issues
of gender, disability and nationality.
But no formal plans for action are on
the agenda, as with the first committee,
and the potential for stagnation still
exists.
Concrete action by the University is
the only way to truly increase minority
representation on campus. This means
ear-marking more funds for minority
scholarships and four-year financial aid
packages, tackling the growing prob-
lem of minority retention, and doing
more to create a campus atmosphere in
which minority students and faculty
feel welcome.
Tokenism and insincere gestures
toward minority students will not
achieve true diversity the University.
The administration must make this
campus more attractive to prospective
minority students and faculty mem-
bers, which can only be achieved by a
genuine change in the status quo.
Perhaps the second phase of the
Mandate will surprise us. The new
committee could correct the mistakes
of phase one, and real progress toward
adequate minority representation may
be just around the comer.
Students should hope for such a
possibility, and should keep a watchful
eye on the actions of the new commit-
tee. But if the ineffectiveness of the
first phase is any indication of what is
to come, students should brace them-
selves for more disappointment.
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Memorial destruction shows hypocrisy of war suppporters
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Mandate also neglects gays, lesbians and bisexuals
IN ADDITION TO THE INADEQUATE
plans of the Michigan Mandate to deal
with minority representation, the
proposal also neglects to address one
of society's most oppressed groups -
lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals.
The University, through its pro-
gramming, directives, and even by-
laws, consistently ignores the issue of
sexual orientation, and thus discrimi-
nates against this segment of the cam-
pus population. University by-law
14.06 states: "(The University) shall
strive to build a diverse community in
which opportunity is equal for all per-
sons regardless of race, sex, color, re-
ligion, creed, national origin or ances-
try, age marital status, handicap, or
Vietnam-era veteran status."
Despite the efforts of lesbian, gay
and bisexual activists, the by-law does
not include the words "sexual orienta-
tion." The regents have consistently
refused requests to amend the by-law,
and Regent Deane Baker (R-Ann Ar-
bor) has specifically expressed an
unwillingness to do so. Although the
by-law does nothing more than state a
policy of non-discrimination, the Uni-
versity still refuses to taking a stand
against intolerance and bigotry that af-
fects an estimated 10 percent of the
population.
The Michigan Mandate's new sec-
ond phase addresses students of color,
as well as women, students with dis-
abilities and students of various na-
tionalities. As with 14.06, the plight of
gay, lesbian and bisexual students is
ignored.
The University administration's in-
sensitive attitude towards this group
also shows up in the gross underfund-
ing of the Lesbian-Gay Male Programs
Office (LGMPO), which provides a
number of services to these students.
Massive budget cuts in September
forced the LGMPO to make major
cutbacks in the services they offer.
If the University administration
truly wants to establish a community in
which all of its members can live,
work and learn without the obstacle of
discrimination, it must address the
segment of the population which is
among the most persecuted. Gay, les-
bian and bisexual students must be
protected under bylaw 14.06, and the
University must increase funding for
the LGMPO. The protection of all
students must be a priority in all the
University's directives, including the
Mandate.
By John Cahill and
Lorraine Bayard-De Volo
In the wee hours of Martin Luther
King Day, several students clandes-
tinely "honored" this great man of
peace by maliciously destroying the
"War Memorial," which was con-
structed several days before on the Diag.
The irony of the timing of this act was
compounded by the fact that they did
this act in the name of our soldiers, who
are purportedly fighting to protect our
freedoms.
The anonymous perpetrators of this
cowardly act felt compelled to trample
on the basic first amendment freedom of
expression in order to show their support
for the U.S. war effort. While they have
succeeded in silencing this particular
expression of dissent, they unwittingly
created an eloquent symbol of the in-
tolerance that permeates this, the home
front of the "new world order."
These self appointed "thought po-
lice" justify there actions by claiming
that they were protecting us from a work
that "appalled" them and was "too
graphic and unnecessarily violent." The
sad truth is that war is infinitely more
appalling and "unnecessarily violent"
than any representation can convey.
Our very point was to appall, outrage
and sicken people. If these images are
unbearable would not the better re-
sponse be to seek the immediate cessa-
tion of the slaughter?
Those who worked on the
"Memorial," though holding diverse
views and interpretations of the Gulf
war, share a common concern that the
campus community should be prompted
to consider the wide-ranging and often
indiscriminate death and destruction
that is the consequence of war - par-
ticularly an "air war" of unprecedented
Bayard-De Volo and Cahill are Rackham
graduate students of Political Science.
Rally fliers misleading
To the Daily:
The fliers and posters distributed
across campus pictured an American
flag and read "Show our troops your
support! Rally: Saturday the 19th on
the DIAG!"
On the appointed day, my roommate
and I arrived at the rally at noon and
immersed ourselves into the flag-waving
crowd. It was a perfect day for a rally,
unusually warm and clear for this time
of year, and we were psyched to be
there. Finally, we thought, the students
on the campus are visibly organizing
themselves in support of U.S. interven-
tion in the Middle East!
At least, that was what we thought
until someone handed us another flier
that read "Support our soldiers. Bring
them home safely now!" We looked at
each other in disbelief. The crowd was
rallying against U.S. intervention! How
could we have made such a mistake? ,
We looked again at the original flyer.
No where on the advertisement did it
mention who was sponsoring the event.
Furthermore, the slogan "Show our
troops your support" was misleading. It
in no way conveyed the intentions of the
sneakers and ornnizers of that ral. In
We feel compelled to respond to Ben
Brasilow's charge in his Jan. 23 letter to
the Daily that we have "trampled on the
fears, hopes and feelings of this campus'
Jewish community" by including a
"Menorah and a Star of David" on the
"Memorial." In fact, the Star of David
appeared on an Israeli flag placed there
following the first missile attack on Tel
Aviv by a participant of the vigil in sup-
port of Israel. Though the overwhelming
number of victims in this war are and
will be Arab Muslims we do recognize
that Jews in all parts of the Middle East,
including thousands of Iraqi Jews, are
potential victims of this war.
For some the lesson of Vietnam is to
destroy the Iraqi "enemy" as quickly as
possible while suspending ethical con-
cerns. We draw another lesson: that
civilian deaths are all too easily ig-
nored. We sought to go beyond the
Vietnam War Memorial in Washington
Lette.rs
The Daily encourages
responses from its readers.
Letters should be 150
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school and phone number.
They can be mailed to:
The Michigan Daily, 420
Maynard, Ann Arbor
48109, or they can be sent
via MTS to "The Michigan
Daily." The Daily reserves
the right to edit letters for
style and space.
Students should oversee
new University police force
To the Daily:
Student skepticism of President Dud-
erstadt's professed concern for campus
safety is fully justified. Very few staff
live on campus as Duderstadt does, but
many students do. If they felt that an
armed police force commanded by Dud-
erstadt would make the campus a safer
place, they would be demonstrating in
favor of such a force, not against it.
portunism of this war is obvious. Why
does Washington feel compelled to dd-
stroy Kuwait and Iraq in the name of
"liberating" them, when the United
States has not felt compelled to
"liberate" other countries occupied for
decades - Tibet, East Timor, Kurdistan,
Cyprus, South Africa, Northern Ireland,
to name just a few. If the world has
tolerated 45 years of Israeli and
American intransigence in arriving at an
equitable resolution of the Palestinian
issue, why give up on diplomacy over
Kuwait after only five months?
This is a call to resist the war efforts
of our government and to uphold the
value of dissent that must be a center-
piece of any free society. It is also a
reminder that support for this war carries
with it responsibility for its conse-
quences. If the consequences include
the mass murder of civilians and troops,
we feel such support is unconscionable.
intensity and destructive capacity. This
expressed a revulsion at the jingoistic
euphoria exhibited by many Americans
in the initial hours of the war at the
"success" of "surgical strikes," despite
the high probability of large-scale civil-
ian deaths from the bombing of chemi-
cal plants, nuclear reactors, and targets
situated in densely populated areas.
The "Memorial" was constructed so
that the massive loss of life of this war
would be recognized for its inhumanity
and never be forgotten. We protest the
killing and maiming of innocent civil-
ians from Baghdad to Tel Aviv and the
anachronistic policies that force young
men and women to perpetrate this
butchery.
by representing not only military victims
but also the much greater number of
civilian deaths caused by U.S. aggres-
sion. If the Vietnam memorial depicted
the full human cost of that war, and
honored civilian deaths, it would list
millions of Indochinese. It is to preempt
the need for any such memorials in the
future that we erected this memorial on
the Diag.
To set the record straight, we are not
pro-Saddam or anti-U.S. troops. We are
against the inconsistency and inhuman=
ity of American policy. If the U.S. gov-
ernment was truly concerned about de-
fending human rights it would not fund
most of the client states it supports in
the Third World. The hypocrisy and op-
The anonymous perpetrators of this cowardly act felt
compelled to trample on the basic first amendment
freedom of expression in order to show their support
for the U.S. war effort.
Duderstadt's political police should be
run off campus as soon as possible.
Robert C. Black
LSA graduate, 1973
Fight environmental racism
To the Daily:
The impact of our throw-away soci-
ety affects us all; air, water and land
pollution have all proved to cause seri-
ous health risks. Furthermore, studies
have shown that these environmental
problems affect minorities and the poor
disproportionately. This is called "En-
vironmental Racism."
From toxic waste sites in poor Black
neighborhoods to the pesticide-related
illnesses of Hispanic farm workers, it is
clear that direct action is needed to
combat this problem.
Walter Tomyn, the owner of Crystal
Salt Mines, Inc., recently bought several
abandoned salt mines under parts of
southwest Detroit, Melvindale, and
Allen Park. Tomyn plans to store tons of
hazardous waste there.
These communities are heavily popu-
lated, and have many apartments,
schools and parks. They are also located
dangerously close to the Detroit River.
This proiect may seem unbelievable.
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