What we must remember in this discussion is that the Arb is owned by the University and is intended for "everyone to enjoy and use." Army and Air Force ROTC cadets (I'm not sure if Navy ROTC midshipmen train in the Arb) use the Arb to supplement th eir training in valuable exercises. These exercises allow these hard-working cadets to prepare for active duty service in the U.S. military. The security of the nation and its allies will someday depend on these future leaders.
Besides this, these cadets should be respected for what they are doing - serving their country, something which is no longer a first priority of many Americans.
Holzhacker brings up the fact that he was concerned about possible paramilitary group activity in the Arb.
Here's a quick lesson in how you can distinguish between paramilitary organizations and the U.S. military: When cadets or active duty members are wearing their battle dress uniform (BDUs) - the camouflage fatigues they were wearing in the Arb - look over the left breast pocket. If the tape says "U.S. Army" or "U.S. Air Force," etc., you're dealing with the real thing! It's really quite simple.
What we need to realize here is that these cadets are students who work hard to someday serve their country on active duty. They are not people to be shunned and pushed aside. They should be respected. As long as these ROTC training exercises do no t harm the physical plant and wildlife of the Arb, why must Holzhacker be concerned? I suggest he find something else to complain about.
Aaron Brooks
Engineering junior
No. 1. To avail university access to individual students who, as racial minorities in a historically racist culture, have been systematically denied the educational opportunities of the majority.
No. 2. To increase the presence, both in number and in spirit, of minority students on campus as a means of displacing negative stereotypes with individual realities, with the further hope of not only teaching tolerance but also cultivating an appre ciation of diversity.
The first mission seeks to rectify individual inequities, while the latter endeavors to reform, through education, the system that created the imbalances in the first place.
The most commonly articulated argument against affirmative action is that it is as racist to admit students on the basis of their color as it is to reject students on that same basis. Some contend that since there are only a limited number of spaces in a given student body, the race-based acceptance of one student is a race-based rejection of another.
While these arguments may appear rhetorically sound, they oversimplify our present reality. Inherent in cries of "reverse racism" is a very particular notion of what it means for one student to be "more qualified" than another. Even the seemingly mo st objective standard, the SAT, is subject to the artificial disparities created by professional test preparation - a mostly white upper middle class institution - as well as by the cultural bias of the exam itself.
In my experience, lack of easy access to education is at least as good a predictor of "success" in college as correct replies to a handful of analogies. If we simply began to appreciate the perseverance and ingenuity of students who have overcome so ciety-rooted obstacles such as racism, classism, disability-bias, ageism, sexism and homophobia (not to mention acute personal struggles which lack even the refuge of a named "-ism") and the potential value of their unique perspectives, then we coul d dispense of "affirmative action" as a matter of politically correct policy, while continuing to make racially-informed admissions decisions, simply in keeping with our values and beliefs.
If we are ever to realize the vision of a peaceful and just society, then we must curb the urge to couch advances in civil rights as "their gain is my loss." When one student receives an opportunity, all of us are participating in progress, in real izing a vision, in insuring that each of us has the resources to make her or his contribution, whatever that may be. When it comes to equality, let's have the courage to think big.
Jill Halpern
Rackham
To the Daily:
This letter is written in response to the article "Bollinger announces plan to move out of Fleming" (4/9/97). I'd like to address the decision of President Bollinger to move the administrative offices out of the Fleming Administrative Building "into the center of campus."
Apparently, Bollinger feels that this will "symbolize Bollinger's desire to bring the administration closer to the student body." To me, it symbolizes the students losing out to the bureaucracy once again. In order to accomplish his "symbolic" goal, he would have to displace a major section of the classrooms located on central campus, in order to fit the entire administrative staff. Those classrooms, logic would dictate, would be relocated to the Fleming building. So, now the administration is more accessible, but the classrooms are not. This makes no sense whatsoever. Is this symbolic plan really more important than the students being able to have more classes on central campus?
Bollinger's desire to make the administration more accessible seems like a reasonable goal, but not if its going to inconvenience more students in the process. Especially considering that no internal modifications of that inaccessible administration have been mentioned. Relocating the offices won't change what goes on inside them.
Also, I don't think Bollinger really understands the problems students have with the administration inaccessibility. It's not that the building is located so far away from campus that students don't want to walk all the way there (it's across the st reet from Angell Hall) or that the architecture is so imposing that students won't enter. It is that the current administrative bureaucracy is inaccessible because of red tape and paperwork, not walking distance or architecture.
It's quite clear that Bollinger's plan to move the administrative offices is symbolic, but nothing more. Instead of symbolizing a change in procedure, perhaps Bollinger's time and the student's tuition dollars would be better served in actually chan ging procedure, instead of relocating the problem closer to the students. The stone walls of the Fleming building that have shielded the administration may come down, but the walls of red tape beneath them will be equally impenetrable.
Steve Horwitz
LSA first-year student