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Thursday. June 5. 1975
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Desegregation dilemma
No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or
national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits
of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity
receiving federal financial assistance.
Title VI of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964
The exact meaning of the above
passage often evades federal and
state administrators responsible
for implementing this provision of
civil rights law. When officials at
the two levels disagree in their
interpretation, critical re
examination by both parties is
inevitable.
And so William Thomas of the
Atlanta office of HEW has called
for a review of the Revised North
Carolina State Plan for
desegregation of higher education.
Thomas contends that the decision
of the Consolidated University of
North Carolina to locate the
proposed veterinary school at N.C.
State University (and not at A&T
State University) violates the
desegregation plan by failing to
give equal resources to a
predominantly black institution. If
the proposal does not violate the
revised desegregation plan,
according to Thomas, then the
plan needs revising again.
The Consolidated University
contends that to build up to A&T
so it can accommodate the vet
school would duplicate programs
already available at N.C. State and
thereby perpetuate a dual system of
higher education that the civil
rights legislation is supposed to
end.
The legally required segregated
system of the 1950's has yielded to a
de facto system of "racially
identifiable" institutions schools
which can be classified as black or
white according to the race of the
majority of students. The ultimate
goal of HEW and the Civil Rights
Act of 1 964 is the elimination of the
dual system of black and white
schools. At the same time,
however, civil rights proponents
want to ensure predominantly
black schools of resources and
attention equal to that received by
predominantly white schools.
The dilemma facing the
University seems almost
unresolvable: while dismantling a
dual system the University must
The courts on marijuana
To the editor
Five Davidson College students
were recently arrested for
"manufacturing marijuana. These
students are . without exception
sane, mature individuals. They are
of above average intelligence and
far from socially maladjusted.
Each might ask, like
Solzhenitsyn or Kafka's K. (in The
Trial): "Why am I arrestedr And
the resonant voice of the law will
answer ominously: "For
manufacturing marijuana." And
the youths will endure the judicial
ritual of the American court
system.
The time has come to consider
the constitutionality of the issue.
The time has come for the
marijuana taws in North Carolina
and the United States to be shown
up as the farces they are. For
growing a strain of the cannabis
plant a plant whose, history goes
back 5,000 years, a plant which
undoubtedly was in the Garden of
Eden these young Americans are
also pay homage to the dual nature
of the system by maintaining
predominantly black schools at a
level equal to thaf- of
predominantly white schools.
Maintaining the present
approach cannot resolve the
dilemma. Black schools are
vestiges of the dual system; they are
not politically powerful enough to
get the same resources that white
schools enjoy.
Closing down black schools and
mandating that all schools have an
almost 80-20 ratio of whites to
blacks would resolve the dilemma
but at great loss to the black
community. North Carolina
Agricultural and Technical State
University has been a part of North
Carolina higher education since
1 89 1 . A&T and other black schools
have become part of the black
cultural experience just as Duke
and Wake Forest have become a
part of the community of North
Carolinians who prefer private to
public education. To eliminate
black schools is to eradicate a large
part of the black educational
experience.
To ensure that no one is "denied
the benefits of full educational
resources without destroying a
valuable segment of the black
community, the University must
build up black schools so that these
institutions can offer high quality
facilities and instruction. With
more resources, black schools may
be able to attract both black and
white students and permit an
evolution toward desegregation as
defined by racial ratios.
To that end the placement of the
proposed vet school at A&T, the
source of the newest controversy,
would enhance the resources and
reputation of a black school,
enabling it to seek national
prominence and both black and
white students, while replacing
some of the mediocre educational
resources offered to many black
students in North Carolina.
now under arrest.
Driveling Congressional
dialogue, unscientific data, and an
artificially manufactured media
scare by the Federal Bureau of
Narcotics (under Harry Anslinger)
combined to make possession of
preparations of the cannabis plant
a federal offense. Despite
opposition from the American
Medical Association and despite
the availability of volumes of
carefully documented research (by
the British government and the
U.S. Army to name a couple)
concluding that marijuana is
relatively harmless, the legislation
passed.
And despite volume upon
volume of objective data compiled
by scientists, sociologists, and
lawyers since that time
documenting- the fallacies of
popular marijuana myths and
emphasizing the unjust treatment
"offenders' must undergo, the
Klliott Warnock, managing editor Kalph Irace, contributing editor
I.ynn Medford, news editor
Jim ('rimsley, associate editor (;reg porter, features editor
Harriet Sugar, associate editor Jim Thomas, sports editor
Initialed or unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Tar Heel. Signed columns and
letters represent the opinion of
SG priorities wrong;
Chapel Hill or Hilton?
Student Government's new
promise to deliver is turning into a
miscarriage.
Bill Bates' cost-efficiency
platform seems meaningless in the
shadow of the new Summer Life
program he introduced and guided
through the Campus Governing
Council. In the spring both Bates
and the CGC favored large cuts in
the overall budget in order to
secure a surplus. Numerous
campus organizations dedicated to
cultural, intellectual and
educational affairs watched their
budgets being pared in the name of
economy. Now in the summer
Student Government has decided
to squander $3,500 of its surplus on
coffee and donuts and more free
flicks.
This is not to say that the entire
Summer Life package is worthless
or unnecessary. Weekend
checking, longer weekend hours
for the Carolina Union and Friday
night movies are all good ideas.
None of them should require
student fees.
Because of his large
constituency, the Student Body
president has great powers of
persuasion. This power could have
been used to urge the Carolina
U nion to experiment with weekend
free flicks. Spending limited
student monies to duplicate a
Union function, even in the name
of experimentation, is to substitute
money unwisely for negotiation
and jawboning. It would seem that
Student Government treasurer
Mike O'Neal is trying to duplicate
his Campus Program Council
(which provided movies to dorms)
within his new office.
basic tenets of the laws remain
prejudiced, parochial, and
downright unconstitutional.
In a country whose judicial
system purports to seek justice at
any cost, does it not seem ironic
that five students, arrested for
growing a plant which has never
been proven to be harmful, should
face imprisonment and fines of up
to five years and $5,000
respectively?
The municipal officials in the
town of Davidson and the county
of Mecklenburg now have the
chance to say to America and to the
higher courts: "These students are
guilty of nothing more than life,
liberty and the pursuit of
happiness!" Some local judge will
have his opportunity to say: "Not
guilty because of the
unconstitutionality of the
Marijuana lax Act of 1937 and
thus all marijuana legislation since
that time!"
The time has come.
Anson Vincent
Cole C. Campbell. Editor
individual contributors.
As for coffee and donuts and
other goodies for socials,
grumblings about the use of
Graduate and Professional
Student Federation funds for
departmental parties should have
indicated that students do not want
to see their fees devoured in social
settings. Even if students clamor
for edible returns, the president
ought to guide opinion away from,
a Chapel Hilton ice machine and
bubblegum mentality. Student
funds should provide for more
than beer kegs and party hats.
Active and effective organizations
expanding student consciousness
and culture must not suffer at the
hands of Suite C vendors.
Politics, even on a college
campus, breeds a strange
continuity. The progression of
leaders appears as a chain with no.
tangible links.
Consider the presidency of the
UNC student body. Marcus
Williams is succeeded by Bill Bates.
Marcus Williams is a black who
categorizes himself as a
"progressive liberal. Bill Bates is a
white who extols fiscal
conservatism.
There has been much
journalistic ballyhoo over an
alleged swing to the right on the
college campuses. New Times
called it the "straightening of
America as opposed to Charles
Reich's Greening of America, an
offshoot of the activism of the '60s.
The question on the Carolina
campus is whether or not this jump
from progressive liberal to fiscal
conservative reflects such a
straightening or is merely a piece of
circumstantial evidence. Bill Bates
strode into office on a cost
efficiency platform. Bates intends
to make Student Government
Remember the tuition hike?
What with Summer Life, the beach, beer parties and sitting by
the pool, there aren't many students worried about legislation
pending in Raleigh concerning the tuition hike. The spotlight on
the state house has dimmed somewhat over the past weeks.
But legislators are notorious for slipping controversial
legislation by a sleeping public, however, and if we the students
of this university don't want to wake up next fall with tuition
jacked up a couple hundred bucks, we'd better keep out eyes and
our letters directed toward our glorious capital. The devil does
his best work in the dark.
"deliver" which implies that
Marcus Williams' brand of
administration did not and cannot
deliver.
Marcus Williams is personally
indignant at the strong
implications of gross
administrative waste during his
term of office. "You can't sacrifice
quality for dollars and cents,
Williams has said.
"They brought up this thing
about how not using letterhead is
cheaper than using it," he added,
intimating that the quality and
class of the operation are closely
related to the results. At any rate,
the cost of stationery seems a trivial
concern in establishing Student
Government priorities.
The difference in these two
administrations is in their
definitions of "deliver." Bates ran
and won on a "cut-the-budget"
platform.
Williams strove for practical
student services, ranging from
student input into the Chapel Hill
bus system and bicycle registration
to the student health internship.
Our purpose here is not to
evaluate the accomplishments or
determine the quality of either
administration, but to delineate the
change of vision in Student
Government. If this apparent
change is indicative of the priorities
of the Bates and O'Neal
administration, then Student
Government is moving in the
wrong direction.
In charting the direction of
Student Government, we are faced
with the same question Williams
and Bates could argue at length,
the same question stuck on the tips
of a host of tongues as salivating
students peruse the "coffee-and-donuts"
provision of the Summer
Life bilk Do they deliver?