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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 21, 1958)
Student Court Unnecessary Back to committee this week {joes the proposal for a "student judiciary board." The ASUO senate last Thursday twice passed in favor of the board "in principle." This does not mean, however, that the sen ate necessarily will formulate a student court. What then does it mean? Evidently it means that most of the senators rather like the idea of "peers judging peers," which is the slogan that backers of the student judi ciary board idea have tagged onto the plan. The Emerald last week advised against adopting the proposed board. After studying the proposal further, we are even more con vinced of our previous stand: the proposed board—if it should ever be put into effect— is not needed and would not be, by any stretch of the imagination, more effective or efficient than the present discipline set up. Persons who favor the plan, we feel, have not examined it closely. This is es pecially evident among members of the senate. When the proposal was brought up in the last meeting, a quick vote "on prin ciple" was passed with only two nay votes after no discussion. Few senators question ed the general idea of the plan until they be gan -to work their way through the pro posed court’s constitution article by article. Finally, during a recess, it became apparent to remaining senators that the entire idea should be studied more carefully before wading blindly into technicalities. Even tually, after moving back through "Robert's Rules of Order" red tape, the senate voted to reconsider the whole idea "in principle." On the second "principle" vote, the ayes won again, but only by a 12-7 margin (a number of senators had left the meeting; by this time.) Then, too. on this second vote, at least a few of the senators spoke against the proposal. The chief objection to the plan has been raised by senators Duncan Ferguson and George Brittingham. Their point was this: Couty backet’s of the plan offer one good reason to formulate such a board? The backers replied that the proposed board was "an extension of student government" that would institute a more healthy "peers judg ing peers" atmosphere in student discipline cases. But these rather weak arguments are weakened even further by the fact that three students already sit on the present student faculty discipline committee. Any student who appears before a dean has the right to take his case before this committee. Hence, “peers” already judge “peers" when a stu dent wants “peer judgment." (Indications are that few students would really want “peer judgment”—in the present student faculty committee, faculty members often have had to lessen a punishment suggested by the student members.) The present discipline set-up is more ef fective and efficient than any purely student board could hope to be. W e hope the com mittee that is considering the proposal will examine it carefully. We think they’ll find the proposed student judiciary board is un necessary. * * * Footnotes Latest sign to adorn a small foreign car: Please Don’t Crush Me, I Eat Harmful Insects. Our Oontem, \poranei Propaganda Tests (Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from the April 12 issue of The Economist of London.) Last week President Eisen hower admitted that, although in his view the Russran abandon ment of nuclear tests was just a “gimmick,” not to be taken seriously, yet he might have been mistaken when he refused to try and counter-attack its undoubted propaganda value by explaining in advance why the United States itself might sus pend nuclear testing unilaterally and unconditionally after the series which is to begin later this month. Whether or not American testing will actually be abandoned depends officially on whether or not the coming series gives the scientists all the information they want. But it looks as if, when the mater next comes before the National Security Council, the President will move over to the side of those who put political and psychological considerations ahead of military ones in the matter; according to reports this group is headed by Mr. Dulles, while the Secretary of Defense and the head of the Atomic Energy Commission lead those who insist that military needs must come first. This disagreement, it is said, explains the lack of initiative and imagination in the Admin istration’s approach to the sus pension of nuclear tests, a ques tion which has been under dis cussion for two years. But even now the President is trying to avoid taking the final decision; he has ordered his advisers to present him with an agreed view on this and other aspects of dis armament policy by. the end of the month. There is a good military case for the coming series of tests— and a good psychological one, too, if only it had been presented before the Russians seized the limelight. Warheads for the long-range missiles on which American defense depends in creasingly are to be tested and so are small atomic weapons for tactical use. The emphasis will be on “clean” explosions, which do not spread radioactivity. Only those who oppose all nuclear tests on principle, such as the international group of distinguished scientists and citi zens who have filed suit in a Washington court against the Secretary of Defense and the AEC, argue that the coming series should be abandoned. To do that, even critics of the Ad ministration realize, would be to give the Russians, who have just finished their owrn annual series of tests, a real as well as a propaganda victory. Many of these critics are, however, urging that, as a counter-propaganda move, the United States should publicize the “dirtiness” of the Russian tests which are alleged to have brought a record amount of radioactive fallout around the world. But the AEC opposes such a campaign, partly because it claims that the facts could not be given without exposing its secret system of collecting in formation and partly because that information will not have fully assessed for months—and w’hen it is the notorious Amer ican tests of 1954 may turn out to have been more noxious. Letters to the Editor Emerald Editor: The Emerald's recent series of letters discussing the contro versial nuclear weapons testing has been of great interest to many persons. I would like to offer my opinion on a subject which I feel has a bearing on this controversy but which has a much more general applica tion. This subject is the position of the scientist as an instrument in the development of public opinion. Dr. Pauling and the signers of his now-famous petition are outstanding examples of the po sition in which the American scientist finds himself. A sci entist is paid to objectively ac mumulate, analyze, and inter pret data concerning a given problem. Seldom on the basis of these objective results is there any emotional dispute as to the validity of the findings. The data are published in jour nals and newspapers, and thus the result of scientific investi gations is made available to the general public. If someone should discover a variable which had been neglected, or improve a technique, or prove a theory which challenges the interpreta ton of the data, we accept these changes, and in the scientific world these changes are called progress. At any given time, scientists as well as societies can only function within the limits of their knowledge. The effect of radiation on liv ing organisms has been of sub ject of intense study in recent years, and to date radiation bi ologists have concluded essen tially two facts. (1) Any amount of radiation has certain detri mental effects on the living (Continued on page 3) Subtle Pressure ¥ PlRt HOSfc J1 "I liSTA HAVE SO MUCH TKOiaLE 6EUIN6 'THEM IN Ai'OOSWG HOURS— WiLLVOU 'TURN ON THE WATER, MAE:" 2)ai/e ClAA Latest Anonymous Brochure Lacks Reason, Responsibility One morning last week I found, instead of the usual, cheery campus daily, an unusual publication serving as reading matter with my breakfast. This was a mimeo graphed tract, which Informed me, "HO HUM ITS ELEC T I O N T I M K OK APATHY ARISE.” Heading fur ther, I discov ered th;it thin was th«* inspired title for a fair example of writ ten gabble. Ostensibly its pur pose was to arouse an apathetic student body to the creeping control of the student govern ment by a malicious administra tion. My immediate reaction was to connect this sheet with the Committee for Action, a group with similar purposes and meth od* that circulated coni|mrahle foolish disgruntlement last term. My suspicion seemed to is* con firmed by a comparison of print and by the parallel use of broken Knglish. ■ In this regard, before the group!?) becomes permanently deactivated by reason of ex pulsion ion academic and not political grounds) I would sug gest two improvements: first, that they) ?) borrow or steal a typewriter that strikes capitals, and second, that they! ?) sit in on a few comp classes, or, bet ter yet, secure a copy of Rudolph Flesch’s “The Art of Plain Talk." (The question mark is inserted because I doubt that any collective mind would be so ignorant as to use such bar barisms as "to” for “too,” “vigorus" for “vigorous,” "is” for “are,” . . .) Of course, I did wonder at this pathetic use of English by a group attempting to influence college students. Speculation has led me to believe that this was perhaps a foreign group some latter-day followers of Bakunin who, instead of the philosophical pleas "property is theft,” are organized under the banner “the administration is a thief.” I await the dynamiting of John son Hail or the assassination of certain notables—not without a certain amount of glee! The one message I did get from this garbled communi|i tlon Han Hint it Hui unti-ad ministration and that it was at tempting to draw some tenuous relationship between the fail ings of student government and this ogre, the administration. For this reason it hardly re quires serious consideration. A belief in simple anti mistaken cause-effect relationships arises from simple and mistaken think ing. I'm reminded of certain Seattle new* commentator whose sole basis of analysis was the belief that the "Papal Con spiracy," not international com munism, was the biggest threat to the free world. People listened to him because he was ludicrous. Now, I’m not an apologist for the administration or student government. But a mixture of fact, falsehood, hearsay, and the like sheds no light on the one thing about which this group is correct, namely, that there is something wrong with our stu dent government. In many ways student gov ernment is in a deplorable state. Signs of this would Is- a high school teacher coming to the de fense of an errant (and mis taken) senator (and fraternity brother), a student body that doesn’t give a tinker's dam, a raging ease of Victorian reac tion, and so on. It would he silly to claim that this has no rela tion to the administration and its policies, but to explain our troubles wholly or even mostly by such reference is even sillier. A more fruitful field of in quiry would be the many causes of the predominance of the Greek system, and the conse quence of this, the general dis (Continued on page .)) OREGON DAILY EMERALD The Oregon Daily Emerald i» published four times in September and five daya a week during the school year, except during examination and vacation periods, by the Student Publications Hoard of the Univer sity of Oregon. Entered as second class matter at the jwist office, Eugene, Oregon. Subscription rates: $5 per year, $2 per term. Opinions expressed on the editorial page are those of The Emerald and do not pre tend to represent the opinion of the ASUO or the University. ALLEN JOHNSON, Editor GARY CAPPS, Business Manager WILLIAM COOK, Editorial Page Editor JERRY RAMSEY, Managing Editor BILL BRYANT, Advertising Mgr. JACK WILSON, PHIL HAGER, Associate Editors PEPPER ALLEN, News Editor BOB MULL1N, Sports Editor
