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Regents To Get Coed Escort Plan

Regents To Get Coed Escort Plan image
Parent Issue
Day
12
Month
June
Year
1969
Copyright
Copyright Protected
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

University President Robben W. Fleming will
take up a proposal for an escort service for coeds
'fith the U-M Board of Regents at its next meet-
ig on June 20. _
Fleming announced his intentions at a press
conference held yesterday in the wake of the
latest of six unsolved murders in the Ann Arbor-
Ypsilanti area. All of the victims have been young
girls and two of them, including Alice Kalom who
was found dead Monday, have been U-M students.
Asked if a curfew had been considered for stu-
dents, he said it was “not very practical because
only a small percentage of students live on cam-
pus and 40 per cent "of the enrollment is com-
posed of graduate students who do not live in U-M
housing. __
“We have issued repeated warnings,” he said,
“but it is a little like people wearing seat belts-
it works right after an incident like this but after
.awhile they get careless. ‘ '. e
“The girl’s father (Joseph Kalom of Portage)
feels she was not careless in any way. He is con-
fident she was not hitchhiking or going out alone
with people she did pot know,” the U-M president
said. Fleming said he talked to Kalom by telephone
yesterday. . __
“Most people are of the opinion in this kind of
particular situation we are dealing with a person
with a deranged mind. Until some breakthrough
<_;omes~"you. have no>.j-lliiernlation to' go on.
` “The police_ ar”é"iif‘as puzgled as we are as to
what you can do,” he added'."‘In our case there
are people who bringus information and we pass
it on to the police.” < 5
Fleming said “an escort service is only as
useful as people are willing to make it.”
He said Kalom “is both grief -stricken and
shocked.” He repeated his concern for security on
campus.
“I expressed our grief and sympathy . . .,”
Fleming said.
Kalom, under a great deal of emotional strain
during the identification of his dead daughter,
sharply criticized University officials for not doing
enough to _protect coeds. `
“It appears we_are faced with a deranged
mind and it is difficult to provide anything like
topal security,” Fleming said at the press con-
ference. He compared it like flying an airplane in
which “you have got two' good pilots but you
still can’t provide 100 per cent security. Providing
protection against this kind of person is almost im-
possible.” ‘ i '
_ ‘We have done everything we could think to do
and have cooperated with the police completely,”
the U-M president said.