Letters

Ann Arbor isn't Alabama

One thing that's been missing in the press, local and national, concerning the upswing in racism on campus, has been any discussion of the elitism that gave rise to it. Ann Arbor isn't Alabama and the University of Michigan isn't Selma. There isn't the organized blind hatred of those times on campus. Instead there is a university whose tuition and policies have created a homogeneous student body insensitive to diversity–ethnic or social. Combine that with the cliqueishness and cruelty of students who haven't made their way through adolescence yet, and you're going to have continued incidents of racism, sexism, anti-semitism, gay bashing, etc.

Barbara Ransby and UCAR should be commended for drawing national attention to racism on campus and forcing concessions from the university. But they're only attacking a symptom of a larger problem, and to a degree, diverting attention away from it. Until the University, as a state-funded school, recognizes its responsibility to the community and spends as much energy attracting a more socially diverse student population as it does for university boosterism, nothing will change.

Michael Rosentreter

Ann Arbor, Ml

Another one bites the dust

With the May 20th program, the New Dimensions Study Group joins Joe's Star Lounge in the cultural limbo of minor Ann Arbor institutions that were and might someday be again, but not just now. Thanks for your help in everything. Hope you don't join us where we're going. Hang in there.

Death to the Shah!

Bob Dise

Ypsilanti, MI