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Radical Groups Aim To Smash Rotc At U

Radical Groups Aim To Smash Rotc At U image
Parent Issue
Day
10
Month
September
Year
1969
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Actions aimed at eliminating the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) f rom the University campus were debated last night at two mass meetings called by Students for a Democratie Society (SDS) and by Radical Caucus, a group which split from SDS last fa 11. "Smash ROTC" is also the theme of a mass meeting scheduled by students at 8 p.m. today in the second floor of the U-M Student Activities Building. U-M President Robben W. Fleming issued a statement late last night reiterating rules of the U-M and of Student Government Council against disruption of normal campus activities. He noted that the U-M faculty's Senate Assembly is scheduled to discuss relations between the U-M and ROTC at its monthly meeting in Hill Auditorium to debate the academie status of ROTC, and student leaders to make altérnate nondisruptive proposals. Both of last night's mass meetings produced tentative plans, subject to further debate tonight, for some form of confrontation with ROTC cadets and instructors during ROTC classes tomorrow in the U-M's North Hall. The largest of last night's meetings was the SDS gathering in the Michigan Union, attended by about 300 persons including a contingent of Detroit SDS members who harshly criticized local SDS leaders as being not sufficiently "revolutionary." The Radical Caucus meeting in the Student Activities Building, attended by about 150 U-M students, produced more áeti nite guidelines than the SDS ■ meeting did for actions at' North Hall tomorrow. Debate in the SDS meeting, led by Donald C. Rotkin and Fred Miller of SDS, and Dennis Church of the local anti-Selective Service Resistance group, centered on the ' question of w h e t h e r t o disrupt R O T C classes or to engage ROTC cadets in debate as "our brothers, oppressed like we are." A - few students contended that eliminating ROTC from the U-M, would have little significance because the services would then be inclined to train officers entirely in military academies instead of civilian campuses. A larger number of speakers, including some from Detroit, angrily retorted that an attack on ROTC at the U-M should be viewed as part of a larger "struggle" against "impenalistic American foreign policy, controlled by a few corporations," and against "this imperialistic University." The main decisión reached was a plan for visiting U-M dormitories following tonight's mass meeting to seek support for actions, not yet defined, at North Hall tomorrow. During the meeting, Rotkin demanded the departure of Ann Arbor Detective Lt. Eugene L . Staudenmaier, who complied. Radical Caucus member Mar-j tin L. McLaughlin, who is alsol president of U-M Student Gov-J ernment Council, said todayl last night's Radical Caucusl meeting agreed on these guide-l lines for actions at North Halll tomorrow: f - Maintain the confrontation on an intellectual and moral level, - "Make no attempt to prevent, access to or exit from classrooms, -"Disperse when and if law enforcement officers s h o u 1 dl appear and arrest appears] imminent." These guidelines are notl necessarily binding on Radical Caucus for confrontations al other times than tomorrow, andl may not influenee non-membersl of Radical Caucus, McLaughlinl said. Fleming, in his statement! tgdaL_said approximatelv 400I U-M students are enrolled in ROTC classes this term. He also noted that some carry no credit toward dégrees. The faculty curriculum committee of the U-M College of i ture, Science and the Arts recommended last spring that no ROTC classes should carry vai'd graduation, [ Fleming urged that if campus; activists do "disrupt som e ROTC classes ... I would hopt; the academie community wlü. keep the matter in perspective. ' ' E v e r y faculty member knows that if a colleague's class can bê disrupted, so car. his. . . "I do not mean to disparag the views of those who arel opposed to ROTC. But to sug-l gest that an ROTC course is 'fascist' deserves no more credence than the counterclaim that anyone who is opposed to ROTC is 'communist.' We ought to be more creative in' the University community about handling our differenegaJl

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