Page Two

 

The Scarlet & Black

sendenl Newspaper oi
Grinnell College,
Grinnell, Iowa

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$83 EDITOR/Al

Late last semester a group of students, includ—
ing the Senate, composed a paper entitled The De»
cision-Making Progress at Grinnell College: The
Student Position and Proposals for Structural
Change. In it they offered a program for student
power in academic, social, and administrative mat-
ters, The arguments for this assumption of power,
such as they are, rest on two principles. First, since
the education of the students themselves is the rai-
son d’etre of the college. they ought to have a voice
in the formulation of the policies which directly af-
fect their education. Second, the principle of demo-

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cracy ought to be operative in any liberal arts col-'

lege, both because it is inherently just and because
student participation in government is a valuable
educational device by which the college can produce
responsible and intelligent graduates These are
beguiling arguments, as evidenced by their growing
acceptance on many campuses, One can perceive in
the student manifesto the rhetoric of self righteous
indignation and a certain smugness that comes from
the belief that here at last is a call to radical action
which is not simply an invitation to destruction. Un-
fortunately, these arguments, written in execrable
prose, rise above the insipid only to reach the level
of fatuity.

We agree wholeheartedly that the education of
the students at Grinnell College should be the pri-
mary concern of the administration, faculty, and
mirabile dictu, the students themselves, From this
principle, however, it does not follow that equal stu-
dent participation in the formulation of college poli-
cies is the best means to this end. Particularly in
academic policy, it is madness to give a
equal vote to the students who have implicitly ad-
mitted by their presence in the college that they do
not know the matters which they propose to govern.

There is perhaps some validity in the analogy
of a doctor and a patient. Clearly, the end of the re
lationship between the doctor and the patient is the
health of the patient, But is it not absurd to believe
that the doctor and the patient ought to have an
equal vote in choosing the appropriate medicine or
treatment? To believe this is tantamount to believ-
ing that goodness or truth may be determined by a
majority vote. Of course, the doctor may make a
mistake and it is even possible that in a given in-
stance the patient may happen to be right and the
doctor wrong concerning the best remedy. But if
the patient distrusts the motives or the skill of the
doctor he is free to consult another man. In most
cases, however, it is the doctor who is in the best
position to determine what is conducive to the
health of the patient. Similarly, we believe that the
faculty and administration, though they have, at
times, shown an embarrassing lack of good sense,
are in the best position to formulate academic and
administrative policies. And in a small college such
as Grinnell where almost everyone is forced to live
on campus, there is some question as to how much
we can separate social policy from academic policy
without making the latter ineffective. We deny that
democracy should be the political principle operat-
ing on campus. In fact, in the present situation, we
are best governed by a genuine aristocracy, albeit
an imperfect one. Practically speaking, we must

SCARLET AN D BLACK

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Friday. January 23. |970

 

Letters to the Editor. . .

To The Editors:

We the undersigned believe
that the policy of Grinnell College
Forum grill has been unduly
harsh in its stance on choosing
new soft drink flavors. We got
Dr. Pepper without being con-
sulted by either the Dean’s office
or by the grounds and buildings
supervisor. We demand that

1) Mountain Dew be Sold in the
Forum and that

2) All furuler decisions
regarding soft drink flavors

be turned over to a student-
iaculty committee.

FOMDC
(Friends of Mountain Dew
Committee)
Lester Elliott Edmond, Jr.
Mark David Kasz
Ron Stanford
Galen Gilbert
Ann H. Wollgamot
Fat Jack Rued
Bill Wright
Eric Tanner
Terry Finn
Kandy Sebring
Jeff Millikin
Ed Hirsch
Mick Schaalman
Bobbie Jones
Animal Meyer
Timothy Power
Bruce Howie
Fay Hazelkorn

To the Ediloflslz

Try though I may, i cannot
resist answering Krystina Neu-
man’s letter in the last issue of
the 8&3. Although the cone
siderable hysteria in it doesn’t
warrant a reply by anyone, the
serious question which she raises
does. Further, it deserves a reply
from someone whom she’d
regard as being in lhe local
Publications Establishment. And
as chairman oi last year’s Com
mittee on Student Publications
and Radio, I no doubt qualify.

First, let me fulfill her (and
many others’) expectations by
pointing out that she has not done
the homework required of a good
journalist: she has not bothered
to read the document which
replaces the old Board of Publi-
cations with the Committee
“Statement of Revised Duties for
Committee on Student Publi-
cations and Radio,“ see Faculty
Handbook, pp. 79-32.) If she had,
she would have learned that the
Committee is not “dominated by
the faculty-administration
block.” Rather, its voting
membership comprised: “three
faculty members nominated by
the Committee on Faculty organ-
ization and elected by the Facility
and three students appointed by
the President of the S.G.A. and

have some measure of trust in the faculty and ad-
ministration, although we admit that this is a pros-
pect exceedingly distasteful to many. This is not to
say, of course, that students ought not to be consult—
ed in all these matters or that, on occasion, some ex-
cellent innovative ideas have been proposed by stu-
dents. But in the long run we believe that student
power would tend to be more corruptive than edu-
cational,

We students are sufficiently aware of the falli-
bility of the faculty and administration. We ought
to be equally aware of our own fallibility and relae
tive ignorance lest we are compelled to endure the
tyranny of our majority.

approved by the Student Senate”
(17.50.)

Also, she would have found no
documentary evidence whatso-
ever supporting her implication
that the Committee is protecting
“the college’s status quo image.”
instead that body is solely con-
cerned “to protect its (the
College’s) legal interests;" less
euphemistically, to protect its en»
dowment from legal suits arising
from libelous material in student
(publications. That this is the sole.
operational concern is evidenced
by the fact that the document
permits the College to withhold
puhlicationof such material “only
when it has been advised by legal
counsel that its legal interests are
in jeopardy.” (See “Statement of
Policy and Procedures: Student
Publications,” which cum-
plements and implements the
above mentioned Statement and
which is 3 available from the
Committee or the Professional
Adviser.) Could the College do
otherwise? Could it knowingly
allow unlawful material to be
published?

The student editor is allowed
nearly as much freedom as is
compatible with abiding by the
laws of libel. 1 say “nearly"
because the document does also
include a vague clause stating
that the editor shall avoid “in-
decency, undocumented allega-
tions, attacks on personal integr
rity, and the techniques of
harassment and innuendo.”
(Incidentally, this clause ex-
presses the usual canons of
responsible journalism and is
quoted verbatim from the “Joint
Statement of Rights and
Freedoms of Students," endorsed
by the AA.P and the N,s,A,;

Cour. p. s

__——

"When you’ve got problems
With swine, you’ve got to call in
the pigs.” — 775.1.Hayakawa