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MSA: Faculty union would hurt U Senate
This letter is in response to Dr. Alfred Aeppli's opinions piece urging the faculty to support unionization.
The strongest message prevalent in the piece was the idea that the University must strive to maintain, or recreate, an establishment with the atmosphere and trust of a sincere institution of higher learning. Aeppli argues that the best means to this goal is collective bargaining on campus.
Aeppli's argument is flawed in that it is contradictory. An establishment with the atmosphere of a sincere institution of higher learning will most certainly make decisions after consulting with all groups on campus; that is administrators, faculty, empl
oyees, and students. The absence of any one of these groups in the decision-making process contributes to an atmosphere not of higher learning and trust, but one of insinuation and suspicion. A collective bargaining unit of the faculty would, inevitably,
remove students from the decision-making process.
Currently, the primary governance structure for both students and faculty is the University Senate. The proposed faculty union will detract from, and indeed destroy, the integrity and authority of the University Senate. The collective bargaining unit of the faculty will handle all dealings with the administration, rendering the Faculty Senate obsolete. As no guarantee has been offered of students having a voice in the proposals for a faculty union, student representation on University issues and policy w ill be drastically diminished. Even if the Faculty Senate remains intact, it will become little more than a "rubber stamp" organization for the faculty union.
Aside from defeating the purpose of creating an institution with the trust and atmosphere of an establishment of higher learning, this new governance system will also serve to silence some of the faculty's most vocal supporters. As Aeppli argued, it is m ost certainly in the students' interest to have a strong, well-compensated and content faculty. By creating the union and effectively abolishing the University Senate, students' concerns on behalf of faculty will go unheard.
On December 3, 1996, the Minnesota Student Association, the undergraduate student governing body, overwhelmingly passed a resolution requesting faculty to vote down the University Faculty Alliance's proposed unionization. MSA holds that the interests of both the faculty and the students can be collectively served more effectively without a faculty union. In the interests of a creating a stronger institution of higher learning, University faculty should vote the proposed collective bargaining unit down.
Jigar Madia, Minnesota Student Association, speaker of the forum
Constitution has a moral foundation
I read with disappointment Matthew Renner's Jan. 27 letter, "Morality is guided by Constitution." In stating that laws are founded not on morality, but rather on the Constitution, Renner misses a very important fact -- the moral and theological basis of the Constitution. It is simply impossible to deny that religion and morality are fundamental to the functioning of our legal system, as he attempts to do.
Renner does a fine job of discounting his own argument when he states that the legal system "conforms to a very general sense of morality" with respect to laws regarding murder, theft, etc. This "general sense" he speaks of is none other than the Ten Com mandments. It is on this fundamental set of objective principles upon which our laws are ultimately based.
The Constitution is also a manifestation of this same set of moral directives. Not only should we be thankful to our Founding Fathers -- as Renner suggests -- we should listen to them as well.
John Adams once said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
The theocracy that Renner appears to warn of is explicitly prevented by this same Constitution's first amendment, prohibiting the establishment of a preferred state religion.
In today's increasingly secular society, where "freedom of religion" is frequently being replaced by a "freedom from religion," we may want to ponder a question posed by Thomas Jefferson, whose notion of a wall of separation is often misinterpreted: "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?"
Sean Cotton, senior, civil engineering
Abortion isn't a man's issue
As a female, I am offended by the very existence of Tom Gromacki's opinions piece "Abortion clinic bombing not a Christian act," and David Fuller's letter, "Bombing not pro-life act," which ran in the Daily on last Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. Because men, by virtue of nature, are incapable of becoming pregnant, they are unable to understand what it is, both physically and emotionally, to be in that situation. So I find it extremely upsetting that, without any regard to their own inability to fully understand a pregnancy, they proceed to voice their opinions on how a woman should handle one. If a man is in a relationship with a wo man and she finds herself in the extremely unfortunate situation of having an unplanned pregnancy, he should consider himself privileged if she decides to take his opinion into consideration. At no point should he assume he has any right to tell her how t o handle it. Every woman is completely capable of making that decision. Whatever choice she makes, it is one that she will think about every day of her life, and it is also one that a man is incapable of grasping. Every time a man voices an opinion on how a woman should handle her pregnancy, his arrogance is a slap in the face to his mother, grandmother, sister, and every other woman in the world. Women and only women are in a position to formulate and hold belie fs of this nature.
Caitlin Gustafson, sophomore, CLA
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