Michigan Student Editors Arrested

ANN ARBOR, Mich--City police arrested the editor-in-chief and editorial page editor of the University of Michigan student newspaper last week after the editors tried to enter a closed athletic board meeting.

Mark Parrent, editor-in-chief, and Joshua Peck, editorial page editor of The Michigan Daily, were scheduled to be arraigned on charges of trespassing last Tuesday, but the prosecutor postponed arraignment pending further research.

Prior to the board meeting, police warned Parrent and Peck that an attempt to enter would be a violation of the state trespass act and asked them to leave. When they refused to leave and tried to enter, a policeman "grabbed Parrent's arm and began dragging him away," the Daily reported. The two then were placed under arrest and led out of the building.

Open Meetings

Parrent and Peck said the meeting should have been open because the board falls under the jurisdiction of Michigan's Open Meetings Act of 1976.

The act's function is to open meetings of public policy-making bodies to the public.

University officials, however, said the act does not apply to the athletic board but only to meetings of the regents--the university's final policy-making board.

"We make policy on our own department," Donald Canham, University Athletic Director, said, adding, "we don't make decisions on tax dollars because we don't use tax dollars."

Parrent said yesterday he and other persons plan to file a civil suit against the university asking that meetings be opened to the public. Because of legal connections with the university of Michigan, the Daily itself cannot file suit against the university.

If convicted Parrent and Peck could face a fine of $50 or 30 days in jail. "Because we're first offenders, I doubt they would put us in jail," Parrent said yesterday. "But then again they might choose to make an example of us to discourage this kind of thing in the future," he added.

Parrent said campus support for the Daily staff has been "very good from our perspective. The letters and calls have been very supportive."