Interim provost Paul Courant sent an e-mail to University students last Friday which stated that "the University bargaining team proposed that the two sides (the University and the Graduate Employees Organization) engage in 18 hours of intensive bargaining over the weekend."

Unfortunately, this e-mail seems to be continuing a tradition of University administration, which began last year with Vice President of Student Affairs E. Royster Harper's e-mail about Code of Student Conduct amendments, to obfuscate the actual situation with manipulations of the truth intentionally aimed at students not in the proverbial "know".

According to Susanni Ngarian, a member of GEO's bargaining team, the University presented GEO with "a sheet outlining the times of their availability for bargaining. There was no indication on the sheet that they were proposing we meet for all those times (18 hours total); and at no point did the University negotiating team verbally propose we meet for those 18 hours."

Last year, after then-University President Lee Bollinger accepted certain revisions to the Code of Student Conduct (one of which included renaming it the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities), Harper e-mailed the student body, writing that the administration had accepted approximately 80 percent of the recommended changes (compiled from suggestions proposed by the Student Relations Advisory Committee with input from the Michigan Student Assembly and the Civil Liberties Board).

Technically this was true. Bollinger accepted many spelling and grammatical changes to the Code. However, what Harper failed to mention in her e-mail was that virtually none of the proposed substantive changes were made. Hearsay is still admissible in hearings. Students are not allowed to have legal counsel speak on their behalf. They can also still be prosecuted under the Statement for actions committed off of University property.

The University should not take advantage of students by contorting the truth in its mass e-mails. Many students are not completely versed in the back and forth shuffle of GEO contract negotiations. However, there are enough people who pay close enough attention that the University should know that this type of PR maneuvering will not go unnoticed.