Ninety-eight years of editorial freedom Vol. XCVIII, No. 119 Ann Arbor, Michigan - Monday, March 28, 1988 Copyright 1988, The Michigan Daily GEO plans to protest taxable tuition waivers Jackson wins 55% By SHEALA DURANT The Graduate Employees' Organization is urging teaching and research assistants not to pay their March tuition bills in protest of new tax laws, which make graduate tu- ition waivers taxable. Under the new code, TAs must pay 15 percent of their tuition waiver in taxes. Three-quarters of the tax (about $350) is due on this month's tuition bill, and unpaid taxes can re- sult in hold credits and late fees. The TAs have developed what Kruizenga calls a "two-pronged at- tack." First, they will lobby Congress to pass two new tax bills to reinstate a tax-free tuition waiver - Senate bill S-39 and House bill Sec. 127. THE GEO also has suggested three ways to get around the waivers: -To lower the taxes TAs would pay, the GEO has suggested the University charge all TAs in-state tuition. Michigan State University, the University of Illinois, the Uni- versity of Minnesota, and the Uni- versity of Iowa have adopted this plan. -The University also could in- crease wages to make up the differ- ence for the tax TAs have to pay. Cornell, Harvard, California Institute of Technology, and Purdue have similar plans. -The University could also make the tuition waiver tax-free by re- haming it as a fellowship. North- western and Stanford have similar policies. TAS EARN an average of $45Q-650 per month, said GEO steering committee member Meg Kruizenga. Kruizenga said in the past, a tu- ition waiver of up to $5,250 could be tax-free, but now TAs can be taxed on the entire amount of their tuition waivers. "Everybody got a big whammy with their tuition bill this month," Kruizenga said. "The University knew as of July '87 that this was going to be a prob- lem and they did nothing until this semester, and what they did was bill the students," she said. BOTH the GEO and government officials from Michigan and across the country are working to reinstate employee educational assistance, ex- cluding from taxation tuition paid by employers on behalf of the employ- ees. The state of Michigan has taken the lead in supporting the proposed tuition bills, said Tom Butts, the University's official lobbyist in Washington. Michigan is the only state with all its senators and representatives co- sponsoring the bills to reinstate Em- ployee Educational Assistance, Butts said. IN ADDITION, he said, "The University has been dong everything possible to get the legislation changed." If the new tax bills are not passed, TAs will continue to be taxed on tu- ition waivers. But if the bills pass, the tax-free waiver would become a permanent part of the law and would be retroac- tive to January 1, 1988, so the TAs See GEO, Page 2 of Mic By MICHAEL LUSTIG with wire reports Rev. Jesse Jackson scored a major victory in Saturday's Michigan cau- cuses, receiving nearly twice as many votes as his rival, Mas- sachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. Jackson won ten of Michigan's 18 districts and an outright majority - about 55 percent - of the popu- lar vote. His percentage translates into 61 delegates, according to the Associated Press. Dukakis got 28 percent of the vote and 43 delegates, AP reported. The state Democratic Party will an- nounce the official delegate counts today. IN WASHTENAW County, Jackson won with 7,871 votes, compared to 4,222 votes for Dukakis. The other candidates received marginal support. In some districts around Detroit, Jackson received more than 90 per- cent of the vote, even though Detroit 0 higan Mayor Coleman Young had endorsed Dukakis. Jackson's margin of victory sur- prised many. "Most people did ex- pect (the vote) to be closer," Washt- enaw County Democratic Party Chair Suzanne Shaw said. SHE attributed Jackson's success to organization. "The Jackson cam- paign did a good job in getting the vote out," Shaw said. Nancy Driscoll, an LSA senior and co-chair of the University chap- ter of the Dukakis campaign, agreed that Jackson's ability to mobilize voters helped defeat Dukakis. : "Maybe it's not so bad in the long run," Driscoll said. She said voters now recognize Jackson as a viable contender, and people who object to Jackson will mobilize for Dukakis. Driscoll said she still ex- pects Dukakis to win the nomina- tion. BUT GRADUATE student Dean Baker, a leader of the Jackson votes campaign on campus, disagreed on Dukakis's future. "(The vote) showed that we really have a powerful movement," he said. "It overcame Dukakis's money and the efforts of the press to trivialize Jackson's campaign." Baker said the question now is whether or not Jackson can put to- gether enough delegates to win the party nomination, and if the party will support his nomination at this summer's Democratic convention. The Massachusetts governor re- mained close to Jackson in the na- tional delegate race by winning Sat- urday's North Dakota caucuses. Dukakis won five of 15 delegates at stake in North Dakota. RICHARD Gephardt, a University Law School alumnus and Missouri representative, finished a distant third in Michigan with 13 percent of the vote and 22 delegates. He had been hoping for a campaign See Jackson, Page 2 Jackson NATIONAL DELEGATE COUNT Michael Dukakis Jesse Jackson Albert Gore Richard Gephardt Paul Simon uncommitted 596.55 584.55 362.8 178 171.5 371.6 source: AP Michigan cr-UNC-hed LaGroc sponsors Gay Awareness Week By JIM PONIEWOZIK Students will have to re-evaluate their beliefs about homosexuality this week if Lesbian and Gay Aware- ness Week, sponsored by the Lesbian and Gay Rights Organizing Committee (LaGROC), is success- ful. "Hopefully, the events of this week will show people that gay peo- ple are people and deserve rights," LaGROC leader and LS A senior Carol Wayman said yesterday. LaGROC leader and LSA junior Alicia Lucksted said the group has two intentions in sponsoring the events: to draw public attention to gay rights and to feature cultural achievements of the gay community. LaGROC has scheduled movies and live performances by lesbian and gay artists. THE FIRST major event of the week will be a rally at noon today on the Diag, featuring speakers from LaGROC and the University's Les- bian/Gay Male Programs Office. The rally, Lucksted said, is in- tended to reach students who might not otherwise participate in the week's events. "It's a way of taking Awareness Week to the public," she said. "We're trying to reach out to people who don't know much about the issues." The week's events will be con- cerned primarily with the "broader issues" of gay rights, but will also touch on specific issues such as AIDS and the drive to. a m e n d University anti-discrimination bylaw 14.06 to include sexual orientation. "THE BROADEST issue is the general atmosphere (toward gays and lesbians) on campus," said Lucksted, who added she believes the atmosphere has worsened over the past several years because of increasingly conservative attitudes among Americans. LaGROC members will also run an information booth in the Fish- bowl tomorrow for students with questions about LaGROC. The week will be capped off with a "Blue Jeans Day" on Friday. La- GROC is asking that students in fa- vor of gay rights demonstrate their support by wearing denim and that students opposed to gay rights indi- cate so by not wearing denim. L UCKST ED said denim was chosen as the medium for the gay rights debate because the vast majority of students wear denim every day. Therefore, she said, students who would rather ignore the issue will have to consider their stances on gay rights. "Denim in general is so ridicu- lously prevalent on this campus it forces people to really make a choice," Lucksted said. Wayman said the group polled students on Blue Jeans Day last year and found that 40 percent of the stu- dents aware of the event purposely avoided wearing denim. 78-69 Tar Heels " i eliminate 'M'from tourneyr By PETE STEINERT Special to the Daily SEATTLE - During Friday night's post-game press conference, Michigan's Terry Mills stared into his drinking cup. Nothing was left. The Wolverines' season went dry following their 78-69 loss to North Carolina in the West Regional semi- finals at the Seattle Kingdome. It marked the second consecutive year that the Tarheels eliminated Michi- gan from the NCAA tournament. "They keep surprising me," North Carolina coach Dean Smith said simply of his young squad's ad- vancement to yesterday's West Re- gional final. "We don't have any excuses," Michigan coach Bill Frieder said. "We played them, and they beat us, They're an excellent team, and it's about as simple as that." The Wolverines' bid for a Final Four berth went down the drain the same day the Big Ten's other two remaining teams, Purdue and Iowa, did. Michigan finished the season with a 26-8 record, two wins short of the school record. Like their seven previous losses this year, the Wolverines' shaky interior defense and their lack of depth opened the floodgates for North Carolina. Reminiscent of earlier season per- formances by Syracuse's Rony Seikaly and Purdue's Melvin Mc- Cants, the Tarheels' J.R. Reid and Scott Williams sank Michigan with See Tar Heels, Page 9 Photo by BRAD MILLS Rumeal Robinson drives past North Carolina's Steve Bucknall in the first half of Friday night's 78-69 Michigan loss; Robinson's 29 points weren't enough to prevent the Tar Heels from eliminting the Wolverines from tour- nament play for the second year in a row. Frieder shws interest in coaching vacnyat Texas The following is a list of events for Lesbian and Gay Awareness Week. For further information contact the Lesbian/Gay Male Programs Office at 763-4186. Monday, March 28 -LaGROC information booth, Fishbowl, 10:00 a.m. - noon. -Kick-off rally, Diag, noon. -Gay rap, Kuenzel Room, Michigan Union, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. -Fundraisina benefit. Blind Pia. 9:30 'Lesbian/Gay Male Program Office brown bag lunch, noon -1:00 p.m. ATalk to Us, 7:00 p.m., Aud. B, Angell Hall. -Talent Show, Law School Lounge, 8:00 p.m. Th..raa ...r.. !2 By STEVE BLONDER Michigan basketball coach Bill Frieder has contacted the University of Texas about the Longhorns' head coaching job, according to members of the U-T athletic department. Texas Assistant Athletic Director Craig Helwig said vt....r- 'ur nl-d W i cArl.vcA inrn, nn hAnnt Michigan Athletic Director Don Canham, who is Frank and mMy enteaine staying at his vacation home in Naples, Fla., was rat-packed Joe Louis crowd Fria quoted in yesterday's Detroit Free Press as saying he night, even as their eoic hadn't heard from either Frieder or officials at Texas. third.-- DeansMartin was ab- "I'd think (Texas) would contact me if they were sn talking to Frieder," Canham said. ARTS?ag k'1