PSiU finds fire damage minimal by Lisa Fromm The fire that destroyed part of the Psi Upsilon fraternity house on the eve of the first day of finals did less damage than was expected, according to the fraternity's President Scott Iinerk, an LSA senior. *- Electrical problems started the fire in the attic and set the insulation between the third floor and the attic on fire. No injuries were reported. One third floor room was totally gutted, and two other rooms were heavily damaged by the fire and par- tial collapse of the roof, Kinerk said. All but four occupants have been able to move back into the house. construction work has been ongoing since the Dec. 13 fire. The four re- maining men are expected to move in by the end of the week, said Kin- erk. The Ann Arbor Fire Department was notified at 6:30 pm and left at 11:30. pm, according to Fire De- partment records.rIt took 34 fire per- sonnel and 9 fire trucks to control the fire. * The fraternity's smoke alarm sys- tem failed to notify the residents be- fore they were alerted by a passer-by who noticed the smoke, said frater- nity Vice-president Brock McClel- Ian. Some fraternity members said they smelled smoke earlier in the afternoon but didn't know its origin. Besides the heavy fire damage, other rooms on the west side of the house sustained smoke and water d 4amage. But it wasn't as much as onlookers had predicted. "There was definitely less damage than we ex- pected that night, or else the con- struction is better than we thought." Kinerk said. Psi Upsilon's insurance is cover- 1ing the cost of repairs of the house, and residents' individual homeowners insurance will cover personal be- longings damaged in the fire, Kinerk said. The Michigan Daily- Thursday, January 11, 1990 - PageS Court overturns fines against More than 50,000 people came yesterday to the center of Vilnus, U.S.S.R., for the meeting for independence for Lithuania. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev visits the Baltic Republic today. 20,000 LBthuanicans protest Soviet rule in Baltic republic Yonkers' WASHINGTON (AP) - A sharply divided Supreme Court yes- terday limited federal judges' powers to stamp out civil rights violations, overturning fines against Yonkers, N.Y., council members who blocked a housing desegregation plan. Dissenting justices said the 5-4 ruling may stiffen the resolve of de- fiant public officials in discrimina- tion cases, and one justice called the decision "blind to the scourge of racism in Yonkers." Civil rights leaders, still smart- ing from the high court defeats last year, said the ruling suggested "a fur- ther step away from the court's commitment to civil rights." Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing for the court, said the judge who imposed the fines against the four Yonkers council members ex- ceeded his authority. The judge should have waited to see whether potentially bankrupting penalties against the city would force adoption of the desegregation plan before even considering fining the council mem- bers, Rehnquist said. In the Yonkers case, Rehnquist said fines against public officials will encourage them "to declare that they favor an ordinance not in order to avoid bankrupting the city for which they legislate but in order to avoid bankrupting themselves." That, he said, "effects a much greater perversion of the normal leg- islative process than does the impo- sition of sanctions on the city." The court previously left intact fines against the city, and Rehnquist said yesterday, "There can be no question about the liability of the city of Yonkers for racial discrimina- tion." Justice William Brennan, in a dissenting opinion, said yesterday's ruling may intimidate judges who fear they will be second-guessed by the high court. He said it also could encourage public officials to become "political martyrs" by defying rea- sonable court orders opposed by their constituents. "I worry that the court's message will have the unintended effect of emboldening recalcitrant officials continually to test the ultimate reach council of the remedial authority of the fed- eral courts," he said. The decision is "blind to the scourge of racial poli- tics in Yonkers." Brennan was joined by Justices Thurgood Marshall, Harry Black- mun, and John Stevens. Joining Rehnquist were Justices Byron White, Sandra O'Connor, An- tonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy. Steven Shapiro, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said "I think the decision is more significant as a political symbol than legally. It will be perceived as a further step away from the court's commitment to civil rights." The Yonkers case attracted na- tional attention in the summer of 1988 as the defiant council members were threatened with jail as well as fines, and the city faced possible bankruptcy for refusing to obey U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand's deseg- regation orders. Faced with massive layoffs of city workers, the city council re- versed itself and on Sept. 10, 1988, voted to comply with Sand's order to build 1,000 low-cost homes to de- segregate middle-class areas of the city just north of New York City. Share -the new, ?~a t VILNIUS, U.S.S.R. (AP) - Thousands of Lithuanians defied the Kremlin and cried, "Freedom!" at a pro-independence rally yesterday, the eve of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's high-stakes visit. Banners held by some of the 20,000 people who massed on Cathedral Square ranged from one polite welcome to blunt calls for Gorbachev to go home - and take the Red Army with him. "We didn't join the Soviet Union, you grabbed us!" read one banner, referring to the Soviet Union's absorption of the Baltic re- public in 1940. Gorbachev is scheduled to arrive today and meet for three days with factory workers, collective farmers, members of ethnic minorities and Communist Party activists. He will press for a reversal of the Lithuanian Communist Party's decision last month to split from the national party and support independence for the Baltic republic. As never before in his nearly five years in power, the Kremlin chief will put his personal prestige on the line to cool one of his country's hottest ethnic crises. Although he has granted Lithua- nians and their neighbors in Estonia and Latvia a large measure of eco- nomic and political power, he has consistently and sharply criticized Lithuanian Communist leaders for pressing for complete independence, and convened an emergency session of the national party Central Com- mittee last month to discuss the is- sue. The stakes for the visit are high. If Gorbachev fails to bring the Lithuanians back to the fold, com- munist parties in the 14 other re- publics could feel encouraged to break with Moscow. Leaders of Sajudis, Lithuania's popular political movement, hope to draw 1 million people to the capital Vilnius today to show Gorbachev wide support for independence. He is treating the Communist Party split as a critical setback in his reform program. The Soviet leader sent a crew of top-level national party officials headed by Kremlin ideology chief Vadim Medvedev to lobby party members in all walks of life in preparation for his visit. Although activists in Lithuania, which was absorbed by the Soviet Union along with the other Baltic republics of Latvia and Estonia, have been approaching the call for inde- pendence for 18 months, some say independence is years away even in their most favorable scenarios. 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