4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, April 5, 1994 Eiw idigun &ulg 1011 ': 0I* A; -1 'We made Sarajevo real nice, but the rest of the place is going to pot.' -an unnamed Western official, on the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina Truth in 420 Maynard Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan JESSIE HALLADAY Editor in Chief SAM GooDsTm FLIr WAwESs Editorial Page Editors Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of a majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters, and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. - Y °' T CAN 'TAKE YOU1/T"O'THE NEX" T" LE~riON - - .---7- GreetingSandsations Greenberg, Kight hand over mantle to Neenan, Stern Today will witness the end of an era and upcoming year. Planning to follow an perhaps the beginning of a new one as pand on the path that Greenberg and l Michigan Student Assembly President Craig have established, Neenan and Stern Greenberg and Vice President Brian Kight the spotlight at a crucial time - it is 1 hand over the reigns of power to fellow them to continue rebuilding MSA'sc Michigan Party members Julie Neenan and ibility, to work toward new aims expr Jacob Stern. It has been quite a year for in their platform and to bring the Mic MSA under the leadership of Greenberg and Party's goals to fruition. Some of t Kight, and they deserve to be commended as goals include fighting the Diag Po they step down from office. implementing the New All-Campust Both Greenberg and Kight have dedicated stitution, having a non-voting student rr an enormous amount of time to increasing, ber on the Board of Regents, working and indeed establishing, the legitimacy of the wards a safer campus and amending - Assembly. Regardless of whether one agrees ultimately abolishing - the restrictive with their political beliefs - and recently it superfluous code. Neenan and Stern's; has been hard to do so -it cannot be denied ous campaigning and organized plat that the two of them have been successful in suggest that they will be successful inr expanding MSA's reach and influence among ing these changes. Hopefully, the ap the student body. among students will begin to diminis Voting in MSA elections has increased, MSA continues to become more organ although only slightly, over the past year. But and focused. more important than mere turnout, there was A concern for the new term is M! a certain excitement in the air for the election connectionwith theAnnArbor Tenants U just two weeks ago when 8 parties ran over 80 (AATU). MSA's current relationship candidates for 24 open Assembly positions. them is rocky at best; communication And the mandate was clear - the Michigan tweenthe two organizations is nill. The M Party not only gained seats in MSA, but their gan Party threatens to exacerbate these presidential candidates won by a landslide. relations by continually using its pow Craig and Brian deserve much of the credit thwart the will of the Assembly in its que for this. The duo's treatment of two issues rid the tenants' union of its entitlement st demands special attention. Solid and sub- This campaign promise is both harmful stantive amendments were proposed, with ill-conceived, as it fails to acknowledge Craig and Brian's leadership, to the code. AATU is a valuable service for students Moreover, Brian's constant communication warrants extra appropriations. Neenan with the administration helped tone down Stern should reconsider depleting AA the drafting of the alcohol policy. funds until they can guarantee an effe Above all, they have clearly exhibited an alternative. Hopefully, they will use thei organized, professional and successful ad- judgement and work towards correcting ministration during the past year in MSA. source of contention. More than any policy decision, their profes- Although we regret to see Greenberg sionalism has increased the legitimacy and Kight walk away from what has been a credibility of MSA by leaps and bounds and encouraging year for MSA, we embrac will be missed. new leaders who bring with them su As we say farewell to Greenberg and Kight, leadership skills, solid goals and the pro we welcome Julie Neenan and Jacob Stern, as of continuing MSA's trend towards impr they offer great promise for MSA in the ment. We wish them good luck. d ex- Kight enter up to cred- essed higan these Aicy, Con- mem- g to- -and eand zeal- form mak- athy h as nized SA's [nion with n be- ichi- poor er to est to atus. d and that s that and TU's ctive r best g this g and very e the perb mise ove- BAA( J4 U 4 ? Michigan: Reca State refuses to comply with U ndaunted by an executive order from the Clinton administration, Michigan is one of several states refusing to comply with the federal mandate that Medicaid fund abortions for victims of rape or incest. The order re- quired that all states bring their policies on abortion funding into compliance with fed- eral guidelines by March 31. Ignoring the order, Michigan has refused to change its state Medicaid policy, a policy based on a 1988 voter initiative that ended Michigan's funding of abortions except to save the life of the mother. State officials maintain that they have no intentions of compliance. Planned Parenthood along with other abortion-rights organizations have promised to take Michi- gan and other recalcitrant states to court, seeking injunctions that would force the state governments to acquiesce.I While Michigan has offered no explana- tion for defying the order, other resisting states feel that the mandate conflicts with state laws and even states' rights, or that they have current policies that work better without federal intervention. Other opposition stems from the' belief that the number of women affected by the national order (an estimated 1,000 to 1,500) is too minuscule for a federal requirement. This seems difficult to believe. Whatever reasons Michigan has for refus- ing to comply with the executive order, it is imperative that the state government recog- nize its responsibility to all of its constituents, impoverished women included. Numbers, in this case, are not what is important. It is the underlying principle of the executive order and the social and economic circumstances of the imnnverished that the state needE tn nn- mc-itrant one Clinton order on Medicaid sider. Michigan is home to a population of women who suffer from rape and incest and who can't afford to have an abortion. By not conceding women these resources, the state forces women to turn to illegitimate channels to acquire an abortion - often endangering her life. Clearly, the state has an overarching interest in protecting the lives of these poor women. These low-income women are not only victims of incest or rape, but also made vic- tims of the system. The state is assuming an oppressive position here, penalizing those women who are economically immobile, and who are made to suffer the ugly reminder of rape or incest - a reminder that doesn't haunt those who simply can afford an abor- tion. Michigan's state government needs to recognize that no woman, regardless of eco- nomic class, deserves to live without such a gruesome reminder. We should all be concerned that our state government has elected to ignore an execu- tive order. It is the duty and responsibility of the State to comply with an order given by the President, for federal law supersedes state law. By ignoring federal mandates, Michigan and other non-complying states only tie up the court system and keep governments at both the state and federal levels from moving to address other important issues. Our state government, alongwith the other outstanding states, must accept the responsi- bility to serve the needs of their constituen- cies, and move immediately to change poli- cies to allow Medicaid funded abortions for the poor. It is the duty of the Michigan state anvernment to surrender its misguided stance. Staff shouldn't abuse position to impose religious beliefs To the Daily: While lunch was being served on Tuesday, March 29, in the Couzens Hall dining room, a Couzens resident staff member stepped onto a chair and began to read from biblical scriptures in a voice that carried throughout the dining room area. The staff member was removed from the cafeteria approximately twenty minutes after she began her religious proselytizing. The Housing Division regrets that this incident occurred. The Housing Division, as an entity of a public institution, makes a very clear distinction between what is appropriate behavior of an individual acting in an official capacity as a University official as opposed to the activities, beliefs or practices of the individual outside of his or her employment status. As a University employee, it is completely inappropriate for a resident staff member to convey religious beliefs or proselytize in public to residents who have the right to expect that staff members will not impose their personal beliefs in a manner unrelated to valid job expectations and boundaries. Any effort to impose personal religious or political beliefs while acting in the role of a staff member is a serious abuse of the position, and the Housing Division considers such conduct unacceptable. The resident staff member's supervisors are in the process of determining what action will result from this inappropriate conduct. THE UNIVERSITY HOUSING DIVISION College Republicans respond to accusations To the Daily: As the College Republican who developed the "It's the Economy, stupid" flyer, I will be happy to answer the charges made by Ms. Dana List on March 24th in the Daily. Ms. List's criticisms are of questionable intelligence and her pride is obviously ignorant bliss. First, Ms. List claims that I was taunting the voters, which is unfounded. All I did was use the Democrats' rhetoric against them. I doubt Ms. List considered James Carville's original usage of the phrase as taunting. It was used, in quote form, to answer the baseless It's been a great year To the Daily: It has been a pleasure to serve as President of the Michigan Student Assembly for the past year. When I first took over, I did not realize the political and bureaucratic barriers that existed at the University. But even in the face of such obstacles, MSA has achieved a lot in the past year; not only have we accomplished such goals as increasing funding to student organizations by $20,000 and improving our lobbying efforts on behalf of the student body, but we have also heightened the University's interest and awareness of MSA and increased our participation in the University community. However, MSA can still improve greatly. Like any other student organization, MSA can only continue to move forward with active student participation. Being involved in MSA for the past two years has taught me more than I have learned in any classroom at the University; the "real world" experiences I've had and friends I've made will be the most lasting contributions and memories of my college years. It is with this in mind that I strongly encourage everyone to get involved in MSA. And, unlike popular perception, to be active in MSA you don't have to be elected. There is so much for MSA to do; being the campus-wide student government and unified voice for the student body, we have only begun to expand to our proper role in the University community. MSA is not only expanding and improving its American people to do what's best for America whereas the Democrats trust the government to run our lives. Third, if our flyers were so bad, why didn't Ms. List challenge their validity? The fact is that Ms. List couldn't, because our flyers provided the factual truth about Proposal A. The uninspired "HEY YOU" flyers put out by the College Democrats were a failure and Ms. List can't accept the enormous defeat her party suffered on this proposal. Finally, Ms. List accuses us of name calling. Ironic, since right in her own letter she calls us several names, such as "sleazy" and "hypocrites." So who is doing the real name calling, Ms. List? When Bill Clinton won the Presidency I did not write into the Daily whining about it. I hope the Democrats would follow that example. Just because they current activities, but is willing and ready to take on more. With the resources that MSA possesses, it is the best forum for any student to achieve their goals. There is no reason that your student government shouldn't be the strongest student organization on campus, but it won't happen without your active support and participation. It is with such participation that MSA achieved what it did this year. There are too many of you to thank for helping MSA and me that I cannot list you all here. But, to all my fellow students and others in the University community who I have worked with - Thank You! Your advice, support, criticism and hard work has been priceless. To Brian Kight, my Vice President, a special thanks - you could not receive enough credit for your work over the past four years in improving MSA and protecting student rights. Finally, I wish Julie Neenan and the rest of the new MSA the best of luck in the upcoming year. There is a lot to be done, but I know MSA can reach new heights if all of MSA occasionally overcomes its political barriers and works collaboratively on behalf of the student body. All students want their rights protected, safety on campus improved and a student regent; MSA can and will accomplish such goals with active student participation. So, these are my last words as MSA President - get involved in MSA and have a voice in the running of your University. And, once again, Thanks! CRAIG GREENBERG MSA President and I found an interesting item on the ballot. Supposedly there are changes in the MSA constitution (or their equivalent thereof) to be decided on. There was a packet detailing the wording of various articles, however there was nothing that showed how it was formerly stated. Also, when I inquired as to if there were any changes to student group recognition, the election monitor called MSA to get a clarified answer. Not only was she on the phone for fifteen minutes being passed from one person to another, but they couldn't give a straight answer to my question. Finally, why were these changes not made more readily available for the student population to see before the moment that they had to vote on their ratification? In the future, I certainly hope that an organization that claims to be for the students test taking Which of the following do you think has a closer relationship to SAT scores - your college grades, or your parents' yearly income? If you guessed your grades, you'd be right, but not by very much. The correlation between college grades and the SAT is around .35, while the relationshipbetween SATscoresand your parents income is around .30. According to the "1989 Profile of SATand AchievementTestTakers," average verbal and math SAT scores go up about 15 points for each increase of $10,000 in income. The Educational Testing Service, which administers the SAT, has claimed for years that it is not coachable. Organizations like the Princeton Review, which averages score increases of 150-200 points, have proven them wrong. The Princeton Review also charges around $800 for their course. It is illegal to bribe your teachers to get better grades, but the honest truth is that you can buy an SAT score. The SAT has recently undergone a number of revisions after a decade of much-deservedcriticism, but these changes are unlikely to alter the most disturbing problems of the exam. (And in case you think it's over, GRE scores correlate around.90 with SAT scores, and the LSAT, MCAT and GMAT have all of the same familiar problems.) As David Owen argued in "None of the Above: the Myth Behind Scholastic Aptitude," the only real solution to the problem is to eliminate the tests altogether. The truth is that the SAT never was very good at predicting college grades. High school performance is by far the best predictor of college performance. Bowdion College in Maine stopped requiring the SAT because they found that only 31 percent of their honors graduates scored above the class average on the test, and 24 percent had scored below the average. The test also tends to work against minorities andwomen. Womenscore about 50 points lower on the math SAT; counter to stereotypes, they also score about 12 points lower than men on the verbal section. Race differences are even larger: African- Americans on average score 95 points lower than white students on the verbal portion and 105 points lower on the math. However, black students do better in college than their SAT scores predict they will, and women actually make better grades in college on average than men. In 1988, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation distributed $23.7 million in scholarship funds in what is probably the best-known national scholarship competition. What most people don't know is that the first and most selective cutoff for these scholarships is based on only one criteria: PSAT scores. Minority students are at least partially saved by NMSC's Achievement Scholarships, but women and low- income kids are left on their own. As a result, only 38 percent of National Merit Finalists and Scholars are women, compared with the 52 percent who take the SAT nationwide. This means that women lose out on about $3.3 million in National Merit Scholarship money every year --- more if you take into account that they do betterincollege. (In case you're wondering, this is not a personal vendetta -I hold this opinion despite the $2,000 National Merit awarded me.) Low-income students don't do much better. NMSC likes to say that only one percent of high school seniors are selected to be National Merit Semi-Finalists, but it's more interesting to see what percentage of each income group ends up with that coveted honor. Accordingto the 1989 average scores for each income group, students whose parents made less than $10,000 had only a .48 percent chance of attaining the National Merit Finalists' average PSAT selection index. Those whose parents made more than $70,000, however, had a 4.14 percent chance - eight times more than their poor counterparts. In its 1988 brochure, NMSC 01 ii