8A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, December 2, 1999 Southworth questions use of student fees W ISCONSI N Continued from Page 1A we need our group to have a voice," she said. Patricia Brady, senior system legal counsel for the University of Wisconsin System, said the university has considered two alternatives to its current student fees system if the court rules against the school. In April 1996, three students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, including Scott Southworth, then a law student, filed a lawsuit against the University of Wisconsin with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. After that court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in November 1996, the regents appealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in August 1998 to uphold the district court decision. According to the circuit court's opinion, "Regents and amici rely on the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech as support for their position. But the First Amendment does not guarantee that the government will subsidize speech," the opinion stated. The regents then appealed to the Supreme Court, which heard the case last month and is expected to release a decision early next year. ASM collects students fees and disperses them to student groups, pending regental approval. This year, Wisconsin charged each student a total of $445 in stu- "The case is a direct attack on diversity groups," - Adam Klaus Associated Students of Madison chair dent fees. ASM has a two-part allocation system: $86.68 is designated for allocable funds to various stu- dent groups, and 5358.32 is for non-allocable funds. Non-allocable funds pay for Wisconsin's student union and health services center. Allocable funds are funneled to general student organizations and student services. Student service organizations must prove that they provide a service on campus, while student groups seeking general funding can request funding for events, general oper- ations and travel expenses. Brady said the university could define which campus groups are political and ideological and allow students to decide individually which ones to fund. The univer- sity also could let students choose which organizations they want to fund, without determining their political affiliations - essentially a "check off" system." While Klaus said both options probably would neg- atively affect minority groups, ASM has endorsed the use of a check-off system, which would allow ASM to avoid assessing the political or ideological stances of student groups. Nikihil Joglekar, an ASM representative, said he agrees with Southworth's perspective but is interested in maintaining student funding for minority groups. "Student fees should be determined by the students individually" he said. Joglekar added that while the university awaits the Supreme Court's decision, ASM is considering the suggestion that students choose which organizations they don't want to fund through a "check-on" system. Joglekar said this system would not necessarily end funding for most minority groups but would allow stu- dents to opt out of funding certain groups. As the two sides argued their cases before the Supreme Court on Nov. 9, University of Michigan Vice President of Student Affairs E. Royster Harper decided to form a committee, consisting of students, faculty, administrators and General Counsel members, to exam- ine options similar to ones Wisconsin is exploring. As of last week, Harper said the committee "has nti+ +~rt -~+r" HOUSING Continued from Page 1A could do and she said 'What do you want me to do - come over with my hammer and my nails?"' Katz said, "There was a lot of dam- age - my roommate lost a lot of his personal letters and my Diseman was ruined. "We found out later that the tenant before us had the same problem and (Oppenheimer) tried to evict," them Katz added. Katz said that the roof was not fixed until three months later, when she and her roommates began with- holding rent. Once the roof was fixed, Oppenheimer "immediately sent us an eviction notice for no) paying our rent." Oppenheimer also sued Katz and her roommates for the back rent. "Finally we settled out of court," Katz said. As for the amount of time it took to get the roof fixed, Katz said "I think that a lot of the time man- agers will skimp on large mainte- nance jobs because owners hesitate to give them the money," Katz said. "I think that withholding the rent is what really got them." Oppenheimer Properties Manager Judy Paron, who oversees the proper- ty Katz was living in, said "There was a new roof scheduled from the time that they moved in - the problem was getting a roofer to do it." She also said that she felt her deci- sion to bring a lawyer into the inci- dent was a correct one. "If I thought (Katz's) allegations were right, I wouldn t have hired an attorney," Paron said, defending the company's decision to seek legal action. She added that situationsa which result in litigation are rare.. Ed Chusid, a tenant advocate with the Ann Arbor Tenants Union, said that the most common problems he sees involve repairs and security deposits. "The larger corporations seem to withhold security, deposits more often, and it seems it's the smaller companies that only have a few prop- erties that have the repair problems," he said. L .ve35.5com Thi is not your father's rad It'qj Je! LSA senior Amy Duffy is still try- ing to get her security deposi returned by PMSI properties, th company who managed the 12-room house she rented from last year. "PMSI said the furniture wa stolen," she said. She added that her company was unresponsive to problems that she and her housemates had, including a3 occasional lack of hot water and hea "They didn't seem to care about my problems or want to deal with it. We had to walk (to the offices) in a group of ten of us to get anything across to them," she said. "They wouldn't cal back." Chris, a PMSI property manager who did not want her last name used, said only that PMSI is, "still checking - it's a long, involved situation." Doug Lewis, director for studen legal services, which providt lawyers and litigation help to stu dents free of charge, agreed that "A lot of landlords make security deposit claims that are debatable." He cited incidents of tenants being charged $500 to replace an entire carpet because of a single cigarette burn. "They should be charging to repair the burn, not to replace the whole ca pet," he said. Alice Ehn, the executive officer of the Ann Arbor Apartments Association - which is an associa- tion of landlords - said that her office provides conflict resolution services for disputes between resi- dents and landlords. She said that they have only had to send "six or seven" cases to court in the last year. "Most of the problems concer interpretation of the lease," she said. But problems with rental housing don't always concern landlords - Paron offered what she thought was the worst experience one of her ten- ants had - when they decided to sublet their apartment for the sum- mer. The tenants "had an $8,000 phone bill because they left the phone in their name when they sublet - o of the sublets made some 1-900 sex calls while the tenants were gone." EGYPTAIR Continued from Page 1A fact that two individuals aboard a recent American West flight, who were detained and questioned for "suspicious" acts, were off Middle Eastern decent. "My goals here are multiple one" Youmans said. "For those who do n know much about Arab-American stereotypes, Ihope that recognize this issue that we consider prevalent. "Most people take these stereotypes as facts. People like us who are subject to these stereotypes - who are viewed as terrorists, shouldbe ableto defend themselves. We are trying to have our own media;' he said. Some students also questioned t media's use of words like "disturbing to describe a Muslim prayer that one of the EgyptAir Flight 990 pilots recited repeatedly before the plane crashed into the ocean. "There's a kind of double standard here,' Youmans said. "If it were a Christian prayer that was recited, would it still be considered disturbing?" SNRE junior Norah Rabiah, an Arab- American, countered some of the media attacks given by the other students a arguing that Western culture tends to crave descriptive details like race. "We can't fully blame the media because it is their job to give the public the news they want to hear" he said. "I think the public likes media and mystery and drama that is like .the movies" he added. "I think we should look at ourselves and what we want to hear - just news, or drama?" LSA senior Aiman Mackie co* pared the caliber of media dramatiza- tion of Arab and Muslim involvement in the EgyptAir crash to that of Princess Diana's death in 1997. "It's very similar to the death of Diana - It's fine if the media plays on public desire, but there are victims here. People get hurt by shin." The Arab-American students involved in last night's debate agreed that itis important for Arab-America to reach out to other minorities a counteract the media's allegedly recur- ring use of stereotypes. "I think a very important aspect of educating others is targeting other minorities so that they can sympathize with us. Itsis important that we join with other minorities because they are also faced with similar stereotypes, though in different contexts;' Rabiah said. In addition, some students said th feel they should proactively educ' others by demonstrating that they are not thesame Arab-Americans illustrat- ed by stereotypes. LSA junior Zain Bengal stressed the importance of showing that Arab- American stereotypes are not valid. "It is important for us to realize that our daily interactions with other people are important in forming other people's views of us. I think that you should be able to goto your neighbor home and able to ask for milk, whether or not th are white or Arab-American," he said. Students who are critical of the EgyptAir coverage and the media scrutiny of other incidents involving Arab-Americans said they hope toraise consciousness that stereotypes are per- sonal attacks and degrading to their humanity "Our responsibility is not to decide what happened (in the air crash), but& understand how the media is projecting us as people," Youmans said. y1 * ** * *!*Jp fee - loving ltixema I I****- It's a new dawn, the thought police are at the door and all they want you to do is visit a nice little web site called Live365.com. Just type in the URL and what at first seems a pleasant diver- sion is soon an all-consum- ing sonic passion. Your night,' your day, Your wrong your right. And befoxe you AW It, gyoug e hj'potlxe a front I 'ouc o uter wakey for the >tee mth in a =OW and Zltt .o ~ Tand .7fne Auerlo&asir pledg1Ming alleglanq co WO Canadian flag. Resist temp- tationi Read on! 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