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wwwmichigandaily.com

Wednesday
January 17, 2001

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announces

7-year, $25 million deal with Nike

By David Enders
, ily Staff Reporter
Following seven months without an athletic
apparel contract, the University announced a
seven-year deal with Nike yesterday. The deal,
signed Jan. 8, ends negotiations that have been
ongoing since the University's previous con-
tract with Nike ended last May.
Under the agreement, Nike will outfit all varsi-
ty teams and pay $1.2 million yearly for the right
0 license products bearing the Michigan logo.
eluding the equipment provided, the deal is
valued at between $25 and $28 million - more
Protesters
plan to
mnarch at
naugural
By Hanna LoPatin
Daily Staff Reporter

than double the previous six-year deal.
It officially goes into effect April 1 and runs
through July 31, 2008.
"This is a very good deal financially for the
athletic department," University President Lee
Bollinger said yesterday.
The deal continues a 20-year University rela-
tionship with Nike and immediately came
under fire from labor rights activists who
claimed language protecting worker's rights in
third-world factories was not strong enough.
The contract adopts labor standards set forth by
the Collegiate Licensing Company.
"We feel that something very important has

been accomplished by getting Nike to abide by
the labor rights human code," Bollinger said.
The company had dropped out of a winter
1999 agreement with the University after
Bollinger signed onto the Workers Rights Con-
sortium in February 2000. The WRC is a pri-
marily student-developed policy to enforce
collegiate labor codes of conduct.
The CLC provides guidelines for worker's
rights, including hours worked per week,
wages, child labor and conditions.
The deal inflamed labor activists on campus
because it was signed one day prior to a
marathon meeting in which the University's

Advisory Committee on Labor Standards and
Human Rights approved a finalized draft of the
University's own Code of Worker's Rights.
Some of the activists said the language in the
CLC is weak and vague.
Bollinger responded to the criticisms with
optimism, pointing out that it was the first time
Nike had ever agreed to a contract with labor
rights stipulations.
"Our teams have to have clothing," Bollinger
said. "We were also insistent there be labor
rights provisions in the contract. ... We decided
the very best we can do is get Nike to agree to
the CLC code, plus some additional points."

The additional points include stipulations about
the rights of female workers, including language
precluding women from working with chemicals
possibly dangerous to unborn children.
Athletic Director Bill Martin engineered the
deal. "The pressure was really on our backs
from a timing standpoint," Martin said. "I'd
developed a contingency plan."
Martin also said his frequent meetings with
University athletes made clear what apparel
provider they wanted. "Unanimously everyone
has said we want Nike."
Larry Root, chair of the University's Advisory
See NIKE, Page 2


Attorneys lay
foundation in
admissions suit

The number of protesters at this Sat-
day's inauguration of President-elect
George W. Bush could reach record
highs if political pundits are right
about the expected backlash to one of
the nation's most controversial elec-
tions.
Dave Fernquist, one of two Michi-
gan organizers for Voter March - a
group planning to hold rallies in
Washington - said he has heard esti-
mates of more than 750,000 from
jor media organizations.
Wfhough he doesn't expect the num-
bers to get that high, Fernquist said he
is expecting between 20,000 and
50,000 people from across the nation
- including upwards of 50 from the
Michigan group - to participate in
the two protests Voter March will be
holding on Saturday.
LSA senior Julie Fry is participat-
in a student group that will be
gtesting. The group leaving from
Ann Arbor, a chapter of the Interna-
tional Action Center, is currently
made up of 55 students, though Fry
said more people are signing up
every day. The Ann Arbor group
will be meeting up with other mem-
bers of the national organization in
Washington.
The large numbers of protesters
expected have led the Washington,
D.C. Metropolitan Police Department
the Secret Service to take unprece-
dented actions. Fernquist said they will
not be allowing anyone into the inau-
guration area without completing a full
search.
"They're necessary precautions,"
Fernquist said. "I hope they don't slow
us down, but they probably will."
Both Fernquist and Fry's groups are
focusing more on protesting voter
Ogularities than the president-elect
mself.
The election of the president was
drawn out more than a month after
recounts and multiple legal battles
ensued between Bush, Vice President
Al Gore and outside parties, delaying
Florida from designating its 25 elec-
toral votes needed to win the presiden-
Icy

By Anna Clark
Daily Staff Reporter
DETROIT - "This is the day that
everyone, including myself, has been
waiting for," U.S. District Judge
Bernard Friedman said
yesterday as he settled in
at his bench for the debut
of the much-delayed and
long-awaited lawsuit chal- /1ON
lenging the affirmative
action policies of the Uni-
versity's Law School.
Friedman's comment
opened an eight hour day
in court, during which lawyers from
each party of the three-pronged suit
haggled over witnesses, issued open-
ing statements and examined the Cen-
ter for Individual Rights' first two
witnesses.
Late Monday night, plaintiff Barbara
Grutter was removed from CIR's wit-
ness list. CIR filed the lawsuit in 1997
on behalf of Grutter, a white Law
School applicant.
University Deputy General Coun-

R
H

sel Liz Barry said the legal team
moved to exclude her, calling her tes-
timony irrelevant to the primary
issues of the trial, which now focuses
on the extent to which race should be
used in admissions.
Kirk Kolbo, an attorney
representing CIR, outlined
his firm's case, which
ic5N9 includes three witnesses and
HA, various documents. His case
is likely to conclude presen-
tation today.
"What we expect this to
show is that race is not just
used as a plus factor to tip
the scales, but is rather used as a super-
factor," Kolbo said.
John Payton, a lawyer representing
the University, said the University will
prove that the disparity between the
treatment of underrepresented minori-
ties and their majority counterparts is
"much, much smaller than the rhetoric
has indicated."
"We use race judiciously,"Payton told
the court.
See LAWSUIT, Page 7

JOYCELEE/Daily
San Francisco State University student Laura Nelson and Oakland Technical High School freshman Nicole Walker
protest before yesterday's trial. Inside: Berkeley Law students fly all night to join the protest. Page 7
CIR cancels Grutter;*
contests ohrwt n es se,,s

By Jon Fish
Daily Staff Reporter
DETROIT - Although her name appears on the
front of the briefs, plaintiff Barbara Grutter will not
testify against the Law School policies that prevented
her acceptance in 1997.
Terry Pell, Chief Executive Officer for the Center
for Individual Rights said the decision to cancel Grut-
ter's testimony simple.
"This part of the trial is about the admissions
process and she has no knowledge of that," he said.
Pell added that Grutter may testify at the damages por-
tion of the litigation.
Deputy General Counsel Liz Barry said the Universi-
ty moved to exclude Grutter earlier in the proceedings,
"because given the issues that tfie court had narrowed,
she couldn't give any testimony that was relevant."

CIR filed other motions to exclude the testimony of
several witnesses for the University and the interven-
ing coalition of affirmative action supporters, citing
lack of relevance to the questions set forth by U.S.
District Judge Bernard Friedman.
Specifically, CIR unsuccessfully moved to
exclude the testimony of University experts
Claude Steele and Kent Syverud. Syverud, dean
of Vanderbilt Law School, and Steele, the Univer-
sity's expert on standardized testing, were sched-
uled to testify on the educational benefits of
diversity, a key component to the University's
defense.
But CIR lawyers argued that the trial's purpose is to
discuss the way race is used as factor in the Law
School's policies and "no one's contesting there are
educational benefits to diversity," said R. Lawrence
See WITNESSES, Page 7

RACHEL FEIERMAN/Daily
Barbara Grutter, plaintiff in the Law School case, stands outside Detroit's federal
courthouse after the first day of the trial. She will not be testifying in the case.


Flyin' frisbees

Florida courts are currently hearing
cases from voters who complain that
*ywere disenfranchised by several
A tors.
"The protest is designed to continue
to keep awareness alive of the voting
irregularities that occurred in Florida
and elsewhere to let our election
offices know that we will be watching
what they do to fix the problem," Fern-
quist said.
Fry said IAC reserved space for
tests at the inaugural parade long
ore the events in Florida had taken
place. They intended to protest the
current voting system as "an undemo-
cratic process."
"We were proven right during this
election," Fry said.
Though the IAC would have protest-

Suit continues despite PCS
improvements in Ann Arbor
By Louie Meizlish The plaintiffs claim that although
Daily Staff Reporter Sprint advertised that the company

As a lawsuit against Sprint PCS
for alleged poor service continues,
several of the student plaintiffs in the
case have reported their cellular
phones have been working substan-
tially better throughout the last few
months.
"It's been better. In the beginning
of the year it was really hard to
make or receive phone calls and all
I got was 'All circuits are busy'
messages," Art and Design senior
Matt Rosten said.
-41 --1. ..4 t.. .. - - «...r - .

provided adequate coverage in Ann
Arbor, users in the area often could not
make or receive calls.
Despite the apparent improvement
in service, lawyer William Stern of
Southfield is continuing the suit, on
the grounds Sprint should give restitu-
tion to consumers in the Ann Arbor
area whose service was disrupted in
the early fall.
Marc Elliott, senior public relations
manager with Sprint PCS for the Great
Lakes area, said, "We realized there
was a capacity problem and we

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