NATION/WORLD
Weather hinders efforts to save
victims of landslide in Bolivia

The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, April 2, 2003 - 9

At least 13 people are
reported dead and
hundreds are still missing
CHIMA, Bolivia (AP) - Firefight-
ers and local villagers raced yesterday
to reach villagers buried under clay
and rocks from a landslide that has
killed at least 13 people and left hun-
dreds missing.
Bolivian Defense Minister Freddy
Teodovic said initial reports indicat-
ed that up to 400 people were miss-
ing after an avalanche early Monday
swept through the mining town of
1,800 people, about 125 miles north
of La Paz.
Teodovic, who said he was in touch
with the firefighters on the scene, said
13 people were confirmed killed.
Bad weather and washed-out roads
hampered a large-scale rescue effort to

reach the victims buried by the land-
slide early Monday in this gold-mining
town.
Despite government plans to send in
four helicopters, national guard troops
and international rescue teams, only 20
firefighters had arrived at the disaster
area by yesterday afternoon.
Justo Gareca, director of Bolivia's
Civil Defense Corps, said some 300
rescue workers and national guards-
men will join the rescue and recovery
effort today. The town had begun to
smell of decomposing bodies yester-
day.
Villagers estimate about 50 miners
and their families were trapped under
the mass of earth about the size of two
football fields.
Local doctors converted a covered
basketball court into a makeshift clinic
that also served as a place to await
news on victims. A woman wandered

around moaning, "How long must we
live in this misery?"
The village is also out of reach of
cellular phone networks and its only
telephone booth was squashed by
falling earth.
Victims' relatives have gone to the
airwaves to ask listeners if they have
any information on missing loved
ones.
Rescue helicopters donated by the
United States are expected to arrive
today.
Chima is an isolated, dirt-poor town
where gold miners have burrowed into
the mountain with explosions of dyna-
mite for the past 70 years in search of a
meager living.
One of the few buildings spared was
the village schoolhouse, said Toridio
Mercado, deputy mayor of Tipuani, a
neighboring village with a medical
clinic receiving the injured.


LSA-CASE
Continued from Page 1.
like a quota," Kennedy said. "Is it
your burden to come up with some
other system, say, more individual-
ized assessment, in order to attain
some of the goals you wish to
attain?"
Kennedy's use of the phrase
"individual assessment" may indi-
cate that instead of advocating race-
neutral programs, he supports
replacing the University's policies
with another program that considers
many admissions factors, possibly
including race.
The Center for Individual Rights,
the law firm representing the plain-
tiffs in the lawsuits, has advocated
replacing the University's admis-
sions systems with race-neutral sys-
tems such as the Ten Percent Plan
used in Texas.
Such plans guarantee that stu-
dents graduating in the top 10 per-
cent of their high school classes
will be admitted to a state universi-
ty, and have been criticized by the
University for not using a holistic
review of all applicants.
CIR's legal team criticized the
University for using admissions
policies that guarantee enrollment
for minority students who achieve
certain minimal qualifications.
"The University of Michigan
admissions program has created a
separate path and a separate door

"The University of
Michigan admissions
program has created a
separate path and a
separate door for
preferred minorities."
- Theodore Olson
U.S. Solicitor General
for preferred minorities," said U.S.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson,
arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs.
"For those groups, if they meet
basic qualifications, their path is
always clear and their door is
always open."
Justice Antonin Scalia also said
minorities who meet the minimum
requirements are automatically
accepted, and he suggested the Uni-
versity lower its academic standards
if it wishes to enroll more minori-
ties in a constitutional manner.
During the oral arguments, Pay-
ton attempted to further clarify the
meaning of critical mass, which the
justices asked about during argu-
ments for both cases.
He said the University aims to
enroll minorities in great enough
numbers so that non-minority stu-
dents will not conclude that all
minorities think or act in the same
way.

"Students, I think as we know,
learn a tremendous amount from
each other.
Their education is much more
than the classroom. It's in the dorm,
it's in the dining halls, it's in the
coffee houses," Payton said.
"If there are too few African
American students ... there's a risk
that those students will feel that
they have to represent their group,
their race."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
who will most likely vote in favor
of the University, assisted its attor-
neys by explaining to the other jus-
tices that critical mass is a
sociological term originally used
"with respect to the enrollment of
women in law school."
Justice David Souter said the
University's goal in achieving a
critical mass is to show non-minori-
ty students - many of whom
encountered little diversity during
high school, University lawyers
claim - that black, Hispanic and
Native American students have cer-
tain unique perspectives, but also
that they do not always share the
same viewpoints.
"The objective is to show stu-
dents what the correlation or no
correlation is between races and
points of view," Souter said.
"And it seems to me that the
Michigan plan is equally consistent
with the latter interpretation as with
the former."

AP PHOTO
Margarita Esquivel cries as she leaves the place where a man prepares the body of her husband, Abel Colque, for a wake
service after he died in a landslide in Chima, Bolivia.
Justi ces examin*e constitutionalityo
usig race i Law School admi sions

LAW SCHOOL
Continued from Page 1
School has done, it's an end in and of itself."
Meanwhile, University lawyers were questioned
about whether the critical mass the University desires
to maintain is nothing more than a "cleverly disguised
quota."
Justice Antonin Scalia repeatedly asked University
lawyers what numbers constituted a quota. "Is 2 per-
cent a critical mass ... is 4 percent ... is 8 percent?" he
asked.
"Now does it stop being a quota because it's some-
where between eight and 12?" he asked.
O'Connor said she was curious about how long these
policies would remain in effect, and on what day race
would no longer matter.
Mahoney said that further increases in minorities
going to college and law school as well as a decrease in
how race matters could one day make the policies
unnecessary.
"I can't say when that will happen, we certainly
know that as a nation, we have made tremendous
progress in overcoming intolerance.
And we certainly should expect that that will occur
with respect to minorities," Mahoney added.
But Justice Stephen Breyer reminded the other jus-
tices of the disadvantages minorities still face today,
noting that 75 percent of black students below the col-
lege level attend primary and secondary schools made
up of more than 50 percent minorities. 85 percent of
those schools are located in areas with high poverty,
Breyer said.
"The only way to break this cycle is to have a leader-

ship that is diverse," Souter said.
"You have to train a diverse student body for law, for
the military, for business, for all the other positions in
this country."
Scalia attacked the University's policies, asking
attorney Maureen Mahoney why the University did not
lower its standards if diversity was such a compelling
interest."The problem is a problem of Michigan's own
creation, that is to say, it has decided to create an elite
law school," Scalia said.
"It then turns around and says, oh, we have a com-
pelling state interest in eliminating this racial imbal-
ance that (we) ourselves have created."
"There is a compelling interest in having an institu-
tion that is both academically excellent and racially
diverse, because our leaders need to be trained (to be)
excellent," Mahoney responded.
"But they also need to be trained with exposures to
the viewpoints, to the prospective, to the experiences of
individuals from diverse backgrounds."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg brought into the discus-
sion a brief filed by 29 retired military officers on
behalf of the University.
Ginsburg asked Kolbo how he responded to the the
military's assertion that using a race-conscious system
in the nation's military academies is essential to having
a diverse military in the officer cadets and enlisted
ranks.
"I don't believe we have an adequate record in this
case from which to conclude that we wouldn't have the
representation of minorities," Kolbo responde.
He added that the brief was filed on behalf of a
group of individuals - not necessarily the military
academies.


Thinking outside the box

HEARINGS
Continued from Page 1
Some of the justices appeared to
accept Kolbo's arguments. Justice
Anthony Kennedy, considered a key
moderate vote on the bench, joined
Justice Antonin Scalia in saying that
LSA seems to be using a quota sys-
tem.
Kennedy posed questions about
the importance of diversity in public
institutions and whether schools
should be permitted to use race as
an admissions factor to achieve
diversity.
He asked Kolbo whether states
should be concerned if law schools
only enroll 2 to 3 percent minori-
ties, and if the majority of future
lawyers are white.
"It's a broad social and political
concern that there are not adequate
members of the profession which is
designed to protect our rights and to
promote progress. I should think that's
a very legitimate concern," he said.
Despite the brevity of the pro-
ceedings and the targeted inquiries,
both sides said their lawyers
responded well and voiced optimism
that the justices will rule in their
favor. "I think it went well," Univer-
sity President Mary Sue Coleman
said.
"The court was prepared ... I
think they asked the right ques-
tions."
Former University President Lee
Bollinger, the lead defendant in
both lawsuits, said the justices
asked questions attempting to exam-
ine new aspects of the cases.

"With the University of Michi-
gan's stand on this, all of higher
education joined the University," he
said.
"What it has shown is that the
legacy (of) Brown v. Board of Edu-
cation (abolishing racial segrega-
tion in education) remains now a
mainstream part of society."
Yet CIR spokesman Curt Levey
said the proceedings clearly indicate
the justices will overturn the LSA
policy, ruling that it is a disguised
quota.
"I was left with the impression
that there is very little chance the
court will uphold Michigan's poli-
cies," he said.
"You can't name one of the nine
justices who indicated they buy
Michigan's distinction between crit-
ical mass and a quota."
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor,
predicted by many legal experts as
the deciding vote in the cases, initi-
ated the questioning by asking
Kolbo whether CIR contends that
race can constitutionally be used in
college admissions.
After Kolbo replied that "race itself
should not be a factor among others,"
O'Connor pointed to Justice Lewis
Powell's opinion in the 1978 Regents
of the University of California v.
Bakke ruling, which banned racial
quotas but permitted the use of race as
an admissions factor.
"You have some precedents out
there that you have to come to grips
with, because the court obviously
has upheld the use of race in mak-
ing selections or choices in certain
contexts," O'Connor said, indicating

that she may support race-conscious
admissions in general.
But in every past instance the
court has permitted the use of racia
plus factors, it has also required
clear outline of how long the poli
cies will be necessary, O'Conno
added.
Levey said although O'Conno
was difficult to read during the pro
ceedings, she "always stressed that.
compelling state interest in racia
preferences has to be limited ii
scope and interest."
University attorney Maureei
Mahoney said the University wil
stop using racial plus factors whet
they are no longer necessary t<
attain a critical mass of minorities.
But, Evan Caminker, associat(
dean of the Law School, said th(
court is more interested in a logica
stopping point than a set number o
years.
"The court has not in other con
texts said there has to be a fixes
date," he said.
While both parties seemed opti
mistic and relieved to be past th<
long-awaited arguments, a groul
that advocates a different defense o
the University's policies was dis
pleased.
Theodore Shaw, lawyer for the
National Association for th<
Advancement of Colored People
said the University did not focu;
enough on affirmative action as ai
aspect of the civil rights movement.
The group, along with other inter
venors in the case, believes race
should be considered to counter dis
crimination.

TONY DING/Daily
Rackham student Hahn Kim holds his EECS 370 discussion out on the Engineering Diag, yesterday
afternoon.


HEART
Continued from Page 3
rate .of heart attacks fell by more
than half in Helena, Montana after
voters passed a broad indoor smok-
ing ban.
Other important research introduced

RESIGNATION
Continued from Page 3
LSA senior Fadi Kiblawi, chair of
Students Allied for Freedom and
Equality, said his group - the most
vocal pro-Palestinian group on cam-
pus - would not be affected by

I no"

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