Tuesday
January 13, 2004
02004 The Michigan Daily
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Vol. CXIII, No. 75
E1tk 4wni 4ai4u
One-hundred -hinrtn years ofedziafreedom
C
E
r
c
TO DAY: 1
Snow show-
morning
andpartiy h33
cloudly, LOW: 14
skies in the
afternoon.
Tomorrow:
2416
wwwmihigandaily.com
Sisters recall
roles
in
legal
milestone
By Farayha Arrine
and Karen Schwartz
Daily Staff Reporters
Her mother was at home ironing and listening
to the radio and her father was working at 12:52
p.m. on May 17, 1954, when the landmark Brown
v. Board of Education ruling was announced,
declaring segregation in public schools unconsti-
tutional.
As Thompson made the long trek home from
school, she said, she thought about how her sisters
would not have to make the same long walk in the
fall, Instead, they could attend the nearby and for-
merly all-white neighborhood school.
Linda Brown Thompson and her sister Cheryl
Brown Henderson spoke with student panelists
and the crowd that filled Rackham Auditorium
last night in "A Conversation With The Brown
Sisters," the University's kickoff event for the
17th annual Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Symposium.
The sisters told their stories and answered audi-
ence questions about their family's involvement in
the Brown lawsuit, which overturned the 1896
Plessy v. Ferguson, "separate but equal," precedent.
"I know probably you've seen me, sometimes
in your history books with that little coat on,"
Thompson said. "But I want you to sit back and
relax and think back with me some 50 years to
Brown v. the Board of Edu-
cation, and my family's part
that we played in that very
gghistoric case."
~ She recalled her father's
" failed attempt to enroll her in
the all-white elementary
school four blocks from her
house and the anger black
parents felt about the "inac-
cessibility of the neighbor-
hood schools."
"I can remember that
walk, I would only make half
of it some days because the cold would get too
bitter for a small child to bear," Thompson said.
"I can still remember taking that bitter walk and
the terrible cold that would cause my tears to
freeze upon my face."
See BROWN, Page 3
Linda Brown Thompson stands with a sign-language interpreter yesterday at Rackham Auditorium. Thompson and her sister, Cheryl Brown
Henderson, spoke about the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.
Campaign begins for ballot initiative
By Ryan Vicko the MCRI, were among the first to sign the fornia that successfully banned race-con- sions standards.
Daily Staff Reporter petition. Grutter sued after being denied scious college admissions. Fundamental to the different interpret
a-
FARMINGTON HILLS - Led by a
familiar opponent of the University's race-
conscious admissions programs, the Michi-
gan Civil Rights Initiative announced
yesterday the beginning of its campaign to
ban the use of racial preferences in college
admissions.
"No one should be discriminated against
on the basis of gender, religion, skin
color,or national origin," said Jennifer
Gratz, who sued the University after she
was denied admission to the College of
Literature, Science and the Arts.
Gratz will also serve as executive direc-
tor of the MCRI campaign.
Gratz and Barbara Grutter, a member of
admission to the University's Law School.
The petition drive for the ballot initia-
tive, proposed by University of California
Regent Ward Connerly, needs to collect
317,575 signatures within 180 days. Then a
a proposal to amend the Michigan constitu-
tion will be placed on the ballot this
November. +
If passed, the ballot initiative would also
end the use of ethnicity and several other
characterstics in public employment and
contracting as well as education.
Shortly after the court rulings in June,
Connerly announced his plans to contribute
to the initiative in Michigan. As chairman
of the American Civil Rights Coalition,
Connerly led a similar campaign in Cali-
While Gratz praised the ideal of diversi-
ty, she said race-conscious college admis-
sions policies create a "vicious cycle of
injustice." Racial preferences in college
admissions "only put a band-aid on the
immediate problem," and there are better
alternatives, she said. She did not specify
any alternatives to race-conscious admis-
sions policies.
At the press conference kicking off the
campaign, Gratz and MCRI Campaign
Manager Tim O'Brien reaffirmed their
support for affirmative action.
O'Brien said the original purpose of
affirmative action was to assist talented
students in poor communities. He said the
intention was not to change college admis-
tions of affirmative action is a belief in
how to achieve equality. MCRI asserted
that merit and ability should be the stan-
dard for college admissions - not race.
"I believe affirmative action is about
giving equality ... giving people access"
without discrimination, Gratz said.
But protesters before the event confront-
ed MCRI members about their controver-
sial claims to be supporters of affirmative
action.
"This ballot initiative is a conscious
attempt to defraud and deceive the Michi-
gan voters. Its aim is to ban all affirmative
action in Michigan and nullify the
Supreme Court decision in Grutter v.
See CONNERLY, Page 2
Winter wonderland
Privacy option
hides e-mail
group members
By Lindsy Paterson
Daily Staff Reporter
Ann Arbor resident Siob iam Armstrong skis at the University's Radrick Farms off y
Geddes Road yesterday.
Court decides not to review
Sept. 11 suspects' detention
Data about University students, fac-
ulty and staff - including phone num-
bers, addresses and e-mail group
memberships - is instantly available
on the University's online directory.
But students who have been hesitant
to join certain groups that their mem-
bership to be accesible to the public
can now select a new privacy option to
hide their group membership.
Information Technology Central Ser-
vices implemented a new confidential-
ity feature in the
online directory u
Saturday. A "priva- 1he con(
cy flag" is now that peop]
incorporated into
the system for e- hesitant t<
mail groups. This certain
privacy option cetnki
allows group lists groups be
to be concealed A",t..
from public view Uid L WaU
- keeping secret publicly a
which campus
organizations stu- With them
dents or faculty
have joined. Senior Techn
"The concern Technol
was that people
were hesitant to
join certain kinds of groups because
they didn't want to be publicly associ-
ated with them," said Wesley Craig,
project leader and ITCS senior tech-
nologist. "By making the groups
optionally private, people will be more
free to associate."
The new e-mail groups will appear
in the old format, except for one major
iifference: The only neonle hle to
.CE
Il
0
n1
tS
no
tog
groups," said Sandy Colombo, director
of the Computing Enivironment Ser-
vices.
This is not the only opportunity for
individuals to hide their membership.
Individuals have the option of conceal-
ing themselves from any directory
searches.
When groups are made private, the
individual members are still seen on
the directory - but their affiliation
with the private groups will not be
seen in their membership lists.
The privatization of e-mail groups
resulted from a request from the Uni-
versity Civil Lib-
erties Board in
ern was December 2002.
were The request was
, ,based upon the
join "notion that a per-
.ds ofson's membership
ds of a
was available to
pause they the public, and
Lbunless a whole
t to be group agreed
sociated with this [public]
policy, it probably
wasn't the best
- Wesley Craig idea," CLB mem-
logist, Information ber Dan
ry Central Services Sharphorn said.
"It's important
that (students)
have a choice. If as a group they decide
to be public, that's their choice. Other-
wise, it's necessary not to feel like
there might be any public pressure to
belong to one group or another,"
Sharphorn added.
UMCES Director Sandy Colombo
reiterated that the University is
engaged with students' privacy rights.
"The University is very concerned
SETH LOWER/Daily
A thick Salisbury steak Is dished to hungry students at West
Quad Residence Hail last week. University Residential Dining
Services is still serving beef.
'U' meal services
unafectedb
mYad cow diseaswe
By Michael Kan
Daily Staff Reporter
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court
said yesterday it would not second-guess the gov-
ernment's holding in secret hundreds of foreign-
ers after the Sept. 11 attacks.
None of the more than 700 illegal immigrants
was charged as a terrorist, and the Justice Depart-
ment's inspector general concluded last year that
the government had trampled on a law stipulating
such detentions be limited to 90 days.
The high court turned down a request to review
the secrecy surrounding the detainees, nearly all
Arabs or Muslims, who were picked up in the
United States following the attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon. Most were eventu-
ally deported for immigration violations. The gov-
arnan .--- -A to rlirne txhn itk1 h Ad n hy
access to the names and other basic information
about the detainees.
A federal appeals court had sided with the
administration and its argument that knowing the
names or details of the arrests would give terror-
ists a window on the post-Sept. 11 terror investi-
gation. By refusing to hear the case, the Supreme
Court allowed that ruling by the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia to stand.
"Until some other court says otherwise, the
government can continue the policy of secret
arrests that seems fundamentally inconsistent
with basic American values, and that we know in
this case led to a series of abuses," said Steven
Shapiro, national legal director of the American
ivil T iher Tniin which ha rgel the court
For the past few weeks, media coverage and consumer wor-
ries on the first U.S. case of mad cow disease have caused
some beef eaters to think twice before they take a biteutof
their next hamburger. But University Residential Dining ger-
vices is not hesitating and has no plans to change its meals or
the procurement of its meat.
In addition, University students and professorssay they have
very little concern in a predicament that they think the media
have blown out of proportion.
"At thiswpoint we haven't received any information that we
should change anything," said Steve Meyer, executive chef of
the University's Culinary Research Center.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy,
was found in U.S. herds for the first time Dec. 23 in Washing-
ton when a cow underwent farming tests which came up posi-
tive for BSE.
Although BSE cannot directly harm humans, coming in
contact with the prion - an unusual formation of a normal
protein - that causes BSE can result in variant Creutzfeldt-
Jakob disease or VCJD, a fatal medical condition that causes
the degeneration of the brain.
Despite discovery of BSE contamination in U.S. herds,
American officials have said the food supply is safe and Amer-
icans are in no danger of contracting the human form of the
disease. The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month issued
new regulations such as a ban on downer, or sick, animals
from entering the food supply to ensure the continued protec-
tion of meat.
Regardless of the government's restrictions, Residential
Dining Services has not changed its procurement of meat.
Yet there is still a degree of uncertainty among some stu-
i
I
I