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©2004 The Michigan Daily
Oehudredihtmyerir' fedonri~eedom '
www~michig~zdaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan Vol. CXIII, No. 123
.
Alleged rape under investigation
VicJtim reportedly assaulted at
fraternity while intoxicated
By Donn M. Fresard
and Anne Joling
Daily Staff Reporters
The Ann Arbor Police Department con-
firmed yesterday that an investigation is under-
way regarding an alleged rape at an
unregistered fraternity party Friday night.
According to officers' accounts of a police
report, the victim remembered having sexual
intercourse with an unknown male inside the
fraternity house after consuming a large
amount of alcohol. The victim did not, how-
ever, remember where in the house the inci-
dent occurred or how she got back to her
residence hall.
Nancy Diehl, chief of trials at the Wayne
County prosecutor's office, said a person who
is sufficiently intoxicated is considered "physi-
cally helpless" under Michigan law, and would
be unable to legally give consent to sexual
intercourse. Diehl added that sexual intercourse
with a physically helpless victim constitutes
third-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony
under Michigan law.
The alleged rape reportedly took place at a
fraternity on the 1400 block of Washtenaw
Avenue. The two fraternity houses located on
this block are Phi Delta Theta and Sigma Alpha
Epsilon.
Josh Dimkoff, executive vice president of
PDT, said the fraternity is dry and does not
serve alcohol at any gatherings. He added
that there was no gathering at the PDT house
Friday.
But SAE had an unofficial party Friday
night, said LSA junior Varujan Arman, a mem-
ber of SAE.
SAE President Dustin Nelson refused to
comment.
AAPD Lt. Mark Hoornstra said police are
currently trying to locate a suspect and deter-
mine the circumstances of the crime.
"We will be interviewing people who were at
the party and members of the fraternity to try
and find a suspect," Hoornstra said. "Also, we
are investigating to what extent the act might .
have been consensual. Indications are that the
victim was extremely intoxicated and we're not
sure how much she remembers, so we're not
sure if she gave consent or not."
A friend of the victim reported to police
that she found the victim in a closed room,
where she saw the victim having sex with a
man the witness did not recognize. The
friend added that she was soon after forced
out of the room.
"Before she could enter the room further,
someone grabbed her from behind and pulled
her from the room and shut the door, then
denied her access to the room after," Hoorn-
stra said.
The victim's friend then reportedly left the
house and found the outside window of the
room, where she called to her friend. She
reported then seeing the male leave the room.
The victim told police she arrived at the fra-
ternity house at 11 p.m. with five friends. She
said a closed gathering was taking place at the
house, but she and her friends were allowed
inside though they were not on the guest list.
Police said the victim's resident advisor con-
vinced her to go to a hospital, where a rape kit
was administered.
Interfraternity Council President Casey
Bourke declined to comment.
BUDGET CUTS
Administrators
address cuts to
student services
By Melissa Benton
Daily Staff Reporter
Students upset with recent budget
cuts to student services confronted the
targets of much of their criticism yes-
terday.
In a room filled with tension, Uni-
versity President Mary Sue Coleman
and Vice President for Student Affairs
E. Royster Harper responded to
demands posed by members of Student
Voices in Action at the William Mon-
roe Trotter House.
But students and administrators
questioned the productiveness of
the.meeting.
LSA senior Clair Morrissey said
she was frustrated because none of
SVA's demands were met. "They
talk a lot about supporting us, but
when you get them in the same
room you see their true colors," said
Morrissey an SVA member.
But Morrissey added that the
meeting was useful. "It's important
to engage in the kind of dialogue
we did today. I would have hoped
the administrators were more open
to listening," she added.
Harper said she was also disap-
pointed with the outcome of the
meeting. "I think this was an oppor-
tunity to have something accom-
plished, but there was more of a
commitment to the demands than to
problem-solving. ... I think this
could have been the start of a great
new way to work together."
Coleman started the meeting,
expressing her desire to work together
with students to find solutions.
"Here's what I want to do: Figure.out
ways to have more productive dia-
logues. We need to accelerate some
decisions that are taking too long ...
You deserve that - the entire Universi-
ty deserves that," Coleman said.
As Coleman began to address the
University's budget problems, LSA sen-
ior Jackie Bray, an SVA member, cut
her off and moved forward with SVA's
10 demands regarding undergraduate
See STUDENTS, Page 3
ELISE BERGMAN/Daily
Student Voices in Action meet with University President Mary Sue Coleman, Vice President for Student Affairs E. Royster Harper, University Provost Paul Courant and
Dean of Students Ed Willis yesterday afternoon at the William Monroe Trotter House. The administrators heard the students' complaints about cuts to student services.
NASA director praises
Bush's space directive
Some University aerospace
engineers question whether
program's goals are possible
By Naila Moreira
Daily Staff Reporter
NASA's broad new plan for space exploration
would take humans back to the moon and even-
tually to Mars.
Alfonso Diaz, a director of NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center, gave his program's goal -
supported by the Bush administration - high
marks in his speech at the University Friday. But
University aerospace engineers have expressed
mixed feelings about the agency's new focus.
NASA will strive to meet President Bush's
said that NASA's new plan will benefit the
agency and the nation.
"NASA the organization feels a new excite-
ment as a consequence of the new vision. I think
NASA is very invigorated," he said.
Gombosi added that federal money spent on
NASA aids the U.S. economy, largely from
industrial use of new science and technology
NASA has developed.
According to the NASA website, every dollar
spent on programs at the agency returns $7 in
"direct and indirect benefits."
But engineering Prof. Tony England, a former
astronaut, expressed concern that Bush's new
directive will squeeze the budgets of important
ongoing NASA research. He mentioned studies
of the Earth and its changing climate as pro-
grams that may suffer.
ENVIRONMENT
Campus trees
killed ofby
small beetle
By Genevieve Lampinen
Daily Staff Reporter
The University might be less green this spring with 200 to
250 fewer ash trees around campus. These deaths are not
attributed to pesticides or clearing of land, but rather to a
small beetle, known as the emerald ash borer.
Out of the 900 ash trees on campus, the University has
already removed 192 in efforts to prevent the spread of the
beetle. Several more trees are expected to die as spring pro-
gresses. But, 100 new trees will be planted on campus dur-
ing the next few months to replace the old ones and to
increase the amount of foliage on campus.
The University's ash trees are primarily located on North
Campus in the family housing area and around campus
parking by Michigan Stadium, said Facilities and Opera-
tions spokeswoman Diane Brown.
The beetle, native to China, has triggered a near-statewide
epidemic, dramatically affecting tree populations every-
where. Its negative effects will be worse than those recently
experienced with the European Gypsy moth or Dutch elm
disease, said Marvin Pettway, University supervisor of
forestry and horticulture.
"In China and Russia it's not a major problem because it's
probably native and has its own population control. Here, it
is exotic and so it is out of population control mechanisms.
It's running rampant," Pettway said, adding that there is no
biological regulation of the beetle in the United States.
The Michigan Department of Agriculture quarantined ash
trees in 13 affected Michigan counties in the fall of 2002,
after it first isolated and identified the insect as a major pest
to ash trees the previous summer.
The quarantine, originally scheduled to expire on Aug. 5,
was extended indefinitely last Thursday, until the beetle risk
has been eliminated.
"This program
new directive for space explo-
ration, Diaz announced in a
speech at the University's
Francois-Xavier Bagnoud
building.
Faculty and students offered
both praise and criticism of
the plan, saying a new vision
for the future will spur NASA
forward, but the directive's
goals and timeline may be
unrealistic.
Bush's directive calls for
manned missions to the moon
by 2020, with the goal of
establishing a lunar base from
which future manned missions
to Mars could be launched.
The plan also calls for
robotic exploration of the
moon by 2008, completion of
"This program that
(Bush has) outlined
is so under-funded
that the only chance
to make any
progress on it is to
gut everything else:'
- Tony England
Engineering professor and forme
astronau
that (Bush has) outlined is so
underfunded that the only
chance to make any
progress on it is to gut
everything else;' he said.
Bush's proposed
budget for 2004 includes
$1 billion in new money
for the directive and
reallocates $11 billion
more to the plan from
other NASA programs.
He has proposed to
boost NASA's total
budget by 6 percent in
2005 to $16.2 billion.
d Although England said
he supports human space
r exploration, he severely
t criticized the new plan's
focus on constructing a
base on the moon.
Political science Prof. Jennifer Widner speaks yesterday in the Michigan League
during a conference on "The Current State of Africa."
Paneli~sts discuss need
for African autonomy
By Faya Arrine
Daily S Reporter
The problem with Africa, according
to American University economics
Prof. George Ayittey and his col-
leagues, is that the wrong groups are
determining its fate.
"Has anyone bothered to ask the
Africans what they want?" he asked.
Ayittey said he blamed the monopo-
lization of power by a small group of
elites as the leading cause of Africa's
"Has anyone
bothered to ask the
Africans what they
want?"
- George Ayittey
President, the Free Africa
Foundation
Ayittey, who is president of the Free