NEWS The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 3 ON CAMPUS Court justice Scalia to give law school lecture Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will give a free lecture at Rackham Auditorium today at 4:30 p.m. The talk is part of the DeRoy Lecture for the University Law School. Scalia was nominated in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. Scalia has also served as a law pro- fessor at the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago. Detroit Observatory holds free open house The Detroit Observatory on East Ann Street is inviting the public to its open house today from 1 to 4 p.m. to view its scientific artifacts. The observatory, built in 1854, has tele- scopes and other instruments from the 19th century. Tours of the obser- vatory and its museum are free for University students. Workshop helps *with public speaking skills The University of Michigan Toast- masters Club is hosting a workshop to help teach public speaking skills. The workshop, "How to 101: Public Speaking" will be held in the Michi- 0 gan Room in the Michigan League today from 7 to 9 p.m. CRIME NOTES Broken window * found in Markley, BB gun suspected A housing security officer found a hole in a windowpane on the fifth floor of Mary Markley Residence Hall on Sunday night, DPS reports. The hole is likely to have been caused by a BB gun. There were no suspects or witnesses. Smokers asked to leave Yost Ice Arena Three men, who were smoking cigarettes, were repeatedly asked to leave Yost Ice Arena Sunday night, DPS reports. After several verbal warnings, they left the arena. Vehicle damaged in parking lot An unattended vehicle parked in the East Medical Center parking lot was found with damage Sunday night, DPS reports. The vehicle's tail light and fender were broken. THIS WEEK In Daily History Mail explodes, injures professor 's * assistant November 18, 1985 - A package sent to a University psychology pro- fessor exploded in the arms of the professor's assistant. Nicklaus Suino, who was opening a package addressed to Prof. James McConnell, suffered only minor injuries. Suino was treated for flesh wounds to the arm and cuts to the stomach. The Washtenaw County Sheriff's department had no suspects yet. But co-workers say the bomb may be connected to a textbook on human behavior written by McConnell, which includes controversial theories. The theories include how to per- form behavior modifications and when it should be used, said Charles Morris, associate chair of the psy- New student board examines 'U' budget "y Kristin Ostby Daily Staff Reporter Midway through its first year of existence, a groundbreaking student committee is working to understand the complexities of the University's budget. Fostering communication between students and University administra- tors is a key objective of the Divi- sion of Student Affairs Advisory Board, and members of the recently formed group say working with Stu- dent Affairs' budget is essential to maintaining that dialogue. University President Mary Sue Coleman approved the board's for- mation in April partly in response to protest by Student Voices in Action, a coalition of University student groups. SVA pushed for the development of a student advisory board because the group was dissatisfied with budget cuts and changes to student services, some of which have been reversed after the University had some of its state funding restored earlier this year. Court declines ]Kmart dispute WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court yesterday declined to consider whether retailer Kmart Corp. should have been allowed to pay more than $300 million to key suppliers immediately after filing for bankruptcy protection. Justices let stand a lower rul- ing that declared Kmart had no authority to pay suppliers such as newspaper chain Knight-Rid- der Inc. The court said Kmart had not proven that the suppliers were so critical to Kmart's operations to justify payments to them over others. The case stemmed from Kmart's Jan. 22, 2002, filing for bankruptcy protection. In a typi- cal Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, companies are given a temporary legal reprieve from paying off debts and obligations until they can improve their operations. Kmart, however, obtained approval from a bankruptcy judge to pay off debts immediately to its "critical vendors" - about 2,330 suppliers, including 1,070 news- papers - that it deemed neces- sary to maintain goodwill. This is not unusual - key ven- dors may refuse to do business with a financially troubled com- pany without some assurances of payment, according to bankrupt- cy lawyers. The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dis- agreed, ruling that Kmart had not shown that business from suppliers such as Knight-Ridder - which distributes the retailer's weekly advertising circulars - were any more necessary than companies such as Capital Factors Inc. which were excluded. The Supreme Court's move yes- terday leaves the lower courts split as to whether companies filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection should be allowed to pay key sup- pliers first. The trio of cases justices declined to hear involved a hand- ful of key suppliers who are fight- ing back after Kmart demanded they return the money. They argue that the bankruptcy code doesn't give federal courts authority to tamper with reorganization plans after a bankruptcy judge has approved it. The suppliers also claimed they weren't given proper notice or allowed to present their side when U.S. District Judge John Grady in Chicago ruled in April 2003 that the payments weren't proper. Kmart's bankruptcy led to the closing of about 600 stores, termi- nation of 57,000 Kmart employ- ees and cancellation of company stock. The retailer emerged from bankruptcy in May 2003 and in March posted its first profitable quarter in three years. The board was Vice President for Student Affairs E. Royster Harper said she hopes the board's discussion will help students and administrators see eye to eye on such issues. "With the diverse set of students (on the board), it is another way for us to keep open the lines of commu- nication to make sure we are getting student input on initiatives and proj- ects that we are working on," she said. The board met for the first time in September, and has met every three weeks since, primarily to talk about the Student Affairs budget. Harper said she has attended two of the board's meetings this term in order to help explain the intricate budget process. Students will spend most of this term's meetings gaining a fuller understanding of the budget's intri- cacies, Harper said. Then, next term, members will give input on the bud- get based on the emerging concerns of students. created partly in response to "In January, we'll talk about goals and objectives," Harper said, adding Rheingans in an e-mail. Only 1 percent of the University's that the needs of the stu- ,CCT T dent community would "In ja be part of that discus- sion. talk "We will ask (the group) for their feed- and o back and advice about core services that we're providing," she added. The board consists of undergraduate and graduate students, inter- national students and students with diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds. It is comprised of 15 members, three of whom are members of the Michigan Student Assembly. Members went through an application process to get on the board. "We do not speak as representa- tives of every student on campus. We simply provide a student perspective of the issues presented to us," said LSA senior and co-Chair Carrie .nuary, we'll about goals ibjectives." General Fund is earmarked for Student Affairs. The General Fund is a pool of money col- lected from tuition, state appropria- tions and other revenue - E. Royster Hart Vice President Student Affo all academic units. The fund student protests ing to the board. Student Affairs programs such as Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs, the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Affairs, Univer- sity Health Services, the Office of Greek Life and the Office of Student Activities and Leadership get size- able portions of that money. The rest is doled out among other Student Affairs programs. "As you can see from this, (Stu- dent Affairs) has to use its revenues wisely each year," Rheingans said. Another complication of the Stu- dent Affairs budget is that its time- line conflicts with that of the state of Michigan. "(Student Affairs') and University's budget years begin in July each year, whereas the state's budget begins in October," Rhein- gans said. She added that the gap between the cycles means that Student Affairs cannot really determine the size of its budget until months after the state makes its move. that goes toward almost and administrative for the Division of Student Affairs amounted to nearly $10 million in Fiscal Year 2004. After allocating about 72 percent of that money for Student Affairs salaries and 20 percent to the Michi- gan Union, the Michigan League, and Pierpont Commons, little more than one million dollars is left for Student Affairs' operations, accord- Detroit schools may cut 4,000 jobs DETROIT (AP) - The city's strug- gling public school district is consider- ing cutting up to 4,000 jobs and closing 25 to 40 schools to help eliminate a $198 million budget deficit caused in part by declining enrollment, officials announced yesterday. Details of a deficit-reduction plan are expected to be announced over the next few weeks, Kenneth Burnley, chief execu- tive for the Detroit C h0b Public Schools, said in a written state- The city hq ment. And the district nate the $ expects to submit a plan to the state with-b in the next 90 days to N This year' eliminate the deficit1asba3264O by June 30, 2006. at40 The deficit for the year ending June 30, The district 2005, includes a$150 et $66.8 m million shortfall this he state fiscal year and a $48.7 million deficit from the 2003-04 fiscal year. The deficit remains despite $76 million in earlier cuts. In addition to job cuts and school closings, the district said the deficit- reduction plan is expected to include: I ii + working with the state Legislature to allow the district to issue deficit-reduc- tion bonds payable over the next 15 years; asking the state Legislature to maintain $15 million in supplemental funding; bargaining with labor unions on wages and benefits; and seeking to eliminate the deficit over a five-year period instead of two years. Last week, Detroit Pub- Cutlic Schools announced it lost ,es to eim! 9,307 students 98 million since fall 2003 and warned that school closings student count and job cuts 16, down from .were likely. This fall dow f year's student count was at : is expected to 140,716, down lion less from from 150,023 last fall. As a result of the drop in enrollment, the district was expected to get $66.8 million less from the state than last fall - more than the $42 million it had budgeted to lose from projected enrollment drops. DOWNLOAD Continued from page 1 and Cflix at www.cdigix.com, and payments are made via credit card. Although this is an opt-in ser- vice, Cdigix President Brett Goldberg said he is con- fident student response will be positive. "Our catalog is huge and the price is great. For the price of a latte, you can get access to over a million songs," Goldberg said. "(The University) is our larg- est campus to date, and we are eager to get started." He cited the example of Napster, which provides a similar download service at $10 a month. Like Napster, Ctrax allows users to get music through tethered downloads, which means the music stays on the user's hard drive and cannot be trans- ferred to another file. The files can be played on Win- dows Media or Real Network players on PCs only. Ctrax users then have the option of buying individual tracks at 89 cents each. Goldberg said students should not worry about los- ing access to their catalog of music once they leave school. "We have put together a plan with another estab- lished company that will allow users to keep their music and become a subscriber of that partner com- pany," he said, adding that the program's details will be announced in a couple weeks. For now, Zanger-Nadis said he is just relieved to know the University is addressing the problem of illegal downloads. "I like it that the University and a lot of musicians are coming around to the idea of Internet as a form of music distribution. It is good that people are acknowledging the problem and find- ing solutions to it," he said. -=mom% ,.---- 1HE TRUTH IS... THE INTERNET IS GOODI FOR TWO THINGS. JIM'?OHHS .COM IS THlE OTHER 014E.