I Tuesday,January 18, 2005 News 3A South Quad holds cultural carnival COLEMAN CARRIES BLUE TO WIN ... SPORTS TUESDAY, lB £ i ilrn1au Weather Opinion 4A Sam Singer discusses Social Security reform Ea 18 TOMORROW: 30/14 Arts 8A "House of Flying Daggers" is a brilliant, colorful display of martial arts One-hundredfourteen years ofeditorialfreedom www.michigandaily.com Ann Arbor, Michigan Vol. CXV, No. 61 @2005 The Michigan Daily Proposed code change voted down Committee recommends Coleman reject proposal to allow legal counsel By Anne Joling Daily Staff Reporter The University's Student Relations Advisory Committee voted Friday not to recommend an amendment to the Statement of Student Rights neys are not allowed to represent a student or to cross-examine witnesses. Legal counsel at hearings was one of 18 amend- ments to the code proposed by the Michigan Stu- dent Assembly in November. SRAC - the board responsible for review- ing the code - makes recommendations on the amendments, which then go before University President Mary Sue Coleman, who makes a final decision on whether the proposal will be adopted. Also at Friday's meeting, SRAC members voted to recommend a proposal that would require and Responsibilities, also known as the student code of conduct, that would enable a student to have legal representation during hearings that would lead to a student's expulsion. Currently, students are allowed to have an attorney present during code hearings, but attor- Coleman to give a rationale for MSA-proposed amendments that she decides to reject. SRAC is scheduled to vote on the rest of MSA's proposed changes to the code this Friday. Vice President for Student Affairs E. Roys- ter Harper, a member of SRAC, said the com- mittee decided not to recommend the proposed amendment on legal representation because the code is meant to be an educational document, not a judicial one. "We're not trying to have another system in place of the legal system the University already has," she said. "Instead of having students who violate the code thinking about their behavior and talking about their behavior, you have attorneys doing it, and there's a place for that, but it isn't in this process." SRAC chair and Physics Prof. Carl Akerlof said another reason the committee voted not to recom- mend the amendment was because some students might not be able to afford legal representation. "There was a considerable concern that you don't really want to get heavily involved in a situation (in See CODE, Page 7A COMMEMORATING KING'S MEMORY S peaker: Cities key to achieving racial equality By Christina Hildreth Daily Staff Reporter Students and educators from across southeastern Michigan gathered in Hill Auditorium yesterday to hear Henry Cisneros deliver the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium Memorial Lecture. Cisneros, who held the office of secretary of housing and urban develop- ment under the Clinton administration, was the keynote speaker for the year's symposium. Cisneros, who now serves as chairman of the urban development organizations American CityVista and CityView, said America must develop and revitalize its major cities in order to realize King's dream of "living together like brothers." This quote, taken from a collection of King's sermons, serves as the theme for this year's symposium. Echoing University President Mary Sue Coleman, who provided opening remarks, Cisneros also encouraged yoters to strike down the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, a proposal expected to appear on the state bal- lot in 2006, which would ban affir- mative action polices throughout the state of Michigan. Cisneros presented connections between King's words and current civil rights issues such as affirmative action. Cisneros said upholding King's values includes empowering Ameri- ca's poor, regaining a public spirit of values and embracing the economic vitality of our cities. Cisneros emphasized that the best way to serve King's memory is to apply his ideas to "modern challenges." "Dr. King taught us these things, and it is our job to interpret his basic beliefs and values in the modern con- text," he said. These challenges include addressing the issue of homelessness in major cit- ies across the nation and ensuring health care for an aging American population, 20-05 Ronald Brown's "Evidence" is performed by Brown's dance company In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the Power Center yesterday. Students I arch on a he said. "Eight hundred thousand people live on the streets every night," he said, add- ing that 3.5 million people fluctuate in and out of homelessness every year. The solution to this problem, he said, lies in increasing affordable housing available to the poor and minorities. "For most Americans, their net worth is in the equity in their home," Cisne- ros said. He added that while 68 percent of Americans own their home, there is marked disparity between racial groups - 74 percent of white Americans own their homes, compared with only 48 percent of black Americans. Cisneros pointed to the importance of rebuilding inner-city neighborhoods, saying this in turn will enable the growth of the minority middle class. This rebuilding must start by strengthening urban schools, he said. "We will not begin to build our cities without building our schools," he said. See SPEAKER, Page 7A By Victoria Edwards Daily Staff Reporter Marchers participated in a rally yesterday that was aimed at both commemorating the principles of Martin Luther King Jr. and protesting the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. BAMN - an activist group that supports affirma- tive action - organized the rally, which attracted 150 * participants and started at noon on the corner of South University Avenue and South Forest Street. Marchers continued down to State Street and eventually ended at the Natural Science Building. Students from Detroit middle and high schools showed up by busloads in the morning to support the rally. BAMN leaders continually stressed the impor- tance of utilizing high school leaders to oppose MCRI - a ballot initiative that would end affirmative action in the state. Due to the weather conditions, BAMN organizer and School of Education graduate student Kate Stenvig said the rally was held in the auditorium of the Natural Sci- ence Building instead of the Diag, which was the origi- nal plan. Stenvig also said the weather led the marchers to go through their route faster than planned. "We didn't want people to freeze to death," Stenvig said. The march was the kickoff to a day that BAMN devoted to developing a strategy to battle MCRI, which recently turned in over 500,000 signatures to the state - a number that will place the initiative on the 2006 statewide ballot if the signatures are verified by the Michigan Secretary of State. National BAMN co-chair Shanta Driver said BAMN is now targeting those very signatures to contest their See BAMN, Page 7A Coleman reaches out to black students in Detroit church By Julia Homing Daily Staff Reporter DETROIT - With only two weeks remaining until admissions applications are due, University President Mary Sue Cole- man reached out to the young black com- munity in Detroit on Sunday in an effort to increase the number of minority applica- tions to the University. Wolverine Day, an event held to encour- age minority students to apply to the Uni- versity, was held at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church one day before the Univer- sity's celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. -Oay. Speakers included Coleman and San- 4ra Bulger, a University alum and attorney Ior the General Motors Corporation. The event gave high school juniors end seniors an opportunity to explore the different options for academic study t the University. Admissions officers, professors and students from the Univer- Atv~~~~~ er.,l., to. ia on Quit hi versity had 25 percent fewer black appli- cants than in the previous year. While some accusations were made about the Univer- sity's new application alienating minority students, the University has maintained that similar minority application patterns were seen at other universities like Northwestern University and Ohio State University. David Middleton, a junior at Detroit Country Day School, said he was definitely going to apply to the University, but that he could understand why other minorities would not. "The way people see African Ameri- cans as getting into the school just because of their skin color and not because of their abilities would make some people not apply," he said. Coleman spoke about the impor- tance of diversity within the academic community. "Diversity, in all its forms, is a crucial, central ethic at the University of Michigan," chP ca Car fans come to Detroit auto show to dream DETROIT - When Mark Pelkey trucks 4 1/2 hours from Buffalo, N.Y. each year for the North American Auto Show, it's to dream. Sure, he glances at the cars he can afford and the ones he sees on the highways already. But the 47-year-old engineer comes for the motors, the power, the lines and the legends of vehicles that for most people are little more than fancy names. This year, he lingered on the European side of Detroit's Cobo Center, at Porsche's $440,000 Carrera GT, at the pair of Maybachs and at the little blue-and-white BMW Formula One racing machines. "That BMW engine is just an amazing piece of machin- ery," Pelkey said. "Looking at a lot of these machines is kind of a technical exercise for me, but all this is really just entertainment." Even when he heads over to the domestic side, his attention remains on the least-practical of the more attainable vehicles. "I spend most of my time looking at the dream cars," he said. It's his seventh or eighth year at the show. Dreams blended into reality Saturday all over the con- vention center as the 2005 show opened to the public. Car lovers paid $12 admission to climb atop power- r -' '