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One-hundredfourteen years ofeditorialfreedom
www.miehigandaily.com Ann Arbor, Michigan Vol. CXV, No. 95 @2005 The Michigan Daily

Study: MCRI

would harm

women

Among other things, initiative
could restrict women's health
programs, researcher finds
By Anne Joling
Daily Staff Reporter
Michigan women may suffer many negative
effects if the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
banning the use of affirmative action in Michi-
gan public instituions is passed, according to a
report to be released today by Sue Kaufman,

associate director of the University's Center for
the Education of Women.
The report focuses on the consequences of
Proposition 209, which was passed in California
in 1996 and is very similar to MCRI.
Kaufman will present her findings tomorrow
at a panel at the University's Dearborn campus.
Other speakers will include University President
Mary Sue Coleman and Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
Proposition 209 mandated that California "shall
not discriminate against, or grant preferential
treatment to, any individual or group on the basis
of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in

the operation of public employment, public edu-
cation, or public contracting" - language nearly
identical in effect to that of MCRI.
So far, most of the opposition to MCRI has
focused on the damage that could be done to
minorities by the elimination of affirmative
action in state university admissions and pub-
lic employment. But according to the report,
California's experience following the passage of
Proposition 209 indicates that MCRI would be
equally detrimental to women.
"One thing we found was that after passage
there was a rapid drop in the hiring of women

faculty in the University of California systems,
and it's taken them 10 years to recover to the
point they were," Kaufman said in an interview
yesterday.
Kaufman said she believes the same could hap-
pen in Michigan if MCRI is passed. In addition
to decreases in faculty hiring, she said, women
could see many state-sponsored programs and
services that cater to them eliminated.
"People think the ballot initiative is just
about race or just about college admissions, but
it applies just as much to gender and affects all
functions and levels of government," she said.

Supporters of MCRI, however, said they
don't buy Kaufman's findings. MCRI spokes-
man Chetly Zarko said that affirmative action
is not needed for female employment to
increase because since Proposition 209 passed
in California, the number of women holding
positions at the universities has managed to go
back to normal.
"What this statement is pointing out is that
universities that do not rely on race and gender
are able to come up with alternatives that will
establish the same levels of minority enrollment
See MCRI, Page 7

- Horton lawyer
lambastes 'U'
for suspension


------ - ---

.........I

I

Born in Korea but adopted by American
parentsyoung men and women struggle to
find - and define - their cultural identities

Attorney says
University should have
followed "due process"
on suspending Horton
By Eric Ambinder
Daily Sports Editor
Following Michigan basketball guard
Daniel Horton's Wednesday sentence
6f two years of probation for domestic
violence, his attorney is denouncing the
University's decision to suspend Horton
for the final games of the season.
Horton's attor-
ney, Gerald Evelyn
heavily criticized
the University on
Wednesday after
Horton was sen-
tenced to 24 months
of probation and
a year of counsel-
ing by Washtenaw
County District
V Judge Ann Matt- Horton
son.
"The legal system moved along the
way it's supposed to," Evelyn said. "The
University, on the other hand, took the
easy way out. For them to be a university
and not want to sit down and look at the
situation closely and examine it - they
haven't even talked to anybody."
Michigan Athletic Department spokes-
man Bruce Madej declined to comment
in response to Evelyn's assertions. But

Michigan coach Tommy Amaker said he
thinks what Evelyn is saying reflects his
desire to look out for what he believes to
be in Horton's best interest.
"(Evelyn) represents Daniel, and I
would expect the comments he's going
to make would be all in favor of Daniel
Horton," Amaker said. "And I under-
stand that. That's why you hire good
attorneys, and he's been a good attorney
for Daniel."
Evelyn said the University should be
"ashamed" of how it handled Horton's
situation. Horton has been suspended
from the basketball team since Jan. 25
and missed the last 12 games of the sea-
son. Evelyn said he believes the Univer-
sity never afforded Horton the right of
due process before it made the decision
to suspend him.
"They were very formulaic in the way
they did things," Evelyn said. "They sus-
pended him before anything happened.
They didn't do any kind of investigation
at all. They didn't talk to him, me (or) the
victim before they made a decision about
what should have been done vis-a-vis his
suspension."
While Amaker never stated which
University officials contributed to the
decision to suspend Horton for the
remainder of the season, he indicated
Athletic Director Bill Martin was one
such official. The exact process through
which this decision was made remains
unknown.
Evelyn said it was "disrespectful" of
the University not to contact Horton until
See HORTON, Page 7

A

By Christina Hildreth Daily Staff Reporter

Interest group
funding issue still
in deliberation

SA sophomore Rachel
Hyerim Shin has been
searching for her bio-
logical parents for three years.
Although she grew up with a
"wonderful, loving family" in a
small rural town, she feels she
has a gap she cannot fill until she
finds her birth mother.
Shin, who was adopted from
Seoul, South Korea in 1985 at the
age of three months, said finding
her birth family is a frustrating
and painful part of the process of
connecting to the culture of her
biological heritage.
"It's a self-identity thing,' she
said. "Some people are really sat-
isfied not ever knowing, but for
me it was really important from
the very beginning."
Alison Adema, Korean pro-
gram coordinator for Bethany
Christian Services, the largest
adoption agency in the nation, said
while it is common for adoptees
to search for information on their
biological parents, they often have
difficulties locating relatives.
"We get calls probably on a
daily basis from adoptees who
want to search for birth parents

... That number has been grow-
ing and probably will continue to
grow," she said,
However, BCS's ability to help
these adoptees is limited. Several
laws in Korea regulate adoptees
searches for biological families,
Adema said. For example, adopt-
ees are not allowed to request
information on their birth fami-
lies until they are 18, and even
then, adoption agencies are very
limited in the amount of informa-
tion they can release.
Unfortunately, for Shin, con-
necting with her biological heri-
tage has been difficult. She has
searched newspapers, a television
network specifically devoted to
reconnecting adoptees and their
biological parents, and has even
traveled back to Korea in search
of her family. At one point, she
thought she had found a relative,
but a DNA test revealed they were
not related.
WAR AND ADOPTION

MSAs judicial body has
yet to reach a decision on
providing student group
funding to PIRGIM
By Karl Stampfl
Daily Staff Reporter
University general counsel Donica
Varner has met with both membres of
the Michigan Student Assembly and
students advocating for the creation of
a University chapter of the Public Inter-
est Research Group in Michigan, and
recommended MSA not fund Student

budget of a tax-exempt organization
like MSA can be granted to groups that
lobby.
"If MSA was found to be engaging in
a significant amount of lobbying, it might
jeopardize tax status, and all revenue
could become taxable," Varner said. But
PIRGIM claims that none of its funding
would count toward the 5-percent rule
because it would not lobby at all.
The second issue is that Student
PIRGIM is attempting to gain fund-
ing through MSA's discretionary fund,
which does not have set guidelines for
supporting a group like Student PIR-
GIM. Students for PIRGIM and MSA
took steps last night toward establishing

Shin is certainly not alone.
According to Holt Internation- FOREST CASEY/Daily
al Children's Services, one of Sophomore Rachel Hyerim Shin tunes an antique piano in the
See ADOPTEES, Page 5 basement of Betsey Barbour Residence Hall yesterday.

------- --- -- -- ...... ........... ...... ........ .............

Journalist promotes independent media

PIRGIM because
it would lose its
tax-exempt status.
But the Central
Student Judiciary,
the judicial body of
the MSA, has not
yet released a ver-
dict regarding the
funding, despite
hours of delibera-

"If MSA was found
to be engaging in a
significant amount
of lobbying, it might
jeapordize tax status
nr n I r o . r mn . n .1

guidelines, meeting
with a collection of
student groups and
MSA representatives
to draft new rules.
Although the
guidelines are still
in draft form, they
could be approved
and take effect as
soon as March 22. A

Democracy Now
host Amy Goodman
criticizes "corporate"
media outlets
By Rachel Kruer
Daily Staff Reporter
While covering a protest outside
n namator~r r.... Tm me r>>n~ c

colleague, Alan Nairn, jumped on top
of Goodman to sustain her blows and
in turn fractured his skull.
"You don't think in such an extreme
situation, you just try to survive,"
Goodman said.
Goodman and her colleague were
lucky - out of the approximately
1,000 protestors, 270 East Timorese
were killed. She said this was not only
one tragic incident in the history of

Goodman spoke at the University today
on the deterioration of America's jour-
nalistic standards and the need for the
media to maintain its integrity.
Amy Goodman, who is host of
Democracy Now!, an independent,
national radio and TV program that
is broadcast to over 300 stations, will
also reflect Goodman's book "The
Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily
Politicians." ,

media because it has been taken over
by large corporations," she said
Goodman said that the current hun-
ger for independent media is being
reflected because two to three news
stations a week are picking up her inde-
pendent news show, Democracy Now!.
Communications Prof. Susan Doug-
las, who helped coordinate the event,
said that the independent media has an
important role in a wartime society.
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