Monday, April 18, 2005 Opinion 4A Elliot Mallen wants to replace UGLi with homeless shelter LwyD CARR GETs iNTo THE ACT AT T. SPrING GAME... SPOrTsMONDAY Weather Arts 7A Chris Rock prepares for his new film and looks to the future q- 75 LoW : 51 TOMORROW: 70/S4 One-hundred fourteen years ofeditorialfreedom www.michigandaily. com Ann Arbor, Michigan Vol. CXV, No. 121 2005 The Michigan Daily Students lament landlords conduct Tenants feel landlords unfairly target them and violate their rights By Kim Tomlin Daily Staff Reporter While moving out of the house he had leased for a year, University alum Taka Masuda left some of his clothes inside his closet, thinking he would pick them up on a second visit to the house after work. When he returned, he was two hours past the deadline for moving out - which he did not think would be a big deal. But to his surprise, he found the house locked, and after 24 hours of waiting for the landlord to let him back in and paying a $50 fee, he dis- 0 covered that his clothes, includ- ing his best suits, had been trashed while he was at "I was really bitter because they were walk- GRAPHIC BY GERVIS MENZIES ing all over me," Masuda said. Even though he complained to Prime Realty and asked for his $50 back, he said its only response was to yell at him and call him crazy. Ultimately, Masuda found that the only way to force the company into com- pliance was to seek legal help. , As a last resort, Masuda turned to the Michigan attorney general's office, where he said he got help with writing a letter to the rental company. Within a day, the realtor sent him an. e-mail and a fax assuring him that his $50 would be refunded. Masuda's experi- ence is illustrative of a larger trend on campus in which many students say they feel targeted by their landlords, especially because landlords assume that students are ignorant about their rights in a housing situation. Some students find their landlords unresponsive to requests for maintenance or upgrades, while others dis- agree with landlords over what the leases entail. Ann Arbor landlords are notorious among students for mak- ing life a little more difficult. For LSA senior Joe Seasly, dealing with his landlord has been a nightmare. Seasly, who lives with his brother LSA sophomore Ian Seasly, said both brothers felt the building manager targeted them for harassment because he blamed them for everything that went wrong in the building. Whether it was broken drywall, loud music or even cups found in the hallway or common room, the brothers said the finger is always pointed at them. "At this point, I have lost complete respect for them," Joe Seasly said. "It's just been so rude of them all the way around. We can't even look at the building man- ager because there is so much animosity between us." To warn students about their experiences, the Sea- slys and Masuda have posted their comments on the Michigan Student Assembly's housing website, which See HOUSING, Page 7A 'U': Bylaws to stay intact LGBT community rallies for clause explicitly mentioning discrimination based on gender identity By Karl Stampfl Daily Staff Reporter Stephen Rassi, a 50-year-old transgender individual and a doctoral student in social work and psychology, said that he is often unsure of whether he is being discriminated against because of his sexual identity. "All of my life I've been different," he said. "There are situations where you're not sure whether someone just doesn't like you as a person or whether they are treating you badly based on what group they think you belong to. People of any minority group go through that." Rassi said adding the phrase "gender iden- tity and expression" to the nondiscrimina- tion clause of the University bylaws would help eliminate the transgender community's uncertainty over whether they are being dis- criminated against. He said it would also curb discrimination as a whole and protect the community's safety. But despite widespread support within the LGBT community and its supporters for the language, University administrators and members of the Board of Regents remain solid in their refusal to make the addition, claiming that the phrase and its implications are already included in the discrimination clause of the bylaws by the word "sex." "It is already in the policy that we do not discriminate against transgendered people," University Provost Paul Courant said. University President Mary Sue Coleman and University spokeswoman Julie Peterson echoed Courant's statement but would not elaborate. "The University is saying that it's not neces- sary because the existing policies can already be applied," Peterson said. Four schools in the Big Ten - the Univer- sity of Wisconsin, Ohio State University, the University of Iowa and Northwestern Univer- sity - offer gender identity and expression protection outright in their policies. Two oth- ers - the University of Illinois and the Uni- versity of Minnesota - have it in their state laws (Michigan does not,) bringing the total to six out of 11 Big Ten universities. An LGBT taskforce created by Courant in March 2003 to investigate transgender issues See LGBT, Page 3A COWABUNGA! *In report, former 4U president says state's economic woes ster from higher ed underfundig By Anne Joling Daily Staff Reporter Michigan is a failing state, at risk of becoming "another Appalachia" if legislators and industry leaders do not begin to invest more in higher edu- cation and technology, former University President James Duderstadt said. In an effort to identify the problems stunting Michigan's economic growth and to find solutions to these problems, Duderstadt has spent the last several years developing a report called the Michigan Road- map, which has not yet been completed. Duderstadt said many of Michigan's major prob- lems stem from the lack of investments made in higher education. "Michigan ranks at the bottom of the Great Lakes (region) in its per-student support of higher education in its public universities - and it's cutting them still further," Duderstadt said in an interview with The Michigan Daily. "In fact, the appropriation of the University of Michigan today is less than it was when I stepped out as president in 1996, and it's 8 percent of our operating budget, which is crazy." University regent Olivia Maynard (D-Goodrich) said she also believes the state needs to invest more in higher education. "I wouldn't put a dollar amount on it, I just think there needs to be a commitment to the future," she said. "It would be really helpful if the Legislature could sit down and really try and understand the value of higher education." Duderstadt explained that the roadmap tries to identify what educational resources Michigan resi- dents need and what type of workforce the state needs to be competitive in the 21st century. "You first ask the question, 'What do you need?' Then you ask, 'What do you have?' What you have will probably not meet your needs, and so there's a gap there and the roadmap tells you how to close the gap," Duderstadt said. Duderstadt identified new knowledge, education, infrastructure and new policies as the four main ingredients Michigan needs to compete in the new global economy. He said these needs are reflected in Michigan's struggling economy. For example, according to an advanced draft of the report given to The Michigan Daily, Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, due in part to the 254,000 jobs Michigan has lost from 2000 to 2003 - a 22 percent decline. Additionally, in 2004, Michigan was the only state that lost more jobs than it created, according to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, as of February 2005, Michigan had the highest unemploy- ment in the nation at 7.5 percent. Duderstadt cited the University as one of Michi- gan's biggest assets. "This University is very important,"he said. "The University of Michigan off and on over the last 20 years has been among the top two to three universi- ties in the world in the amount of research it does. We produce more students that go into medicine and into law than any other university in the country, so See DUDERSTADT, Page 7A MIKE HULSEBUS/Daily Eric Wheeler, an employee at Launch Board Shop, executes a feeble backside last Thursday in the store where he and others often skate. Mayoral candidate proposes paid tuition for Detroit grads McPhail's plan would provide money for college to high school grads who have lived in the city for at least eight years By Jeremy Davidson Daily Staff Reporter With hopes of rejuvenating the City of Detroit, mayor- al candidate Sharon McPhail proposed a plan called the Detroit Children's Fund in a visit to the University on Fri- day. The program would guarantee four years of tuition to any high school graduate from Detroit whose family has lived in the city for at least eight years. McPhail has been a member of the Detroit City Council since 2002 - the first female attorney to hold the position. McPhail, who is running for mayor of Detroit, outlined her platform, prioritizing the reduction of crime, fairer taxes, better education and population growth. McPhail's visit was part of a nonpartisan series of visits by Detroit mayoral candidates that was organized by three student groups, the University's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Met- ropolitan Organizing Strategies Enabling Strength and the Detroit Project. The campus groups aim to inform mem- bers of the campus community about the candidates and to inform the candidates about what issues matter to residents of Ann Arbor and Detroit voters. RC sophomore Paul Mardirosian, a member of both the DP and MOSES, said that while he thought the Children's Fund was a great idea, he did not see it as a realistic plan for Detroit. "I don't understand how it's going to be funded with the current See MAYOR, Page 3A PHTOGu/Daily Detroit mayoral candidate Sharon McPhail speaks in the Parker Room of the Michigan Union Friday New 'Soundfall' and microcinema proposed for Cool Cities grant rr __ r- _iti nnnn c-<<__ -- _ __ ..L_ ___.ti___ n. ®..eus. .-mA k],<, ~.,: ttrr,,o - f rreaAI ioht t in the Schd of Art and nDsiun t cnciv and offered since FallI2003- Stdents said the islav I - -