NEWS

The Michigan Daily - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 3A

ON CAMPUS
'U' to celebrate
45th anniversary
of Peace Corps
Peace Corps and University offi-
cials will celebrate the 45th anniver-
sary of the Peace Corps on the steps
of the Michigan Union - the site
where then-Democratic presidential
nominee John F. Kennedy first out-
lined his vision for the Peace Corps
in 1960 - at noon today.
E. Royster Harper, the University's
vice president for student affairs,
will speak on the history of the Peace
Corps and its relationship with the
University. Jody Olsen, deputy direc-
tor for the Peace Corps, will talk
about the organization's current state
and future plans.
A reception in the Anderson Room
of the Union will be held following
the ceremony..
Sharpton to speak
at rally to support
affirmative action
Former presidential candidate Al
Sharpton will address students on the
Diag at noon today on the Michigan
Civil Rights Initiative, which would
ban the use of affirmative action by
the state and public universities.
Sharpton's speech is part of the
"Day of Action," sponsored by Oper-
ation King's Dream, an offshoot of
BAMN.
The day's events will start with a
meeting at 9:15 a.m. at Crisler Arena,
followed by a march to the Diag at
11:15 a.m. and a rally on the Diag
at noon, where Sharpton will speak.
After the rally, there will be a mass
organizing meeting in the Pond Room
of the Michigan Union.
*CRIME
NOTES
DPS confiscates
fireworks in front
of East Quad
Subjects were in possession of fire-
works in front of East Quad Residence
Hall Tuesday around 11:15 p.m., the
Department= of Public Safety report-
ed. DPS officers confiscated the fire-
works from the subjects. Charges are
still pending.
Passenger refuses
medical attention
after hitting head
A passenger fell forward and
struck her head while riding the
bus on Monday around 5 p.m., DPS
reported. The bus driver tried to
persuade the passenger to receive
medical attention, but she refused
treatment.
Student coughs
up blood at UGLi

A student reported shortness of
breath and coughing up blood at
the Shapiro Undergraduate Library
yesterday around 2 a.m. The subject
was taken to the University Hospital
shortly thereafter.
THIS DAY
In Daily History
Daily alum avoided
football beatdown
9 Oct. 27, 1954 - Remember the cam-
pus humor magazine called "The Wrin-
kle?" Class of 1896 alum Jacob Lorie
does - he founded the publication.
Lorie is visiting his alma mater for only
the second time since graduating from the
University before the turn of the century.
The now-defunct "Wrinkle" was not
the only student publication Lone was
involved in when he was a student at the
=University; Lonie also served as managing
'editor for The Michigan Daily and worked
on the staff of a literary periodical called
."The Inlander."
Despite his high position, Lorie was
:paid nothing for his efforts. The discrep-
ancy between compensation for business
and editorial staffers has a long legacy that
stretches back at least to Lorie's tenure,

Alcohol policies

at U'

caled

inconsistent

Student Legal Services
director says University
gradually returning to inz
locopamt philosophy
By Dave Mekelburg
For the Daily
Underage drinking became the focal
point of a Michigan Student Assembly
forum on the Statement of Student Rights
and Responsibilities, also known as The
Code, last night. The forum was intend-
ed to address a range of student issues,
including landlord-tenant conflicts and
the University's disciplinary process.
Doug Lewis, director of Student
Legal Services, said minor-in-posses-
sion violations are the only offenses
that the Department of Public Safety
reports to the Office of Student Conflict
Resolution - the University body that
enforces the Code - in all cases. Stu-
dents discussed what they characterized
as the University's self-contradictory
alcohol policy.
Participants involved in the discus-
sion said the University's health services
focus on moderating alcohol consump-
tion by discouraging binge drinking
and promoting medical treatment when
students are sick. OSCR, on the other
hand, pushes to end underage drinking
altogether, participants said.
For example, University Hospital and
University Health Service employees
were educated this past summer about
HIPAA regulations protecting patient
privacy.
HIPAA allows students to be treated
for alcohol-related problems without
the fear of legal repercussions. Hospi-
tal employees are routinely tested on
this policy. Exceptions to the policy are
cases involving violence or cases when
police escort students to the hospital..
On the other hand, every time a stu-
dent receives a MIP charge on campus,
it is reported to the University, and each
violator is sent a letter informing him of
his responsibility to complete an alco-
hol education and counseling program
through OSCR. Susan Wilson, a rep-
resentative from the Office of Student
Activities and Leadership, described

the process as "an opportunity for edu-
cational intervention."
But OSCR representative Bob Coffey
said the office has a dual role as disci-
plinarian and educator. OSCR's respon-
sibility is to uphold the Code, which
Coffey said is not written by OSCR.
"It's a document we're the custodians
of," he said.
In reality, however, OSCR must first
approve all proposed changes to the
Code before they are passed on to next
stage of consideration.
The Code - which is revised every
two years - underwent changes in April
that spelled out what constitutes sexual
harassment and instituted more severe
penalties for hate-motivated harass-
ment. One change that the University
did not accept was MSA's proposal to
allow students to have lawyers present
at hearings on Code violations.
OSCR was created as an alternative
to the Department of Public Safety to
provide students an opportunity to learn
from their mistakes. But some students
said last night that OSCR's alcohol
program is simply another layer to the
punitive process. Lewis said students
may find it difficult to view OSCR as a
friendly organization because the office
has the power to enforce penalties as
severe as expulsion.
While underage drinking gener-
ated the most heated discussion, other
topics about students' rights were also
broached.
Lewis and Wilson raised the question
of whether the University should invest
more of its energies on student life,
instead of focusing almost exclusively
on academics. Lewis said the Universi-
ty's policies shift between acting in loco
parentis - that is, as students' surro-
gate parents, a philosophy that students
attacked and that the University largely
abandoned in the 1960s and '70s - and
adopting a laissez-faire stance toward
students. The University, he said, is now
heading back toward in loco parentis.
According to forum coordinator
Daniel Taylor-Cohart, who also serves
as co-chair of MSA's Students' Right
Commission, the purpose of the
meeting was to "allow students the
opportunity to learn about (students
services)."


State GOP proposes.
$700m tax cut from
tobacco settlement

LANSING (AP) - Republicans who
control the state House announced a new
plan yesterday to improve Michigan's
economy by selling one-third of the
state's tobacco settlement and using part
of the revenue to cut business taxes.
The new proposal is the latest twist in
ongoing negotiations between the House,
Senate and Gov. Jennifer Granholm's
administration. The three sides have
spent months trying to agree on ways to
improve taxes and efforts to diversify the
state's economy.
House Republicans originally pro-
posed using $1 billion from the tobac-
co settlement to fund grants and loans
that could encourage high-tech busi-
nesses to expand or locate in Michigan.
Now they want to use $700 million of
the money to reduce the Single Busi-
ness Tax and lower personal property
taxes for manufacturers.
The other $300 million would be
invested in up-and-coming industries,
less than a third of the original amount
agreed to by Senate and House Republi-
cans and the Democratic governor.
House Speaker Craig DeRoche orig-
inally pushed for setting up the $1 bil-
lion investment fund and voted for the
measure when it passed the House late
last month. F
But he backed away from that idea
yesterday, saying it would be better to
provide businesses with tax relief quick-
ly than to create a 19-member board that

would decide which high-tech projects
should get grants and loans that could
lead to more jobs in Michigan.
"I believe the Michigan taxpayers
would recognize the highest priority is
not the direction that a 19-person board
might select as the industry that might
replace the automotive industry," the
Novi Republican said. "We should
keep the millions of jobs that are at risk
in the state."
DeRoche said the new proposal is
intended to be a compromise that would
pay for tax cuts the Republicans have
been pushing while setting aside money
to reduce the state economy's reliance on
the manufacturing industry.
But Granholm has said she would not
support selling part of the state's tobacco
settlement to pay for tax cuts, spokes-
woman Liz Boyd said.
"To say that we're surprised by (DeR-
oche's) latest announcement is an under-
statement," Boyd said after the speaker
gave reporters details of the change.
The governor has her own plan for
reducing business taxes, but it has
failed to get GOP support because it
paid for the cuts in part by increasing
payments from banks and insurance
companies. It would have immediately
dropped the S fT rate from 1.9 percent
to 1.2 percent and created a 35 percent
personal property tax credit for manu-
facturing and research and develop-
ment property.

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WORLD'S LARGEST SELECTION OF
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