Tuesday, November 1, 2005 News 3 Many mourn Rosa Parks's death Opinion 4 Sam Singer makes sense of the Valerie Plame affair Sports 9 Tim Jamison fills in for injured LaMarr Woodley PRODUCER TALKS 'STAR WARS' PAST AND FUTURE ... ARTS, PAGE 5 One-hundredffteen years ofedtorialfreedom www.michzanday.com Ann Arbor, Michigan m Vol. CXVI, No. 22 x2005 The Michigan Daily Appeals court OKs ballot measure BAMN leaders say Granholm will be asked to investigate signatures collected by MCRI By Julia F. Homing Daily Staff Reporter The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative scored a major victory yesterday when the Michigan Court of Appeals decided to allow Partner benefits put on hold By Jameol Naqvi Daily News Editor The gay community's. struggle for equal rights in Michigan was dealt a setback yesterday when the state Court of Appeals granted state Attor- ney General Mike Cox's motion for a stay on a lower-court ruling supporting domestic-partner benefits. The University will continue to offer health- care benefits to the same-sex partners of its employees, University spokeswoman Julie Peter- son said. The state, however, is not immune from yes- terday's decision. Liz Boyd, spokeswoman for Gov. Jennifer Granholm, said the governor's office will delay submitting provisions of the state-employee contract providing for domestic partner benefits to the Civil Service Commission, the body that must approve all provisions of the contract before they take effect. The Michigan American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing 21 gay couples in the case before the Appeals Court, stressed that yesterday's stay is in effect only until the court rules on Cox's appeal of the lower court ruling. "The court still needs to decide the case on its merits," said Kary Moss, executive director of the Michigan ACLU. Both Moss and Peterson emphasized that the stay - which itself could be appealed - chang- es little in the long term. "It was really a nonruling," Moss said, adding that the stay does not require Granholm to hold off on submitting partner benefits to the CSC. The ACLU has criticized Granholm for exercis- ing caution in providing same-sex benefits, which were negotiated in the state-employee contract but withheld by the governor's office pending a court decision favoring benefits. That ruling came late last month when Ingham County Circuit Judge Joyce Draganchuk interpreted a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage as permitting domestic-partner benefits. Michigan voters approved the amendment last November. The governor's office and the ACLU were encouraged by the Appeals Court's decision yes- terday to expedite the appeals process - which would have otherwise taken at least several months. "We want to see this resolved as quickly as it can be," Moss said. Jay Kaplan, staff attorney for the Michigan ACLU, said legal briefs in the case are now due to the court by the end of next month. See BENEFITS, Page 3 the organization's proposal - which would ban affirmative action in public hiring and college admissions in the state - to appear on the ballot in November 2006. BAMN - a pro-affirmative action group - plans to appeal the Appeal Court's decision to the Michigan Supreme Court, BAMN organizer and Rackham student Ben Royal said. He added that the organization is also asking Gov. Jennifer Granholm to intervene and spearhead an investi- gation of the signatures collected by MCRI. Supporters of affirmative action filed an appeal claiming signatures collected by MCRI to qualify the proposal for the ballot were obtained by misleading black voters into thinking they were supporting affirmative action. The groups that filed the appeal requested that the Board of State Canvassers investigate the validity of the signatures. But the Appeals Court ruled yesterday that the canvassers have no authority to question the peti- tions collected by MCRI. If the proposal is passed, the University would not be allowed to continue to factor race into its admissions decisions, a policy upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003. Royal said even people who don't support affirmative action should be discouraged by yesterday's decision. "It makes sense to have a body that investi- gates voter fraud because it ensures democracy," he said. "Not allowing investigations is just absurd." But RC Prof. Carl Cohen, who teaches a course in which he openly opposes affirmative action, said MCRI collected 455,000 valid sig- natures, far beyond the 317,000 necessary for the proposal to be included on the ballot next fall. "It's plain that this is an initiative which should be before the people of Michigan for their decision, and that's the way democracy works," he said. A poll conducted by the Detroit Free Press and EPIC/MRA, found that 60 percent of Michi- gan residents oppose affirmative action, indicat- ing that the proposal is likely to pass. Cohen said most Michiganders think of affir- See MCRi, Page 7 DON'T FEAR THE REAPER LSA senior Deepti Reddy poses as the "Dow Grim Reaper" as she passes out flyers to raise awareness of Dow Chemical's involvement In the Bhopal chemical disaster of Dec. 3, 1984, for which the company continues to deny responsibility. Bill would end life without parole for minors By Christina Hildreth Daily Staff Reporter Michigan jails house the third-highest number of inmates serving life sentences without parole who were sentenced as minors, according to a report released last month. The only states with more lifers sentenced as juveniles are Pennsylva- nia and Louisiana. State Sen. Liz Brater (D-Ann Arbor) announced last week that she is crafting legisla- tion in an attempt to lower this number. "We're not saying that people shouldn't be held accountable for these terrible deeds, but sometime in their life, they should have a second look," she said. The report, issued by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said more than 2,000 inmates are in U.S. jails for life because of crimes they committed as juveniles. Michigan prisons hold more than 300 of these inmates, some sen- tenced at ages as young as 15. A separate report released by the American Civil Liberties Union last year noted that under current state law, life without parole is a mandatory sentence for a juvenile convicted of first degree murder in an adult court. Brater's bill would nullify a 1997 law that allows juveniles of any age to be tried as adults for heinous crimes. If passed, the bill would rescind a judge's ability to sentence youths to life without parole, as well as permit the re-examina- tion of certain prisoners to determine if they still pose a threat to public safety. But don't expect the bill to be introduced soon. Brater said she knows she is tackling a contro- versial issue and will have to work with "all the stakeholders" to come up with a bill that could garner bipartisan support. See BRATER, Page 7 Bush nominates Auito to the Supreme Court Senate Democrats plan to make abortion a key issue in Supreme Court nominee hearings WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush nominated Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court yes- terday, hoping to usher in a historic new era of judicial conservatism while end- na Pi-anrhlian Ali;Aml +ha+ tAnmettAan than Harriet Miers. Bush, naming a replacement for Jus- tice Sandra Day O'Connor four days after Miers withdrew her name, said Alito "has a deep understanding of the proper role of judges in our society." "He understands that judges are to interpret the laws, not to impose their preferences or priorities on the people," the president said. Within hours, Alito collected support from many of the critics who had opposed Miers. A litn'c nnlitinll enmervative New director named tojudaic "studies institutelo By Drew Philp For The Daily The University has appointed Anita Norich as the head of the newly-created Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies. An arm of the University's Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, the news institute is designed to bring together 14 visiting scholars of Jewish culture to the University each year. Norich is an English professor at the University and a scholar of Yiddish literature. She has taught at the University since 1983 and ;,.: . F , . ...