0 4A - Wednesday, January 24, 2007 The Michigan Daily - michiganclailycom EhoMc ligan :al'oly Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 413 E. Huron St. Ann Arbor, MI 48104 tothedaily@umich.edu DONN M. FRESARD EDITOR IN CHIEF EMILY BEAM CHRISTOPHER ZBROZEK EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS JEFFREY BLOOMER MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. What Pfizer can teach us Closing proves tax abatements are not the answer In an announcement that shocked the city, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced plans Monday to close its Ann Arbor research and development facility near the University's North Campus by 2008. Despite boasting revenues of $52.5 billion in 2005, the New York City-based company is closing several facilities world- wide to cut costs. At a time when Michigan's economy needs every job available, this loss of thousands only spells out worse things to come and highlights the immediacy of addressing the undesirable qualities of the state's workforce. Our success in this war is often measured by the things that did not happen." - President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address last night. JOHN OQUIST I YOU STILL DON'T HAVE YOUR PAPER? IT WAS ASSIGNED THREE WEEKS AGO. RESEARCH TAKES TIME PROFESSORI A62, 9 0 e Above the ruckus Pfizer's cutbacks affect nearly 2,100 employees in the Ann Arbor area and, com- bined with previous cutbacks, affect almost 10,000 workers worldwide. The proposed closing is part of the company's effort to save $2 billion a year in costs after reporting losses in recent years. The cuts amount to 10 percent of Pfizer's global workforce but dis- proportionately affect Michigan. In September 2001, the University sold much of the land the current complex sits on to Pfizer for $27 million and staffed much of the site with interns and researchers. After making the deal with the University, the company lobbied the City Council for tax breaks and abatements. Originally, it asked for a 50 percent abatement on a possible $800 million future investment. At the time, Pfizer warned the City Council that if it did not receive the tax breaks, it would look into building laboratories elsewhere. Pfizer promised that the remaining tax revenues would benefit the city and the state for the next six to 12 years. Some financial firms even argued that the benefits would be accrued over a 15-year period. But Pfizer found it necessary to abandon its Ann Arbor laboratories.after only six years. Pfizer's decision to leave Ann Arbor is tell- ing because its operations will be tentatively assumed by at least two laboratories located in places with higher taxes than Michigan (Connecticut and California). Tax abate- ments that bring companies to the state are not necessarily evil, but Pfizer's departure makes it clear that they are not the end-all answer: companies will still leave at the first sign of financial trouble. For Michigan to emerge from the economic rut it's now in, high-tech jobs need to come and stay here. Togetcompaniesto stay- especiallythose that command as highly-skilled employees as Pfizer - the state must commit itself to building an educational system that churns out the right kind of workers. Simply throw- ing out tax breaks may nominally help, buta matchless workforce is a far greater incen- tive for companies to move and stay here. So far, the state legislature has ignored higher education, making it the first to take a hit in a tight budget. Maybe the departure of Pfiz- er will finally open some eyes in Lansing. ast Monday, I found myself marching with Luke Massie, the co-chair of By Any Means Necessary. Well, walking, really. It's my fourth year at the University, and I'd never attended a BAMN march. So when the group showed up to protest Proposal 2 on Martin Luther King Jr. Day last week, I felt obligated to check it out. Massie, the impish Trotsky- ite who wears a red goatee, hoop earrings and a crazy gleam in his eye, led the march- ers, shouting t!. slogans into a loudspeak- DONN M. er. Hundreds FRESARD of kids from Detroit schools filled out BAMN's thin ranks. A marching band from Cass Technical High School made it impossible to hear anyone who wasn't shouting. Separately, right-wing counter- protesters were holding signs of their own and yelling at the BAMN march- ers. With the election over, they weren't really protesting so much as gloating. They seemed to enjoy pro- voking the crazies on the other side. One of them could barely contain his giddiness when Massie made an obscene gesture in his direction. At the corner of State Street and North University Avenue, the conser- vatives realized they had lost a mem- ber and dropped out of the march. A couple whipped out cell phones. "Knowing Justin, he's probably screaming in someone's face some- where," said Clark Ruper, former deputy director of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative campaign. Ruper was referring to Justin Zatkoff, the Michigan Federation of College Republicans co-chair who embarrassed himself a few months ago when he claimed to have been beaten up by members of BAMN and/ or gay activists outside an Ann Arbor party. It turned out one of his high school friends had broken his nose, cheekbone and eye socket in some drunken horseplay. After retrieving Zatkoff - who was, indeed, screaming in someone's face ("The people of Michigan have spoken!") - the young conserva- tives hustled back to the front of the march. I left them to talk with some of the Detroit students. Some just seemed bewildered, like Demarco, a skinny 13-year-old who walked tentatively along the sidewalk with a BAMN sign tucked under his arm while everyone else yelled at each other in the street. One, a Murray Wright High School senior named Christopher who car- ried the left side of a huge "Undo Prop 2" sign, turned out to be one of the plaintiffs in BAMN's lawsuit. He had applied to the University earlier this month, and he said he might get in if BAMN's request to delay Proposal 2 were approved. After the march came the requi- site Diag rally. It wasn't that cold, but some kind of freezing rain had started frosting everyone's hair. A string of speakers got up on the steps of the Grad to throw around demands and accusations. (BAMN, one speaker intoned, knew for a fact that Proposal 2 was intended to serve the economic interests of white racists.) Standing at the back of the rally with the other counter-protesters, Jeremy Boguslawski, chair of Oakland University's College Republicans, looked over the crowd with contempt. "It's like the kid who is complaining because you stole the ball from him, and he wants it back," he said. Was he sure he wanted to put it that way? Boguslawski backtracked and came up with a new analogy. It was like the last inning in a baseball game, with two outs and the center fielder had just made a catch. The game was over, but BAMN was arguing the out. retty soon, the BAMN peo- ple moved to Angell Hall for another round of speakers. Just as they started, J. David Singer, a pro- fessor emeritus of political science, stepped out of an elevator, bemused. He had heard the rally from his sixth- floor office and come down to check it out. At first, he told me he wished there were more people out here protesting Proposal 2. When he surmised that this was a BAMN event, though, he lost interest. "That expression - 'any means necessary' - that sounds like those idiots in the White House," he said. I'd lost interest, too, and we ducked outside so he could smoke his pipe. Singer, a reader of the Nation and Mother Jones magazines who is dash- ing and witty at 81, had been on fac- ulty governing boards in the late '80s Coffee with a wise professor was calm amid a storm. and early '90s, when administrators were first selling the idea of affirma- tive action to the faculty. Singer was an early supporter - "in the days when it wasn't easy to be" - but now he didn't see the logic in trying to defy the voters. And Singer isn't the don't-rock-the- boat type. He's been fired by Univer- sity departments more than once for clashing with his superiors. He got his first teaching job, at a Navy officer training school, after getting kicked off his ship for defyingthe captain. We took the elevator to Singer's office, grabbing a cup of coffee on the way. (He stirred half a packet of hot cocoa powder into his.) After chatting for about an hour, we got back to affir- mative action. He seemed confident that the University could find cor- relates of race that it could consider without breaking the' law, and that more progressive economic policies would eventually make affirmative action less necessary anyway. I didn't know if he was right. But I made that cup of coffee last quite a while before taking the elevator back to the first floor of Angell Hall. Donn M. Fresard is the Daily's editor in chief. He can be reached at dmfres@umich.edu. 0 SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@UMICH.EDU Affirmative action is easy sentiment. So wh voters agreed wit way out of tough solution ers in.California i disastrous for col TO THE DAILY: voters were unini I've been reading the comments and articles At least Michigan written about the debate over Proposal 2. What right to be educat many of its opponents are missing is that it isn't sions of this legisl being black that causes poorer SAT scores and Additionally, G: application essays. It's being poor. speech. If crazies Opponents of Proposal 2 believe that being dents on the Diag black somehow makes you unable to do well in why can't the pre: the classroom: That's racist and unacceptable, responsible citizen especially from the University. Proposal 2 says After all, our gove nothing about helping low-income families come tect the rights of t1 to the University; it only bans the use of race and cal majority, event gender preferences. function in the mo Instead of spending money fighting an amend- Let's remembe ment passed by the majority of Michigan voters, over Proposal 2 is why doesn't the University set up programs in the prevalent asE the School of Education that can help the poor- prior to the prop est parts of Michigan in the same way Teach white men. for America does? My guess is that affirmative action is easier and trying to solve the discrep- Sarah Tomasik ancy between the poorest and the richest schools LSA senior is more difficult. The leaders of the University would rather put a band-aid over the problem and tell themselves they're good people for doing it, Daily mus even while they stick their heads in the sand and tell us that skin color alone determines intelli- responsibl gence and opportunity. The University should try to help disadvantaged students meet standards TO THE DAILY: instead of lowering them with a system that ste- I find it quite pi reotypes applicants based on skin color had to resort to I at if a greater percentage of h Proposal 2? So did the vot- n 1996, and the results were liege admissions then. Most formed of the consequences. residents should have had a ed on the possible repercus- ation. aber ignores the right to free are allowed to harass stu- with unpopular beliefs, then ss express its dissent? Part of nry is to question the majority. rnment was founded to pro- he minority againstthe politi- though it sometimes does not 'st effective manner. r that beating a dead horse s not any more heinous than sertion that discrimination osal was directed at young I be more 'e with sources tiful that the Daily reporters Facebook.com for "informa- 0 KIRSTEN SCHOHL it's time to intervene in Darfur 0 Carl Paulus Alum Continued Prop 2fight is democratic necessity TO THE DAILY: Andrew Gaber's complaint of student activ- ism in opposition to Proposal 2 (Daily's advice to 'U'attempt to thwart will ofMichigan voters, 01/22/2007) misses two key elements of the democratic process upon which the editorial is based. One is the right to dissent from popular tion" about Ryan Turner and that the tors actually allowed the article to be prir (Dental student dies at CCRB, 01/18/20 It would have been tactful and tastefu wait an extra day before publishing any s details in order to get in touch with his fa and friends, rather than provide informa about what movie quotes were in his Faceb profile. The editors should have been pat and waited till they had a more complete: cle, like the one that ran the day after (Fan friends, remember 'go-to guy,'01/19/2007). Please, do not do this again. Darshan Karwat Engineering senior e nt Su M Iti, ie ar mn KIM LEUNG 0) 0 CL. CL di- In Sudan's western region of Dar- ed fur, more than 200,000 citizens have '7). been killed, two million are homeless to and thousands of women and girls ch have been raped. In one of the world's ily worst human disasters, the Arab-led on Sudanese government and the Janja- ok weed - Arab militias allied with the ent Sudanese government - have engaged ti- in genocide against non-Arabs over ily, the past three years. To date there have been many promises but little action by outside forces to implement peace in Darfur. Many people feel that it is time for the United Nations to send peacekeeping troops to the region without the Suda- nese government's consent, while oth- ers think the United Nations should simply negotiate peace agreements. An intervention by peacekeeping troops must take place now, at all costs, to stop the atrocities in Darfur. The majority of Darfur's 6 mil- lion citizens include African farmers and Arabic nomads who have mixed easily in the past. But over the past two decades, persistent drought has forced the Arabs to move to less desir- able land, straining relations with the Africans. This caused the formation of an African rebel group, known as the Sudanese Liberation Army, which began destroying villages and killing government soldiers. Sudanese Presi- dent Omar al-Bashir reacted by calling on local tribes to crush the rebellion, initiating the formation of an Arab nomad group. Not only did this group attack Sudanese Liberation Army members but also innocent civilians. In consequence, the Janjaweed (Ara- bic for "horse and gun") receives back- ing from the Sudanese government to support the ethnic cleansing of all Sudanese Africans. With the destruction of homes and villages, the Janjaweed have caused over 2 million Darfuris to flee to refu- gee camps. Recently, U.N. aid agen- cies made a statement warning that the relief keeping millions alive can- not be sustained much longer. In May 2006, the Sudanese Libera- tion Army and Sudanese government signed a peace treaty, promising to disarm the Janjaweed. This prom- ise has still not been fulfilled, and it appears that the crisis in Darfur has actually worsened since the agree- ment. Founded in 2002, the African Union, a group of 53 African coun- tries, also tried to help by gradually sending 7,000 troops to Darfur, but the force was not strong enough to successfully help the large number of victims. Given these failures, Darfur is in need of new outside peacekeep- ing initiatives immediately. The United Nations recently pro- posed sending 22,500 peacekeepers to the Darfur region, but currently there's a standstill. Al-Bashir does not want any U.N. forces deployed to Sudan and insists on troop control. The United Nations insists on waiting for his per- mission to take action, though such permission is arguably not required. The question remains of who should lead an estimated $1.4 to $1.6 billion peacekeeping intervention into Darfur? It's likely that many countries would need to finance the interven- tion. Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Canada have said they are each will- ing to send several hundred troops. But again, who will lead? While the America could co-lead an intervention, its forces are already in Iraq and Afghanistan. France already iS has troops in neighboring Chad and has significant regional business and oil interests to protect. Great Britain is historically tied to 20th century leadership of African countries for economic interests as well. Sudan's acceptance of an African Union peacekeeping proposal is possible, but the AU is not well-funded. Sudan's nine neighbors (Egypt, Libya, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Congo, Central African Republic and Uganda) should play a role, even if it is only in border protection and repel- ling Janjaweed advances. Because it shares the largest border with Sudan's Darfur region, Chad should be most involved with an intervention because Sudan's problems are now becoming its own. Finally, any peacekeeping interven- tion should be accomplished without necessarily imposing a government structure - not even democracy - on the Sudanese. Those involved, includ- ing America, should instead focus sole- ly on stopping the genocide. Trying to impose democracy can get in the way ofendingthe atrocities because democ- racy may be seen as a selfish capitalist move for economic gain. It is our duty as human beings to force an immediate troop intervention in Darfur. While America should have a significant role in this, it should not lead, leaving that to African Union and United Nations forces. The main pur- pose is to stop the atrocities without enforcing democracy. We must come together and fight for the lives of the people of Darfur by actingnow. Kirsten Schohl is an LSA freshman. This viewpoint is a modified version ofa paper for a class. 0 . .- : :