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THE EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK with WALTER NOWINSKI
A look at the big news events this week and how important they really are. Conveniently rated from one to10.
tct x of COnten
3B JUNK DRAWER
What you can and can't
talk about this week.
6B WHY YOU'RE NOT
A RHODES SCHOLAR
How Harvard and Yale do more to help
their students get prestigious British
scholarships than the University does
8B THE DREADED FALSE POSITIVE
How one student handled the news
that she'd tested positive for HPV
CONT'd: Good ol fashioned rioting in Ann Arbor
NO WEED FOR JESUS
For the first time in 20 years, the U.S.
Supreme Court is reconsidering limits
10 on students' right to free speech. The
7 1 case comes after an Alaskan student
was suspended for displaying a large
banner that read "Bong hits 4iJesus."
0
MAN UP AND GOVERN
After 33 days of hiding in his office, state
Senate leader Mike Bishop finally emerged
to discuss the state budget deficit with Gov.
10 Granholm. Hopefully the legislature's top
ranking republican can overcome his fear of
governing before the state goes bankrupt.
THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM
Former Iraqi V.P. Taha Ramadan was
hanged this week for the deaths of 148
Shiite Iraqis. Maybe it is a sign of progress
10 that the fledgling Iraqi government man-
s aged to avoid the taunting and inadvertent
decapitation that marred the executions
of Saddam Hussein and Barzan Ibrahim.
AMWAY FAMILY VALUES
A Salt Lake Cityjuryawarded Procter & Gam-
bel $19.1 million after finding that Amway
distributors spread rumors that its competi-
0 or supported satanic rituals. Apparently the 0
botched campaign style that led Amway heir
Dick DeVos to defeat last November doesn't
work in the private sector either.
declared his establishment off-lim-
its to students after one hit him as
he was ejecting some student trou-
blemakers from the audience. A
crowd ofnearly a thousand students
gathered to protest, showering the
theatre with eggs, vegetables and
bricks.
Before movies were invented,
circuses were similarly problem-
atic, distracting students from
class and inspiring mischief. In
the early 1900s, Ringling Brothers
brought their circus to town - for
the last time, as it turned out. Dur-
ing a parade, students threw fire-
crackers under the elephants' feet.
These large mammals stampeded,
causing the smaller animals who
were watching the parade to panic.
Other circuses avoided the town
for years.
Another recurring source of
trouble was the post office. Back
before mail was delivered, resi-
dents and students had to pick up
their mail at the postoffice - which
wasn't large enough to deal with
the crowd when students lined up
for their mail following afternoon
classes, Impatient students would
occasionally rush the post office.
The resulting struggles were a
constant source of ill will between
town and gown.
Perhaps the most intense post
office rush occurred on October
14, 1879. The Encyclopedic Sur-
vey of the University of Michigan
describes the event as follows: "It
became apparent that an unneces-
sary delay would ensue in the deliv-
ery of the mail. The angry students
broke out in hostile shouts and
yells, and of course a disturbance
When late mail
delivery seemed
like a good reason
to riot.
arose. On the following night a
large crowd of students and armed
citizens gathered. The fire bell was
rung to call out the state militia,
and the latter charged with fixed
bayonets. The mayor offered two
dollars for every student arrested,
and many were taken into custo-
dy."
Viewed from a safe historical
distance, such stories might seem
quaint and cute, an artifact of
bygone and innocent days before
tear gas, the National Guard and
before Kent State made cam-
pus riots dangerous. That wasn't
always the case, however. Rifle
shots that rang out a few days after
another post office rush in Novem-
ber 1890 drew angry crowd of stu-
dents expecting further unrest. As
it turned out, the shots had merely
been fired to celebrate a mili-
tia member's wedding, but such
inconvenient facts didn't prevent
another battle between students
and the militia. In the resulting
battle, a freshman - reportedly an
innocent bystander - was cracked
over the head with a rifle butt. He
later died.
Town-gown relations might be
a bit less violent today, but they're
still not completely smooth. A few
years ago, permanent residents
eager to make Ann Arbor look
"nicer" (or perhaps just hoping to
boost their property values fur-
ther) rallied behind a proposal to
ban that unattractive staple of col-
lege life - dingy couches left out
on porches. One popular argument
townies used was that couches on
porches were just too tempting for
students to burn when they inevi-
tably rioted. A hundred years ago,
that might have been a good point.
HIGH NOON ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE
The White House has offered to let presidential advisers Karl Rove and Harriet Miers field questions from
congress about the politically motivated firings of eight U.S. prosecutors. The catch is that the meet-
ing will not be transcribed, and Rove won't testify under oath. President Bush said the Democrats should
accept this symbolic meeting - in which Rove is free to lie - or else face a showdown over executive privilege.
0
Does your pro-
fessor believe
in God? Does
it matter?
Magazne Editor: Anne VanderMey
EditorinChief: Karl Starpfl
Managing Editor: Jeffrey Bloomer
CoverArt:ShaySpaniola
PhotoEditor: Peter Schottenfels
Designers: Bridget O'Donnell
PERSON OF THE WEEK
rule 28: Chipotle isn't worth
the Wait. rule 29: If you insist
on playing your guitar in your
dorm room, at least keep the door
closed; you're probably not tal-
ented. rule 30: Don't buy season
tickets With someone you're hook-
ing up with. You're going to break
up, and it's going to be awkward.
- E-mail rule submissions to
email@michigandaily.com
CINDY SHEEHAN
With latest polls reporting that less than a third of Ameri-
cans support the war in Iraq, you'd think that by now
someone would have drowned out Cindy Sheenan, the
anti-war activist that makes all the other anti-war activists
look silly. In the lead-up to the fourth anniversary since
the U.S. invasion, protesters gathered across the coun-
try to demand troop withdrawl. Most in Washington
dispersed within an hour - it was darn cold - but there
was still time for Sheenan to tell reporters that "It's like
being in the shadow of the Death Star." Who gets to be
Darth Vader? And we thought Sheehan's 15 minutes of
fame ended hours ago.
They just don't riot like they used to
Our Back Pagres I History Column
RELIGION
From page 5B
that leads to irreligiosity?
It might be tempting here to make
the statement that better education,
whichleads to better thinking, could
lead to the denial of religion.
"There is an atmosphere here
where religion equals stupidity,"
said Malley. "I've heard professors
mock religious people openly and
I'm shocked."
But Malley also said some faculty
had approached him "behind closed
doors" to "come out" to him about
their Christian beliefs.
Nate Ardle, the minister of Cam-
pus Crusade for Christ, attributes this
to a common intellectual position on
campus. "It seems much easier to talk
aboutnotbelievinginGodthanbeliev-
ing in God," Ardle said. "Because you
can't prove religion scientifically, the
default is to not talk about it. You
assume it doesn't exist."
The religious and political dis-
parity in elite faculty doesn't sur-
prise Ardle. "I would call the best
schools in the U.S. the most liberal,"
he said.
Ardle attributes this to differing
motivations in the religious and the
atheist. "If you're an atheist, educa-
tion and the things that come out of
education are some of the highest
goals that you could possibly strive
for in society," he said. People who
have education as their first prior-
ity, he said, are more likelyto end up
in administrative positions, and are
then more likely to hire people who
share that mindset. "It's a self-per-
petuating cycle."
The authors of the Harvard
Divinity School study recount the
waxing and waning of religious
influence upon higher education.
The earliest colleges and univer-
sities were religious by nature. In
the late 19th century, an academic
revolution ushered in the professor
as scientist and scholar, rather than
preacher. Ties with religion were cut
and researchers specialized within
their departments. Academic free-
dom became guaranteed.
The next generational changes
came in the middle of the 20th cen-
tury, as American dominance in
the world increased enrollment at
U.S. colleges and attracted diverse
faculty members from abroad, who
brought with them little religious
baggage. The story now has it that
the leftists of the sixties have set-
tied nicely into academia, turning
America's great universities into
hippie hideouts. -
4.
Faced with a choice between
eternal peril and everlasting plea-
sure, any thinking person would
pick the latter and go to church. But
for manythe choice isn't that simple.
And besides the different incentive
schedules, it's possible that profes-
sors just think differently.
"Academics tend to think about
everything too much," said Law
School Prof. Douglas Laycock, an
expert on religious liberty. "So it's
not surprising that they come to a
different set of answers."
Is it possible that the spirit of
liberal inquiry itself is inherently
incompatible with the traditional
practice of religion?
The holy books of the monothe-
istic religions claim to be histories.
They are reports of events that led
to the formation of the religion.
This stance instills in each believer
an emphasis on that which has come
before, on valuing traditions.
In other words, perhaps religion
instills a conservative worldview.
A reformer may pop up every few
centuries and nail up a list of griev-
ances to the door of his church - but
the dominant mode is resistance to
change. The believer enters into a
personal relationship with distant
historical events. Sacred history is
compressed and made alive again in
the present.This is the participatory
stance toward history.
In contrast is the academic, criti-
cal stance toward history. Roman
Catholics who receive the Eucha-
rist claim to be ingesting the actu-
al body and blood of Christ. The
scholar may consider this a testable
hypothesis and attempt to falsify it
according to the principles of the
scientific method. He lugs out his
mass spectrophotometer and begins
taking readings, completely missing
the point.
The authors of the UCLA survey
also analyzed religiosity by subject
area. Not surprisingly, biologicalsci-
ences had the highest incidence of
atheism, while the humanities had
one of the lowest. However, the pro-
fession with the very fewest atheists
turned out to be health care.
Technically, medicine and biology
are similar fields. However, in terms
of a day job, they're completely dif-
ferent. Could the academe factor in
the impersonal of the biologistsitting
behind a microscope account for the
lack of religiosity? Is there more of
that subtle, incomprehensible "real
life" factor in treating and caring for
people in the health professions and
hence greater religiosity?
5.
So what, if anything, do the reli-
gious affiliations of professors have
to do with the religious climate on
campus?
Little, it appears. Eighty percent
of respondents in the UCLA survey
said colleges and universities wel-
come students of faith.
"I don't mind saying what I
believe as long as I preface it by say-
ing this is my religious view," Malley
said. "But I don't know why anyone
would care to know."
"In my own experience I know
people of all types of religious com-
mitments and nonreligious com-
mitments among the faculty. I don't
detect any kind ofhostile atmosphere
at the University," Bouma said.
From the legal perspective of
individual rights and liberty, "athe-
ists and evangelists should be equal-
ly protected," Laycock said. "But I'm
sure some religious folk and nonbe-
lievers think this is a problem."
Malley described an instance
when a gay rights advocacy group
made an event announcement at the
beginning of one of his classes.
SHAY SPANIOLA/Dail
First Baptist Church on Huron Street, a parish near campus, on Monday evening.
nn Arbor isn't known for
its riots, at least not now-
adays. Sure, our Spartan
brethren in East Lansing might
burn couches in the street after
big games, win or lose. And over
in Kalamazoo, the authorities
have confronted some intense
ruckuses after Central-Western
games in recent years. But our
town is known for its peace-lov-
ing hippies. Even when the bars
spilled their drunk and disgrun-
tled hordes out into the street
after Michigan's disturbing loss
to Ohio State last fall, calm and
order prevailed.
Perhaps, one might think,
some crazy stuff happened here
in the sixties, that special era
between 1966 and 1974 or so,
when rebellious youth heed-
lessly lit all sorts of things on fire
- bras, American flags and mar-
ijuana cigarettes, for instance.
And, yes, Ann Arbor did see
perhaps more than its fair share
of civil unrest in those days.
(Take a look at the glass histori-
cal marker on South University
Avenue near Ulrich's sometime
if you don't believe me).
The wild days,
before tear
gas and
fire hoses.
There are plenty of good sto-
ries from that time. One of my
favorite anecdotes involves for- - and World War I, for that
mer Washtenaw County Sheriff matter. In the early 20th centu-
William Harvey, a traditional ry and even back into the 1800s,
law-and-order type who wasn't students here rioted for avariety
fond of student activists. The of reasons.
feeling was mutual: Former One sore spot was local movie
University President Robben theaters. Student hoping to see
Fleming wrote in his memoirs a free show would sometimes
that when Harvey would fly charge into a theater en masse,
over the Diag in his helicopter, much to the chagrin of the-
students were liable to chuck ater owners and local authori-
rocks at it. ties. One famous case, the Star
But if you want a real good, Theater riot in March of 1908,
old-fashioned riot, you've got resulted when the theater owner
to go back well before Vietnam See RIOT, page 7B
"The example of LGBT groups
coming to your class to do a presen-
tation shows that the University tol-
erates it," although some religions
would find it disagreeable. "There
is definitely conflict between some
religions and liberal inquiry."
Laycock brings up the important
distinction between opposition and
separation. "Historically, the Uni-
versity's had to separate one's disci-
pline with one's religion.Youcannot
let your religious views interfere
with your research," Laycock said.
Ardle described some of his con-
gregants as "trying to make their
way in a University that gener-
ally doesn't support their religious
views. They pretty much seem to
expect it."
But the University's withhold-
ing of support for particular views
is a symptom of its larger neutrality
towards any religious positions. The
University cannot please everybody
all the time. So it tries its best to
keep the peace.
6.
It is this atheist reporter's first
time in church. Campus Chapel
holds its intimate services in a
simple space. Thick wooden beams
overhead reveal the airy ceiling
structure. A few dozen worshippers
sing along to piano and acoustic gui-
tar, led by a solo voice. These people
aren't here for miracles. They are no
less intellectual than their atheist
counterparts at the University.
It's past noon when the services
end. The sun has warmed the air
outside. The congregants leave
with kind eyes. There are slightly
fewer wrinkles on their faces,
and smiles appear spontaneously.
Across the street, students begin
picking up the red Dixie cups
on their lawns. They return the
smiles of the congregants.