I 0 0 a S I B h McignDal -Wensdy Mrh 1 20 WensaMac 01 00 avi 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.