I 4A - Thursday, October 4, 2007 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com C I Iiian Baihj Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. XX k, , s,420 Maynsrd St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu Where were the fiscal conservatives when the president demanded hundreds of billions of dollars for the war in Iraq?" - Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), responding to suggestions that the president was right to veto the State Children's Health Insurance Program because it would be too expensive, as reported yesterday on CNN.com. KARL STAMPFL EDITOR IN CHIEF IMRAN SYED EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR JEFFREY BLOOMER MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorialboard. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views ofttheir authors. The Daily's public editor, Paul Johnson, acts as the readers'representative and takes a critical look at coverage and content in every section of the paper. Readers are encouraged to contact the public editor withquestions andcomments. He canbe reached at: publiceditor@umich.edu Above the law Threats to cut research grants have a sinister dual purpose For the past five years, Yale Law School has been engaged in a court battle with the Defense Department over the mili- tary's recruitment activities at university sponsored events on its campus, given its discriminate stance on homosexuality. Ear- lier this month, Yale lost that battle. Facing a loss of $350 million in government grants should it continue to ban military recruiters from campus, Yale must now relent and allow its ideals to be tres- passed by a flagrantly intrusive government. The military's ability to bypass university policy at Yale is evidence of a disturbing trend of governmental interference in university affairs. 0 6 I You've got Spurn I'm addicted to e-mail. I like con- necting with family and friends at computers across the world. However, I don't like cutesy for- wards and chain letters or porn messages that somehow creep into my inbox. I like the power of rapid, customiz- . able communica- NEIL tion, and I detestT spam notifying me of the latest hot stock pick. There's no doubt that e-mail is revolutionary, but its value as a medium for commu- nication is diminishing. We have to help save e-mail. I started thinking critically about e-mail last week when I was tricked by a web service called Doostang. Basically, Doostang is a professional networking website - think Face- book for people who wear suits all day. I punched in my e-mail login info to search for friends already using the service, and I had some success. Unfortunately, as a parting gift, Doostang sent a friend request to everyone in my address book, includ- ing professors, business contacts and people I haven't spoken to in years. Needless to say, the incident caused a surprising amount of embarrassment and hassle. E-mail culture wasn't so complicated in the old days. I started e-mailing when I was about 8 years old. At the time America Online was king and the "You've got mail" sound byte characterized how e-mail was cool and stress free. I e- mailed a few friends and family mem- bers who live abroad. Messages were easy to manage, and the medium was at its purest. Fewer viruses and spam messages littered the electronic land- scape, and it was a pleasant surprise to have a new message, not a chore. Then e-mail traffic started to esca- late. More and more unwanted week- ly e-newsletters started to circulate. At the same time, a variety of services like electronic banking statements became commonplace, making day- to-day tasks more efficient. As the use of e-mail to better organize our lives and communities increased, so did spam. E-mail was in purgatory. Now, e-mail is nearly a necessity, especially for college students. Pro- fessors use it to distribute informa- tion about classes, and the University sends campus crime alerts electroni- cally. We communicate with our parents, strangers and each other via computers. With the advent of the Blackberry, e-mail is accessible instantaneously anytime, anywhere. We spend hours every week manag- ing our inboxes when we could be doing other things. Now e-mail can be a bigger headache than love or grades, causing a queasy Pavlovian response upon every login. Two promises of early e-mail were efficiency and the immediate distri- bution of critical information. Now there's so much e-mail to manage, there's little time for sending personal letters, and it's painfully easy to miss a critical, time-sensitive message. In addition, lots of e-mail doesn't add much value to our collective con- sciousness. In fact, as I write this column, my inbox has exploded with more than a dozen subject-line-only e- mails about a stray cathanging around the Oxford and Hill area. Though amusing, chatter about cats makes life unnecessarily saturated with infor- mation and that much harder. That being said, I think there are a few ways to bring e-mail back to being a helpful and pleasant form of com- munication. For starters, focusing on the content of e-mails and crafting clear, concise messages is a top prior- ity. Maybe it would be worth it to read dozens of e-mails a day if the subject matter was interesting and relevant. Even more thoughtful subject lines E-mail is getting out of hand. It needs our help. would help. On the reader's end, free alternatives like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird are user- friendly upgrades from the Universi- ty's webmail service that streamline mail management. Beyond that, trying to keep e- mail to manageable levels is a shared responsibility. We could all strive to spend more time communicating face-to-face (or webcam-to-webcam) and use text messages for casual, quick notes instead of e-mail. It wouldn't be archaic to write a letter every now and then either. We can revert to using e-mail to fulfill its original objective - making life eas- ier. It might take a marginal amount of extra effort with each message, but it could save us all a lot of headaches in the long run. Neil Tambe can be reached at ntambe@umich.edu. Yale requires all recruiters at university sponsored events to sign a pledge of non- discrimination, which military organiza- tions have not been able to comply with as a result of Defense Department's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. That 1993 policy, like its predecessor, prohibits servicemen from being openly gay. For the past 30 years, military recruiters have not been allowed on Yale's campus for their failure to com- ply with university policies stemming from the military's exclusion of gays. However, five years ago the govern- ment threatened to withhold all of Yale's research grants - to the tune of $350 mil- lion - if the university continued to pro- hibit military recruiters. This threat was vindicated last month in a federal appeals court. Given a choice between upholding its nondiscrimination policy and losing all federal funding for scientific endeavors, the plaintiffs for Yale were forced to stand down. On Monday, representatives from the Air Force and Navy were present at a Yale job interview program for the first time since 1978. At the crux of the legal battle was a 1997 law called the Solomon Amendment, which allows the government to deny funding to universities that prohibit military recruit- ing. Several Yale faculty members argued successfully in district court in 2005 that this law infringed on the university's aca- demic freedom and right to free speech. But a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against several univer- sities' attempts to prohibit military recruit- ment on campus due to the discrimination of openly gay individuals, virtually guar- anteed the eventual defeat of Yale's argu- ments. The Supreme Court's interpretation of the Solomon Amendment allows the mil- itary to force its way onto campus despite university non-discrimination clauses. The measures taken by the government are completely unreasonable. Instead of working to create a more tolerant military that complies with the nondiscriminatory policies of Yale and other institutions, it has strong-armed its way past any such regula- tions by threatening to withhold research funding. This funding goes toward vital research that benefits our society as a whole. Yale, for example, is a frontrunner in this field of medical research. Cutting funding to vital endeavors like this over an obstinate refusal to allow gays to serve openly is ludicrous. Columbia University is currently the target of similar threats. A resolution was passed by Columbia's Senate in 2005 opposingthe reinstatement ofthe Reserved Officers Training Corps program - which was disbanded during the Vietnam War - because of the military's discrimination against gays. In the aftermath of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) has pro- posed the Restore Patriotism to University Campuses Act, intended to deny federal funding to Columbia if it continues to ban the ROTC. This is another example of gov- ernment officials attempting to bully their way past university non-discrimination policies by threatening scientific research. Universities, especially private insti- tutions like Yale and Columbia, ought to have the right to shape and enforce their own policies of what is and is not tolerable on their own campuses. Blackmailing the university community and holding vital research hostage is despicable. What's worse is that all this is done to uphold the military's discriminatory policies. ALEXANDER HONKALA 1 2 FA ff J" f f; A perspective on the Greek system from the driver of a party bus TO THE DAILY: I fail to understand how members of fraternities and sororities at the University can say that drinking is not a problem in Greek life. I am writing as a driver of a private bus company that has been used many times to take University fraternities to bars in Detroit, Wind- sor and Ypsilanti. These groups have ordered and used four, five or even six buses at a time on Thursday eve- nings. Each bus carries 47 or 55 passengers, which means that we're transporting approximately 300 stu- dents on these nights. Fraternity brothers have been extremely intoxicated prior to boarding the buses, and some have had to be carried off the bus at the end of the evening. The same is true of the sororities. They have abused the buses, vomited on them and caused dangerous events to occur while on the road, such as opening the emergen- cy windows while driving down I-94 and screaming at the driver. This is why the owner of the bus company requires a minimum $200 deposit for each bus. Anyone who doubts these statements can go to the Hill and Washtenaw area Thursday nights to check it out for themselves. Larry Skrdla Bus driver Student-athletes are underesti- mated by LSA advisors TO THE DAILY: With regard to Tuesday's story about new academic guidelines for athletes, I want to suggest a significant- ly different side of the story (Profs want change in Uni- versity athletics, 10/02/2007). As a junior on the men's gymnastics team, I have worked for the past three years with an academic adviser, who works specifical- ly with my team and a few others. She has never once told me to take an easier course load or to look into a different degree program. Ironically, it was my LSA academic adviser who said that I couldn't possibly pursue my interest in the busi- ness school with my sports schedule. When I told her I have a teammate in the University's business school, her shock was ridiculous. "Well, what about doing English and then going to get an MBA later?" I asked. She told me that I would have the same problem. Discouraged, I went to my adviser in the athletic department. She told me that if I wanted to study busi- ness, we could make it work. If I wanted to study Eng- lish, we could make it work. She has the experience of working with student-athletes to know what is and isn't possible and didn't simply dismiss me as "another dumb jock," as I felt my LSA adviser had. If athletics is "an operation" that controls so much of "our public image, our financial health (and) our giving" as Virginia Shepherd, co-Chair of the Coali- tion on Intercollegiate Athletics, says, shouldn't ath- letes - who on top of an already strenuous courseload must deal with morning practices, regular workouts, classroom absences for competitions and other time commitments - reap the benefits? What's wrong with SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@UMICH.EDU using the money raised by athletes to provide them state-of-the-arttechnology and the guidance to ensure the best possible educational experience? Scott Bregman LSA junior The letter writer is a member of the men's gymnastics team. Opposing fans should not feel at home at the Big House TO THE DAILY: I'm tired of reading letters from students from other schools about how nice Michigan football fans are. It's time to stop being so friendly, because it's getting embar- rassing. Football fans are definitely not this nice at other schools. I just got back from a visit to Ohio State University. While walking around Columbus in my Michigan T-shirt, there was not a single person who didn't give me a tough time, whether I was eating dinner or checking into my hotel. At the airport, I was even stopped at the security checkpoint for about 20 minutes because I had a Michi- gan driver's license - the officer had to call in his super- visor to make sure it was okay to let me pass. So Michigan fans, I say we do the same to Ohio State students when we spot one in Ann Arbor. If you see some- one wearing a Buckeyes shirt, please remind that person that Ohio State really does suck. And if you want to strike a nerve, all you need to do is say, "Tressel drinks wine coolers!" (I spotted Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel sipping on the feminine drink while in Columbus.) Reda Jaber LSA senior Campus Watch ensures that academia is held accountable TO THE DAILY: In his letter to the editor last week (Double standard apparent in criticism of Ahmadinejad, 09/28/2007), Andrew Goodman-Bacon mischaracterized the work of Campus Watch and its founder Daniel Pipes. Con- trary to his claim, neither Pipes nor Campus Watch "violates academic freedom by encouraging students to report professors who are not pro-Israel enough." Campus Watch employs experts in the field to review and critique Middle East studies in North America with the purpose of improving them. This includes shedding light on professors who use the classroom to push inaccurate and politicized views on the Middle East. We believe that academia, like any other profes- sion, should not be above accountability. That Campus Watch's investigative work is occa- sionally inspired by information provided by students does not in any way violate academic freedom. Stu- dents who feel themselves silenced or intimidated by biased professors have every right to try to publicize the matter. Academic freedom is a two-way street. Cinnamon Stillwell The letter writer is a northern California representative for Campus Watch. 0 a T'A i i Editorial Board Members: Kevin Bunkley, Ben Caleca, Milly Dick, Mike Eber, Brian Flaherty, Gary Graca, Emmarie Huetteman, Theresa Kennelly, Gavin Stern, Jennifer Sussex, Neil Tambe, Matt Trecha, Radhika Upadhyaya, Rachel Wagner LETTERS TO THE EDITOR MORE ONLINE Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should BLOGS I be under 300 words and must include the writer's full name and Uni- Read more analysis and versity affiliation. All submissions become property of the Daily. We opinions at michigandaily. do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@umich.edu. com/thepodium.