The Statement
rIe tidigan hail
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Wednesday, November 21,2007
michigandaily.com
A COOPERATIVE THANKSGIVING
STADIUM CONTROVERSY
Justice
Dep't asks
to join1suit
against'U'
After Ed. Department rejects
compromise, feds want in on
paralyzed vets lawsuit
By GABE NELSON
Daily News Editor
The Department of Justice asked a federal court
yesterday to let it join the Michigan Paralyzed Veter-
ans of America in its suit against the University that
challenges whether Michigan Stadium meets federal
accessibility standards.
In a hearing at the U.S. District Court for the East-
ern District of Michigan in Detroit scheduled for
this morning, Justice Department officials will also
request permission to send a team of Justice Depart-
ment investigators to survey the stadium nextweek.
"It is critical that the United States perform this
survey as soon as possible," the Justice Department
wrote in a motion filed yesterday. "The University has
begun a large-scale renovation of the stadium and the
work could destroy important information about the
existing stadium."
The department chose to step in after the Depart-
ment of Education's Office of Civil Rights rejected a
compromise offered by the University of Michigan
yesterday and referred its concerns to the Justice
Department. The University offered in a letter sent
to the office on Monday to build removable platforms
around the seating bowl that would have added as
many as about 300 additional wheelchair-accessible
seats with differentvantage points to the stadium.
According to a statement by Education Department
spokeswoman Samara Yudof, the proposal was reject-
ed by the Education Department in part because it
wouldn't have provided permanent wheelchair-acces-
sible seating to the stadium bowl or resolved concerns
about the other problems with stadium facilities.
University spokeswoman Kelly Cunningham said
in a statement released yesterday that the University
has always shown commitment to the needs of dis-
abled fans.
"The University of Michigan is disappointed
See STADIUM, Page 7A
PETER SCHOTTENFELS/Daily
LSA junior Stephanie Washell waits for Thanksgiving dinner to be served at Nakamura co-op on State Street. Two of the co-op's residents organized the dinner for the house's 29 residents. For
a video of the co-op's festivities, visit michigandaily.com/allvideos.
LEASE SIGNING oRDNANCE
Landlords offer cash to get around law
Incentives entice
tenants to sign waivers
By DANIEL STRAUSS
Daily StaffReporter
Ann Arbor landlords are offering
tenants money or free home cleanings
to get them to sign a lease for next year
or to sign a waiver givinglandlords per-
mission to show the home to other pro-
spectivetenants. Theincentives,offered
in letters to tenants, are an attempt to
get around the city's lease signing ordi-
nance, which prohibits landlords from
showing a residence before 90 days of
the current lease period are up.
Some landlords have also been send-
ing letters requesting information by
a certain date - sometimes as early
as Oct. 25 - saying that, if there is no
response given, they can begin showing
a residence to prospective tenants. For
many of the near-campus leases that
start on Sept. 1, the ordinance prohibits
landlords from showing the property
before Dec. 1.
But landlords seem to have found a
loophole in the ordinance. By asking
tenants to sign a waiver, and sometimes
offeringmonetary incentives, landlords
have gotten many students to agree to
allow landlords to show their apart-
ments before Dec. 1.
Engineering junior Aaron Sachs said
he and his roommates began think-
ing about where they would live next
year after receiving this type of letter
in early October. Sachs said because
he and his friends didn't know the
request was voluntary, they felt rushed
into making a decision to lease another
house or renew their existing lease.
"Honestly, that decision kind of has
to do with the rush," said Sachs, who
said he was offered up to $200 by his
current landlord if he renewed his lease
by Nov. 1. "It's definitely not possible to
find another place in that short a peri-
od, especially because most other peo-
ple are in the same boat, and they are, of
course, waiting for the last second to
decide."
See LEASE LAW, Page 7A
STEM CELL RESEARCH
Discovery could help
scientists get around ban
State law
prohibits
embryonic study
From staff and wire reports
Scientists have made ordi-
nary human skin cells take on
the chameleon-like powers of
embryonic stem cells, a startling
breakthrough that might some-
day deliver the medical payoffs of
embryo cloning without the con-
troversy.
The discovery could be a boon
to researchers in Michigan, where
regulations against embryonic
stem cell research are strict.
"It's possible that in future we'll
use this reprogramming approach
instead of, for example, doing
nuclear transfer to derive embry-
onic stem cell lines for therapeutic
cloning," said Sean Morrison, the
director of the University's Center
for Stem Cell Biology.
Laboratory teams on two con-
tinents report success in a pair of
landmark papers released Tues-
day. It's a neck-and-neck finish
to a race that made headlines
five months ago, when scientists
announced that the feat had been
accomplished in mice.
The "direct reprogramming"
technique avoids the swarm
of ethical, political and practi-
cal obstacles that have stymied
attempts to produce human stem
cells by cloning embryos.
Scientists familiar with the
work said scientific questions
remain and that it's still important
to pursue the cloning strategy, but
that the new work is a major coup.
"This work represents a tre-
mendous scientific milestone
- the biological equivalent of the
Wright Brothers' first airplane,"
said Dr. Robert Lanza, chief sci-
See STEM CELLS, Page 7A
UNIVERSITY E-MAIr
Some outsource, but 'U' still on its own
ROBMIGRIN/Daily
LSA junior Julian Lizzio is an employee at Maison Edwards tobacconist in Nickels Arcade. Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr
frequents the shop, according to its owner.
Carr wins fans off field, too
At Northwestern, in an attempt to keep up with the
changing needs of students and
a switch to Gmail evolving Internet technology.
The University of Michigan
isn't one of those schools.
By JULIE ROWE . While Northwestern Univer-
Daily StaffReporter sity made the switch to Google
Apps for Education - a collection
Many universities around the of free Google applications for
world are no longer offeringe-mail colleges - after its undergraduate
services to students - at least not student government requested a
directly. Instead, some schools change, the University of Mich-
are now outsourcing student e- igan's Information Technology
a mail to Gmail and Windows Live Central Services is sticking with
its current web mail system.
Only 5 percent of University
undergraduates forward their
mail to other accounts, according
to ITCS.
The University currently pro-
vides web mail through an open
source program released by the
Horde Project. Horde's Internet
Messaging Program is one of the
most widely used web mail sys-
tems, especially on college cam-
puses.
See E-MAIL, Page 7A
Around town, coach
quiet but imposing
By DAVE MEKELBURG
Daily News Editor
Michigan football coach Lloyd
Carr has walked the sidelines at
Michigan Stadium for 13 seasons.
He's also been a fixture around
Ann Arbor. Even after his retire-
ment announcement on Monday,
Carr will stay in Ann Arbor as an
associate athletic director.
Still Carr hasn't been as visible
around campus as his mentor, for-
mer head coach Bo Schembechler,
who was often an oversized pres-
ence around campus.
As the sister of the owner of
Angelo's restaurant owner Steve
Vangelatos, Vickie Brooks has
seen Carr come into the Catherine
Street dining establishment quite
often. Brooks said the restaurant
sometimes hosts coaches' meetings
or coaches will bringrecruits to the
restaurant. Brooks called Carr an
understated person with an enor-
mous presence. When he came into
the restaurant, she would make
sure he had his space but would
always be excited.
"It was always the highlight of
the day," she said. "It was like a
movie star walked in."
His order, though, is decidedly
un-movie star.
He usually orders oatmeal,
Brooks said and he usually brings
his own black coffee to accompany
it.
Beyond his stature of coach,
Brooks said he has a command-
ing - albeit subdued - presence,
See CARR, Page 7A
TODAY'S
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INDEX NEWS 2.......................... 2A CLASSIFIEDS...............,......6A
Vol. CXVi, No. 55 OPINION ...........................4A SPORTS .........................8A
J2007TheMichigan Daily ARTS ................ .......5A THESTATEMENT..................1B
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