A 4A - Monday, February 2, 2009 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 9 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu GARY GRACA ROBERT SOAVE COURTNEY RATKOWIAK EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR 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. Left in the cold State should change shelter policies to protect sex offenders Around 10 a.m. last Monday, 52 year-old Thomas Pauli was found frozen and lifeless in a Grand Rapids parking lot. As a registered sex offender, he couldn't enter two of the city's homeless shelters because of their proximity to a local school. His status as a sex offender left him nowhere to turn. While many sex crimes are serious offenses, they should not be accompanied by a legal and social stigma that leaves a human being with no choice but to freeze to death. To ensure this never happens again, the state government must change the way it treats homeless sex offenders. Two of Grand Rapids' homeless shel- ters, the Guiding Light Mission and Mel Trotter Ministries, can be fined or even shut down for admitting sex offenders like Pauli. That's because both shelters are located within 1,000 feet of Catholic Central High School. State law prohibits sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, and staying the night at Guid- ing Light and Mel Trotter falls under this category. On top of this restriction, Mel Trotter can't admit sex offenders because it houses women and children. Before his death, Pauli was allegedly seen in line at these shelters, but officials say they would have had to deny him a bed. It is tragic that Pauli could not enter either shelter simply because of their loca- tions. Restrictions on sex offenders should be placed to protect civilians - not harm the offenders themselves. But no matter how much the shelters would like to help these people, state law is preventing them. The stigma placed over sex offenders is life-altering, and regardless of one's stance on sex offender laws in general, Pauli's death should serve as an indicator more must be done to balance the care of these people with the state's safety concerns. This is clearly a difficult matter for state law, the shelters and homeless sex offend- ers. On one hand, the state has some legiti- mate safety interests at heart, and some good reasons to keep school zones and certain shelters safe from sex offenders. But leaving sex offenders with no allow- able homeless shelters during Michigan's harsh winters is hardly an acceptable con- sequence. In this case, the homeless shelters' proximity to a school forced them to turn away Pauli. The best compromise would be for the state to make sure all homeless sex offenders have somewhere to turn. Whether that means changing the law to allow these shelters to take in sex offend- ers, setting aside funding to build homeless shelters outside the school's radius or some other compromise, the state has a respon- sibility to take care of these people. Pauli's death was not the law's inten- tion, but it was a consequence of policies that discriminate against sex offenders and leave them with no way to live in our society. This mentality toward sex offend- ers is inhumane - they may have made mistakes, but they are still human beings. Homeless sex offenders are in just as much need as other homeless people, and laws need to change to provide them with bet- ter options for care. This death could have been prevented if the state government had not created an environment in which Pauli could not enter the available homeless shelters. By paying attention to the location of home- less shelters and how they relate to restric- tions on sex offenders, society can provide a more humane way of life for all homeless people. I had no idea waterboards were so heavy" - Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), commenting on an injury sustained by former vice president Dick Cheney while moving into his new home, as reported yesterday by The Washington Post. CHRIS KOSLOWSKI OUT AT E-MAIL CHRIS ATCSKOSLOW@UMICH.EDU e would like to take a The abundance of tasty We thank you, sirs and moentocon g laet ti ken,randseearian adam s, agt a e er Mosher-Jordan Marketplace entrees ensures few students chocenassembibng your for doing a great service for -IyT1 will choose to consum the men. all bovine-kind. less-than-palatable haaburgers " -o ** 7 0 p qs 4 0 Reconsidering GSI bias S everal semesters ago, I was in itself a political decision. I teach ruled in 2000 that the state of Flori- reviewing my teaching evalu- political science. If I don't introduce da violated this clause in its election ations and encountered a curi- politics into the classroom, I fail to recount procedures and effectively ous combination live up to my job title. handed the election to George Bush. of comments. One Despite that trite statement, much Other important applications of the student wrote I of what I teach isn't controversial. 14th Amendment have to do with "was too hard on Last term, for example, I taught affirmative action, the right to a law- the liberal students Introduction to Comparative Politics. yer and freedom of religion. and favored the Some countries like Britain use sin- conservative ones." gle-member districts, in which voters A second observed elect a single local legislator to repre- o o that I "clearly was sent their respective small geograph- ControVersy s biased in favor ical districts. Other countries like the p of liberal view- PATRICK Netherlands use proportional rep- points." To top it O'MAHEN resentation. Under this system, the off, a third wrote, country is one big legislative district, ClaSSroom "The GSI was obvi- citizens vote for their preferred party ously biased." and parties are allocated seats in the Right. legislature based on the percentage I try to separate "positive" and This set of evaluations demon- of the vote they win. Some, like Ger- "normative" analysis to defuse ten- strates some challenges that most many, use a combination of the two. sion. Very loosely speaking, posi- ihstructors at the University face. Boring, right? tive analysis tries to determine what What do we do about political bias Well, even these mundane facts policies lead to what outcomes (e.g., in the classroom? What, precisely, have serious and controversial impli- British-style electoral systems lead to is that bias to begin with? And more cations. Systems with proportional two-partysystems).Normative analy- broadly, under what circumstances is representation often have more sis then debates the desirability of the it okay to bring politics into the class- political parties represented in gov- means and outcomes (are two-party room? ernment. That's why the German systems desirable?) Inthe classroom, Bias is in the eyes of the beholder. Green Party often has a role in poli- my goal is for students to understand Remember, the goal of any instruc- cymaking that American Green Party the positive processes behind a given tor is to help students grapple with members can scarcely imagine. Also, outcome and then begin to consider uncomfortable new ideas. In math- it's often easier for women and other the normative implications. ematics, students can be uncomfort- underrepresented minority groups to It's okay to be a bit uncomfortable able when learning new concepts. win parliamentary seats in propor- with those implications, but instead But algebraic equations rarely court tional representation systems. Both of attributing that discomfort to a charges of political bias. In the social of those outcomes have large - and conspiracy, at least attempt to engage sciences, however, we expose under- controversial - influences on policy- these different conceptions of how graduates to some questions that lead making. the world works.As instructors, we're students to push back. If you come When we start debating which sys- generally not asking you to embrace from a stereotypical family of hip- tem is best, it can open up the door to certain worldviews, but we want you pies, you may have distaste for basic charges of bias. Often, controversy is to develop more sophisticated ones of neo-liberal economics; if you come closer to the surface. Take the class your ownbyhelpingyou confrontand from proverbial suburban America, discussion about the 14th Amend- understand competing ideas. That's you might find it distressing to con- ment in my section of Introduction something to reflect on the next front the state-of racial inequality. to American Politics last week, for time you're certain your instructor is One way to remove problems of example. The text declares that U.S. "obviously" biased. political bias in the classroom is to states must provide their residents eliminate consideration of contro- with equal protection under the law. Patrick O'Mahen can be reached versial issues altogether. But that is A majority of the Supreme Court , at pomahen@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be less than 300 words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. Letters are edited for style, length, clarity and accuracy. All submissions become property of the Daily. We do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@umich.edu. EDWARD MCPHEE E Foreign lang uage frustration 4 4 4 4 4 0 I EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Nina Amilineni, Emad Ansari, Emily Barton, Elise Baun, Harun Buljina, Ben Caleca, Satyajeet Deshmukh, Brian Flaherty, Emmarie Huetteman, Emma Jeszke, Sutha Kanagasingam, Shannon Kellman, Edward McPhee, Matthew Shutler, Neil Tambe, Radhika Upadhyaya, Rachel Van Gilder SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@UMICH.EDU Studentgovt leaders to host Town HalltMeeting tonight opportunity to you want us t concerns are a or school spiri TO TH E DAILY: resentattves th The challenges facing student governments working to ad( have been highlighted in recent weeks. This to listen. Toni situation affords us an opportunity to reflect on to let you know the work that we have been doing on behalf of made on some the student body, how we have been doing it and might not ben how we can better reach out and do more for the student concer campus. To get straight down to the heart of the . but hopefully a matter, we are students who are fired up about At the end of campus issues - just like each one of you - and We want stude we really do care about what you have to say. administrators Not only do we care, but wehave a responsibil- evant governm ity to listen. possible Unive As governments representing the students each and every at this University, we understand that we have cerns and give more traction when we have full student sup- See you in 1300 port behind us. We also acknowledge that stu- dents can't be behind us if they don't know what Sabrina Shing we're doing. In all honesty, it is a struggle to Hsiao keep you in the loop. It's a catch-22: when we The letter-write are doing our job well, we're not newsworthy. Student Assem Then, when we do something controversial, we and the Engine make the front page. As one of our constituents pointed out, we have the same marketing prob- Cartoon lem as NASA - you only hear about them or care about them when there is an explosion. Stm ceh Some of you have expressed that this is a bro- ken system that can't be fixed. On the contrary, we passionately believe in the potential of stu- TO THE DAIL dent governments to affect positive change and Elaine Mor to constantly improve ourselves. This change formed, compl is always more effective if it is a collaborative (Nature Calls, process. We are flawed as governments without embryonicstem informed constituents to keep a check on our pri- which is false. orities, to hold us accountable to our campaign conducted on promises and to demand that we are working have been disc on a relevant agenda for students. Although we a living humai stand behind the work we have done this year form is no excu and in the past, we acknowledge that as hard as polarize the de our individual members may work, we still need I ask that The] constant feedback and a healthy dialogue so that in policing thei we can make progress together. these opinions Let's take the time to hear each other out. The Town Hall Meeting this evening is an opportu- Tom Duvall nity for us to do just that. Tonight, you have an LSA junior stand up and tell us what exactly o be working on. Whether your bout classes,.the residence halls it, the student government rep- at have been and will continue dress these issues will be there ght, we also have an opportunity about the progress that is being important issues. This progress newsworthy, but it is relevant to ns. This meeting is a small step, a step in the right direction. f the day, we want the same thing. nts to havea seat at the table with . We want more effective and rel- ents. We want to create the best rsity of Michigan experience for y student. Come voice your con- us the chance to address them. 0 Chem at 7:30 p.m. tonight. wani, Leslie Zaikis and Danny ers are presidents of the Michigan sbly, LSA Student Government ering Council, respectively. ifailed to portray 1issue accurately LY: ton's cartoon was wildly misin- etely offensive and inflammatory 01/27/2009). It implied that an ncellwouldhavebecome"achild," Embryonic stem cell research is embryos that otherwise would arded and would never become n. Putting something in cartoon se for blatant mistruths that only bate and spread lies even further. Michigan Daily be more vigilant ir editorial pages, no matter how are represented. 4 The University tends to make a big deal about diversity, and that's great. Diversity is a fantastic thing. But it's really easy to have too much of a good thing, and it sometimes results in a burden on students' already rigorous academic schedules. For LSA stu- dents, this burden is most substan- tially felt in the form of the foreign language requirement. As an LSAstudentworkingtowards my degree, I am extremely frustrat- ed by the school's insistence that I achieve fourth-semester proficiency in a foreign language. When I first received my course guide last sum- mer, I hoped the five years of Italian I took in high school would be enough to cover any sort of foreign language requirement. Was I ever wrong. Luckily for me, my limited skill in the Italian language allowed for me to skip out on the first semester - that is, if you consider having to take three more semesters of a language you never wanted to hear again lucky. The simple fact is that I'm never going to use Italian, in any form. If I do happen to take a vacation to Italy, and if I actu-ally remember any of the language,I can ask the tourist shop cashier, "Do you have this shirt in blue?" Yeah, Mom, all those thou- sands of tuition dollars you spent went toward that. Quite frankly, this requirement is a waste. While proficiency in a for- eign language might be a nice skill, it's hardly a necessity, especially in a globalized world where it seems as if everyone speaks English already. And as an out-of-state student, I'm basically spending $5,000 for each foreign language course I'm forced to take. I'd much rather put that money towards courses I actually have a use for. Sure, a foreign language compo- nent to a liberal arts degree has some merit. It fits right in with the quota of natural science credits that have to be met, as well as the quantitative reasoning requirement that basically means you have to take some form of math at some point to earn your degree. The idea behind these quo- tas is logical; a liberal arts degree should be well-rounded and include of fields. But what's ridiculous is that stu- dents are required to achieve fourth- semester proficiency in a foreign language. Unless you're already talented enough to test out of some (hopefully all) of these courses, you'll have to spend one-eighth of your 120 total credit hours learning a language that you'll most likely never use again. And what's worse is how much the foreign language component seems to outweigh the other components of the degree. Why a student is required to take over twice as many credit hours in a foreign language than in either science or math is beyond me. The lack of an actual math component to an LSA degree is another issue alto- gether. Under the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements, LSA students don't have to take any math courses, and I intend to take full advantage of this absurdity. Sadly, this foreign language requirement is also driving students away from LSA. I've met people who have left LSA because they didn't want to take four semesters of a for- eign language, choosing to opt for majors in other schools that don't have this requirement. Students shouldn't be driven away from an education that might be best suited for them simply because one of the degree requirements is detestable. Liberal arts degree requirements should be challenging - but should also not be a deterrence. This isn't an attack on foreign languages. They definitely have a place in education. But their level of emphasis in LSA's required curricu- lum is preposterous. Sadly, regardless of whether I'm right or not, I'm still going to have to make it through Ital- ian 232. In the meantime, it's going to wreak havoc on my GPA, give me a lot of tedious busywork and annoy the crap out of me. Edward McPhee is an LSA freshman.