4A - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 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 oftthe Daily's editorial board. All othersigned articles and illustrations representsolely the views of their authors. A more diverse campus 'U' must reverse trend through outreach, financial aid T hough the University opened its doors to more students than ever before this fall, many minority freshmen who were admitted didn't accept the offer. The diversity of the student population has shown a steady yearly decline since the passage of the state's constitutional ban on affirmative action in 2006. Making matters worse, recent economic conditions have made it more difficult for minorities, who disproportionately fall into lower-income groups, to afford a college education. In order to reverse this disturbing trend of dwindling minority enroll- ment, the University must provide more socioeconomic-based scholarships and improve community outreach programs to pro- We have a chronic budget problem, and cuts aren't making it go away:' - Michigan Education Association President Iris Salters, commenting on $54 million in proposed state K-12 cuts, as reported yesterday by the Lansing State Journal. 0 E-MAIL ELAINE AT EMORT@UMICH.EDU ELAINE MORTON wh -tbls? No cox-toon The cat-on is forgot to Ad 4-heirjob so one o 4he colurnIsts drew +ho4 eicspeepiduvre eof.. urt... Free speech vs. free elections 0 spective students. On Oct. 13, the University released data about this year's enrollment statistics. Nota- bly, the percentage of African-American, Native-American and Hispanic freshmen dropped by 11.4 percent - or 69 students - from last year. The report confirmed an increase in the number of admissions offers extended to underrepresented minori- ties, but more opportunities to enroll were declined. These facts expose the negative effects the state constitutional ban on affirmative action has had on campus diversity over the past few years. Losing 11.4 percent of minor- ity students is a substantial blow to campus diversity. With fewer and fewer minority students each year, the University increas- ingly becomes a place that lacks racial diver- sity, producing fewer students who have been exposed to different backgrounds and experiences. And the more minority stu- dents the University loses, the less this cam- pus can appeal to future students. The result is a campus without the benefits that abroad swatch of unique and differing students bring to the intellectual and social experi- ences of college. That's not to say this wasn't expected. The University somewhat anticipated these consequences by establishing The Center for Educational Outreach and Academic Success. The goal of the center's outreach programs is to make favorable connections between younger primary and second- ary students and the University to increase minority enrollment. But this year's num- bers show that outreach efforts are, at least in part, failing. The University must do more to convince minority students to enroll here. Its efforts should include a more pronounced role in visiting minority communities and courting students the campus needs. Of course, there is an importantunderlying problem: money. Lester Monts, University senior vice provost for academic affairs, told AnnArborcom on Oct.13'that in interviews, minority students who declined admission referenced alack of financial assistance. The University did its part in accepting more stu- dents from minority populations, but it didn't succeed in convincing them that this place can be affordable. That is a major concern. Though the University must tiptoe around restrictions on economic incentives for minorities as a result of the affirmative action ban, it should offer more scholar- ships to all disadvantaged students - many of which will include minorities. A well- publicized allocation of University funds to expand socioeconomic-based financial aid programs could help counteract the damage to campus diversity done by the ban and the tough economy. Administrators have to start thinking about more aggressive measures to negate these effects from the state's affirmative action ban. The University is rapidly losing a vital segment of its campus population, and unless it offers more financial aid and does a better job of reaching out to communities, it may lose even more minority students next year. Such losses have already gone too far. ver the past five years, during my time as a Daily columnist, epithets like "elitist" and "com- munist" have been common responses directed toward me in the days follow- ing my columns. My last column (Noth- ing is free, not even speech, 10/05/2009), as expected, brought a very dif- ferent type of bit- IMRAN ter, personal and SYED vindictive response. People just can't stand anyone mess- ing with (their understanding of) the First Amendment. The vast majority ofthose who were outraged by my claim - that the First Amendment isn't an absolute right, but rather an abstract proxy related to a larger ideal of free thought - felt that I was taking an elitist approach. Free speech must be literal, limitless and absolute,theyargued,becausewithout that the little people get crushed. The government and those with the power would use arguments of abstractness to deny true freedom of speech, they said. I understand why that argument seems persuasive, but I maintain that it's simply not true. No one has bene- fited as much from the limitless defini- tion of free speech as big corporations and those with power. As long as free speech remains an unqualified abso- lute, the scenario is one where those who yellthe loudestwin and the voices of the little people get drowned out. A timely example of what I mean sits before the United States Supreme Court now - Citizens United v. Fed- eral Election Commission. The case - which documents an anti-Hillary Clinton documentary that the FEC argued was subject to campaign finance regulations because it was essentially a political ad - was origi- nally heard by the Court last term. The Supreme Court ordered the case be reargued this term with special focus on the constitutional question of how much regulation government can maintain over political speech of corporations. The Supreme Court has precedents dictating that corporate money can and should be regulated, but it may be ready to reverse those precedents and open the floodgates of corporate money and influence in elections. Why? Nothing other than free speech gone wild. Let's go back to an accident that occurred in 1886. The Supreme Court heard the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company. That case was about taxation of rail- road property, but no one remembers that today. Before oral arguments, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite made an offhand side remark that came to change everything: "The court does not wish to hear argument onthe question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amend- mentto the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does." That seems simple enough - the Court was saying that corporations have the same protection under the Constitution that people do. But that was not the holding of the case. Nowhere in its written opinion (which is the only binding precedent that emerges from the Court) was anything mentioned about corporate person- hood. The Court was not deciding the issue but rather was setting it aside. But as the case was reported by the court reporter, himself a former presi- dent of a railroad company, that off- hand remark by Waite came to define an entire branch of new protections under the law. The awkward proposi- tion of corporate personhood has mul- tiple important consequences, but its impact on free speech is perhaps most significant. Because of that doctrine, the Supreme Court must regard corpora- tions as people, and it stands ready today to declare government regula- tion of corporate spending in elections to be an improper violation of free speech. How far the court will go in its declaration remains to be seen, and one hopes that the most catastrophic outcome may yet be avoided. Regard- less, there is no denying that we stand at this precipice today solely because we remain obsessed with the literal letter of the First Amendment at the expense of its true spirit. First Amendment isn't just a tool for the powerful. If we were to take heed of the larger ideal of a free marketplace of ideas - where everyone's voice, no matter how small, has the opportunity to be heard - we would cast aside ridicu- lous, absolutist derivations of the First Amendment that treat money as speech and regard any regulation of it as an infringement. Because we have embraced this extreme view, those with the most money and power yell the loudest and drown out those lit- tle people my critics were so worried about. The Court seems prepared today to remove even the few tiny restrictions that gave the little people a smallvoice. Is that really a more comforting notion than simply accepting that the First Amendment, like most parts of the Constitution, is an abstract construct? - Imran Syed can be reached at galad@umich.edu. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Nina Amilineni, Emad Ansari, Emily Barton, Ben Caleca, Michelle DeWitt, Brian Flaherty, Emma Jeszke, Raghu Kainkaryam, Sutha K Kanagasingam, Erika Mayer, Edward McPhee, Harsha Panduranga, Alex Schiff, Asa Smith, Brittany Smith, Radhika Upadhyaya, Rachel Van Gilder, Laura Veith BRADON SMITH I Grading the Assembly During last spring's MSA elections, the Michigan Vision Party campaigned and won an election with the promise to return control of student government to its rightful owners, the students. As part of this campaign, MVP also promised to maintain trust between stu- dents. Last semester marked a slow start as the new executive board took time to settle in, and summer vacation arrived soon after the transi- tion. The plans they had only begun to set into motion earned the Assembly and the leader- ship a grade of C+ from me. Excuses like time needed for transition and the onset of vacation are no longer rational - if MSA is to receive a passing grade for its work this term, it needs to produce real results. This is not to say that progress toward our vision has not been attempted or partially real- ized. Readers of the Daily may have noted the attempts to reform the period of time known as "Community Concerns" so that only germane, student business is discussed. Unfortunately, despite the clear mandate we received for our vision in the last election, MVP still does not have a firm hold on the Assembly to pass each of our reforms. This has certainly not kept us from trying to bring more transparency to the Assembly and returning it to students, and I am pleased to note this progress. Specifically, the forthcoming Constitu- tional Convention has great potential to make MSA more relevant to students and constitu- ent groups. It provides the chance for students from across campus to fix or dismiss things that aren't working, as well as create something that has an opportunity to actually matter to students. Changing the Constitution could be a huge step toward making MSA a true stu- dent government rather than the bureaucratic, unwieldy institution that it currently is. This step toward a convention that will help to rep- resent all corners of campus is unprecedented. Plenty of small changes have been made. But our vision is for fundamental overhaul. The Convention improves the Assembly's grade from a C+ to a B. But should you care? We've already spoken a bit about the poten- tial of the Convention, but there is so much more that can also be done as we work toward making the Assembly more accountable, trans- parent, and relevant to students. These ideas cannot be accomplished without the other two principles guiding it, and a constant influx of new participants is necessary to keep our vision alive. MSA Mondays, an improved block M and a Campus Leaders Luncheon are only the beginning of our campus improvement effort, but we need your help to continually improve. Our biggest obstacle is not the Constitution or the Assembly itself - it is the apathy that has plagued the Assembly for so long. I'd like to issue an invitation and a chal- lenge to join the Michigan Vision Party. Our mass meeting, internal elections, and informa- tion for candidates will be today at 8:00 p.m. in 3460 Mason Hall. This is your assembly and your school: What's your vision? This viewpoint was written by Bradon Smith on behalf of the Michigan Vision Party. The Daily is looking for a diverse group of strong, informed, passionate writers to join the Editorial Board. Editorial Board members are responsible for discussing and writing the editorials that appear on the left side of the opinion page. E-MAIL ROBERT SOAVE AT RSOAVE@UMICH.EDU FOR MORE INFORMATION. JONATHAN SLEMROD AND SAM VAN KLEEF Celebrate liberty, not government 0 6 It is not very often that you hear people say, "Thank God that the federal government regulates the size of the holes in my Swiss cheese," or, "I sleep well at night know- ing that the United States Department of Agriculture's 'Food Safety and Inspection Service' has issued hundreds of arcane guidelines and standards for my frozen pizza." Largely hidden from daily life and absent from receipts and tax forms, regulations are hidden taxes that everyone pays - even if we don't realize it. Government regulations are omnipresent. They hike the cost of our Federal Communications Commission- regulated alarm clocks, make the drive to class more expensive through burdensome fuel and safety standards and increase the cost of a six pack through vast bottling, labeling and labor mandates. Surely, the concept of regulation is desirable to most people in our society. We don't want factories dumping hazardous materials in the Huron River nor do we think that car companies should be allowed to make cars that combust while we are speeding along on the highway. But is government the best and most efficient means to achieve these goals? And if it is, is government regulation morally permissible? Unfortunately, the growth of government means a shift from a market economy to a political economy where reg- ulation is written to benefit political interests, not society as a whole. This transfer means distorted economic sig- nals, poorly allocated resources and taxpayer money that is squandered. We are left with a labyrinth of confusing - and often pointless - regulations that hurt consumers, punish business owners and, worst of all, bring smiles to the faces of lobbyists. One look at the titanic Code of Fed- eral Regulations lays to rest President Bill Clinton's ludi- crous claim in1996 that the "eraof big government is over." On the contrary - big government just keeps growing. The alternative to the current system is to allow indi- viduals to make their own decisions about which prod- ucts they buy, what they put in their own bodies and who they choose to do business with. Liberty and free markets in the absence of government coercion are not onlymoral, but they lead to a healthier, safer, smarter and more pros- perous society for everyone. This is a reality thatCongress should keep in mind as it addresses important issues like health care and energy. Students need to recognize the expansion of govern- ment and fight against it. Today, numerous student groups will celebrate "Liberty on the Diag" from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. to educate students about the benefits of freedom. Partici- pating groups include College Libertarians, Young Amer- icans for Freedom, Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, Students for a Free Economy and Students of Objectivism. While these groups don't agree on every issue, they all feel strongly that more government means less freedom - a specter that should be avoided like the plague. Jonathan Slemrod is the president of the University's chapter of the College Libertarians. Sam van Kleef is the president of the University of Michigan's Young Americans for Freedom. 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.