CITY COUNCIL
Pn- jh pr u ?x faibi i a1 alusinThe Daily weighs in on
netpA us Ma n" is one of tomorrow's City Council elections
S^a- ; nt'cipated andbest films.and who deserves your vote.
SEE OPINION, PAGE 4A
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Monday, November 2, 2009
michigandaily.com
Final budget
cuts Promise,
'U' fund ing
After month-long
delay, Granholm
signed final six
budget bills Friday
By MATT AARONSON
Daily News Editor
Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed
into law Friday the final six bills of
a budget that showed the wear and
tear of a legislature crippled by par-
tisan battles over how to solve the
state's many problems.
For the University, the bud-
get bears bad news on two fronts:
eliminating the popular Michigan
Promise Scholarship program and
once again cutting back state fund-
ing provided to the University.
The Michigan Promise Schol-
arship provides tuition money to
more than 96,000 Michigan col-
lege students. Performance on a
merit exam given in high school
determines the amount a student
receives, which can total anywhere
from $500 to $4,000 over four
years.
University spokesman Rick
Fitzgerald told the Daily last month
that an estimated 6,096 students at
the University of Michigan would
be eligible for Promise grants this
academic year.
These students now have to find
another way to fill that gap in their
tuition costs.
Phil Hanlon, vice provost for-aca-
demicandbudgetary affairs,toldthe
See BUDGET, Page 7A
CLIF REEDER/Daily
Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier gets sacked during the team's 38-13 loss to Illinois Saturday in Champaign. For more coverage of the game, see SportsMonday, inside.
What's left to say?
CHAMPAIGN -
inutes before Illinois
running back Jason
Ford's 79-yard
touchdown
run officially
proved the
Michigan
football team
had hit rock
bottom, Greg ANDY
Mathews took REID
a knee on the
sideline. He
closed his eyes, hung his head and
sighed heavily.
A few players and assistant
coaches calmly tried to console
himbut were quickly dismissed.
With three games left in his
career - four, if the Wolverines
can somehow scrape together one
more win - and the season quickly
spiraling out of control, Mathews
had no words.
And who does? What's left to
say?
How do you justify Rich Rodri-
guez's conference record, which
now sits at 3-10 through 13 games?
It took Lloyd Carr five-and-a-half
seasons to rack up that many Big
Ten losses, and Bo Schembechler
coached for 10 years before his
10th defeat.
And it's not as though Michigan
is getting outplayed by the best of
the best - three losses last year
were against teams with sub-.500
records, and let's not forget how
epically bad this Illinois team
really is.
The Fighting Illini have the
worstscoring offense in the con-
ference, mustering just 16 points a
game. Michigan made them look
good, with more than 500 yards of
offense and 38 points.
The Illini have the worst scor-
ing defense in the conference, giv-
ing up more than 27 points every
game. Michigan put up just 13 and
died whenever they sniffed the red'
zone.
And Illinois has the worst rushing
defense in the conference, too. With
fourshots fromthe one-yardline,
the Wolverines couldn't even punch
it in with a chance to go up 20-7.
The numbers are there: Michi-
gan got dominated - thoroughly
dominated - by a team that hadn't
beaten Football Bowl Subdivision
competition in 364 days before
Saturday.
As Ford broke through on the
Illini's final touchdown, shedding
pathetic attempted tackles on the
way, Mathews and his teammates
saw how quickly this season (one
that started so well, with four
straight wins) was becoming a
nightmare.
Martavious Odoms, who was
See REID, Page 7A
FUNDING U-M'S ANN ARBOR CAMPUS
The peaks and valleys of state appropriations over the last nine years.
370,000,000
360,000,000
350,000,000
340,000,000
330,000,000
320,000,000
310,000,000
300,000,000
29n0nnn nn
I-
L ,
, , , V Q
Sources: University of Michigan Office of Public Affairs and legislature.mi.gov.
'U' settles in
case of former
Dental student
Civics and syrup: Students, politicians
talk pertinent issues at campus brunch
At event, students 1C 1
Alissa Zwick sued
the University for
wrongful dismissal
By KYLE SWANSON
DailyNewsEditor
University officials have settled
out of court with a former Dental
* School student who says she was
wrongfully dismissed from the
school.
Asettlementwasreachedoutside
of court last week after University
officials dropped an appeal of a rul-
ing that ordered the University to
pay the former student more than
$1.7 million. The amount of the set-
tlement has not been disclosed.
In May 2006, Alissa Zwick, a
former Dental School student,
filed two lawsuits against the Uni-
versity after being dismissed from
the University in her third year of
study. Zwick claimed she had been
caught in a turf war between a Den-
tal School administrator and sev-
eral faculty members over how to
accommodate her attention deficit
disorder.
The associate dean of the Dental
School told Zwick she was expelled
from the Dental School because
she wasn't fit to practice dentistry.
At the time of her expulsion, Zwick
had a B average.
Zwick's lawsuits claimed her
expulsion was a violation of free
speech, due process, breach of con-
tract and defamation. The cases,
filed in the Washtenaw County
Circuit Court and the Michigan
Court of Claims, were consolidat-
ed and sent to a U.S. District Court
for judgment.
After the University filed a
motion to have the case dismissed,
all claims were dropped except
Zwick's due process claim.
The case went to trial in fed-
eral court and in December 2008
the jury awarded Zwick $220,000
in economic damages, $500,000
in non-economic damages and $1
million in punitive damages. The
University was also ordered to
pay approximately $320,000 for
Zwick's legal expenses.
The University began an appeal
after the verdict was issued, which
was dropped as a result of last
week's settlement. As part of the set-
tlement, both parties are asking the
court to erase the earlier verdict in
favor of the settlement agreement.
University spokesman Rick
Fitzgerald confirmed that the
See SETTLEMENT, Page 7A
chat education, state
budget, other topics
By OLIVIA CARRINO
Daily StaffReporter
At a "Pancakes and Politics"
event held yesterday, the Black
Student Union brought together
students and political officials
over brunch for a wide-ranging
discussion of governmental issues
facing students.
Held at the William Monroe
Trotter Multicultural Center, a
group of about 30 students and
legislators broke up into groups
to talk about education, taxes and
urban policy, among other things.
Later, the conversation led to a
more open forum.
Ned Staebler, aDemocratic can-
didate for the 53rd District of the
Michigan House of Representa-
tives - which includes Ann Arbor
- encouraged everyone present to
participate in this coming Tues-
day's elections.
"Now we need everybody's
skills, we need everybody's input,"
he said. "Democracy is not free.
Its price is participation. Every-
body needs to participate."
Discussion of the state budget
and its effects on students domi-
nated the conversation.
Sen. Liz Brater (D-Ann Arbor)
TOREHAN SHARMAN/Daily
State Sen. Liz Brater (D-Ann Arbor) talks with students about a variety of issues at a brunch hosted by the Black Student
Union at the William Monroe Trotter Multicultural Center yesterday.
touched on the Michigan Promise
Scholarship's funding issues that
resulted from the state's budget
crisis and billion-dollar deficit
and led to the discontinuation of
the program.
The final state budget that
Democratic Gov. Jennifer Gra-
nholm signed into law Friday cut
the merit-based Promise Schol-
arship, which provides tuition
money to more than 96,000
Michigan college students. In an
interview last month, University
spokesman Rick Fitzgerald told
the Daily that an estimated 6,096
students at the University would
be eligible for Promise grants this
academic year.
At yesterday's event, Brater
said Democrats have proposed a
number of revenue options to help
mitigate the situation.
Brater stressed that the state
revenue stream needs to be
reviewed and restructured. She
recommended amending the state
constitution to make its tax code
more progressive - meaning it
would be based more on an indi-
vidual's ability to pay.
Staebler echoed this sentiment.
"When you're designing your
tax system you want to have a
couple of different things in mind.
You want it to be simple and you
want it to be fair," he said. "And I
think a progressive tax system is
by far the most fair system that we
can have."
The conversation also turned
See EVENT, Page 7A
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