4A - Monday, November 30, 2009 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com E-MAIL CHRIS AT CSKOSLOW@UMICH.EDU 74C e firIC4,6,gan + CHRIS KOSLOWSKI 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. Elections expected Students, faculty, employees deserve better DPS oversight t appears that some leaders of the Michigan Student Assem- bly don't understand the difference between appointments and elections. Appointment is the method by which MSA leaders have been choosing people for the Department of Public Safety Oversight Committee and the assembly's Constitutional Convention delegation. Election is the method that is required per state law and MSA bylaws, respectively. But after weeks of heightened attention to issues with the DPS Oversight Committee, MSA President Abhishek Mahanti has announced that the assem- bly will hold elections to determine student representation. MSA must make sure such an election materializes, and the University must push faculty and employees to establish similar procedures for electing representatives to the committee. aA you reaize you're C How'd you get those cuts) 4 issing a horn. 6 Uh--gotangry after shaving a Tna Uh-ah-shavag. Yeah and punched myself in heYeah, uh, ah..damn. Tiger facemakes this look a lot easier aniti ~~ ~ ~ ~ AC& ^A A 1-71-- 8M 1----1111 11 Presuming guilt efending his decision to give civilian trials to five suspect- ed terrorists, Attorney Gen- eral Eric Holder boldly expressed his full confidence that the govern- ment had ample evidence to convict those men. "Failure is not an option," Holder told the Senate IMRAN Judiciary Commit- 5YED tee on Nov. 18. That was an interesting state- ment, and the sentiment it express- es has been repeated constantly by Obama administration officials and other Democrats over the past few weeks. That sentiment is problem- atic, and it made me rethink my ini- tial reaction to these five men being tried in a civilian court as opposed to a military tribunal. On the campaign trail, President Barack Obama promised openness and justice on various fronts. The most significant among his promises was to close Guantanamo Bay, give fair trials to those prisoners who can be charged and properly treat those who cannot. I was relieved to hear that America would finally emerge from the blind vanity that sanctioned perpetual detainment of alleged mili- tary combatants. We finally realized America is better than that, and it's time to prove that to the world by having real, fair trials. But when deciding whether to try these particular terrorism suspects in a military tribunal or in a civil- ian court, the Obama administra- tion missed the point entirely. In this case, and under these circumstances, military tribunals should have been the obvious choice. To achieve justice (uphold the law, abide by the Constitution) the prisoners must receive as fair of a But it's something else entirely in trial as possible. There's arguably no the case of these five suspected ter- greater element to a fair trial than the rorists. We may all know that these principle of "innocent until proven people are guilty. But under no cir- guilty." Even the brutally reaction- cumstances is it appropriate for a ary post-Reconstruction Supreme prosecutor (which is what Attorney Court agreed that the presumption of General Holder is in such cases) to innocence is crucial to the Constitu- guarantee a conviction, which cre- tion's exposition on the rights of an ates a scenario where no other out- accused, as shown in Coffin v. United come is conceivable. It's never okay States (1895). But it's clear from the for everyone to assume that a convic- statements of those who support tion will happen, at least not if you trying the five suspects in a civil- believe in fair trials. ian court that they pay absolutely no heed to this Constitutional concern. Now, I'm not so naive as to think These suspected that the presumption of innocence is treated as God's word in the aver- age criminal trial. I've read enough terrorists shouldn't transcripts of jury selections and jury instructions to understand that many go to e er court. judges, prosecutors and jurors see the presumption of innocence as a trivi- ality - not a supreme declaration, but But such an assumption is integral rather an inconvenience they must to the Obama administration's deci- get around. sion to try the suspects in civilian Potential jurors who are ques- court. Indeed, administration offi- tioned during jury selection often cials have repeatedly defended that espouse amusingly abhorrent notions decision by assuring everyone that of the rights of the accused. "Why convictions will happen. That puts a on Earth was he arrested if he is unique pressure on the federal court presumed to be innocent?" jurors to convict, one that probably won't might ask. Judges will repeat that matter but certainly shouldn't exist. an arrest is not an indicator of guilt, A far better option would have and neither is the fact that a trial is been to try the five men in a mili- being held. But jurors will often give tary tribunal, a more controlled set- a knowing smile and proceed to do ting where the accused have ample exactly what they are told not to do rights and where improper political - use circumstantial perceptions as pressure to convict is absent. We'd part of their finding of guilt or inno- surely get a conviction in either type cence. of court, but the one in a controlled, This is a deep, perplexing prob- un-sensationalized military tribunal lem. Anyone who disagrees should would be far more legitimate. read the transcript from an aver- if the whole point is the integrity age criminal trial to see what pa- of the process, then bringing these try evidence jurors will convict on. suspects to a civilian court under It's simply undeniable that they let these circumstances was absolutely their preconceived notions about a the wrong decision. suspect, his background or even the nature of the crime undermine their - lmran Syed can be reached mandated presumption of innocence. at galad@umich.edu. 0 0 DPS owes its existence to a 1990 state law allowing four-year universities to estab- lish their own police departments. This law stipulated that universities that form campus police departments must also set up oversight committees with elected stu- dent, faculty and employee representation. But earlier this month, a special report by the Daily discovered numerous prob- lems with the DPS Oversight Committee, including infrequent meetings and student, faculty and employee representation that failed to meet the expectations of internal bylaws and state law. The student seats, for instance, were simply being appointed by MSA even though state law mandates cam- pus-wide elections. This process represented a gross misun- derstanding of simple government terms. It would be false to say that U.S. Supreme Court justices are elected simply because the entities that appoint and confirm them were elected. This is a distinction that one would not expect high school civics stu- dents to struggle with, let alone college students in an elected student government. But even the University's General Counsel - a body that consists of adult, professional lawyers - foolishly reiterated this false- hood when they dismissed University Prof. Doug Smith's concerns with the committee member selection process and told MSA to do the same. But regardless of how wildly these enti- ties erred, fixing the selection process for the DPS Oversight Committee should be the current priority, and Mahanti's announce- ment that MSA will hold elections for the seats is a positive development. Now he must make sure that the assembly follows through and establishes a sustainable elec- tion protocol. This shouldn't be difficult, as the Daily reported today, such a proto- col did indeed exist from 1992 until at least 1999. MSA must do all that it can to ensure that students have consistent, legally com- pliant representation on the committee, because giving students a check on the police department they interact with is of the utmost importance. But the student seats on the commit- tee aren't the only ones in need of atten- tion. The processes for selecting faculty and employee seats are similarly broken, though not to the same extent as the stu- dent seats. The Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs and the University's office of Human Resources - the respective authorities for faculty and staff elections - should immediately get to work improv- ing their election processes. In SACUA's case, that means holding annual elections as the group's bylaws specify. In the case of Human Resources, that means revamping the process so both union and non-union members can vote every year, instead of every other. And the University administration, for its part, should prevent the DPS Oversight Committee from collapsing into irrelevance as it has over the last decade. Instead, it should push for an empowered commit- tee that improves the relationship between DPS and the campus community. The Daily is looking for a diverse group of strong, informed, passionate writers to be columnists for the winter semester. Columnists write a 700-800 word column every other week on a topic of their choosing. If you are an opinionated and talented writer, consider applying. E-MAIL RACHEL VAN GILDER AT RACHELVG@UMICH.EDU FOR MORE INFORMATION. EWAN COMPTON AND PATRICK JULIUS Deranged criticisms of Darwin 0 EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Nina Amilineni, Emily Barton, Jamie Block, William Bulert en Caleca, Nicholas Clift, Michelle DeWitt, Brian Flaherty, Emma Jeszke, Sutha K Kanagasingam, Erika Mayer, Edward McPhee, Harsha Panduranga, Alex Schiff, Asa Smith, Brittany Smith, Radhika Upadhyaya, Rachel Van Gilder, Laura Veith SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@UMICH.EDU University should consider monorail system ment a monorail. About 16,000 people per day ride the monorail in Morgantown, W.Va. - home of West Virginia University. Imagine a mono- rail system in Ann Arbor: It may not be pretty, but I think it would work efficiently. Setting up TO THE DAILY: a Maglev train an: In response to the article about new trans- would be too cool to portation to North Campus (University officials talk campus's transportation future at meeting, Jeremy Drager 11/24/09), 1 think the University should imple- EngineeringJunior d calling it "the Maize-ly" o control. HARUN BULJINA E-MAIL HARUN AT BULJINAH@UMICH.EDU ~jj, ~Wf fxr TIP.- 5' In last Monday's issue of the Daily, Ben Caleca wrote a response to Ray Comfort's shenanigans regard- ing "The Origin of Species" (Survival of the creation- ists, 11/23/2009). It's important to note that his actions weren't limited to our own campus: Comfort handed out his augmented "Origin" at dozens of universities across North America. We felt that Comfort got off too easy with one essay of criticism, so we're here to offer more. First of all, there are flaws with the campaign itself. Handing out copies of "The Origin of Species" is a remark- ably odd tactic that seems to be based on the idea that the original words of Charles Darwin are important to evolu- tionists in the same way that the original words of Jesus would be to Christians or the original words of Muham- mad would be to Muslims. This is blatantly wrong. Evolu- tionary biology has advanced considerably since Darwin, and false or immoral beliefs espoused by Darwin do noth- ing to undermine the credibility of the Modern Synthesis. If Darwin made errors about heredity and held racist beliefs, so much the worse for Darwin. But evolution still happened, and natural selection was still the primary force. One might as well publish a version of Isaac New- ton's Principia Mathematica with a preface saying, "See? Newton didn't know about the Big Bang and thought women were inferior to men! This proves that gravity is a lie!" This is the level of scientific argumentation to which Ray Comfort has reduced us. Like most creationist farce, Comfort continues his assault on evolution with statements that are at best highly misleading and in many cases outright false. Most significantly, Comfort blurs the distinction between mutation and natural selection, a distinction which is absolutely critical to evolution. He cites evidence that mutation is random and non-directional, and then tries to make it sound like this implies natural selection is ran- dom and non-directional. This is patently false: Mutation is random, natural selection is non-random and evolution requires both. This is the sort of elementary error that could have been corrected by reading the Wikipedia arti- cle on "Natural selection" or skimming the introduction to any textbook on evolutionary theory. Comfort also quotes out of context.,He quotes Darwin about the complexity of the human eye, but fails to men- tion the subsequent paragraph in which Darwin explains this complexity in light of evolution. Comfort quotes scientist Stephen Jay Gould several times as challeng- ing Darwinian evolution, when in fact Gould devoted his entire career to supporting Darwinian evolution. Simi- larly, Comfort cites anthropologist Roger Lewin as criti- cizing macroevolution when Lewin has written several books defending macroevolution, especially the evolution of human beings from apelike ancestors. Comfort cites the Archaeoraptor hoax as if it undermines the huge body of evidence found since then on other feathered dinosaurs like Shuuvia, Sinosauropteryx, Sinocalliopteryx, Yixia- nosaurus and many others. Comfort even quotes biologist Richard Dawkins - yes, Dawkins - as if he was supporting creationism. One might as well quote Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis, in support of evolution. Worst of all, Comfort makes a disingenuous and inflammatory association between Darwin and the Holo- caust. He asserts that Hitler was Darwin's "famous stu- dent," when in fact there is no evidence that Hitler had even read Darwin and substantial evidence that Darwin would never have supported anything like Hitler's geno- cide. Yes, Hitler used (and abused) evolution to support his claims. The Nazis also used a bastardized version of germ theory to support their agenda. By Comfort's stan- dards, this ought to discredit modern medicine. Hitler also believed the Earth revolves around the Sun - does that make heliocentrism immoral? Comfort suggests that readers Google the phrase "Social Darwinism," as if the mere use of the word "Dar- winism" implies that such policies are a direct conse- quence of Darwinian evolution. Just as Christian Science is neither Christian nor scientific and the Democratic Republic of Congo is neither democratic nor republican, Social Darwinism is hardly social and scarcely Darwin- ian. Social Darwinism was nothing more than an attempt to graft modern scientific authorityontoracial prejudices. Indeed, traditions of racism, misogyny, ethnocentrism and anti-Semitism have existed in European society for centuries. Such views can be found in the writings of the Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas, some 600 years before Darwin (we might say 600 BD). Tremendous acts of brutality against groups of people were commit- ted by Julius Caesar (1900 BD) and Genghis Khan (700 * BD). Christians engaged in acts of violence against other groups during the Crusades (600 to 800 BD) and the Con- quistadores' invasions (100 to 400 BD). Where were the "Judeo-Christian values on the sacredness of human life" that Comfort describes in his publication in these cases? Depraved bloodshed has been part of human history from the beginning. We can no more blame Darwin for the Holocaust than we can blame Newton for rape or Ein- stein for murder. Ewan Compton and Patrick Julius are officers of the University chapter of the Secular Student Alliance. I