6 4A - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com .d'-_.. v i V _ A C 4tMicliganDail Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com MICHELLE DEWITT STEPHANIE STEINBERG and EMILY ORLEY NICK SPAR EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS 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. Imran Syed is the public editor. He can be reached at publiceditor@michigandaily.com. FROM THEf DAILY More than entertainment Students should pay attention to tonight's debate Michigan's electoral votes have not been cast for a Republi- can presidential candidate since 1988 when former Presi- dent George Bush won the election. But the Michigan Republican Party will play host to the slew of candidates hoping to receive the GOP's presidential nomination in a debate tonight at Oak- land University in Rochester. The debate will be the ninth of this pri- mary season, and many people are, understandably, beginning to lose interest in a race that often seems more like primetime entertainment than politics. But Michigan residents, including students, should pay attention to tonight's debate and seriously consider and discuss the ideas of the presidential hopefuls. The GOP debate will commence tonight at with each other and give meaningful answers 8 p.m. and air on CNBC. Tonight's debate will to the questions. feature Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, While the style and content of these Herman Cain, former Georgia Rep. Newt Gin- debates could be improved, it is also the grich, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Texas responsibility of eligible voters to watch Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former them with a critical eye. Young voters are Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former too often characterized as apathetic toward Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. The dis- politics, and a debate not far from the Univer- cussion will focus on jobs, taxes, the budget sity is an opportunity for students to become deficit and the economy. active listeners and show they are seriously While in Michigan, the candidates should invested in the nation's future. focus on issues pertaining to the state. Michi- The debates are not just for conservative gan has been hit hard by the economic down- candidates to pander to their base. They are an turn and represents the struggle many states opportunity for Democrats and moderates to face across the nation. If Republicans want engage with the opposition. People from other to connect with Michigan citizens, they need parties should challenge the candidates to pro- to speak to the obstacles facing the state and vide meaningful responses and well-thought offer solutions. criticisms of the current administration. Forc- The Republican debates are attracting a ing the candidates to face tough questions is a large number of viewers, but not for the right crucial part of the election process. reasons. Romney and Perry have spent more Students should watch the debate and time bickering with each other than giving think seriously about what they hear, and the Americans agood reason to believe that either candidates need to seize the opportunity to of them could be a successful president. The engage in meaningful discussions. The Oak- debates have received more attention because land University debate will bring necessary of their shock value, and a nation that is facing national attention to the struggles of Michi- serious unemployment and economic hard- gan residents, and the candidates should focus ship deserves better than bickering for rat- on these issues rather than let petty disputes ings. The candidates need to stop squabbling dominate the evening. JUSTIN JALL I U can do more to cut tuition 6 Prioritize political reform Dr. Joe Schwarz will tell you that he's part of a coalition of conservatives who no lon- ger feel they are part of a political party. Schwarz, a Battle Creek resident, served in the Michi- gan Senate from ' 1987-2002 and the U.S. House of Representa- JEREMY tives in 2005 LEVY and 2006. I'm a student in his undergraduate policy class - called Congress and State Legislatures - and if there's one take-away message from the course, it's that the current state of gridlock and partisanship in Washington is not tenable. Undoubtedly, you've already heard this prescription for our coun- try'swoes. Butwecanall learnsome- thingnew from a man who served so long - not to mention a man who lost his seat after sticking to his values in a competitive primary. For perspective on the issue, Schwarz will first point you toward Congressman John Dingle, the Dem- ocratic representative of Michigan's 15th district (which includes Ann Arbor). Dingle is the longest serving member of the House, havingserved since 1955, and often speaks of a time when Democrats and Republicans were actually cordial to one another. In fact, members of opposing parties used to form friendships and dis- cuss issues over drinks. To our gen- eration, such an image is completely foreign. When asked why these relation- ships are no longer socially accept- able, my initial answer was that the two parties have grown further and further apart ideologically in the past three decades. Congressmen Dingle and Schwarz point to some- thing more fundamental. Most rep- resentatives no longer live in D.C. - the rent is absurd, and every week- end, they are under enormous politi- cal pressure to spend as much time in their home districts as possible. In the past, representatives often spent weekends collaborating across par- ties on important issues. Now, mem- bers of the two parties hardly know anything about each other. And it's much easier to smear someone you don't know personally. Schwarz won't hesitate to tell you that the extremism is worse on the Republican side than on the Demo- cratic side. But here is a point where I think lots of liberals falter. Every time we talk to each other about the most recent shenanigans of Repub- lican Texas Gov. Rick Perry or Min- nesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, it leads us to the conclusion that grid- lock is the Republicans' fault, which it's not (completely). It's a systematic problem. Keep in mind that when Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan rolled out his plan for Medicare Reform, the Democrats used many of the same strategies that Republicans used to fight President Barack Obama's Health Care Bill. While we can't revert to 1955 political conditions, there are many fundamental changes that can make the political system more responsive to the public. Imagine what politics would look like with all the following changes: Candidates could not start campaigning or fundraising for elec- tions earlier than a year prior to the date of the election, states held open primaries instead of party primaries, interest groups were legitimately restricted in the size of their contri- butions and the use of gerrymander- ing and filibusters was curtailed. Popular support for many of these proposals is strong. The problem is that there are few mobilized efforts to ensure that they actually happen. Average citizens do not devote much time to politics, and when they do, they are more likely to devote it to issues they feel strongly about rather than something as dry as political reform. I, for one, have spent much more of my academic energy learn- ing about poverty and labor markets than political systems. Few efforts actually create real change. But I'm beginning to question this approach because issue after issue, the pattern is exactly the same. Poli- cy analysts, both liberal and conser- vative, make proposals. that many third party observers would consid- er reasonable.Yet, when those issues are brought into a political realm that favors extremism, the propos- als don't stand a chance. There are too many good policy proposals that would be considered poisonous under current conditions. We can- not continue on the current path in which policy outcomes are dictated primarily by office holders' re-elec- tion strategies. So as individual citizens, what do we do? There's no quick answer. One option is to participate in local organizations that are seeking to change political discourse. Two organizations to which Schwarz introduced us include the Center for Michigan - a nonprofit think tank - and Michigan Campaign Finance Network - a nonprofit focused on the need for campaign finance reform. More ideologically, we may need to change our pri- orities as voters. Whether you are truly passionate about deficits, tax reform, abortion laws or climate change, it's time to care about polit- ical reform. As politics stand now, reasonable debate on any of the above issues is non-existent. -Jeremy Levy can be reached at leremlev@umich.edu. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: AidaAli, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, Nirbhay Jain, Patrick Maillet, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley, Teddy Papes, Timothy Rabb, Vanessa Rychlinski, Caroline Syms, Seth Soderborg, Andrew Weiner JEFF LIU AND STEVE SU Don't support Dream Nite Club Earlier this year, the University's Board of Regents called for a 6.7-percent tuition increase for in-state undergraduate students, citing Lansing's $47.5 million cut in funding to the University. Of course, it's only fairto accept these "necessary" tuition hikes because you, the poor, debt-ridden college student, are sup- posed to accept your role as the sole victim of evil Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's war on pub- lic education. Yet, as Michigan students tighten their pock- etbooks and take on record levels of debt to pay for their education, the University is actually getting richer - a lot richer. In fact, while your education continues to get more expensive, the University's endowment has grown a whop- ping 18 percent from last year alone. Despite what you are being told, the University's cof- fers have never been more full. The endow- ment now stands at a whopping $7.8 billion - a several billion-dollar increase from when I was a freshman in college in the fall of 2006. If you're like me and find yourself wonder- ing why the University isn't using all of those billions of dollars to help cut the cost of your tuition, then you may (or may not) take solace in a response provided by the FAQ section of the University's website: "About 20 percent of the total is restricted to direct student financial aid. Other endowed funds have an indirect effect on tuition as well... used to pay for faculty, academic sup- port, research and building maintenance, so that tuition increases are not required to cover the full cost of faculty salary increases." Twenty percent of the endowment is restricted for student financial aid? Let's do some math: 20 percent of $7.8 billion is $1.56 billion. If you divide that figure by the 42,000 graduate and undergraduate students cur- rently enrolled, you will have given each stu- dent $37,142 of financial aid. Sure, that figure implies that the University will have to blow 20 percent of its endowment on its current student population, but a lot of students don't qualify for financial aid from the University or receive aid from outside sources unrelated to the Uni- versity. So, where is this money really going? And, when you factor in all that endowment money the University is purportedly spending on its students with the assertion that much of the endowment is being used to offset other costs that supposedly help keep the price of your education down, then what's with the tuition hikes? Surely all that money is being spent on improving the quality of a Michigan educa- tion, right? We must be spending Big House- sized loads of money in order to build upon the value of a Michigan degree and increase our competitiveness. You're getting the best public education money can buy, right? Not exactly. Accordingto U.S. News and World Report, the most venerated authority on college rankings in the United States, the relative quality of an undergraduate education at the University has decreased: The University went from being ranked 24th in 2006 to 29th in 2010. During that period, tuition had gone up approximately 15 percent (adjusted for inflation) for unde- clared, undergraduate freshmen. Furthermore, if you compare the University to other top-ranked public undergraduate pro- grams such as the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of California, Berkeley and Univer- sity of California, Los Angeles, we have the highestexpected tuition per student (excluding financial aid). Their endowments? A fraction of ours, excluding UVA's $5.2 billion, none of the schools mentioned have endowments that crack $3 billion. The fact of the matter is that annual tuition hikes shouldn't be the norm at expensive uni- versities that sit on growing multibillion dollar endowments and aren't doing much to improve the relative quality of the education they offer. Eastern Michigan University (yes, that Eastern Michigan University) was able to completely halt increases in fees, room and board and tuition last year for its 23,000 students, despite the fact that they, like us, also received a sig- nificant funding cut from Lansing. In case you were wondering, EMU was able to do this with receiving substantially less tuition per student and a $39 million (with an "m") endowment. Unfortunately, the Board of Regents isn't interested in using a fraction of our growing endowment to ensure that the cost of your edu- cation never outpaces inflation. The University has shown it is more concerned with raking in as much money as possible by making pub- lit education as unaffordable as possible - all while crying poor duringtimes of record finan- cial growth. Justin Jalil is a University alum. Today marks the third anniversary of a blatant act of discrimination in Ann Arbor. On Nov. 8, 2008, the Chinese Student Association and Filipino American Student Association hosted a club night at Studio 4 to celebrate the organizations' events that weekend. The student organizations had negotiated a contract with the club's management to divide the night's cover: 50 percent going to Studio 4, and 50 percent to be split between CSA and FASA. Earlier that afternoon, CSA president Steve Lai dis- covered the club was promoting another event that evening. Lai called the club to confirm that this would not impact their agreement. Reese Mangray, son of club owner Jeff Mangray, told Lai that the cross promotion would not affect their contract. Assured, the students went through with their club night at Studio 4. At the end of the night, Lai and FASA president Ash- ley Manzano approached Mangray to collect their share of the cover. Jeff, however, refused to pay Lai and Man- zano the amount agreed upon in the contract. Instead, he insisted he would only pay for the "SO Asians" there that night, who he had tallied on his clipboard. Lai and Manzano explained that not only did they bring non- Asian friends to the event, but the contract stated that the organizations were to receive 50 percent of the entire cover, not just 50 percent of the Asians' cover. Mangray countered that he believed many of the attend- ees were there for the cross-promoted event. Despite Lai and Manzano's repeated explanations, Mangray refused to honor the contract and ejected the remain- ing students from the club. Outside, the confrontation escalated; Reese launched into a verbal tirade, spitting at some of the female students and callingthem "skank ass whores." The students chose to leave peacefully to avoid an altercation. Later that night, the younger Mangray called Lai, threatening not only to shut down the student organiza-- tions, but also to find Steve and "settle this tonight." Lai refused to respond to his comments and said they would talk after things had calmed down. The following morn- ing, Lai received a call from Jeff Mangray, who still only wanted to pay for the "50 Asians" that he had tallied. Eventually, Jeff Mangray agreed to pay the full amount, but by then, Lai, Manzano and the Asian American orga- nizations on campus were too offended and outraged to accept any money from Studio 4. Following the incident, CSA and FASA approached the United Asian American Organizations, a coalition of many Asian American organizations on campus, to organize a formal response against Studio 4. The response included a campus-wide boycott that was supported by the Michigan Student Assembly, which passed a resolution to refuse funding for events held at Studio 4 and launched an investigation of the incident. UAAO also worked with the Office of Student Con- flict Resolution to mediate negotiations with Studio 4. The club management, however, ignored requests to engage in mediation. Since the incident, Studio 4 has not offered any apology for its unprofessional and dis- criminatory behavior that night. Unsurprisingly, Studio 4's history contains a pleth- ora of other incidents and complaints. On June 3, 2010, Studio 4 was finally closed after the city of Ann Arbor filed a lawsuit against the club, declaring it a "public nuisance" to the city. A day earlier, police arrested three people after a fight involving at least one suspect with a handgun. The city also cited numerous liquor violations and unpaid taxes in its suit. After two years of numerous incidents with the police, this dangerous and noisome landmark was shut down at last. This is where you would expect the story to end. A dangerous club with shady owners had finally been brought to justice. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. The Mangrays ended up re-opening the club under a different moniker: Dream. On Sept. 3, 2010, a mere three months after the closing of Studio 4, Dream Nite Club was open for business. What has since followed is more of the same. On June 2, 2011, the city of Ann Arbor filed yet another lawsuit against Dream. In the suit, the city cites a fight where three people were stabbed and another in which a man was shot, among other grievances. Dream was again closed for a few weeks but has since reopened. We wrote this viewpoint because we fear that the campus community suffers from a four-year short-term memory. The current seniors are the only students who were around when this incident occurred. We want to ensure that even after they graduate, the campus contin- ues to be informed of this bias incident and continues to fight against discriminatory practices. If your organiza- tion is planning a club night, please think twice before hosting it at Dream. By hosting or attending an event at Dream, you are implicitly supporting a business that has no qualms with disrespecting its patrons and dishon- oring its contracts. We hope that the next time Dream is closed down, it will be for good. We also hope that nobody else is racially profiled, verbally abused, spat on, stabbed or shot in order for this to happen. Jeff Liu& Steve Su are Engineering seniors. They are writing on behalf of the United Asian American Organizations. 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