The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
DETROIT
Judge throws out
FBI's case against
Michigan militia
A federal judge dismissed
the most serious charges yes-
teray against seven members
of a Michigan militia who were
rounded up as homegrown
extremists accused of plotting
war against the U.S., saying
their expressed hatred of law
enforcement didn't amount to
conspiracy against the govern-
ment.
The decision is an embar-
rassment for the government,
which secretly planted an infor-
mant and an FBI agent inside
the Hutaree militia four years
ago and claimed members were
armed for war in rural southern
Michigan.
U.S. District Judge Victoria
Roberts granted requests for
acquittal on the most serious
charges: conspiring to commit
sedition, or rebellion, against
the U.S. and conspiring to use
weapons of mass destruction.
Other weapons crimes tied to the
alleged conspiracies also were
dismissed.
CONIFER, Colo.
Colorado fights to
control wildfire
Yesterday, investigators were
trying to determine whether a
controlled burn designed to min-
imize wildfire risk reignited and
became a stubborn mountain
wildfire that forced hundreds of
residents to flee their homes and
may have caused the deaths of
two people.
Federal agencies dispatched
two large air tankers to tackle
the 7-square-mile blaze that
damaged or destroyed 28 struc-
tures and resulted in mandatory
evacuations of 900 homes south
of the commuter town of Conifer,
about 8,200 feet up in the Rock-
ies foothills and 25 miles south-
west of downtown Denver.
Some 450 firefighters frm
Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and
Utah were sent to assist 250 fire-
fighters on the ground.
PHILADELPHIA
Catholic diocese
accused of cover-up
Prosecutors read dozens of
confidential church documents
aloud in court yesterday to try to
prove the Philadelphia archdio-
cese routinely buried complaints
that priests were molesting chil-
dren..
Monsignor William Lynn is
the first Roman Catholic offi-
cial in the U.S. charged with
endangering children by keeping
accused priests in parish work.
The letters and memos read
in court yesterday centered on
now-defrocked priest Edward
Avery. Avery, known as "the
Smiling Padre," adopted six
Hmong children and moonlight-
ed as a disc jockey at parties and
nightclubs throughout his three-
decade church career.
MOSCOW, Russia
Russian president
blasts Romney's
* Cold War rhetoric
Russian President Dmitry
Medvedevyesterdaysharplysug-
gested that Mitt Romney use his
head and remember what year
he's living in after the Republi-
can presidential contender said
Moscow was America's "No. 1
geopolitical foe."
Romney described Russia
in those terms while criticiz-
ing President Barack Obama for
his caught-on-tape remarks to
Medvedev that he would have
more room to negotiate on mis-
sile defense if he is re-elected in
November.
During a briefing yesterday in
Seoul, where he and Obama were
attending a nuclear security
summit, the Russian leader said
Romney's remarks "smacked of
Hollywood" and sounded as if
they came from the Cold War
era.
=Compiled from
Daily mire reports
ADAM GLANZMAN/I
LSA freshman Daniel Morales speaks at a meeting of the Coalition for Tuition Equality last night.
From Page 1A
ous events to raise awareness in
recent months, including a lec-
ture on immigration reform last
month by Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist Jose Antonio Vargas.
Morales didn't become a legal
resident until last summer and
said he often felt ashamed in
high school because of his immi-
gration status.
"I just lied to my friends and
told them I was really bad at
driving and that's why I didn't
drive," Morales recounted. "I
feared being reported and sent
to (live in) a country I had never
been to."
Morales said he was encour-
aged by the University's recep-
tion of the coalition's goals and
emphasized the importance for
tuition equality in his speech.
"We're talking about human
beings who don't want a leg up,
who don't want an advantage in
any way," Morales said. "(They)
simply want to be treated like
everyone else."
LSA sophomore Evelyn Gal-
van, a PILOT representative,
said she decided to help with
the forum because she believes
undocumented students from
Michigan should be able to pay
in-state tuition costs and wants
to get others involved.
"One of the things that we
think is very important is ...
really looking at the University
as working for us," she said. "At
the end of the day, every office
that is here is here to work for
the students and to make the
students' time here better."
Galvan said PILOT and CTE
have attended multiple meet-
ings of the University's Board of
Regents to discuss the issue and
MINTS
From Page 1A
Forrest said MINTS is looking
to invest in more University-
generated startups in the future
and has set aside money to fund
further programs. University
technology reaches markets
through the University's Office
of Technology Transfer, which
provides assistance to Univer-
sity startups and makes Uni-
versity-developed innovations
available to other companies.
Crossbar, Inc., which is still
in negotiations with the Uni-
versity over the amount of
money it will receive, developsg
the production of memristor
chips, which provide faster and
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have continued to attempt to
connect with the student body.
"Now that we have done the
awareness things, we really
want this event to be the action
planning of this whole move-
ment," Galvan said. "We do
have a panel, but it's not just a
panel. It's about everyone get-
ting involved in the discussion
on why we value higher educa-
tion."
The event featured four pan-
elists and a question and answer
session, after which the attend-
ees were broken into smaller
groups to discuss ways to help
the undocumented students.
Public Policy junior Kevin
Mersol-Barg, who formed CTE,
said he was happy with the
turnout for the "low-key" event.
"The people we had on the
panel provided really powerful
narratives and powerful infor-
mation that I think people could
take away from this," Mersol-
Barg said. "I think the kind of
impact we had will be long-last-
ing, (and) the people here will
advocate for this to the various
communities they come from. "
He said the forum provided
an avenue to "localize" the
problem and clear up any per-
petuated falsehoods about the
issue.
"If you put a face to the issue,
if you tell them, 'Are you going
to deny this individual a Univer-
sity education?' I think they're
going to have a much harder
time saying yes," Mersol-Barg
said. "When you move away
from a statistics-based argu-
ment towards one where it's a
real human that's affected by
the barriers, the financial bar-
riers, I think that's often times
really effective."
denser software memory capac-
ity. The chips could operate at
1,000 times the speed of Flash,
according to a University press
release.
Wei Lu, an associate professor
in the Department of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Sci-
ence, co-founded Crossbar and
said he has high expectations
for the memristor chips, though
he noted they won't be produced
immediately.
"It's a major market and a
major product, so it will definite-
ly take some time," Lu said.
Lu added that the technol-
ogy for the chip production
was developed in 2005 when he
began his tenure at the Universi-
ty. Some of Lu's former students
are employees of Crossbar and
Juan Martinez, one of the
panelists and principal of Cesar
Chavez Academy in Detroit,
highlighted the number of
undocumented students in
Detroit who would benefit from
access to in-state tuition costs
and financial aid.
"This year, 45 of our stu-
dents, (which is) 35 percent, are
undocumented," Martinez said.
"I've seen the look of hopeless-
ness as they get closer to gradu-
ation ... they have no idea what
they're going to do when they
graduate."
Panelist Kimberly Reyes, a
research assistant at the Nation-
al Forum on Higher Education
for the Public Good, discussed
the need for colleges and uni-
versities to make their own poli-
cies on undocumented students,
separate from any state policies.
"States do not admit stu-
dents," Reyes said. "Colleges
and universities do."
The final panelist, Karina
Moore, director of admissions
at the University's School of Art
& Design, discussed the vari-
ous undocumented populations
in Michigan who would benefit
from increased tuition equality.
"This is not just a Latino
issue," Moore said. "They are all
citizens of our state who want to
be actively engaged in our com-
munity ... and cannot be."
Rackham student Eliza-
beth Barrios, who came to the
U.S. from Venezuela, said she
attended the event to stand in
solidarity with the undocu-
mented immigrant students.
"I myself am an immigrant,"
Barrios said. "I guess I feel a
lot of sympathy for the plight of
other immigrants regardless of
their legal status."
are working on the chip produc-
tion.
He said the chips will replace
hard drives in storing flash
memory and may be used either
independently or with other
technologies.
Lu added that Crossbar is
grateful for the University's
support in its endeavors, since
investment in technology pro-
duction is rare.
"(Chip production) is very
expensive and that's why many
people are not funding," Lu said.
"It's also high risk, but obviously,
if the technology is right, the
return is very high too."
Lu said he could not comment
on the amount the University
will invest since Crossbar is still
in negotiations.
COURT
From Page 1A
in the Affordable Care Act com-
pelling Americans to either pur-
chase health insurance or pay a
fee - is unconstitutional, itcould
invalidate the entire law or leave
the legislation standing without
the mandate.
Friedman said he anticipates
that the court will most likely
uphold the individual mandate
on the basis that Congress has the
authority to regulate interstate
commerce and do what it deems
necessary.
"This seems to me to be a
mechanism that is perfectly
plausible, perfectly reasonable
for Congress, and it's a matter of
political choice," he said. "And I
think the court in the end is not
going to find that it was beyond
Congress's power."
However, for the Supreme
Court to uphold the mandate,
one of the five more conserva-
tive members on the bench would
have to join its four liberal-lean-
ing justices -Ruth Bader Gins-
burg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena
Kagan and Stephen Breyer.
Friedman said he expects one
of the five more conservative jus-
tices - Antonin Scalia, Anthony
Kennedy, Clarence Thomas,
Samuel Alito Jr. or Chief Justice
John G. Roberts Jr. - to vote
along with the court's liberalbloc
of the Court.
"It's conceivable, I suppose,
that all five will stick together
and knock it out," he said. "But
it'd be the first time in 70 years
that the Supreme Court is knock-
ing out a major, comprehensive
piece of federal legislation on the
grounds that it's beyond Con-
gress power."
The Affordable Care Act cen-
ters on a provision that allows
young adults to stay on their
families' insurance policies until
the age of 26. Last September, the
Center of Disease Control and
Prevention announced that the
number of insured young adults
SHIRVELL
From Page 1A
attorney,Deborah Gordon, claim-
ingthat she unlawfully interfered
in the processing of the case,
before ultimately filing to remove
her from litigation of the incident
in November 2011. Specifically,
Shirvell said Gordon persuaded
special investigator Mike Onde-
jko in his examination of Shirvell
for "job-related impropriety" that
led to his termination.
"Ms. Gordon used her prior
relationship with the investiga-
tor Mike Ondejko to basically ...
get me fired," Shirvell said in an
interview with The Michigan
Daily in October.
Gordon countered by fil-
ing a motion against Shirvell in
December 2011, stating his claims
were unjust.
"He claims that everything I've
under the age of 26 increased by
about 900,000 between Janu-
ary 2010 and March 2011. The
Obama administration attributed
the rise to the provision in the
Affordable Care Act.
The uptick lowered the per-
centage of uninsured 18-to-25
year olds to 24.2 percent in
2011's second quarter from the
28 percent in third quarter of
2010, according to a Gallup poll
released the same week as the
CDC data.
Matthew Davis, an assistant
professor in the Medical School
and Ford School of PublicPolicy,
said the provision could remain
in place even if it is invalidated
since it might bolster the election
chances of members of Congress.
"If you think about it, a young
adult who can get his or her par-
ents' plan can potentially bring
in two votes, because the young
adult votes, and so does the par-
ent," Davis said.
While Davis said the provi-
sion may continue, ,the planned
expansion of Medicaid and the
establishment of state market-
places for insurance plans could
fail without federal funding.
At the University, a University
Health Services survey found
that 9.4 percent of undergraduate
students are uninsured, Robert
Winfield, the University's chief
health officer and UHS director,
said in an interview last week.
The figure marked a 2-percent
increase over the last three years.
Winfield said while fewer stu-
dents are opting to enroll in the
University-offered insurance
program - 1,350 are enrolled
today, compared to 3,000 a
decade ago - the investment is
worthwhile.
"It's pretty common for appen-
dicitis to be $10,000 to $15,000,
or a bill for an auto accident to be
substantially higher than that,"
he said. "Everything we can do to
assure a higher level of insurance
for poor students is a good idea."
The Associated Press
contributed to this report.
said about him to the media is def-
amation, but he claims everything
he said about Chris Armstrong is
not defamation," Gordon told the
Daily at the time. "But me saying
he's irresponsible is defamation?"
Since the incident, Armstrong
started a scholarship for students
at the University in who have
been victimized by acts of bul-
lying. The initial allotment for
the fund is $100,000 and will be
givento incoming freshmen. Dur-
ing an event at Rackham Audito-
rium last November, Armstrong
said the decision to create the
fund was a join effort between
himself and his parents to inspire
students to excel and transcend
the effects of bullying.
"My parents and I decided to
start a scholarship for students
who've been bullied, to come to
the University of Michigan ... and
show students how it gets better,"
Armstrong said.
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,loUmD
2012 Orren C. Mohier Prize LectureU
2012 Orren C. Mohler Prize Lecture
Friday, March 30, 2012 " 7:00pm
New Worlds:
the Search for Planets
outside the Solar System
Scott Tremaine
Institute for Advanced Study
member of the National Academy of Sciences
In the past fifteen years, hundreds of planets
have been found around other stars. The
ultimate goal is to find Earth-like planets that
could sustain life.
182 Dennison Bldg., 500 Church St.
Sponsored by the Department of Astronomy
http://goo.gl/unXhm (734) 764-3440
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