The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - 3A

The Michigan Daily - michigandailycam Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - 3A

NEWS BRIEFS
DETROIT
Police don't find
Jimmy Hoffa
Like many others that came
before it, the latest search for for-
mer Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa
has come up empty.
Tests on soil samples gathered
last week from a backyard in sub-
urban Detroit showed no traces
that Hoffa - or anyone else - was
buried there, Roseville police
announced Tuesday.
"Our department just
received the soil sample report
from Michigan State Univer-
sity, after a battery of tests; the
samples submitted for examina-
tion showed no signs of human
decomposition," the police
statement read. "As a result of
these tests the Roseville Police
Department will be concluding
their investigation into the pos-
sible interment of a human body
upon the property."
EL PASO, Texas
School district
rebuilds after
fraudulent testing
EL PASO, Texas (AP) - Dur-
ing his sophomore year, Jose
Avalos was urged by a principal
to drop out of high school. The
next year, his brother was told
to do the same after entering the
10th grade. A third Avalos brother
shared the same fate in 2009.
Administrators at Bowie High
School cited excessive tardi-
ness in their efforts to remove
the siblings. But now the broth-
ers suspect they were targeted
for an entirely different reason:
The district was trying to push
out hundreds of low-performing
sophomoresto prevent them from
taking accountability tests. The
scheme was designed to help El
Paso schools raise academic stan-
dards, qualify for more federal
money and ensure the superin-
tendent got hefty bonuses.
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich.
Feds back research
to stop Great
Lakes invasion
Federal grants will support
stepped-up research into ways
to prevent invasions of the Great
Lakes by foreign animal and plant
species, with special emphasis on
refining techniques that detect
their DNA in the water, officials
said Tuesday.
The U.S. Environmental Pro-
tection Agency said it was dis-
tributing $8 million among 21
universities and nonprofit orga-
nizations for invasive species
research studies. In addition to
warding off future attacks, the
projects will develop alarms to
signal when invasions are start-
ing and new methods of control-
ling those already under way.
"These projects will improve

the environmental health and
economic vitality of the world's
largest freshwater system," said
Susan Hedman, chief of EPA's
regional office in Chicago.
ALGIERS, Algeria
Human rights
activist arrested
A member of a leading human
rights organization has been
beaten and arrested in a southern
Algerian city.
The lawyer for Yacine Zaid said
Tuesday that his client had been
punched and beaten by police
when they arrested him at a road
block in Ouargla, 700 kilometers
(435 miles) south of the capital.
The lawyer, Sidhoum Mohamed
Amine, said Zaid was arrested
Monday on the ground that he
had shown a lack of respect for
police.
The daily El Watan reported
that Zaid would go on trial Mon-
day for "humiliating" and "strik-
ing a police officer." The paper
quoted an eyewitness, Abdel-
malek Aibek Eg Sahli, a represen-
tative of a hotel union, as saying
that Zaid "wasn't aggressive and
I don't see why he is accused of
that."
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports

Affirmative action
doesn't increase
college diversity,
new report says

Somali fighters display the Somali national flag from the former control tower of the airport in Kismayo on Tuesday.
Kenyan army invadoes
Kismayo takes power

Army says it is now
in command of
last Somali city in
rebellion
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -
Allied African troops have
taken full control of Kismayo in
Somalia, the last stronghold of
Islamist rebels who have been
fighting against the country's
internationally backed govern-
ment, a Kenyan military official
said Tuesday.
Remnants of the militants,
known as al-Shabab, executed
seven civilians who did not
support them in the southern
part of Kismayo on Monday, the
Kenyan military said.
Kenya Defense Forces and
the Somali National Army
are now patrolling the streets
of Kismayo, Kenyan military
spokesman Maj. Emmanuel
Chirchir said through Twit-
ter. He said that the troops had
secured the city's central police
station and the new airport. He
said military aircraft will start
landing there.

Kenyan troops invaded the
southern Somali city of Kis-
mayo early Friday, and al-Qai-
da-linked al-Shabab announced
soon after that their forces were
leaving the lucrative port town.
After years of bloody street-
by-street warfare, African
Union troops from Uganda and
Burundi pushed al-Shabab out
of Somalia's capital of Moga-
dishu in August 2011. The AU
troops have since taken over
towns outside of Mogadishu
as well. Kenyan forces invaded
Somalia late last year, and have
been moving slowly toward
Kismayo.
The once-powerful al-Sha-
bab spent years defending its
Mogadishu territory, but since
being forced out it has chosen
to retreat from towns when
challenged by African Union
forces or Ethiopian troops who
moved into western Somalia
earlier this year.
Allied African troops sent by
the African Union are helping
Somalia's fragile government to
restore order to the failed state
that has been in chaos since
warlords overthrew a longtime

dictator in 1991.
Analysts expect that now
that al-Shabab has been forced
from all of Somalia's major
cities, the group will resort
to guerrilla tactics such as
suicide attacks and roadside
bombs. Al-Shabab claimed
through Twitter Tuesday that
it had set off huge explosions
targeting allied troops and
killed scores attempting to
enter a regional administra-
tion building.
But the Kenyan forces dis-
puted al-Shabab's claim. Bomb
experts had simply detonated
improvised explosive devices
planted at the new airport,
said Kenyan army spokesman
Chirchir.
Residents in Kismayo said a
hand grenade had been thrown
at a Somalia government vehi-
cle and exploded without caus-
ing any casualties.
Claims about fighting in
Somalia are difficult to verify.
The Kenyan military also
said the Somali National Army
arrested an al-Shabab militant
who wanted to detonate a bomb
targeting the troops.

Outreach, changes
in policy account
for diversity
As the Supreme Court revis-
its the use of race in college
admissions next week, critics
of affirmative action are hope-
ful the justices will roll back
the practice. A new report out
Wednesday offers a big reason
for their optimism: evidence
from at least some of the nine
states that don't use affirma-
tive action that leading public
universities can bring mean-
ingful diversity to their cam-
puses through race-neutral
means.
That conclusion is vigor-
ously disputed by support-
ers of race-based affirmative
action, including universities
in states like California which
cannot under state law fac-
tor race into admissions deci-
sions. The new report, by the
Richard Kahlenberg, a senior
fellow at the Century Founda-
tion and prominent advocate of
class-based affirmative action,
calls those states' race-neutral
policies largely successful.
The University of California
and others call them a failure
that's left their campuses inad-
equately representative of the
states they serve.
Kahlenberg also acknowl-
edges that highly selective
universities like UCLA and
the Universities of California-
Berkeley and Michigan haven't
recovered from drop-offs in
minority enrollments after
voters in those states outlawed
racial preferences.
But in most places, the report
argues, a combination of mea-
sures - aggressive outreach,
de-emphasizing of standard-
ized tests, affirmative action
based on class instead of race,
and even getting rid of legacy
preferences that mostly benefit
whites - has allowed minority
representation on their cam-
puses to recover to previous

levels.
Seven states have banned
racial preferences in admis-
sions outright - Washington,
Michigan, Nebraska, Arizona,
New Hampshire, Californiaand
Florida. In Texas and Georgia
leading public universities use a
race-neutral system, though the
University of Texas has main-
tained some use of affirmative
action. It's that policy at UT
that's now before the court in a
casebroughtbyAbigail Fisher, a
rejected white applicant. Argu-
ments are next Wednesday.
In its last two major affirma-
tive action decisions, in 1978
and 2003, the court essentially
took universities at their word
when they argued it's impos-
sible to achieve adequate racial
diversity without factoring race
into admissions. But in the 2003
decision, involving the Univer-
sity of Michigan, the court also
indicated it would pay close
attention to race-neutral exper-
iments in the states to make
sure racial preferences were
really necessary to achieve
diversity.
This time around, the swing
vote is likely Justice Anthony
Kennedy, who dissented in the
case nine years ago, precisely
because he believed colleges
need to try harder to achieve
diversity by other means before
resorting to racial preferences.
"It's the central question in
Fisher: whether race-neutral
alternativeswill work," Kahlen-
berg said.
Kahlenberg says the state
data, compiled by Halley Potter,
shows they do.
At the University of Wash-
ington, for instance, black and
Latino enrollment fell after the
use of race was banned but has
since surpassed previous lev-
els. At the University of Florida,
Hispanic enrollment is higher
and black enrollment is compa-
rable to before race was banned
(though the report's figures
show black enrollment has fall-
en lately from nearly 15 percent
to below 10 percent).

Pope's butler declares innocence
in charges of aggravated theft

Assistant says he
made photocopies
in broad daylight
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope
Benedict XVI's onetime but-
ler declared Tuesday he was
innocent of a charge of aggra-
vated theft of the pope's private
correspondence, but acknowl-
edged he photocopied the
papers and said he feels guilty
that he betrayed the trust of the
pontiff he loves like a father.
Paolo Gabriele took the stand
Tuesday in a Vatican court-
room to defend himself against
accusations of his role in one
of the most damaging scandals
of Benedict's pontificate. Pros-
ecutors say Gabriele stole the
pope's letters and documents
alleging power struggles and
corruption inside the Vatican
and leaked them to a journal-
ist in an unprecedented papal
security breach.
Gabriele faces four years
in prison if he is found guilty,
although most Vatican watch-
ers expect he will receive a
papal pardon if he is convicted.
During Tuesday's hear-
ing, Gabriele's attorney com-
plained that her client spent
his first 20 days in Vatican
detention in a room so small
he couldn't stretch his arms
out and with lights kept on
24 hours a day. Vatican police
swiftly defended their treat-
ment of Gabriele, but the
Vatican prosecutor opened an
investigation regardless.
Prosecutors have said Gabri-
ele, 46, has confessed to leaking
copies of the documents to Ital-
ian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi,
because he wanted to expose
the "evil and corruption" in the
church. They quoted him as
saying in a June 5 interrogation
that even though he knew tak-
ing the documents was wrong,
he felt inspired by the Holy
Spirit "to bring the church back

on the right track."
Judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre
asked Gabriele on Tuesday if he
stood by his confession. Gabri-
ele responded: "Yes."
Asked, though, by his attor-
ney Cristiana Arru how he
responded to the charge of
aggravated theft, Gabriele said:
"I declare myself innocent con-
cerning the charge of aggravat-
ed theft. I feel guilty of having
betrayed the trust of the Holy
Father, whom I love as a son
would."
He insisted he had no accom-
plices, though he acknowledged
that many people inside the
Vatican, including cardinals,
trusted him and would come
to him with their problems
and concerns. He said he felt
inspired by his faith to always
give them a listen.
He acknowledged he photo-
copied papal documentation,
but insisted he did so in plain
view of others and during day-
light office hours, using the
photocopier in the office he
shared with the pope's two pri-
vate secretaries.
The trial opened over the
weekend inside the intimate
ground-floor tribunal in the
Vatican's courthouse tucked
behind St. Peter's Basilica.
Dalla Torre has said he expects
it to be over within three more
hearings.
In addition to Gabriele, the
court heard Tuesday from four
witnesses, including the pope's
main private secretary, Mon-
signor Georg Gaenswein, who
along with Gabriele was the
closest assistant to the pontiff.
Gaenswein testified that he
began having suspicions about
Gabriele after he realized three
documents that appeared in
Nuzzi's book could only have
come from their shared office.
"This was the moment when
I started to have my doubts,"
Gaenswein said.
The book, "His Holiness:

Pope Benedict XVI's private
papers," became an immedi-
ate blockbuster when it was
published May 20, detailing
intrigue and scandals inside the
Apostolic Palace. The leaked
documents seemed primar-
ily aimed at discrediting Bene-
dict's No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio
Bertone, often criticized for
perceived shortcomings in run-
ning the Vatican administra-
tion.
Gaenswein said as soon as he
read the book, he immediately
asked the pope's permission to
convene a meeting of the small
papal family to ask each mem-
ber if he or she had taken the
documentation.
One member, Cristina Cer-
netti, one of the pope's four
housekeepers, told the court
she knew immediately that
Gabriele was to blame because
she could exclude without a
doubt any other member of the
family.
In an indication of the
respect Gabriele still feels for
Gaenswein, he stood up from
his bench when Gaenswein
entered the courtroom and then
again when he exited. Gaens-
wein seemed to not acknowl-
edge him.
The trial resumes Wednes-
day with the testimony of four
members of the Vatican police
force who conducted the search
of Gabriele's Vatican City apart-
ment on May 23. In testimony
Tuesday, two police officers
said they discovered thousands
of papers in Gabriele's studio,
some of them originals.
During the testimony, the
lawyer Arru complained about
the conditions . under which
Gabriele spent his first 20
days in detention - conditions
which Gabriele said contribut-
ed to his "psychological depres-
sion."
Dalla Torre asked the pros-
ecutor to open an investigation,
which he did.

Mich. legal system in
overdrive before Nov.

State Supreme
Court hears six
ballot proposals
DETROIT (AP) - The
November ballot in Michigan
will be peppered with measures
that endured legaltussles justto
make it there, and some politi-
cal observers say they can't
remember an election where
courts played such a major role.
Several high-stakes bal-
lot proposals were challenged
all the way to the Michigan
Supreme Court. The justice
system also had a role in a west
Michigan state lawmaker's
party switch and a longtime
congressman's decision not to
run again after staffers were
accused of falsifying petition
signatures.
Some argue there's nothing
improper about people turn-
ing to the court system to fight
for what they believe are their
rights, but others contend the
electorate can become polar-
ized when litigation merges
with policymaking.
"It really points to the divi-
siveness and severe parti-
sanship we see in Lansing,
Washington, D.C., and gener-
ally divides the politics among
us," said Eric Lupher, director
of local affairs for the nonprofit,
nonpartisan.Citizens Research
Council of Michigan. "This
year, I think we can probably
argue that the planets are align-
ing... (and) that draws attention
to these things."
At the front of the litigation
line are the six ballot proposals
spawning a raft of attacks and
counterattacks in courtrooms
as well as in the media. The
state's highest court last month

approved three: whether to
strengthen collective bargain-
ing rights, allow construction of
bridges a'nd tunnels to Canada,
and require a supermajority in
the Legislature to raise taxes.
Each would amend the Michi-
gan Constitution - a concern
for critics.
"Special interests have kind
of hijacked, in my view, what
was intended by the writers
of the 1963 constitution. Most
of them literally are going to
require a whole bunch of new
lawsuits to resolve if any of
them pass," said Bill Rustem,
senior policy adviser to Gov.
Rick Snyder. "Everybody who's
got a special interest has dis-
covered the way to get your idea
done. ... If you can't deal with
representative democracy, you
just hire people to gather signa-
tures for you."
Still, not everyone sees ram-
pant polarization or problems
with the system, even as they
acknowledge the high number
oflitigation-fueledballotissues.
"Our constitution provides
for referenda and initiatives,
which I think is good," Michi-
gan Attorney General Bill
Schuette said. "This is people
speaking their minds in many
cases.
Is it perfect? No, but it's the
best system going."
Signature-gathering is at the
heart of another legal battle
brewing in the run-up to the
election. Four ex-campaign
staffers of former Michigan
U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter
were charged in August with
forging or falsifying signa-
tures on nominating petitions a
month after his resignation. He
wasn't charged, but Schuette
said McCotter was "asleep at
the switch."

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