A Final Note N THE ABSENCE OF comprehensive regula- Lions, the issue of sexu- al harassment in the work- place is a crucible of legal . a and ethical debate. iL _ . - prof i A wiren swircn wcans ar U. o Iowa eep their brooms in the closet. Any Witch Way HEY DON'T RIDE BROOMSTICKS. THEY DON'T STIR bubbling caldrons. They don't cast evil spells. But the U. of Iowa students who follow the ancient religion Wicca do call themselves witches. Recently recognized as a student group by UI, the nature-based, life- affirming Wiccans faced no opposition when they applied for religious group status last winter. "We didn't have any qualms Loosely translated, that means Wic- [about recognizing them]," says cans have nothing in common with Curt Boelman, of the UI activities the broom-riding harridan that board. "We might giggle a little, but chased Dorothy around Oz. our own personal feelings towards "There are a lot of people who the group have nothing to do with have beliefs like ours but don't have who getsi or not." a name for them," says Dawn But the 12 core members of the Atkins, a grad student at UI. "We group want to publicize that their don't recruit, but we do want peo- beliefs are no joke. ple to understand what we're doing UI senior Lon Sarver says that [when we worship]." since people don't understand the Atkins and the other Wiccans at religion of Wicca, they tend to believe UI are designing a series of tapes for in stereotyped characters. "What they public access TV to explain that get is the wicked witch fromtDisney." witches are not what fairy tales Instead, Wiccans are students make them out to be. who go to class, celebrate eight holi- So just who dances with the days, commune with nature and pay devil in the pale moonlight? Only homage to the Goddess Mother. Macbeth, the Brothers Grimm and The single rule that binds the Goody Proctor would know. more than 200,000 witches in North America is the Wiccan Rede: Kathryn Phillips, U. of Iowa/Photo by "If it harm none, do as ye will." Michael Dickbernd, U. of Iowa Controversy recently flared at Michigan State U. when the discov- ery of a sexually explicit note result- ed in the resignation of the student newspaper's editor in chief. MSU senior Kyle Melinn resigned from the paper after a note he wrote describing a sexual fantasy involving a female intern was found it the newsroom by staffers. After discovering rhe note and hearinsg prepared statementss from Melinn and MSU junior Alicia Sare, the subject of the note, staffers peti- tioned Melinnto resign.. hlie incident sparked campuswide controversy and media attention across the state. "I don't think he should've resigned," says MSU doctoral stu- dent Harold Cowherd. "He has a First Amendment right to express whatever he wants. The whole thing is kind of scary, you know?" MSU senior Kurt Hauglie dis- agrees. "It's disappointing," he says. "I think he broke the trust with the staff, so I don't think he could have stayed on as editor. The fact that he has a position of authority and power is what makes this wrong." Cowherd is still perplexed. "If it was a private note between two peo- ple, how and why did a State News reporter pick it up and circulate it?" "It was left out on a computer that everyone uses," says interim editor in chief Jeff McMillan. "It was a private note, but it was left in a public place." Melinn himself believes his resig- nation was the only viable choice. "I'll look back two or three years from now, and it will still have been best for the newspaper." Vikas Bajaj, Michigan State U., con- tributed to this story. Can't$Pin Her Down BBEY SCHWARTIZBERG JUST WANTED TO GET A jump start on conditioning for her upcom- ing gymnastics season. But after she began working out in the Berkeley High wrestling room in Huntington Woods, Mich., things changed. The Buzz - When do four wrongs make aright? On the SAT. As of last April, a student can miss as many as four questions and still get a perfect1600. The College Board recalibrated its scoring to cor- rect five decades of declining scores on the standardizedtest - Shannon Faulkner withdrew Aug. 18 from the Citadel, the Charleston, S.C., all-male military college that spent mil- lions trying to block her admittance. Faulkner, who spent her first week in the infirmary, said the stress from her two-and- a-half-year legal battle finally got to her. - The House of Representatives voted in Augustto elimi- nate financing for the Americorps national service program. The program, whose budget is currently $470 million, gives members a $4,724 tuition voucher for each year of service. President Clinton vows to veto the bill if it comes to his desk in its present unamended form. 8 U. M xagazie October 1995 " States and schools are scrambling to address affirma- tive action: U. of Minnesota administrators want to consoli- date existing affirmative policies into one diversity policy; Michigan legislators have proposed three bills that would abolish affirmative action; Iowa's governor has stated that he anticipates no changes in the state's policy; and the Associa- tion of Big Ten Schools, a coalition of student government representatives, passed a resolution in support of diversity. " "R" movies are back at Brigham Young U. - in an edited form. BYU, 99 percent of whose students are Mormon, had banned them outright in January. But after 85 percent of the students expressed a desire to see them once they had been appropriately edited, the board of trustees changed its decision. " Don't you worry - the case of the century will indeed live on: Cornell U. has established an O.J. Simpson murder trial archive. Text, graphics, cartoons, videotape and other materi- als that relate to DNA fingerprinting evidence presented in the trial will be saved and used to understand the DNA science. "A couple of the boys asked me, 'Why don't you go out for the team? You're really strong,"' recalls Schwartzberg, a sopho- more at California State U., Bakersfield. On the first day of wrestling practice in the fall of 1992, Schwartzberg was in the room again, but this time for a differ- ent reason. She wanted to wrestle. "I was basically ostracized by the boys at first because they didn't think I would make it," says Schwartzberg, who is cur- rently ranked second in USA women's freestyle wrestling. "But then after I did, it was like having 25 brothers." Schwartzberg parlayed a gutsy five-win/18-loss season during her senior year at Berkeley into an amateur wrestling career with Sunkist Kids, a national wrestling club. She placed second at the World Team trials in Oklahoma in June and fourth at the U.S. National Freestyle Champion- ships in May. Schwartzberg knows she is more than just a female in a male-dominated sport. "I'm also a pioneer, because women's wrestling is just begin- ning," she says. "There's a lot of skepticism out there. But usually your biggest critics turn out to be your biggest fans after they come out and watch you. You can't argue with heart." Schwartzberg's rise hasn't come without adversity. In one match, she had to resort to extreme measures. "The guy was just a brick house, a monster," she recalls. "He was pounding my head into the mat. Then he started cross- facing me and the referee didn't call it. So I just opened up my mouth and bit him because I couldn't breathe." Schwartzberg, who transferred from Arizona State U. to CSU this year, is premed and wants to become a chiropractor. "I'm going to hurt my oppo- nents, then give 'em my card and say, 'I'll give you 20 percent off,"' she jokes. Dan Miller, Arizona State U. /Photo by Mark Kramer, Arizona State U.