Wednesday, March 13, 2002 by The Brown Daily Herald

W E D N E S D A Y MARCH 13, 2002

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVII, No. 34

An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891

www.browndailyherald.com

Student activites report calls for new student center, closing Underground BY ETHAN HOROWITZ

The creation of a student center and increased interaction between the Student Activities Office, student leaders and administrative departments are the primary recommendations of a report on student activities released this week. The report, which relied on data from the SAO and student perceptions of the office, also recommended a restructuring of the Undergraduate Finance Board and the closing of the Underground. The survey, developed and administered by two independent consultants, is the first University-commissioned a review of the SAO in at least 10 years. “It’s always helpful to have other experts in the field confirm some of your initial ideas,” said Margaret Jablonski, dean for campus life. Artie Travis, vice president for student affairs and dean of community life at Oglethorpe University and Tom Dunne, assistant dean for undergraduate students at Princeton University, conducted the survey. Jablonski said she and Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Janina Montero “wanted two people who have a lot of experience with student activities,” referring to the fall 2001 commission of Travis and Dunne. Jablonski said Travis and Dunne each have about 15 years of experience in student life and have previous professional relationships with Jablonski and Montero. The review itself consisted of two-and-one-half days of tours and fact finding on campus as well as months of review of materials provided by various administrative departments and student organizations, Jablonski said. The review cost about $3,000, she said. Travis and Dunne directed their strongest criticism toward the current condition of Faunce House. The space as it is now used and maintained “calls into question the University’s commitment to the undergraduate experience outside the classroom,” Dunne said. see ACTIVITIES, page 4

Two students captain effort to form gaystraight alliance BY CRYSTAL Z.Y. NG

As Pride Month nears, two students are spearheading an initiative to form the Gay-Straight Alliance at Brown. Patrick O’Brien ’02, a member of the executive board of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Association, and Meredith Reiches ’05 said they want to create a place where heterosexuals can share their support, questions and ideas about sexuality and LGBT rights. “One thing we’ve noticed is there’s not specific programming in the LGBTA that includes straight people,” O’Brien said, adding that though straight students are welcome to attend LGBTA meetings, they often feel uncomfortable. He said he first considered forming the alliance at the end of last year and hopes to have 20 members by the end of March. O’Brien and Reiches recently held a meeting for interested students, which several people attended, he said. O’Brien said he also received five or six e-mails from interested students and that almost all the students who attended the meeting or e-mailed him were straight. The alliance’s stated purpose is to foster communication between gay and heterosexual students and to include heterosexuals fighting for lesbian, gay, bisexual see GSA, page 5

Marion Billings / Herald

President Simmons reads about her Proposal for Academic Enrichment at Tuesday’s ‘Midterm Chat’ in Petteruti Lounge.

At ‘Midterm Chat,’ Simmons fields questions from concerned students BY CARLA BLUMENKRANZ

President Ruth Simmons expressed her desire to move forward with her Proposal for Academic Enrichment Tuesday night, as students voiced concerns on a variety of issues at a Midterm Chat in Petteruti Lounge. Simmons discussed the main components of her proposal, including an expansion of the faculty, improved undergraduate financial aid and increased support for computing and library services. Since the Corporation approved the proposal in February, the University has purchased an off-campus library storage facility, she said. She also addressed the housing concerns of a large group of current Resident Counselors. The University designated 20 of the 100 new faculty positions as “targets of opportunity” for recruiting minority faculty, Simmons said. Shareef Jackson ’02 said that as a minority student and engineering concentrator, he would like to see more minority faculty in the sciences. “I respect a lot of the faculty members, but I can’t say, ‘this is a man or a woman who really knows what I’m going through,’” Jackson said. Simmons responded that she is currently discussing

UMass-Amherst undergrad Residential Assistants vote in favor of unionization page 3

see CHAT, page 5

With need blind, internationals still await equal status BY VINAY GANTI

When Brown adopted a need-blind admission policy in February, “we only went 90 percent need-blind,” said international student Maithili Parekh ’02. The University’s need-blind policy, under which all applicants beginning with the Class of 2007 will be admitted without regard to their financial need, will not apply to the ten percent of students who apply to Brown as international applicants. Director of Financial Aid Michael Bartini said needblind admission for international applicants is “a little far ahead,” and the University will focus on properly implementing need-blind admission for domestic applicants first. Parekh said the University must be willing to increase international student aid to a decent level before it achieves need-blind status. The University celebrated eliminating the five percent of the admission pool admitted under a need-aware policy, but failed to mention that ten percent of the student

I N S I D E W E D N E S D AY, M A RC H 1 3 , 2 0 0 2 Harvard limits use of Advance Placement credits to earn college course credit page 3

minority faculty recruitment with a wide range of departments. “We must focus on targeted recruiting, rather than just business as usual,” she said of the faculty hiring process. Students will see the effects of the proposal next fall in greater course availability and smaller class sizes, Simmons said. Students should expect further improvements to the financial aid program, including more support for international students and a decrease in loan expectations, she said. The need-blind admission policy passed under Simmons’ proposal did not include international student applicants. Simmons said she also hopes to address diversity in the coming year. “I’m fascinated by the fact that we don’t have a good idea of what we mean when we talk about diversity on this campus,” Simmons said, using the debate about the Third World Transition Program as an example. While some community members see TWTP as crucial for student support, others see it as evidence of a campus racial divide, she said. Simmons said the University must define what it

Carl Takei ’02 says Friday’s arrests demand an activist response column,page 11

population does not ever receive aid, she said. “We have a bigger gap that we still need to bridge,” she said. The amount of funds Brown has for international student aid is not enough, Parekh said, especially when compared to Brown’s peer institutions. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and MIT operate with a need-blind admission policy that extends to international applicants, she added. Parekh said even though the international community views Brown as a “global university,” lesser known schools allocate more aid to foreign students. She said Mount Holyoke College, Wesleyan University, Louisiana State University appropriate larger funds to international student aid. International students with financial need will not apply to Brown because their chance of being accepted is very slim if they declare a need for financial aid, or the see INT’L AID, page 5

TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T Shaun Joseph ’02 says Bratton consulting group will bring racism to Brown campus guest column,page 11

Baseball starts 2002 season on winning note, taking three of four in Carolina page 12

light rain high 48 low 39

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

THIS MORNING WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2002 · PAGE 2 Ted’s World Ted Wu

W E AT H E R TODAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

High 48 Low 39 light rain

High 55 Low 34 mostly sunny

High 54 Low 39 partly cloudy

High 51 Low 28 windy

GRAPHICS BY TED WU

!#$% HAPPENS Peter Quon and Grant Chu

CALENDAR LECTURE — “Malaria,” Jonathan D. Kurtis, Urban Environmental Lab, 135 Angell Street,1 p.m. LECTURE — “The Dreaming Body: Cartesian Psychology, Enlightenment Anthropology and the People of the New World,” Mary Baine Campbell, Brandeis University, English Department 315, 4 p.m. SEMINAR — “Animal Model Systems for the Study of Aging: From the Fly to the Baboon,” Mark Tatar, Bio-Medical Center 291, 4 p.m. LECTURE — “Intersex Awareness - A Discussion of Gender Ambiguity,” Anne Fausto-Sterling and Heather Smith ’02, Salomon 003, 4 p.m. SLIDE PRESENTATION — “Get Results from your Plants: Pruning and Cultural Practices,” David Schwartz, master gardener, International House, 7 p.m.

Abstract Fantasy Nate Pollard

PRESENTATION — Caitlin Fisher will give a multi-media presentation of her work, McCormack Family Theater, 70 Brown Street, 8 p.m. PERFORMANCE — Fusion Dance Company, Ashamu Dance Studio, 8 p.m.

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Alpaca relative 6 Partner of “took notice” 11 Cape __ 14 Restaurant patron 15 Ancient marketplace 16 “...the winter of __ discontent”: Shak. 17 Swing era first name 18 Small-time 20 Young salmon 21 Docs who don’t specialize 22 Hot dog vendor’s need 23 The Monkees’ “__ Believer” 24 Derisive cry 25 Distorts, as a narrative 26 Jukebox forerunner 30 Corn site 31 “See?” 32 Traveler’s oasis 33 Has in stitches 34 Summer reading, perhaps 38 Dangerous snakes 41 Eggs 42 Durango dwellings 46 Where ewes roam 47 Montana, for one 50 Leia’s portrayer 52 It runs Down Under 53 __ polloi 54 Merlin or Ole 55 Hot air 56 Mess site? 57 Flats and sharps 60 English aviator Markham 61 Hardly any 62 Idolize 63 Very hot 64 Kind of pewter 65 Got excited (about) 66 Like most residential areas

DOWN 33 Cheese piece 47 Albanian money 1 Lords’ activity? 35 Pained 48 Ribbed 2 City WNW of expression 49 Mummy’s three? Cheyenne 36 A Gabor 51 Striped-shirt 3 What some 37 Neutral color wearer sirens do 38 Whiskey 55 “Pretty Woman” 4 Early ’70s Israeli component star prime minister 39 Tanker route 56 Sub 5 Is for more than 40 Leafy herb 58 Harem room one? 43 Dry 59 Veterans Day 6 Ancient Greek 44 Devotee mo. lyric poet 45 Able 60 “That’s show __” 7 Notable periods ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: 8 Truck weight unit C O R P S S H E A F L O W 9 Mantle piece Y A D D A I D A A L O U D 10 NFL career R A B B I T S F O O T G I L rushing leader O T T R A C H E L E N O L 11 Suggest I O N I N L E T 12 No longer fit L U C K Y H O R S E S H O E into, maybe 13 Woman’s wear L A I N E T O L D W A N 19 Net giant, briefly A S P C A T E N S A U D I 21 Guy’s M O I S T S E T I S L A companion F O U R L E A F C L O V E R 24 Legendary giant G R A I N U P I 25 Quadrennial pol. R E G E N T B I G S R T A event C H A R M S C H O O L A L I 27 Billy and E E L E R O N T O P Z E N Sundance 28 Near East coin D R D R E G U S T O E E G 29 Brian of rock xwordeditor@aol.com 03/13/02

Cookie’s Grandma is Jewish Saul Kerschner

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CAMPUS WATCH WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2002 · PAGE 3

Harvard restricts use of AP credits

IN BRIEF

BY JINHEE CHUNG

Unionization spreads to undergrads as UMass-Amherst RAs vote to join union Undergraduate resident assistants at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst voted last week to join the Local 2322 of the United Auto Workers, a graduate student labor union. Students say they are seeking better pay and working conditions. Though UMass-Amherst is investigating whether to contest the vote, it is protesting the Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission’s decision that permitted the RAs to hold a vote. RAs are students, not employees, UMassAmherst officials contend. “The administration continues to believe that was the wrong application of the law and will continue to pursue any means available, legal and administrative, to get this reversed,” said Kay Scanlan, a UMass-Amherst spokeswoman. The vote affects approximately 360 undergraduates, of whom 238 voted. One hundred thirty-eight RAs favored unionization and 88 opposed it. Twelve ballots were challenged and not counted. If the administration recognizes the students as a bargaining unit, Umass-Amherst undergraduates would become the only union of dormitory RAs in the country. “This is about having a voice,” Kendra McDade, a UMassAmherst junior and RA told the Chronicle of Higher Education.“Being an RA is a really demanding job. Forming a union will get us respect and solve the ambiguity” of lacking a “clear contract with the university.” Teaching and research assistants at Columbia — including some undergraduates — will vote Wednesday on whether to unionize. — Jonathan Noble

Harvard University has made it harder for students to transfer high school course credits to college. Harvard recently announced it will no longer accept any Advanced Placement exam scores below five for credit and, beginning with the class of 2007, only students with at least four AP scores of five will be eligible for sophomore status. “It seemed that the preparation based on just having a (AP score of) four was not the equivalent of a year of Harvard coursework,” said Harry Lewis, dean of the college at Harvard, in an e-mail. Depending on the rules of a particular institution, entering first-years at other universities can use AP exam scores of between three and five to receive college credit for introductory courses and enter college with sophomore standing. Lewis said Harvard based its decision on data gathered from studying students’ performance in certain classes. An experiment in chemistry and economics confirmed that students who took an advanced course in those subjects after scoring a four on the AP test did not do as well as students who had taken Harvard’s introductory course before doing more advanced work, Lewis said. But “students who skipped the first year course on the basis of having a five actually did a little better than those who had taken the first year course,” he said. Despite Harvard’s change, officials at Brown and Yale University indicated there are no immediate plans to change their AP credit policies. At Brown, departments have different rules regarding AP scores, said Robert Shaw, associate dean of the college. “For a half dozen of the exams, Brown gives no credit,” Shaw said. “For others, a score of anywhere from three to five gets what we call an AP credit.”

In math or biology, a four or five will receive AP credit, but in history, only a five will receive credit, Shaw said. AP credits can be used for placement into advanced courses and also can be used in certain cases to help a student graduate early, Shaw said. Besides placement credit, the University does award course credit for AP work at the discretion of individual academic departments, according to the Web site of the Dean of the College. “Course credit shall be granted only when, in the judgment of individual departments, Advanced Placement work is at a level of competence sufficient to qualify the student for continued work at an advanced level in a course of study undertaken at the University,” the policy states. For many classes, students can only activate course credit if they take a more advanced course in that subject, Shaw said. Like Brown, Yale also has different AP score requirements for each of its academic departments. “Rather than draw an across-the-board line between the four and five scores, we are proceeding department by department,” said Joseph Gordon, dean of undergraduate education at Yale, in an e-mail. AP scores do not have a serious impact on a candidate’s eligibility for admission to Brown. “Often the scores reflect more about the high school than the applicant,” said Michael Goldberger, director of College admission. “No standardized tests fall in the category of major or significant, it is just one piece of information.” If Brown did change its policy on AP scores, it would not make any difference in the admission process, Goldberger said. Herald staff writer Jinhee Chung ’05 can be reached at jchung@browndailyherald.com.

U. Mich grad student union calls walk-out successful

National Cancer awards Harvard lab $40 million to study proteins

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (U-WIRE) — Members of the Graduate

The National Cancer Institute has awarded a $40 million contract to Harvard for the creation of a lab to catalog proteins relevant to medical research. Officials hope the broad approach to chemical genetics will allow researchers to more efficiently study and find molecules found in diseases, as well as those that could be used in drugs. “Pharmaceutical companies study one small molecule at a time, but often don’t share their information with the public,” Marc Kirschner, a professor at the Harvard Medical School, told the Harvard Crimson. The new Molecular Technology Laboratory will help create a public database of proteins found in the human genome. Though scientists currently tend to work only on individual molecules, the new lab will be able to conduct many experiments at one time. — Jonathan Noble

Employees Organization and Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality joined forces Monday in a walk-out to stop University of Michigan students from going to class and workers from working in hopes of sending a message of solidarity to the University. According to chants heard before rally at the Literature, Science and Arts Building, GEO wants a contract, and now. Though the mission sounds simple, GEO members have said the contract they are fighting for is extraordinary. GEO members estimated that the one-day-long strike, which began with a picket at the Life Sciences Institute construction site at 7 a.m., drew about 500 union members and 300 undergraduates to the picket lines. The strike also managed to expand past University walls to undergraduate students at Michigan State University, some of whom chose not to attend classes to show sup-

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port for their graduate employee union, which formed last year but has yet to sign a contract. The strike ended at 6 p.m. Monday. “We are really happy with the turnout today. All over campus, there is a lot of noise, a lot of energy,”GEO organizing committee member and Rackham student Rachel Meyer said. “I think we’ve done a good job shutting down the University. If you look around, the parking lots are empty, the common spaces are empty and there aren’t a lot of students walking around between classes.” GEO President and Rackham student Cedric de Leon said many of the construction sites were also abandoned by noon. University Spokeswoman Julie Peterson said work continued despite the picket lines. Peterson said financially, the University was not grossly affected by the walk-out and the slowed construction, but no cost estimate could be made.

PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2002

Activities continued from page 1 Dunne identified the lack of a large programming space, inability of traffic to flow through the building, noise problems and shortage of storage space as crucial flaws. The report included Dunne’s and Travis’ first-hand experiences with some of these problems when noise from a nearby music rehearsal room repeatedly interrupted the commission’s student information-gathering forum. The report suggested office space from the Office of Religious Life be moved to another location, a new method for apportioning office space among student groups be devised and a slew of capital improvements, such as tables, chairs, computers and sound equipment, be provided to encourage student use of the facility. Travis said improvements should be made to transform Faunce House from “a building that students get to use when faculty and other groups are not utilizing the space” to “a central unifying force that a true student union should have on campus.” Travis and Dunne further recommended restructuring the SAO staff to shift the office’s central task from a “student organization banking center” to the development of student leadership. “The (SAO) staffing model places undue emphasis on the administrative side of student activities,” Dunne said, with emphasis on financial transactions between student groups and the SAO. “While many students we interviewed expressed the understanding that … (Director of Student Activities David) Inman is available for advising, the staffing model suggests this is a third priority behind financial accounting and facility management,” he said. The report said that expanding and retraining SAO staff would allow professionals to work more closely with student organizations and “reflect the changes in the emphasis for student development and growth.” Dunne and Travis recommended greater integration of the SAO with other University departments to reduce scheduling overlap and bureaucratic red tape in student event planning. Responding to these criticisms, Director of Student Activities David Inman said the report’s characterization of SAO as a “student organization banking center” did not do justice to the amount of time SAO staff has worked with students to plan events. “It is not simply: here’s your money, here’s your check,” Inman said. The office spends time with

students and does not share “quite the same anonymity” as a bank, he said. He also said the “position of Director of Student Activities never mentioned student development,” a job description that he said was approved as recently as 2000 by then Dean for Student Life Robin Rose. Regardless of operational focus, Inman said, the SAO cannot ignore the business aspect of this operation, an operation that handled an average of $1.2 million over the past two years. The report also addressed controversies regarding the transparency of UFB decision-making processes. “Student organization leaders we interviewed expressed emotions ranging from dismay to outrage regarding the way funds are distributed on campus,” Dunne said. “There is a great deal of conjecture regarding the surplus as many students claim to have heard it was embezzled,” he said. The report suggested a greater transparency in UFB budgetary concerns as well as possible oversight from the University. “Most of this information has come from student opinions” and not from UFB, said UFB Chair Nigel Cordeiro ’02. The report’s observations are pertinent, he said, but are already being implemented. The experts “didn’t help us anymore than we’ve started to help ourselves,” he said. The final suggestion of the report was to close the Underground. “It is difficult for me to believe that student staff, some of whom are under 21 themselves, are comfortable confronting their peers engaged in underage drinking,” Dunne said. “As there is virtually no administrative presence during the evenings in the pub,” he said, the University “cannot adequately assess the frequency of minors consuming alcohol.” “I question if the risks associated with the pub are worth the benefits it provides students,” he said. Jablonski said she and Montero will discuss the proposed recommendations with SAO staff as well as UFB and UCS leadership to plan their implementation. Some of the recommendations, such as the reduction of red tape in the planning of student events, the creation of student leadership development programs and the restructuring of SAO staff may be ready by next fall, she said. She said other proposed changes, such as the physical improvements to Faunce House, will obviously take longer. Jablonski said the report should be available on the Internet shortly. Herald staff writer Ethan Horowitz ’04 covers campus life. He can be reached at ehorowitz@browndailyherald.com.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2002 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 5

Chat continued from page 1 means by diversity if it is to understand Friday’s arrests on the Main Green. She called the arrests an incident that “tests to the fullest extent our capacity to remain a community.” There was no further discussion of the arrests, which occurred when two first-years refused to show identification to Brown Police officers and engaged in an altercation with them in front of Sayles Hall. About 15 RCs attended Simmons’ discussion to protest a plan that would require peer counselors in Perkins to live with non-counselor roommates. Perkins peer counselors now live alone in rooms that were designed as doubles. The plan was devised by the Office of Residential Life as a remedy for the shortage of available on-campus housing, said Dean for Campus Life Margaret Jablonski. The University received 300 fewer off-campus permission requests for 2002-03,

GSA continued from page 1 and transgender rights, O’Brien said. O’Brien’s goal is to increase understanding and clear up misconceptions between the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community and straight communities at Brown by creating a forum in which everyone feels comfortable, he said. Reiches said that providing members of both communities with an opportunity to communicate is important. “My theory is that there needs to be an outreach space and an

Int’l Aid continued from page 1 international students will commit to another institution because of a more generous aid package, said international student Basim Khan ‘02. Khan and Parekh said the majority of international students at Brown are wealthy and do not need financial aid. As a result, the socioeconomic diversity of the international student body is limited, he said. Khan said it seems like the University views international students as a lower priority than

Gourevitch continued from page 12 row, feature star 7-1 center Chris Marcus and have only lost one game all year when Marcus (who was injured for half the season) was playing. That game was an overtime loss to Creighton, also a tournament team. Kent State (No. 10 seed): As I have heard on ESPN about a hundred times, 10 seeds have made the Sweet 16 as many times as two seeds since 1985. Kent State

Jablonski said. Speaking on behalf of all peer counselors, Glenn Riddlespurger ’04 and Kristina Hammond ’03 said the plan will make it more difficult for counselors to have confidential conversations with first-years and deprive them of personal space. They also questioned the appropriateness of placing a sophomore who does not follow the peer counselor code of conduct in a first-year unit. Another concern was the additional compensation that would be provided to Perkins peer counselors. Riddlespurger and Hammond said a discrepancy in salaries could create a rift among counselors, while other RCs said that financial compensation was an inadequate solution. The RCs had several suggestions for increasing the availability of housing, including converting lounges into living spaces, encouraging upperclassmen to live off campus and assigning three freshman to rooms that are now doubles. Jablonski said she will assign peer counselors to singles if pos-

affinity space for any minority group,” she said. O’Brien said he hopes members of the alliance will become activists in the future by serving on panels, participating in poster campaigns and developing workshops for Brown students. “It’s a really exciting area. Homophobia is a big issue, and not only do we need the LGBTA, but we have to have straight people fighting (homophobia) too,” O’Brien said. O’Brien and Reiches said they are uncertain how the alliance, which is just starting, will relate to the LGBTA, but said they hope the two groups can work together. O’Brien said he expects the alliance will be created. “I think that the level of inter-

domestic students. The University reviews its financial aid priorities continually, Bartini said, and increasing international student aid is a topic that the University has discussed, though concrete plans have never been adopted. The University has not formally estimated the costs of going need-blind for international applicants, he said. The Brown International Organization Scholarship Committee is a group of students that raise money to establish permanent endowments to finance scholarships for international students, said BRIO Scholarship Committee Chair Hector Pro ’03. Pro said BRIO’s funds are very

seems like this year’s most likely candidate to help continue this trend. They are another hot team, having won 18 straight games in the Mid-American, a conference that has produced many upsets in the past. Penn (No. 11 seed): The Quakers have been on a roll lately, dominating the rest of the Ivy League over the last few weeks. The also get to play the first round in near-by Pittsburgh, while their first round opponents, Cal, must travel across the country. Although they will probably have to play Pitt in the second round in what will

sible, but the University is currently short 200 to 300 beds. “We’re certainly open to reconsider the decision as we move forward,” she added. RC Leslie Friedman ‘04 said she thought Jablonski and Simmons’ were receptive to the counselors’ concerns, but that understanding the issue “comes down to knowing what it’s like to be an RC. “I wouldn’t be surprised if people dropped out of the program” should they be assigned to doubles, she added. Larsen Plano ‘05 said he appreciated Simmons’ willingness to hear student concerns but said he was disappointed by the quality of the discussion. “I was a little surprised by how few people showed up and how few issues were raised,” he said. “When you’re a president, you probably know too much. You hear too much of what people think,” Simmons said. Herald staff writer Carla Blumenkranz ‘05 covers the Office of the President. She can be reached at cblumenkranz@browndailyherald.com.

est, the fact it’s so high, will suggest it’ll happen,” he said. “I hope it will attract people from all sexual communities to talk about what they want to be done,” Reiches said. Other schools that have gaystraight alliances include Dartmouth College and Cornell University. O’Brien said many southern schools also have similar organizations. Though tensions about sexuality are higher at southern schools, the alliance at Brown will add to the University’s diversity, he said. Herald staff writer Crystal Z.Y. Ng ’05 can be reached at cng@browndailyherald.com.

limited, meaning that now only one student at a time benefits from a four-year scholarship. President Ruth Simmons was enthusiastic about increasing international financial aid at a speech to parents of international students during Parents’ Weekend in October. In her Midterm Chat Tuesday night in Petteruti Lounge, Simmons said she plans to give more financial support to international students as part of a series of improvements to financial aid programs. Herald staff writer Vinay Ganti ’05 can be reached at vganti@browndailyherald.com.

be basically a home game, the Panthers are vulnerable if Brandon Knight is not at full speed. Tulsa (No. 12 seed): Teams that can hit the three are always very dangerous in the NCAA tournament because they can beat more talented teams by simply having a hot streak. Tulsa hit their 3-pointers as a team at 40% clip (good for eighth in the nation and fourth in the tournament) and with one good shooting weekend, they could rattle off a couple of wins over Marquette and Kentucky.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

WORLD & NATION WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2002 · PAGE 6

IN BRIEF Eight more victims found in Ground Zero rubble, six months after Sept. 11 NEW YORK (Newsday) — The remains of six firefighters and two

civilians were removed Tuesday from the rubble at Ground Zero where the south tower once stood, Fire Department officials said. With the recovery targeted for completion in June, it is considered the last large section where remains will likely be recovered. Before Tuesday, the bodies of 148 of the 343 firefighters who died Sept. 11 have been pulled from the rubble. Meanwhile, the effort to identify remains continues in the office of the city medical examiner. Ellen Borakove, an office spokeswoman, said 759 victims have been identified out of the nearly 3,000 lost. Included in the figure are 161 people identified solely by DNA tests. In all, the medical examiner’s office has collected 15,832 remains.

Bishop orders priests linked to sexual abuse to resign from priesthood NEW YORK (Newsday) — In his first move against clergy sex abuse, the bishop of the diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island is demanding that some priests who have been accused of molesting boys formally resign from the priesthood. “For the good of the church, I want you out,” the Rev. Brian McKeon said he was told by Bishop William F. Murphy in a tense meeting in November. While Murphy declined to comment, his demand that McKeon and others resign from the priesthood based on sexual abuse complaints is another indication that he is taking steps to address a problem that has attracted nationwide attention. Last week, Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon said Murphy would turn over to him all past sex abuse complaints made to the diocese. McKeon, 51, said Murphy called him into his office and told him to apply for laicization, a lengthy process that involves asking the pope to relieve him of the duties and obligations of the priesthood. McKeon said he made a “mistake” more than a decade ago by inappropriately touching young boys.“I was wrong and I admitted I was wrong,” McKeon said in an interview. At the time a complaint was made against him, McKeon said, he was removed as pastor at St. Anne’s in Garden City and told by diocesan officials to get psychological counseling. After undergoing treatment at a center in Canada, he said, he returned to the diocese to continue working as a priest.“I did everything I was told,” he said.“I wanted to stay a priest, but I now know that won’t be possible.” A second priest told by Murphy to put in his papers to leave the priesthood is Michael R. Hands, who pleaded guilty last week in Nassau County for sexually assaulting a boy between the ages of 13 and 15. According to sources, other priests have been confronted by Murphy, but details on those individuals were not available Tuesday. It remains unclear what criteria Murphy is using in selecting those asked to leave. Murphy is expected to make a policy announcement on the issue of sexual abuse in Wednesday’s issue of the Long Island Catholic, the diocese’s official newspaper. He has declined all interviews on that subject until his statement is released. Last week, Newsday reported that Murphy had agreed to turn over to Dillon years of sexual abuse complaints. In an interview, Dillon said that he had asked for all complaints, even those beyond the five-year statute of limitations. Nationwide, the scandal over child sexual abuse by priests has shaken the U.S. Catholic church to its core, causing priests and even bishops to resign, and costing the church almost $1 billion in payouts to victims by some estimates. Advocacy groups say dioceses nationwide have settled 1,600 cases nearly all in which secrecy agreements were signed by the parties involving priests and children. The recent case in Boston of John Geoghan, a former priest convicted of fondling a 10-year-old boy and molesting more than 130 children, has brought the issue into sharp focus because court documents showed that Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law and other church leaders knew of the accusations, but shuttled Geoghan from parish to parish without informing congregants of his past behavior or referring the complaints to law enforcement officials.

Israeli army steps up crackdown JERUSALEM (L.A. Times) — The Israeli army took control of

the West Bank city of Ramallah in a massive display of force Tuesday, battling gunmen, digging trenches across roads, searching homes and detaining hundreds of men in the nerve center of the Palestinian Authority. The siege of Ramallah and continued attacks in the Gaza Strip represent Israel’s largest military offensive in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since capturing the territories in the 1967 Middle East War. The campaign follows a mounting string of Palestinian suicide attacks on Israelis. Tuesday’s invasion of Ramallah and overnight incursion into Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp were part of a 13day-old, wide-scale hunt for Palestinian gunmen in towns, villages and refugee camps. Thirty-five Palestinians were killed in a 24-hour period ending Tuesday night. The army said it means to crush militias that are targeting Israelis, but even as tanks patrolled Ramallah’s streets, two gunmen opened fire on Israeli motorists near the country’s border with Lebanon, killing six people and wounding seven before they were killed by security forces. Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, the army chief of staff, told a committee of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, that 20,000 troops are now deployed in the West Bank and Gaza and that the army has just called up 1,000 reservists who live in Jewish settlements to guard their communities. Alarmed by the bloodletting, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged both sides to “lead your peoples away from disaster.” In an especially harsh criticism of Israel, he urged the Jewish state to end its “illegal occupation” of Palestinian land and halt “the bombing of civilian areas, the assassinations, the unnecessary use of lethal force, the demolitions and the daily humiliation of ordinary Palestinians.” He also told the Palestinians that they were doing irreparable harm to their own cause by failing to stop acts of terror, especially suicide bombings, which he termed “morally repugnant.” More than 100 tanks rolled into Ramallah, neighboring Al Bireh and the nearby village of Beitunia late Monday night, just three days before U.S. envoy Anthony C. Zinni is due here to try again to secure a cease-fire. Troops and tanks stayed out of downtown Ramallah and didn’t enter the headquarters of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, although they came close. They entered most other neighborhoods and the Al

Amari refugee camp in southern Ramallah, where hundreds of men were rounded up for interrogation. Israeli soldiers issued calls on bullhorns for men and boys in Al Amari to surrender. Residents said few complied. The Palestinian Authority urged residents to resist the troops, and Palestinians reported that at least three policemen and two militia fighters were shot dead in sporadic fighting with troops that raged through streets deserted by terrified residents. “It’s very tense,” said Khaled Helou, a physician who lives in Al Amari. “Everyone is waiting for something worse to happen. We’re getting ready for something big.” Army bulldozers broke the city’s main water lines when they dug a trench down the main road, and water gushed from the underground pipes for hours. Soldiers took over an apartment building in Al Amari and demolished a home belonging to a female suicide bomber who killed herself and an elderly Israeli last month. Much of the shooting raged around Ramallah’s hospital, where tanks took up position early in the day. Younis Khatib, director of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, said tanks fired on an approaching ambulance. After pleas from Palestinian Health Ministry officials, the tanks pulled back at midafternoon but returned by dusk, as a heavy fog descended on the city. Palestinian gunmen of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade shot dead a suspected collaborator and strung him by his feet from a metal sculpture in Ramallah’s main square. Gunmen accused him of having betrayed three members of the militia to the Israelis. Army Col. Gal Hirsh said the Ramallah invasion was meant to “put a wall between the terrorists and Israeli citizens.” But as Hirsh briefed reporters in Jerusalem, two Palestinian gunmen took up position on a slope above a road in northern Israel and opened fire on passing motorists. A police officer and two women were among the six shot dead. Seven others were injured. The gunmen reportedly wore Israeli army uniforms and were armed with Kalashnikov rifles. Large numbers of soldiers and police were deployed to Kibbutz Metsuba, a sleepy communal farm with 550 residents that lies just inside the border with Lebanon, in northwestern Israel. Holocaust survivors founded the kibbutz in 1948. Palestinians have vowed to carry out attacks inside Israel to avenge the deaths of scores of gunmen and civilians killed during the army’s raids in the first days of this month.

US govt unveils color-coded terrorism alerts WASHINGTON (L.A. Times) — The government unveiled a

new color-coded alert system Tuesday that officials hope will remove some of the confusion about the severity of a terrorist threat. Tom Ridge, director of the Office of Homeland Security, said the system of “graduated threat assessments” should provide the public with clearer warnings about the danger of possible terrorist acts. Since Sept. 11, the administration has struggled with how to give citizens terrorism warnings that were more than just confusing, such as last fall’s advisory that terrorists might attack the Golden Gate Bridge. The new color-coded warning system — ranging from green, the lowest level, through blue, yellow, orange and red, the highest — attempts to grade a terrorism threat in much the same way that weather forecasters warn of threatening storms, but officials acknowledged their terror alerts will be far less scientific. California Gov. Gray Davis called Ridge’s proposal “a practical, common-sense approach that will keep the federal government, state government and local law enforcement all on the same page.” The nation is currently on code yellow, or elevated alert, the third of five security levels — meaning there is a significant risk of attack without word of a specific target. What is left unclear is how citizens should respond to such threats. Ridge said the program was designed to motivate local and state governments to develop plans that will guide the actions of residents. But he added that “there is no prescription we can write out and give to our communities.” Community response will be determined at the local level, officials said, but the new system will give the public a better appreciation of the degree of the threat. Hundreds of local law enforcement and public safety agencies were being notified Tuesday about the system and why the country is on yellow alert. Ridge said the al-

Qaida terrorist network is trying to reorganize after defeats in Afghanistan and has trained thousands of devotees, some of whom have likely slipped into the United States. Orange signifies a higher risk of attack, calling for added precautions at public events and specific coordination with military units or law enforcement agencies. The highest alert, red, designates the most severe threat and requires such measures as the closing of government and public facilities and assignment of emergency response teams. Green and blue designate a low or general risk of attack requiring only that protective measures be available and emergency teams are trained, officials said. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that “from the president’s point of view, it will be quite a while until the United States can get down to the lowest level.” Ridge said he has conferred with local officials around the country in developing the new system, and that his office will receive comments over the next 45 days on how to improve it while it is in place. Attorney General John Ashcroft will be responsible for implementing and managing the system, according to a White House directive signed by President Bush. Following the 45-day comment period, Ridge and Ashcroft will have 90 additional days to refine the system before reporting to Bush on its effectiveness. Officials said Ashcroft will be responsible for assessing all threats and communicating the gravity of them to local and state law enforcement agencies and to the public. Some sensitive information may be kept from the public if it is necessary to make arrests, officials said. They declined to give examples of how they would have color-coded past terrorism alerts, such as a vague warning about danger to California bridges and the possibility that airline passengers might have bombs concealed in their shoes, following the arrest of one such traveler late last year.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2002 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 7

Small airports to get new FAA guidance systems 2 years early WASHINGTON (Washington Post) — Regional

airlines, business aircraft and small private planes will be able to land more safely at more than 2,500 small airports using satellites for guidance under new procedures to be introduced by the Federal Aviation Administration starting late next year, two years earlier than planned. The FAA was able to move up the start date and implement the new landing procedures at lower cost than expected because of a mathematical formula developed by Mitre Corp., agency officials said. The FAA will begin the process next year at five airports, which have not been selected, and phase in the system at 350 airports each year thereafter. The new landing procedures should be a huge help to pilots trying to land when bad weather makes it difficult to see the airport. Most large airports used by commercial jets have landing systems that enable pilots to descend at least to an altitude as low as 200 feet or even to land in zero visibility by using aircraft instruments. But most smaller airports used by general-aviation aircraft and many used by turboprops and regional jets do not have such instrument-landing systems. In a pea-soup fog, a pilot headed toward such an airport would not be able to land. The new procedures should enable a pilot to descend smoothly to an altitude of at least 250 feet in zero-visibility conditions, at which point the pilot might be low enough to see the airport and continue the landing. If not, the pilot could abort the landing and fly elsewhere. Without this system, pilots have to make that decision at higher altitudes. The new system will work by greatly refining the information provided to pilots through satellite signals from the same Global Positioning System (GPS) long used for navigation in planes, ships, pleasure boats and more recently in some passenger cars. Technology known as a Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), which refines GPS signals to determine positions more accurately, already covers 90 percent of the country. When combined with the new mathematical formula, planes equipped with a relatively inexpensive WAAS box could be guided on a far more precise path than by GPS signals alone. With such information, pilots also would be able to descend gradually, rather than use “step down” approaches in which planes descend for a distance, then fly level for a while to clear obstacles, then descend again.

This process, which pilots sometimes call “dive and drive,” is less safe than smooth “stabilized approaches.” The plane’s approach path also would be much narrower, reducing the danger of hitting obstacles on the sides of the flight path. Aviation organizations said they welcomed the FAA decision. “A stabilized approach with vertical guidance is a safer approach,” said Warren Morningstar of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Ron Swanda, vice president for operations at the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, said that while the decision is “long overdue” it will provide more efficient and safer approaches at small and mediumsize airports. The WAAS is one of several satellite aids and procedures scheduled to be introduced in the aviation system over the next decade. The WAAS consists of 25 radio towers that receive GPS signals, send it to two master ground stations on the East and West coasts for instant processing via communications satellite, then broadcast the more accurate signals. Other towers are planned for the 10 percent of the country that is not now covered, particularly in Alaska, where aviation safety records are worse that those in the “lower 48” states. Monte Belger, FAA deputy administrator, said the system would be of use in many developing countries, which could put the WAAS technology in place at a fraction of the cost of instrument-landing systems. To use the system, aircraft would need special equipment, which the FAA estimated could cost $5,000 to $10,000 per plane. Some people in the airline industry have expressed skepticism about the new system, however, fearing it will divert attention and resources from other programs that would be of much greater benefit to the major carriers. Such programs include a “required navigation performance” (RNP) procedure that uses many resources, including satellites, on-board guidance systems, radio beacons and other ground sensors to keep airliners on a precision course to an airport. RNP has proved to be more accurate than instrument-landing systems at greater distances from airports. The FAA plans to implement an RNP procedure on the approach to Reagan National Airport that follows the Potomac River past the White House, also providing a potential security benefit because it would be easy to instantly spot any straying aircraft on radar screens.

After failed pursuit of Letterman, ABC looks to make peace with ‘Nightline’ WASHINGTON (Washington Post) — Disney

Chairman Michael Eisner made nice in a call to “Nightline” anchor Ted Koppel Tuesday as both sides shifted to quiet diplomacy in the wake of ABC’s failed pursuit of David Letterman. ABC News sources described the call as friendly but said that delicate issues still need to be worked out if “Nightline” is to stay on the air. Koppel declined to be interviewed Tuesday after having issued a public challenge to his bosses at Disney-owned ABC, saying it “would not be reasonable” for him to continue unless the company sends “a clear and unmistakable signal . . . that “Nightline’ can count on serious corporate backing,” beyond just “a shortterm guarantee.” The news division sources said the “Nightline” team considered Eisner’s call only a first step in that direction. For ABC executives, the question was how far to go in mending fences with Koppel after having questioned the value of his program and making it clear they wanted a younger audience at 11:35 p.m. Their statement of support for “Nightline” Monday night, after Letterman rejected their offer, made no mention of any time frame for the program’s future. ABC News President David Westin is

also maintaining a public silence. On a morning conference call with his staff, Westin said he was glad the immediate danger to “Nightline” had passed and that he would do his best to convince the company of the value of news programming. “You should look on the current situation as a challenge to the entire news division to be more competitive, innovative and bold,” Westin said, according to one person on the call. While some of Koppel’s colleagues believe he is being too confrontational, others are applauding his tough stance. “The Disney people are upset,” said one ABC News staffer. “They lost Letterman and they know they have to deal with Ted and “Nightline.’ For the moment, at least, they appear to be supplicants.” Letterman, who agreed to stay with CBS for $31.5 million a year, is still needling his once and future network. He recalled to “Late Show” viewers Monday that he joined CBS in 1993 after having been “fired from NBC. CBS was nothing. Who ever watched CBS — nobody. From 11:30 on, the rest of the night there was nothing but “Gunsmoke’ all night long,” he joked. “This beautiful theater used to be a Kmart and we were able to build something.”

Interim Afghan government looks into claims of ‘ethnic cleansing’ KABUL, Afghanistan (L.A. Times) — Three powerful warlords have been asked to investigate claims that their troops committed acts of “ethnic cleansing” against Pashtuns in northern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the interim government said Tuesday. U.N. officials claim that attacks by other ethnic forces against Pashtuns, who dominated the Taliban regime, have created waves of new internal refugees in the country since the Taliban was driven from power. In the northern village of Bargah, witnesses said, 37 Pashtuns were dragged from their homes and slain late last year. Similar incidents, including allegations of sexual assault, have been reported across northern Afghanistan. Witnesses and U.N. officials describe the assaults as acts of retaliation against Pashtuns who supported the Taliban regime. Government spokesman Yusuf Nuristani described the accounts as “exaggerated and unsubstantiated” but said warlords commanding ethnic Hazara, Uzbek and Tajik forces have been asked to investigate the claims and report back to the government. “We think there have been some minor incidents, but mostly these are rumors,” Nuristani said. But he said interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai personally asked warlord Gens. Abdul Rashid Dostum, Ata

Mohammed and Haji Mohammed Mukhaqiq to look into the reported incidents. Dostum, who serves as assistant defense minister in the interim government, commands ethnic Uzbeks; Mohammed commands ethnic Tajiks; and Mukhaqiq leads ethnic Hazaras. In addition, Nuristani said, three members of the Karzai government have been asked to independently “assess and evaluate the reports coming from the northern area.” The tension between the ethnic groups stems from the brutal treatment of other groups by the Taliban. In its sweep to power in the mid- to late 1990s, the fundamentalist Sunni Muslim Taliban forces committed massacres against other minorities, particularly the Shiite Muslim Hazaras and the Uzbeks. Tajiks formed the bulwark of the Northern Alliance, the main Taliban opposition. If Karzai, a Pashtun, wants to succeed as Afghanistan’s leader, he must find a way to calm the simmering tensions with these groups. Karzai is viewed warily by the three major northern ethnic groups but also finds himself criticized by Pashtuns for having what they feel are too many non-Pashtun northerners in his administration, including three Tajik senior ministers.

House passes legislation giving boost to immigrants’ hope for legal residency WASHINGTON (L.A. Times) — The House

approved legislation Tuesday that would allow thousands of foreigners to seek legal residency in the United States, even though they are in the country illegally. The 275-137 vote handed President Bush, an advocate of the measure, a victory he can tout as a sign of U.S. goodwill toward immigrants when he travels to Latin America next week. It also was a defeat for lawmakers, mostly Republicans, who favor restricting immigration. The measure, considered under rules that required a two-thirds majority for passage, cleared the House by the barest of margins. A one-vote switch would have defeated it. The measure now heads to the Senate, which has already given broad bipartisan approval to similar legislation. Bush praised the House action, saying it will help keep families together and make America a “more welcoming society.” He urged the Senate to pass the measure quickly. The core of the House bill would allow thousands of potential immigrants — most of whom entered the country illegally or overstayed visas — to remain with their families while they complete paperwork to obtain a precious green card entitling them to settle in the United States. To do so, applicants would have to pay a $1,000 fine. Without the exemption, the would-be immigrants would be forced to return to their native countries to file an application. Once there, they could be barred from reentry for up to 10 years — a major disincentive to many of those who would otherwise make a bid to become legal residents. Last year, a similar four-month program drew 400,000 applicants. Wedding chapels in cities across the country, including Los Angeles, were thronged by people hoping to emerge from the migrant underground. Some advocates estimate 200,000 or more people could step forward under a renewal of the program, many from Southern California. But others say the numbers this time could be much smaller, in the tens of thousands. The window of opportunity opened by the measure would be narrow. Thae provision would apply only to foreigners who had obtained a qualifying sponsor — through employment with a U.S. company, for example, or marriage to a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident — before Aug. 15, 2001. They would have until Nov. 30 of this year to apply for an adjustment of their immigration status.

Then the measure would end. A leading House Republican who backed the measure, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, noted that its provisions would “not become a permanent part of our immigration law, and (illegal immigrants) should not base their future actions on the assumption that it will be.” Assessments of the measure’s impact varied sharply. “Every time we talk about unification of families, there’s always going to be high demand,” said Ben Monterroso, western regional director of the Service Employees International Union, based in Los Angeles, which supported the measure. “It’s a step in the right direction.” But Cecilia Munoz, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino rights group, said: “It’s an incredibly modest proposal which doesn’t ultimately help very many people. In some ways, it’s more symbolically important than substantively important.” Some immigration lawyers said they worry that the measure would be misunderstood by people who believe, erroneously, that Congress is moving toward a general amnesty for illegal immigrants. Some also fear that swindlers will profit from people who think they could be eligible for the bill’s provisions but are not. Anyone seeking to get married this year, for example, to gain sponsorship for a green card would not qualify. “People will lose a lot of money from fraud,” said Judy Golub of the American Association of Immigration Lawyers. The bill was packaged in the House with another measure to authorize $300 million to beef up border security and improve the tracking of foreign visitors, a response to the security failures exposed by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But the House debate centered on the temporary exceptions to immigration rules. Democrats, who largely supported the measure, lamented that the program, known in immigration law as 245(i), would not be made permanent. House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo., charged that the legislation "fails to adequately recognize the importance of this provision in reuniting immigrant families." Gephardt said Bush was "unable to convince congressional Republicans to work with him in securing a more meaningful extension."

PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2002

Senate critics of Bush’s nuclear posture review voice concerns WASHINGTON (L.A. Times) — Several

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leading Senate Democrats voiced concern Tuesday with a Pentagon plan that calls for the development of new breeds of nuclear weapons and an expansion of the list of nations against whom such warheads might be used. But as the administration continued to downplay the aggressive tone of the so-called Nuclear Posture Review, there were also abundant signs that many lawmakers are prepared to consider profound changes to the nation’s nuclear contingency plans. Many Republicans voiced support for the report, and argued that its central goal — the deterrence of strikes against the United States and its allies — is consistent with the nation’s long-standing nuclear policy. “I do not believe it changes our basic U.S. approach,” said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. Several high-ranking Democrats said that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has made them more inclined to back a more aggressive nuclear posture. “There are nations and groups adversarial to U.S. interests that have gotten the mindset that the United States is a paper tiger,” said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Pentagon’s call for new weapons and a wider range of scenarios in which to use them, he said, “sounds like a step in the right direction.” Such receptive reactions to a report that many nuclear experts — and some foreign leaders — have condemned underscores the extent to which the terrorist attacks have altered the course of defense policy debate in Washington. For much of the past decade, policy makers have largely been preoccupied with finding ways to reduce the size of the United States’ nuclear arsenal, and with persuading other nations to combat the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technoalogy. In testimony on the Hill Tuesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell stressed that fighting the spread of nuclear weapons remains a paramount goal. Noting that the number of U.S. nuclear warheads has shrunk by twothirds over the past decade, he said, “The philosophy of President Bush, the philosophy of this administration, is to continue driving down the number of nuclear weapons.” But the report calls for, among

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other things, the development of new “low-yield” nuclear weapons that could be used against smaller targets, such as underground bunkers or chemical weapons facilities. The report also recommends adding such hostile nations as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria to the nation’s nuclear targeting plans. Many members of both parties, including Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., simply withheld judgment. Daschle noted that the report’s urging of the development of new, more precise nuclear weapons contradicts earlier signals from the Pentagon. But he offered no direct criticism of the report itself. “We need more information before we come to any conclusions,” he said. But several prominent Democrats expressed dismay, saying the Pentagon’s proposal would put the United States on a rogue course likely to erode the nation’s diplomatic leverage and encourage other countries to pursue or expand their own nuclear capabilities. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the plan could “reverse the direction of where arms control has been going for decades,” and vowed to press the White House for details on the extent to which it intends to pursue the report’s recommendations. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, DCalif., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the United States risks being labeled “a rogue nation going off and finding ways to use nuclear weapons.” Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a prospective presidential candidate, said the report undermines U.S. credibility as it pressures other countries to resist developing nuclear weapons of their own. “It’s very disturbing,” he said. “It reduces all our bona fides on the proliferation issue.” Though the White House has a significant amount of discretion in formulating nuclear contingency plans, several key elements of the report would require cooperation from Congress. The administration can modify existing weapons platforms, a Democratic leadership aide said, but would need approval from Congress to begin development of new varieties of weapons under the terms of a 1994 statute.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

LETTERS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2002 · PAGE 9

Students react naïvely to Friday’s Main Green arrests To the Editor: I cannot believe the amount of naiveté, foolishness and discrimination being displayed by members of the Brown community regarding the arrests on Friday. I strongly believe that members of this community need to examine their arguments before getting up in arms. To start, please try to learn the first thing about police work before you assume, like Onyeka Iloabachie ’03 (“Arrest incident should mean no guns for BUPS, 3/12), that this incident has anything to do with guns. Even if these arrests were made by the most racist, violent, misanthropic LAPD officer, no one would be anywhere near obituaries. There are very clear guidelines on the use of lethal force in the police world, and I challenge those who draw the connection between this incident and lethal force to find an incident similar to this where shots were fired. This is not to discount the disgrace or horror involved in past incidents in New York City, Los Angeles or Cincinnati, or the doubtless discrimination suffered by some in the hands of certain police departments. But, it begs a larger question: is this presumptive and grossly uneducated attitude towards police fundamentally different than the “racism” the police are supposed to possess? I agree that there are bad cops in this world. There are also bad blacks, whites, Christians, Jews, Muslims and members of every group

you can possibly lump people into. But, it is no less fair to judge every police officer based on the members of LAPD that beat Rodney King than it is to judge Arabs based on the actions of Bin Laden. I’ve been an EMS medic for eight years working with police officers everywhere from Providence to California to Ground Zero. Guess what? The vast majority of them are nice, honest people who have never drawn their weapon. If you got to know the Brown Police, you’d learn they are honorable people, not to mention the most racially diverse police force in the state. I personally feel the students are entirely to blame for this incident, and that the subsequent outrage is ridiculous, myopic and indefensible. And if those involved in this incident had bothered to learn the whole picture, I think they would be exceptionally embarassed by their behavior. Dan Avstreih ‘98 MD ’02 Mar. 12

Bratton poor pick for consultant To the Editor: I am embarrassed to be associated with Brown’s administration. William Bratton, the man hired by Brown as a security consultant (“U. Commissions Outside Consultants to Study Campus Safety Issues,” 3/11), was head of the NYPD when some of the most heinous incidents of police brutality in recent memory were committed. I read an entire

chapter for class this weekend regarding this man’s instrumental role in instituting policies which led to massive violations of civil liberties and outright human rights abuses. Appalled by anecdotes regarding Bratton’s supposed “reforms” during his tenure with the NYPD, I read passages out loud to a friend, expressing sympathy for the victims of his policies. You can imagine my chagrin when I read today that Brown had hired him to “improve campus safety and evaluate issues regarding arming Brown Police officers and racial profiling.” This man’s efforts significantly increased the tension between the NYPD and communities of color, as well as crackdowns on poor and homeless people. It’s little wonder what his position will be on arming the Brown Police when one considers that one of his first moves as head of the New York City Transit Police and then the NYPD was to increase their firepower with Glock 9mm semiautomatic handguns. This news, in conjunction with the controversial, possibly racially motivated arrest of two Brown students on the green Friday, paints a dismal picture of the University’s commitment to creating a non-hostile environment for its students and the community at large. Of course Brown must be concerned with the safety of its students, staff and faculty, but if this is the means by which the University seeks to secure our safety, it seems far too great a price to pay. Brattonstyle policing may lower crime rates, but if this means that members of the Brown community will be subject to the abusive policing he advocates, will we truly feel more safe?

CIS should follow UMD’s lead in computing overhaul

Greta Hansen ‘02 Mar. 12

Gregory Seidman GS Mar. 12

To the Editor: I am writing in response to the article “With $1M budget boost, CIS plans campus-wide computing overhaul” (3/12). I attended the University of Maryland, College Park as an undergraduate. When I arrived in fall of 1993, only one dorm had network connections in the rooms. The campus, however, had had a network connecting clusters in numerous widespread buildings on campus for years. At the end of my first year, my floor petitioned to be one of the next floors wired for Internet connections, and the university listened. By the time I graduated in spring of 1997, every dorm on campus had been wired. Every student living on campus was entitled to a net connection and static IP address in his or her room. He or she even received a hostname of their choice (within certain limits of propriety) in the dorm.umd.edu domain. If Brown’s CIS wants to learn how to install and maintain a solid and useful campus network, they should be talking to people who have done so. UMD did it a long time ago, and while Brown may not consider them a “peer institution,” UMD certainly got it right.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

EDITORIAL/LETTERS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2002 · PAGE 10 S T A F F

E D I T O R I A L

A common space In an external evaluation of the Student Activities Office, Artie Travis, vice president for student affairs and dean of community life at Oglethorpe University and Tom Dunne, assistant dean for undergraduate students at Princeton University, found that Faunce House lacks a large programming space and is too crowded and noisy among other problems. Travis and Dunne’s report said that the current structure of the SAO does an inadequate job of meeting the needs of Brown’s diverse students groups. The most suprising aspect of the review, however, was not the content, but the response it received from the administration. Rather than defend the way in which his office operates, Director of Student Activities David Inman should abandon the status quo and begin looking for ways to improve the SAO based on Travis’ and Dunne’s report. The issues raised in the review are not new ones. It is obvious to anyone who has spent time on College Hill that Brown lacks a student union. Although it took $3,000 and two observers from other universities to idenfity these obvious flaws in the way in which student activites at Brown operate, the investment was well worth the thorough results presented by Travis and Dunne. Now that that University has commissioned outside consultants to report on the inadequacies of the SAO, and has the report in hand, it should begin devoting its resources to fixing these problems. Imagine how the community would come together if offices of student organizations, an entertainment space, food court and other resources were housed under one roof. There are plenty of services currently located in Faunce that are not central to the operations of the SAO. Travis and Dunne identified the space occupied by the Office of Religious Life and the Underground as areas that could serve a better purpose if they were devoted to student activities. Last month, Executive Vice President for Administration and Finance Donald Reaves told The Herald that the University owns several vacant buildings on campus. Services like the Underground and the Office of Religious Life should be moved out of Faunce into these vacant buildings to allow for the creation of a true student union. Other well respected universities have elaborate student centers that provide these important services and have space for social gatherings under one roof. Although students are drawn to Brown for its academic resources and programs, the University must continue to remain competitive with other universities. The University’s lack of a student center could hurt its effort to attract the most qualified and diverse students who may hope to attend a university with a wellorganizated and socially stimulating student space.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD EDITORIAL Beth Farnstrom, Editor-in-Chief Seth Kerschner, Editor-in-Chief David Rivello, Editor-in-Chief Will Hurwitz, Executive Editor Sheryl Shapiro, Executive Editor Brian Baskin, News Editor Kavita Mishra, News Editor Andy Golodny, Campus News Editor Bethany Rallis, Campus News Editor Elena Lesley, Arts & Culture Editor Juan Nunez, Asst. Arts & Culture Editor Jonathan Noble, Campus Watch Editor Chris Byrnes, Metro Editor Victoria Harris, Opinions Editor Sanders Kleinfeld, Opinions Editor Shana Jalbert, Listings Editor Maria DiMento, Listings Editor Marion Billings, Design Editor Stephen Lazar, Design Editor Stephanie Harris, Copy Desk Chief Jonathan Skolnick, Copy Desk Chief Josh Apte, Photography Editor Makini Chisolm-Straker,Asst.Photography Editor Allie Silverman, Asst.Photography Editor Grace Farris, Graphics Editor Nathan Pollard, Graphics Editor Brett Cohen, Systems Manager

BUSINESS Stacey Doynow, General Manager Jamie Wolosky, Executive Manager Jared Gerber, Associate Manager Angela Kim, Local Accounts Manager Hyebin Joo, Local Accounts Manager Moon-Suk Oh, University Accounts Manager Jan Vezikou, University Accounts Manager Eugene C. Cha, National Accounts Manager Joseph Laganas, Natoinal Accounts Manager Josh Miller, Classifieds Account Manager Elizabeth Tietz, Marketing Coordinator Shereen Kassam, Marketing Coordinator Tugba Erem, Marketing Coordinator Miguel Escobar, Subscriptions Manager Laurie-Ann Paliotti, Senior Advertising Rep. Kate Sparaco, Office Manager Jennifer Gillis, Advertising Representative P O S T- M A G A Z I N E Kerry Miller, Editor-in-Chief Zach Frechette, Executive Editor Morgan Clendaniel, Film Editor Alden Eagle, Theatre Editor Meredith Jones, Calendar Editor Juan Nunez, Asst. Features Editor Alex Schulman, Features Editor Theo Schell-Lambert, Music Editor SPORTS Jonathan Bloom, Sports Editor Nick Gourevitch, Asst. Sports Editor Maggie Haskins, Asst. Sports Editor Jonathan Meachin, Asst. Sports Editor Joshua Troy, Asst. Sports Editor Jesse Warren, Asst. Sports Editor Emily Hunt, Sports Photography Editor Michelle Batoon, Sports Photography Editor

Josh Gootzeit, Jessica Morrison, Stacy Wong, Night Editors Daniel Jacobson, Copy Editor Staff Writers Kathy Babcock, Brian Baskin, Jonathan Bloom, Carla Blumenkranz, Chris Byrnes, Jinhee Chung, Julie DiMartino, Nicholas Foley,Vinay Ganti, Neema Singh Guliani, Ari Gerstman, Andy Golodny, Daniel Gorfine, Ben Gould, Nick Gourevitch, Stephanie Harris, Maggie Haskins, Christopher Hayes, Shara Hegde, Brian Herman, Shana Jalbert, Brent Lang, Elena Lesley, Jamay Liu, Jermaine Matheson, Kerry Miller, Kavita Mishra, Martin Mulkeen, Alicia Mullin, Crystal Z.Y. Ng, Jonathan Noble, Ginny Nuckols, Juan Nunez, Sean Peden, Bethany Rallis, Emir Senturk, Jen Sopchockchai, Anna Stubblefield, Brady Thomas, Jonathon Thompson, Joshua Troy, Miranda Turner, Juliette Wallack, Jesse Warren, Genan Zilkha Pagination Staff Bronwyn Bryant, Jessica Chan, Iris Chung, Sam Cochran, Joshua Gootzeit, Michael Kingsley, Hana Kwan, Erika Litvin, Jessica Morrison, Caroline Novograd, Stacy Wong Staff Photographers Josh Apte, Makini Chisolm-Straker, Lauren Mirsky, Matt Rodriguez, Ana Selles, Allie Silverman, Vanessia Wu Copy Editors John Audett, Lanie Davis, Marc Debush, Daniel Jacobson, Harrison Quitman, Sonya Tat, Julia Zuckerman

SETH KERSCHNER AND VICTORIA HARRIS

LETTERS Brown must view facts before crying racism To the Editor: After reading all the allegations of the “racial profiling” that suddenly reared its ugly head on campus, I am forced to question why it is that Brown students are always so quick to ascribe racist motives to any events in which minority students are the victims. My favorite example during my time at Brown was the alleged assault of Ebony Thompson. Though members of the black community immediately lashed out with charges of racism, once all the evidence was bared, it was clear that this incident was not racially motivated. When will we learn to stop crying racism until we have the full facts? Maybe there is an issue of racial profiling on campus, as there is in many parts of the country. Maybe there’s not. But instead of immediately rushing to bite the hand that feeds, let’s let the administration do its job. If a true pattern of racial profiling becomes evident, the good people who run the University, who care about nothing more than your safety and well-being, will take the appropriate steps. But let’s not close our eyes and yell “racism” before we take the liberal Ivy League blindfold off our eyes. Gregory Cooper ’01 Mar. 12

Herald must continue with investigative reporting of arrest To the Editor: While I couldn’t agree more with The Herald’s suggestion that that community members not rush to judgment (“A call for Careful Review,” 3/11), the editors’ conclusion that the solution is to wait for a University report is misguided. A historical look at the University’s handling of “situations, from visiting professor Kayode Adesogan’s sexual assaults to Ebony Thompson, show that the University’s investigations

tend to look more for ways to cover the administration’s collective posterior than to uncover the truth. Following the events in each of these past incidents, numerous facts from all sides emerged suggesting serious flaws in Brown’s “official” version of events. I encourage The Herald to continue their own “investigative” report of the situation, present as many witness interviews as possible and help get to the bottom of this. Rather than swallow and react to whatever propaganda the University produces, I would hope The Herald and the student body as a whole demand a fully accountable investigation and a full disclosure of information from the University. Patrick MacRoy ’00 Mar. 12

Simmons merits credit for attending meeting To the Editor: There aren’t a lot of university presidents who are willing to listen, much less subject themselves, to the kind of discussion that happened last night (“Simmons, students discuss Friday arrests at open meeting,” 3/12.) Simmons is a president of an internationally known university, a high profile, political position. She did not have to attend, but she did. Yes, the discussion sounds rude and disrespectful. Angry? The students have the right to be angry. Forums such as these, where as a student and community member one has the chance to influence the opinion of a leader in my community, do not exist outside of Brown. Simmons gave her community that chance last night. The students who disrespected her and claimed to know her stance on these issues are better people for having participated and getting the chance to talk to her. These future activists won’t make the mistake again, but hopefully will continue to make their voices heard. I believe Friday’s arrest is a clear incident of racial profiling, but more importantly, an incident in which people are actually working to find a solution to the problem. Markus Mentzer ’97 Mar. 12

Correction In “Simmons, students discuss Friday arrests at open meeting (3/12),” The Herald incorrectly attributed the words of Waciuma Wanjohi ’03 to Cyrus Dugger ’02. CO M M E N TA RY P O L I C Y The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns and letters reflect the opinions of their authors only. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. ADVERTISING POLICY The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement in its discretion.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

OPINIONS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2002 · PAGE 11

Rites of spring: racial profiling and righteous outrage Unlike former incidents, the arrest of two students Friday demands a response from the activist community IT’S MID-MARCH, THE BIRDS ARE fer from an underlying cluelessness about chirping, and the campus is gearing up for the nature of civil society, impetuous to the the annual spring rite of righteous outrage, point of immaturity. Last year, the antiHerald protesters made extortionary exactly on schedule. It’s uncanny. These things tend to hap- demands of cash “reparations.” They then pen right around the time when the weath- retaliated when these demands went unmet, making the censorious er is getting nice, when the and breathtakingly stupid planners of mass protests no decision to steal an entire longer have to worry about the press run of the newspaper. crowds getting thinned out by But this year, the righteous Providence’s gloppy snow and outrage seems to be amply jusdriving sleet. Last year, the tified and right on the mark. I upset was over The Herald’s only hope that campus publication of conservative activists won’t screw up this pundit David Horowitz’s repagolden opportunity to highrations ad. The year before light the issue of racial profilthat, everyone got up in arms CARL TAKEI ing and the need for more over three white wrestlers who CHEAP THOUGHTS BUPS officer training. argued with and allegedly The facts are these: after assaulted a black woman being alerted that Hope High named Ebony Thompson ’00. These spring protests are too often based School students were on the short list of on hasty, emotional judgments derived suspects for several recent vandalism incifrom unreliable information. Two years dents in Faunce House, BUPS increased its ago, the champions of Thompson became afternoon patrols around the building. On significantly less vocal when her account of Friday, a BUPS officer on this new patrol the alleged assault turned out to be about singled out two students to ask for ID. as consistent as an Enron accounting book; According to Executive Vice President for many began to wonder if she was actually University Affairs and Public Relations Laura Freid, the officer made this decision the one who threw the first blow. The organizers of such protests also suf- based on the time of day, the route they were walking and their “attitude.” The students got into an argument with the officer, Carl Takei ’02 is getting a bit cynical in his and — as backup officers arrived — everyfourth and final year at Brown. His column thing went downhill. runs on alternate Wednesdays.

Why did the officer single out these students in particular? Hundreds of students (including myself) follow that exact same route every week around 3 p.m., when their G block classes let out. Many of them even have surly attitudes. But only a few share an additional, immediately identifiable characteristic in common with the Hope High School students who follow the same path: Every Hope student I’ve seen walking that route is either black or Latino. The vast majority of the Brown students walking that route are not. It shouldn’t take a genius to figure out that “attitude” is a euphemism for being the wrong race at the wrong time. To be sure, it would have been better for the students in question if they had simply produced their ID cards on request. Even if you have good reason to be upset at an officer, it does not excuse you from following the rules stated in the Student Handbook. However, BUPS has a responsibility to enforce these rules equally, without resorting to the ugliness of racial profiling. When officers single out a black or Latino student based on his or her race, they destroy that student’s feeling of belonging in the community. The clear message racial profiling sends is that the targeted minorities don’t “belong” at Brown, that their position here is inherently less secure than that of a white student. This message is toxic and must not be tolerated in our police force. I wholeheartedly support efforts to mon-

itor racial profiling within the BUPS force and improve BUPS sensitivity training to prevent future incidents. However, campus activists should be careful to avoid letting this incident slip into the same rut of exaggeration and impetuousness as past spring outrages. First, it is wrong to lionize the students for cursing at and shoving the officers who surrounded them. Though these actions were understandable, and may even be a “morally justified response,” as Brian Rainey ’04 put it, they were also clearly illegal. Anyone who curses out and then shoves a police officer should expect to be arrested. Officer misconduct and racial profiling incidents are adjudicated in civilian review boards and the courts, not on the streets. Second, campus activists should avoid expanding this issue beyond the facts at hand. The off-the-cuff claims of Shaun Joseph ’02 about excessive brutality are highly questionable and could easily divert attention away from the more solidly founded evidence for racial profiling. If campus activists can rein in their less rational tendencies and focus on doing what they do best — pushing the University to make specific policy changes — then I look forward to seeing what they can do to eradicate racial profiling from the BUPS force. Maybe this year these spring rites can finally result in some positive change for the University.

Inside the mind of Bill Bratton, University consultant Bratton’s brand of dealing with crime is racist, does not belong on the Brown campus ON MONDAY, BROWN UNIVERSITY Bratton vigorously targeted these essentially announced it would take the lead on cam- petty crimes, which serve as the barometer of pus security issues from a consulting economic hardship and social alienation. group led by William Bratton, a pioneer of Furthermore, these initiatives were comzero tolerance, avatar for traditional val- bined with heavy use of “stop and frisk” proues and defender of racial profiling. Under cedures. In 1998, 27,000 people were frisked by the NYPD Street Crimes Unit, Bratton’s leadership as comalthough only 4,600 were arrestmissioner from 1994 to 1996, ed. It goes without saying that the New York Police SHAUN JOSEPH GUEST COLUMN people of color suffered the vast Department earned a reputamajority of the harassment. tion for extreme brutality, Indeed, when Bratton was asked even drawing a condemnatory report from Amnesty International. in an August 2000 interview in Tikkun magaAlthough the mere evocation of the letters zine, “What about racial profiling … was that “NYPD” anywhere near the discussion of ever a legitimate law enforcement tool?” campus police ought to provoke horror Bratton replied, “It is still a legitimate and and outrage, let us explore the mind of essential law enforcement tool.” Although Bratton makes much of manageBratton, as perhaps it is an indication of where the administration wants to take ment wizardry and high-tech initiatives, his policies usually reduce to police terror. As he the armament debate. Ideologically, Bratton ultimately blames stated in the Heritage lecture, crime is “malardeclining moral standards, and not econom- ia,” those who commit crimes are “mosquiic and social factors, for crime. In a lecture to toes” and the neighborhoods they inhabit are the right-wing Heritage Foundation in 1996, “swamps.” Just like malaria, “Not until people Bratton explained modern crime thusly: went in and drained the swamps did they “Rather than trying to correct misbehavior start dealing effectively with the problem.” or improve standards and norms of behav- The primary tool in this human swampior, we found it increasingly easier just to draining was the NYPD’s Street Crimes Unit, excuse it away.” This substitution of moral which Bratton reinvented during his tenure, hectoring for social analysis proved very encouraging it to become far more aggrespopular to both parties, as it admitted two sive. Today they sell T-shirts that proclaim, important corollaries. First, because crime “Certainly There Is No Hunting Like the was a personal and not a social phenome- Hunting of Men.” It is a largely recreational non, social reforms could be dismantled at sport, however; in a Feb. 15, 1999 story, the will, with individual charity picking up the New York Times reported that “half the gun slack. Second, because people who commit arrests made by the Street Crime Unit in the crimes are moral dwarfs, it is permissible to last two years were thrown out of court.” The excesses of the NYPD under the brutalize them. In His wisdom, the Good Lord made many Bratton regime became so extreme that things against the law: panhandling, graffiti, Amnesty International felt compelled to loitering, public consumption of alcohol, etc. issue its 1996 report entitled “Police Brutality Under the guise of “quality-of-life initiatives,” and Excessive Force in the New York City Police Department.” According to the Amnesty report, civilian complaints against Shaun Joseph '02 is a member of the police officers increased 37.43 percent in International Socialist Organization and 1994 (Bratton’s first year) over 1993, and the Coalition Against Guns at Brown.

another 31.8 percent in the first half of 1995 over the same period in 1994. Incredibly, Bratton and the NYPD tried to spin these figures as measures of their effectiveness, but as Amnesty points out, most complaints were lodged by people who weren’t under arrest or receiving summonses, and most complainants had no prior complaint history. Less subject to spin doctoring, the number of civilians shot dead by police rose 34.8 percent from 1993 to 1994, and the number of people killed in police custody rose an incredible 53.3 percent. After being ousted by Rudy Giuliani in a tremendous battle of egos, Bratton formed the Bratton Group to “consult” on police and security issues. Whether in New Jersey, London, South Africa or Caracas, the Bratton Group has sung a song with three notes: zero tolerance, brutalization of the poor and police militarization. Caracas is an interesting recent case study. Hired in February 2001 by mayor Alfredo Pena with the blessings of the city’s elites, Bratton brought his “New York miracle” to the Venezuelan metropolis. Nine months later, according to an Associated Press story, “Bratton Go Home” graffiti had sprouted all over the city, and the federal government was refusing to provide funding for “Plan Bratton” (the fact that two Brattonista cops shot and wounded the Interior Minister’s grandson probably played not a small role in this). Caracas’s elites have offered to put up the cash privately, though. In the final instance, Bratton simply ignored all this evidence, pointing to rapidly declining crime rates during his tenure. This is certainly true, but most serious sociologists don’t believe that Bratton’s terror tactics were the primary factor. A paper in the Autumn 1999 issue of the British Journal of Criminology argues that the decline in crime in New York was mainly due to the natural contraction of the crack-cocaine markets. Economic recovery following the 1992 recession also played an important role. Bill

Dixon of the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cape Town points out that crime fell in 17 of 25 of the largest US cities between 1993 and 1996, including San Diego and Boston (where homicides fell even more sharply than in New York) where police pursued opposite strategies to Bratton, and Oakland where no change in police strategy took place. Dixon concludes, “(Z)ero tolerance is likely to be more effective as a piece of political rhetoric than a practical or desirable model of democratic policing.” Now, to be fair, the Bratton Group is a group, and not just Bratton himself. According to Vice President Walter Hunter, this dynamic collection of diverse experts will include Bratton, two other ex-cops from the NYPD, an ex-cop from Harvard and a token gun-control liberal (hooray!). Not even a Brown administrator could produce the sophistry needed to present this panel as “objective” or sensitive to complaints against police. It’s like having David Duke chair a commission on race relations. In addition, the University has contracted David Biederman to look into “cleaning up” Thayer Street. Biederman is the brains behind the Grand Central Partnership in New York City. The GCP hired the homeless as a security force to kick out other homeless people, paying them a dollar an hour — until a federal judge forced them into compliance with the minimum wage. If our community believes the Bratton Group will do fair and objective work in its research and recommendations, we are more stupid than the administration thinks. Bratton is a bigoted defender of racial profiling who has one answer to every question: police thuggery. Instead of wasting University money on his goon squad, the administration should conduct the armament debate publicly and openly and solicit a campus referendum. Our safety is our business, and we can decide these matters and offer solutions ourselves.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

SPORTS WEDNESDAY MARCH 13, 2002 · PAGE 12

Finding those pesky opening round sleepers THERE IS NO MORE EXCITING weekend in sports than the opening two rounds of March Madness. Forty-eight games are played over four days, and the result is a sports fan’s heaven. With as many as four games going on at once, at NICK least one draGOUREVITCH matic finish is SEE NICK’S VIEW virtually guaranteed per time slot. In the end though, it may be the Final Four games at the end of March and not this weekend’s match-ups that everyone remembers. Who will ever forget Chris Webber’s timeout or Christian Laettner’s shot? Meanwhile, memories like Weber State’s dramatic upset over North Carolina on the shoulders of Harold “The Show” Arceneaux are easily misplaced (my memory was jogged only after looking it up). Yet, this weekend is simply more fun. By Thursday, everyone, whether they know anything about college basketball or not, fills out their brackets with what they think are can’t-miss picks. Then, they watch in dismay as one of their Final Four teams gets knocked out in the opening round or brag endlessly when that 14 seed (that they “knew” was going to win) pulls off the upset. As you fill out your bracket this week, I offer a few pieces of advice, the first of which is to have fun with it and make some unconventional picks. Don’t advance all the top seeds, because first of all, it’s boring to root for Goliath all weekend. Second, it’s just not a good strategy. In every pool, there will always be the people that pick the best teams in each round, and it’s much harder to beat out all those people then to win on the unusual pick that only you made (more on this later). With that said, I’ll try to provide some insight into what teams are capable of pulling off some big upsets this weekend. Keep in mind that I have never won an NCAA pool in my entire life, so listening to me is probably not the best of strategies. Here are four teams, seeds 9-12, that could become this year’s tournament darlings by dancing their way to the Sweet 16: Western Kentucky (No. 9 seed): If the Hilltoppers get by Stanford on Thursday (which I think they will), they have an excellent shot of taking out Kansas, the Midwest’s number one seed. Western Kentucky (who, like Gonzaga, got a raw deal from the selection committee) is ranked 20th in the AP Poll, have won 18 games in a see GOUREVITCH, page 5

SCOREBOARD Today’s Games Away Women’s lacrosse at Colgate. Springfield, Mass. Softball at Central Connecticut. New Britain, Conn.

Baseball starts 2002 season winning 3 of 4 on trip to North Carolina A&T BY MARTIN MULKEEN

The Brown baseball team kicked off its 2002 season last weekend with two double-headers against North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, NC. The Bears completed a two game sweep of the Aggies on Saturday and split the next doubleheader, jumping out to a 3-1 record after the first weekend of competition. The Saturday sweep included outstanding performances on offense and defense with many different contributors, demonstrating the level of depth this year’s team will enjoy this season. The Bears earned an 8-5 victory in the first game of the double header on Saturday. Jonathan Stern ’02 hurled a complete game, keeping his composure through seven innings of work, giving up a mere four earned runs, and compiling four strikeouts. At the plate the Bears got plenty of help from Rick Lynn ’02, Matt Kutler ’04, and Greg Metzger ’02, who collected two hits each in Saturday’s early game. The Bears toppled the Aggies 18-15 to complete the sweep on Saturday afternoon. The slugfest remained tied at 15-15 in extra innings until Brown’s John Magaletti ’04 came through with the game winning RBI in the top of the ninth inning. The second victory highlighted the Bears’ potent offense as Kutler, Metzger, and Lynn compiled a combined 10 hits. Shaun Gallagher ’02 went 2-for-5 and belted his first homer of the season. James Lowe ’05 went 2-for-5 with three RBI and hit his first home run of his collegiate career in only his second ever at bat. “It was great just to get out there and play,” Lowe said. “I feel like I saw the ball well and hit the ball well.” On Sunday the Aggies battled back, crushing the Bears 12-2. Solid Aggie pitching limited Bruno to only two hits the entire game. In all, nine Bears went down on strikes. Brown bounced back in the afternoon game on Sunday trouncing North Carolina 16-3. Eli Friedman ’05 earned his first victory of the season pitching six innings with six strikeouts and just nine hits. At the plate, Brown strung together a total of 12 walks and 10 hits to ice the victory.

dspics.com

Jonathan Stern ‘02, a Second Team All-Ivy pitcher last season, will lead the baseball team’s pitching staff again in 2002. “It was a little nerve-wracking to finally start the season after a few months of practicing in the OMAC,” Friedman said. “But we got out there and started hitting the ball really well. The weather was good, and we played good baseball.” Hopefully the Bears will continue to have good fortunes on the field and with

the weather as they journey to North Carolina yet again this coming weekend to face off against High Point University for three games. Sports staff writer Martin Mulkeen ’05 covers baseball. He can be reached at mmulkeen@browndailherald.com.

Tyson unanimously wins license to fight in D.C. WASHINGTON (Washington Post) — The District

of Columbia Boxing and Wrestling Commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to award Mike Tyson a license to fight in the city, removing a major obstacle for a heavyweight title bout at MCI Center despite the boxer’s criminal history and professional misbehavior. The action came after a raucous hearing at which hundreds of supporters turned out for Tyson, a convicted rapist whose application for a license had been rejected in three states and opposed by the governor of a fourth. Of the dozens of speakers, not one spoke against licensing the boxer. The action by the three-member commission, which was appointed by Mayor Anthony Williams (D) and had his backing on the Tyson fight, strengthens the city’s bid to land what has been touted as one of the biggest events in recent boxing history. The fight between Tyson and heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis is tentatively scheduled for June 8 at MCI Center, but several other cities are vying for it as well. “We took steps that were unprecedented in boxing to make sure that we went above and beyond to make sure that this gentleman was fit to fight, and it turns out that he is,” commission Vice Chairman Michael

Brown said after the vote. Brown has worked for months to bring the fight to Washington. “I was shocked,” said Tyson adviser Shelly Finkel, who has been shopping the bout since Nevada denied the fighter a license in January. “I would have expected that there be some people opposed, but from what I hear, (the meeting) was almost all in support.” Finkel said the commission’s vote gave Washington “a big boost” in its bid to land the fight. “We’re going to come down and meet with the MCI Center people on Thursday,” Finkel said from his home in New York. “I’ve known (MCI Center owner) Abe Pollin for a long time, and hopefully we can work together.” If the fight came to the city, it would be perhaps the biggest sporting event in its history, generating a predicted $150 million in revenue and bringing as much as $10 million to the city’s ailing tourism industry. Last night’s action came three weeks after the commission made an identical preliminary vote in a conference call. Since then, commission members have met privately with Tyson and ordered a physical and psychiatric evaluation of the boxer. Commission physician William Strudwick said last night that he had determined Tyson

is “fit to box.” Williams and other officials pushed the commission to adopt a more public and deliberative process, and his spokesman Tony Bullock said after the vote that last night’s hearing fulfilled the mayor’s wishes. “It would have been his preference to see them take an extra day or two to review the record, but the mayor also understands there were time factors at play here,” said Bullock, who added, “The issue of a license is consistent with what the mayor wanted to see happen.” The mood of the meeting was decisively and loudly pro-Tyson. As speaker after speaker told the commission that Tyson had a right to fight, applause and calls of support flowed from the standing-room-only crowd. “All Mike Tyson is asking to do is work in our city, which will help us,” said E. Faye Williams, a businesswoman who lives in Southwest Washington. “This is not about character. It’s about a man’s right to work.” The crowd included former Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell and Mustapha Farrakhan, a son of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The younger Farrakhan was hustled past the metal detector at the main security checkpoint by more than a dozen members of the Nation of Islam.