Pizza Paradise Crooked Crust fills void left by Tomato See insert Friday, April 2, 2010
News 1,2 Sports 3 Classifieds 4 Games 4 SCENE see insert
Volume 95 | Issue 40
Sunny 75° / 62°
ntdaily.com
The Student Newspaper of the University of North Texas
Documents provide clues to Bataille’s resignation Former president butted heads with System BY LISA GARZA
Senior Staff Writer Public records show that during the months leading to UNT President Gretchen Bataille’s resignation, tensions bet ween her a nd t he UNT System erupted over an initiative to acquire a building in McKinney and termination of the lease of the University Center s at Da l la s, w h ich were undertaken without the System’s knowledge. E-mails, letters, and memos obtained t hrough an open records request also demonstrate that Bataille proposed a 5 percent tuition increase to the students after Chancellor Lee Jackson said he was against it. The documents reveal that she privately discussed ways to oppose a plan to combine i n for mat ion tech nolog y depa r t ment s a nd hu m a n resource services. “I prefer to hear what the academic needs are, discuss opt ions i n a professiona l manner and then come to a consensus decision about the best options,” Jackson wrote to the Board of Regents in a Feb. 5 memorandum concerning Bataille’s actions. Bataille said Thursday in a phone interview that she did not act beyond her authority as president and would not
PHOTO BY KAITLYN PRICE/PHOTOGRAPHER
E-mails, letters, and memos, obtained through an open records request, show that during the months leading to UNT President Gretchen Bataille’s resignation, tensions between her and the UNT System erupted over an initiative to acquire a building in McKinney and the termination of the lease of the University Centers at Dallas, which were undertaken without the System’s knowledge. participate “in a he said/she said kind of thing with the chancellor that really doesn’t have anything to do with the decisions he made about my position.” “I did not do anything that was out of line for the president of a university who was expected to do what was best for the institution,” Bataille
said A national search for the next president will begin soon, according to school officials. Interim President Phil Diebel will remain in office until the end of May, when he will be replaced w it h a yet-to-benamed interim president who will serve a one-year term.
McKinney Project Bataille sent an e-mail to Jackson on Jan. 8 informing him that a group of senior ad m i n ist rators t raveled to McKinney to consider a proposed gift of the former Collin County Courthouse — a 165,000-square-foot facility on six acres of land. Bataille told Jackson that
she had spoken w it h t he McKinney mayor and Cit y Council members before the winter holiday and was told that the city might contribute $10 million to the building’s renovation costs. The offer was contingent on UNT using the building as a research and teaching facility to promote sustainability.
Bataille signed a letter of intent on Jan. 15 on behalf of UNT to the city of McKinney that established a cooperative effort in sustainability, including the possibility of acquiring the courthouse. The universit y president does not have the authority to make purchasing decisions w ithout approva l from the Board of Regents. Bataille told the Daily that she sent Jackson an e-mail informing him of what was happening but said she did not know if he saw the letter. “The details of those discussions were w it h held f rom System staff and our offer of assistance to analyze this project was declined,” Jackson said in an e-mail to the Daily on Thursday. “This has delayed by two months the gathering of the customary engineering and appraisal data that are necessary for any real estate decision.” Bataille told the Daily she is aware that the System and UNT Board of Regents must address any issue regarding the purchase or receipt of property but “we were not close to proposing either accepting proper t y or purchasing or renovating property.” Provost Wendy Wilkins, who was among the administrators that helped draft the letter of intent, said the purpose was “to secure more time to consider what our options might be.”
See E-MAILS on Page 2
Airports to use UNT professor tests fish for toxins full body scans BY A LEX CALAMS
Staff Writer
BY K RYSTLE CANTU Staff Writer
The Transportation Security Administration is implementing full body scans, swabs and patdowns at all airports. The full body scans peer through the subject’s clothes to create a detailed, nude image. Controversy has arisen over the practice, which some have considered intrusive. More than 20 airports have the full body scan systems installed and in use. “It’s not mandatory,” said Andrea McCauley, a spokeswoman for the administration. “Passengers who do not want to go through the whole body imaging may have a pat-down instead.” All full body scans are optional and will be conducted at airport checkpoints. McCauley said the officers viewing the scans are in a room away from the checkpoint and are not able to view any of the passengers’ faces or a fully lifelike representation. “They do not see the person that goes into the technology,” she said. “On top of that, the face is blurred out and the image is never stored or transmitted. Once that person is cleared, within a matter of seconds, that image is gone forever.”
John Verdi, a senior counsel director for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said that’s not the case. The center filed a Freedom of Information Act request in April 2009 asking for the technical specifications for the machines. “We worked with TSA to try to get those specifications released,” Verdi said. “TSA refused to release them, so we sued the agency last year. In December, as a result of the lawsuit, we acquired from TSA the detailed technical documents that discuss what the capabilities of the body scanners are.” Forty body scan units have been distributed, and over the next few years McCauley expects another 350 units to be deployed. “It only pertains to if you’re standing in line for screening or at the checkpoint or beyond the checkpoint,” McCauley, said. “It is body scanning technology or whole body imaging. However, we’ve put privacy filters in place. It’s a robotic image that the officer will see.” Verdi said the documents contradict the representations that TSA has made to the public.
See TSA on Page 2
Don’t Forget to Vote SGA Presidential Voting began Monday and will end at 5 p.m. today. To vote, visit www.unt.edu/sga
See results Tuesday morning at ntdaily.com
The European Chemical Industr y Council and the International Life Sciences Institute are sponsoring a research study by Duane Huggett of the biology department. Huggett is researching the toxicity levels of harmful chemicals in fish. His purpose is to evaluate a fish’s ability to maintain dangerous levels of unsafe chemicals within their tissue. “The study is focused on determining short-term methods for testing if certain chemicals will accelerate in the tissue of fish,” Huggett said. The study has run for about two years as an independently funded research project. It recently hooked grants totaling $120,000 from the council and the institute, expanding the study’s possibilities, Huggett said. “Fish is an upper-trophic species,” he said, meaning they’re just below carnivores because they are predators who hunt for food in their environment. Humans are the ultimate predator, though, eating fish and other animals on a day-today basis. The Wor ld Hea lt h Organization stated in a 2002 report titled “Global and regional food consumption patterns and trends” that “worldwide, about a billion people rely on fish as their main source of animal proteins.” That means trouble for those at the top of the food chain, Huggett said. “We’re concerned w it h humans eating contaminated fish and the human health risks associated with that, as well as the ecological problem of the matter,” he said. Depending on the type of chemical contamination and
severity, food poisoning and death are possible outcomes humans could experience from tainted fish. Chris Adams, a kinesiology junior, said fish food poisoning is nothing to take lightly. “It was the worst feeling I’ve
“We’re concerned with humans eating contaminated fish.”
—Duane Huggett Biology faculty member
ever experienced in my life. It’s terrible,” Adams said. “I spent a couple days bent over the toilet throwing up day and night.” Christopher Henry, a UNT alumnus and associate attorney at the Denton-based firm, Minor & Jester P.C., said health risks and the possibility of death are not the only consequences. The legal liability food companies and restaurants bear also comes into play. “Say you get E. coli from meat or chicken,” he said. “The powers that be responsible for that are also accountable for any and all medical bills and personal injury expenses, both financially and emotionally. In the case of a fatality, a wrongful death action is what would be filed.” Huggett said that his research is based on avoiding all the problems created by contaminated fish. Europe has been serious about eliminating harmful chemicals in consumer-grade fish in recent years, but time and money is a factor, he said. His experiments are reducedfactor tests and simulations.
PHOTO BY KAYTI EDWARDS/PHOTOGRAPHER
Duane Huggett, an Enviromental Science professor at North Texas, is developing a new screening process to detect hazardous chemicals in organisms. They can, with a slight marginof-error, offer the same predictions that studies involving more money and larger populations of fish produce. “I expose fish for one to seven days and measure whether or not the drugs I introduce accelerate in their tissue. Then I compare my outcomes to more standardized results of studies done typically during the course of 42 days,” he said. Huggett said his research
benefits more than just those who eat fish. “I think the pharmaceutical industry can benefit from this research, as well,” he said. “Medications incorporate a diverse set of chemicals. It is important to know the toxicity of these chemicals in an aquatic environment.” Huggett’s research is funded through June 2011. He anticipates great success with all of his experiments, he said.