NAMED NATIONAL FOUR-YEAR DAILY NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR FOR 2020-21 IN THE COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION’S PINNACLE AWARDS
Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Volume 158 No. 39
ROBERT BAIN | SJSU
Norman Mineta, former Federal Transportation Secretary, speaks at the SJSU Mineta Transportation Institute commencement in 2018. He died Tuesday at 90 years old.
Local legend Norman Mineta dies at 90 SJSU community members mourn Mineta, founder of SJSU’s Mineta Transportation Institute
By Bojana Cvijic NEWS EDITOR
Former Federal Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta died Tuesday of a heart ailment, according to his former chief of staff John Flaherty. Mineta was 90. Born in San Jose, Mineta was the first Asian American secretary to serve in a U.S. cabinet position. He served as U.S. secretary of commerce under President Bill Clinton’s administration in 2000, and was the only Democrat to serve as secretary under President George W. Bush’s administration from 2001-2006, according to a Tuesday ABC news article. San Jose State Interim President Steve Perez
said in a Tuesday campuswide email that Mineta served the community with his “humanity and leadership.” “Secretary Mineta, a San José native, was a legendary, towering figure who made important, lasting, positive contributions to our region and country,” Perez said. As transportation secretary, Mineta ordered commercial flights grounded after the 9/11 terror attacks, according to the same ABC News article. Mineta claimed to have grounded 4,500 planes, according to a Tuesday New York Times article. “I said, ‘Get the damn planes down,’” Mineta told ABC News in 2001. He was praised for
Mineta’s life at a glance First Asian American mayor of a major city – San Jose – and cabinet secretary, serving under both Democratic President Bill Clinton and Republican President George W. Bush; U.S. transportation secretary during the 9/11 attacks; a survivor of WWII Japanese internment camp
LEGEND | Page 3
San Jose community members protest for reproductive rights By Jennifer Schildge STAFF WRITER
More than 50 people gathered at San Jose City Hall on Tuesday to protest the proposed overturn of Roe v. Wade that was released in a leaked draft majority opinion late Monday published by POLITICO. The decision to overturn the landmark case is expected to have a five to four majority with Associate Justices Amy-Coney Barrett, Neil Gorusch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas voting to overturn the landmark case, according to a Tuesday Washington Post article. Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the leaked document is legitimate early Tuesday morning, and has launched an investigation into the document’s disclosure, according to a Tuesday POLITICO article. “[It] was a singular and egregious
breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here,” Roberts said in the same Tuesday article. Roe v. Wade is a landmark Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to abortion, according to a Tuesday New York Times article. If Roe v. Wade is overturned another landmark case regarding abortions, Planned Parenthood v. Casey would also be overturned because it was reaffirmed Roe v. Wade in 1992, according to a Tuesday Newsweek article. It states in the landmark 7-2 ruling that the federal government lacked the power to prohibit abortions. The Supreme Court judged that a person’s right to terminate their pregnancy was protected by the U.S. constitution,
EVAN REINHARDT | SPARTAN DAILY
ABORTION | Page 2
Kaylynn Campvell, 9 months pregnant, joins protesters at San Jose City Hall Tuesday after the leaked draft decision to overturn Roe V. Wade was released late Monday night.