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Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Officials sound off on lowering the drinking age
Fraternities nix house parties on Halloween
By Lauren Piscione
By Abby Sears
THE DAILY CARDINAL
A nationwide debate on rethinking the drinking age made its way to UW-Madison Tuesday at the biannual meeting of the Policy Alternative Community and Education Project, a university and community initiative aimed at combating the consequences of high-risk drinking. The Amethyst Initiative is composed of chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges across the country that support public discussion and debate surrounding the drinking age and current problems with underage and binge drinking. Wisconsin’s drinking age was changed from 18 to 21 in 1986 after a 10 percent reduction of a state’s federal highway appropriation was created for any state with a legal drinking age under 21 as a part of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act passed by Congress in 1984. Marsh Shapiro, owner of the downtown Nitty Gritty, explained his frustrations with the drinking age at the meeting. Having spoken with many government officials and
authorities in the past, Shapiro said “there is no way Wisconsin would have gone to 21 had it not been for the threat of the highway funds.” Shapiro feels strongly that many laws regarding the drinking age are unjust. “You can be legal to do everything else in this country except have a beer, and I think its unfortunate that it has to be that way,” he said. “I’ve always said one of my ambitions would to be to have a marine, that is underage, come in and serve him a beer, and have the police arrest me for serving someone that has just come back from Iraq. That would just demonstrate how ludicrous the law is,” Shapiro said. Aaron Brower, principle investigator for PACE, said statistics show a spike in binge drinking between the ages of 18 and 22 and a drop after, suggesting the issue of dangerous binge drinking lies within the bracket college years rather than in the larger issue of underage drinking. “From a law enforcement prospective, I don’t think it does any good for us to participate in the discussion of the debate,”
THE DAILY CARDINAL
director of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, called the ad “completely slanderous,” and said these candidates could not have voted for the health care proposal the ad is criticizing. Loftus said these “cookie cutter” ads, aired in various counties throughout the state, make the same false claims, and just change the name of the candidate targeted depending on
For the first time in several years, none of the UW-Madison fraternities will be hosting formal parties the night of Freakfest 2008, but that will not stop police from patrolling Langdon Street during the Nov. 1 event. UW-Madison coordinator of fraternity and sorority affairs Barb Kautz said this year’s Halloween celebration marks the first time in her six years of working with Greek organizations that no fraternity has put in a request to host an official party. Typically, when organizations want to hold a social function at their house, they must file a social contract with the Interfraternity Council one week before an event. In the case of events during Freakfest, however, organizations must submit a contract by Oct. 15 and also take part in training with the Madison Police Department, factors which Kautz said likely contributed to the lack of parties this year. “There’s a lot more work involved and I think people just kind of say ‘nah,’” she said. Interfraternity Council President Jeremy Reich said many organizations chose to take advantage of other events in the downtown area rather than gambling with the chance of trouble at fraternity house parties. “There’s too much at risk when you have a party on such a notorious weekend,” Reich said. Matt Bernstein, president of the newly reinstated Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, said his organization experienced that risk firsthand after police busted a Halloween party held at their Langdon-area house in 2005. The event resulted in $94,000 worth of citations for overcapacity and underage drinking, and the fraternity was suspended for nearly three years prior
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EMMA VASSEUR/THE DAILY CARDINAL
Marsh Shapiro, owner of the downtown restaurant the Nitty Gritty, spoke in favor of lowering the current drinking age to 18. UWPD Assistant Police Chief Dale Burke said. Susan Crowley, project director for PACE, said although college presidents target the issue of age, UW-Madison should focus on the overall consequences of drinking. Crowley said a minimum drinking age of 21 is apparently ineffective
on college campuses because excessive drinking troubles continuously plague universities. “College presidents have used the age issue as an opening to say this hasn’t been working, because if it had been working we wouldn’t be having as many consequences,” Crowley said.
TV ad claims Dems support free health care for ‘illegal aliens’ By Jessica Feld THE DAILY CARDINAL
Minority communities are expressing outrage at a TV advertisement airing in Wisconsin that accuses democrats running for state Assembly of supporting free health care for illegal immigrants. The advertisement, sponsored by the Virginia-based Coalition for America’s Families, includes a young man standing on a street corner holding a cardboard sign that reads, “Free
health care for Illegal Aliens.” “This is really good news for illegal aliens. They don’t even have to live here and the health care is free,” he says. The ad urges voters to contact democratic Assembly candidates and tell them “we can’t afford their version of health care.” Peter Muñoz, executive director of Centro Hispano of Dane County, a Latino rights organization, disapproves of the ad’s message, which
targets Latino and African American communities. Muñoz said it is “disturbing” that the ad uses code words, such as a reference to “people from Chicago,” to target not only immigrants, but also African Americans that came to Wisconsin for better opportunities. “Immigrants came here to pursue the American dream and yet they have been tagged as criminals,” Muñoz said. Alec Loftus, communications
Same-sex couples speak to students about common stereotypes By Cate McCraw THE DAILY CARDINAL
The Wisconsin Union Directorate Art Committee and Campus LGBT Center co-sponsored a panel discussion Tuesday on the status of same-sex unions in Wisconsin. The panel featured two samesex couples and Glenn Carlson, executive director of the advocacy group Fair Wisconsin. Carlson began the event by introducing some of the primary issues currently facing samesex partners, including a lack of health-care benefits and limits on official joint guardianship of bio-
logical and adopted children. “Its interesting to think about the future and the challenges we may face,” panelist Lilia Williams said. The discussion accompanied an art exhibition, which combined the photographs and interviews of thirty same-sex couples from across the state. The exhibit was created in response to the 2006 state constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions. Carlson said there are currently 211 benefits withheld from samesex couples in Wisconsin, which he emphasized voters should focus on in addition to other matters of
national concern.
“It’s interesting to think about the future and the challenges we may face.” Lilia Williams panelist Campus LGBT Center panel discussion
“Our challenge for Wisconsin is to make sure that people across the state don’t vote just in the panel page 3
DANNY MARCHEWKA/THE DAILY CARDINAL
Lilia Williams and Sheltreese McCoy share their experiences as a same-sex couple in Madison with UW-Madison students and faculty.
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”