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Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense protest for “commonsense” gun laws. PAGE 5
SPORTS Texas wide receiver Kendall Sanders was arrested, charged with DWI and released on $3,000 bond Saturday morning. PAGE 6 The Longhorns cruised to a pair of wins over Western Kentucky behind strong pitching performances by Blaire Luna and Holly Kern. PAGE 6
dailytexanonline.com Restaurant Week offers discounted prices at local eateries.
Longhorns fall to OU in rubber match Sunday.
NEWS UT police chief candidate aims to strengthen relationships with community. PAGE 5
Monday, April 8, 2013
SPORTS PAGE 6
LIFE&ARTS PAGE 10
TEXAN IN-DEPTH
Work hours cut ahead of health reform By Megan Strickland While the implementation of federal health care reform won’t be complete until 2014, workers at the University Co-op are already feeling the law’s effects — and not the way they may have thought. Starting in February, temporary workers at the Co-op were
told their work hours would be limited to keep health care costs low, chief financial officer James Kielty said. The Affordable Care Act, which passed in 2010 and was upheld by the Supreme Court last year, will require employers with more than 100 employees to provide health insurance to employees who work an average of more than
30 hours per week or face an annual tax penalty of $2,200 per employee. Kielty said the Co-op started cutting hours to 29 or fewer at the start of the new year because the federal government will look back on 2013 to see if an employee is classified as full-time or not. “Currently we provide 100 percent of all costs of all full-time employees. We pay
100 percent of the premiums. That’s almost unheard of.” Kielty said. “We simply couldn’t afford it if we had to add another 40 or 50 people to our health care costs.” In the 2011 fiscal year, the Co-op spent $1,046,176 on employee benefits and pensions, according to Internal Revenue Service documents. This was a decrease from $1,323,206 spent
CAMPUS
Regent asks for opinion on release of records
Facebook Home launched last week, and while it’s probably not around to stay, it has ramifications for social media. PAGE 10
By Jordan Rudner
VIEWPOINT A Senate bill anticipates a nearing Supreme Court decision about race-conscious admissions. The bill does not force the UT administration to offer a sufficient contingency plan if the high court rules in favor of Fisher. PAGE 4
40 Days Left The Office of the Dean of Students starts its 40 days ‘til graduation celebration. From today till May 18, the Dean of Students Dean’s Squad will be tabling in the West Mall Plaza and the Gregory Gym Plaza from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Visit for the chance to win free t-shirts or prizes. Mayan Sorcery Professor David Stuart presents “The Ways of Witchcraft: Sorcery as Political Ideology Among the Ancient Maya,” a talk about the political culture and roles of sorcery and witchcraft during the Late Classic period. The talk is from noon to 1:15 p.m. in the Student Activity Center, room 5.118. Extreme Weather Soroosh Sorooshian of the University of California — Irvine presents the talk “Current State of Hydrologic Modeling and Challenges in Forecasting Floods and Predicting Droughts and Extreme Events.” The talk is from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Applied Computational Engineering Avaya Auditorium.
Guillermo Hernandez Martinez | Daily Texan Staff Theatre and dance sophomore Kenny Chilton, journalism sophomore Shannon Price and radio-television-film senior Whitney Davenport get covered in bubbles during 40 Acres Fest on Saturday afternoon.
Fest relieves stress Day of activities includes music, fun to promote student organizations By Jeremy Thomas When live musical performances, inflatable games and activity booths from student organizations overrun the Main, South and West malls during the spring semester,
students get a break from the busy end of the semester. The 21st Annual Forty Acres Fest presented students with an opportunity to have fun near the end of the spring semester. Each year, the event draws an estimated 10,000 people throughout
CAMPUS
the day, according to the Forty Acres Fest committee. Musical group Chiddy Bang headlined this year’s festival, which also featured performances by Akina Adderley & the Vintage Playboys, Blue Bear, Jonathas, The Followthrough, Ben Baxter Band and Suite 709. Nicole Ferraro, event chairperson and Plan II and management information systems
senior, said the festival is one of the best unifying events the University has, as it provides many benefits to students. “There are a lot of events that try to get a lot of people, but I don’t think anyone has done it as well as Forty Acres Fest,” Ferraro said. “Especially for students that might not be that involved on campus, it’s one of
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Second-chance prom promotes inclusiveness By Miles Hutson Students and community members took out their partners and friends for a night of dancing and fun on Saturday, as Queer People of Color and Allies held its second-chance prom in the Student Activity Center Ballroom. The prom — with a theme of “MasQUEERade” — is
In the middle of ongoing tensions between the UT System Board of Regents, the Texas Legislature and UT President William Powers Jr., board Chairman Gene Powell has asked the Texas Attorney General’s office if the System is allowed to withhold information from legislators. The request comes only weeks after regents leveled claims of a “lack of transparency” against Powers regarding a controversy surrounding the UT Law School Foundation. Two days after the letter to the attorney general was filed, four regents — Steve Hicks, Robert Stillwell, James Dannenbaum and Printice Gary — submitted a written request to hold a meeting of the full board to discuss whether or not information should be withheld from legislators. The four regents also requested the board discuss the possibility of authorizing the attorney general’s office to conduct a review of the relationship between the UT School of Law and the Law School Foundation. Last month, in a 4-3 vote from which Powell was absent, the
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UNIVERSITY
held annually, and is intended to provide a fun and social atmosphere for members of the LGBTQ community. Organizers say they want to provide an atmosphere more tolerant than the one at many Texas high school proms. “It’s been going on for a pretty long time,” said Andra Steele, sociology
PROM continues on page 5
What is today’s reason to party?
SEE COMICS PAGE 9
CO-OP continues on page 2 SYSTEM
LIFE&ARTS
TODAY
by the Co-op two years earlier. During that time, the number of people the Co-op reported employed increased from 160 to 521. Kielty said this might be attributed to counting full-time employees one year and parttime and temporary workers another year, but could not say definitively if this was the
UT chemistry professor Brent Iverson speaks at an open forum on campus Friday afternoon as the fifth and final UGS Dean candidate.
Austin McKinney Daily Texan Staff
Dean candidate seeks solution By Miles Hutson
Maria Arrellaga | Daily Texan Staff Students dance at the annual second-chance prom organized by the Queer People of Color and Allies on Saturday.
The final candidate for the deanship of the School of Undergraduate Studies, chemistry professor Brent Iverson, told faculty, students and staff last Friday if he is hired as dean, he would not hesitate to experiment and take risks in partnership with UGS and its faculty in an effort to help shift the University to a model that will help it thrive. “I’m here because frankly,
I’m worried,” Iverson said. “Our Legislature and regents may not be fully on board with where we want to be headed … There are some voices that want to turn us into a massive trade school.” Iverson, whose speech was held in a larger room than many other candidates spoke in so he could use a screen for visuals, showed a movie poster of a boat being overturned by a wave. “Big waves are a problem. They’ve got a lot of energy. They’re chaotic and they can
lead to some big problems,” Iverson said. “But I’d like to point out, it’s the direction of the boat that’s the problem and the fact that it can’t turn around very fast.” Iverson said in the face of pressure from online courses and demand for four-year graduations, UGS should be in a position to work with the waves of change rather than against them. “UGS does not have large traditional programs, it
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