serving the university of texas at austin community since
@thedailytexan |
thedailytexan . com
1900
MONDAY, APRIL 15, 2019
volume
119,
issue
NEWS
OPINION
LIFE&ARTS
SPORTS
Texas higher ed leaders discuss how to improve college completion rates. PA G E 3
Lawmakers and students discuss solutions to ending hazing culture. PA G E 4
Students discuss ethics of eating Chick-fil-A despite anti-LGBTQ stance. PA G E 5
Texas falters again in front of home crowd, dropping series to Kansas State. PA G E 6
CAMPUS
136
STATE
UT students forced to go home after Longhorn run canceled for heavy rain
new bill to redeFine hazing
Senate bill passes following death of three Texas students.
By Nicole Stuessy @nicolestuessy
Over 4,000 runners gathered on campus early Saturday morning to participate in the annual Longhorn Run, but threatening weather conditions threw the race off course. Last weekend, the Austin American-Statesman canceled their annual Capitol 10K Race because of weather conditions. In previous years, the Longhorn Run has taken place during rainy conditions, but this is the first time in nine years it has been canceled because of lightning and thunder, race director Cecilia Lopez Cardenas said. “Our team had been monitoring the weather throughout the week, and we knew the weather conditions could be threatening,” Lopez Cardenas said. “We knew rain was always in the forecast, and we would have the run rain or shine, but it was a matter of if there would be lightning or thunder.” Event staff gathered hours before the race to set up and monitor the weather, Lopez Cardenas said. “We gathered pretty much hourly from as early as 4 a.m.,” Lopez Cardenas said. “The (forecasts) we looked at said rain would likely hit the area, but there were no threatening weather conditions in place at the time, so we thought we would be able to have the race on schedule.” The 10K runners began the race at 8 a.m. but were led back to Gregory Gymnasium after signs of
LONGHORN
page
eddie gaspar | the daily texan file Senate Bill 38, filed by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, would redefine the legal definition of hazing and hold universities more accountable in sending information to students about organizations with histories of hazing.
By Jackson Barton @Jackson_Brton
exas’ laws defining hazing have not been changed in over a decade, but now, state lawmakers say they are facing pressure following deaths of three Texas college students — including former UT student Nicky Cumberland — which have sparked conversations about hazing. Senate Bill 38 would redefine the legal definition of hazing to make the offense easier to prosecute and hold universities more accountable for alerting incoming freshmen to organizations with a history of hazing. The bill passed in the Senate on Thursday, 26-5. A similar bill in the House, House Bill 1482, passed committee but has yet to be heard on the
2
House floor. State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, co-authored SB 38 and has tried to pass a similar bill five times. She called on Senate members to create accountability in the laws and institutions “to eradicate this barbaric behavior in Texas.” “Some may dismiss (acts of hazing) as crude and mostly harmless rights of passage, or as team building exercises,” Zaffirini said in a speech to the Senate. “That supposedly innocent intent, however, often is perverted into acts of cruelty and degradation, including downright torture and life-threatening experiences.” The bills would make forcing someone to drink alcohol an act of hazing. The bills would also require postsecondary educational institutions
WORLD
like UT to send students information defining hazing, as well as a list of all student organizations disciplined for hazing in the past three years with detailed reports on each incident. Reports would need to include when the university opened an investigation, the hazing incident itself and all university and court imposed penalties or fines. Information that could identify specific individuals involved is excluded. The detailed report or a link to said report will need to be sent out two weeks before classes begin, according to the bills. Current laws only require universities to send out the names of organizations disciplined or convicted of hazing in the first three weeks after classes begin each semester.
HAZING
page
2
UNIVERSITY
Kerbey queso recipe now on moon after spacecraft crash By Hayden Baggett @hansfirm
The Kerbey queso recipe is out of this world — literally. Launched from Florida via SpaceX’s Falcon rocket in February, the unmanned Israeli spacecraft Beresheet crashed into the moon last week while carrying a multi-million-page archive of human civilization and history — including Kerbey Lane Cafe’s queso recipe. Spacecraft operators lost communications with the ship at 2:26 p.m. Thursday and declared the mission unsuccessful shortly after. “We had a failure in the spacecraft,” Opher Doron, general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries, said from the control room. “We unfortunately have not managed to land successfully.” While failing in its main goal to become the fourth nation to land a spacecraft on the lunar surface, Israel became the seventh successful country to orbit the moon. The accomplishment was a joint effort by the Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries. The decision to let the top-secret recipe on board came from Austin Mayor Steve Adler and the Arch Mission Foundation, whose goal is to permanently archive all human knowledge in space. “As part of their program, the
Arch Mission invited a limited number of celebrities, influencers and dignitaries to make a contribution to the Lunar Library,” according to Adler’s website. “The Foundation provided this opportunity to Austin’s Mayor.” According to the foundation’s website, the library was
As part of their program, the Arch Mission invited a limited number of celebrities, influencers and dignitaries to make a contribution to the Lunar Library.” STEVE ADLER AUSTIN MAYOR
etched onto a nickel-plated device that resembles a DVD. Composed of several layers and 100 gigabytes of highly compressed data, the information — more than 80,000 images of books, photographs and
documents — can be magnified and viewed. Arch Mission spokesperson Katarina Brown said the library containing the recipe is likely still intact despite the spacecraft’s failure. “The landing was a little bumpier than expected, but airplane black boxes survive stronger impacts, and our disc is less breakable,” Brown said. “Small, light objects, like our 100 gram library, do better in impacts. It was probably thrown a few kilometers away — a 30-million-page frisbee on the moon.” If not, Brown said the foundation at least “installed the first archaeological ruins of early human attempts to build a library on the moon.” Adler said in addition to the queso recipe, he chose to include a picture of Leslie Cochran — a former, homeless mayoral candidate. The library also includes an English copy of Wikipedia, the Bible and a key to 5000 languages. “We choose to send queso to the Moon – and maybe someday chips as well, not because these things are easy, but because they are hard,” Adler said on his website after the launch. To celebrate their contribution, Kerbey Lane Cafe gave away free queso and commemorative T-shirts on Thursday. “It *crash* landed, but we
QUESO
page
2
armin panjavani | the daily texan staff Attendees raise their horns while singing “The Eyes of Texas” during a memorial service held for the late former UT president Bill Powers on Friday afternoon at Main Mall.
Former UT president Bill Powers honored at memorial service By Brynne Herzfeld @BrynneHerzfeld
Former UT President Bill Powers was honored at a memorial service Friday afternoon with speeches from current UT President Gregory Fenves and Powers’ friends and colleagues. Powers died March 10 at the age of 72 after complications from a fall combined with oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy, a rare muscle disorder. Kenneth Jastrow, a friend
of Powers and chair of the UT Austin Campaign for Texas, spoke about Powers’ accomplishments during his time as president. The Student Activity Center, the Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex and the Biomedical Engineering Building were all built while Powers served as president. Beyond these, Jastrow said Powers’ most transformational contribution to the University was establishing the Dell Medical School. “Bill was a leader who had the courage to say
yes,” Jastrow said at the service. “To him, there was more possibility in ‘yes.’ He’d rather say yes and risk failure than say no and never know what might have been.” Fenves said he is grateful for what the late president taught him and for his dedication to UT as president and as a teacher. As president, Powers taught a freshman course called “What Makes the World Intelligible,” and upon
POWERS
page
2