Massachusetts Daily Collegian: April 13, 2016

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THE MASSACHUSETTS

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DAILY COLLEGIAN DailyCollegian.com

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Serving the UMass community since 1890

News@DailyCollegian.com

UMPD ARRESTS 15 PROTESTERS UMass Divest activists arrested for trespassing on second day of sit-in By sTuarT FosTer and PaTricia LeBoeuF Collegian Staff

KATHERINE MAYO/COLLEGIAN

Several UMass students, part of the ‘First 15’ students to be arrested as part of the UMass Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign’s sit-in protests against the University’s investments from the fossil fuel industry, are escorted out of Whitmore Tuesday night by UMPD officers.

Fifteen University of Massachusetts students were arrested at Whitmore Administration Building Tuesday night following the second day-long sit-in protest by the UMass Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign against the University’s investments from the fossil fuel industry. Student protesters continued their occupation of Whitmore after it was closed for business despite a pledge of advocacy for divestment from fossil fuels by Victor Woolridge, chairman of the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees, and UMass President Marty Meehan, according to a press release sent by the UMass News and Media Relations Director Ed Blaguszewski. Woolridge’s pledge for advocacy did not meet the event’s demand of a statement by the Board of Trustees fully committing to divestment from fossil fuel companies. Students continued to occupy the Whitmore Building until 9:30 p.m. The 15 people arrested stayed behind after many more students willingly left around 8:20 p.m., long after the building closed at 5 p.m., and following hours of negotiation between members of the campaign and UMass administrators. The arrests followed several warnings by the UMass Police Department that the students would be arrested if they did see

ARRESTS on page 2

Affirmative action debate highlights Talk on Israeli divisive approaches to topic of racism democracy will Academics debate be given today in Student Union

pology department at Boston University, argued that the benefits of affirmative action are distributed unevenly among various minority popBy Brendan deady ulations, and that the policy Collegian Staff is unintentionally discrimiThe “Opposing Views on natory toward non-minority Affirmative Action” debate populations. His opposition, hosted by the University Randall Kennedy, a Michael Union in the Student Union R. Klein Harvard Law proBallroom Tuesday night pit- fessor, argued in favor of ted two distinguished aca- affirmative action but said demics against each other the policy is an imperfect over a contentious topic solution to an underlying that is still being deliber- problem of racial injusated at the highest levels of tice in the United States. the American legal system. University of Massachusetts Peter Wood, a former ten- associate political science ured member of the anthro- professor Dean Robinson

moderated the debate. Both speakers had 20 minutes to provide opening statements before taking student questions. Kennedy spoke first and summarized some arguments in favor of affirmative action, but also took the opportunity to criticize the prevailing justifications for the policy. Kennedy said the most prominent rationalization for affirmative action discussed within the Supreme Court is that diversifying higher education institutions leads to a broader spectrum of perspectives. While he partially agreed, he argued

that elevating this opinion as the sole rationalization for affirmative action ignores the responsibility to make amends for the country’s history of racial injustice. “(The idea of affirmative action) has to do with the idea of remedy, rectification, restitution and redressement. There is a need to have a policy that gives a boost to people who have been historically marginalized, oppressed and excluded from society’s major institutions,” Kennedy said. Kennedy said this need see

AFFIRMATIVE on page 3

Noah Feldman to lecture in Goodell

The lecture, which will be held at 4 p.m., will focus on how necessary secular culture is for the functioning of democracy, with an By sTuarT FosTer Collegian Staff emphasis on the prospects Noah Feldman, an author for democracy in the Middle and Felix Frankfurter pro- East. “In the Middle East, fessor of law at Harvard Law School, will deliver the pressures of religion, and vioa lecture titled “Violence, nationalism, lence on politics and culPolitics and Religion: Can ture come from all sides,” Israel Remain Jewish and Democratic?” in the Bernie Feldman said in a press Dallas Room of Goodell Hall today. see LECTURE on page 3

Families of victims shot at Jewish facilities file lawsuits Three KS victims were killed in 2014 By Tony rizzo and Mike Hendricks The Kansas City Star

KANSAS CITY, Mo._ Relatives of three people shot to death in 2014 outside Jewish facilities in Overland Park, Kan., have filed lawsuits over the sale of guns used in the shootings. The family of William Co rporon and his grandson, Reat Underwood, who were fatally shot outside the Jewish

Community Center, filed suit Tuesday in Johnson County District Court. In two identical suits on behalf of each victim, they allege that employees of a Wal-Mart store in Republic, Mo., were negligent when they sold a shotgun later used to kill Corporon and Reat. "Gun dealers, including Wal-Mart, owe a duty to use the highest standard of care to prevent the supply of firearms to those prohibited from possessing them," they said in their suits. On Monday, the family of Terri LaManno, who was

killed outside Village Shalom care center, filed a similar suit in Jackson County Circuit Court against Wal-Mart, a gun store in Lebanon, Mo., and the operators of a gun show where guns were purchased. F. Glenn Miller Jr., a 75-year-old southern Missouri neo-Nazi, carried out the attacks on April 13, 2014, in an effort to kill as many Jews as possible. None of the victims was Jewish. A Johnson County jury convicted Miller, also known as Frazier Glenn Cross Jr., last year. He was sentenced to

death. Miller, who was a previously convicted felon, could not legally buy or possess firearms. According to the lawsuits, he enlisted another southern Missouri man, John Mark Reidle, to purchase the weapons. Federal prosecutors charged Reidle for falsely claiming on a federal form that he was purchasing guns for himself. He pleaded guilty last fall and was placed on probation. On April 9, 2014, Reidle bought a shotgun from the

Republic Wal-Mart. According to the suits filed by the Corporon family, Miller and Reidle went to the Wal-Mart store together and Miller selected a Remington 12-gauge shotgun in the presence of at least one Wal-Mart employee. The suit alleges that Miller "initiated" the purchase, but then claimed that he didn't have any identification, and offered to have Reidle purchase the weapon, which he did. "Given the circumstances of the purchase, Wal-Mart should have taken affirma-

tive steps to confirm that Miller was the actual purchaser and intended user of the Remington shotgun, and that the sale of the shotgun to Reidle, a straw buyer, was illegal," according to the suits. Four days later, Miller used that shotgun to shoot Corporon, 69, and Reat, 14, outside the Jewish Community Center where Reat was participating in a singing competition. Miller also used a semiautomatic rifle and handgun to fire at others outside and see

LAWSUITS on page 2


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