Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

__Carolina News rr~h ortJ lpiled by J Patrick Rathbun March 18 • Disorderly conduct Greene and Lau rens streets. Several young ladies wavee down an officer on patrol and advisee UUU UiW JUUf/U YYOO asleep in his car on the railroad tracks at the incident lo cation. Upon arrival, the officer witnessed the vehicle to be on the railroad tracks. After approaching the vehicle the offi cer noticed a strong odor of alcohol The subject slurred his speech and was unsteady on his feet. The subject was then placed under arrest and booked at USC Police Department headquarters; He was then transported to Richland County Department of Corrections. • Attempted larceny of a bicycle, pos session of tools of a crime, disorderly conduct Columbia Hall. Witness ob served two subjects attempt to re move a secured black Huffy Santa Fe bike, which was secured to a bike rack in front of the incident location. Sub ject two was seen with a tire, which he hid in the bushes. Subject one then be gan to use a pair of red bolt cutters to remove the chain securing the bike. Sub ject two watched subject one attempt to remove the bicycle. As the officers moved in, a short foot chase ensued, and both subjects were arrested. Both sub jects smelled of alcohol and were bel 1!_A C* 1_A ugci cm. one admitted to the officers that he was attempting to take the bike to help fund his crack problem. Both subjects were handcuffed and booked at USCPD headquarters. The subjects were RCDC. The bolt cutters and bike tire were taken into evidence and secured in the gun locker. March 15 • Disorderly conduct Capstone. Com plainant said the subject, while visiting his girlfriend after visitation hours, used the restroom the complainant shares with the subject’s girlfriend and exposed himself to victims one and two. The sub ject was intoxicated at the point in time while urinating in the complainant’s sink. The incident was reported to the resident advisor and USCPD was con tacted. Both victims had written state ments. Victim impact statements were issued to both victims. The victims wish to press chaiges. Utah official declares Christian group must open doors to gays College Press Excahnge Orem, Utah - Utah’s assistant state attorney general has told members of a Christian organization at Utah Val ley State College that they must open their club to gay students — and all students, for that matter — if they want to get a campus charter. Kendra Ruzicka, president of the cam pus’ Eagle Forum Collegians, applied for the charter status, which guarantees fi nancial support from student fees and free access to campus facilities, but objected J to a clause prohibiting discrimination based J on sexual orientation. “We feel the school doesn’t have a * right to dictate who our membership * should be,” Ruzicka, a sophomore, told * The Chronicle of Higher Education. “I 2 don’t have anything against a homosex ; ual student joining our club. But we up #• * ■ F > * ... hold basic Christian moral principles set forth in our scriptures, and if someone doesn’t agree to uphold those standards, I want the right to expel them from the club or not allow them to join.” But if the group wants financial sup port from all students, it should be pre pared to admit all students, David C. Jones, an assistant state attorney general, said in a letter addressing Ruzicka’s concerns. “UVSC believes there is no reason for clubs to be exclusive, discrimintory, cliquish or limited to a few privileged or select number of individuals,” he wrote. “Such exclusion would defeat the pur poses of providing a forum for clubs on the UVSC campus.” However, Jones did state that the ap plication forms will be changed so that it no longer specifies anti-discrimination criteria, such as sexual orientation. It will simply read “Membership must be open to ail college students.” K m V w ■ * ■ #* - - ■■■ - .. Hu. Undergraduate Position Available . r Student wanted for part-time position in on-campus office. ? Must have excellent communication skills and strong r experience in Microsoft Office ‘97 (Word, Access, Excel, & PowerPoint) and Adobe Pagemaker 6.5. Salary commensurate with experience. ^Contact A. Dawn Ward at (803) 777-0311 .... for more information. £| EPSCoR ! I The University of South Carolina is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. *-l[ - — ■ . Cheaper than Tuition more fun than Body Piercing Special Student Airfares Great Travel Products Adventure Holidays Beds on a Budget Travel Insurance Eurail Passes Contiki Tours Student ID's 800-777-0112 | |TRAVEL| WE’VE BEEN THERE. Court rules student fees can fund controversial groups by Jan Crawford College Press Exchange Washington — In order to encourage the “free and open exchange of ideas,” the Supreme Court Wednesday said public universities can collect mandatory stu dent fees to fund a variety of campus groups — from Amnesty International to the Pro Life League—even if some students ob ject to the oiganizations. In a unanimous decision, the court ruled against a group of conservative stu dents from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who had sued to stop their activity fees from going to oiganizations they found objectionable. They maintained that forcing them to support the groups violated their constitutional rights. But the court, in an opinion by Jus tice Anthony Kennedy, said an important purpose of any university is to “facili tate a wide range of speech.” The justices concluded that the university was enti tled to collect the mandatory student fees, just as it has during its 151-year history, as long as it doled them out neutrally, with out discriminating against groups based on their viewpoints. “The university may determine that its mission is well served if students have the means to engage in dynamic dis cussions of philosophical, religious, sci entific, social and political subjects in their extracurricular campus life outside the lecture hall,” the court said. “If the uni versity reaches this conclusion, it is en titled to impose a mandatory fee to sus tain an open dialogue to these ends.” The objecting students can’t complain about those fees, the court said, as long as the school does not “prefer some view points to others.” Wednesday’s decision reversed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Ap peals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago. Civil rights groups hailed the ruling as a significant free speech decision for college students nationwide. Ruth Har low, managing attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, which filed a brief in the case, called the ruling a “great victory” for students in the mi nority. Harlow and other civil rights lawyers said a contrary result, allowing students to opt out of funding oiganizations they oppose, would have dealt a devastating blow to minority groups, such as lesbians and gays. And on liberal campuses, they noted, conservative oiganizations, too, could have been shut out. “If the university had lost this case, it would have meant the ability to form stu dent groups on campus would have de pended on majority approval,” said Matt Coles, director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project for the American Civil Lib erties Union. “You could create a group and be part of the ongoing debate on uni versity campuses if the majority approved, but not otherwise.” Wisconsin Atty. Gen. James Doyle, whose office defended the university’s fee structure, said the ruling was a “total vic tory for the 1st Amendment,” because it allows students to “have the opportuni ty to hear from many different viewpoints and to be able to express the views that they hold important.” In the opinion, Kennedy acknowl edged that “it is all but inevitable” that collecting mandatory student fees will re sult in subsidies to groups that “some stu dents find objectionable and offensive to their personal beliefs.” A university could, if it chose, allow students to opt out of funding those groups, the court said, but the Constitution did not require it. But the court acknowledged what the university had asserted from the begin ning: Requiring colleges to allow students to opt out “could be so disruptive and ex pensive that the program to support ex tracurricular speech would be ineffective.” In reaching its decision, the court had to grapple with two different views of the first Amendment, which protects a per son’s right to speak freely, as well as his right not to speak. For example, a state can’t force a stu dent to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The court also has ruled that teachers and lawyers, who must pay mandatory dues to unions and bar associations, can object to their fees going toward political ex pression that falls outside the groups’ mis sion. The students had urged the court to approach the case in a similar way, since they, too, are being required to pay fees which subsidize speech they find objec tionable. But the court said those decisions are “neither applicable nor workable in the context of extracurricular student speech at a university,” largely because of the “important and substantial purposes of the university, which seeks to facilitate a wide range of speech.” “It is not for the court to say what is or is not germane to the ideas to be pur sued in an institution of higher learning,” the court said. Instead, to protect students’ 1st Amendment rights, the universities must ensure that funding decisions are made on a neutral basis, regardless of the group’s viewpoint. It referred to a 1995 case, in which it held a student newspaper at the University of Virginia could not be denied funding because of its religious viewpoints. The school must administer the funds neutrally, the court said then. The court found “symmetry” in that holding and in its decision in the Wisconsin case, it said. “When a university requires its stu dents to pay fees to support the ex tracurricular speech of other students, all in the inte^st of open discussion, it may not prefer some viewpoints to others,” the court said. Justice David Souter, joined by Jus tices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens, did not agree with the court’s rationale. Though agreeing with the out come, the concurring justices said they believed the university was entitled to collect the fees, just as it is able to make other funding decisions, such as selecting classes and inviting speakers. But, still, the unanimity of the out come was unusual from a court that generally is closely divided and often thought to be conservative. In ruling for the university, it sided with traditional lib eral organizations, suggesting that, as the ACLU’s Coles said, “We have a consen sus across ideological and political lines about what the 1st Amendment protects.” Also Wednesday, the court heard ar guments in a Massachusetts case that could determine how far states can go to en courage changes in foreign policy. At is sue is a state law that prohibits companies which do business in Myanmar, once known as Burma, from getting state con tracts unless their bids are 10 percent be low the next lowest bid. The law is similar to dozens of others that states and municipalities have passed in recent years to express their moral out rage at human rights abuses in various countries. The trend began in the 1980s, when many states passed laws to divest pension funds of stocks of those compa nies doing business in South Africa. Massachusetts passed its Burma law in 1996 to condemn the repressive mili tary regime in the South Asian nation. A lower court ruled that the state improp erly injected itself into matters of foreign commerce and affairs. Clean Carolina from page 1 were assigned around the Russell House,” SG Student Services Committee Chair woman Melissa Fletcher said. “That gives 76 organizations a chance to get involved,” SG Director of Special Projects Timothy Clardy said at the kick off, which was held on Greene Street. Clarify said Clean Carolina came from the idea that most of the trash on campus came from students. “It just makes sense to have students clean up the trash,” Clardy said. Over 280 organizations were notified about Clean Carolina, according to Fletch er. Not all of these organizations were stu dent organizations. Fletcher said the School of Public Health, the School of the Environment and the Payroll Office have expressed in terest in participating in Clean Carolina. The Student Services Committee has been working closely with the office of Facilities Management since the fall to create Clean Carolina, Fletcher said. “[The office of] Facilities Manage ment will pay for making the signs,” she said. “They also gave us trash bags and supplied us with drinks today.” Fletcher said the trash being picked up won’t be recycled. “The bigger things that can be recy cled are already put into recycling bins, or put into the regular trashcan,” she said. She said most of what will be picked up are “small pieces of paper and ciga rette butts.” Thursday’s event was held to create public awareness of Clean Carolina, Fletch er said. But, there were many groups that expressed inerest in the Kickoff. “A lot of organizations see it as an easy way to do community service,” she said. “But hopefully it [community ser vice] will increase students’ pride in the campus.” Fletcher said Clean Carolina will con tinue throughout the year and begin of ficially in the fall. - V Rising Sophomores & Juniors: consider thi$ equation! The Goldwater Scholarship offers up to $7,500 to students pursuing research-based graduate degrees in natural sciences, mathematics, or engineering who plan on a career in research, and/or college-level teaching. If interested, plan to attend: Goldwater Scholarship Workshop TYiesday, March 28 at 4 p.m. Gressette Room, Harper College For mong information, call the Fellowships Office at 777-0958. Deans from page 1 of Liberal Arts, will head up the search. Also on the search committee is the president and publisher of the Charleston Post and Courier, Ivan derson. At the College of Education, Fred Medway has been interim dean for four years. Medway said he only agreed to the position as interim dean because he was told he wouldn’t just be a care taker. “I haven’t had to go run to the ad ministration every time a decision was needed to be made,” Medway said. “Since I’ve been interim dean, I have pushed hard for grants and re search.” According to Medway, the school has received $4.8 million in grants this fiscal year. The school has never bro ken the $4 million mark. Also, the College of Education won a Title II grant from the U.S. De partment of Education, a grant that only 25 educational training college received in the nation. Medway said he wouldn’t be con tent on just signing papers while he was interim dean, and he said he want ed to be an aggressive leader of the college. Medway wouldn’t say if he had been offered the position as perma nent dean, or whether he would ac cept it if the job were made available to him. “Whoever the next dean is, they will face a unique challenge becau^ 15 percent of the college is retiring* the following years,” Medway said. Inauguration from page 1 ment that in encouraging SG offi cials to try to accomplish change on campus. ‘“I simply dream of things that never were and ask, “Why not?”’“ Ford quoted Kennedy as saying. “That question is still with us today.” Treasurer Ricky Shah said honesty, loyalty and trust were necessary to achieve unity. “Without these three element we can’t be one,” Shah said. w And, like Ford and Eaddy, Shah said SG should serve its constituents. “We must keep in mind that we were elected to serve the student body, not ourselves,” he said. Shah also said many students don’t recognize the importance of SG. “Many don’t realize this, but the future of the university is in our hands,” Shah said. At the same time, he said that SG should set reasonable goals. “Realistic change is what we strive for,” he said. The inauguration marks the be ginning of the 2000-2001 SG term. Applications for Cabinet positi^ are due today in the Student Govern ment office. Eaddy will begin inter viewing candidates Monday. The in terviews will last all next week, and Eaddy plans to announce her ap pointments April 4. The first meeting of the new stu dent senate will be held Wednesday.