Volume CXLII, No. 36 Since 1866, Daily Since 1891RCH 1RCH 166, 20, 200707

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Comptroller General calls for tough U.S. fi scal reform

The nation’s top accountant warned a half-full Salomon 001 Thursday against fi scal irresponsi-bility by the government or its citi-zens and called on the next presi-dent to make sober fi scal policy a top issue.

“If the next president does not make fi scal responsibility one of the top three priorities, we have a serious problem … and we can’t af-ford to have them as our president,” said David Walker, the comptroller general of the United States.

Walker, who is the head of the General Accountability Offi ce, spent much of his speech outlining the dire state of the national defi -cit and called for dramatic biparti-san efforts to control government spending and increase the savings rate among citizens, noting that

the leadership on fi scal issues has not been up to the challenge in re-cent years.

The national debt is nearly $9 trillion, he said, and during fi scal year 2006 the government ran a defi cit of between $250 billion and $450 billion, depending on how the number is measured. “Those are big numbers,” he said.

“If you look at GAO’s long term budget simulations, you’ll fi nd that if we don’t make some tough choices soon,” tax burdens in 2040 may be double, he said. “That’s the prime of your earning careers,” Walker said.

The GAO is an independent agency in the legislative branch that investigates whether taxpay-er dollars are spent effi ciently and reports its fi ndings to Congress. According to the GAO’s Web site,

BY OLIVER BOWERSSENIOR STAFF WRITER

Students, homeless occupy Welcome Arnold to prevent closure

CRANSTON — In a vigil that began early Thursday morn-ing, Brown students, homeless individuals and their advocates occupied the Welcome Arnold shelter in Cranston to protest its closure by the state.

The shelter was due to close at 7 a.m. Thursday in prepara-tion for its demolition, making way for new state police bar-racks. The sit-in — which in-volved 10 Brown students and several advocates for the home-

less — was organized by People to End Homelessness and had not ended as of Thursday eve-ning.

The fi rst students arrived at the shelter at 5:15 a.m., 15 min-utes before the daily wake-up call at Welcome Arnold, said Geoff Gusoff ’07.5, a member of Housing Opportunities for Peo-ple Everywhere. At about 6:30 a.m. a full bus of Welcome Ar-

BY JESSICA ROTONDISTAFF WRITER

Tunnels, passages lure urban explorers underground

In a Keeney Quadrangle hallway, Whit Schroder ’09 lifts a carpeted hatch and stares down into the dark hole at his feet.

He covers his hair with a faded green bandana and turns to friend Ben Struhl ’09.

“See you in a minute,” Schroder

says.Struhl watches as his friend

carefully descends a fi xed ladder into the gap in the fl oor, vanishing from sight. He closes the hatch, concealing the entrance from pub-lic view.

Inside, Schroder’s feet hit a soft, muddy surface. He stares down a long, narrow corridor lined with thick pipes that radiate heat

throughout the earthen passage. Wiping a few drops of sweat from his temple, he gains his bearings and strides down the stuffy hall-way.

This is not Schroder’s fi rst time in the famed Keeney caves.

Schroder and Struhl are two

of a small but passionate group of students who engage in urban ex-ploration on campus. Along with a few close friends, the pair attempts — and frequently succeeds — at gaining access to tunnels, attics and roofs on campus and around Providence.

“Every day we go by all these

BY CHAZ FIRESTONESENIOR STAFF WRITER

U. offi cials prepare for Starf*ck, St. Patrick’s Day

The combination of Queer Alliance’s Starf*ck party and St. Patrick’s Day on Saturday has prompted Universi-ty offi cials to prepare for the poten-tial of a large number of students re-quiring emergency medical care.

Margaret Klawunn, associate vice president for campus life and dean of student life, called Starf*ck and St. Patrick’s Day “two events in which students are likely to drink ir-responsibly.”

Much of the preparation by stu-dent life offi cials has involved deal-ing with alcohol overconsumption. In 2005, the last year Starf*ck was held, eight students at the party needed ambulance transportation, Klawunn said, adding that the num-ber of students needing medical at-tention is expected to be about the same this year.

Klawunn said Starf*ck has “nev-er been as much of a problem as Sex Power God,” the QA party tradition-ally held during the fall semester. In November 2005, Sex Power God re-sulted in 24 students requiring emer-gency medical care and attracted na-tional attention when it was featured on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.” QA was placed on probation after the party, and Starf*ck was not held the following semester. QA held Sex Power God last fall, and 14 students at that event required medical care.

The University is renting a sec-ond ambulance to be dedicated to students needing medical attention at Starf*ck, Klawunn said. The Uni-versity’s regular ambulance will be available to serve the rest of cam-pus.

BY SCOTT LOWENSTEINSENIOR STAFF WRITER

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Islandwww.browndailyherald.com

Inside Rhode Island’s crisis pregnancy centers

The phones at Problem Pregnancy rarely fall silent for more than a few minutes at a time.

The director of Providence’s only crisis pregnancy center, Da-vid O’Connell, sat in the facility’s lending library while he discussed its work, surrounded by pamphlets with titles such as “The Decision of Life” and “Contraception and Abor-tion: The Deadly Connection.” If no one had answered the phone by its third ring, O’Connell jumped up, briefl y excusing himself to take the call.

Operating inside the Mother of

Life building on Atwells Avenue, Problem Pregnancy is an indepen-dent Catholic organization that seeks to provide alternatives to abortion for women with unplanned pregnancies.

“Last year we saw 572 women by appointment,” O’Connell said. “So there’s a great need for what we do.”

Crisis pregnancy centers, or CPCs, now outnumber abortion clinics in the United States, accord-ing to an article published in Time magazine last month. The centers support women during pregnancy,

often providing pre- and post-abor-tion counseling. But critics say they use emotional pressure and mis-information to steer women away from abortion.

Care Net, one of country’s larg-est CPC organizations, is a Chris-tian group with a facility in Cran-ston. In a May 2006 report, Care Net’s headquarters estimated there were a total of 2,300 crisis preg-nancy centers nationwide, and the Time article reported that Florida, Texas, California and Ohio had well over 100 centers each.

“Some states have multiple Care Net centers,” said Janet Evanco, di-

BY ALLISSA WICKHAMSTAFF WRITER

Allissa Wickham / HeraldThe Mother of Life building on At-wells Avenue hosts Problem Preg-nancy, the city’s only crisis pregnan-cy center.

Rahul Keerthi / HeraldDavid Walker, comptroller general of the United States, spoke Thursday on the need for federal fi scal discipline.

continued on page 4 continued on page 6

continued on page 4

continued on page 4

continued on page 8

Courtesy of Matthew SilvaBrown students helped occupy the Welcome Arnold shelter in Cranston Thursday, protesting its closure by the state.

FEATURE

METRO FEATURE

METRO

“MERRILY” ROLLS BACKThe Mainstage production “Merrily We Roll Along,” a story of three friends that travels backward through time, closes this weekend

ADDRESSING EMSUniversity offi cials sought to alleviate concerns about the departure of Brown EMS’s manager and a supervisor by speaking to student EMTs

POINT-COUNTERPOINTMichael Ramos-Lynch ’09 and Jesse Adams ’07 face off on a controversial topic in college admission: affi rmative action

5CAMPUS NEWS

11OPINIONS

INSIDE:

WATER POLO TAKES HARVARDThe women’s water polo team took down Harvard this week-end, wearing them down throughout the game to come out with a 8-3 victory

12SPORTS

3ARTS & CULTURE

WBF | Matt Vascellaro

Hi, How Are You | Alison Naturale

Deo | Daniel Perez

Deep Fried Kittens | Cara FitzGibbon

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372Business Phone: 401.351.3260

Eric Beck, President

Mary-Catherine Lader, Vice President

Ally Ouh, Treasurer

Mandeep Gill, Secretary

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown

University community since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the aca-

demic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and

once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. POSTMASTER please send corrections to POSTMASTER please send corrections to POSTMASTERP.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offi ces are

located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide

Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one

semester daily. Copyright 2007 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cloudy Side Up | Mike Lauritano

Chocolate Covered Cotton | Mark Brinker

ACROSS1 Rapper who is

part owner of theNew Jersey Nets

5 Work or workers10 After-dinner drink14 __ d’amore15 Name on an old

bomber16 Smack follower17 Quechua is

among its officiallangs.

18 Cornered19 With aplomb20 Best-ever fielding

equipment?23 Touring player25 Got behind

something,maybe

26 Like Napoleon in1814

27 Roman army unit29 Drop31 “The Little

Mermaid” prince32 Wizard’s insulin

source?37 Was on the

waves?39 “Evil Woman” gp.40 Altar approaches42 Happy pants?45 Doctor’s order46 Binding force47 Like many

keyboards49 “And how!”53 __-nosed54 NaOH, familiarly55 Measure of

passion?59 Singer Cantrell60 __ vitam: during

life61 It may precede a

tummy tuck64 It could mean

trouble65 Bo who knows

modeling66 Ample, literarily67 Galley inserts68 Bendy letters69 Amorous look

DOWN1 An ex of Marilyn2 “Lost” network

3 “Do it, sister!”4 Fanaticism5 Checking out6 Got in the game7 1967 Peter

Sellers film, with“The”

8 LemonySnicket’s evilcount

9 Dustin’s “RainMan” role

10 Laughingsounds

11 Round trip?12 Chief Powhatan’s

son-in-law13 Trifled21 “What have we

here?!”22 Whitehorse is its

capital23 Court event24 Get ready to sail

again28 Brand that may

be slurped29 Facetiously,

rabbit food30 Horn or zoom

follower33 Glance that might

concern you

34 Food35 Superimposed

upon36 Hardly bland38 Java at midnight,

maybe41 Lid issue43 Reckless outing44 Is scrubbed

clean, in somecases

48 Chi.superstation

49 Home that’sdomed

50 Alpaca’s cousin51 Maverick52 Aquatic birds53 Bisque, e.g.56 Hydrocarbon

suffixes57 Game divs.58 “The People’s

Choice” dog62 Party person63 Attribute

By Stella Daily and Bruce Venzke(c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.(c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc. 3/16/07

3/16/07

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

xwordeditor@aol.com

C R O S S W O R D

TODAYTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARFRIDAY, MARFRIDAY CH 16, 2007PAGE 2

SHARPE REFECTORY

LUNCH — Vegan Lentils with Roasted Vegan Lentils with Roasted VVegetables, Lobster Bisque, Roasted Eggplant & Tomato Sandwich, Chicken Fingers, Butterscotch Layer Cake, Chocolate Chip Cookies

DINNER — Shoepeg Corn Casserole, Garlic and Butter Infused Rice, Zucchini and Summer Squash, Lima Beans, Shrimp creole, Cherry Pie

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — Vegetarian Caribbean Black Bean Soup, Manhattan Clam Chowder, Chicken Fingers with Sticky Rice, Vegan Vermicelli with Garlic Sauce, Sugar Snap Peas, Chocolate Chip Cookies

DINNER — Vegetarian Caribbean Black Bean Soup, Manhattan Clam Chowder, Italian Meatloaf, Corn Souffl e, Garlic Butter Infused Rice, Cherry Pie

M E N U

W E A T H E R

snow / wind32 / 30

rain / wind37 / 20

TODAY TOMORROW

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.

S U D O K U

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ARTS & CULTURETHE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, MARFRIDAY, MARFRIDAY CH 16, 2007 PAGE 3

In one of the most entertaining Brown productions of the season, director Curt Columbus and con-ductor Paul Phillips, senior lec-turer in music, ably brought Ste-phen Sondheim’s Broadway mu-sical “Merrily We Roll Along” to a crowded Leeds Theater March 9.

In a surprising twist, the musi-cal meta-critically describes itself by stating, “It’s fun, it’s opulent, it’s Broadway.” These words issue forth from Gussie Carnegie (Aja Nisenson ’07), a Broadway siren, well-schooled in the alluring, but ultimately empty materialism of success. With the wink and smirkof this deconstructive self-criti-cism, Sondheim derides his “musi-cal” as a frivolous and materialistic devaluation of art.

Yet Sondheim criticizes him-self too harshly. Though “Merrily” is certainly a “fun” and diverting Broadway musical, it also impor-tantly speaks to the tension be-tween art and its commoditization. Indeed, Sondheim critiques cul-tural forces that corrupt artists as well as the misguided choices art-ists make to “merrily roll along” in the empty pursuit of commercial success.

For the characters of Sond-heim’s musical, the progression of commercial success involves a regression from the optimism and hope of youth to the cynicism and despair of maturity.

The play begins in 1976 at a Hol-lywood party where the audience fi rst learns of the “old friendship” between Frank Shepard (Federico Rodriguez ’09), Charley Kringas (Jed Resnick ’07) and Mary Flynn

(Monica Willey ’07).The close friends were once

powerfully linked by the mantra “Here’s to us, who’s like us, damn few.” However, as they have aged, this mantra becomes a poignant re-minder of their failed expectations and friendship.

Frank, who showed great prom-ise as a composer in his youth, is a shallow Hollywood producer. Mary, the writer who was the fi rst of the trio to achieve success, is a stumbling alcoholic living in the past. Only Charley, the intellectual with lofty ideals about art, is a thriv-ing and important playwright.

To understand the present cir-cumstances of each character, the play rolls backwards in time from 1976 to 1957 and shifts from Los Angeles to New York. The reverse progression of time illustrates the choices each character makes that defi ne their lives and ultimately end their friendship.

Frank cheats on his wife Beth (Jaime Rosenstein ’10) with Nisen-son’s Gussie, a rising young starlet in the materialistic pursuit of com-mercial artistic success. The frus-tration of Mary’s unrequited love for Frank and her obsessive behav-ior — too much drink, too much food and too much Frank — lead the once promising writer to be-come a theater critic, a commen-tary on the turn from artistic cre-ation to criticism. Though Charley is ostensibly a success, he chooses a life of intellectual pride that ulti-mately lacks compassion for the weaknesses of his friends.

The leads — Rodriguez, Resn-ick and Willey — made the diffi cult

task of singing and acting look easy in a medium where it is often diffi -cult to strike the right balance be-tween strong singing and convinc-ing acting. Their actions moved fl u-idly, and their voices in song and speech were emotively effective.

Particularly impressive in corre-sponding meaning and tempo was the pairing of the pieces “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” and “Old Friends.” With lyrics that respectively ex-press the fast and fractured and the smooth and whole, these songs powerfully evoked the feelings that lead to the dissolution and founda-tion of friendship. The presto and precision of Resnick’s rendering of “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” conveyed Charley’s frustration with Frank’s shallow materialism. The voices of Resnick, Willey and Rodriguez each resonated with natural mellif-luousness in their joint rendition of “Old Friends.”

Most astonishing in vocal range was Rosenstein’s Beth, who shined

in both “Not a Day Goes By” and the humorous political number “Bobbie and Frankie and Jack” — one of the most delightful mo-ments in the play. With politically biting lyrics and charming acting, the number evoked the idealistic foundation of Charley and Frank’s former collaboration as lyricist and songwriter as well as the adora-tion Beth and Frank had for each other.

The quickly changing costumes (creations of Frances Romasco, costume design assistant for the Department of Theater, Speech and Dance) expressed the passage of time but sometimes served as a comedic counterpoint to the the-matic exposition of disillusionment — polyester pants and platform shoes will amuse a modern audi-ence, after all.

The sets designed by the Uni-versity’s Scenic Designer Michael McGarty were effective, but it was the music that most ably framed the

performances in the play. Through the vibrancy of beat and the evoca-tion of melody, conductor Phillips musically set a mood for the perfor-mance. His rendition of the score conveyed the emotional content of the play even when there were dra-matic gaps in the acting.

In true Broadway fashion, Sond-heim’s musical ends with stirring optimism — the song “Our Time” effectively juxtaposes the bitter-ness of age against the hope of youth. No one can change the past, but nonetheless “Merrily We Roll Along,” “moving forward and back-ward” in life.

BY LINDSEY MEYERSARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

‘Merrily’ rolls backward through time

During a single, paint-splattered evening, an enthusiastic group of musicians, designers and vol-unteers sacrifi ced the luxury of sleep and built the Technicolor stage now residing in a corner of Production Workshop’s down-stairs space.

The platform had to be large enough to accommodate the size and spunk of Joe and the Pony Express, the 10-person band that will be bringing the noise to PW March 16 to March 18.

The concert series, titled “Joe “Joe “and the Pony Express Sing Songs of Love, Joy & Desperation,” is debuting tonight and will feature original music written by Joe Pos-ner ’07, co-chair of the Brown Con-cert Agency. Various opening acts will perform on different nights, with Brown-based bands Get Him Eat Him, Miss Fairchild and the Lame Drivers playing Friday, Sat-urday and Sunday, respectively.

PW is hosting the concert se-ries as part of its annual “Week in the Space” project. Posner and his crew only had fi ve days and a limited budget to transform PW’s black box theater into a music venue.

“We wanted to put on an event for the school,” said Posner, who

created Joe and the Pony Express for his senior capstone project. A music concentrator, Posner wrote most of the band’s songs during a year-long independent study in re-cording, composition and perfor-mance.

Describing his style as a mix of rock, soul and indie music, Pos-ner lists Elvis Costello, Phil Spec-tor and Joni Mitchell as some of his infl uences.

“I really love how music ex-presses joy and is constantly an experiment,” he said, adding that he felt college was the only time he could take a stab at writing his own songs.

Many of the students playing in Joe and the Pony Express are longtime members of the Brown music scene. Jeff Wood ’07 plays drums to Posner’s bass in Get Him Eat Him, and Jason Sigal ’07 is the general manager of Brown Student Radio. Hannah Lewis ’07, the event’s co-producer and key-boardist, recently gave a classical voice recital.

Lewis, Posner and Wood have not played together at PW since their freshman year, when they performed for Musical Forum’s 2004 production of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” Since then Pos-ner said he felt there hasn’t been as much “loud, fun music” in the downstairs space.

“We want to get PW to rock out a little bit,” said Lewis, who is also one of PW’s board members.

The musicians hope to create a different atmosphere for every show. According to Lewis, Saturday is the night to “bring your dancing shoes,” while Sunday afternoon’s “Brunch Pot-Luck” show will be more laid-back. Audience members are encouraged to bring breakfast and lunch items to munch on dur-ing Sunday’s performance.

The event’s set designers didn’t let its small budget prevent them from creating what Posner calls a “very fun, child-like” space. While walking along Wickenden Street Monday night, Andrew Evans ’09 and Adria Katz ’10 rescued rough-ly 15 glass windows with thick wooden frames from a man throw-ing them out. The window frames were repainted in vibrant colors and will hang from the theater’s ceiling during the shows.

Posner said Joe and the Pony Express will likely disband af-ter this weekend, calling its per-formances a “once-in-a-lifetime”event. If concert recordings turn out well, he may decide to post them online.

Tickets for “Joe and the Pony “Joe and the Pony “Express Sing Songs of Love, Joy & Desperation” will be available an hour before each show at PW’s box offi ce in T.F. Green Hall.

BY ALLISSA WICKHAMSTAFF WRITER

Joe and the Pony Express deliver more than mail

Courtesy of Brian GastonFederico Rodriguez ’09, Jed Resnick ’07 and Monica Willey ’07 (left to right) star in Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along,” directed by Curt Columbus and conducted by Paul Phillips.

REVIEW

FRIDAY, MARCH 16

Pulp Uncovered Festival — Exhibit: John Nicholas Brown Center, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Film Screening: Cable Car Cinema, 6:15 p.m.

Opening Reception for the 27th Student Art Exhibit — David Winton Bell Gallery, 7 p.m.

9th Annual Daniel Milano ’93 Memorial Jazz Concert — Salomon Center, 8 p.m.

Fusion Dance Co. Annual Show — Ashamu Dance Theater, 8 p.m.

Brown Taiwan Society’s Nightmarket — Sayles Hall, 8 p.m.

Joe & the Pony Express Sing Songs Of Love, Joy & Desperation with Get Him Eat Him — Production Workshop, 8:30 p.m.

SATURDAY, MARCH 17

Pulp Uncovered Festival — Exhibit: John Nicholas Brown Center,10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Film Screenings: Cable Car Cinema and RISD Auditorium, 1:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Ides of March Dance and Dinner Buffet — Brown Faculty Club, 5 p.m. $35.

Joe & the Pony Express Sing Songs Of Love, Joy & Desperation with Miss Fairchild — Production Workshop, 8:30 p.m.

Brown University Chorus Spring Concert — Sayles Hall, 8 p.m. $4, $2 w/ID.

Fusion Dance Co. Annual Show — Ashamu Dance Theater, 8 p.m.

SUNDAY, MARCH 18

Pulp Uncovered Festival — Exhibit: John Nicholas Brown Center,10 a.m. – 8 p.m. Film Screenings: Cable Car Cinema and RISD Auditorium, 11 a.m.–10 p.m.

Joe & the Pony Express Sing Songs Of Love, Joy & Desperation with Lame Drivers — Production Workshop, 1:30 p.m.

Fusion Dance Co. Annual Show — Ashamu Dance Theater, 2 p.m.

EDITORS’ PICKS

EVENT INFO

“Merrily We Roll Along”Leeds Theater

Friday, March 16, 7 p.m.Saturday, March 17, 7 p.m.Sunday, March 18, 2 p.m.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2007PAGE 4

nold residents left for Crossroads of Rhode Island in Providence, the designated overfl ow shelter for the time being, he said. Approxi-mately 25 homeless stayed behind with the protestors to occupy the building.

“The idea is to use the build-ing as a bargaining chip and to say the governor (Gov. Donald Car-cieri ’65) promised that it would not be closed until every person was accommodated. Because that was not the case, the idea was to make him stand up to his word,” said Elizabeth Ochs ’07.5, co-chair of HOPE.

“We will be occupying the build-ing for as long as necessary,” said Cathy Rhodes of People to End Homelessness, who organized the protest. She said she is encourag-ing any homeless people who had been housed at Welcome Arnold and who have received placement to go to their assigned destinations, as she is unsure how long they will be able to occupy the building.

Dennis Langley, director of the Urban League of Rhode Island, said he has operated the Welcome Arnold shelter since its opening

15 years ago. He stood outside to watch the last busload of residents go.

“It is appropriate for these indi-viduals to have permanent housing — if we have permanent housing available for them,” he said with tears in his eyes. “It’s apparent that, based on the numbers that were are seeing right now, there is a lack of housing for many of these individuals.”

Noreen Shawcross, head of the state’s Offi ce of Housing and Com-munity Development, represented Carcieri at the protest and said the priority is to fi nd housing for the homeless who have not yet been placed in alternative housing.

“We have a big job ahead of us today to make sure that everybody gets to where they need to go, and that we know who comes in look-ing for shelter that we haven’t yet placed,” she said. “Today, for me, is about working for the people one-on-one, who are homeless,” she told The Herald.

Shawcross told the protestors, “When I leave this building today — giving someone a ride to one of the a lot of additional facilities, going out to Crossroads — my job is to focus on the people who are

homeless and this building is no longer my responsibility.”

But several homeless individu-als at the protest told The Herald they do not think their concerns are being adequately addressed.

“I have been here for a month, and now they are closing?” said a former Welcome Arnold resident who asked to be identifi ed as Wil-liam. “My girlfriend is fi ve-and-a-half months pregnant and there is no place for us to go together,” he said.

“Because I am … pregnant, my fi ance wouldn’t want me in anoth-er shelter where he wouldn’t know where I was. What are the chanc-es of us fi nding a shelter that puts men and women together?” Wil-liam’s girlfriend asked.

“This shelter is the only place 95 percent of us know,” she add-ed.

William said he is also con-cerned about overcrowding at Crossroads. He says the crowd-ing of other homeless shelters af-ter Welcome Arnold’s closure will jeopardize his chances of getting into a housing program.

As of Thursday evening, police had not removed the protestors from Welcome Arnold and they

had not been not asked to leave, Gusoff said.

“I think it is wonderful that stu-dents and homeless folks and ad-vocates are here today to support these people, expressing their outrage in this protest,” said Jim Ryczek, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless. “It’s really sad that it’s come to this,” he added.

But, Shawcross said, there is lit-tle hope the protestors will achieve their aims.

“Keeping Welcome Arnold open wouldn’t solve anything, it really wouldn’t,” Shawcross told camera crews and protestors in the building. “This building does have to close. We have done exact-ly what people who are homeless and their advocates have asked us to do. And yes, right now, today, we have to sort this thing out.”

In response, Dave “Doc” St. Germain, a former Welcome Ar-nold resident, said the state’s ef-fort to house the displaced home-less through Operation First Step was appreciated but not enough.

“I just want to state for the re-cord that all of the people who were in on this process — the coalition, to us, to the Brown students, ev-

eryone — has worked very hard to cooperate to make Operation First Step as successful as possible,” he said. “But don’t confuse coopera-tion and effort with approval.”

Gusoff said if the state delayed the closure of Welcome Arnold by even a month, more housing for those who did not get a place to stay under Operation First Step could be found. He added that the warmer weather later in the spring could help those who are displaced, “rather than March 15, today, when it could be six degrees tomorrow, you don’t know.”

Jesse Reedy, 20, was one of the younger homeless occupying the building yesterday. He said he came to the shelter on Dec. 7 last year and has been sleeping at the Welcome Arnold and the Urban League since then.

“I think the best plan would be to do (Operation First Step) again, because there were obviously not enough beds,” he said.

“It will take a couple of weeks to sort this out,” Shawcross said to the crowd of homeless, protes-tors and advocates. “Change is al-ways hard. But when all is said and done, this is going to be much bet-ter for everyone.”

EMTs will roam outside Alum-nae Hall, where Starf*ck will be held, assisting intoxicated stu-dents until an ambulance can pro-vide further support. Health Ser-vices will also have an additional EMT working in the infi rmary to care for students there.

Two student life deans will also be at the dance, and Allen Ward, senior associate dean for student life, will be on campus Saturday night and will periodically check in with offi cials at the party to make sure the event is “running smooth-ly,” Klawunn said.

Security at the event � which � which �will be similar to efforts for Sex Power God in November � will in-� will in-�clude provisions to prevent intoxi-cated students from entering and disrupting the dance.

“When a student is visibly in-toxicated, they will be turned away at the door,” Ward told The Herald. Department of Public Safety offi cers will search Alum-nae Hall before Starf*ck to check for hidden stashes of alcohol or drugs, Klawunn said. University offi cials found one packet of an illicit substance taped to a toilet tank in the fall.

Event policies will be enforced by both Department of Public Safety offi cers and hired security offi cers from Green Horn Man-agement, the same company that provided security for SPG in the

fall. Six DPS offi cers and 10 con-tracted security workers will staff the event, said Shelley Adriance, coordinator for student activities and leadership programs.

Starf*ck student organizers will also use barriers to prevent students from interfering with the line to enter the party.

As a proactive effort to reduce the likelihood of alcohol problems Saturday, Health Education offi -cials worked with QA student or-ganizers to emphasize on Starf*ck advertising that intoxicated stu-dents will not be able to enter the event. Health Education has led a more general campaign to prevent alcohol overconsumption due to St. Patrick’s Day.

The University is also support-ing alcohol-free alternatives to the dance. “There are 14 events this weekend, 10 of which are alcohol-free,” Adriance said. “There are a lot of options on campus this week-end that don’t involve drinking.”

University offi cials stressed that these preventative measures are not meant to put a damper on the evening.

“This is the spring fundraiser for the Queer Alliance, and so we want it to be a successful fundraiser for that event,” Klawunn said. “We hope that this event will celebrate the queer community at Brown, be a fun event for any Brown student that wants to attend and that peo-ple will be safe and have fun at the same time.”

buildings and we never think about them,” Struhl said. “This is all about looking at the world more deeply.”

As Schroder explores the bow-els of Keeney, he encounters a se-ries of low-lying pipes that would impede an amateur. But without hesitation, the urban explorer shim-mies along the ground, his bandana grazing the pipes as he passes un-derneath them.

He emerges with both dirt and a smile on his face and continues down the tunnel, making calculat-ed turns until he reaches a more spacious area covered with slant-ed wooden planks. He climbs up the slope of the longest plank to a raised area with a door, and opens it to fi nd Struhl standing in a bright Keeney hallway.

The two don’t have any objec-tive beyond experiencing the thrill of exploring the University’s hidden spaces.

“I’ve always been interested in architecture, so I like to see differ-ent areas of the buildings,” Schrod-er said. “But really I just love seeing new things.”

Struhl said he likes the connec-tion with the past that urban explo-ration gives him.

“We fi nd really old and amazing things just lying around in tunnels and attics,” he said. “We’ve found documents from the 1900s, includ-ing a 1904 speech given by some professor of minerology.”

But not all they fi nd is as wel-come as these vestiges of the past. Schroder and Struhl said they con-stantly see beer bottles and candy wrappers littering the places they explore and observe evidence that past visitors have abused the spaces and the equipment in them.

The explorers said they prefer to treat the environments as muse-ums, typically endorsing a look-but-don’t-touch policy.

“People abuse these places, and it can give the rest of us a bad name,” Struhl said. “We feel that we have the responsibility to make sure these often-delicate places aren’t ruined by drunk students who just happen to stumble in.”

Schroder and Struhl have made

this careful approach a key facet of their urban exploration activities and were quick to distinguish them-selves from trouble-causers and mischief-makers.

“A lot of people do this sort of thing because they want to break the law,” Schroder said. “But we ex-plore for the pleasure of exploration itself.”

Values like these are part of an understood “code” of urban explo-ration, a pastime that has gained international prominence since groups from Toronto, Australia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology popularized the activity in the 1990s.

Tenets of the code espoused by these explorers include a keen emphasis on safety and a natural-istic approach that downplays pick-ing locks and promotes alternative methods of entry.

“We know when we’re getting in over our heads,” said Schroder, who led groups into Crystal Cave at Cali-fornia’s Sequoia National Park over the summer. “We’re not ashamed to turn around if a situation seems too dangerous.”

“Access All Areas: A User’s Guide to the Art of Urban Explora-tion,” written by popular urban ex-plorer Jeff Chapman under his ex-plorer alias “Ninjalicious,” contin-ues to spread awareness of urban exploration along with his popular Web site, infi ltration.org, even since Chapman’s death in 2005.

Schroder and Struhl have taken cues from Chapman and other ur-ban explorers by forming an unof-fi cial on-campus club and a Face-book group called “Boundless: The Brown Urban Exploration Society.”

“We just started it a couple of months ago as a bunch of friends with similar interests,” said Struhl, the creator of the Facebook group. “Now we’ve got over 40 members, which is tons more than we ex-pected.”

The core group of about seven friends has entered and discovered hidden spaces in many campus buildings. They’ve been to attics in Faunce House and Wilson Hall, roofs of Perkins Hall and Manning Chapel and tunnels beneath An-drews Hall and Wriston Quadran-

gle. But those are just their favor-ites.

“We’ve mapped out most of the campus by now,” said Struhl.

Back under Keeney, Schroder and Struhl make their way from house to house, guided by memo-ry and landmark graffi ti. Along the way, they discover a mechanical room neither had seen before and they excitedly enter it. Fascinated by what most would consider mun-dane objects, the two read a main-tenance log and try to discern the functions of the many pieces of ma-chinery in the rooms.

After they decide the trip to the Keeney caves has been productive enough, they head back to the door Struhl opened for Schroder, emerg-ing from the caves into an incon-spicuous hallway.

The pair said they don’t plan to return to Keeney in the near future — instead, they will look for new challenges on and off campus.

“It’s as if each new building or door is calling our name,” Schroder said. “We almost feel like we have a responsibility to explore each new place that we see.”

With new targets in sight and plans to reach them underway, Schroder and Struhl said they and “Boundless” are headed in an excit-ing but responsible direction.

“We subscribe to the philosophy of Ninjalicious,” Struhl said. “ ‘Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints.’ ”

continued from page 1

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Starf*ck and St. Patrick’s Day could give U. offi cials, students headaches

Students occupy Welcome Arnold homeless shelter to protest closure

Urban explorers fi nd secret spaces on campus

Chaz Firestone / HeraldA view of a Jameson hallway from the “Keeney Caves.”

CAMPUS NEWSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2007 PAGE 5

U. offi cials address EMS turnover, second ambulance

After months of uncertainty fol-lowing the departure of Brown Emergency Medical Services’ manager and a supervisor, Uni-versity offi cials met Monday with student emergency medical tech-nicians in an attempt to improve communication and create a cli-mate of openness.

The student EMT program has “been through a lot” since the unexpected departure earlier this semester of manager Richard Lapierre and supervisor Anthony Fusco, as well as the sale of the University’s second ambulance, said Beth Hoffman ’07, a senior EMT.

“A lot of the problems this se-mester have come from student EMTs feeling like they are be-ing left out of the loop,” Hoffman said.

Student EMTs met Monday with Margaret Klawunn, associ-ate vice president for campus life and dean of student life, and Ed-ward Wheeler, director of Health Services.

Klawunn told The Herald the meeting was designed to “make sure that we had a chance to talk to the students face-to-face. We wanted to give them a chance to

have some back and forth.”A major impetus for the meet-

ing was to discuss the person-nel changes. Student EMTs were unaware of Fusco’s status until Klawunn confi rmed Monday that he is no longer working at the University, and they did not learn of Lapierre’s departure until The Herald reported Feb. 15 that he had offi cially resigned more than a week earlier, Hoffman said.

A search is now underway to fi nd a successor to Lapierre.

“Applications are coming in now (for the manager position), and we hope that the position will be fi lled by the end of this academ-ic year,” Klawunn said. A search to replace Fusco has not yet started, and the position will probably not be posted without “more input from current EMS supervisors and Dr. Wheeler about the best way to proceed,” she said.

The sale of the University’s ambulance over winter break was also discussed at the meeting.

It was unclear to student EMTs “what the reasons were for getting rid of it and … why students were not informed of the sale of Rescue Two,” Hoffman said, referring to the second ambulance.

“A second ambulance is not jus-tifi ed for the number of calls we re-ceive and the expense,” Klawunn

said. “Even if we are not making a decision that they might want … we are making that decision in the context of what is good for EMS.”Klawunn also stressed that the EMS program is valuable to both students and the University.

“EMS is a great educational op-portunity for (student volunteers) that we think provides a unique chance for them to get some (medical) experience on campus,” Klawunn told The Herald.

Klawunn acknowledged that administrators could incorporate student volunteers more in the fu-ture. Klawunn and Wheeler prom-ised to improve communication with student volunteers.

“This semester, it has become apparent to me how important it is and how much the student volunteers want to be involved,” Klawunn said. “Previously, it was my expectation to work with the medical director and EMS super-visors, but it is clear to me how much the student volunteers … want to hear what is going on.”

Overall, Hoffman said, the meeting was productive.

“I was glad that they (Klawunn and Wheeler) wanted to talk to stu-dents and recognized that there is a need for more communication” between EMTs and University of-fi cials, she said.

BY SCOTT LOWENSTEINSENIOR STAFF WRITER

U. awards $400k in seed grants to 7 profs

N E W S I N B R I E F

Seven grants totaling $405,000 were awarded in January by the Offi ce of the Vice President for Research through the annual Seed Fund Award. Es-tablished in 2003, the seed fund supports “activities necessary to advance large-scale, interdisciplinary, multi-investigator proposals, such as collect-ing preliminary data and facilitating collaboration,” according to the offi ce’s Web site.

Seed fund grants, which provide up to $100,000 for one year of research, can be awarded to professors regardless of rank and senior lecturers in any discipline. Applicants are selected on the basis of the project’s “intrinsic mer-it,” potential impact, likelihood of successful completion and potential to se-cure external funding after the fi rst year.

Winners of the award told The Herald that their interdisciplinary research would not have been possible without the grant money.

Kenneth Wong, professor of education, is performing a study of chem-istry programs in countries that outperform the United States at the high-school level. “What we are going to fi nd will have some broad implications for urban schools. We will be able to make recommendations to urban edu-cators and policy makers,” he said. “(The) seed fund allowed us to cross disci-plines. That is the nature of this project, since we are engaging physical and social sciences.”

Without the seed money, Wong said his project would have had diffi cul-ty getting off the ground, because most external funding is contingent on having concrete data already collected and is often restricted to a single discipline.

“Because of the size of the grant, we are able to perform the study in several countries at the same time and are able to tap into international da-tabases. The seed money allowed us to accelerate the pace of this research, so that by the end of this project year we will be able to apply for external funding,” Wong said.

Assistant Professor of Medical Science Alexander Brodsky is researching the potential for Vitamin D to kill ovarian cancer cells by exposing cells to microwave radiation treatments and measuring for responses to this ther-apy. “What we do is we inject a mouse with a compound to make it grow a tumor, collect samples at various points and study the samples to try to un-derstand what the effects of the microwaves were,” he said.

“The (seed fund award) gave an opportunity for us to do experiments, which will let us get external funding. To get external funding, you must (al-ready) have data to show that the research is working. We want to do stud-ies in humans in the longer run, for which we will need external funding,” Brodsky said.

Professor of Biology David Rand, who applied for a grant to study nanoparticle toxicity in animals, would also not have been able to proceed without the seed fund program. Rand wrote in an e-mail to The Herald, “With a positive result from the seed fund project … we can put together a strong proposal to (the National Science Foundation). Without the seed fund re-sults, such a proposal would be rejected as a ‘fi shing expedition.’ So, the val-ue of the seed funds is to allow us to carry out the ‘fi shing expedition’ and deliver some tasty ‘fi sh’ to NSF … for serious multi-year funding.”

— Andrew Kurtzman

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2007PAGE 6

rector of CareNet Rhode Island in Cranston. “We just feel we have a special mission as the only one in Rhode Island.”

Founded in the 1980s, Problem Pregnancy and CareNet are the two crisis pregnancy centers closest to Brown’s campus, though there are additional centers in Westerly and Middletown. There are currently more CPCs than abortion providers in the state, as there are only two abortion clinics in Rhode Island.

Representatives from both the state’s CPCs and abortion provid-ers insist they have little direct in-teraction. But before Women’s Sur-gical Services closed its doors in October 2004, the abortion clinic stood across the street from Prob-lem Pregnancy on Atwells Avenue. Women’s Surgical’s former location partly infl uenced Problem Preg-nancy’s 2004 relocation to Atwells, said the center’s counselor, Marlo Mooney. Though occasionally aided by community volunteers, Mooney and O’Connell are the center’s only full-time employees.

Both CareNet and Problem Pregnancy provide female clients with a variety of free services, be-ginning with a rapid pregnancy test. If the woman is pregnant and seems undecided about what to do, the centers provide her with “pre-abortion option consultation” that includes “full information regard-ing the abortion procedure and its risks, the adoption option and the parenting option,” Evanco said.

Though the centers offer ser-vices to women regardless of their religious beliefs, spirituality is often brought up during counseling ses-sions.

“We may ask them, ‘Do you have a parish that you belong to? Do you believe in God? How do you think God feels about your condition right now?’ ” O’Connell said, adding that Problem Pregnancy routinely con-nects women who express an inter-est in religion to local churches.

If a woman remains unsure of what to do after counseling, the centers will offer to give her an ul-

trasound.Because Problem Pregnancy’s

sole counselor, Mooney, holds a bachelor’s degree in social work and not nursing, she cannot per-form the procedure. A certifi ed nurse comes to the center twice a month to administer ultrasounds to women O’Connell described as “most abortion vulnerable.”

CareNet’s counselors, who are trained using “Equipped to Serve,” a counseling manual produced by a former Baltimore CPC director, are also uncertifi ed to perform ultra-sounds. The center’s brand new ul-trasound machine is still in its wrap-ping, resting in the middle of the center’s former kitchen.

Purchased with a grant from faith-based nonprofi t Focus on the Family, the machine has prompted what Evanco called CareNet’s “med-ical conversion process.” Once the process is complete, the center will be able to offer clients fi rst trimes-ter ultrasounds during all three of its operating days each week. Cur-rently, CareNet patients who accept the counselors’ ultrasound offer are sent to a CPC in Fall River, Mass.

Both Evanco and Mooney deny using emotional pressure when counseling their clients.

“We do not use any kind of graphic pictures,” Evanco said, add-ing that CareNet employees are not judgmental or coercive during counseling sessions.

Mooney said she does not reg-ularly use visual aids when speak-ing to clients, but the center’s wait-ing room contains a pamphlet with graphic pictures of aborted fetus-es. Mooney said the pictures were partly there for community mem-bers researching abortion at the center.

“90 percent of the time I don’t use that in counseling,” she said, adding that she only shows the pamphlet to clients who request to see it.

CareNet gives its clients pam-phlets warning them about the dan-gers of abortion, such as one titled, “Making an Informed Decision About Pregnancy,” which lists hem-orrhage, infection leading to infer-

tility, breast cancer and, occasion-ally, death as potential risks.

“We will not give out any infor-mation that has not been verifi ed or researched as being truthful. That’s number one — to speak the truth,” Evanco said.

Some of the center’s data con-fl icts with more recent studies. In 2003, the National Cancer Insti-tute — a part of the National In-stitutes of Health — found there was no link between breast cancer and abortion. The Guttmacher In-stitute, a nonprofi t affi liated with Planned Parenthood, found in 1999 that fewer than 0.3 percent of abor-tion patients require hospitalization after the procedure. According to a 2006 study cited by the institute, the fatality risk of childbirth is 12 times as high as the risk associated with an abortion.

In addition to abortion’s phys-ical dangers, the centers also advise women of the emotion-al trauma they may experience after an abortion. Evanco said she regularly speaks with grief-stricken women who take part in CareNet’s 10-week post-abortion recovery program.

Problem Pregnancy materials that describe post-abortion stress, such as “Surgical Abortion: Your Risks,” cite teenage abortion pa-tients as 10 times more likely to commit suicide in the six months after their procedure than other teenage girls. The pamphlet fre-quently references the research of David Reardon, founder of the pro-life Elliot Institute, who holds a Ph.D. from Pacifi c Western Uni-versity, an unaccredited, online col-lege based in San Diego.

Both centers also help newly pregnant women fi nd housing and fi nancial assistance through gov-ernment programs like Medicaid. Problem Pregnancy is affi liated with the Little Flower Home in Ti-verton, where women can live while carrying their pregnancy to term.

Some long-term clients also re-ceive baby supplies. CareNet’s New Beginnings program awards wom-en who attend weekly counseling sessions “baby bucks” that can be

used in the center’s “shop,” fi lled with clothes, blankets and other ac-cessories donated by Wal-Mart and Kohl’s department store.

As pro-abstinence organiza-tions, the centers do not offer cli-ents contraception, though Evanco said CareNet refers women seek-ing birth control to a physician. CareNet receives federal funding for its “sexual integrity abstinence program,” while Problem Pregnan-cy benefi ts from state grants. Yet both centers largely rely on chari-table donations.

Some of the funds are reserved for advertisements, like the ones O’Connell said Problem Pregnan-cy places near Providence’s high schools, colleges and bars. The four CareNet billboards in Rhode Island read “Pregnant and Scared?” and list an 800 number for women to call, according to Evanco.

Both Evanco and Mooney said they always tell women looking for abortions that the centers do not provide them.

“We’re up front about that. We’re not trying to trick somebody,” Mooney said.

Still, it seems some women may not know what to expect when visit-ing a CPC.

Linda, a counselor at Women’s Medical Center in Cranston — one of the state’s two abortion providers — declined to give her last name but said her patients have described be-ing “guilted” and “terrifi ed” at local crisis pregnancy centers.

Lori Larusso, another coun-selor at Women’s Medical Center, said one patient told her a CPC in Massachusetts had incorrectly in-formed her she could not have an abortion until she was 12 weeks pregnant.

“These centers try to make it very emotional for the women. … They talk to them about being a ‘mommy,’” Larusso said.

Linda disputed CPCs’ claims that abortions are unsafe.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think it was safe,” she said. “I’d send my daughter here.”

Counselors at both Women’s Medical Center and Planned Par-

enthood said they send women away on the day of their procedure if they sense any hesitation, and both clinics inform patients of non-abortion options.

“Anyone who’s telling us she’s undecided, we say, ‘Look, go home,’ ” said Harriet Singer, a counselor at Planned Parenthood. “Perhaps if you’re sure enough tomorrow, you can come back. … But not today.”

J. Cherry, health educator at University Health Services, said she would never send a student to a CPC because some of them “give out misinformation.”

But some students agree with the centers’ work. Joanna Joly ’07, president of Brown Students for Life, brought O’Connell to cam-pus last semester to speak about student volunteer opportunities at Problem Pregnancy.

“I think that the pregnancy cen-ters in Providence are an extremely important part of the pro-life move-ment here,” said Joly, who is plan-ning a pro-life discussion panel for April.

Other students disagree with the CPCs’ practices.

“It’s really terrible that they’re federally funded,” said Lily Shield ’09, a member of Brown’s Students for Choice. “That seems to violate the boundary of church and state.” Shield also described the CPCs’ practices as “guilt-tripping.”

Standing in one of the center’s counseling rooms, Evanco shook her head when considering criti-cisms of the center. She’d just spent an hour describing how CareNet builds relationships with its cli-ents and provides them with a sec-ond family when they need it most, sometimes going so far as to ride with women to the hospital after they go into labor. But just in case she hadn’t made herself clear or had misrepresented the center to college women who she believes might need it most, Evanco repeat-ed the center’s mission.

“We are pro-woman,” she said. “We want them to have all the facts about abortion, the procedure and its risks. And just to be there for them.”

Rhode Island’s crisis pregnancy centers: A look insidecontinued from page 1

happybirthdayfathers

WORLD & NATIONTHE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2007 PAGE 7

Cuomo probes ‘deceptive practices’ on college loans

W O R L D I N B R I E F

(Newsday) — As part of his offi ce’s continuing investigation of 100 col-leges and a half-dozen private student loan providers, New York Attor-ney General Andrew Cuomo charged Thursday that “deceptive prac-tices” carried out by colleges and student loan providers have been taking advantage of students.

The “most obvious and egregious scheme,” Cuomo said in an inter-view Thursday, involved some schools receiving payment from lend-ers on their ”preferred lender” list based on the loan volume.

“The more students a lender gets, the more the school receives in payment. You can call it a commission, you can call it a kickback,” Cuo-mo said. “Also, the fewer lenders the school lists as preferred, the more a school will get.” He said if a commission is paid and undisclosed “then it’s deceptive” and illegal.

Cuomo said that the 100 colleges being looked at “are public and private, the big schools, the small schools and some of the highest-ranking.” But he would not identify them or their locations because the investigation is continuing.

His offi ce also is probing six lenders: Sallie Mae Inc., the nation’s largest student loan provider; Nelnet Inc.; Education Finance Partners Inc.; EduCap Inc.; the College Board and CIT Group Inc.

Spokesmen for three lenders reached Thursday — College Board, Sallie Mae and Nelnet — said they were cooperating with the attorney general’s probe. Tom Joyce, Sallie Mae spokesman, added, “We do not pay fees or kickbacks of any kind for loan volume, as is alleged.”

Cuomo also released a letter sent Thursday to 400 college and uni-versity presidents — in New York and certain other states — warning them to “end or fully disclose potential confl icts of interests in their re-lationships with private lenders.”

YouTube, CBS hatch ‘March Madness’ deal(Los Angeles Times) — Media mogul Sumner Redstone has had a love-hate affair with YouTube this week.

No sooner had one company he controls, Viacom Inc., sued the online video site for $1 billion than another company he controls, CBS Inc., struck a major deal with it.

Under an agreement announced Thursday, YouTube will show CBS clips from the “March Madness” NCAA basketball tournament. The disclosure comes as Viacom, CBS’s former sister company, is al-leging that YouTube allowed users to lift and post more than 150,000 unauthorized clips from scores of Viacom shows such as “The Col-bert Report,” “Ren & Stimpy” and “The Daily Show.”

In an interview, Redstone praised the CBS deal with YouTube, saying that paying to use clips is the kind of arrangement Viacom should get as well.

“The deal that CBS did with YouTube is in no way inconsistent with the Viacom position, which is not to permit any person or company to misappropriate its product without paying for it,” Redstone said.

E-mails detail Rove involvement in attorneys’ fi ringsBY RICHARD SERRANO AND RICHARD SCHMITTLOS ANGELES TIMES

WASHINGTON — White House political adviser Karl Rove more than two years ago began seek-ing input from the Department of Justice into how many U.S. attor-neys should be fi red in the second Bush administration, according to new e-mails released Thursday that show a deeper White House involvement in the fi rings of fed-eral prosecutors last year.

The e-mails also show that the Justice Department was willing to defer to Rove on the matter.

According to new e-mails re-leased Thursday, Rove in Janu-ary 2005 asked the White House counsel’s offi ce about its plans for the nation’s federal prosecutors and whether it would fi re some or all of them.

Three days later D. Kyle Samp-son, a Justice offi cial and soon to be deputy chief of staff to Attor-ney General Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, responded with a point-by-point strategy on how the administra-tion might proceed.

“As an operational matter,” Sampson wrote, “we would like to replace 15 percent to 20 percent of the 93 U.S. attorneys” whom they considered “the underperforming ones.” The others, Sampson said, “are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies.”

But, as a “political matter,” Sampson cautioned that “when push comes to shove” home-state senators who supported their pros-ecutors likely would resist the fi r-ings. Nevertheless, Sampson said, “if Karl thinks there would be po-litical will to do it, so do I.”

The administration eventually

fi red eight U.S. attorneys, at fi rst saying they were let go for job performance reasons. But new details surfacing in a Democratic-led Capitol Hill investigation are suggesting that politics may have been the prime mover in jettison-ing the prosecutors. The adminis-tration denies that.

White House offi cials have said that initially former White House counsel Harriet Miers fl oated the idea of fi ring all the prosecu-tors. But they said her idea was scrapped by Gonzales and others who thought it impractical. The e-mails released Thursday suggest that Rove had also brought up the idea of getting the resignations of all 93.

On Thursday the White House denied that Rove had hatched the plot to fi re all of them, with White House spokeswoman Dana Peri-no saying that the new e-mail ex-change “does not contradict nor is it inconsistent with what we have said.”

Miers was named to succeed Gonzales as counsel to the presi-dent in November 2004. “During that time, and until she takes over on Feb. 3, 2005, when the attorney general was confi rmed, she would have been thinking about transi-tion issues,” Perino said.

“Karl Rove has a recollection of hearing it from Harriet, and think-ing it was a bad idea,” Perino said. “There is nothing in this e-mail that changes that.”

“It is not clear when the idea fi rst originates, but the bottom line is, the idea is never pursued,” Perino said.

At the Department of Justice, spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said Gonzales “has no recollection of any plan or discussion to replace U.S. attorneys while he was still

White House counsel.”She added, “The period of time

referred to in the e-mail was dur-ing the weeks he was preparing for his confi rmation hearing (as attorney general), and his focus was on that.

“Of course, discussions of changes in presidential appoin-tees would have been appropri-ate and normal White House ex-changes in the days and months after the election.”

Congressional Democrats seized on the new e-mails as evi-dence of a wider White House po-litical role in the fi rings.

The e-mails “show conclusively that Karl Rove was in the middle of this mess from the beginning,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. He predicted “a crescendo for the attorney general to resign,” and asserted there was “an active and avid discussion in the White House on whether he should re-sign.”

Also on Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee authorized subpoenas for fi ve top Justice de-partment offi cials involved in the fi rings. Democrats on the panel also sought subpoenas for Rove and Miers, but Republicans on the committee opposed it.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., Thursday became the latest Re-publican to express concern about Gonzales but stopped short of say-ing he should quit.

The fi rst new e-mail, released late Thursday by the Justice De-partment as it was being sent over to congressional Democrats, is from Colin Newman to David G. Leitch, both then offi cials in the White House counsel’s offi ce. The e-mail is dated June 6, 2005, and ti-

continued on page 8

T U E S D AY, M A R C H 2 0 , 2 0 0 7

7 P. M . L I S T 12 0

A CO N V ER SAT I O N W I T HA CO N V ER SAT I O N W I T H

Lance Williams ’72 is a reporter on the investigative team at the San

Francisco Chronicle, where he helped break many of the newspaper’s

exclusive stories on the BALCO steroid scandal. With Mark Fainaru-Wada,

he wrote “Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO and the Steroids Scandal

that Rocked Professional Sports.” Lance has also reported on subjects

including the California cocaine trade, Oakland’s Black Panther Party and

the career of San Francisco mayor and political power-broker Willie Brown.

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

SP O N S O R ED BY T H E B R OW N DA I LY H ER A L D, O FFI CE O F A LUM N I R EL AT I O N S A N D C A M PUS L I FE & S T U D EN T SER V I CE S

T H E B R O W N D A I L Y H E R A L D P R E S E N T S

L AN CE WI L L IA MS ’72

the offi ce saved the government $51 billion — or $105 per dollar in-vested in the offi ce — in fi scal year 2006.

The comptroller general serves a 15-year term, giving Walker what he described as the freedom to criticize spending issues in the government of either party. Walk-er’s term expires in 2013.

The major issue lawmakers must address is rising spending on health care, Walker said. “Heath care is the number-one fi scal chal-lenge for the federal government, … state governments and … Amer-ican business. If there’s one thing that could bankrupt America, it’s health care,” he said.

Walker called the Medicare pre-scription drug program — which was signed into law with an “$8 tril-lion price tag” — the “poster child” of the problem.

Walker also warned of a savings

defi cit caused by overspending by U.S. citizens.

“For the last two years in a row, American households … have been spending more money that they make. … In the not too dis-tant future, they may not be able to make the minimum payment,” Walker said. “The last time Amer-ican households spent more mon-ey than they brought in … (was) the Great Depression.” He added, however, that he doesn’t think an-other major depression is on the horizon.

Without savings, Walker cau-tioned, the nation will be unable to invest in the research and develop-ment that leads to innovation, eco-nomic growth and greater dispos-able income.

“We are in a situation where we are eating our seed corn and mort-gaging our future because we’re living for today rather than prepar-ing for a better tomorrow,” Walker said.

Foreign investors with high sav-ings rates such as China, Japan and Korea currently fund the U.S. bud-get defi cit and allow the Federal Reserve to maintain fairly low in-terest rates, Walker said.

“They have been willing to lend us their excess savings at reason-ably low interest rates to fund our excess consumption,” Walker said. “The question is, how much longer will they be willing to lend us tens and hundreds of billions of dollars that we will need if we don’t in-crease our own savings rate? And what price will we have to pay in or-der to attract that capital?”

In 2006, the percentage of the federal budget dedicated to paying off interest on the debt increased from 7 to 9 percent, or $227 billion, Walker said. “If there’s a single item of waste in the federal budget, it’s probably interest on the federal debt because you get nothing for it. It’s paying for past sins.”

A growing defi cit or higher in-

terest rates could send the nation “past the tipping point,” Walker said.

“We’ve gone from being the world’s biggest creditor nation to the world’s biggest debtor na-tion,” Walker said. “The miracle of compound (interest) works for you when you’re an investor, but (it) works against you if you’re a debtor.”

Walker called on offi cials to con-sider the long-term sustainability of tax cuts and spending increases and restore budget controls, simi-lar to those that expired in 2002.

Walker said students should plan and save for their retirements. “You’re going to need it,” he said.

As the 2008 presidential election approaches, Walker said he will seek out presidential candidates from both parties after they have

been winnowed down to speak with them about fi scal issues. He said it is unlikely that President Bush will enact the sweeping changes he be-lieves are necessary.

“I try to get people to look lon-ger range, look broader, do the right thing,” Walker said. Walker also called on students to take on public service positions, including teaching.

Students reacted positively to Walker’s speech.

Cash McCracken ’08, chair of the Undergraduate Finance Board, said the lecture was “an excellent speech.” He said its nonpartisan nature was “refreshing” and add-ed that he was disappointed more people didn’t show up.

Zachary Townsend ’09, a for-mer Herald opinions columnist, called Walker’s message a “sober-ing” look at a “pending fi scal disas-ter.”

“For a lot of people in our gen-eration, there’s always that ques-tion of ‘What can I do?’ ” Townsend said. “He answered that.”

Ben Creo ’07 said Walker’s lec-ture was an “excellent presenta-tion.”

“(It was) right down the mid-dle. It was appealing to everyone regardless of what their stripes are,” he said.

The lecture was a part of the John Hazen White Lecture Series, sponsored by the Taubman Center for Public Policy.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2007PAGE 8

tled, “Question From Karl Rove.”“David — Karl Rove stopped by

to ask you (roughly quoting) ‘how we planned to proceed regarding U.S. Attorneys, whether we were going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them, or selectively replace them, etc.’ ... He said the matter was not urgent.”

The message was forwarded to Sampson, who was Gonzales’ chief of staff before resigning this week. He sent a response to Leitch saying that he and Gonza-les had “discussed briefl y a couple of weeks ago” those same ideas.

He said that from a legal stand-point, all prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the president. But, he added, “it would be weird to ask them to leave before completing at least a 4-year term.”

He said President Clinton fi red the prosecutors appointed by President George H.W. Bush who were still on the job when Clinton took offi ce in 1993, “nearly all of whom were in the midst of their four-year terms.” He went on to point out that the current Presi-dent Bush “fi red the Clinton-ap-pointed U.S. Attorneys, some of whom were in the midst of a 4-year term, but many of whom had completed their 4-year terms and were serving in holdover status.”

Then he got down to what the administration wanted do, sug-gesting that 15 percent to 20 per-cent of the lawyers be fi red. He also discussed the consequences.

Finally Sampson discussed the issue as a “political matter,” noting that each of the prosecu-tors was appointed on the basis of recommendations from home state senators.

continued from page 7

Rove involved in attorneys’ fi rings

continued from page 1

Next president must implement fi scal discipline, Walker says

“We are eating our seed corn and mort-gaging our future because we’re liv-ing for today rather than preparing for a better tomorrow.”

David WalkerComptroller General of the United States

www.browndailyherald.com

into it because he raced in college. After college, he continued ski rac-ing. He coached at our home moun-tain and had always been very in-volved in the sport. Now, he lives vi-cariously through me. He gives me extra coaching advice in addition to (the advice given to me by) my Head Coach Mike LeBlanc.

How did your mom react to seeing her daughter on skis at two years old?

She was very supportive. She wasn’t as die-hard as my dad was when I was two years old. I would beg my parents to ski and they would only give me one ski and let me slide around the driveway. As I got older, I started winning some events and my parents realized I loved the sport. I had goals of being on the U.S. ski team and one day be-ing in the Olympics.

Do you still have aspirations of making the U.S. ski team?

When I was a year in high school, I was rethinking my ambi-tions. I considered medical school since I would have the opportunity to work with athletes … but I also realized I’m not quite fi nished with my skiing career. I’ve done very well here, but trying to balance pre-med classes at an Ivy League school in addition to training made me re-alize that I haven’t trained as much as I would have liked over the past few years. I feel that if I dedicated myself to training and didn’t have as many pressures, I could do bet-ter. Next year, I’m taking some time off to pursue these dreams and see how far I can take my career. My life goal would be to make the U.S. na-tional team. The best 10 to 15 skiers in the nation travel around the world to different World Cup events. Then the best skiers on the national team are selected for the Olympics.

Where is your home mountain?Holimont in western New York,

near Buffalo. It’s my favorite moun-tain because I know all of the ter-rain, all the trail names and I know what to expect. I feel very comfort-able there. It’s a private area, simi-lar to a golf club for skiing. There are only a few in the country and it has one of the largest private mem-berships with around 1,000 fami-lies. They have a racing club and ev-eryone knows each other. During breaks, I’ll go back and coach. It’s a lot of fun to work with kids. They look up to me because I’ve stayed with the sport for so long.

Outside of your home mountain, where is the coolest place you’ve skied?

One of my favorite mountains was in Hintertux, Austria. I went there two of the four fall seasons in high school. It was one of my favor-ite places to train because you see a lot of the national teams there. I saw Benjamin Raich there. He’s a mem-ber of the World Cup team and one of best skiers in the world. It’s like seeing the Brad Pitt of skiing.

How often did you ski in high school?

When I was 14, I went to board-ing school at the Stratton Mountain School. It’s basically an elite school for ski racers. You train all year round and travel the world, attend-ing both national and international ski competitions.

What was a typical week like at your high school?

It was defi nitely a different atmo-sphere when compared to your av-erage high schools. In the fall and spring, we would wake up around 5:30 a.m., work out for two hours and then eat breakfast. Class was from 9 until 2 p.m. and then we had afternoon sport, lifting or condi-tioning, dinner, study hall and then bed. Since there is less snow dur-

ing these times, we had many fall camps. We would often have intense class for two weeks and then travel for two weeks of skiing. Teachers knew about our diffi cult schedules and we often had to fax our assign-ments or complete assignments on the redeye fl ight from Colorado. The best thing I learned from Strat-ton was time management skills. During the winter, we would get up at 7:00 a.m., eat breakfast and train until noon. Early morning skiing is the best because the snow is fi rm from the overnight freeze. It’s im-portant for skiing.

Did you ever have to pay for a lift ticket?

Stratton was the name of my high school and the name of the mountain. Part of our tuition went towards the lift passes. But we also traveled throughout the East Coast, skiing in Maine, Vermont, New York and some parts of Canada.

Did you watch the Winter Olympic skiing events in Torino last win-ter?

Our ski team spends winter break in Waterville Valley, N.H. For the entire month, we focus on ski-ing and spending quality time as a team. When you aren’t skiing, there isn’t much to do up there, so we watched the Olympics every single day. We only got three channels, but we were lucky that NBC was one of them.

What did you think of Bode Mill-er’s performance?

Most ski racers know that Bode could have done better, so I was dis-appointed with his results. But I also realize how diffi cult ski racing can be. Your career can be defi ned by a single minute and a half. It’s only that minute and a half that counts. It doesn’t matter how well you trained and prepared. He didn’t perform as well as he should have and it’s unfortunate that people only know

him for his sub-par performance in the Olympics, even though he fi n-ished sixth, and is one of the best skiers in the world.

What did you think of NBC’s cover-age of skiing?

I think NBC did a great job cov-ering the skiing events. Speed rac-ing doesn’t usually get a lot of cover-age because it’s not a media-friend-ly sport. It’s tough to fi lm up on the mountain with uncertain weather conditions. But NBC did a great job in Torino because they showed the top 30 runs and they would actual-ly air it during hours in the evening when people were watching. For ski racing fans, it was greatly appre-ciated.

What injuries have you overcome as a skier?

I tore my right ACL and menis-cus as a freshman in high school. I had surgery and did a lot of physi-cal therapy. I went to Austria as a sophomore in the fall. It was my fi rst time back on snow since the in-jury. It went well but when I went to Colorado, I went off course and hit a tree. It was a terrifying expe-rience. I had a compound fracture, breaking my left tibia and fi bula. I was very lucky to escape that with only a broken leg. I had six screws and a rod put in my leg and I had to come back very slowly. The hardest thing for me was to be off the snow, especially living in a ski academy community.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2007 PAGE 9

saves. “Wyatt and Fahey did a great job

defending in the two-meter zone,” Gall said. “And Laing has been sol-id in goal all year long.”

“Our defense leads into our of-fense,” Glick said. “When we trust in each other to make a great steal and trust our goalie to make saves, it frees us up to turn around and go on offense, and it opens up scoring opportunities.”

The Bears will face a much more diffi cult test this weekend, when

they travel to Ann Arbor, Mich., for the Wolverine Invitational, where they will be matched up against teams including No. 11 Loyola Marymount University and No. 17 University of Michigan, as well as a tough University of Indiana team.

“We’re really excited to play Michigan and Indiana,” Balassone said. “We all feel like we can beat them. We don’t know exactly what to expect, but those will be close games.”

Against these highly ranked teams, fatigue may be a factor for the Bears, and Gall may be forced

to call on his developing bench. “Against Harvard, all 14 play-

ers played at least fi ve minutes, not only because we were ahead, but because they’ve been improving and can hold their own against that caliber of team,” Gall said.

This season, Brown’s only two losses have come against ranked opponents: Princeton and Hartwick College. Though the Bears appear to be hitting their stride, the Wol-verine Tournament will be a chal-lenge and a chance for Gall’s team to prove that it can compete with the nation’s elite.

continued from page 12

continued from page 12

W. water polo wears down Harvard for 8-3 win

O’Hear ’07 leads skiing to seventh at Nationals, named All-American

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S T A F F E D I T O R I A L

EDITORIAL & LETTERSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2007PAGE 10

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Coal to UCS’s new policy of maintaining public records of all member voting records. Given the interest in attending week-ly meetings, we’re sure the online records will get a lot of hits. And we can already see the campaign attack ads on those plasma screens in the Ratty come mid-April.

A diamond to President Simmons’ accountant, who will have to deal with what was possibly a verbal typo — $20,007, what?

Coal to DePauw’s Delta Zeta sorority for discriminating against and ultimately expelling its less attractive sisters. We feel margin-ally compelled to launch an investigation into whether similar tac-tics are being deployed at Brown, but then with this year’s Greek life recruitment numbers … on this campus … it seems unlikely.

A cubic zirconium to Banner’s successful mock registration. We’re glad the transition’s going smoothly, but we’re a little sym-pathetic with those cranky student activists who might not have a technological revolution to complain about anymore.

Coal to the New York Times for making its premium online service available to college students and professors for free. Now we have to scrap our plans to launch HeraldPlus, whwe have to scrap our plans to launch HeraldPlus, whwe have to scrap our plans to launch HeraldPlus, w ich would have offered paid subscribers extensive coverage of campus eat-eries and in-depth analysis of University committee reports.

A diamond to whoever stole two pounds of lobster from the Ratty. We don’t condone theft, but the inexplicability has us in awe. Since the heist occurred on Las Vegas night, we must know — Are we sure the stolen lobster wasn’t actually in a carefully designed replica of the Ratty basement? Hopefully the thief won’t make a lousy sequel.

A diamond to President Simmons’ refusal to add “a dollop of whipped cream” to the slavery and justice proceedings. Centuries of injustice have never before sounded so sweet.

Coal to Constance Gee. Because she can’t smoke a diamond.

A diamond to David Walker, Accountant Ranger, who can not only roundhouse kick the United States out of debt but must also, under international law, notify the inhabitants of any area he visits at least seven days before his arrival. The necessary debt payment plan can then be made. Beat that, Chuck Norris.

A diamond to shopping at Shop & Stop not stopping because the shop’s strike was stopped.

We wanted to give a diamond to athletes forced to abstain from March Madness pools thanks to the NCAA’s gambling rules, but we’re pretty sure it would count as an illegal gift. Sorry.

Diamonds and coal

can the falcon hear the falconer?

let us know.

letters@browndailyherald.com

Senior Staff Writers Rachel Arndt, Michael Bechek, Oliver Bowers, Zachary Chapman, Chaz Firestone, Kristina Kelleher, Debbie Lehmann, Scott Lowenstein, James Shapiro, Michael SkocpolStaff Writers Susana Aho, Taylor Barnes, Brianna Barzola, Evan Boggs, Irene Chen, Nicole Dungca, Thi Ho, Rebecca Jacobson, Tsvetina Kamenova, Hannah Levintova, Abe Lubetkin, Christian Martell, Taryn Martinez, Zachary McCune, Nathalie Pierrepont, Marielle Segarra, Robin Steele, Allissa WickhamSports Staff Writers Amy Ehrhart, Kaitlyn Laabs, Eliza Lane, Kathleen Loughlin, Megan McCahill, Marco Santini, Tom Trudeau, Steele WestBusiness Staff Dana Feuchtbaum, Kent Holland, Alexander Hughes, Mariya Perelyubskaya, Viseth San, Kaustubh Shah, Jon Spector, Robert Stefani, Lily Tran, Lindsay WallsDesign Staff Brianna Barzola, Jihan Chao, Aurora Durfee, Sophie Elsner, Christian Martell, Matthew McCabe, Ezra MillerPhoto Staff Stuart Duncan-Smith, Austin Freeman, Tai Ho ShinCopy Editors Ayelet Brinn, Catherine Cullen, Erin Cummings, Karen Evans, Jacob Frank, Ted Lamm, Lauren Levitz, Cici Matheny, Alex Mazerov, Ezra Miller, Joy Neumeyer, Madeleine Rosenberg, Lucy Stark, Meha Verghese

Even the most patriotic American must acknowledge the oppression of people of color in our nation’s history as a result of stolen land, colonization, slavery and the like. Land theft, slavery and colonization are all undeniable facts in our history. The oppression of non-whites has had a visible, deep-rooted, negative impact on equality in modern America. According to the Ameri-can Council on Education’s most recent minorities in higher education annual sta-tus report, in 2002-04, 47.3 percent of white high school graduates age 18 to 24 attend-ed college compared with 41.1 percent of African Americans and 35.2 percent of Hispanics. To deny that today’s differenc-es aren’t rooted in historical oppression is simply counterfactual.

Similarly, the Peopleclick Research In-stitute reported in 2004 that the percent-age of women who hold the highest levels of management positions has decreased from 31.9 percent to 18.8 percent over the decade. Additionally, only 11 percent of ex-ecutive positions are held by minorities. Women and minorities are underrepresent-ed in all levels of management, with 36.4 percent of management jobs held by wom-en and 16.7 percent by minorities. People-click stated, “These results are even more disappointing in the context of increased participation of women and minorities in the labor force: women rose from 45.8 per-cent to 46.8 percent of the workforce in the 10 years ending 2000, and minorities rose from 22.1 percent to 27.2 percent.”

To address the racial injustices of U.S. history and their negative effects on racial diversity in valued positions of society — such as positions of leadership in the pri-vate and public sector and the positions in institutions of higher learning that lead to them — President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 issued Executive Order 11246, which requires government contractors to take “affi rmative action” on behalf of minori-ties. Johnson echoed the values of the ex-ecutive order in a speech to the 1965 grad-uating class of Howard University, a his-torically black college (Howard has never had a completely black class), in which he said, “You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: ‘Now, you are free to go where you want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.’ … We seek not just freedom, but opportunity, not just legal equity, but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory, but equal-ity as a fact and as a result.”

Affi rmative action in its current form al-lows admission offi cers and employers to give priority to a minority applicant over a similarly qualifi ed white applicant. The current form of affi rmative action does not, however, justify the admittance of un-qualifi ed applicants.

The United States has already seen the negative effect of eliminating the current form of affi rmative action from college ad-mission. In 1998, when the University of California, Berkeley eliminated affi rmative action, 191 of the 8,000 students offered admission were black, down from 562 in 1997. The university offered admission to 434 Hispanic students, down from 1,045. In response to the new racial representation of the student body, Berkeley’s chancellor, Robert Berdahl said, “We still have to be a place of opportunity for all, but the (new) law (restricting affi rmative action) is con-straining us very, very substantially.”

Opponents of affi rmative action often argue that the civil rights movement suc-ceeded in eliminating systematic racism and inequality and that consequentially, we no longer need affi rmative action. But the Supreme Court disagrees.

The most recent ruling concerning af-fi rmative action comes out of Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), in which the Supreme

Court ruled 5-4 to uphold the University of Michigan Law School’s policy that listed an applicant’s race as a factor of admission. The Court justifi ed the policy by arguing that it served “a compelling interest in ob-taining the educational benefi ts that fl ow from a diverse student body.”

Diversity and past injustice aside, op-ponents of affi rmative action — like Allan Bakke, the plaintiff in Regents of the Uni-versity of California v. Bakke (1978) — ar-gue that giving preference to less qualifi ed persons in the areas of college admission and employment constitutes “reverse dis-crimination.” However, the National Orga-nization for Women states that “less than 2 percent of the 91,000 employment discrim-ination cases pending before the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissionare reverse discrimination cases.”

Proponents of the “reverse discrimi-nation” argument have also often quoted Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream”

speech, in which he calls for a colorblind society, to argue that he would have op-posed affi rmative action. However, King argued in “The Trumpet of Conscience,” “A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him, in order to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis.”

Our nation has created a system of op-pression in which African Americans, Lati-nos and Native Americans fall victim. The results of that system are still visible today, and they will be until we eliminate them. King was right about the need to equip Af-rican Americans to compete on an equal basis due to past injustice, and the same need is just as dire for other traditionally underrepresented minorities.

Unless we wish to create a higher ed-ucation system as homogenous as the UC Berkeley freshman class of 1998, we must protect affi rmative action. Unless we wish to continue depriving certain races of equal representation in some of the most valued positions of our society, we must protect af-fi rmative action. Unless we wish to ignore the long-lasting effects of historical injus-tices enacted upon certain races, we must protect affi rmative action.

Michael Ramos-Lynch ’09 ate all the brown M&M’s.

After centuries of pervasive discrimination, disadvantaged minorities are entitled to some form of affi rmative action. Enlightened policy can allow the disadvantaged to get their feet in the door, so to speak, and can help end the vicious cycle of deprivation, poor education and economic marginalization that tragically affl icts so many in their diverse communities. The right policy, in short, can facilitate the full and equal inclusion that is their due.

But the wrong policy can have disastrous consequences — feeding resentments, dis-torting incentives and perpetuating the very problems it is supposed to solve. At worst, a misguided approach can spur the kind of back-lash that threatens the basic legality of any af-fi rmative action, as happened in Michigan this past November. Those of us who support leg-islating special assistance for minorities must take care to avoid measures that provide an easy rallying cry for the opposition. Our pro-posals must be logical and well-suited to at-tracting broad support not only among liber-

als but also among swing moderates.Quotas — hiring and admission standards

that force institutions’ demographics to close-ly mirror those of the wider population — nei-ther stand up to intellectual scrutiny nor ap-peal to a wide umbrella of prospective voters. As such, they should be excised from any ac-tion plan to achieve racial justice.

The goal of affi rmative action is to “level the playing fi eld,” which few oppose. But though many support giving an edge to the minority candidate when all else is equal, far fewer are comfortable with turning away more qualifi ed candidates (in terms of grades, test scores, work experience, etc.) solely because of their ethnic background. It is true that part of this reluctance can be explained by some whites’ lack of awareness of their own privilege, but that alone does not render their objections in-valid or unworthy of consideration.

Economists maintain that taxes and subsi-dies are the same thing — a subsidy for one group is, in effect, no different than a tax on all other groups. Some sort of tax — falling primarily upon whites — to correct for past in-equities is surely appropriate, but questions of admission and employment are diffi cult and complex. Whereas fi nancial taxes allow for burdens to be diffused over a wide population — thus not signifi cantly impacting any single person — admission and hiring concentrate the onus on each person affected individually.

In other words, every minority applicant hired for a job or accepted to a university

with qualifi cations below the “white average” (many Asian-American groups are an excep-tion here) causes someone else nearer to that average to be denied, even if they have them-selves faced discrimination and hardship for reasons affi rmative action does not take into consideration, like class. To make matters worse, every rejected white (or Asian) appli-cant with qualifi cations exceeding the minor-ity average has some reasonable grounds to resent the policy — even if the rejected pop-ulation far exceeds the number of spots set aside for disadvantaged minorities.

This is no reason to throw out affi rmative action, but it does mean that we as a society must be extraordinarily careful and sensitive regarding every spot available in selective in-stitutions.

Due to a variety of factors — including lesser average educational resources, poor-er average nutrition and outright discrimi-nation — the number of minorities with the same qualifi cations as the average number of accepted whites is far less than would be the case in a more just society. Boosting minority representation by holding applicants to some-what lower standards is therefore justifi ed, though defi ning exactly what those standards should be is easier said than done.

The quota system assumes that, even in the most elite institutions, any minority repre-sentation short of their proportion within soci-ety is evidence of institutional discrimination and racism. But this position fallaciously pre-supposes that merit is based on innate talent at birth. In reality, merit is a complex and vari-able cocktail of numerous factors, including not only brainpower but also quality of educa-tion, effective study habits, proper nutrition, high self-esteem and interaction with success-ful role models — some of the very things that discrimination undermines.

A mounting body of evidence suggests that human capital is irrevocably lost when circum-stances prevent children from attaining their full potential, and that much of the damage is already done by late adolescence. So if dis-crimination is indeed as endemic and destruc-tive as we know it to be, logic demands that the proportion of the disadvantaged minority population that can attain a given high level of merit will be smaller than that proportion within the wider population. While quotas are predicated on the destructive effects of dis-crimination, their logic nonsensically requires that those effects have little to no impact on the qualifi cations of disadvantaged minority groups — that discrimination doesn’t in fact have a measurable effect on its victims. This is a contradiction. As discrimination creates con-ditions under which merit cannot emerge eq-uitably or proportionally, non-racist meritocra-cies will still inevitably have fewer members of victimized groups than are their proportions in society.

A quota system ineffectually attacks symp-toms of inequality rather than its underlying causes, while generating a host of other prob-lems, such as increased white and Asian re-sentment against application processes that aren’t strictly “race-blind,” belittling cynicism regarding the true merits of minority profes-sionals, and a demeaning message to minor-ity youth that society has signifi cantly lower expectations of them than of whites.

Society must recognize that no policy can repair hundreds of years of social damage overnight or even, perhaps, within a few de-cades. The most effective and least divisive policy will be based on enhanced access to quality resources in order to change the sys-tem organically. Micromanaging numbers in a vain attempt to magically transform our fl awed society into an instant utopia is a policy designed for failure.

Jesse Adams ’07 judges people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their

iPod.

MICHAELRAMOS-LYNCHOPINIONS COLUMNIST

JESSE ADAMSOPINIONS COLUMNIST

P O I N TCOUNTERPOINT

OPINIONSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2007 PAGE 11

Illogical quotas undermine efforts for racial justiceAffi rmative action: a means to justice

The role of affi rmative action

The women’s water polo team had a strong showing Wednes-day night, playing tight defense and taking advantage of scoring opportunities to cruise to an 8-3 win at Harvard. After a slow fi rst half in which Brown was able to wear down the Crimson, the Bears pulled away in a fi ve-goal third quarter and sealed the win in the fi nal period to improve their re-cord to 6-2.

Bruno fell behind early when Harvard capitalized on a 6-on-5 opportunity to score the game’s fi rst goal just 1:25 into the contest. Though the Bears would not allow another goal in the remainder of the period, they struggled to fi nd opportunities on offense until Cait-lin Fahey ’07 tied the game with 1:29 remaining.

In the second quarter, Brown was held scoreless until Sarah Glick ’10 put in her fi rst goal of the game, 1:11 before the half, to give the Bruno a 2-1 lead. The goal would be the Bears’ fi nal tally of the half. But despite the lack of scoring, the Bears’ defense con-

tinuously hampered the Crimson, holding it scoreless in the period while also wearing it down physi-cally.

“I feel like we started out slow,” Glick said. “Harvard scoring the game’s fi rst goal had a big effect, and it was hard for us to come back from that, but we tired them out by countering them through-out the game.”

In the third quarter, Brown took advantage of its opponents’ fatigue, scoring fi ve unanswered goals to blow the game wide open. With 6:44 remaining, Lauren Pre-sant ’10 drew a penalty shot, which Glick converted for her second

goal of the night. After a Harvard ejection at 4:55, Head Coach Ja-son Gall called a timeout, and his team responded. Just 20 seconds after the stoppage, Glick scored her third goal of the game to put the Bears up 4-1. Fahey convert-ed her second goal of the game at 3:10, and Elizabeth Balassone ’07 put in two goals in the period’s fi -nal three minutes to give the Bears a 7-1 lead.

“We pretty much wore Harvard down,” Gall said. “In the fi rst two quarters, we pressured Harvard, and then they ran out of gas and started to make careless turn-overs. As the game went on, we

were in better shape, which al-lowed us to get many counterat-tack goals.”

Though Harvard would cut Bruno’s lead to 7-3 with two goals in the fi nal period, it was unable to mount a suffi cient comeback. With 2:07 remaining, Ally Wyatt ’08 scored Brown’s fi nal goal of the game, making the fi nal score 8-3.

The Bears’ defense shone on Wednesday night, holding Har-vard scoreless for 25 minutes be-tween its fi rst and second goals. Goalie Stephanie Laing ’10 an-chored the effort in recording 11

SPORTS WEEKENDTHE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2007 PAGE 12

BY BENJY ASHER

W. water polo wears down Harvard for 8-3 winSPORTS STAFF WRITER

Full speed downhill with skiing’s O’Hear ’07

Last week, Kelly O’Hear ’07 led the ski team to a seventh-place fi nish in the USCSA National Champion-ships in Colorado. O’Hear was rid-ing a fi ve-race win streak going into the event, after winning both the slalom and giant slalom events at the regional competition. She fi n-ished sixth in the slalom and 13th in the giant slalom at Nationals, good enough to earn All-American status for the fourth straight year.

Herald: What did you think of your performance at Nationals?

O’Hear: Going into Nationals, I was the favorite … I had a lot of anxiety going in, especially since I had fallen in at least one event each year I had skied at Nationals. The fi rst event was the giant slalom. In the fi rst run, I hip-checked twice and placed 23rd overall. I was pret-ty angry and knew I wasn’t in the zone. In my second run I was fi rst overall, but they averaged the two, dropping me to 13th. In the slalom on Friday, I was seventh after a me-diocre fi rst run and sixth after my second run. I fi nished sixth in the slalom and sixth overall, after they combined all four runs.

How did you feel about sixth place?

I was happy to get two quality fi nishes. I hadn’t done that in two years. I was happy to score for my team but I was a bit disappointed. I do expect more from myself and knew I could do better, but I was still sixth in the nation.

When did you start skiing?I’ve been skiing since I was two

years old. At that age, the skis are around a foot, maybe a-foot-and-a-half-long.

Why did you start skiing at such a young age?

Skiing is one of those sports that if you don’t learn when you are younger, it is very diffi cult to pick up. There are very few racers who learn the sport after age 10 because it’s such a technically demanding sport. There is also the element of fear. When you are younger, you don’t fear anything. You slap your skis on and go straight downhill. When you are older, you have more reservation and that doesn’t help you.

Do your parents ski?My parents have been together

since they were in high school and my dad taught my mom and her family how to ski. He got everyone

BY MARCO SANTINISPORTS STAFF WRITER

W. lax opens home schedule this weekend

After a trying start to the season, the women’s lacrosse team re-turns home this weekend for two games. The Bears will play Tem-ple University at 4 p.m. on Friday and host the University of New Hampshire on Sunday at 1 p.m. Both games will likely be played on the Turf Field.

It would be hard to fi nd an ear-ly-season schedule in the country more challenging than the one that the Bears faced this year. Brown started off the year with a trip to No. 1 University of North Carolina in its fi rst game two weeks ago and was overwhelmed by the Tar Heels, 17-5. Next, the team returned to the North-east for matchups against Sacred Heart and Stony Brook universi-ties. Brown split the two games before hitting the road again for a game it lost against No. 3 Univer-sity of Maryland.

Needless to say, some home cooking will be much appreciat-ed this weekend. The Bears are hoping the tough road games will give them the experience needed to pull them through the gauntlet that is the Ivy League portion of the schedule.

“I think playing the best teams in the country is an irreplaceable experience,” said defenseman Val Sherry ’09. “Each week we try and execute the game plan our

coaches give us, and we’ve been improving.”

In order to secure wins at home, the team will need to shore up its defense. This year Brown has given up an average of 14.5 goals per game.

“Defensively we want to em-phasize our communication, espe-cially in front of the goal,” Sherry said. “We really want to not give the ball away in the back and pro-vide our attack with good oppor-tunities to score.”

Offensively, the team will look to some of its underclassmen for scoring. Molly McCarthy ’10 has recorded a point in each game this season and scored a goal in the team’s last three games, while Bethany Buzzell ’09 has chipped in six goals on the year.

Like Brown, Temple and UNH currently boast 1-3 records. Temple also played UNC — just a week after Brown played the Tar Heels — and lost 18-8. Tem-ple also lost to the University of Pennsylvania. The Wildcats lost to Dartmouth and Yale.

This weekend’s games kick off a four-game homestand that will last until the Bears’ March 31 showdown against Dartmouth. The team will enjoy the time in Providence.

“It’ll be really nice to play on our own fi eld again,” Sherry said. “We’re really excited to have our own fans come out for the game.”

BY PETER CIPPARONESPORTS EDITOR

Jacob Melrose / Herald File PhotoStephanie Laing ’10 stopped 11 shots in the Bear’s 8-3 win over Harvard on Wednesday.

Ashley Hess / Herald File PhotoBethany Buzzell ’09 will be an offensive focal point for the women’s lacrosse team when it meets Temple University today. Buzzell has six goals on the season, including three against Sacred Heart University.

FRIDAY,DAY,DAY MARCH 16

W. LACROSSE: vs. Temple, Turf Field, 4 p.m.W. WATER POLO: at Slippery RockWRESTLING: at NCAA Championships (Auburn Hills, Mich.)

SATURDAY,ATURDAY,ATURDAY MARCH 17

EQUESTRIAN: at Johnson & WalesNO. 18 M. LACROSSE: at Massachusetts

W. WATER POLO: vs. Loyola Marymount; vs. Indiana (Ann Arbor, Mich.)vs. Indiana (Ann Arbor, Mich.)vs.WRESTLING: at NCAA Championships (Auburn Hills, Mich.)

SUNDAY,DAY,DAY MARCH 18

GYMNASTICS: vs. Penn with Southern Connecti-cut State, Pizzitola Center, 1 p.m.W. LACROSSE: vs. New Hampshire, Turf Field, 1 p.m.W. WATER POLO: at California Baptist

S P O R T S S C H E D U L E

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ATHLETE OF THE WEEK