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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 20, 1998)
The Battalion Opinion Tuesday • January 20, 1998 STUDENT LIFE Construction, elections will play big roles in 1998 John Lemons columnist [ tis the beginning of a new semester and a new year at Texas A&M University. /ith this new year comes the otential for nearly anything ) occur. A&M is, after all, a sry unpredictable place. Who could have predicted 397*s big events? Four Presi- ents of the United States vis ed campus for the Bush Li- rary opening, the Reveille ravesites moved and the Fish ond inexplicably turned urple for over a month. For 1998 to be as big of a news year as ’97, some xciting events will have to occur. Fortunately for all f you faithful Battalion readers, I am going to re- eal to you ’98’s biggest events. So get ready to learn 'hat the next year holds. While some of the predic- ons may be a bit silly, they all are possible if not robable. i • Here’s a pretty safe prediction — 1998 will see udent fees increase. Rarely a year goes by without a •;e increase. Besides, the only two certainties at A&M re death and fee increases. While there is no telling if te increase will be in the General Use Fee or the Stu dent Service Fee or the Student Center Complex Fee r the Health Center Fee or one of the other numer- tiSifees students pay each semester, it will occur. • Reed Arena will open this semester. Despite par- ally collapsing and being nearly a year late, the Spe- ial Events Center will impress students and finally rovide A&M with an arena appropriate for a univer- ty of this size. Muster will be the first event held at the arena, and t last, anyone who wants to attend the service will ave the opportunity. The arena’s second event will be a tractor pull, :atui ing all of the car-crushing action Aggieland an handle. • Construction on the Zone, the monstrous addi- STATE OF THE UNION tion to Kyle Field will begin. However, believing that the Zone is not quite big enough, the Athletic Depart ment will make it even larger. In addition to already displacing the Reveilles and E. King Gill’s statue, the MSC, Rudder Tower and G. Rollie White Coliseum will have to be moved. Students sitting in the upper rows of the Zone will be forced to wear oxygen masks in order to stay con scious throughout an entire game. People will wearT- shirts sporting the phrase “A&M spent a million dol lars and all I got was a lousy nosebleed.” Meanwhile, opposing teams will mock A&M for naming a part of their stadium something as ridicu lous as the Zone. • Student Senate will break new ground this se mester and do something that benefits campus. Campus will rejoice as representational government actually works. • The Student Body President elections will regress once again into a matter of choosing which candi date’s signs looks most like a commercial advertise ment. The advertisements of the winners this year will emulate those of Slim Jim Beef Jerky. The candidate’s sign’s will feature Randy “the Ma cho Man” Savage saying “Snap into (insert candidate name here).” • The Corps of Cadets, the Board of Regents and Bonfire will make it through the year without a con troversy. Poultry science majors, however, will not. Tired of being labeled as hicks and red necks, poul try science majors will unite and hold a rally to protest prejudice against them. Aggies, however, will still think the poultry science majors hickish. The protest will result in weeks of ugly mail call filled with phrases like, “Highway 6 runs both ways” and “world-class university.” Obviously, ’98 is going to be an exciting year. Whether or not these events occur is still up for de bate. And although hindsight may be 20/20, foresight sure is fun. John Lemons is an electrical engineering graduate student. Bung jury exhibits necessary hecks of American justice system Caleb McDaniel columnist VT °han -V JLtwo 5ars after the orst act of miestic ter- >rism in merican his- iry, there is ill contro- irsy over ho is re- oonsible for ic Okla- Dma City bombing. One thing, lough, is certain — the Terry ichols jury is not guilty of the ime. But ever since jurors noti- jd U .S. District Judge Richard P atsch that they could not agree i a punishment for Nichols, the >unt ly has treated members of e jury as if they were the villains. “The juiy failed us,” said Darlene elch, whose niece was killed in the tack on the Alfred P Murrah Feder- Building in 1995. “I’m angry at at jury,” said Brenda Lay, whose other died in the blast. “I am really sappointed,” said Susan Urbach, to was injured in the explosion. Such disappointment is cer- nly understandable from those irt by the horrible tragedy. No te can begin to imagine the suf- ring that the families of the mbing victims have had to en- ire over the past two and a half ars. But even in this moral out- ge over the murder of 168 inno- nt people, Americans must be refill not to direct their anger at the 12 innocent members of the Nichols jury. People should have nothing but sympathy for any panel that is forced to decide whether a man lives or dies, and they should reserve their criticism until they have faced the same aw ful choice. It is not an easy deci sion to make. In fact, thanks to the American justice system, it is an incredibly difficult decision to make. The ju ries who decide capital punish ment cases should have nothing but due respect for human life. They should not execute anyone if the conscience of even one juror is troubled by a “reasonable doubt.” The last thing juries should do is hastily condemn a person to death because the crime was emotional or especially tragic. Yet that seems to be what Linda McCurley prefers. “If that jury had lived here and lived through this,” she told a re porter in Oklahoma City, “I bet they would’ve felt differently.” Such criticism is misguided. If people are angered at the outcome of the Terry Nichols trial, they should blame those who deserve to be blamed. For starters, try the prosecution team. According to the jury forewoman, Niki Deutchman, “The government wasn’t able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a whole lot of the evidence.” Holly Hanlin, another juror in the case, echoed that the government attor neys “could have done a better job. There were some things that wouldn’t fit.” It seems that the holes in the government’s case were too much for jurors to overcome. So if Terry Nichols really does deserve death, the prosecution has failed the victims, not the jury. Or how about the E B.I.? Ameri cans should be angry that the FBI failed to record over 30,000 inter views conducted during the course of the investigation. Hard copies of these depositions, said Deutchman, would have made her decision much easier. Ultimately, people should be glad that the jurors did not simply ignore their doubts for the sake of emotional closure in Oklahoma City. “Reasonable doubt” is the most sacred check on the American judicial system, and something is wrong with the country when peo ple believe a jury has “failed” be cause it listened to its doubts. A hung jury is not a failure. It is a liv ing tribute to the American justice system, a system that makes it hard to execute the guilty so that it will not be easy to punish the innocent. The heart of every honest American grieves with you, Okla homa City. Nothing anyone can say or do will ever replace the loss you have suffered. But Americans must not abandon objectivity and justice in their emotional zeal. And they must not vent their frus trations on juries who are hesitant to kill. Such juries should be com mended, not condemned. Caleb McDaniel is a freshman history major. of IMP *7?tasttcvt jZut&e* t BRAD GRAEBER/The Battalion CAMPUS CONNECTION Diversity's future depends on non-discriminatory admissions Adam Collett columnist C urrent and would-be detractors of race conscious admis sions and services have capitalized on higher edu cation’s failure to justify its multicultural objectives. Mounting numerous legal assaults, the groups have targeted practices such as these, including Hopwood in Texas and Proposition 209 in California have been targeted. These groups ultimately will prove legally solid in their argument that the government cannot maintain a policy which favors one group over another based solely or in large part on race or gender. Affirmative action and other programs were in stituted by government by virtue of a compelling interest to correct the past wrongs of discrimina tion. In the short term, supporters of such correc tive policies will likely stem the tide represented by Hopwood and Proposition 209, by arguing that the work is not yet done. However, society will eventually have to com ply with its own prescription that none shall be judged by the color of his or her skin. In Generations: The History of America's Fu ture 1584-2069, William Strauss and Neil Howe explain that this is especially true considering that the young adults of Generation X are much more likely than previous generations to support programs which get away from equality of results and move toward equality of opportunity. For now, this group opinion only affects polls and studies, but could carry the force of law starting around 2015, when X-ers are expected to reach a plurality in Congress. Well in advance of that day, universities and colleges will have to do two things. • First, they will have to do a better job of sell ing the general public on the merits of diversity. • Second, institutions of higher education will have to explore and implement alternatives to race-based programs. Philosophically, universities will increasingly have to rely on the intrinsic value associated with diversity. According to some educators, that value has not been communicated well to those outside the academy. Kevin Carreathers, Director of Mul ticultural Services for Texas A&M, says, “There needs to be more articulation of what the re search says about the impact of diversity on stu dents. There’s a positive correlation between di versity initiatives and student success and student satisfaction for all.” Another factor restricting the flow of informa tion to the public is that colleges commonly keep quiet their specific admissions decision criteria to avoid controversy. It has long been the practice of institutions of higher education to admit a wide range of students, such as athletes, musicians and minority groups. In a quest to address specific needs on a cam pus, some students with higher grades or test scores are passed over so that a particular com munity niche can be filled However, admissions offices are adamant, however, in the practice of not admitting students who are not capable of doing the work. Colleges will have to make clear this reasonable admissions rationale in order to keep public support. Philosophical defenses thus shored up, col leges can focus their efforts on designing recruit ment, admissions and financial aid distribution systems that enhance diversity while avoiding race or ethnicity as factors. Among the more radical solutions are academ ically open admissions (in which students are en rolled with practically zero regard to previous achievement) and financially open higher educa tion (in which the government compensates for the demonstrated need of every student wishing to attend college). While these alternatives remove some of the barriers that bottleneck minority enrollment, they are not likely to receive support from the general public. The open admissions method devalues the de grees granted by an institution and complete fi nancial assistance is prohibitively expensive and thus not likely to happen for a very long time. Given the unlikelihood of these options, uni versities must consider other compensatory en rollment and retention strategies. Several of these strategies involve measures of class or socioeconomic status (SES), such as tax base and parental income. Carreathers says that economic consideration is the best alternative to race-conscious programs, because “that drives a lot of other factors [in the student’s home community], such as quality of liv ing, quality of schools, and quality of services.” Another indicator of SES is first-generation college enrollment. Universities that currently use this factor give weight to students whose parents did not complete college. Andrs Prez, an admissions counselor, reports that the A&M takes into account geography, so that students from inner-city or other traditionally low- income areas are given special consideration. “Most of our students come from the Houston, Dal las and San Antonio areas, but we also try to recruit out of places where students don’t apply from, such as the panhandle and the Rio Grande valley.” A final alternative, one not being discussed ex tensively in the literature on the subject, is the use of multicultural or diversity-rich experiences as an admissions factor, along with the field stan dards of academic, extracurricular, work, and community service experiences. A requirement thus based could avoid the en tanglements that current policies encounter be cause they would not be favoring a particular race, gender or culture group. Multicultural or minority culture experiences could be gained by virtue of being of a certain race or group; but the saving grace of this alterna tive is that it is not restricted only to that criteri on. Minority or multicultural experiences could also be gained from academic study, community service or job experience. Affirmative action and race and gender-con scious admissions and services by universities have made significant inroads against discrimina tion, but the work is not yet done. However, when the public and the judiciary fi nally tire and remove what’s left of the recently re duced legal support for such activities, colleges and universities need to be ready with a clearly-com municated rationale for multiculturalism and vi able alternatives to maintain diversity on campus. Adam Collett is an educational administration graduate student.