TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2015 I SERVING TEXAS A&M SINCE 1893 I © 2015 STUDENT MEDIA I ©THEBATTONLINE
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Alii Bradshaw — THE BATTALION
Right to discriminate?
Indiana bill tests religious limits, concerns LGBT advocates
By Sam Scott
f ^ he decision by Indi
ana Gov. Mike Pence
to sign the “Religious
1 Freedom Bill” has led
to concerns among LGBT advo
cates.
The law states that the govern
ment may not interfere with some
one’s right to exercise their religion
unless it is proven that doing so is
“essential to further a compelling
governmental restriction,” and does
so in the least restrictive means pos
sible.
According to a news release from
the Indiana governor’s office, the
law is intended to ensure individuals
have right to exercise their religion
without government interference,
but critics argue the law’s wording
invites discrimination by businesses
against the LGBT community.
Meg Penrose, a professor at the
Texas A&M School of Law, said pos
sible examples include a jeweler who
refuses to sell wedding rings to a gay
couple, or a wedding photographer
who leaves after realizing the mar
riage is for two women.
Penrose said arguments surround
ing the law’s discrimination stem
from the broad language, which
could extend the religious freedom
to private businesses and corpora
tions.
“So this law, from everything I’m
able to tell, explicidy allows any for-
profit business to assert that that busi
ness — not just the owners, but the
business — has the right to the free
exercise of religion,” Penrose said.
Penrose said it’s too early to tell if
the Religious Freedom Restoration
Act, RFRA, would actually discrimi
nate against the LGBT community.
L:
URBAN PLANNING
“Could it potentially result in le
gal discrimination? Yes, but I want
to see how the law is enforced and
how the law comes up in individual
situations,” Penrose said. “Certainly
the language is broader that all other
RFRAs that I’ve read about, but
that doesn’t necessarily mean that it
will be permitted to be enforced that
broadly. ”
A similar federal RFRA was
passed in 1993 during the Clinton
administration, and a 1997 Supreme
Court decision led several states to
pass similar RFRA laws.
“Around 20 states have religious
freedom restoration acts or similari
ties that mirror or try to resemble
what was passed in 1993 during the
Clinton administration, and a 1997
Supreme Court decision led several
states to pass similar RFRA laws.
INDIANA ON PC. 2
SERVICE
A&M joins
natural disaster
preparedness
initiative
By Lenae Allen
^ Texas A&M urban planning researchers formed a
new initiative with scientists from 10 other universi
ties earlier this month to help communities prepare for
and recover from natural disasters.
The headquarters of the coalition, the Community
Resilience Center of Excellence, is based at Colorado
State University, and was established via the U.S. Depart
ment of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and
Technology. The alliance between the 10 universities
and the GRCE won a $20 million grant through NIST
and hopes to provide five years of data on how best to
build and protect societies from disasters.
Although Colorado is centrally located in the Unit
ed States, the universities involved are spread across the
country to maximize the reach of the research. Other
universities — such as Rice University, the University
of Oklahoma and Texas A&M University—Kingsville —
are contributing to the research to help create resilient
communities through their own models of information.
At its conclusion, the study hopes to provide policy
makers with models for implementing safer building reg
ulations, said Walter Peacock, director of the Texas A&M
Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center and a member
of the research team.
“For those of us in planning, we can incorporate our
research in terms of the nature of policy — how quickly
it’s implemented — as well as how we organize ourselves
to deal with recovery efforts to see improvements to a
community’s resilience,” Peacock said.
Peacock said the team of researchers wants to measure
community resiliency, or how well communities are able
DISASTER ON PG. 3
Aggie celebrates birthday
with 'Happy Toes' project
Former student raises awareness
for homeless in San Antonio
By Victoria Rivas
^ When thinking of birthdays,
^ things like pifiatas and party
streamers might come to mind. But
for her 23rd birthday, Alex Dempsey,
Class of 2014, has something a little
bit different on her wish list — socks.
2,300 pairs, to be exact.
Dempsey, a marketing coordina
tor for Chick-fil-A in San Antonio,
hopes to collect donations of 2,300
pairs of socks to donate to San Anto
nio’s chronically homeless population
through an operation she has named
“Happy Toes.”
Dempsey is working with the sup
port of Chick-fil-A as well as two
organizations in San Antonio that
work to serve the homeless popula
tion: St. Vincent De Paul and Haven
for Hope.
This will be Dempsey’s third an
nual birthday donation project. Her
first project was in honor of her 21st
birthday.
“I was born on April 21 and was
turning 21,” Dempsey said. “All of
my friends kept saying, ‘Oh that’s
your golden birthday, where,you go
all out and it’s the best birthday ever.’
I was buying into it. I thought I was
going to have this huge party, and
then I thought I wanted to celebrate
HAPPY TOES ON PG. 3
BASEBALL
Texas A&M
remains at
top of polls
A&M looks to maintain ranking
against Sam Houston State Tuesday
Kathryn Perez —THE BATTALION
Nick Banks rounds third after his
second homer of the season Saturday.
By Andre Perrard
According to a pair of national polls, Tex-
^ as A&M has the best baseball team in the
country.
In the Collegiate Baseball and USA Today
polls, released Monday, A&M ranked No. 1.
After taking hold of the SEC with a series win
over Missouri, A&M will look to continue its
hot play Tuesday afternoon against the Sam
Houston State Bearkats.
The Bearkats (13-16) most recently suf
fered a series loss to Central Arkansas on the
road. On offense, they are led by Spence
Rahm, who has 27 RBIs on the year and five
home runs to his name. He is also hitting .347,
the highest average on the team. They also
have four batters in the lineup that are hitting
better than .300.
The Aggies (27-2, 7-2 SEC) recently cap
tured their series against the Tigers with a 14-
run outburst on Sunday afternoon. A&M has
a powerful lineup, led in RBIs by Mitchell
Nau (25) and home runs by Logan Taylor
(six). Five Aggie hitters have more than 20
RBIs.
Nick Banks is also hitting .429 on the sea
son. Six Aggie players have averages that are
above the .300 mark on the season. As a team,
the Aggies are No. 10 in the country in team
batting average, hitting .311 as a unit.
On the mound, freshman Turner Lar
kins will most likely make the start for Texas
A&M. Larkins has made seven starts this year,
earning a 3-1 record. He has a 2.94 ERA with
32 strikeouts. A&M leads the nation in team
ERA at 1.76. The Bearkats will most likely
send Dylan Ebbs to the mound.
The Aggies and Bearkats last played each
other in 2014. The Aggies and Bearkats split
two games during the 2014 campaign, with
SHSU winning 8-1 in the first meeting and
A&M winning 3-1 in the final meeting.
First pitch is scheduled for 6:35 p.m. Tues
day night at Olsen Field.
Q&A
Researcher works toward 'smart' chemotherapy
El 1
Err*
Sam Scott, Battalion news reporter, sits
down with Lin Zhu, assistant professor of
pharmaceutical sciences, to discuss his work
with developing nanotechnology to improve
cancer treatments.
THE BATTALION: You and your team are
researching how to minimize the side effects
of cancer treatments such as chemotherapy.
How could this be possible?
ZHU: Currently, the chemotherapy is one of the
most effective options for managing various
types of cancer. Chemotherapy drugs are usually
toxic chemicals and designed to kill cancer cells.
Unfortunately, they are not "smart" enough to
recognize their target — the cancer cells. The
healthy cells are unavoidably damaged by these
anti-cancer drugs. One of our research goals is to
design the "smart" drug delivery carriers to help
these toxic drugs to find and kill only the cancer
cells without or with less toxicity to other types
of cells in the body.
THE BATTALION: How can you design
chemotherapy to only go after the cancerous
cells?
ZHU: We have known that cancerous cells
[and] tissues had certain unique characteristics
compared to normal cells [and] tissues,
such as the up-regulated proteins, acidic
microenvironment, low oxygen concentration,
ZHU ON PG. 2
Lin Zhu, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences, works
with developing nanotechnology to improve cancer treatments.