Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Suite300, Erb Memorial Union
P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online: www.dailyemerald.com
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Jared Paben
Managing Editor:
Travis Willse
Low voter turnout
in ASUO election
is fault of its staff
The Emerald Editorial Board blamed the wrong people for
low voter turnout in the ASIIO student elections. The blame
for student apathy should lie with the ASl IO and its staff. Each
year, Executive candidates get elected on campaign promises
that they cannot fulfill. They promise to "fight at the state level
to prevent further tuition increases," as this year's winners did
on their campaign Web site, but ASIIO leaders have no direct
power over tuition levels. lobbying the state legislature is a no
ble idea, but if student lobbies were remotely effective then we
students wouldn't face hundreds of dollars in increases each
year. I've also been hearing the same line about city-wide hous
ing standards from candidates for the last three years, and
Adam and Mena's "sketchy scheduling" platform might make
-- the annual list of broken
GUEST
COMMENTARY
promises in 2005.
The best I expect from the
ASUO is a weak effort such as
Nilda Brooklyn and Joy Nair's
"Doin' it in the Dark" campaign
to reduce the energy fee. With candidates basing their campaigns
on issues controlled by I )ave Erohnmayer's office and the Oregon
legislature, why should we care to vote? Ifwe want controls on tu
ition, then we would do better by participating in city- or state-lev
el elections where our representatives have a significant voice.
Candidates do continually make one promise they could keep:
Listening to voices across campus about student issues. But our
elected officials fail there as well. The ASUO and its affiliates form
an insular clique that interacts with the general student body only
during campaigns. The groups with whom the ASl IO makes di
rect contact — ASUO-funded groups and clubs form the voting
base and control the government. These constituents are often
special-interest lobbies such as political action groups or cultural
and ethnic unions that do not represent the wider interests of
l Iniversity students. The result is a government cut off from the
student body and officials who have no incentive to change, as
essentially all officials are elected from within this clique. Thus,
the campaign promise to hear student voices disintegrates into
the traditional pattern of hearing small campus lobbies.
No one exemplifies this insular attitude better than our prior
Executives. During her campaign last year, Maddy Melton per
sonally assured me that she and Eddy Morales would listen to
voices on campus. They responded by eliminating their public
faces. They refused to speak with campus media, an egregious
offense for elected officials, and, as the Oregon Commentator
reported, they regularly made themselves unavailable during
scheduled office hours. I feel that Maddy and Eddy stole my
vote with that hollow promise, and I imagine many other non
ASUO insiders whom they convinced to vote felt less than in
spired when the election popped up on DuckWeb this year.
To increase voter turnout, Adam and Mena should make them
selves ubiquitous on campus by conversing with media and regu
lar students. If students outside the ASl IO clique don't drop by the
Executive office, then the Executive should seek them out to get
their input. Adam and Mena should also forget their outrageous
campaign promises and concentrate on issues within their power,
such as student services and the incidental fee. If students see their
candidates around campus and feel as if they are fulfilling their
campaign promises, then voter turnout will rise significantly.
Zach Mull is a senior studying journalism.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Remember student's passion for planet
In memory of Patrick E. Allison, who graduated from the
University in 2003 with a major in English: Patrick was struck
and killed by a train in Davis, Calif. Apart from being a stu
dent, Patrick was a forest defender who spent countless days
and hours saving Fall Creek, Winberry Creek and the llmpqua
wildlands. Apparently, this was his way of trying to make the
world a better place for us and all life on the planet.
He had attained the knowledge of not only academia but
what really mattered, the love and continuation of all life. He
also learned that the survival of natural ecosystems around
the world appeared bleak.
The knowledge that our modern culture is continuing to kill
the living planet (and each other) at an ever quickening and
seemingly callous pace may have sent him ever the edge of
hopelessness. Most of us can maintain a state of denial to con
tinue our struggle and hope for a just world but maybe Patrick
couldn't. His presence will be sorely missed.
Thank you Patrick for giving your heart, soul and life for
what you truly believed in. We will continue the struggle for a
just world in your memory. Viva Cascadia!
Shannon Wilson
Eugene
I am so glad
gas prices have
gone down.
Yeah, my family
almost traded me
in for some
bikes! ^
Aaron Sullivan Illustrator
Affirmative actions
The Supreme Court drew the admira
tion and ire of activists, politicians, uni
versity administrators, students, ju
risprudence fetishists and policy wonks
a year ago this week, when it ruled on
two cases challenging the University of
Michigan's affirmative action policies.
The Court scrapped Michigan's plain
ly unfair undergraduate admissions sys
tem, which awarded a potent, automatic
20 points — on a 150-point scale — to
"underrepresented minority" applicants
that Chief Justice William Rehnquist ob
served "has the effect of making 'the fac
tor of race ... decisive' for virtually every
minimally qualified underrepresented
minority applicant."
The Court, however, also permitted
the school's more ethically and constitu
tionally murky law school admissions
policy (which allows officials to consid
er race qualitatively as one factor among
many), narrowing and clarifying what
applications of affirmative action it
would tolerate in its most important rul
ing on the subject in 25 years.
While the Court's chimeric rulings
have, at least superficially, better defined
for universities how they can apply affir
mative action to their admission process
es, for many conservatives the split on the
rulings has left affirmative action as an
even less tractable monster than before.
Left-of-center Justice Ruth Bader Ginsbuig
dissented in the undergraduate case; Gratz
v. Bollinger, arguing, "If honesty is the best
policy, surely Michigan's accurately de
scribed, fully disclosed college affirmative
action program is preferable to achieving
similar numbers through winks, nods and
disguises." That is, the structural evils we
know are better than those we don't.
If these "achieved numbers" are in
deed a foregone conclusion, as the law
school ruling allows them to be, should
n't we favor the constitutional honesty
of submitting to the spirit of equal pro
tection over the evidently moot "hon
esty" of the openly unfair admission
processes that Ginsburg defends?
Curt Levey, the Director of Legal Af
fairs at the Center for Individual Rights,
which objected to the embattled Michi
gan admission policies, sees at least a
subtle triumph in the Court rulings.
Affirmative action in college admissions
TRAVIS WILLSE
RIVALLESS WIT
is "|higher|-maintenance and riskier
than before," Levey asserted to the Asso
ciated Press, suggesting that many col
leges are now looking more seriously at
race-neutral alternatives.
But that's insofar difficult to prove.
Like Michigan's undergraduate pro
gram, Ohio State University and the
University of Massachusetts relied on a
point system that handed minority ap
plicants an automatic bonus. These
quantitative systems allowed the schools
to make speedy decisions (however fair)
about applications. But the ruling in
Gratz mandated new systems: Despite
steep budget cuts, Massachusetts tapped
retired faculty and recent graduates to
help sift through applications; Ohio
State hired 10 new readers; and Michi
gan allotted an additional $1.8 million
to new staff and an application redesign.
But ignoring these fiscal reallocations
as an ancillary point, the difference in the
post-secondary educational landscape
between this year and last is much more
subtle than might be expected from a
landmark Supreme Court decision.
"I've been struck by the irony that, in the
year since Michigan ... some institutions
have retreated from affirmative action
even though we won the case," explained
Ted Shaw, president of the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund. "They have not taken full
advantage of what happened."
Whatever Shaw means by "taking full
advantage," and however equitable it
would be, the Michigan rulings were evi
dently far from a total victory for leftists,
too, whose affirmative action system
seems in many ways more a rusting,
half-broken contraption than a sleek so
cial justice machine.
So, for now, activists on both sides are
somewhat disingenuously declaring vic
tory, but are still visibly discontent by
the split Michigan decisions. The split,
though, is ultimately an unsatisfying, al
beit temporary, settlement.
And this compromise is uncomfort
able because it is a compromise: This is
an explicitly constitutional issue, but ap
plying (or interpreting) the Constitution
isn't a matter of give-and-take negotia
tion, it's a matter of exercising (or defin
ing) fundamental principle.
But if conservatives and leftists both
want to change affirmative action to
cultivate equality, why the above disagree
ment? The answer lies in language, and
digs to the philosophical core of both po
litical veins: When they say "equality," con
servatives and leftists mean different things.
Leftists mean by "equality" that of man
ufacturing economic and professional op
portunity, even at the cost of treating indi
viduals differently based on characteristics
such as race. Former Justice Harry Black
mun applied this reasoning to affirmative
action, arguing, partially correctly, "In or
der to get beyond racism, we must first take
account of race There is no other way."
But those who approach this issue con
servatively (as I do) mean by "equal"
treatment that, when an individual inter
acts with the government, factors not di
rectly relevant to the situation are ignored
(for example, because being white says
nothing about actual academic compe
tence, whiteness should guarantee nei
ther acceptance nor exclusion to any spot
in any public university). Justice Clarence
Thomas outlined this principle more elo
quently in Adarand Constructors v. Mine
ta: "Government cannot make us equal;
it can only recognize, respect and protea
us as equal before the law."
In the context of affirmative action,
at least, no one has found a solution —
perhaps because none exists — that ful
ly satisfies both definitions and thus
prescribes a course that leads to the im
plied goal of each.
Only time will tell. Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor predicted after Michigan that
in another 25 years racial preferences
will no longer be "necessary." O'Con
nor's optimism might not be guarded,
but hers is a goal upon which conserva
tives and leftists can easily agree.
traviswillse@dailYemerald.com