Cultural forum shows “Family Guy” I 5
MERALD
An independent newspaper
www. dailyemerald. com
Since 1900 | Volume 106, Issue 144 \ Thursday, April 28,2005
Police search for assault suspect
The 23-year-old man allegedly entered the Willcox residence hall
Sunday morning, attacked students and returned later with a gun
BY MEGHANN M. CUNIFF
SENIOR NEWS REPORTER
A man suspected of assaulting two students
in a University residence hall room Sunday
morning and returning hours later armed with
a gun has not been located by police. Officers
have increased patrol in the campus area in
hopes of finding him.
Carlos Alberto Valencia-Torres, 23,
allegedly entered a Willcox Hall residence
in the Bean Complex at approximately
6 a.m.., found a group of students playing
card games and “wanted to more or less hang
out with them,” Eugene police officer Larry
Crompton said.
Valencia-Torres did not know the students
but had lived in the room during fall term
while he was earning his high school diploma
through a University program,
Crompton said.
“That’s what brought him to the
room is just being familiar with the
hall,” Crompton said.
Crompton said when the stu
dents asked Valencia-Torres to
leave he became “very uncharac
teristically angry for the situation”
and punched one of the students
in the face.
Crompton said other students
tried to intervene but were also
assaulted and the hall’s residence
CARLOS ALBERTO
VALENCIA-TORRES
SUSPECT
assistant had to break up
the fight.
Physical altercations are com
mon in the residence hall, Cromp
ton said, particularly on the week-’
ends, and “I’m assuming that’s
what (the RA) was expecting, and
the unexpected happens where
this guy returns with a gun.”
Crompton said Valencia-Torres
returned to the hall around 9 a.m.
armed with a gun and in search of
ASSAULT, page 16
Films from far away
The Muslim Women Film Festival will feature three films that
portray females in Islam and address stereotypes Muslims face
BY MORIAH BALINGIT
NEWS REPORTER
As graduate student Nargas Oskui-Tabrizi
peers beyond her hijab, a face with flawless com
plexion and gentle eyes is revealed.
But some Iranian-Americans choose to see
something different, she said, just because she
chooses to cover her head.
“I am from Iran ... (some Iranian-Americans)
think I’m a fanatic,” Oskui-Tabrizi said. “It’s sad
that they think that. ”
It’s one of the many stereotypes Oskui-Tabrizi
said she faces, even though she was raised in the
United States.
“They don’t know that I’m actually more
open-minded than they are,” she added.
The Muslim Women Film Festival, beginning
today, will address these and other stereotypes
that Muslim women face here and elsewhere.
The event features three films that portray vari
ous women in Islam, and each movie will be fol
lowed by a short informal discussion led by Mus
lim women from the University and community.
Graduate student Hasnah Toran, who helped
coordinate the event, said she decided to make
women the focus of the festival because of the
gross misperceptions she’s observed about the
status of Islamic women.
“There’s been a huge misunderstanding (be
cause) of what the media portrays,” she said.
Part of the problem, she said, is many people
fail to recognize the vast diversity of Islam, a reli
gion whose followers make up a fifth of the
world’s population and span the globe.
“There’s such a diversity in Islam that how do
you define what it means to be a Muslim
woman?” she said. “We come from all over the
world and we are learning about each
other’s cultures.”
Oskui-Tabrizi said the typical perception of the
status of women in Islamic society is pervaded by
negative stereotypes.
“Oppression, uneducated, not allowed to leave
the house,” she said, summing up a few of the
misconceptions she’s encountered.
Senior Jabor Al-Mohammadi of Qatar said
many of the stereotypes emerge when people
confuse culture with religion.
“For example, female circumcision is not re
quired,” he said. “But some cultures have private
beliefs of their own and they require it... Female
circumcision is cultural.”
Oskui-Tabrizi said even within the small
group of Muslim women on campus, there is
Danielle Hickey | Photo editor
Hasnah Toran, left, a graduate student in Early Intervention, and Nargas Oskui-Tabrizi, a graduate student in
Education Leadership, discuss the film festival hosted by the Muslim Student Association.
no consensus about what it means to be a
Muslim woman.
“We have our disagreements,” she
said. “Some of the ladies wear hijab and
some don’t.”
“There’s a number of students that don’t want
to associate with the Muslim Student Associa
tion,” Toran said. They fear it will be like the
“moral police,” she said.
But Toran added that the point of the
group is to support each other, so no one
FILMS, page 3
University, community loses outspoken figure
Bruce Miller, who died Tuesday,
was an active speaker in both
student and city government
BY JARED PABEN & AYISHA YAHYA
NEWS EDITORS
Bruce Miller was everywhere. At student gov
ernment meetings. At city council hearings. On
various campus comers, giving suggestions, ad
vocating, telling the world how things should be
done differently.
He wasn’t always tactful. He wasn’t always
welcome. But his death on Tuesday leaves a hole
in the Eugene community. Miller, 62, who died
Tliesday morning of a heart attack in his South
Eugene home, will be remembered for the role he
played as a campus and community activist.
Miller, who often wore multiple shirts, a baseball
cap, a pair of large glasses and a yellow rain jack
et and carried a large mug full of soda, was a fig
ure on campus for decades.
ASUO President Adam Petkun said Miller was
always there to offer his ideas. He constantly
challenged student government leaders, as well
as complimented them when he thought they
had done well, Petkun said.
“I think it’s a function of how much he
cared about what was going on on campus,”
Tim Bobosky | Photographef
Bruce Miller,
left, sits in on
the Lane County
commissioners
meeting last
year as Mike
Bonner, a case
manager for
the Oregon
Department of
Justice, applies
to fill the District
No. 8 seat.
Petkun said.
Never a University student, Miller regularly at
tended ASUO Student Senate meetings, Programs
Finance Committee hearings and other budget
hearings on campus. He gathered information on
campus developments, condensed it into
frequent, type-written newsletters that praised
or criticized University and student leaders.
He often carried picket signs to protest or
support issues.
He even took photographs of people near the
EMU whom “he felt were subversive,” Eugene
Police Department officer Randy Ellis said.
Miller was never reluctant to share his
perspectives, whether people wanted to hear
them or not.
“He wasn’t always very tactful, but he was
well intended,” said Courtney Hight, Oregon Stu
dent Association campus organizer, who knew
Miller for about six years. "He felt student groups,
the Executive, the Senate could do more.”
While Miller had a lot to say, he didn’t always
come across well with students and some say a
few of his ideas were “totally out of left field. ”
“There were moments when he was border
line harassment,” Hight said.
Miller had mental problems that made it diffi
cult for him to interact with others properly, his
younger brother Bob Miller said.
“Bruce lacked all social graces,” Bob Miller
said. “Bruce was a couple cards short of a
full deck.”
Bruce Miller lived alone and never married or
had children.
However, Bob Miller stressed that his brother’s
actions were always well intentioned. He re
searched topics thoroughly and had spent his life
contacting people at all levels of government to
tell them how things should be done.
“It was a usually a well thought out opinion,
whether it was welcome or not,” Bob Miller said,
MILLER, page 4