Thursday, April 25, 2002

By Jeremy Schifeling
Gazette Section Editor

Late Monday evening, vandals wreaked havoc across the campus, destroying a
Magill Walk
lightpole and damaging numerous other College properties.

According to Director of Public Safety Owen Redgrave, the vandalism consisted of
six
separate incidents.

At 10:50 p.m. on Monday night, a patrol officer discovered the first of the
crimes when he
noticed that two of the College’s Daihatsu utility vehicles had been tipped over
outside of
the Service Building.  Although the vehicles were promptly righted, it was
unclear if any
damage had been inflicted.

At 11:12 p.m., the next vandalism site was found outside of Clothier, where a
planter had
been tipped over into some bushes, harming both the tree and the bushes.

Around the same time, a free-standing trash can was discovered after having been
knocked
over in the Lang Music Building parking circle.  The contents of the can had
been strewn
about, but the container was undamaged.

Next, at 11:20 p.m., a “No Parking” sign in Parrish West Circle was found to
have bent in
half.

Nine minutes later, a call from a student alerted Public Safety to a lightpost
along Magill
Walk that had been attacked by the vandals.  The light, which was located right
near the
underpass to the train station, had been destroyed.

Finally, Public Safety was informed the following morning by Dining Services
managers that a
rock had been thrown through a top-floor window at Sharples sometime after the
cafeteria’s
closing the previous night.

Redgrave said that “no witnesses have come forth so far” regarding the crimes.
Additionally, Public Safety has no leads or possible suspects.

However, Redgrave is certain that there were multiple vandals involved since it
takes at
least two people to tip over one of the College’s service vehicles.

An additional act of vandalism was discovered on Monday morning when Public
Safety found the
tires slashed on a College vehicle.  The incident, which occured over the
weekend, is not
believed to be connected to Monday night’s rampage.

In light of these latest incidents, Redgrave wished to remind students to
contact Public
Safety immediately if they notice any kind of suspicious activity on campus.

*****

By Karla Gilbride
Gazette Section Editor

This afternoon Morgan Simon ’04, Vice President Paul Aslanian, and four other
Swarthmore
representatives living in California will be in San Diego to present a
shareholder
resolution at the annual shareholder meeting of Lockheed Martin Corp. The
resolution, which
was drafted in November by Swarthmore’s Socially Responsible Investing
Committee, calls for
the defense contractor to extend its antidiscrimination policy to include
homosexual,
bisexual and transgender employees.

Shareholder resolutions recommending changes in company policy can be filed by
any
individual or institution that has stock in the company. Any such measure
requires a
majority of stockholders to vote for it in order for it to be implemented
against management
‘s wishes, but as Simon explained, “that almost never happens, because every
stockholder
that doesn’t vote is counted as a vote for management.” Although they view it as
highly
unlikely that they can secure a majority vote, Simon and Aslanian are hopeful
that they can
garner 3% shareholder support for their proposal, which is the minimum required
to re-file
the resolution next year. “Companies don’t like having shareholder resolutions
on the books
because of the media attention that generates,” said Aslanian, “so if we can get
enough
votes to re-file next year, it’s very likely that they’ll decide on their own to
raise their
standards to what other defense companies are doing.” At this point, LMC is the
only firm
among the nation’s top ten defense contractors which does not explicitly include
a reference
to sexual orientation in its antidiscrimination policy.

Although several shareholder resolutions have been filed on the issue of
discrimination
protection for gay employees over the past several years, including one against
Home Depot
which resulted in a settlement and policy change before the matter ever came to
a vote,
Swarthmore’s action marks the first time since the mid-1980’s that an individual
college has
filed a shareholder resolution on any subject. At that time, many colleges and
universities
banded together to call upon companies to stop investing in apartheid-era South
Africa, and
these efforts were largely successful. “If nothing else, we hope that by doing
this we’ll
remind people that colleges can file shareholder resolutions,” Simon said. “If
more people
know that now than before we started, then I’d say this has been a success.”

Most of the shareholders who vote on resolutions like Swarthmore’s do so by
proxy or through
the mail rather than attending the annual meeting. Accordingly, a large
component of the
Socially Responsible Investing Committee’s publicity campaign over the past
weeks and months
has involved sending letters to individual investors and other colleges asking
for their
votes. “We wrote to about 200 top investors and 35 or 40 colleges,” Simon said,
“and some of
them have expressed support. We just heard back that Harvard has voted for us.”
In addition
to such supportive responses, however, Simon and the college have received
several pieces of
hate mail regarding the resolution. “I’ve received a number of personal letters,
and the
News and Information Office has gotten a few as well,” Simon related. “Most of
them are
quite polite actually; they’re just very concerned about me going to hell.”

Although most of the voting will not actually be done at today’s meeting, Simon
expects a
fairly large turnout, mentioning that the hotel and convention center where the
meeting is
being held is completely booked for the weekend. “These public meetings are
really just a
formality that the SEC requires,” explained Aslanian, “and the script for them
is largely
determined ahead of time, but this one should still be quite interesting.” In
particular, he
noted, “the chairman will have to justify his opposition to our resolution
before the board,
and I’m curious to see how he’s going to do that.” Up to this point, LMC
spokespeople have
maintained that an antidiscrimination provision for homosexual workers is not
needed because
the company already has in-house policies which provide this protection.

Simon mentioned that following the resolution’s release, the team responsible
for drafting
it received some criticism for not working more closely with gay employee groups
at LMC in
determining what the resolution’s terms should be. “We do have the support of
the employee
group there, which is called GLOBAL, (Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual at Lockheed
Martin). They’ve
been lobbying other employees to vote their shares and writing letters to the
Board of
Managers about this issue.” She added that “we know that what they’re most
concerned about
and most want to see happen is benefits for domestic partners, but that isn’t
something we
could address in our resolution because the SEC has rules stating that you can’t
file
shareholder resolutions about the day-to-day operations of a company, and
domestic partner
benefits would fall into that category.” She hopes, however, that “updating the
antidiscrimination policy will get a foot in the door by giving those employees
a better
bargaining position, and hopefully the other changes will follow.”

Aslanian, who has not been involved with a shareholder resolution since the
Vietnam War in
the late 1960’s, said that “this was a really easy one because there’s no
tradeoff between
economic interests and the social good.” He went on, “We want them to make as
much profit as
possible by hiring the best people, and once they have those people they should
discriminate
like mad on the basis of good vs. bad engineering, but not on extraneous
characteristics
which are irrelevant to how they do their jobs.” Aslanian also expressed pride
at the
leadership role taken by Simon and the SRI committee on this issue. “It’s been a
very
deliberate committee that’s done an awful lot more spadework on this than I
have, and I just
wish that every committee I’ve served on over the years had been as focused and
hard-working
as this one.” The students on the committee that drafted the November resolution
were Simon,
Nate Wessler ’04, Andy Wong ’02, and Rory Kondrad ’02, and they were joined by
Aslanian, Sue
Welsh, the college’s treasurer who supervises the endowment, Sam Hayes, a Board
of Managers
member and chair of the Investment Committee, and Christopher Niemczewski, who
also serves
on the Investment Committee.

* Leaders of the U.S. Roman Catholic Church have proposed a two-track system for
punishing
pedophile priests, differentiating between repeat offenders and single instances
of abuse.
The cardinals’ proposal seems likely to encounter protest and criticism from
home, where
many people were looking for the direct implementation of a zero tolerance
policy. Although
the Pope called this emergency summons at the Vatican and said at the opening
session on
Tuesday that he would not tolerate pedophile priests, the final statement from
the church
leaders is ambiguous. One proposal calls for “the dismissal from the clerical
state of a
priest who has become notorious and is guilty of the serial, predatory, sexual
abuse of
minors,” while the other advocates “a special process for cases which are not
notorious but
where the Diocesan Bishop considers the priest a threat.” A final decision on
the proposals
will not be made until June.

* The Israeli army is reporting that the Palestinian gunmen involved in a 23-day
standoff in
the Nativity church in Bethlehem have agreed to release 10 to 15 youngsters
trapped inside,
along with two Palestinian corpses. Over 200 others, including priests, monks,
and nuns are
also holed up in the church, as Israeli troops have surrounded the area, seeking
the
Palestinian militants. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Colin Powell asked Israel
to cooperate
with the U.N. team investigating what took place at the Jenin refugee camp.
Powell said that
so far he has “seen no evidence that would suggest a massacre took place” but
stressed to
all parties that the facts must be uncovered. Israeli officials, who have
refused to grant
the investigation team entrance to the camp unless the team included military
and
counter-terrorism experts, are scheduled to meet with U.N. officials today in
New York to
resolve the dispute.

* The Bush administration backed down yesterday from their original airport
security
overhaul plans and announced that they would rely primarily on less expensive
luggage
scanners and bomb detectors at 429 national airports. Originally, the government
had
estimated that it would need over 2,000 large explosive detection machines
(EDS), which cost
approximately $1 million to manufacture and $1 million to install each. The
Transportation
Department has since reduced that figure to 1,100 EDS, while simultaneously
calling for
4,700 trace machines, which scan for explosive residues and retail at
approximately $40,000.
The government has not said if they will alter the makeup of the security
devices over time;
it is possible more EDS could be added, or new technologies could be employed as
they become
available.

*****

Biology Lecture
Kirby Lecture Hall – Martin, 4:15 p.m.

“Challenges to Christianity After Sept. 11”
Hicks Mural Room 312, 4:30 p.m.

“Facing African Tragedies: the African Writer”
by Emmanuel Dongala, Congolese Novelist, Guggenheim Fellow, and Professor of
French and
Chemistry at Bard College
Scheuer Room – Kohlberg, 6:00 p.m.

Cantatrix Concert
Clothier Bell Tower, 7:00 p.m.

Hong Kong Movie Night: “The Tai-Chi Master”
SCCS Lounge, 7:30 p.m.

The Ring III: Israel/Palestine Student Discussion
Mephistos, 8:00 p.m.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

* Ottawa Senators goalie Patrick Lalime tied an NHL record for consecutive
playoff shutouts
last night by blanking the Flyers 3-0 for the third time in a row.  The Senators
are now up
3-1 in their first round series, in which Philly has failed to score a
regulation goal.  In
Carolina, the Hurricanes lead the Devils 3-2 after Josef Vasicek ended Game 5,
3-2, with a
goal 8:16 into OT.  Elsewhere, the Islanders beat the Maple Leafs 4-3 to tie
their series at
two games apiece and San Jose took a 3-1 edge over the Coyotes with a 2-1
victory.

* Jerry Stackhouse posted a career-high 31 playoff points to lead the Pistons
over the
Raptors, 96-91.  Detroit can sweep the best-of-five series with a victory in
Toronto on
Saturday.  In the other NBA playoff contest, the Mavs won an offensive shoot-out
against the
T-Wolves, 122-110.  Dirk Nowitzki, Michael Finley and Steve Nash combined for 76
points to
give Dallas a 2-0 series edge.

* The Montreal Expos won their fifth consecutive game yesterday when they
outlasted
Milwaukee in a marathon, 15-inning contest, 5-4.  Alex Sanchez’s error in the
bottom of the
15th allowed Mike Mordecai to score the winning run and end the 4-hour contest. 
Meanwhile,
the Braves ended a seven-game home losing streak to the D-Backs when they beat
Arizona
Wednesday, 4-3.  The Braves had previously lost seven consecutive games to the
World Series
champs, including three in last year’s NLCS.

*****

Today:
Track and field at Penn Relays, 12:00 p.m.
Baseball hosts St. Joseph’s 4:00 p.m.
Women’s lacrosse at Western MD, 4:30 p.m.

Tomorrow:
Track and field at Penn Relays, 12:00 p.m.
Golf at CC Championships, 12:00 p.m.
Women’s tennis at CC Championships, 3:00 p.m.
Badminton at National Championships

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I
tried to find
out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must
be an allergy
to consciousness.”
–James Thurber

*****
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