Wednesday, May 1, 2002

by Mary Harrison
Gazette News Reporter

A Swarthmore student has been charged with 500 counts of sexual abuse
against children after numerous child pornography documents were found on
his personal computer.

The charges against Ivan Boothe ’04, which also include 506 counts of
criminal use of a communication facility, six counts of dissemination of
child porn, and one count of criminal attempt to unlawful contact or
communication with a minor and criminal attempt to corrupt a minor, were
filed on Monday, after a two-month-long investigation led by the Internet
Crimes against Children Task Force of Delaware County. After overseeing the
confiscation of Boothe’s computer last month, Lieutenant David Peifer
conducted a forensic examination of the computer, which brought to light
the compromising documents.

According to the Delco Times, officials were first alerted to Boothe’s
activities when, while using a screen name allegedly implying an interest
in sex with minors, he sent pornographic images to an undercover New
Hampshire police officer posing as a 15-year-old boy. He also sent a phone
number which was later traced to Pittenger dormitory. When Peifer and
Officer William Thomas of the Swarthmore Police questioned Boothe at his
dorm on March 14, he allegedly admitted to corresponding with the fake
15-year-old, though he stated that he had not intended to extend his
contact beyond phone conversations.

Boothe has been released on bail and remains on campus. According to Dean
of the College Bob Gross, Boothe plans to take a leave of absence during
the fall semester and continue his courses in the spring while living off
campus.

“I am currently in counseling and have been for more than a month for this
problem that I have,” Boothe said in a statement to the Gazette. “I hope
that in time, I am able to correct this part of me that I am not, nor have
I ever been, happy about.”

The administration is as of yet unsure what action, if any, they will take
once the legal proceedings are completed.

“If a student has violated laws, it is at the discretion of the deans
whether or not to exercise the right to take judicial action,” said Gross.
“At this point, it’s too early too tell.”

Gross also described the difficulty and delicacy of the situation facing
the deans. “On the one hand, his behavior is something we deplore; on the
other, he is still a Swarthmore student and a member of our community, and
we’re concerned about him.”

Assistant Dean Myrt Westphal also commented on the conflict of interests
involved in the deans’ decision. “You want to do the right thing for the
community, and you want to do the right thing for the individual. We have
some tough choices.”

Boothe’s arrest has sparked a campus-wide discussion on the appropriate
response to such a situation. According to Dean Gross, “there is no
indication that he ever had any contact with a minor. We don’t believe that
he poses a threat to the community.”

Stella Kyriakopoulos ’05, however, voiced concerns about the tensions
building among the students. “That his behavior is terribly wrong is a
given. But I’m wary about shunning someone from the community. I mean, it’s
the natural reaction, but it’s not the answer; it’s not productive. He
needs psychological counseling.”

Other students are stung by the lack of involvement on the part of the
deans. Morghan Holt ’03 expressed her opinion that the administration
should set an example of absolute intolerance of this kind of offense. “Now
that college has the license to act, I would like to see action,” she said.
“This is deviant behavior, it is a threat to the community, and it should
not be shrugged off by the college. The college is in a position to act; by
not acting they are silently condoning the student’s conduct.”

It is unclear as of yet what possible legal repercussions Boothe will face.
According to Lieutenant Peifer, possible punishment could involve a prison
sentence. A preliminary hearing has been set for May 6.

by Karla Gilbride
Gazette Section Editor

Between 250 and 300 people turned out for Lockheed Martin Corp.’s annual
shareholder meeting in San Diego last Thursday, where Morgan Simon ’04
presented Swarthmore’s shareholder resolution urging the company to extend
its antidiscrimination policy to include language about sexual orientation.
This year 91% of the shares held in the company were voted, mostly through
online and mail-in ballots, and 5% of those shares were voted in favor of
the Swarthmore resolution. An additional 3% of shares were cast by
individuals and institutions who chose to abstain from the resolution,
meaning that their shares were not automatically counted as endorsing the
management’s position. The relatively positive response to the resolution
means that the college will be able to refile it next year, something which
Simon says that members of the Committee on Socially Responsible Investing
are planning to do.

While only 15 people actually voted their shares during last Thursday’s
meeting, Simon saw the gathering as “an opportunity to get to communicate
with the Board of Managers and gauge reactions.” She added that the
reactions of the Board were “quite interesting,” explaining that the four
other resolutions presented at the meeting were met with little or no
response from management but that following Simon’s presentation, “they
dimmed the lights and a company spokesman got up on the podium to talk
about how much Lockheed Martin values all of their employees.” When this
spokesman turned to the specifics of the resolution, she related, “he said
that they can’t extend protection to everybody and have their equal
opportunity clause look like a phone book, because then they might have to
include eye color and hair color as well.”

In the question and answer period that followed this response, Simon said
that the Swarthmore resolution got more time and attention than any of the
four other proposals on the floor. “Several people got up and spoke for us
during the q&a session, including some Lockheed Martin employees.” The
domestic partner of an American Airlines worker also spoke during this
time, outlining the domestic partner benefits packages that American
Airlines offers and arguing that the same benefits should be provided by
Lockheed Martin. Finally, Vice President of Finance Paul Aslanian, another
Swarthmore representative who attended the San Diego meeting, used the q&a
session to request that LMC’s management commit to having a meeting with a
group from Swarthmore to discuss the issues raised in the resolution. The
Board agreed to hold such a meeting, and a letter is being sent out from
Swarthmore next week to pin down its exact time and location.

Simon said that she was glad to see a large amount of media presence at the
shareholder meeting, much of it due to the fact that Frank Savage, a member
of Enron’s Board of Directors, was up for reappointment to Lockheed
Martin’s Board as well. “The AFLCIO was there to protest his reappointment
and there was just generally a lot of excitement about it.” She believes
that the media spotlight focused on the event may have helped the
Swarthmore resolution to garner more attention from the press, citing the
fact that she was interviewed by an Associated Press reporter and that a
full-page story about the resolution appeared in the most recent issue of
The Advocate.

Though she said that she was unsure of what to expect from last week’s
meeting, Simon is happy with the outcome and is optimistic about the
resolution’s future prospects. “I think the fact that management felt they
needed to stage the kind of response they did shows that they feel
threatened by this. They know that this is the kind of thing that is going
to have to happen eventually and that it’s just a matter of time.”

* It was another eventful day in the Middle East Tuesday: Israel again refused
to allow a United Nations fact-finding mission to investigate the Jenin
refugee camp, where Palestinians allege that Israeli soldiers
massacred hundreds of residents.  The Boston-based Physicians for Human
Rights organization also released a preliminary report on Tuesday which
suggested that a massacre at Jenin was unlikely, based on casualty counts at
a Palestinian hospital.  However, the report urged Israel to give the UN
team immediate access to the site to facilitate the discovery of buried
bodies and the collection of forensic evidence.  Meanwhile, 26 of the
Palestinian gunmen holed up in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity left the
historic site yesterday and Israel responded by releasing 24 Palestinians
being held in a nearby hospital.  Finally, Israeli soldiers pulled out of
the West Bank town of Hebron Tuesday and US Secretary of State Colin Powell
believes that Israel will end its month-long siege of Yassar Arafat’s
headquarters “in the next day or so” after it agreed to an American plan
that will transfer six wanted Palestinian men living in Arafat’s compound to
a Jericho jail.

* Benevolence International Foundation, an Islamic charity, and its director
were charged with perjury yesterday for claiming in U.S. federal court that
the organization did not have ties to terrorism and military activities.
The Justice Department and the FBI say that they now have physical evidence
and testimony from informants connecting the group to al Qaeda and Osama bin
Laden.  The group, which is based in Illinois, had its assets frozen after
the Sept. 11 attack and sued the government to recover its property.  During
the trial, the Foundation stated that it was a “faith-based humanitarian
organization that engages in charitable work around the world” and “does not
engage in or fund terrorist activity.”

* The US General Accounting Office reported yesterday that federal buildings
may be vulnerable to terrorist attacks after it conducted tests in which
federal
agents were able to sneak past security measures at four prominent Atlanta
sites.  The tests, which were conducted in February and March, showed that
X-ray machines and bag-checks were unable to stop agents armed only with
persuasion and cheaply-made fake IDs.  Proposed by the U.S. House of
Representatives Committee on Government Reform, the tests were designed to
show that post-Sept. 11 security enhancements were concentrated in
Washington and unevenly distributed across the rest of the country.

*****

The Swarthmore College Chamber Wind Ensemble
Lang Concert Hall, 4:30 p.m.

MST3K Showing
Trotter 203, 7:00 p.m.

Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, End of Future
By Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, Co-Authors of ManifestA
LPAC Cinema, 7:00 p.m.

College Democrats Meeting
Parrish Parlor East, 8:00 p.m.

Film Society Film Screening
Kirby Lecture Hall, 10:00 p.m.

*****

In yesterday’s story about David Kamin’s victory in the senior speakoff,
the date of the graduation ceremony was mistakenly given as June 5.
Graduation will, in fact, be taking place on Sunday, June 2, (32 days!) The
Gazette apologizes for any confusion this error may have caused.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

by Jeremy Schifeling
Gazette Section Editor

The men’s ultimate frisbee team is going where no Earthworm has gone before:
to Nationals!  And after two consecutive weekends of clutch performances,
the Worms have earned it.

The team went into this past weekend’s Regional tournament as the #3 seed,
by virtue of having won the Eastern Pennsylvania sectional competition the
previous weekend.

Going up against the 16-best squads in the Metro East region, with just
three Nationals seeds up for grabs, the Worms started off strong.  In their
first Saturday match, they wiped out Tri-Co rival Haverford, 15-4.

They then moved on to face UPenn, who they beat in the thrilling finale at
Sectionals.  Again, the Quakers were tough, but after staking an 8-7
halftime lead, the Worms cruised to a 15-10 victory.

Having earned themselves a spot in the semifinals, the squad woke up bright
and early Saturday morning to take on the second-seeded team from George
Washington.  Fighting off miserable weather conditions, the Worms managed to
keep the contest close, but ended up falling 15-13.

However, all was not lost for the resilient Swat contingent, as the
double-elimination format gave them one last shot at a Nats bid.  Thus, the
Worms squared off against Penn State, which had just overcome a five-point
deficit to beat Bucknell.  With both sides coming off fiercely-contested
matches, the game came down to a battle of endurance: Who had anything left
to give?  In the end, the Worms prevailed, taking the contest 9-7 with the
assistance of a tournament cap rule.

Now, soaked and exhausted, Swat took on Maryland with the third and final
trip to Nationals on the line.  In a game for the ages, the Worms matched
their opponents point for point, taking an 8-7 lead into halftime and then
tying the Maryland squad at 15 apiece in the second.

With a hard cap set at 17, the squad’s entire season had come down to just
two points – perhaps the most important two points in the team’s long and
storied history.  Thus, to describe these already-historic final moments,
here is tri-captain Brandon Silverman ’02:

“We got a score at 15-15, making it 16-15 us… then Maryland turned it away
near their endzone… I picked up the disc and put up a really high throw to
Paul Wulfsberg (’03) and John Anderson (’03) who only had a really short
defender near them… Paul caught it, but my defender called “stall” which
means he
thought I didn’t throw it within 10 seconds…so, we brought it back, and I
threw it again, and this time John caught. Point. Game. Nationals.”

With the incredible victory, the Worms captured their first-ever bid to the
UPA College Nationals tournament, which will be held May 24-26 in Spokane,
Washington.

*****

* The Toronto Maple Leafs claimed the Eastern Conference quarterfinal
series by beating the New York Islanders 4-2 last night. Even without
injured captain Mats Sundin and suspended Shayne Corson, Alexander Mogilny
scored twice to lead the Maple Leafs to a 4-3 series win. The Maple Leafs
will begin their semifinal playoff series at home against the Ottawa
Senators tomorrow night. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Flyers, the team that
Ottawa defeated in five games to advance to the second round, fired their
head coach Bill Barber yesterday, along with assistant coaches Mike
Stothers and E.J. McGuire. General manager Bob Clarke cited ongoing
differences between the coaches and players as the major reason for the
dismissal.

* In NBA playoff action, the Charlotte Hornets beat the Orlando Magic
102-85 in Game 4 last night to clinch their best-of-five series. Baron
Davis scored 28 points en route to his second straight triple-double, also
adding 11 rebounds and 10 assists. In the four games, Davis averaged 27.5
points, 9.3 assists, and nine rebounds. The Hornets will play the winner of
the New Jersey-Indiana match-up, which was pushed to a Game 5 when the
Pacers defeated the Nets 97-74 last night. Austin Croshere and Ron Artest
each scored 18 points to lead the Pacers against the spotty and
inconsistent Nets. Game 5 will take place tomorrow night in New Jersey.

* Tony Muser was fired yesterday by the Kansas City Royals, becoming the
fourth manager to be fired in this first month of the season–a new record
for the majors. Muser was replaced by bullpen coach John Mizerock, who will
serve as interim manager until a permanent replacement can be found. Muser
was the losingest manager in Royals history, with a record of 317-431
(.424) since taking over the team in 1997. “It’s just a part of this
business,” Muser said. “Managers are hired to be fired.” That certainly has
been the case, as Muser joins Detroit’s Phil Garner, Milwaukee’s Davey
Lopes, and Colorado’s Buddy Bell in the unemployment line. Boston manager
Joe Kerrigan was fired during spring training.

*****

There are no contests scheduled for today or tomorrow.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I’ve searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of
committees.”
–G. K. Chesterton

*****

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