Pie protests cream
UC officials
By Christine Tatum
College Press Exchange
BERKELEY, Calif. - Agents of the
Biotic Baking Brigade have struck
again, this time launching pies at
officials of UC-Berkeley and UC-
Davis and at heads of Novartis Inc.,
one of the world’s largest
biotechnology and agrochemical
corporations.
The Nov. 23 patisserie protests
were the sixth and seventh "pieings”
in about a month. Members of the
888, as they call themselves, have
smashed custard into the kissers of
five other public figures, including
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown,
Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman and
Carl Pope, executive director of the
Sierra Club.
The group, which includes a few
local college students, says it hurls
pies into prominent faces to call
public attention to various social and
environmental issues. So far, its ploy
has worked. Stories of the group's
attacks - in which only one protester
has been injured so far - have landed
on newscasts and newspaper fronts
across the country.
A multi-million-dollar deal
between UC-Berkeley and Novartis’
Agriculture Discovery Institute and
past talks between UC-Davis and
Monsanto Corp. prompted this week’s
pie pitching.
Under the terms of the Berkeley
Emporia State drops ban on
discrimination against gay students
College Press Exchange
EMPORIA, Kan. (CPX) -
Emporia State University has
dropped a clause prohibiting
discrimination based on sexual
orientation from its student
handbook and affirmative-action
literature.
University President Kay K.
Schallenkamp ordered the revision
last summer, but word of the change
didn’t filter down to many faculty
members and students until this fall.
Now, teachers and students are
organizing a teach-in in January to
Racial incidents at Cornell prompt
administrative action
College Press Exchange
ITHACA, N.Y. (CPX) - A string
of racial incidents at Cornell
University has prompted school
officials to increase security on
campus
Students living in a dormitory
primarily for African Americans,
called Ujamaa, have received
anonymous, threatening telephone
calls warning that black students
“should get off campus.” Someone
also left racially charged messages
that referred to the Ku Klux Klan
on an answering machine belonging
to a black residence hall supervisor.
Other racially charged incidents
have been more subtle, university
officials say. A cartoon recently
printed by the student newspaper,
The Cornell Review, depicted a
house owned by the Native
American student program as a
gambling casino.
The newspaper defended the
cartoon as a parody, but Cornell
President Hunter Rawlings
denounced it as “the group
stereotyping we all deplore.”
“These incidents, and others like
them, are totally intolerable,”
Rawlings told the Syracuse
agreement, the company will give $25
million to researchers in the
university’s department of plant and
microbial biology, renowned for its
study of plant genetics. In return, the
institute will get access to the
department’s research and have first
rights to buy any information or
products the department eventually
may want to sell.
Officials of UC-Davis and
Monsanto - whose CEO, Robert
Shapiro, is among the BBB’s victims
- also have discussed a relationship
in which the company would foot
some bills for research projects.
However, those talks have stalled in
recent months, said Maril Stratton, a
spokeswoman for UC-Davis.
"Obviously, this group is
uninformed,” she said.
Not so, 888 members say.
“We hold the University of
California in flagrant contempt of its
mission as a public interest institution
by selling its facilities, services and
students to the world’s largest
biotechnology and agrochemical
corporations,” said a 888 member
identifying himself as Agent Apple.
"Novartis and Monsanto are playing
with the basic building blocks of life,
as well as the food security of millions
across the globe.”
Two 888 members, dressed to
blend in with reporters at a press
conference announcing the Berkeley
deal, launched pumpkin pies that the
discuss why it’s important to protect
gay people from sexual
discrimination.
About six years ago, university
officials added the anti
discrimination clause to the policy,
joining about 350 colleges across
the nation offering similar
protection. But with the latest
change, Emporia’s policy now states
it will not discriminate “on grounds
of race, color, gender, national
origin or ancestry, age, disability
and Vietnam Era veteran status.”
Attorneys suggested that
Schallenkamp remove the clause
Newspapers. “This is not the first
time we have experienced such
incidents on campus... But we will
speak out in the face of those who
would seek to divide this
community rather than bring it
together.”
So far, no arrests have been made,
but the university has put more
This is not the first time
we have experienced such
incidents on campus ...
But we will speak out in
the face of those who
would seek to divide this
community rather than
bring it together.”
Cornell President Hunter Rawlinns
police officers on campus and has
improved lighting near Ujamaa and
Akwekon, the university’s Native
American center.
For weeks, Cornell has been at
odds with students and faculty who
criticize the university’s policies and
proposals regarding ethnic studies
and the housing of minority
National Campus News „ ,
1 Thursday, December 3, 1998 The Behrend College Beacon - Page 5
group later said in a written statement
“symbolize the estimated 60 percent
of food on American tables for
Thanksgiving that will contain
genetically engineered products." A
few miles away, on the UC-Davis
campus, another male 888 member
known as Agent Cow dressed as a
woman and sat in the front row of a
brown-bag luncheon hosted by
Chancellor Larry Vanderhoof.
"All of a sudden the man stood up
and yelled and smunched a banana
creme pic directly into the
chancellor’s lace," Stratton said.
"Everyone in the room was stunned.
People offered the chancellor
Kleenex, but he left to get cleaned up.
That’s not usually what happens
during those brown-bag sessions.”
While Agent Cow managed to
elude those who chased him, UC-
Berkeley police arrested two 888
members in connection with the
pastry throwing on that campus. Both
members were charged with
trespassing and assault. While no one
knows how the case will be handled
in court, Berkeley officials are hoping
the 888 members will be ordered to
pay cleaning bills.
“There was pumpkin pie stuck all
in the carpet and running down the
front of the vice chancellor’s dress,”
Berkeley spokesman Bob Sanders
said. “It wasn’t pretty.”
from the institution's discrimination
policy because they said it left the
university vulnerable to a flurry of
lawsuits. The state of Kansas
doesn’t extend health benefits to the
domestic partners of gay employees,
and no federal law requires that it
do so, but the policy’s previous
wording could have held the
university to a different standard,
attorneys said.
Despite the omission, university
officials say improper behavior
against anyone, regardless of the
reason for it, will not be tolerated.
students. Administrators have
decided that within five years all
first-year students will be housed
together.
School officials say the policy
will strengthen class identity and
student retention. Critics insist it
will hurt halls like Ujamaa and limit
housing options for minorities - a
deterrent that may encourage many
to go to school elsewhere.
Minority groups on campus also
bristled this semester after the
release of a university report that,
in part, suggested Cornell’s ethnic
studies programs - including
African American, Asian, Latino
and Native American studies - be
housed in the same building and
work together more closely.
Proponents said the move would
give ethnic studies a stronger,
collective voice, but opponents
viewed it as a means for school
officials to limit their autonomy.
The debate led to a petition signed
by more than 500 students and a
three-day student sit-in outside the
offices of the College of Arts and
Sciences. University officials
eventually removed the
recommendation from the report.
Police Blotter: A Look At
Campus Crime Briefs
By Peter Levine
Campus Correspondent
University of Wisconsin
College JPress Exchange
TUCSON, Ariz. (CPX) -
Someone made off with a fiberglass
fish mounted on a wall in the
University of Arizona’s biological
sciences building.
According to the Daily Wildcat,
a university employee reported the
fake, finned creature - valued at
$1,200 - missing on Nov. 20. The
employee said he found no signs of
forced entry and that many people
have access to the room where the
fish was kept.
STANFORD, Calif. (CPX)- For
the second time in two months, a
computer hacker broke into
computers at Stanford University
and stole the passwords for almost
300 e-mail accounts.
According to the Stanford Daily,
the hacker used a stolen password
to get into the university’s electrical
engineering department’s
computer system. The Daily also
reported that the hacker broke into
the system on Oct. 31 and
maintained access to it for six days.
“It looked like the hacker was
going for power and wanted to
control the system, not necessarily
what was on it,” David Brumley, a
specialist in the university’s
Computer Security Office, told the
Daily.
Although there were no reports
of e-mail tampering, university
officials did shut down several
accounts, forcing many students to
change their passwords.
The Daily reported that campus
security officers tracked down the
hacker to an Internet service
provider, but could not proceed
further without outside assistance.
The university chose not to ask
federal agents for help because
minimal damage was done.
In early November, hackers
broke into Stanford computers and
took more than 5,000 user
passwords.
BOULDER, Colo. (CPX) -
Armed with a three-man water
balloon launcher and a lot of snow,
a group of students at the
University of Colorado at Boulder
Economics professor sells
rights to sex-change story
College Press Exchange
CHICAGO (CPX) - It's not every
day that a university press pays big
bucks for the memoir of an
economics professor.
But the memoir of an economics
professor who has had a sex change
is a different story.
The University of Chicago has
paid Dierdre McCloskey a $20,000
advance for her autobiography.
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name, phone number major, and semester standing.
managed to raise a few eyebrows on
campus recently.
The group specifically aimed the
snowballs at windows and managed
to break one.
Passersby snickered, and police
didn’t think to look for any suspects
- until they read about the incident
in the campus newspaper.
CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, 111.
(CPX) - A student at the University
of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
suffered minor injuries after three
men attacked him outside a dining
hall on campus.
According to the Daily Illini, the
victim was eating in the dining hall
on Nov. 19 when the trio asked to
step outside to settle some business.
The victim later told police he did
not know the men, but went along
with them anyway.
Once outside, the trio pushed the
victim to the ground and kicked
and punched him all over his body.
The attackers fled when a resident
advisor arrived on the scene.
The victim was treated and
released from a local hospital.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (CPX) -
One man’s efforts to take cleaning
supplies from the University of
Michigan’s graduate library were
a wash after workers stopped him.
According to police reports, the
man tried to walk out of the
building with several cleansers and
a box of trash bags.
The man, later dubbed “Mr.
Clean,” wound up dropping the
goods and running from the library.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (CPX) -
Members of the Kappa Alpha
fraternity at the University of
Missouri kicked out a former
pledge who was living among them
after investigators named him the
lead suspect in a rape case.
The suspect is not currently
enrolled at the university, but had
been living in the KA house.
“He was a pledge in the spring,
and he didn’t make grades,”
fraternity president Greg Shelton
told the student newspaper, The
Maneater. “He was down on his
luck, and we offered him a place to
live.”
The reported rape allegedly
happened in the fraternity’s off-
which is currently titled Crossing:
A Memior. While the sum is chump
change in the industry of trade
publishing, it’s an unusually high
price to be paid by a university
press.
The author was formerly Donald
McCloskey, a widely respected
economist at the University of lowa
who stunned family, friends and
colleagues in 1995 when he
announced his decision to become
campus house after a homecoming
party in September. The victim has
been reluctant to press charges,
leaving investigators unsure of
whether they will make an arrest
in the case.
“We can’t go to the prosecutor
without a victim,” Columbia police
Sgt. Stephen Monticelli told the
Maneater.
University officials said the
fraternity will not be held
responsible for the reported sexual
crime or for housing someone not
enrolled at the school.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (CPX) -
Campus police at the University of
Missouri investigated the Nov. 12
theft of a pair of wooden crutches
from a student, the student
newspaper, the Maneater, reported.
So far, they have no suspects.
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (CPX) -
Students pulling an all-nighter in a
library at SUNY-Binghamton must
have rubbed their eyes In
amazement when a naked man
sauntered by them.
According to the Pipe Dream,
students called campus police to
report the man’s brief public
appearance at 4:15 a.m. on Nov. 16.
The man, described as 'being
nearly 6 feet 4 inches tall and about
30 years old, picked up a pile of
clothes and fled from the building
when someone questioned him.
Officers reported that they
searched the area but found no one.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (CPX) -
Police had little choice but to ticket
a former Ohio State student for
disorderly conduct after finding
him in a stupor.
According to police reports, two
students escorted the man to a
dormitory after finding him
Intoxicated on campus. The man
told the students he lived there, but
resident assistants called police for
help after determining he did not
Police checked out the man’s story
and learned that he indeed had
been a resident of the dorm - in
1994, not this year.
Officers arrested the man,
ticketed him and later released him
to the custody of his brother.
a woman
In the book, due out next fall,
McCloskey plans to chronicle his
decision to become a woman and to
describe the reactions of his wife of
30 years, who eventually divorced
him, and of a sister and former
colleague, who McCloskey said
tried to have him committed to a
mental institution.