THE BEHREND BEACON ANUARY 14 2000 PAGE WORLD NEWS Stephen Case will lead yet another "Internet Revolution" by Leslie J• Nicholson Knight-Ridder Tribune January 11, 2000 The man at the center of the $lB4 billion America Online-Time Warner megamerger is a boyish looking 41-year-old who started his career marketing home perms for Procter & Gamble. Stephen M. Case, known simply as Steve to millions of AOL sub scribers, had already been credited with leading the popularization of the Internet. Now he will lead what many are saying is another Internet revolution: the melding of tradi tional and Internet-based media. The AOL chief executive will he the chairman of the new AOL-Time Warner. He will focus on "techno logical developments and policy ini tiatives driving the global expansion of the interactive medium," accord ing to a statement. Time Warner's 60-year-old chair man and chief executive officer, Gerald M. Levin, will be the CEO. Time Warner President Richard Par sons and America Online President Bob Pittman will become co-chief operating officers. Online industry analyst Gary H. Arlen said that with this deal, Case will become a "senior statesman" who provides a voice for the online industry, in much the same way CNN founder led Turner and Tele- Communications Inc. chief John Malone did for the cable industry. "It's still to be determined if Case is really going to be calling the shots at this merged company, but I'm cer tain he's going to have a great in fluence on its interactive direc tions," Arlen said. Case is a man known for keeping his eye on a single goal: putting America Online at the center of the growth of the Internet. It was he who initiated discussions with Levin about a merger three months ago. Federal judge Decatur High by Janan Hanna and Stephanie Ranchero Knight-Ridder Tribune January 12, 2000 CHICAGO A federal judge Tues day upheld the expulsions of several black Decatur high school students, prompting outrage from Rev. Jesse Jackson and sighs of relief from school district officials across the state who say discipline decisions should rest solely in their hands. Rejecting a plea to order the students back into school, U.S. District Judge Michael McCuskey of Urbana dis agreed with the student's claims that the expulsions, which followed a fight in the stands during a football game, were racially motivated and violated their constitutional rights. "If the board had failed to take ac tion against these students or otherwise ignored their conduct at the game, the students who were not involved in the fight, as well as the citizens of Decatur, might be led to believe that the School Board was unable to control conduct in the schools," McCuskey said in his ruling. The Decatur Board's decision to ex pel the students prompted days of pro tests in Decatur led by Jackson and lo cal black activists who charged that the students would have been treated more leniently had they been white. Following Tuesday's ruling, Jackson appeared at a Chicago press conference flanked by the expelled students and vowed to appeal the ruling and launch new protests in Decatur beginning Sat- urday. Decatur school district officials praised the ruling as vindication of their claims that race played no part in the expulsions. They also chided Jackson for sticking his nose into their business. "Control belongs at the local level," said Decatur Schools Superintendent Kenneth Arndt. "The board should be able to make decisions in the best in terests of the students they represent. They should be able to do so without unbelievable publicity and public pres "Today's announcement is consis- nearly 15 years, said America tent with the strategy that Steve Case Online's high profile is a difficult and Bob Pittman have had in place Gerald Levin, left, chairman and CEO of Time Warner Inc., and Steve Case, chairman and CEO of America Online, give each • other a high five after announcing the merger of Time Warner and AOL at a news conference Monday morning, January 10, 2000. for a number of years," said Mark Winther, group vice president for worldwide telecommunications at International Data Corp., a research firm. "They have clearly pushed into this content area, and it's no surprise that they're buying Time Warner." Winther called Case ambitious, aggressive and incredibly focused. "And he's nowhere near done," Winther said. He said Case's sense of purpose helped AOL navigate the expansion from being an online service with more limited content to becoming an Internet service provider. It also helped AOL through the move to flat-rate pricing in 1996, a change that proved so popular that it caused bottlenecks and busy signals that in furiated AOL subscribers. Case responded by delivering. within a year, on his promise to com plete the fastest network construc tion project in history, Winther said. Arlen, who has known Case for upholds expulsions of 6 School students That sentiment was echoed by a wide cross-section of Illinois school officials, many of whom said they had long felt besieged by a growing list of state and federal dictates on curriculums, stan dardized testing and other matters. "I think the general feeling in educa tion circles was that, if this judge had ruled in favor of the students, it would have opened a Pandora's box to over turning other local control issues," said Mark Friedman, superintendent of Libertyville School District 70. "We have already seen local control slowly eroding during the last 20 years on a number of issues." The ruling also pleased Chicago schools CEO Paul Vallas. "You don't want the federal government dictating issues that are unique to local districts, such as discipline," Vallas said. McCuskey's ruling stemmed from a civil rights lawsuit filed on behalf of the students by lawyers from Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. During a three day hearing late last month, law yers for the students argued that the Decatur school board, following a so called zero tolerance policy against vio lence, handed out blanket punishments to the students even though some were more involved in the fight than others. The lawsuit further alleged that the students were not given proper notice about the expulsion hearings, were un fairly labeled as gang members with out sufficient evidence, and were vic tims of random, rubber stamp decision making by a majority white school board that overreacted to a group of rau cous young black men. McCuskey flatly rejected those asser tions, adding that federal courts must tread cautiously when intervening in school disciplinary matters. He noted that the U.S. Supreme Court "has re peatedly emphasized the need for af firming the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, con sistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools." Specifically, McCuskey ruled that the Decatur board had no real zero toler ance policy in effect even though it had personal challenge for the low-key Case. "He's a very introverted guy; very hard to get through," Arlen said. "But what a sharp mind." Case's major strength, Arlen said, is his marketing emphasis. He is not a hands-on person, but he knows how to surround himself with the right people to handle the hands-on work, Arlen said. Case comes from a family of achievers. He is the son of a cor porate lawyer and a teacher. His brother, Daniel H. Case 111, is the chairman and chief executive of ficer of the investment banking firm Chase, Hamhrecht & Quist. Steve Case was born in Honolulu in 1958. He earned his bachelor's degree in political science from Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., in 1980. While in college, he performed in two rock bands. He started his career promoting home perm kits and hair conditioner towelettcs for Procter & Gamble. earlier adopted a vague resolution hint ing at it. And while the fight did not involve weapons and resulted in no serious injuries a point repeatedly raised by Jackson it was serious enough to cause alarm, McCuskey said. "This court is not impressed with the students' position that because no knives or guns were used in the melee that it was not a significant fight," McCuskey said. "Just because no weapons other than fists and feet were used by the students does not mean that innocent bystanders were not harmed, frightened and forced to flee the stands to avoid serious injury." At a hearing before McCuskey last month, lawyers for the students also introduced statistics showing that 82 percent of all expulsions in Decatur over the last three years involved black students, even though blacks comprise 46 percent of enrollment. Still, McCuskey said that statistical disparities alone were not enough to prove discrimination. That could only be done if it was also demonstrated that white students engaged in a similarly violent fracas had been treated more leniently. But McCuskey said lawyers for the students presented no evidence to contradict the testimony of two Decatur school officials that the fight was by far the most violent confronta tion in the schools in recent memory. The board voted in October to ex pel the students for two years, but cut that to one year under pressure from Jackson and Gov. George Ryan. The governor secured spots for the students in an alternative education program paid for by the state. Two of the ex pelled students are seniors and could be eligible to graduate in May if they do well in the alternative program. In his ruling, McCuskey made it clear that he based his decision on the less serious discipline the students ended up with rather than consideriig the original two-year punishment. Despite the setback from McCuskey, Jackson sought to portray his role in the controversy as cruc al in securing a better deal for the stu- After a couple years of that, he worked briefly as a manager for Pizza Hut, where his job was to seek out new toppings. In 1983, Case joined a startup company in Vienna, Va., called Control Video Corp. that developed video games for personal comput ers. Control Video remade itself into Quantum Computer Services. It began an online service called Q link for Commodore 64 computers in 1985 and soon offered similar services for Apple 11, Macintosh and IBM-compatible personal com puters. The Apple 11-Macintosh version of the service was called America Online. In 1991, the entire company changed its name to America Online, and Case was named presi dent and chief executive officer. The online service had slightly more than 156,000 subscribers. A year later, Aol_, went public. By 1994, after several acquisitions, Case had been named Inc. magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year. "The critical move that Case took was to spend the money necessary to blanket the country with AOL disks," said Credit Suisse First Bos ton analyst James Marks. It was a gamble that paid off, Marks said. AOL's famous "carpet bombing" campaign -- in which the company gave away millions of AOL soft ware disks through the mail or pack aged with other companies' prod ucts illustrates Case's determina tion to keep AOL's name in front of the public, said Arlen. "It reminded you of the brand of AOL," he said. "It was in-your-face advertising like nothing in the advertising world. Like nothing in the computer world." For the most part, Case has avoided personal controversy. "The shock of all times for most of us was when he left his wife and married his PR person," Arlen said. dents. The students would have faced far more severe punishment and wouldn't have been allowed in the al ternative school had it not been for the days of headline grabbing demonstra tions orchestrated by Jackson and other activists, he said. From the start, the Decatur debate has been marked by posturing and hy perbole on both sides. School officials, who cast themselves as smalltown leaders overwhelmed by the public re lations juggernaut of Jackson, fed the media with careful leaks that made sweeping characterizations of the stu dents as gang members who rarely at tended school. Jackson, who complained loudly about the board's stereotyping of the students as truants among other things, has pulled them out of the alternative school on several occasions for rallies, protests and news conference, includ ing Tuesday's at Rainbow/PUSH head quarters in Chicago. In addition to appeal that he plans to have filed, Jackson said he's planning at least two protest rallies in Decatur this month. Outside Decatur's Eisenhower High School, the site of the tight which led to the expulsions, McCuskey's ruling was the topic of conversation Tuesday afternoon as students waited for the bus to carry them home. "This school has been like a jail," said sophomore Anita Behnke, who complained about tough new security measures implemented in the wake of the protests. "I feel relieved that it's over because it was a big mess." But Decatur School Board President Jacqueline Goetter doubted she had seen the last of Jackson or the expul- siOn Controversy "While I hope there's closure, I don't see that happening soon," said Decatur School Board President Jacqueline Goetter. "I think our community has been through a lot. And we've all lost a little something in the last four months. There's some healing that needs to take place. There's been some division in our community." Relatives re-apply for asylum for boy by Alfonso Chardy and Andres Viglucci Knight-Ridder Tribune January 12, 2000 MIAMI Armed with a Miami- Dade family court judge's contro versial award of temporary cus tody, Elian Gonzalez' Miami rela tives Tuesday said they re-filed a petition for political asylum on the boy's behalf, opening a new front in the family's battle with federal immigration officials. The Immigration and Naturaliza tion Service (INS), which has yet to respond to Miami-Dade Judge Rosa Rodriguez' ruling, did not react to the asylum application by Elian's great uncle, Lazar() Gonzalez. An INS spokesman in Washington, D.C., said Tuesday the agency is studying its options. But the asylum request, signed by Gonzalez and sent by overnight mail Tuesday, will likely force a re sponse from the INS. Agency of ficials last week explicitly rejected an earlier asylum petition from the same uncle, saying he had no legal standing to act for Elian. Rodriguez' order specifically gave the elder Gonzalez legal au thority to speak for the boy before the INS and to hire lawyers for him, directly contradicting the agency's contention that only Elian's father in Cuba can do so. The INS could reject the new asy lum petition by reasserting its po sition that only Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, can decide the boy's fate. Gonzalez has said re peatedly he wants the boy hack. Legal experts have cast doubts on the merits of requesting asylum for the 6-year-old boy. To win, he would have to prove he faces per secution in Cuba on the basis of race, religion, nationality, member ship in a particular social group or political opinion. They also question whether Rodriguez, a state court judge, has any jurisdiction at all. They say Attorney General Janet Reno may be able to render the judge's decree moot by invoking a 1997 revision of U.S. immigration law that re quires state courts to seek the per mission of the U.S. attorney gen eral before intervening in cases of children under INS custody. But the family lawyers say that, if allowed to proceed, they could make a winning case. "We believe we have a solid case to prove that if returned to Cuba, Elian would face persecution," said Roger Bernstein, an attorney for the elder Gonzalez. "We believe there's a solid case here for a well founded fear of persecution." Even as Elian's family's support ers forged ahead in court, sympa thetic politicians Tuesday pressed their case further in Congress. U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, pledged to introduce leg islation granting U.S. citizenship to Elian once Congress reconvenes on Jan. 24, echoing a proposal to be introduced in the Senate by Repub licans Connie Mack of Florida and Elian Gonzalez has plenty of fun spraying friends at his first Three Kings Parade in Little Havana. The event, which was banned in Cuba nearly 30 years ago by Fidel Castro, marks the historic ac count of the three wise men who brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the newborn Jesus. Trent Lott of Mississippi. Grant ing Elian legal status would take his case out of INS purview, hut would not resolve the question of the child's ultimate custody. Ros-Lchtineri also signed a let ter, along with a bipartisan group of 12 members of Congress, ask ing Reno to hold off on returning Elian to Cuba until his case can be heard in court. Reno, who has previously upheld the INS decision that Elian belongs with his father, has not yet re sponded to a last-ditch plea made last week in Washington by Miami- Dade Mayor Alex Penelas and Mi ami Mayor Joe Carollo. Judge Rodriguez set a hearing in the custody case for March 6. Le gal experts, though, have said the judge overstepped her legal author ity in issuing her order, which they say the INS can ignore or easily get overturned in federal court. In Little Havana, the day for Elian's relatives began before dawn on Tuesday. Elian's cousin, Georgina Cid Cruz, and family at torney Spencer Eig met at 5 a.m. at La Carreta restaurant on Calle Ocho for a round of live TV inter views. Crews from CNN and NBC's Thday Show joined local news teams, reflecting growing in terest in the battle over the boy's fate across the country Family representatives projected confidence, predicting that Elian will stay in the United States. -Ul timately. Elian's choice will be be tween Florida and Florida State, - Eig quipped during the "Today Show interview. Elian, meanwhile, spent his day at a Little Havana private grade school, his second day hack there after the announcement of the INS decision last week interrupted his attendance. Elian's departure for school was recorded by a swarm of camera crews and news photogra phers. Even a photographer from The Associated Press rode in fam ily spokesman Armando Gutierrez' car to shoot pictures of Elian strapped in the hack seat on the way to Lincoln-Marti school. In Havana, meanwhile. student leader Hassan Perez called Cuban exiles "beasts" without a country in a speech to the latest rally in the government's campaign for Elian's return. "We have seen the lack of rea son and unbalanced hysteria of an ever-shrinking minority of repug nant subjects who have no father land, who dare to derail the deci sion of the government of the most powerful nation on the planet," Perez told the crowd outside the American mission in Havana. Perez is often called upon to de liver the government's central mes- sage at the protests "Who are these beasts whose hearts do not hear, who fight to keep a child who has become a world symbol?" he asked. The Cuban exiles in Miami, he said, will use 'all of their resources to impede the child's return.-
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