East Germany
Parliament reconstitutes five
original states after 38 years
Page 3
Big Ten student leaders convene at PSU
By MARC HARKNESS
Collegian Stall Writer
Student leaders from universities in the Big Ten cut ties
to the Big Ten Student Association this weekend and started
a new coalition, which they hope will encourage student activ
ism throughout the conference
Representatives from all Big Ten schools except North
western University and the University of Michigan, attended
a work session hosted by Penn State’s Undergraduate Student
Government at the Atherton Hilton, 125 S. Atherton St.
The session was originally intended as a BTSA meeting.
But student leaders, expressing discomfort over how found
ing member and chairman Pepe Rojas-Cardona was running
the organization, bailed out and formed Net 10 —Network of
Big 10 Student Governments.
BTSA was incorporated in Delaware under Rojas-Cardo
na’s name in January. He had formulated fund-raising plans
that included corporate sponsorships and product marketing.
But several student leaders were wary of committing
themselves to BTSA. They were also unsure of the motives
Trustees to vote
on new president
Board expected to vote
approval of Thomas
By MARC HARKNESS
Collegian Staff Writer
The Board of Trustees is expected to
approve a new University president
today during a special session called
specifically for a vote on finalist Joab
L. Thomas.
Thomas, former president of the Uni
versity of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, was
announced last week as the leading can
didate to replace Penn State President
Bryce Jordan, who will retire Aug. 31.
J. Lloyd Huck, president of the board
and chairman of the Trustee Presi
dential Selection Committee, said last
week the board will probably approve
Thomas as the University’s 15th presi
dent.
Thomas has a reputation for academ
ic integrity and accessibility to students.
As president at Alabama from 1981 to
1988, he was also highly regarded by
faculty.
“I think he really stressed the aca
demic environment at this university
and I think that’s something faculty
appreciate, no matter who you are,”
said Robert Barfield, dean of Alabam
a’s College of Engineering. “When
you’re putting emphasis on academics
and emphasis on research and flowing
money that way, that’s something fac
ulty appreciate.”
It is said Thomas has a talent for fund
Bush warned not to base
judge selection on one issue
By NANCY BENAC
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Republican
and Democratic senators alike yester
day warned President Bush not to apply
an anti-abortion “litmus test” as he
searches for a successor to retired
Supreme Court Justice William J. Bren
nan.
“If you have to have someone who
wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade, it’s
going to be a blood bath getting the
nomination confirmed, and the same is
true on the other side,” predicted Senate
Republican leader Bob Dole of Kansas.
“There shouldn’t be a single litmus
test in picking a Supreme Court jus
tice,” Dole said on NBC-TV’s Meet the
Press program.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a member
of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
agreed it would be a mistake for Bush
to base his choice on how prospective
nominees views the high court’s 1973
ruling in support of abortion rights.
Bush met for 90 minutes with top lieu
tenants at the White House yesterday
evening for an update on the search for
Brennan’s successor, but no decisions
were made, White House spokeswoman
Alixe Glen said.
She said the meeting was attended by
Vice President Dan Quayle, Attorney
General Dick Thornburgh, presidential
counsel C. Boy den Gray and White
House chief of staff John Sununu.
The brief session in the president’s
residence was called to fill in Bush on
the
daily
of Rojas-Cardona, a former president of the University of
lowa student body. Rojas-Cardona graduated from lowa in
the spring.
“We must now start from step one,” said USG President
J.P. Muir. “Pepe realized he was looking at the fiscal end
when we really didn’t have a focus. He offered his services
to us, and maybe somewhere down the line they’ll be called
__ »»
on.
They spent the remainder of the weekend drafting a con
stitution and a list of issues they intend to pursue when they
meet in October at Michigan State University. Individual stu
dent governments at the schools will have to ratify the con
stitution in its present form.
Northwestern University student government officials
agreed to join Net 10 through a telephone conversation, but
University of Michigan student leaders could not be reached
this weekend, said Tarrus Richardson, newly-elected Net 10
raising, both at a state and private level.
He managed to double Alabama’s state
appropriation during his tenure and
engineered that university’s first major
private fund raising campaign, similar
to the Campaign for Penn State begun
by Jordan.
Alabama raised more than $l6O mil
lion in two campaigns started by Thom
as. The Campaign for Penn State, which
recently ended, raised about $250 mil
lion.
Huck first mentioned Thomas’ candi
dacy to the full board at a closed session
when it met in Reading two weeks ago.
The chairman sent information on
Thomas to trustees last week.
“He does have the qualifications, and
unless something is brought up, I think
there is a very good chance that he will
make it, ” trustee Roger Madigan said.
The full board would be unlikely to
turn down Thomas, who received a
unanimous recommendation from the
selection committee, Huck said. Candi
dates for the presidency go through a
screening process, which in this case
took nine months to complete.
The selection committee hit a snag in
June when it had to ask for another
short list of candidates from the Presi
dential Search and Screen Committee.
The board was originally scheduled to
vote on the president earlier this month.
what had been done since the president
convened a 75-minute meeting Saturday
morning with the same three officials
to get the ball rolling on the search.
Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio,
said Bush should look for someone who
has “a good judicial record, judicial
temperament.”
Bush has said he hopes to have a new
justice seated on the court by October
to succeed Brennan, who was a leading
voice of liberalism on the Supreme
Court for 33 years. Brennan, 84,
announced his resignation Friday, cit
ing his age and health.
Most senators yesterday declined to
identify their choices for the high court.
But Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republi
can who himself has been mentioned as
a possible nominee, had a long list of
possible contenders ready.
“I don’t think I’m going to be selected,
nor do I really want to be,” Hatch said
on ABC.
Possible candidates mentioned by
Hatch or elsewhere include: Solicitor
General Kenneth W. Starr; federal
appellate judges Edith H. Jones and
Patrick E. Higginbotham of the sth Cir
cuit; William W. Wilkins Jr. of the 4th
Circuit; and David Souter of the Ist Cir
cuit.
Other federal appellate judges men
tioned are; Roger J. Miner and Ralph
K. Winter Jr., both of the 2nd Circuit;
J. Harvie Wilkinson 111 of the 4th Cir
cuit; and Eamela-A.vßymer, a former
federal district judge whom Bush
recently put on the 9th Circuit.
»jtetf LeMond
. Tour de France
f # f° r 2nd year victory
Page 6
Collegian
Leaders separate from student association
Come sail away
A lone sailboat on Lake Erie ploughs through the glistening waves as it passes Presque Isle State Park. The stately
craft navigated the lake Saturday.
Brennan was potent force on high court
By LEE BYRD
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON, D.C. Nearly thirty years ago,
Dwight David Eisenhower was asked by a television
interviewer if he had made any serious mistakes dur
ing his presidency. “Yes, two,” said Ike. “And they
are both sitting on the Supreme Court.”
Earl Warren is long gone. But until late Friday, Wil
liam Joseph Brennan, 84, was still there, staving off
the conservative tilt that Eisenhower and all Repub
lican presidents since have envisioned for the court.
What piqued Eisenhower was that Brennan, like
Warren, turned out to be a powerful judicial activist,
rather than a strict interpreter of the Constitution.
Even toward the end, when he was outnumbered in the
chairman and Purdue University’s student government pres
ident.
Although Net 10 did not discuss any issues in detail this
weekend, the representatives resolved to address campus
safety, environmental issues, minority recruitment and
retention, and the status of ROTC programs in relation to the
military’s discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
“My whole idea of the association is sort of like a cooper
ative,” Richardson said. “The BTSA should crawl first, not
becoming a big networking association doing credit card pro
grams.”
Penn State’s USG Executive Assistant James Marino, who
was elected vice-chairman and treasurer, said Net 10 should
act as an information exchange among student bodies of the
Big Ten Conference. Student governments at each school try
ing to implement programs such as dorm safety or rape
awareness could get valuable advice from other univer
sities that have successful programs already.
rJgMjP'feN*
wake of Ronald Reagan’s three appointments to the
court, he still held great sway with his colleagues.
“No individual. . . has had a more profound and
sustained impact upon public policy in the United
States” over the past three decades, according to the
grudging tribute of the National Review several years
ago.
“His footprints are everywhere,” said U.S. Appeals
Judge Abner J. Mikva. “His influence can be felt in
nearly every area of the law.”
In his 34 years on the bench, Brennan wrote more
than 1,200 opinions, second only to the late William
O. Douglas. Among them are many landmark deci
sions on civil liberties, including the one person one
vote doctrine for apportioning state legislatures. Other
Monday, July 23,1990
Vol. 91, No. 27 10 pages University Park, Pa. 16801
Published independently by students at Penn State
©1990 Collegian Inc.
“We could be a very successful lobbying group or voice,”
said Gail Stern, student body president of University of Illi
nois at Urbana-Champaign.
Net 10, however, will not necessarily represent students
at Penn State’s Commonwealth campuses. The association
was originally inteded to represent each university’s major
campus, said Suzanne Denevan, president of the Minnesota
Student Association.
Also, while sue of the student body presidents at this week
end’s meeting represent both graduate and undergraduate
students, the others, including Penn State’s USG, represent
only undergraduate students.
Marino said USG will have to keep in touch with Penn
State’s Graduate Student Association and the Council of Com
monwealth Student Governments to make sure they also are
represented.
“I don’t think it would be fair for us to represent graduate
and Commonwealth campus students, if we aren’t elected
by them to represent them,” Marino said. “But I think it’s
something we could agree on in the future.”
Collegian Photo/Michael Kubel
decisions ordered school desegregation, upheld affir
mative action plans for minority groups, struck down
state aid to religious schools, and established consti
tutional protections for libel defendants.
Brennan also wrote several of the court’s rulings on
obscenity, including a 1966 decision involving the 18th
century novel, Fanny Hill, in which he added a new
test for obscenity: whether the material was “utterly
without redeeming social value.”
While Brennan’s service on the court has had a huge
impact on American law, his sudden retirement Fri
day could well have a bigger one. The court’s 5 to 4
conservative majority has moved tentatively until
now, often tempering its decisions to win the swing
votes of Sandra Day O’Connor in some cases, Byron
R. White in others.
Weather
Mostly cloudy today, with an isolated
shower or two, high 78. Becoming partly
cloudy tonight, low 65. Partly sunny
tomorrow, high 82.
- Mike Hopkins
Casey submits
new student
trustee name
If the Senate does
not act on the
appointment within
25 legislative days,
the Governor’s Office
will have to either
resubmit Shaffer’s
name or choose
another appointee.
By MARC HARKNESS
Collegian Staff Writer
Gov. Robert P. Casey has nominated
E. J. Shaffer, a junior from the Wilkes-
Barre campus, to be the next student
trustee.
Shaffer’s name was submitted Thurs
day for approval by the state Senate,
said Andrea Quigley, an aide to the gov
ernor. If the Senate approves his
appointment, Shaffer will replace
Christina Henke, who has served a
three-year tenure as student trustee.
It is unlikely, however, the Senate will
approve Shaffer in time for the Septem
ber meeting of the University Board of
Trustees, since the legislature is not
scheduled to go back into session until
early that month.
If the Senate does not act on the
appointment within 25 legislative days,
the Governor’s Office will have to either
resubmit Shaffer’s name or choose
another appointee.
Shaffer said yesterday he anticipated
that the governor would nominate him
when he received a letter asking for his
permission for a State Police back
ground search a standard procedure
for all state government appointments.
Shaffer is not waiting for the Senate
to approve him; he attended the board
meeting two weeks ago and is planning
to meet with Henke to become better
acquainted with the position.
“I still have a lot to learn,” Shaffer
said. “I’m going to spend my first few
(board) meetings just learning about
the process.”
Shaffer was a freshman representa
tive of the Wilkes-Barre campus to the
Council of Commonwealth Student Gov
ernments, and was Wilkes-Barre’s stu
dent body president last year.
“I’m looking forward to meeting oth
er student leaders and working out a
way for turning this seat into an active
and effective voice for students,” Shaf
fer said.
The student trustee position is one of
five positions on the 32-member board
to be appointed by the Governor.