WEDNESDAY April 26, 2000 Vol. 100 No. 177 24 pages Vermont approves gay marriage law By Ross Sneyd ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER MONTPELIER, Vt. Lawmakers gave final approval yesterday to legislation making Vermont the first state to grant gay couples nearly all of the rights and benefits of marriage. The state House voted 79-68 for the "civil unions" bill, which was approved by the Senate last week. Democratic Gov. Howard Dean said he will sign it, possibly as soon as tomorrow. "I think the powerful message is that in Vermont, we tend to value people for who they are, not what they are," Dean said. Three homosexual couples and their lawyers, who sued in 1997 when they were denied marriage licens es, watched in the crowded House chamber as the final roll was called. Stacy Jolles and Nina Beck stood cradling their 5- month-old son, Seth. Peter Harrigan stood embrac ing Stan Baker, who held a small necklace from Student reports of Nike tour released By Tim Swift COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER Nike released yesterday the findings of college students, including one from Penn State, who toured the company's clothing factories in Asia, North America and Latin America this spring. The program allowed 16 students to tour factories with representatives from Pricewaterhouse Coopers, an independ ent monitoring organization hired by Nike to inspect its factories. The students looked for violations in Nike's code of con duct and local labor laws. Martin Austermuhle (junior-interna tional politics) ittirei while remaining students separately mon itored factories in other countries, includ ing China, the Dominican Republic and Canada. Posted on Nike's Web site (www.nike biz.com), the students' report was mostly positive. The students said most of the factories met health and safety standards, employed few underage workers and posted Nike's code of conduct for all employees to know their rights. "What we have learned by having col lege students go on these tours is that the more we can open this up demystify it the better we can make people under stand the complexity of this work," said Dusty Kldd, director of labor practices at Nike. However, the student monitors com plained the announced visits allowed fac tories to prepare and possibly hide viola tions. Also, the students who toured Latin America said many of the employees could not read and may not have been aware of their rights under the code of conduct. "You wouldn't go in and see slave driv ers," Austermuhle said in an earlier inter view "The problems were subtler." Common problems cited in the report were forced overtime and inadequate fire safety measures. In an extreme case, Shubha Chakravaty, a graduate student at Stanford University who toured factories in Bangladesh and Indonesia, said at a factory in Bangladesh, six out 25 workers interviewed said the management physi cally abused them. While interviews with workers inside factories were convenient, workers may npt have felt comfortable speaking can didly about labor practices because plant managers knew or could find out which workers were interviewed, student moni tors said. Van Wagner (graduate-agriculture education) sings on Old Main yesterday as part of the "Grassroots on the Lawn, Rally for Solidarity." STAR protesters leave Old Main Though the tents on Old Main Lawn came down yesterday afternoon, Penn State has not seen the last of Students for Accountability and Reform's spray-painted signs, speakers promised about 80 spectators at its rally yes terday afternoon The rally, formerly titled "Grassroots on the Lawn. Rally for Solidarity," was STAR's cele bration of activism that, said Devon Swisher (senior-labor and industrial relations) as she introduced the speakers, "did not die with Vietnam." The end of the campout comes on the 20th day of STAR's protest of Penn State's refusal to join the Worker Rights Consortium . The number of students in support of STAR grew from an original eight campers to 35 yester day before they took down their tents. Protesters decided to leave yesterday because they met their three major goals, said Justin Leto, co-founder of STAR. The goals, he said, were that the adminis tration decide to allow student substitutes for the committee created to review the WRC, that members of STAR be allowed to present at the committee and that a deadline for a decision had be set for Dec. 30. Leto added, however, that just because STAR is leaving the lawn doesn't mean its mission has been accomplished. "Penn State is not for sale, and we will see to it that this university puts students ahead of corporate greed," he said in his speech. After some musicians played to the audi- See NIKE, Page 12 which his parents' wedding rings dangled. And Holly Puterbaugh held hands with Lois Farnham, who wiped tears from her eyes. "This isn't marriage, but it's a huge and powerful bundle of rights that we've finally gotten," Baker said. The bill came about after the Vermont Supreme Court unanimously ruled in December that gay cou ples were being unconstitutionally denied the rights and benefits of marriage. The court gave the Legislature time to decide whether to let gays marry or to create some kind of domestic partnership. It opted for a parallel system for homosexuals, creating what they called civil unions. After the bill takes effect July 1, couples will be able to go to their town clerks for licenses. Then they will have their unions certified by a justice of the peace, judge or member of the clergy. Breakups will be handled in Family Court, just as divorces are, although they will be called dissolu By Heather Cook COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER PUBLISHED INDE ence, speakers took the mic and Julian Catchen, co-founder of STAR, listed the prob lems the university still has to solve. He mentioned future plans to name a Penn State building for a bank, the university's refusal to release a textbook list and the high cost of renting space in the HUB-Robeson Center. Catchen also talked about the mortgage Penn State has taken out on student activity fees to help pay for HUB construction, as well as a policy that doesn't allow faculty to bring items into classrooms that conflict with corpo rations like Pepsi. "The university has to stop seeing students as consumers, faculty as streams of revenue and facilities as buildings for rent," he said. Other speakers addressed how important it was for students to become educated about global politics. . _ One speaker, Matthieu Dalle, who repre sented the Graduate and Fixed Term Employ ees Organization, encouraged spectators to get involved with helping the graduates get benefits and be allowed to unionize in the uni versity "We provide a service to the universi ty, and we want to be recognized for that," he said. John Stith, representative candidate for the Green Party, also addressed the audience to talk about the state of democracy in Pennsyl vania and at Penn State. When he asked how many students thought Penn State operated as a democracy, no hands went up. "The question you should be asking is, 'How are you going to help make the campus more Workshop, worship celebrate goddesses Twelve women sat in a darkened circle Monday night, chanting about their woman ly strength, power and sexuality in a god dess-worship ritual influenced by Pagan and Wiccan beliefs. The women attended a program in Eisen hower Chapel sponsored by Silver Circle and Womyn's Concerns about goddess based spirituality. "I think all women can benefit from seeing themselves as somehow like the divine," said Aase Wiborg (graduate-Spanish), a practitioner of feminist spirituality "I'm not promoting that everybody become practi tioners of feminist spirituality. I think spiritu ality is what's right for you and ultimately about what helps you to find inner peace to live a productive and ethical life." Wiborg said one of the reasons for doing a workshop and worship ceremony for the goddess on campus is to let people who are interested know about the divine as female. lions. The more than 300 benefits that the state con fers on married couples now will flow to same-sex couples, including the ability to make medical deci sions on behalf of partners, inherit from each other without hefty taxes, and protection from having to - testify against one another. But there are responsibilities as well. For exam ple, same-sex partners will have to assume each other's debt and pay child support. Civil unions will not entitle couples to benefits bestowed by the federal government in areas such as Social Security and immigration. And most states will probably not recognize civil unions. Still, no state has ever gone so far in recognizing gay relationships. "I think this definitely places Vermont in the fore front in this country, places Vermont on par with Nordic and European countries and Canada," said Beth Robinson, a lawyer who argued the gay cou ples' case before the Vermont Supreme Court. By Alissa Wisnouse COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER Amir Joshua (senior-science, technology and society, and philosophy) and Reggie Brooks, former College of Education director of minority student relations, talk yesterday at Old Main. democratic?' " he told the audience Students who have been living on Old Main for the last three weeks said moving back indoors would be sad for them in some ways. "I'll miss the people," said Dan Uncles (sen ior-American studies) after the speeches. "We were forced to be out here, but we all learned a lot from each other." "We live in a society where not everybody even knows it's possible to see the divine as woman. I didn't know that until I was 19 years old, and when I did, it was like an epiphany," she said. When other religions see women as pas sive, it becomes difficult to have a relation ship with the divine as feminine, Wiborg said. "I don't see them (other belief systems) as inherently oppressive," she said. "What I think is that human institutions have used their own interpretation of the word of god whatever god is to abuse people, not just women, but indigenous people, poor people, even the general population. I don't think there's anything wrong with seeing god as genderless or god as male, but I do think it's wrong to use those beliefs to make part of the population feel bad about them selves." The workshop and ritual were influenced by Paganism in which the earth's fertility cycle is central to spiritual beliefs, Wiborg said. The Wiccan-based ritual focused on Beth Robinson, left, attorney, hugs Stan Baker, one of the complaintant., yesterday after the Vermont Senate's approval of the bill. WEATii' Page 2 TODAY: More sun than clouds 30 cents off campus ©2OOO Collegian Inc Review of electronic ownership underway By Alison Kepner COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER Yesterday's textbook today's electronic media tomorrow's copyright battle Penn State faculty senators discussed the right of a faculty member, who devel ops electronic material, balanced with the rights of the university, who pays salary and provides resources, during a forensic session at the University Faculty Senate meeting yesterday. Although Penn State has a policy to pro tect published faculty work, such as text books or novels, the protection of mit en.o developed electronically is not etc tuty defined. "The old policies that we have are very dated," said Nancy Eaton. dean of univer sity libraries and a member of the Task - Force on Intellectual Property and Proce dures. "The university must respond to legal changes," she said. The task force presented the senate with a 73-page report, summarized in si% recommendations. ■ Penn State should invest mere in intellectual property personnel resources. ■ Penn State and the Penn Star Research Foundation should better sup port the formation of start-up companies ■ Penn State should reinforce tactill ownership of copyrighted materials. look ing no changes until current lev,rdatioi, becomes law. ■ Faculty members who want to , 4c 1r courseware to an educational competitin' of Penn State must gain approval irota Vice President for Research Eva Pell ■ Penn State offices that deal with inlet lectual property should be consolidated under the Vice President for R estsarci's supervision. ■ Vice President for Research should form committees to develop introductory recommendations into policies and pr ce dures, with each new policy coming before the faculty senate as an advisory/consultative report. After a lengthy discussion, the senate passed another resolution to use the tasl: force's report for informational purposes only and to form committees of faculty and administrators to focus separately on copyright, patent and courseware policy issues. The senate limited most of its discus sion to the third and fourth recommenda tions, dealing with faculty ownership of See ELECTRONIC OWNERSHIP. Pape 12 empowering the female self through god dess worship. Wiccans generally worship two deities. one male and one female, but the goddess took center stage Monday night. During the workshop segment, the women were given words associated with women, such as "virginity" "pregnancy" and "femininity" First, they brainstormed about how society views these words, and the find ings were primarily negative and passive. These words were then redefined with posi tive images: "menstruation" changed from unclean and disgusting to life giving and nat ural. During the ritual segment, the women hailed the four quarters (North, East, South and West) and invoked them to join the ritu al. In darkness, with closed or lowered eyes, they used deep breathing to allow inner energy to ground into the earth and expand into a collective bubble enclosing the room. "It's more of an intuitive spirituality," said Michelle Yates (sophomore-women's stud- See GODDESSES. Page 12. has become and possibly
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