Daily Egyptian DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 2015
VOL. 99 ISSUE 43
SINCE 1916
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev convicted in Boston Marathon bombing richard a. serrano |tribune Washington bureau For a city still traumatized by the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, the 30 guilty verdicts announced Wednesday against Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev offered a moment of closure and unity. d zhokhar t sarnaev The next phase of the trial, when a seven-woman, five-man federal jury decides how to punish the young Russian immigrant, could prove more painful and divisive given the stark differences in the community between those who want Tsarnaev put to death and those opposed to capital punishment. But for survivors of that chaotic, bloody day in April 2013 — when twin explosions killed three people and wounded more than 260 others — the government’s victory in winning convictions on all counts against Tsarnaev provided a chance to come together in shared grief and resolve. At the race finish line on Boylston Street on Wednesday, someone left four yellow roses — one for each victim of the blast and another for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer killed during the search for Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan. “Justice has been served today,” said Dic Donohue, a Boston transit officer who was wounded in the shootout between the Tsarnaevs and police. “We have again shown as a society that terrorism will not prevail.” Tsarnaev, 21, thin, tousle-haired and lightly bearded, stood in the federal courtroom in Boston for a half-hour as the clerk read all 31 pages of the jury’s verdict form in a steady, droning voice, reciting the word “guilty” over and over. The counts against Tsarnaev included conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and murdering four people, including rookie MIT Police Officer Sean Collier. The two pressure-cooker bombs were filled with nails, metal shards and BBs, shrapnel that shredded victims’ flesh. Krystle Campbell, 28, Lingzi Lu, 23, and Martin Richard, 8, were killed in the blast. Seventeen others lost one or both legs. “I may be standing on one fake leg, but I’m standing stronger than ever,” said Rebekah Gregory DiMartino, who lost her left leg in the blasts and testified during the trial. She spoke on television to reporters outside her Texas home. In Boston, U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz appeared optimistic that the trial would result in the government’s first death sentence in a terrorism case since the 9/11 attack. For the rest of this story, please see www.dailyegyptian.com under our new global news section
l uke n ozicka | @LukeNozicka Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner speaks to media Nov. 7 outside The Vault Café in Marion during the first stop of his statewide “Thank You Tour.”
Gov. Bruce Rauner to speak at SIU graduation luke nozicka | @LukeNozicka Gov. Bruce Rauner, who is proposing a 32 percent cut to higher education, will be one of the keynote speakers at this year’s graduation. He will speak at the 1:30 p.m. ceremony — for students in the College of Business and the College of Education and Human Services — on May 16. “His greatest passion is education,” according to SIU’s keynote speaker web page. “The governor and first lady have devoted a tremendous amount of their personal time and resources to improving education throughout the state.” Rae Goldsmith, SIU’s spokeswoman, said the university is not paying Rauner to speak at commencement. She said last year’s speaker, Ali Wentworth — the actress and producer who is married to George Stephanopoulos, a Good Morning America anchor — was paid $40,000 to speak at all three ceremonies.
Jim Edgar, the 38th governor of Illinois, will speak at the 9 a.m. ceremony, and Bill Norwood, SIU’s first black quarterback who graduated in 1959, will speak at the 5:30 p.m. one. The two will receive honorary degrees from the university this year. Goldsmith said President Randy Dunn invited Rauner to talk at graduation in January, before his budget address in February. In his letter, Dunn said more than 800 students will earn their degrees from the two colleges, and he anticipates more than 5,000 family members and friends will be in attendance. “Your speech could underscore, among other things, the vital linkage between providing a quality education to our young people and the ability for business to succeed,” Dunn wrote in the letter, saying Rauner’s remarks do not need to be longer than 15 minutes. “The combination of the commencement ceremonies for these two
colleges seems to provide a solid background for crafting your message.” Rauner’s proposed budget, which needs to pass the General Assembly, will cut $62 million from SIU’s system, including $44 million from the Carbondale campus. During a Senate budget committee hearing in March, Dunn said as many as 1,000 SIU courses will be cut if Rauner’s budget passes. Since then, Dunn has said he will recommend a 6 percent tuition increase to the SIU Board of Trustees at its April 16 meeting. Because of his proposed cuts to the university, some students are irritated with the decision to have him speak. One of those students is Daniel Valle, sports director at WSIU Public Radio — one of the nonacademic units asked to submit ramifications of a 50 percent cut in state funding. Please see RAUNER | 3
Talk traces identity across borders austin Miller | @AMiller_DE Race has been a touchy subject in America and a presentation hopes to turn the topic into more of an embrace. The two-staff, one-student panel will discuss immigration, citizenship and identity from Asian and Latino perspectives at 5 p.m. Thursday in the Faner Museum Auditorium. Two of the panelists are sharing personal examples and research of how immigration affects people. Nilanjana Bardhan, director of graduate studies, came to the U.S. from India in 1992. With
the help of Bin Zhang, a doctoral student in communications from China, she studied how identities transitioned as people moved across borders. “When we both got here, we struggled with finding where we fit in,” Bardhan said. “Now we live here, we have to understand where we fit in the system. We are not used to seeing ourselves as people of color because where we come from, everyone looks like us.” Zhang, who came to SIU in 2011, said he and other Asian international students did not understand what was going on in Ferguson last summer. They did
not know about America’s history and why a white cop killing a black man would be a major story. Bardhan said race is a tense issue in America because of the country’s past with slavery, whereas other countries have tension with religion or social class. “We both struggle with the concept of race in the United States,” Bardhan said. “The way race is understood in the United States is very specific to the history of this country and is not understood in the same way around the world.” Other countries, less culturally diverse than the U.S., view the
concept of race as a lesser issue. Zhang said it was tough for him to go from being in the majority in China to being a minority here. He said China has a very homogenous population so he had to learn how to act like a minority. “People will tell me, ‘You are not so Chinese,’ and I didn’t understand that for a long time,” he said. “I would say, ‘That’s me, I didn’t change much.’ But because I grew up with Chinese concepts, and America is very diverse, it took me a long time to adjust. I’m Asian, so I’m supposed to be quiet, polite or a nerd.” He said he has felt forced to fit
the positive stereotypes for Asian people. He said there is an issue with Americans lumping AsianAmericans, students with Asian heritage born in America, and people born in Asia under one umbrella. He said the two groups share a lot of the same heritage—being family-oriented and striving for success—but differ in cultural aspects and in identity. He said he identifies more with his ethnicity than citizenship, as compared to an Asian-American student, which could be vice-versa. Please see IMMIGRATION | 3
@dailyegyptian Hearing finds cuts would devastate southern Illinois economy, see www.dailyegyptian.com for story