Tyler Warner • The Daily Beacon
Proposal seeks to turn Guantanamo into wildlife haven Heiler Meek
Staff Writer
An amendment to the bill, proposed by Rep. Micah Van Huss, includes a clause that diverts $100,000 of the diversity office’s state funds, $436,700 in total, to be reallocated for the fiscal year 2016-2017 to fund a national motto decal program to distribute decals for any state law enforcement agencies. Van Huss said the decals themselves would be produced by UT’s graphic designs department.
In Feb. 2016, President Obama formally announced plans to close U.S. detention base on Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Since then, the second-term president’s decree has been used in both Democratic and Republican campaigns of the current presidential election cycle. A few weeks ago, the Science Journal published a proposal beseeching the U.S. government to transform Guantanamo Bay’s reputation forever. It was written by Joe Roman, Ph.D., conservation biologist employed by the University of Vermont and James Kraska, Ph.D., a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Kraska and Roman wish for Guantanamo Bay to be converted into an international ecology research facility. Their statements are held under the assumption that plans to close the detention center will be successful. “The United States should deliver on President Obama’s recent plan to close the military prison at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay and repurpose the facilities into a state-of-the-art marine research institution and peace park, a conservation zone to help resolve conflicts,” Kraska and Roman said in the paper. “With a reduced U.S. footprint at Guantanamo, most of the land and sea could be returned to native wildlife. The area provides habitat for many endemic species.”
See SEX WEEK on Page 6
See GUANTANAMO on Page 3
Sex Week provokes controversy, support Staff Report UT’s fourth annual Sex Week has come and gone, leaving the student body with the now familiar mixture of support and controversy. Here’s a look at some of the events, protests and general mayhem you may have missed over the past week. Diversity Amendment
Volume 131 Issue 53
While students and faculty alike were participating in the week long series of events, lawmakers in Nashville were holding their own meeting to determine the fate of UT’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Tennessee legislators approved a bill in a House subcommittee Wednesday that would prohibit state funds from being used to promote the use of gender neutral pronouns, to promote or inhibit the celebration of religious holidays or to fund or support Sex Week.
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Monday, April 11, 2016