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Tennessee welcomes Florida to Knoxville
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Friday, September 17, 2010 Issue 22
Vol. 115
I N D E P E N D E N T
S T U D E N T
Natti Love Joys bring good vibrations to the Longbranch PUBLISHED SINCE 1906
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Supreme Court Justice Thomas to visit UT across campus really pulled together to ensure this visit will go smoothly,” Tanya Brown, director of communications at the College of Law, said. “Security is, of course, Renowned Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will our biggest concern. We’ve done everything we can to comply with the federal standards outlined by join UT faculty and staff for a lecture and the U.S. Marshals office.” discussion Friday. The university has gone to great lengths Doug Blaze, dean of UT’s College of Law, planning Thomas’ time on campus. While said the justice’s visit has been structured academic reasons are certainly a factor in to be of tremendous benefit to both UT law the justice’s visit, there may be other influenschool students and the general university tial factors as well. population. “Justice Thomas’ interest in visiting “His visit provides a wonderful opportureflects a nice convergence of his interest nity for our faculty, students and alumni to and support for legal education and his love interact with a member of our highest court of college football,” Blaze said. “He has visit— what a tremendous opportunity,” Blaze ed several other law schools, including sevsaid. Clarence Thomas eral SEC schools, so Tennessee seems like a Blaze and his colleagues are thrilled with natural.” Thomas’s presence on campus, both in its Serving as the highlight of his visit, the justice will be advantages for students and the law school’s reputation. “His visit also helps underscore our law school’s strong addressing UT law students in the Cox Auditorium at connection to the bench and practicing bar, a connection 12:45 p.m. A limited number of tickets were also available to stuthat makes us better by fully preparing our graduates to enter the profession,” Blaze said. “And in this particular dents not enrolled in the law program. The justice will participate in other activities on caminstance, Justice Thomas’s visit has helped attract several other nationally prominent judges to preside over our pus, encouraging direct interaction with students as well. “In addition (to the lecture), the moot court competiAdvocate’s Prize appellate moot court competition. As a result, our best and brightest students will have a chance tion and the Q&A session of his talk, many of our students to argue in front of some of our country’s very best judges.” will be present at the alumni reception on Friday,” Blaze UT faculty members have readily discovered, however, said. “Several students are also assisting in showing Justice Thomas our law school and campus.” that hosting a Supreme Court justice is no easy task. Thomas studied at the College of the Holy Cross, then “Logistically, people from facilities at law, athletics and
Yale Law School, before practicing in both the public and private sectors. He was appointed as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by former President Ronald Reagan, and subsequently served on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia under the request of former President George H. W. Bush. Bush later nominated him for the Supreme Court, and he was ultimately confirmed after a series of controversial and grueling hearings before the Senate. With a biography that befits a member of the Supreme Court, Thomas presents a background worthy to replace Thurgood Marshall, the former Supreme Court justice he succeeded in 1991. In the vein of judicial philosophy, Thomas has been perceived as one of the most conservative members of the court. He takes a textualist stance on the Constitution, which means that he relies on the actual language of the document itself rather than the founders’ intent. Thomas will be the first Supreme Court justice to call on the UT law school since Antonin Scalia’s visit in 1990. “We regularly invite different members of the Court to visit,” Blaze said. “We just were very fortunate that Justice Thomas’s schedule made this visit possible.” This visit is the result of substantial hard work from the law school staff. “Most of the coordination work for the Justice’s visit was handled by Mary Ann James in the dean’s office,” Brown said. “Her hard work is a large part of why our students will benefit from his expertise as a judge of our Advocates’ Prize moot court competition.”
Hispanic Heritage Month begins
New York City seeks tough smoking ban
Blair Kuykendall Copy Editor
Student groups celebrate diversity with various cultural events Donesha Aldridge Staff Writer
Several organizations around UT’s campus and the
that. You should never turn your back on your heritage. It can tell you a lot about who you are, how you got there, and being Latino is something very different on UT’s campus.” Fu mentioned that the HoLA Festival happens every year
Ashley Bowen • The Daily Beacon
The I-House hosts Global Hour with a Mexican focus Wednesday night. Thursday was Mexico’s official day of indendence and in honor, the I-House had food and music for students to enjoy. Knoxville community have kicked off celebrations for this year’s Hispanic Heritage Month. The heritage month started Wednesday and will end on Oct. 15. The I-House hosted Mexican week with different events every day for students. Qi Fu, graduate assistant for the I-House, said the reason for choosing a Mexican theme was to honor Mexico’s Independence Day, Sept.16. “We are having activities this week to recognize their culture,” she said. Fu said students loved the movie “ESL — English as a Second Language” on Monday. “It was very funny, and everyone enjoyed it,” she said. Tuesday night the I-House held dance lessons. A professional came to the I-House and taught students salsa. Culture night, one of the I-House’s signature programs, featured a band playing cultural music with food and other activities. Fu said students were scheduled to speak about their own cultures in Mexico and, for those that had studied or lived in other countries, their experiences abroad. The event for Thursday night was Global Hour but with an emphasis on Mexico. Fu said other organizations like Lambda Theta Alpha and the Latin American Student Organization would also be planning events to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. Diane Nash, the president of the Latin American Student Organization, said it would host a latino-style tailgate before the Alabama football game on Oct. 23. LASO will also host Salsa Al Aire Libre on Oct. 1. Nash said it’s important to recognize the Hispanic culture to make sure it never gets lost. “There are not many hispanics on UT’s campus,” Nash said. “It is important for those who are Latino to embrace
in Knoxville and the I-House would be a part of it. “We are going to help them publicize the event,” she said. “It’s like a huge culture night that we would have here at the I-House but in the daytime.” HoLA Hora Latina will host several events for the Knoxville Community. Outside of the festival on Oct. 9 on Gay Street,art exhibits, cooking contests and a flamenco and dinner night will be featured during the month. The Cultural Attractions Committee, one of the Central Programming Committee’s subgroups, will host Ballet Hispanico on Sept. 29 at the Clarence Brown Theatre. The group was founded by Tina Ramirez, a famous Venezuelan-American choreographer in the ’70s. Alexandria Parris, member of CAC and junior in psychology and English, said CAC is excited about hosting the event. “We decided to go with Ballet Hispanico because it goes with our mission statement of introducing campus to cultures they might not be aware of,” she said. Parris thinks the program will not only reach out to UT students, but to the Knoxville community as well. “We want to cater to everyone, and we thought it was a good idea to branch out,” she said. Parris hopes students less informed about the Hispanic culture learn something through the ballet; however, she wants those with a Hispanic background to know that they are not forgotten. “This event will be a good chance for them to connect with their roots, especially if they fill misplaced on campus or in Knoxville by being a minority,” Parris said. Tickets for Ballet Hispanico are $5 for students and $15 for faculty members. Tickets for the general public are $25. Everyone can purchase tickets from the UT Ticket Office. For additional information about the HoLA Festival, visit the website at http://www.holafestival.org.
Associated Press New York City is pursuing a tough new policy that would shoo smokers out of public parks, beaches and even the heart of Times Square — one of the most ambitious outdoor anti-tobacco efforts in the nation. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration and city lawmakers announced Wednesday that they will pursue a broad extension of the city’s smoking ban to 1,700 parks and 14 miles of public beaches, plus boardwalks, marinas and pedestrian plazas. That would mean no smoking in Central Park, no lighting up on the Coney Island boardwalk and putting the cigarettes away if you’re lounging on the traffic-free pedestrian plazas in Times Square and Herald Square. “When New Yorkers and visitors to our city go to the parks and beaches for fresh air, there will actually be fresh air for them to breathe,” Bloomberg said at a City Hall news conference. States and cities from Maine to California have banned smoking in public parks and beaches, but New York is pursuing an especially wide-reaching urban ban. While hundreds of municipalities have outdoor no-smoking laws, the largest city in the nation is seeking to force thousands of acres of parkland as well as some busy city blocks to go smoke-free. By including pedestrian plazas, the Bloomberg administration is venturing into territory most anti-tobacco bans leave alone: smoking on the street. The boundaries of the plazas, in most cases, are sidewalks, bike lanes and street corners. If the law passes, it would be easy for a smoker to drift from the sidewalk, where smoking is still allowed, into a plaza, where it is not, without realizing. Lawmakers said the goal is to keep people from smoking inside the plazas, not to trick smokers into getting ticketed. “The point of this bill isn’t ‘Gotcha,’” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. “Our goal is not to get a gentleman or a lady who’s walking across the street.” The city banned smoking in bars and restaurants in 2003. Smokers, long accustomed to being told they are not welcome, shrugged off the news of a possible outdoor ban Wednesday. Gene Buelow, who stopped for a smoke in a Times Square pedestrian plaza, said it “wouldn’t bother me a bit.” “I don’t even like smoking around people who don’t smoke,” he said. “And the people who gave it up don’t want smokers around them.” “It’s a good idea,” said Jason Perez, a restaurant worker smoking at an outdoor table in the plaza. “I’m trying to quit myself.” A smokers’ rights group, NYC Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, recently posted a video on its website protesting the idea. The group’s founder, Audrey Silk, argues that smoke dissipates quickly outdoors, where “there’s room for everybody and nobody will be affected.” Officials said they are basing the proposed law on claims that even brief exposure to secondhand smoke can pose health risks. They cited a May 2007 Stanford University study that found a person sitting within three feet of a smoker outdoors can be exposed to levels of secondhand smoke similar to indoor levels. The proposed law, which must go through the City Council, would give the parks department the power to slap violators with quality-of-life summonses, which are tickets for minor offenses like panhandling or public urination. Fines can go as high as $250; the city said smoking summonses likely would be around $50. Council members plan to introduce the anti-smoking bill Thursday. It has to go through committee hearings before the full 51-member council can vote.