ustxtxb_obs_1998_11_06_50_00016-00000_000.pdf

Gary Oliver POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE FACULTIES OF COLOR. Although Attorney General Dan Morales and the U.T. system administrators would like to believe the affirmative action question has been settled we just don’t do that around here anymore the students are not so readily acquiescent. On October 22, following an Austin teach-in on the subject \(one of many across sors called the Faculty of Color Caucus, about forty students marched on the U.T. tower and demanded a meeting with new president Larry Faulkner. The students wanted a commitment from the university to restore affirmative action policies quickly abandoned in the wake of the Hopwood decision, which overturned affirmative action at the School of Law. When Faulkner refused to commit U.T. to defend affirmative action, the students \(a coalition calling themselves the Anti-Racist Organizing overnight, gathering more than 300 supporters outside. The following afternoon, the demonstration ended after Faulkner agreed to meet with student representatives to organize a series of universitytown meetings on affirmative action. On October 26, administrators met with the students, and scheduled four town-hall meetings to be held in November. The students are demanding that the university restore minority support programs not specifically outlawed by the Hopwood decision. U.T. regents and administrators insist their hands are tied under the law, but the students contend that the University is mishandling the appeal of the Hopwood decision, by forgoing opportunities to defend affirmative action legally. Undergraduate enrollment at U.T.Austin is currently 3 percent AfricanAmerican and 12 percent Hispanic. NOT FADE AWAY. The anti-dump activists’ coalition that came together to defeat the low-level nuclear waste site in Sierra Blanca does not intend to shut down its operation unless the state’s nuclear waste industry leaves West Texas. “It would be hypocritical and bordering on immoral for us to fight against this dump in Sierra Blanca and then turn around and ignore Andrews,” said Bill Addington, of the Sierra Blanca Defense Fund \(see also “A Addington promises to continue the fight if the state attempts to establish a site at Andrews, 180 miles north of Sierra Blanca and thirty-one miles from the New Mexico state line. The state which has as much money in the dumpsite search as Ken Starr has sunk into the Clinton investigation considered Andrews County as a nuclear waste site in 1987, but concluded it was only a “marginal” site for radioactive waste disposal. Not to worry. “The welcome mat is out,” said Austin consultant Bill Miller, who is fast earning the reputation as the Gunga Din of bad public policy. Miller, who has been hired by something called the Andrews Industrial Foundation, told the Associated Press that he intends to begin “educating legislators about the facility, letting them know we can take care of their needs top to bottom.” Andrews County is being considered as a waste site by two private companies, following the Low Level Nuclear Waste Disposal Authority failure at Sierra Blanca. HACKERS BEWAREI In a creative \(and perState Ethics Commission, John Cornyn, GOP candidate for attorney general, used a ploy worthy of the current technological age. The campaign office released a computer disk containing a list of all of his campaign contributors, hoping to accommodate the various agencies needing the data, as well as the press. However, as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram began its analysis of the contributions, the news staff discovered that the disk also contained a computer virus, forcing reporters to cease analyzing the list and shut down the computer entirely. The Cornyn campaign apologized vowing to add the suppression of computer viruses to the candidate’s platform. We can see the commercials now: jail doors slamming on sleazy techno felons, little alien viruses held at bay by burly digitized border guards. Should Cornyn win the election, no doubt his first act will be to take charge of defending the Capitol against the sinister Y2K assault on our family megabytes. DIGITAL AGENDA? The inevitable “recent studies” have shown that young people are less interested in politics then ever before, so it would come as no surprise if your average twenty-something computer-industry millionaire feels the same way. However, according to an October 18 report in the Austin American-Statesman, Austin area companies are beginning to see that 16 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 6, 1998