THUMBS UP
Campus Recycling gets full funding
Campus Recycling, after some posturing by ASUO politicians and significant pressure from the student community, saw its endangered budget revived this week by the Department Finance Committee of the ASUO. The Emerald opinion desk is pleased to see this take place. A viable Campus Recycling program is an important contributor to the University, especially one that prides itself on its commitment to sustainability. This program could not be more important. In the long run, we hope that Campus Recycling can innovate beyond its current capacity, making use of state-of-the-art technology to further reduce University waste.
The inauguration of President Barack Obama
A definite thumbs up to the inauguration of Obama, for a number of reasons. After eight years of Bush administration leadership that can charitably be described as “sketchy,” the arrival of a new commander-in-chief signals an end to a dark time in American history. That our new president is black is another cause for celebration, as his presence in the Oval Office is a milestone in civil rights history. Most exciting, however, is Obama’s message of change and a departure from “business as usual” in Washington. Within his first two days in office, the president has already promised the end of Guantanamo Bay and interrogation practices that permit torture, and capped all White House salaries above $100,000 to show that the tough economic times are being felt in Washington as well.
THUMBS DOWN
Exclusionary rule revision
The Supreme Court this month, in a ruling that may prove to be a civil liberties landmark – unfortunately – decided that evidence obtained as a result of negligent police recordkeeping could be admitted in proceedings against criminal defendants. In essence, the ruling said that even though police had no legal basis for searching a given suspect, the evidence retrieved in the search could be admitted so long as the police were not aware of the illegality of their search. This could allow police to search virtually anyone for any reason, pending their reasonable belief that a warrant exists for the given suspect. This decision is odd, to be sure, but it also has serious long-term implications. It could be a precedent for future case law that could further curtail the rights of individuals against criminal prosecutions. For these reasons, we feel the ruling was a mistake that hopefully will be corrected by a future court that is less conservative.
Burglary charge doesn’t mean lost scholarship
It seems wrong, to say the least, that committing a felony offense does not necessarily mean a person will lose his or her full-ride scholarship. If one is being convicted of a felony, it is unlikely one’s scholarship is weighing most on one’s mind, but to not insist criminal conduct be taken into consideration over continuing a student’s scholarship is unfair. If someone is guilty of a crime, it would be a fitting punishment to lose the scholarship, so that money could go to someone who would use it for “scholarly” pursuits, rather than criminal ones.
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