THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
GE 12A
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WWW.KANSAN.COM
KANSAN num, against athletic
eve I Can me would Circle of
ion; on ers
specially ac- when he membered on Luke's
ish for a right good fun foot-
little risk Dan one per the other lots of
or corner-ock that he.
n senior er Nick
plays, eiense and or making
ame was in Kanremem-
ment got . Luke's was inion a reheat foras State even the finding Saturat times
redempenior's
endance memorial winning
college angino's similar
ra angles w covered to be
ON PAGE 6A
VOL. 116 ISSUE 69
ON THE BOULEVARD
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29. 2005
Saraliene Smith, second-year KU Law student, has worked on two cases involving prisoners for the Paul E. Wilson Defender Project. The program allows the University's law students to work with state and federal inmates and to practice understanding how criminal procedures work in the real world.
Fighting for the accused Student works with prisoners to prepare for law career
BY FRANK TANKARD
ftankard@kansan.com
KANSAN STAFF WRITER
On a stormy Sunday after Thanksgiving break, as the highways filled with students reluctantly returning to the University, an aspiring attorney sat alone in a room on a near-empty campus, working for herself and for someone who depends on her.
"It's very weighty," she said. "I think when I'm tired and I don't want to write a brief or do something else, that comes back to me, that someone else is counting on me."
Saraliene Smith, a second-year law student, is working on a case for a prisoner who is appealing on the basis that his constitutional rights were violated in his original case.
She's working on the case through the Paul E. Wilson Defender Project, a public defender project at the University of Kansas and offered as a two-semester course in which students and the project's supervising attorneys defend federal and state prisoners on appeal.
Smith, 33, said she came to the KU School of Law with the idea of becoming a defense lawyer. She said the decision elicited responses from friends who wanted to know, "How could you ever defend somebody who's guilty?"
Jean Phillips, the director of the project, said one of its goals was for students, such as Smith, to understand that everyone has a right to be defended, even murderers and rapists.
"First, I want to know how they know he's guilty," she said. "As I've been thinking about it, defense lawyers do it because they're defending a person's constitutional rights."
"We hope to help students understand that people are people." Phillips said.
Smith doesn't look like a defense lawyer, sitting in the lobby
Her path to law school has been unique. After graduating with an English degree in 1995 from Grinnell College, a small liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, the McCune native spent the next nine years working various jobs.
of Green Hall with her short, blond hair, her double-pierced ear and her Birkenstocks.
She spent a year in China on a Grinnell fellowship, teaching English in Nanjing and traveling the countryside. She then worked stints for the National Committee for U.S.-China Relations in New York, the U.S. government-run radio station "Voice of America" in Washington, D.C., and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle.
After applying to law school, she quit her job at the Gates Foundation to travel. She lived an aspiring lawyer's dream: a week watching the Rwandan genocide tribunal in Tanzania and another week at the war crimes trial of former Serbian leader Slobodian Milosevic in The Hague.
"Oh my god, it's fascinating," she said. "Obviously it's history taking place before your eyes, but it's more than that. It's somebody getting to confront someone who has wronged them or their family."
She has another semester in the Paul E. Wilson Defense Project. Next semester she'll defend someone in a direct appeal case. In May she'll start a yearlong internship on the prosecution side, at the Johnson County district attorney's office.
"I'd hope that somebody would be willing to defend me," she said.
Edited by Ty Beaver
MULTICULTURALISM
Living oppression Exhibit sheds light on discrimination
BY LOUIS MORA
lmora@kansan.com
KANSAN STAFF WRITER
An African-American man walks into an elevator in which a white woman stands. As the man enters, she hugs her purse a little tighter because he is black, a subtle stereotyping of African Americans.
The exhibit, conducted by the Multicultural Resource Center, provides a multimedia experience where students will be confronted with oppression through audio and video clips and live scenes of discrimination.
This is a clip from the film "Higher Learner," included in the Tunnel of Oppression, open from 6 to 9 tonight and tomorrow in Lewis Hall.
Santos Nuñez, Multicultural Resource Center director, said the exhibit exposed students to issues of oppression that still exist in society.
The exhibit, conducted by the Multicultural Resource Center, provides a multimedia experience where students will be confronted with oppression through audio and video clips and live scenes of discrimination.
This is the fifth year for the exhibit, and she said it had evolved over the years to reflect the times, such as after Sept. 11 when issues with Islamic traditions were brought to the forefront.
She said after students had gone through the tunnel, they would discuss the exhibit, express their feelings and ask questions.
She said the exhibit did a lot to stress the importance of diversity on campus.
"It's promoting something we should strive for and promote multicultural issues," she said.
Shannon Reid, Lawrence iu-
nior, has gone through the tunnel the past two years and will be a volunteer this year to help other students have the same learning experience.
She said the tunnel really opened her eyes to issues of the many different forms of oppression that include domestic violence and slurs about sexual orientation.
"I really appreciate somebody was doing something in-yourface about multicultural issues," she said. "It was though you were feeling the powerlessness those people feel on a daily basis."
Mya Lawrence, St. Louis junior, will be an actor this year after going through the exhibit last year. She said she understood oppression in society but did not know it involved so many levels.
She said different scenes, including a domestic abuse scene or two roommates going to a "ghetto party" and asking her African-American friend for "urban" clothes, demonstrate the levels of oppression.
She said she learned oppression could be stretched to language and said she was cognizant of negative terms and slurs people use in conversations that people find playful.
"I don't have a problem letting people know that's something that shouldn't be used," she said. "They don't know who they are offending when they say that."
BUSINESS
Vinyl turns back technological trend
BY SARAH BENSON
editor@kansan.com
KANSAN CORRESPONDENT
Though he's co-owned a record store for more than four years and collected music for even longer, Kelly Corcoran still can't get over the electrifying ritual of playing a vinyl LP.
Like many audiophiles who comb his store for what they consider rare musical gems, the owner of The Love Garden, 936 1/2 Massachusetts St., said he would rather listen to a record than an iPod or a CD.
"There's a connection and a ceremony with it that isn't there when you play CDs or when you're playing music on your computer." Corcoron said.
The vinyl record business, despite the lagging music industry, is growing, and record stores are profiting from what some see as a revival among a new and younger audience.
Though vinyl LP sales constitute only 1 percent of new music sold in America each year, that percentage is growing as more record companies press new albums into vinyl.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America, vinyl sales have doubled in percentage of music sales since 2000 to become a $110 million industry.
Since that same year, overall music sales dropped to $12.2 billion from $14.4 billion, a plunge that the vinyl industry escaped without a scratch.
Wayne Youngblood, editorial director of pop culture at Goldmine, a bimonthly record collecting magazine, attributed the record business's increase to new consumer wants and the rising manufacture of vinyl LPs.
"The vinyl industry had hit rock bottom, so there's no place to go but up," he said. "People prefer the warmer sound that comes from vinyl."
Young attributed the increase
Since 2000, The Love Garden has increased its vinyl sales 5 to 10 percent in dollars each year, Corcoran said.
to the industry responding to the demand from new listeners as well as from hip-hop DJs, who use vinyl for scratching and mixing.
Corcoran said that of all his merchandise, which includes CDs, tapes, record players, magazines and comic books, records are the fastest-growing division.
AcousticSounds, Inc., a Salina- based record store, has experienced a similar swell in sales
AcousticSounds' CEO Chad Kassem said 70 percent of what he sells is vinyl.
In the past three years, he said, Acoustic Sounds, Inc. had grown 30 percent each year, an increase he credits to younger vinyl consumers.
"If the young people get interested, it's huge, man," he said. "We've always done good, but now it seems like lots of people
Kassem started his company more than 20 years ago during a time when consumers were throwing out vinyl LPs for the latest technology, cassette tapes.
are getting into it."
"It's easy to bamboozie people with technology. It almost happened to me." Kassem said.
Today's weather
Kassem bought as many records as he could when they weren't worth anything and built his business from the disposed-of technology.
He now commands more than 30 employees and issues a catalog with a circulation of 75,000 and an active membership of 40,000.
While recent advances in technology like MP3 downloading and CD burning undoubtedly reduced consumer demand for all types of music, it has pushed some young buyers toward the more tangible, older technology of records.
SEE TREND ON PAGE 2A
Volleyball headed to NCAA Tournament Despite three straight losses, Kansas will continue play in the NCAA tournament. The Jayhawks will face the Bruins in their next game. PAGE 10A
Better Bites campaign extends to entrees Better Bites, an on-campus task-force, has grown to include more than just vending machine snacks. The program now includes full meals at University eating venues and convenience stores. PAGE 2A
Scott Webb honored for
winning performance After scoring the field goal for an overtime victory against Iowa State, the sophomore is recognized as special teams player of the week. PAGE 10A
Index
Comics...6A
Classifieds...7A
Crossword...6A
Horoscopes...6A
Opinion...5A
Sports...10A
1.
---
All contents, unless stated otherwise,
© 2005 The University Daily Kansan
1