THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2003
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 9A
Bush says affirmative action flawed
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—President Bush, stepping into a major affirmative action case, asserted yesterday that a program of racial preferences for minority applicants at the University of Michigan was "fundamentally flawed" and unconstitutional.
The program "amounts to a quota system that unfairly rewards or penalizes prospective students solely on their race," Bush said in announcing that his administration would file a legal brief in the case with the Supreme Court on Thursday.
The administration's brief will narrowly apply to the Michigan program, officials said.
Bush's move drew strong criticism from civil rights groups. and Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle called it "a watershed moment for the administration." Before the announcement he said, "They have to decide whether they're for civil rights and diversity or not."
"I strongly support diversity of all kinds, including racial diversity in higher education," Bush said. But he added, "The method used by the University of Michigan to achieve this goal is fundamentally flawed."
He said some students at the university were selected or rejected on the color of their skin. "The motivation for this administration policy may be very good, but the result is discrimination. And that discrimination is very wrong," Bush said.
He spoke in the Roosevelt Room of the White House and declined to take questions.
Bush said "racial prejudice is a reality in our country" but that, in trying to fix the problem, "we must not use means that create another wrong."
The president said Americans should not be satisfied with the current numbers of minorities on college campuses.
"Our government must work to make college more affordable for students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and because we're committed to racial justice, we must make sure that America's public schools offer a quality
education to every child from every background," Bush said.
The politically charged issue forced the president to balance the desires of his conservative backers, who staunchly oppose affirmative action, against the potential reaction from the broader electorate if he is viewed as being racially insensitive.
Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, who says he'll seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, plans to file a brief in support of the university's program.
"I believe affirmative action is an essential tool in expanding educational opportunities to minorities," he said.*
Westar Energy faces class-action lawsuit
The Associated Press
TOPEKA - A class-action lawsuit filed yesterday against Westar Energy Inc. charges the company and its top executives with knowingly issuing false and misleading statements about the company's finances.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Topeka, charges that those statements costs hundreds or thousands of people to lose money because Westar securities sold at artificially high prices.
The class represented in the lawsuit includes anyone who bought Westar stock between March 30,2001 and Dec.26, 2002.
The complaint names the company, as well as James Haines.
current director, chief executive officer and president; David Witting, former chairman of the board, CEO and president; James Martin, former senior vice president; and Paul Geist, current senior vice president and chief financial officer.
The suit charges that the defendants violated the Securities Exchange Act by issuing the misleading or false statements involving its dealings with Cleco Corp., and earnings for Protection One, a security alarm firm owned primarily by Westar.
The complaint said the statements artificially inflated the price of Westar's securities, and that each of the defendants knew about the deception.
Calls to the attorneys in Little Rock, Ark., and Kansas City who
filed the lawsuit were not immediately returned Wednesday evening.
A spokeswoman for Westar, Karla Olsen, said the company would have no statement on the lawsuit Wednesday.
Westar announced in December it had received a subpoena from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission seeking details about its trades with Cleco Corp., a Louisiana utility that acknowledged making inappropriate trades of electrical power.
In November, Cleco said it had made "round trip" transactions, in which a trader buys and sells an energy contract at the same moment for the same price, which can artificially inflate revenue and transaction volumes.
Westar said it was involved in
$19.8 million worth of transactions with Cleco over the past three years, generally as an intermediary.
Westar also announced in November it was restating financial results for the first half of that year, including taking a $93 million charge to correct an accounting error involving Protection One.
The correction increased losses for the first six months of last year from $8.94 a share to $10.31 per share.
Westar is the state's largest electric company, providing service to about 647,000 customers in Kansas. Its non-utility interests include an 88 percent ownership in Protection One, which critics have argued is a drain on Westar's finances.
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