The Ranger (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 77, No. 11, Ed. 1 Friday, November 30, 2001 Page: 4 of 12
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Ranger
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San Antonio College ♦ www.theranger.org
4 ♦ Nov. 30, 2001
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Lawsuit from Page 1
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By J.C. Lewis
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High school student gets head start on computer programming
By Cynthia Esparza
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Harvey Veselka got his show on the road much
earlier than most students.
Veselka competed on a team of students from SAC
last spring in the Association of Information
Technology Professionals and earned honorable
mention in C++programming.
He recently came back from AITP regional in
Lubbock at Texas Tech with a third place with his
series entitled "Liberty's Heavy Hand."
Waith gave advice to the truth-seekers
The Alamo Community College District is an EOE. For
any special accommodations issues or an alternate format,
contact the Title IX Coordinator, 210/208-8051.
SAN ANTONIO
COLLEGE
http://www.accd.edu/sac
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United States
Open University
partner David White, another dual-credit-student.
In these competitions, Veselka competed against
four-year university students. Two of the universities
were the University of Mississippi and Southwest
Texas State University.
While it is not unusual for students from this col-
lege to place in competition against students from
four-year schools, Veselka is a senior at MacArthur
High School and is 17-years-old. He turns 18 in
March.
He has been attending this college since fall 2000
as a dual credit and early admissions student.
Limited to one class per semester, he will have
earned 19 hours in December.
Register early and get the classes you
want for spring, before finals and the
holidays get in the way! To register by
phone, call 301-2520. For web registra-
tion, go to www.accd.edu and click on
Student Information Access. For help with
phone or web registration, call 733-2085.
Phone and web registration is open to
SAC students who were enrolled any
semester this year.*
Pay early to keep your classes! Avoid
the hassle of rushing to make a payment
at the last minute or having to re-register
in January. You can pay by phone with
your credit card or mail in a check or
money order. Financial aid is available
for qualified students.
Web & phone
registration*
for spring 2002
is now through
December 18
Carol Kirchhof, computer programming sopho-
more, said, "He's helped me through every program.
Not only does he understand the material, he can
teach it also."
His high school teacher, Tom Leverage, who at the
time taught here part time, told him to take classes
here. "He told me they would be good for me,"
Veselka said.
After Veselka graduates, he plans to enroll in a
university. He is not sure which one, but he has
applied to Texas Tech, the University of Texas at
Austin, the University of California at Berkeley and
the University of Santa Barbara.
He plans to become a computer programmer.
Veselka said the best part of being in high school
taking college courses were the college hours he
earned.
"I don't have to take them again. It shortens the
time I have to spend at a four-year university.
This semester, Veselka is taking Data Structures,
class on ways to access data.
Instructor Heidi Webb, one of the advisers who
went to Lubbock, said Veselka being a high school
student is not an issue in class.
"He's a very sincere student and he is here to
learn," Webb said. "With him coming to SAC instead
of waiting for college to happen, he can work at his
level, which is college."
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Avoid the holiday rush!
ed and afflict the comfortable."
"Liberty's Heavy Hand" can be found
at The Oregonian Web site,
http:/ / www.oregonlive.com/ins.
Chilling stories about U.S.
Immigration and Naturalization Service's
persecution at the Portland Airport raised
serious questions concerning illegal prac-
tices, a reporter for the The Oregonian
newspaper in Portland, Ore., said at the
24th annual Edith Fox King Lecture.
Senior reporter Brent Waith delivered a
talk Nov. 19 in McAllister Fine Arts
Center, describing how he and three other
reporters interviewed more than 300 peo-
ple and filed 129 Freedom of Information
Act requests to compile a Pulitzer Prize-
winning six-part series uncovering injus-
tice within the INS.
Waith "introduced" the audience of
about 100 to a 16-year-old Chinese girl,
Xiang, who claimed political asylum on
U.S. shores after fleeing oppression in
China only to be detained by the INS and
forgotten in the system.
The INS has 32,000 employees, 300
ports of entry to watch and 6,000 miles of
border to patrol. In a year, the agency
evaluates 5 million immigration docu-
ments and catches about 1.6 million ille-
gal aliens.
"Most within the INS are very dedicat-
ed," Waith said. "The fact is that as a
whole, its hand falls on people who you
and I will never know."
The names of illegal aliens who are
jailed by the INS are kept confidential
while jailed U.S. citizen's names are pub-
lic, he said. Illegal aliens are not covered
by the U.S. Constitution, and the right of
privacy does not apply.
‘Students who were not enrolled in 2001 must complete
admission on campus before registering.
pertaining to all records requested by
either The Ranger or the Express-News.
At a special meeting Nov. 19, the board
voted to prosecute the attorney general's
legal opinion that much of the informa-
tion requested by the newspapers is pub-
lic under the Texas Government Code.
Five trustees attended the meeting,
and the vote was 4-1. District 9 Trustee
James Rindfuss opposed. Trustees voting
in support included Donald McClure
(District 2), Gene Sprague (District 6),
Jesse Gonzales (District 5) and Vincent
Lazaro (District 3).
Rindfuss, an attorney, said Tuesday
that he doesn't see any reason to fight the
attorney general's finding. "All they're
going to do is delay the information from
coming out and incur a lot of legal fees in
the process. They seem to think that some
of the information is privileged."
The college district's legal counsel,
Gale, Wilson & Sanchez, charges the dis-
trict $120 per hour per legal partner work-
ing on legal matters or $110 per hour per
associate. Legal counsel attends board
meetings pro bono.
Rindfuss said he didn't see any reason
the district couldn't call a representative
of the newspapers and explain why the
board thinks some information should
not be released to the public, but give the
rest of the information out.
Mark Sanchez, an attorney with Gale,
Sanchez & Wilson, said Tuesday there are
a number of reasons the district did not
want to release the information.
He said he could not go into all the rea-
sons because they were discussed by the
board in executive session.
Sanchez, however, did give one reason.
"The district has the right to conduct
its litigation in the courts not in the
press," Sanchez said.
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this college or of an entity operating
under the management of the Alamo
Community College District, and offices
held within the college.
This request was passed from human
resources to legal counsel.
The Express-News requested informa-
tion in August, including copies of files
on Miller and Jane Doe, copies of any
complaints filed by or against Miller and
Jane Doe and performance evaluations
during their tenure.
The district's law firm then filed a
request for a decision from the Office of
the Attorney General on whether the
information was public.
The legal firm received a decision Nov.
3 from the office of the attorney general.
The decision stated, "All attorney-client
information that is responsive to the
requests is presumed to be public under
section 552.301 and, therefore, must be
released to the requesters."
Furthermore, the attorney general,
while exempting documents pursuant to
the pending litigation, stated that all the
specific information The Ranger request-
ed should be released along with the
employee contracts and performance
evaluations, which are considered public
information by the Texas Government
Code.
The attorney general's opinion also
states that released information should
also include documents including the
"summary information pertaining to the
two sexual harassment investigations
except for the identities of the victims and
any witnesses to the alleged sexual
harassment."
The district is responding to the deci-
sion by filing suit for declaratory relief
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Pulitzer winner speaks on INS
Brook Freeman
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The lack of communication in the INS
and its failure to follow procedure are two
major motivations for Waith working on
the series.
The Statue of Liberty, he said, is not so
much a symbol of welcoming anymore as
it is an "iron fist of rejection."
Waith explained the award-winning
piece stemmed from unusually frequent
problems with INS procedure in
Portland. One colleague, Julie Sullivan,
investigated immigrants who had been
jailed by INS for long periods of time, he
said. Waith said one Sri Lankan man,
Navaratnam Kamalthas, was jailed for
1,415 days even after declaring asylum.
Another reporter, Richard Read, had
examined the high deportation rate of
Portland in comparison with other air-
ports. Sullivan and Read, searching for
professionals to help them uncover INS
corruption, invited Waith and reporter
Kim Christensen to help.
The four reporters conducted the inter-
views for four months and researched
hundreds of records and congressional
Why does the INS strain to maintain testimonies to finally produce the six-part
the secrecy, he questioned. Because INS
prisoners are unmonitored, subject to
abuse and moved freely to prevent in the audience. He said a journalist must
lawyer and family intervention and dis- truly love the job, write every day to hone
trict directors can "run the show as they reporting skills, dare to be different from
see fit." other media and always pursue the truth.
In Portland, an INS official was caught Quoting H.L. Mencken, Waith chal-
using stolen money from citizenship lenged journalists to "comfort the afflict-
applicants to pay off her gambling debts.
Prostitution, extortion of funds, racism
and sexism have been tolerated in the
INS, Waith said.
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San Antonio College. The Ranger (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 77, No. 11, Ed. 1 Friday, November 30, 2001, newspaper, November 30, 2001; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1354387/m1/4/?q=%22~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting San Antonio College.