Month: June 2006

A self-described “nerd debate kid” her entire life, Dahlia Lithwick’s fascination with court-related reporting began when she stumbled into the Microsoft anti-trust trial and discovered, as she puts it: “This is theater. This is Shakespeare.” Her subsequent Supreme Court writing has been tailored accordingly: a series of fun, irreverent pieces that portray the justices not just as arbiters of the law, but as personalities. Lithwick was recently the keynote speaker at the Community Chalkboard dedication, so we caught up with her to get her take on the wall’s success (and talk a little Supreme Court, of course).—Will Goldsmith

C-VILLE: How is the “Community Chalkboard” working out?
Dahlia Lithwick: I never expected both the quality of the speech and the people engaging with the blackboard to be pitched as high as it ultimately [has been]. So far, the part of me that was a little cautious is comforted by the extent to which people have understood that this is a place to talk to each other.

What are the most interesting Supreme Court rulings coming up?
The big decisions coming out in the next month are Hamdan, the enemy combatant Guantanamo case, and the Texas redistricting case. My dire prediction is that the Roberts court will be known for its hands-off approach. That’s the possible big, big, big shift. The Rehnquist court was conservative, but it was also the most meddling freakin’ court ever.

How do you make legal writing approachable?
It’s our obligation as a polity to engage with the court, to understand that these are people, and they have good days and bad days. There is something fundamentally undemocratic about treating the court as some magical, quasi-religious entity. Allowing the court to insulate itself and self-mystify is dangerous, ultimately—that’s the serious kernel at the bottom of my jokes.
As a pragmatic matter, it won’t demystify until they roll cameras in there. Then I’ll be out of a job.

Who have been your favorite personalities on the Supreme Court?
I look at them the way other people look at skating with the stars. Justice Scalia is the only one larger-than-life—when he retires, I’ll have to retire too. He’s the only one who gets that this is Shakespeare.
I miss Sandra Day O’Connor terrifically. She was a force on that court. I’m a big fan of Stephen Breyer, only because he is so goofy.

An alcohol-free party sponsored by Albemarle High School wasn’t particularly well-attended, but prom-night drinking was down overall, officials say.

Prom weekend for area public high schools came and went on Saturday without a single drunk-driving tragedy. Police did bust up a 5:30am bonfire party in Crozet last Sunday morning, however, arresting 16 mostly Western Albemarle High teens on charges of underage possession of alcohol. In addition, cops responded to a few smaller events, says Albemarle Police Lt. John Teixeira.
“In regards to alcohol-related underage drinking, it was slightly below average for prom weekend,” says Teixeira.
Police listened to the grapevine for news of big parties, but didn’t have any specific plans to nab underage drinkers, according to Teixeira. The issue was much on the minds of parents following the death of Albemarle High School lacrosse player Nolan Jenkins, who was killed on May 19 in a single-car accident. Police believe the accident was alcohol-related.
A school-sponsored after-prom party, which was designed to keep teens safe and alcohol-free, drew a smaller crowd than organizers would have liked, according to Vickie Marsh, who helped plan the event. According to Marsh, over 500 students attended—though only around 100 stayed until the party ended at 5am.
The reverberations from Jenkins’ death led to the Albemarle lacrosse team canceling their season, despite a 17-2 record and a chance at a state championship.
In the team’s first game after Jenkins’ death, they shut out Hylton High, 17-0—the score a seemingly deliberate tribute to their lost teammate, whose number was 17. Later that week, however, the team decided to end the season. “To put it simply, there were too many negative allegations, too much finger-pointing, too many rumors that surrounded the death of Nolan, their teammate,” says Deb Tyson, Albemarle High’s athletic director. “When the negativity continued, they chose not to play—their great respect for Nolan’s family was more important than that they continued. It is so indicative of the character of these men when they could have been regional champions two hours later.”
It is widely rumored that other lacrosse players were at the party Jenkins attended before his wreck. Police charged 11 teens with underage drinking at that party.
“It wasn’t about any rumors—just the idea that Nolan wasn’t there,” says coach Pat McAdams. “None of us were prepared emotionally to think about lacrosse. [The team] lost their best friend and their teammate at the same time. I don’t think that’s something you ever get over.”—Will Goldsmith

Always look on the bright side of life: UVA prof Jonathan Haidt found that if you want to get happy, start thinking positive.

Are you happy? The question blares at us from magazine covers and pharmaceutical commercials, but most of us realize that true happiness isn’t as simple as a fad diet or a popped pill.
In his new book, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, UVA psychology professor Jonathan Haidt looks at happiness through the viewpoint of ancient philosophers and modern scientists, and he discovers that their ideas about what makes people happy are quite similar. The journal Nature called Haidt’s book “the most intellectually substantial book to arise from the ‘positive psychology’ movement” (an area of study that tries to provide scientific insight into the nature of happiness, creativity and fun). Since those things seem to be in short supply these days, we asked Haidt to lay some positive psychology on us. Here’s some of what he said.—John Borgmeyer

C-VILLE: What is the happiness hypothesis?
Jonathan Haidt: The book is about 10 ancient psychological ideas. One of the ideas is that happiness comes from within—that you should not change the world to meet your desires, you should change yourself. Is it true? Well, the Buddha is correct. You should work on yourself. But the real answer to happiness is that it comes from between: between the right engagements between yourself and others, yourself and your work, yourself and something larger than yourself. We only get energized from engaging with things outside ourselves.

What misunderstandings do we have about happiness?
There’s a long list of answers to that one. We think happiness means feeling lots of pleasant emotions all the time. That’s not true. A flourishing life is going to have some richness and texture to it, ups and downs. Happiness is about the conditions of the journey.

You write a lot about self-righteousness. In today’s political climate, we could all use some help with that.
One thing I, as a liberal, learned doing this book is that both sides make a lot of sense. We all want to save the world and make America a better place, but our moral psychology blinds us to the other side, and makes us see only evil motives. Bush is a paragon of this thinking, when he sees world events through the lens of good versus evil. Research shows that liberals are a little more open-minded, but, at the extremes, the Left is just as bad as the Right. This is why I support Mark Warner, because he can see the wisdom on both sides and compromise. The party that learns to speak to Americans’ noble aspirations will win. You can bury the hatchet and praise your opponent and still stick to your principles.

Architecture school Dean Karen Van Lengen says new additions to the A-school will alleviate the overcrowded Campbell Hall.

The UVA Architecture School will begin construction this summer on two additions that will add 20,000 square feet of office, classroom and exhibition space to the school, while also preparing Campbell Hall to mesh with the incoming Arts Grounds.
The East Addition will be the new “face” of the Architecture School, with sides facing Rugby Road and the soon-to-be-built Arts Grounds. A tall mini-tower will have reception space and jury space for student exhibitions. It will also provide a direct entrance to an auditorium.
The South Addition will add 26 new offices and more lab space. “We have been in a very tight situation for many years—so they’re going to alleviate that,” says Architecture Dean Karen Van Lengen.
The real facelift will come in the form of landscaping designed by the local firm Nelson-Byrd-Woltz Landscape Architects. New terraces and improved passageways to the Art Museum and Rugby Road will improve the dreary topography on the hilly site. The landscape design fits in with a larger scheme to create an arts and architecture hub at UVA. The Architecture School additions will take 18 months and should be completed in spring 2008. Most of the project’s $11 million budget has come from private donors. The Arts Grounds project is still in the fundraising stages.—Meg McEvoy

The UVA men’s lacrosse team wrapped up an undefeated season and took home its fourth NCAA national championship last week, defeating the University of Massachusetts 15-7. The senior class earned their second national championship ring, having also won the ultimate collegiate honor in 2003. Their victory came in front of a record-setting crowd of 47,062 in Philadelphia and a national television audience on ESPN. “The thing that made this team special was how unselfishly they played,” says Notre Dame lacrosse coach Kevin Corrigan, a UVA alum. “Rarely do you see a team with that much talent play so hard and so well together.” Corrigan’s team lost to UVA in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Matt Ward (pictured above) and Matt Poskay led UVA’s charge, scoring a combined 10 goals during the match. They were both selected in the oft-overlooked Major League Lacrosse draft on Wednesday, along with fellow Cavaliers Kyle Dixon, Michael Culver and JJ Morrissey.

Looks aren’t everything, but, according to a recent survey, a majority of college students think that looks count for a lot—at least when it comes to buildings. That could be good news for UVA, which has about 20 renovation and new construction projects planned, according to the Office of the Architect. Last week the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that almost 30 percent of students “spurned a college because it lacked a facility they thought was important,” and another 26 percent surveyed by the Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers turned a school down because they found key facilities to be “inadequate.” And no, it wasn’t cafeterias or student unions that mattered most. Students were keen on “buildings to support [their] major and open space.”
University Architect David Neuman is probably relieved to hear that, since the majority of projects on Grounds are academic in nature. Cooke Hall, for instance, which houses classrooms and offices for the College of Arts and Sciences, is in the midst of a $6 million repair. And though the $30 million Medical Education building revamp does not yet have a start date, once it gets going it will “add 60-65,000 square feet of space designed to accommodate an array of new teaching methods shown to vastly improve how students learn.”
While students were most concerned about academic facilities, they were not oblivious to other aspects of campus living. Men, in particular, were especially interested in seeing varsity athletics facilities when touring prospective colleges. All of which suggests that the new John Paul Jones Arena will be a must-visit site on any UVA tour.—Cathy Harding

Leading up the Senate primary election on Tuesday, June 13, Democrats Harris Miller (left) and James Webb have both come under attack for their alleged Republican sympathies.

Poor George Allen. Back in March, The New York Times reported that the Virginia Senator is bored with his job. The paper quoted him telling a crowd in Iowa that the Senate is “too slow for me.” Well, be careful what you wish for—the Republican pseudo cowboy now has a pair of Democrats injecting some real excitement into his life.
On Tuesday, June 13, Democratic voters will head to the polls in the Senate primary to see whether James Webb or Harris Miller will get the chance to run against Allen in November. Charlottesville and Albemarle have emerged as a battleground area for these two candidates, says Fred Hudson, chair of the Albemarle Democratic Party.
As an author of military suspense novels and a former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, Webb enjoys a great deal more name recognition than Miller, who is a telecommunications lobbyist from Northern Virginia. Both men have one thing in common, though: Each has been criticized inside their own party for excessive Republican ties. Webb endorsed both Allen and George Bush in 2000, while Miller has previously lobbied Congress on behalf of Diebold, the voting machine manufacturer run by a Republican (and suspected by some Dems of helping the GOP rig the 2000 presidential election).
The good news for Democrats is that a May poll from Survey USA found that George Allen had a 47 percent “favorable” rating among Virginia voters; the bad news is that more than a third of respondents said they were “unfamiliar” with both Webb and Harris. Hudson says Harris’ strategy has been to campaign across Virginia, including rural areas, while Webb has focused on population centers. Both have visited Charlottesville in recent weeks.
Hudson says his biggest hope is for a high turnout, even though primaries do not usually generate much voter excitement. “A low voter turnout can give you a candidate that only a small number of people support, and that’s not where we want to be,” he says.—John Borgmeyer

Head Start Director Cynthia Bayless says the local demand for preschool is more than State and federal programs can handle.

The local Head Start, a federally funded preschool program, ended last month, but officials are already concerned about how they will meet the growing demand for next year’s classes. Head Start guarantees room for 213 area students, and so far the program has received 250 applications for 2006-07. Although Head Start officials expect to add more spots, they say that by August there will likely be a waiting list.
Experts say early childhood education is crucial, and the demand for Head Start is intense. In April, only a month before 2005-06 services ended, the program still had a waiting list of 182 children. Of that figure, 70 were “income eligible,” meaning they met federal poverty guidelines ($20,000 annually for a family of four).
Head Start provides preschool education for at-risk students in Central Virginia, and is locally administered by Monticello Area Community Action Agency (MACAA). Charlottesville and Albemarle school systems also have preschool programs largely funded by the Virginia Pre-school Initiative (VPI), serving 240 children in both school districts combined. Both Head Start and the VPI programs consider factors like family income, parents in the home, English proficiency and disabilities when admitting students.
“Between VPI and the Head Start program that we have now, there are still children unserved,” says Cynthia Bayless, Head Start director for MACAA. For those without access to either, the private alternative is expensive: MACAA estimates preschool costs, on average, to be $123 per week.
Governor Tim Kaine recently established a “Start Strong” council (which includes local philanthropist Patricia Kluge) to fill the gaps between VPI and Head Start. But that program, which the governor estimates at $300 million annually if fully funded, is years away, meaning that, in the meantime, many children may be starting kindergarten at a disadvantage.—Will Goldsmith

The Jefferson School’s historic designation may have saved it from demolition in 2002, but its national historic status also means improvements are slow going.
Roof repairs have been completed, and a structural report was submitted to City Council last week. The report shows the brick façade needs re-pointing and mortaring, a project officials say will be more expensive and time consuming than projected.
The building’s historic designation makes improvements a more sensitive matter, says Assistant City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney. Improvements like re-pointing the bricks, at a projected cost of $1 million, must adhere to guidelines from the federal Secretary of the Interior and the National Parks Service, or risk voiding essential tax credits.
Total projected costs to renovate the Jefferson School currently sit at $30.5 million, while the City estimates $8 million in tax credits will offset costs.
The City is currently prequalifying contractors for the masonry project, which Small-Toney says will take about 12 months once Council moves forward. Also in the works is another historic designation for the school. The City will amend its historic designation application to include the old Jefferson Graded Elementary School, which occupied the site until it was demolished in 1959. The elementary school wasn’t included in the original application due to a lack of archaeological studies of the site.
The City will excavate over the summer and hopes to have approval for the amended application by December. Funding will be solicited from the Virginia Department of Housing and Redevelopment for the archaeological work.
Small-Toney doesn’t anticipate the process will hold up improvements to the building.—Meg McEvoy