Football season might be months away, but USC is already eliminated from contention to play in any postseason bowl or the inaugural Pac-12 championship game after the NCAA’s Infractions Appeals Committee upheld all penalties against the Trojans.

“I am very disappointed, but I am not surprised,” USC athletic director Pat Haden said.

The penalties against USC include a two-year postseason bowl ban and the loss of 30 scholarships over three years. In the appeal, the Trojans requested that the penalties be reduced to a one-year postseason bowl ban, and the forfeiture of 15 scholarships over three years.

The Trojans will serve the second year of the two-year postseason bowl ban during the 2011 football season.

“I feel badly for our seniors who had two years of [postseason bowl bans], even though they had nothing to do with what went on,” Haden said.

Haden stated that USC would accept the penalties, and not sue the NCAA.

“We have decided to move on and make the most of our situation,” Haden said. “We disagree with the findings, but I do think that the [NCAA’s Infractions Appeals Committee] itself is fair-minded.”

Haden made it clear the university takes responsibility for the infractions committed by the football program.

“We have to look at ourselves in the mirror here,” Haden said. “We could have, and should have, done things better. We had a player [former Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush] who knowingly did things wrong. We are not innocent here. We deserve some penalties, but it is the severity of the penalties that we think are unfair.”

Haden expects that the 2004 BCS National Championship will be stripped, but that the Trojans will remain AP national champions for that year.

Moving forward, Haden vowed to improve communication and relationship between the university and the NCAA.

The Trojans held a brief team meeting Thursday morning, with USC coach Lane Kiffin telling his players to be smart with their social media reactions to the decision of the NCAA’s Infractions Appeals Committee.

“We do not agree [with the findings], but we will deal with what we are dealt and move on,” junior quarterback Matt Barkley said.

Barkley was confident that the team, which went 8-5 last season, would improve.

“Ultimately, there have been a lot of changes that have been made from last year’s team to now in regards to the attitude that the majority of the guys have,” Barkley said. “I definitely think it will turn out better than it did last year.”

The word on the street is that print media is meeting a slow, painful death. With major newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post laying off hundreds of workers at various instances, one may wonder what the future holds for journalism.

Many doomsayers give it a decade or two before all of print media will be abandoned. Others predict that the federal government will begin to subsidize newspapers and magazines. Everyone in the media seems to be panicking. Most blame the advent of the Internet for the rapid deterioration of print journalism. After all, it does make sense that no one is going to pay for something that they can easily procure for free.

But I think the problem runs much deeper than most people think. Radio didn’t kill theater and the VCR didn’t kill television. Why does every new technology have to kill an older one in order to survive? This has not been the case in the past. Why should we pretend that it is going to start now?

I believe the main problem newspapers and magazines face is not a result of Facebook, Twitters and bloggers. The problem lies with the society we live in. Largely, Americans are a lazy and superficial people. We as a society glorify ignorance in its most perverse forms. Many of us race home from work to watch Dancing with the Stars or American Idol rather than read that day’s edition of the newspaper.

It’s not that Americans are getting their news online; it’s that they’re not getting it anywhere. Don’t believe me? As college students we are supposed to exemplify aptitude and intellect in our daily lives. But most of us would rather find out who is fornicating and fighting with one another on the latest episode of the Jersey Shore.

I have met many people in college that think it’s strange for me to be reading the newspaper on a daily basis. I do not understand where this aversion to reading is coming from. Have college students always been like this or is it a new trend? Let’s hope it’s just a passing phase.

There will always be partying and debauchery in college. But to what extent are college students taking this level of ignorance? These are questions that the young people of our generation need to ask themselves.

Overall, what bothers me the most about the decline of print is one simple fact. Most good investigative journalism comes from newspapers and magazines. Without print institutions like Time, , the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times where will transparency come from? Who will uncover the scandals and frauds inside of our own government? In order for a society to be free, these checks and balances are needed on the federal, state and local governments. Good reporting will rest in the fate of print.

Hopefully, we as students can reverse the startling trend of ignorance that is sweeping across our country. So occasionally would it really hurt to step away from Facebook and pick up a newspaper or magazine? Who knows, you might actually learn something.

When Noel Smith received an email from her friend last week, she did not expect to learn that a lawsuit she filed with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and seven other faculty members from Florida universities in 2006 would be taken this seriously.

Smith, curator of the USF Institute for Research in Art (IRA), received an email from her lawyer a few days later confirming her friend’s find: her case against a travel ban to Cuba may soon be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2006, then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush enacted Florida Statute 1011.90, which prohibited “state or non-state funds made available to state universities … used to implement, organize, direct, coordinate or administer, or to support the implementation, organization, direction, coordination or administration of, activities related to” travel to Cuba or other countries deemed terrorist states.

Smith said this posed a dire threat to her work.

“It was horrible,” she said. “Just devastating.”

Smith, who had been bringing Cuban residents, artists and scholars to USF’s Graphic studio since 1999, said the program was greatly weakened by this act.

“We really had a vibrant program with Cuba,” she said. “You can imagine with a program like that what happens when you can no longer pay to bring artists from Cuba, or you can no longer pay for yourself to go down there. Or you can no longer conduct telephone calls or write letters there, or anything like that. It’s just an absurd situation, and it’s handicapped the whole program.”

Shortly after the ban was enacted, the ACLU contacted faculty members across the state with research interests invested in Cuba, challenging the state of Florida on multiple constitutional grounds. Smith readily joined as a plaintiff.

Yet, it was when the Obama administration announced its plans to relax tensions and encourage travel with Cuba in January that the plaintiffs clearly felt the state was in constitutional violation, ACLU of Florida communications director Derek Newton said.

On March 11, a petition for a writ of certiorari to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court was filed.

“We have filed because we believe the Florida law is unconstitutional for a number of reasons,” Newton said. “It fails to distinguish between public funds and private funds for legitimate academic research. In essence, it imposes a foreign policy for the state of Florida, which is clearly the sole right of the federal government to set and enact foreign policy.”

Newton said if the case were heard by the court, oral arguments were initially expected in the fall — but the Obama administration has been invited to submit a brief supporting its case, which could potentially push back arguments.

As of Wednesday, the brief from the administration has yet to be filed, according to a spokesperson from the Office of the Solicitor General.

Though Smith is the only plaintiff from USF, she would not be the only one at the University affected by this case.

Rachel May, director of the Institute for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean, said USF once offered a Cuban studies certificate for graduate students, but that program has been dormant due to the lack of credits available with the possibility of study abroad diminished.

“It’s a big problem because there’s a lot of interest and expertise in things pertaining to Cuba at USF — from marine sciences to literature and history and poetry,” May said. “But nobody can go to Cuba. It means we aren’t getting graduate students interested in doing research about Cuba. You can’t study a place if you can’t go there.”

If the ban is lifted, there is hope the program could be revitalized, she said.

“There are scholars who work on a broad range of issues that don’t supply support for Fidel Castro and the revolution, but there are a lot of people who do work on Cuba, and if the ban were to be lifted, they could continue to pursue their research and academic activities,” May said.

U.S. Rep. David Rivera (R-Miami), a proponent of the ban in 2006, said he does not believe the ban should be lifted even if the case goes to the U.S. Supreme Court and believes Cuba should be treated as a terrorist state.

“Florida’s constitution clearly delegates to the state legislature the authority to determine how taxpayer funds are to be utilized and how they are not to be utilized,” Rivera said in an email statement. “In Florida, the elected representatives of the people — the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Governor — overwhelmingly determined that taxpayer funds and taxpayer resources should not be used to facilitate or subsidize travel to terrorist nations.”

Smith said she only sees futility in upholding the ban.

“I think that the more the Cubans are exposed to Americans and the more Americans are exposed to Cubans, the better the future will be,” she said. “I don’t think anything is served by artificially keeping people apart.”

Several academic centers at Duke are expected to lose nearly $4 million because of cuts to government spending on international and foreign language education.

Last Fall, the University was awarded more than $12 million in competitive federal grants—from Title VI of the Higher Education Act—to be distributed over four years. Because of the government’s spending reductions for fiscal year 2010-2011, however, Duke’s seven Title VI-funded centers will receive a lesser amount than promised. The exact size of the reductions to Duke’s programs will be confirmed in coming weeks.

The seven affected centers—including the Center for International Studies, the Middle East Studies Center and the Language Resource Center for Slavic and Eurasian Languages—offer a variety of cultural studies programs and less commonly taught foreign languages. These topics are critical to national security and business interests, said Gilbert Merkx, vice provost for international affairs and director of international and area studies.

“[The United States] won’t have any capabilities in these languages unless the federal money supports the teaching of those languages,” Merkx said. “Virtually everyone who works in these languages in these strange places has been trained in Title VI [centers].”

Merkx added that military officers are often trained at Title VI centers in universities across the country—including Duke.

Carl Herrin, senior partner at the consulting firm Global Education Solutions, said the government’s total cuts to Title VI funding nationally are expected to reach 40 percent, or approximately $50 million. Herrin added that these cuts were unexpected.

“Given the rhetoric of [the federal] administration, it was very unlikely that there would be significant reductions,” Herrin said. “That they would be on the order of 40 percent was beyond the pale.”

Although expected cuts have yet to be confirmed, some of Duke’s centers have begun to discuss strategies for combatting their anticipated budgetary reductions. Edna Andrews, director of the Title VI Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European studies, said her program will have to reduce its extracurricular spending—used to host guest speakers or hold conferences—in order to focus on graduate studies.

“We’ll have to put most of our efforts into what we believe in most—graduate fellowships and courses,” Andrews said.

Merkx said the Center for International Studies is spending as little as possible this summer in order to save for the Fall because it may have to cut “virtually all” programming in order to maintain core staff members.

He also noted that the centers may have to cut some programs that are required in order to receive Title VI funding—an obstacle that could prevent them from effectively competing in the next grant competition in three years.

Since the federal appropriations bill for fiscal year 2010-2011 was passed in April, Duke has been lobbying to try and maintain its share of the total Title VI funding, said Chris Simmons, associate vice president for federal relations. President Richard Brodhead also sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan asking the secretary to consider the importance of international studies programs while assessing potential cuts. Simmons noted, however, Duke’s options for appeal are limited.

Herrin said that though the federal government may support Title VI programs, the cuts originate from pressure to reduce discretionary spending in order to maintain substantial funding for programs such as Pell grants—need-based grants for higher education.

“The longer that the money [for Title VI programs] isn’t there, the harder it is to get it back,” he said. “It’s not a question of whether Title VI is important for education, it’s ‘Is that more important than a Pell grant?’”

Still, Simmons said Duke is hopeful that lobbying efforts and government budget restoration will allow for renewed Title VI funding as soon as fiscal year 2011-2012.

“We’re hoping that this is just a bad gash,” he said.

Auburn’s athletic program has prided itself on having athletes that stay out of the always news for the wrong reasons.

For other schools, like the University of Georgia, keeping players out of trouble has been a problem.

But on March 11, four football players ruined Auburn players’ clean reputation.

Antonio Goodwin, Shaun Kitchens, Mike McNeil and Dakota Mosley were arrested after being pulled over by an area police officer.

The four men were in a vehicle matching the description from a victim of an armed robbery.

The robbery took place at a trailer park off of Wire Road, and involved a firearm.

After the car was searched, the pistol and stolen items were recovered.

This incident is even more embarrassing for the program because it follows a national championship season.

Many, including myself, questioned the motives of the men, because perception dictates that scholarship players are well taken care of by the program.

For those who do not know, scholarships can be awarded based on percentages.

For example, if you are a third-string quarterback, your percentage would be significantly lower than the percentage for a starting quarterback.

Most often, the starting players are awarded with a full scholarship, which covers tuition, fees, books and room and board.

I’m not certain what percentage scholarship each of the four men received from Auburn.

News was released Tuesday about Mike McNeil’s two previous evictions from different properties in Auburn and a lawsuit against him for unpaid rent.

I’m not sympathizing with McNeil, because financial obligations rest on the individual.

However, from a student perspective, I can understand the burden rent can be.

Additionally, because these individuals are full-time athletes, having a part-time job is out of the question.

Because of these facts, I would not be surprised if McNeil’s defense includes these burdens as part of his motivation.

Robbery, especially armed, is never an acceptable alternative, and each player should receive the appropriate punishment that is dictated by law.

The situation saddens me that we have players who take the law into their own hands to compensate for money they cannot come up with.

This is not how I, as a student, want our athletic program to be known.

I also would like to commend head coach Gene Chizik for acting quickly to permanently dismiss the players from the team.

There are numerous examples, across the board, of college football players’ runins with the law, and I, for one, hope this incident is an isolated one, especially after such a historic season for our university.

Auburn athletes, let’s keep it classy — and legal.