P > n1 A14 My M.iy < t'-M W inston Sulrm Chronicle
National
Black
A Judge to determine
if he gets job back
SEW YORK (AP) ? A jury
has given Leonard Jeffries almost
everything he asked for: a decision
that he was wrongly relieved of his
chairmanship of black studies at
City College after he criticized Jews
and whites, and a financial award
for his troubles.
. Now a judge will decide
whether the professor should get his
old job back.
A jury in Manhattan's federal
court decided earlier that Jeffries'
First Amendment rights to free
speech were violated. Last week, it
laid the blame largely on four
trustees the City University of New
York, and it awarded Jeffries
$400. OCX) in damages.
The tnistees had voted to oust
Jeffries from his position as chair
?man of the black studies department
at City College, a branch, of City
University.
"We're elated that there has
been trial, tribulation and triumph.''
a smiling Jeffries said Tuesday out
side the courtroom. "The message is
clear that there is freedom of
speech, that that umbrella wretches
to African Americans."
Jet tries created a furor across
the country in July 1991 when he
said in a speech that Jews and the
Mafia had conspired to belittle
blacks in the movies and that Jews
had helped finance the slave trade.
The jury found that the
trustees used the speech as a "sub
stantial or motivating factor" in
denying Jeffries a three-year term as
chairman of black studies.
Now that the jury's work is
done. Judge Kenneth Conboy will
hear arguments on whether Jeffries
should be restored as chairman, a
process that could take a month.
Jeffries. 56. sought his chair
manship back and S25 million in
damages when he filed a lawsuit
against City College last year.
. . City University and the state,
which is defending the state-run
school, said they would appeal the
damage award.
"The university still main
tains that it acted in good faith and
they should not have to pay." said
Ed Barbini, a spokesman for Attor
ney General Robert Abrams.
The New York regional
office of the Anti-Defamation
League of B'Nai B'rith denounced
the award.
"Any dollar amount would be
an unjustifiable reward for racism,
bigotry, and anti-Semitism," said
- Myrna Shinbaum, the office's
spokeswoman.
Most of the jurors refused to
speak with reporters.
One, Robert Mercer, said the
panel, four blacks and four whites,
"all agreed the real criminals here
were Gov. Mario Cuomo and
Mayor David Dinkins."
He said both "pressured poor
civil servants to do the dirty work"
to get rid of Jeffries.
Mercer, a 46-year-old IBM
researcher who lives in Westchester
County, said there "was certainly no
outrage at the speech" in the jury
room.
But Mercer did say that he
thought Jeffries was not a compe
tent department chairman, teacher,
or scholar.
"He ought to start a church,"
Mercer said.
Jeffries gave his controversial
speech in Albany in July 1991.
In October 1991, City Uni
versity's trustees decided to allow
Jeffries to serve a one-year term as -
chairman of black studies, but voted
to replace him the following March.
Each of the trustees found liable in
the case opposed even extending
Jeffries' chairmanship for one year.
During the trial, Jeffries said
his "freedom of speech ... was
crushed" by the reaction to his
remarks.
His lawyer, Joseph Flem
ming, introduced evidence that
showed school administrators found
Jeffries was performing his job ade
quately despite the uproar. '
The jury said trustees Edith P.
Everett, Herman Badillo, Sylvia
Bloom and Harold M. Jacobs each
owe $80,000 to the professor,
although any damages will be paid
by the state-run City University.
The jury assessed punitive
damages of $50,000 against City
University's chancellor, W. Ann
Reynolds, and $30,000 against for
mer City College's president,
Bernard W. Harleston.
J ury Clears Man in
Shooting- of J apanese Exchange Student
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) ?
The gun lobby is fond of saying,
"Guns don't kill people, people kill
people."
But gun-control advocates,
say the acquittal of Rodney Peairs in
the shooting death of a Japanese
exchange student who mistakenly
went to Peairs' door looking for a
Halloween party leaves one prob
lem. :<
"The gun is there. And in a
moment of panic it's used in a way
that it's not intended to be used,"
Susan Whitmore of Handgun Con
trol said Monday.
To the National Rifle Associ
ation, the verdict "underscores the
fact tl)at existing, rampant,
unchecked, violent crime in the
United States has created an atmos
phere of fear among honest Ameri
cans," said spokesman Bill Mcln
tyre.
The killing Oct. 17 and
Peairs' acquittal on a manslaughter
charge Sunday led to set another
furious re-examination, abroad as
well as at home, of gun-ownership
laws in the United States.
Both sides in the trial agreed
that Peairs was scared for his life
when he killed Yoshi Hattori. 16
whom he mistook for a burglar. But
the prosecution argued that, with
minimal effort, the 3I-vear-old meat
market manager would have discov
ered there was no danger at all.
Peairs was acquitted by a jury
that deliberated for three hours after
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While District Attorney Doug
Moreau told jurors he supports the
right to bear arms, he argued that
gun owners must accept the respon
sibilitv that comes along with the
weapon.
Defense lawyer Lewis
Unglesby called the shooting "a
one-in-a-million deal where every
thing went wrong at the same
time."
Handgun Control said statis
tics suggest otherwise. A gun is 43
-times more likely to kill a member
of the household than an intruder,
the Washington-based group said.
Peairs, who sought psycho
logical help, testified that he went to
the bathroom and I vomited immedi
ately after shooting the student.
He is "as much a victim of
gun violence as the victim himself,"
said Mike Beard of the Washington
V
based Coalitioo-lo 4*top Gun Vio
"tenceP'His life is changed dramati
cally because of the presence of the
gun."
Louisiana is one of two states
that had more deaths from firearms
than automobiles, he said. "At least
with automobiles, we've tried to do
something about it."
The student rang the Peairs'
front bell twice, and Bonnie Peairs
opened a door off the carport. He
came around from the front ?
quickly, she said ? and frightened
her, so she yelled for her husband.
Peairs said he shot the boy
after yelling "Freeze!" Hattori, who
knew little English, may have mis
understood the word as "Please,"
according to testimony.
The case captured wide atten
tion in Japan, where Hattori' s par
ents collected more than 1.6 million
petition signatures urging Congress
to adopt stricter gun laws.
White House spokesman
George Stephanopoulos said he
hoped the shooting wouldn't affect
relations between the two countries.
"We understand and regret
very much the tragic incident last
year in which the exchange student
was killed, and we extend our sin
cere condolences to his family,"
Stephanopoulos said.
He declined comment on the
verdict but said. "We can certainly
understand the disappointment of
the Japanese people."
President Clinton "has been
on the record for tighter gun-control
laws," he said. "That's why he's
been pushing for the Brady Vill and
other measures to keep guns out of
the hands of criminals."
Richard Haymaker, the stu
dent's American host, has lobbied
the Louisiana Legislature for gun
control, but with little success.
"The question becomes: Did
Yoshi die in vain? And the answer
is: Absolutely not," Haymaker said.
"It's for the other children that
we're trying to make a safer
world."
Peairs testified that he was
sorry for the killing, and there has
been talk of a meeting between him
and Hattori's parents.
"It's a question of whether it
will be public or private" Unglesby
said. "And Mr. Peairs' position is
that he would like most everything
he does from now on to be private.!!
Philip Taijitsu Nash, director
of the National Asian Pacific Amer
ican Legal Consortium, said his
group would investigate whether a
non-Asian person in an unfamiliar
neighborhood would be as likely to
have been shot under similar cir
cumstances.
TIFFANY SLAUGHTER, 19 1
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