12
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2004
BOARD EDITORIALS
CAMPUS CONTROL
The government shouldn’t punish private institutions for turning
away military recruiters because of their “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
With each passing month, U.S. military com
mitments across the globe seem to increase
in number as turmoil and fear spread on an
international level. First our government sent sol
diers to Afghanistan, then to Iraq and now to Haiti.
Top military officials are pushing Congress to pass
legislation that would facilitate college recruitment
practices and effectively bully institutions of higher
education into acceptance of those tactics.
The armed forces wants to pack their military
ranks with the brightest minds of our generation by
way of questionable tactics, if necessary.
Last week, a bill that seriously could bolster the
U.S. military’s student recruitment arm cleared the
House Armed Services Committee.
HR 3966, known as the ROTC Military Recruiter
Equal Access to Campus Act, would deny certain
grants from the Central Intelligence Agency and the
Departments of Transportation, Homeland Security
and Energy to any university or college that treats
on-campus military recruiters differently from other
potential employers.
The resolution likely will head to the House floor
for debate sometime this week.
The ROTC recruitment act is meant to augment
the 1996 Solomon Amendment, a similar law that
denies federal funds to college campuses that bar
military recruiters altogether.
A number of law schools are challenging the pro
posed legislation. The Forum for Academic and
Institutional Rights, an association of 15 law schools
across the country, has filed a lawsuit against the
Defense Department. FAIR is challenging the new
recruitment plans on the grounds that they violate
the nondiscrimination principles of the American
Association of Law Schools.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” is at the crux of the fight. By
limiting access to military recruiters, many of the
nation’s colleges and universities are challenging ide
EYES ON THE MONEY
UNC officials properly investigated a serious misuse of University
funds. Now, it’s time to make sure that such fraud doesn’t reoccur.
Given the recent budget crunches faced by stu
dents, faculty, staff and UNC programs alike,
many on campus understandably are con
cerned about their finances.
Hardly in that same spirit, two staff members in
the Department of Radiology of the UNC School of
Medicine scammed the University out of more than
$300,000 during the course of four years.
University officials handled the case well by
launching an exhaustive 51/2-month investigation
through the University’s Internal Audit Department.
The department’s report blamed the misuse of funds
on inadequate supervisory controls and loopholes in
purchasing procedures that University officials
already have begun to fix.
Administrators should be commended for releas
ing information about the incidents to the public."
The case was a personnel issue, meaning they had
the legal right to withhold that information, but offi
cials helped to make the process transparent by
waiving that right and opening up their financial
proceedings to public scrutiny.
And while the matter was dealt with appropriate
ly after it was discovered, it’s clear that supervisors
in the radiology department weren’t vigilant enough
and should be more careful in the future.
Procedural fixes are certainly welcome, but many
of the problems could have been detected earlier and
at multiple levels. In a glaring example, the radiol
ogy department paid four related parties about
$105,500 for moving services that would have cost
University personnel only $1,250.
At one point early in the scam, central operating
controls detected one of these fraudulent payments,
but the employee simply changed the name of the
business used on the payment requests, and the
department continued to employ the company on a
regular basis.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The above editorials are the opinions of solely The Daily Tar Heel Editorial Board, and were reached after open debate. The
board consists of seven board members, the editorial page associate editor, the editorial page editor and the DTH editor. The 2003-04 DTH
editor decided not to vote on the board and not to write board editorials.
COMMENTARY
Blacks in search of the right policies, not party
Let’s set the record straight:
From 1865 on, Abraham
Lincoln led the Republican
Party that freed slaves and passed
the 13th, 14th and 15th
Amendments, laying the ground
work for a series of landmark civil
rights cases almost a century later.
Unfortunately, the Republican
Party of Abraham Lincoln is not
the same Republican Party led
today by George W. Bush.
For one to assume, as Brentley
Tanner does in his column,
“Republicans support blacks more
than the Democratic Party,” that
African-Americans sacrifice their
own personal interests to engage
in blind loyalty to the Democratic
Party is completely off base.
Like all voters, African-
Americans have one thing in mind
when they go to the polls: What
have you done for me lately. And
“lately” is not defined by events
and milestones that occurred
more than a century ago.
If you look at the history of polit
ical parties in the United States,
one would see that around the time
of the Great Depression, more than
30 years before the height of the
modem civil rights movement,
both parties started to switch
places in regards to racial issues.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, a
ologically what many perceive to be a discrimination
policy sanctioned by the U.S. government
Public institutions ultimately are helpless to fight
the recruitment policies. After all, schools such as
UNC are public institutions funded by taxpayer
money. School officials have no right to bar any
group or organization, for ideological reasons or oth
erwise, from having access to the same facilities and
services as any other group.
The problem with the new bill lies in its treatment
of private schools.
Private institutions have every right to control
who has access to their campuses and can bar
recruiters based on ideological principles. This fun
damental protection from state or federal oversight
is one of the key advantages private institutions have
over their public counterparts.
At the same time, the government does have the
right to deny funding to anyone who turns away its
military recruiters. The question is whether it should.
The consequences are twofold. Some critics argue
that schools that cave to the Solomon Amendment
unwittingly become agents of the military’s discrim
ination policies, and by denying federal funds to
obstinate private schools, the government is setting
a dangerous precedent in terms of strong-arming
academic institutions.
Schools public and private shouldn’t base
their career-advisement policies on fears that the
federal government could pull their funding for crit
ical research programs.
At the same time, colleges and universities need
to learn how to pick their fights and not to deprive
students of worthwhile career opportunities in mak
ing political statements.
While the U.S. government shouldn’t hold poten
tially beneficial research money hostage, universities
shouldn’t deprive our nation’s military ranks of prime
officer candidate material simply to make a point
The investigation finally was launched Sept. 5,
2003, a day after an employee at the University Mail
Center tipped off the Internal Audit Department
that one of the accused staff members came to pick
up checks that should have been mailed to busi
nesses contracted by UNC.
In response to the findings, the department over
hauled its entire structure, created new oversight
positions and hired anew manager, who started
work Monday.
Thfe 1 teforms include new ordering procedures
that Require large contracts must now go through the
Purchasing Department. Matt Mauro, vice-chair
man of radiological clinical services, told The Daily
Tar Heel on Friday that the money in question came
from payments made by patients for clinical servic
es.
He said the misuse was the business office’s prob
lem and has nothing to do with the clinical side of
operations. He added that department Chairman
Joseph Lee wouldn’t have discovered the misuse
because annual financial statements are all he sees.
“It wouldn’t make a blip on the map,” Mauro said.
“In a sls(million) to S2O million budget, it isn’t too
significant. But you don’t want to see anything lost.”
UNC officials were quick to act, but additional
oversight could have prevented the misuse in the
first place. The incident should serve as an alert for
officials in each of the University’s department to
double-check their budget sheets and account for all
funds.
There shouldn’t be an environment of distrust,
but administrators should maintain a better watch
over the funds they oversee.
The entire University community is having to deal
with financial struggles. If administrators are going
be taking more of students’ money, they had better
be sure they’re taking good care of theirs.
BERNARD HOLLOWAY
MEMBER, UNC YOUNG DEMOCRATS
DIMIA FOGAM
MEMBER, BLACK STUDENT MOVEMENT
Democrat, initiated New Deal pro
grams that provided employment
to all without regard to race, and
many of the projects completed by
the “alphabet agencies” spawned a
new age in African-American cul
ture, including the creation of slave
narratives and inspiration for the
work of Zora Neale Hurston.
Harry Truman, Roosevelt’s suc
cessor, integrated the armed forces
and the civil service at a time when
many black Gls entered World
War II in the name of fighting for
freedom, only to come home to
insurmountable oppression.
And Hubert Humphrey deliv
ered the keynote address at the
1948 Democratic National
Convention calling for the imme
diate passage of federal civil rights
legislation an action that
sparked Strom Thurmond to
storm out of the convention on his
way out of the Democratic Party.
At the same time, Republican
leaders opposed attempts to inte
grate government offices, passed
token —and even unenforceable
protections via the 1950s civil
rights acts and waited to the last
Opinion
minute, in the case of the Little
Rock Nine, to intervene on behalf
of students who were upholding
the desegregation mandate of
Brown v. Board of Education.
In fact, Tanner’s greatest asser
tion, which states that “the
Democratic Party formed the Ku
Klux Klan,” is only a half-truth. He
fails to recognize that the same
southern Democrats, who led the
Han at the beginning of the 20th
century, were the fathers and
grandfathers of George Wallace’s
segregationist supporters in 1968
and the prime targets of Barry
Goldwater’s “Southern strategy” to
entrench Republican support in
the South for decades.
So here’s a wake-up call: Today’s
Southern Republicans the ones
who voted for George H.W. Bush
because of “Willie Horton” ads and
fear-mongering, race-based poli
tics are more closely related to
the Hansmen of yesteryear than
today’s Democrats.
We’ll concede that, on the
whole, African-Americans are
socially more conservative than
the mainstream of the Democratic
Party', adhering to family tradi
tions and the tenets of the
Christian faith more than most of
their liberal counterparts. But just
because people have God in com
ON THE DAY'S NEWS
“Private property began the instant somebody had a mind of
his own ”
E.E. CUMMINGS, poet
EDITORIAL CARTOON
COMMENTARY
Community college system
underrated, underfunded
Once again, tuition hikes are
placing negative attention
on our state’s network for
higher education the 16 univer
sities that compose the UNC sys
tem.
Fiscal woes that have set in
during recent years are proving
long-lasting, forcing students to
pick up the tab where state
appropriations have failed to pro
vide.
But lost in this media coverage
of a sad period in higher educa
tion is serious talk of similar
funding dilemmas for institutions
that more broadly spread the geo
graphic spectrum of the Old
North State.
Yes, our community colleges
also are bleeding, and there’s no
bandage readily available to mend
these wounds.
According to a press release
issued last week by the N.C.
Community College System,
enrollment rose from 150,844 to
180,568 full-time equivalent stu
dents between the years 2000
and 2003. Meanwhile, the sys
tem is not receiving enough
funding to handle these growing
numbers.
The release states that the
Office of State Budget and
Management already has asked
state agencies to prepare for
budget cuts of 3 percent, which
would put an even tighter strain
on the community college system.
These institutions will contin
ue to suffer unless we address a
systematic neglect of our commu
nity colleges.
Everybody is clearly feeling the
economic squeeze. We got spoiled
during the boom years of the
19905, and we are still somewhat
in shock over the relative thrifti
ness we’ve been forced to impose
on state-subsidized programs.
mon does not mean they’ll share
the same socioeconomic values.
Where is the Republican Party
when it comes to health care?
African-Americans die of pre
ventable illnesses heart disease,
diabetes, cancer and even AIDS
at rates significantly higher
than the national average.
Yet the barriers to health care
equality are often economic ones,
specifically the cost of prescription
drugs and yearly checkups that are
covered by most insurance compa
nies. Will party leaders finally
embrace a truly conservative con
cept by ending the virtual monop
olies that exist on prescription
drugs to allow more people access
to the care they need and deserve?
Where is the Republican Party
when it comes to criminal justice?
An entire generation of black
males, no older than we are right
now, will be lost in the next 10
years to prison incarceration and
the associated problems with
rehabilitation.
Every day our society allows the
problems of racial profiling, dis
criminatory drug laws and manda
tory minimum sentencing to seg
regate our criminal justice system.
Are Republican Party leaders
ready to address this crisis in the
black community? And will there
lITO
MICHAEL DAVIS
COUNTRY FEEDBACK
But our neglect for the com
munity colleges often seems more
extensive than simply monetary
scrimping: There’s a stigma many
attach to these schools that reeks
of academic elitism.
I guess it’s almost expected
when you have such a strong state
system of colleges and universi
ties, which prepare students for
more service and business-related
occupations.
Growing up in Charlotte,
snickers followed talk of attend
ing “CP,” or Central Piedmont
Community College.
That might’ve been high school
jibber-jabber, but I think this
general tendency to look down on
community colleges extends past
the 12th grade, and it’s a shame.
One wonders if this image is
encouraged by guidance coun
selors pushing students for “the
best,” when the best might actual
ly just be a couple years working
and attending the local communi
ty college.
After all, some will move on to
a larger university later anyway.
Many people can’t attend one
of the UNC-system schools,
because of family commitments
or other obligations.
And some think they can’t
because of the perceived cost of
these institutions. One hopes
such programs such as the
Carolina First campaign will fight
successfully the idea that not
everyone can go to a four-year
be attempts to use prevention
instead of “tough on crime” poli
cies that amount to locking people
in jail and throwing away the key?
For hundreds of years, African-
Americans have kept their eyes on
the prize: receiving the economic
and educational equality that we
have long been entitled to. Those
are our goals. Those are our issues,
and we’re prepared to support
whoever will stand up for us.
So the question for Republican
leaders is: What have you done for
me lately?
Contact Bernard Holloway
at bemardh@email.unc.edu.
Contact Dimia Fogam
atfogamde@email.unc.edu.
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(Elje My ®ar Mrri
school.
But on the other end, there are
the folks who just don’t find that
type of schooling applicable to
their educational needs, and
that’s fine.
For those content with two
year degrees, there’s no need for
the negative stigma that comes
with this perfectly acceptable
level of academic achievement.
Recently, the downturn in the
manufacturing and textile sectors
has forced many people back to
school.
Community colleges are con
venient and inexpensive options
for new occupational training.
Located in or just a short drive
from almost any town in the
state, these institutions offer
everything from vocational edu
cations to foreign language train
ing.
But, as another budget is
drawn up, continued cuts threat
en these students from being able
to have these important opportu
nities.
According to the system’s press
release, cuts of 3 percent would
take away more than 110 full-time
staff positions, meaning another
stab right at the heart of North
Carolina’s community colleges.
It goes on to mention the nasty
reductions these cuts would cause
to secretarial and continuing edu
cation services.
Despite the still-sluggish econ
omy, we need to support these
valuable institutions and bolster
their images.
That can start with more
funding, so that the community
colleges can reach out to the
many who need them for an edu
cation.
Contact Michael Davis
at davismt@email.unc.edu.
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