PREVIEW OF THE
2012 ELECTION
^ TAKE A TRAIN,
TAKE A HORSE
The annual Burlington Carousel Festival
comes around again.
»PAGE 13
Elon professors make their predictions
regarding the presidential race.
THE Pendulum
ELON, NORTH CAROLINA j WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2011 j VOLUME 37, EDITION 21
» PAGE 8
www.elonpendulum.com
HEATHER CASSANO I Photo Editor
The Not on our Campus movement began in response to two instances of discrimination on campus. While the university has made strides to address the issue, it has no. come without Its challenges from students.
Defining Diversity: Campus grapples
with response to discrimination
■ . M'-ni I %
Natalie Allison
Senior Reporter
Although diversity on campus is now
at its highest level since Elon University
became an institution, discrimination
has not disappeared, and the
campus community's commitment
to responding to discrimination is
nothing new.
When Elon College’s marching band
stopped at a restaurant in Raleigh on
the way back from a football game in
1963, the restaurant owner told Glenda
Phillips, the first black student to
attend Elon College, that she was not
allowed to enter. The next day, former
president Earl Danieley called then-
Governor Terry Sanford to report what
had happened. Sanford immediately
sent a human resources worker to the
restaurant owner to rebuke him on
behalf of the state of North Carolina.
“That was all I knew to do — to
report it to the highest man in the
state,” Danieley said.
In light of two recent incidents in
which Elon University students were
subjected to racial slurs while walking
on and nearby campus, the university
has responded with a forum, public
and private meetings, letters sent via
email to the undergraduate student
body, a special College Coffee and the
distribution of Not on our Campus
stickers.
The first of the two incidents
occurred around 9 p.m. Sept. 7, when
junior Brenna Humphries said she was
forced to run to get out of the path of a
car speeding toward her as she crossed
N. O’Kelley Avenue. Humphries said
one of several young men in the vehicle,
which she described as a silver BMW,
shouted a derogatory racial slur at her
before driving off.
A second incident occurred Sept.
10, when someone in a passing car
yelled the same racial slur to a student
walking on Williamson Avenue.
Regarding the first case. President
Leo Lambert told students during
the Sept. 15 SGA meeting that the
university strongly believes the car s
driver and passengers are within the
18-25 year-old age range, although it is
unclear whether they are Elon students.
Campus Safety and Police is actively
pursuing an investigation of the
incident, which includes interviewmg
students whose vehicles match the
description Humphries provided and
analyzing hours of video footage from
parking lots. or. i
Lambert said Campus Safety and
Police believe the driver of the vehicle
in the second incident is not an Elon
student, as the individual appeared to
be much older.
“This is an
open campus,”
Lambert said
at Thursday’s
SGA meeting.
“Anyone can
come onto the
Elon campus.
We’re not a
gated or walled
community,
and I think
this was some
idiot driving
through. And
there are idiots
out there.”
“We throw (diversity) around so
much, so that people who are
heterosexual, white and Christian
feel that they aren't diverse. You
have the diverse and the non-
diverse here at Elon, because
that’s how Elon has made it
without realizing it.”
A long-term
response to an ongoing issue
Despite the university’s response in
trying to address the recent incidents
and inform the student body that
these incidents are unacceptable, some
students and faculty said they felt the
university was negligent in ensuring
that resources were in place to ensure
future occurrences are handled
properly.
“There are a lot of places you can go
to report these incidents on campus, but
no direct path, no one person to contact
or direct way for
a student’s fears
to be resolved,"
said senior Raafe
Purnsley, vice
president of
Spectrum, Elon’s
queer-straight
alliance. “If
our policy on
discrimination
isn’t helping
people come
forward or talk
about it, we
have to think of
another.”
At a special
College Coffee
Sept. 13, a group of students responded
to the university’s Not on our Campus”
message by asking Lambert questions
at the end of his prepared speech on
diversity.
The group of students, part of the
newly formed Now What? movement,
shouted out questions regarding how
future incidents of discrimination
would be handled and whether an office
would
See DIVERSITY I PAGE 2
-Candice Blacknall
CO-FOUNDER OF NOW WHAT?
MOVEMENT. CLASS OF 2013
FOR THE