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VOLUME 95 - NUMBER 14
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2016
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
Duke University president
seeks end of sit-in protest
(AP) - Duke University’s
president met Sunday with pro
testers in their second day occu
pying his office’s waiting room
to demand the firing of three ad
ministrators and a $15 minimum
wage for all campus workers.
Duke President Richard Brod
head met with demonstrators in
side the building that houses his
office and those of other top ad
ministrators. Nine students have
camped in a waiting area outside
Brodhead’s office at the school’s
main administrative building
since Friday afternoon.
University officials told the
students they face criminal tres
passing charges, academic sanc
tions or both if they didn’t leave
U.S. Senator Cory Booker -
U.S. Senator Cory Booker Announced
as 2016 Undergraduate NCCU
Commencement Speaker
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker will serve as the keynote speaker for
North Carolina Central University’s 127th Baccalaureate Ceremony
on Sat., May 14. The Commencement exercises will take place in
O’Kelly-Riddick Stadium on the university’s campus.
Booker will address approximately 700 students receiving their
bachelor’s degrees from the university. According to preliminary
estimates from the NCCU Registrar’s Office, the Class of 2016 is
anticipated to be one of the largest graduating classes in the univer
sity’s history.
A New Jersey native, Booker won a special election to represent
New Jersey in the United States Senate on October 13, 2013. He
was subsequently re-elected to a full six-year term on November 4,
2014. He currently serves on the Senate’s committees on Commerce,
Science, and Transportation; Small Business and Entrepreneur ship;
Environment and Public Works; and Homeland Security and Gov
ernment Affairs. Booker is the ranking member of the Senate Sub
committee on Surface Transportation. Booker has also emerged as a
nationalleader in the Congressional push for common sense criminal
justice reform, advocating for front-end sentencing reforms and ban
ning ofjuvenile solitary confinement in federal facilities, and spear
heading legislation to make the hiring process fairer for the formerly
incarcerated.
Booker began his career in public service after graduating with a
Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School by starting a nonprofit or
ganization that provided legal services for low-income families and
helped tenants advocate against absentee landlords to improve living
conditions and stay in their homes.
At the age of 29, he was elected to the Newark, N.J., City Council
from the city’s Central Ward. Booker became mayor of Newark in
2006 and worked over his seven-year tenure to steadily increase the
city’s economic growth to a record high since the 1960s. He is cred
ited with improving the overall quality of life for Newark residents.
A Stanford University graduate, where he earned both a bache
lor’s and master’s degree, Booker played on the varsity football team
and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. He studied at the University
of Oxford, where he received an honors degree in history.
The late father of Booker, Cary Booker, a North Carolina native, is
a 1962 graduate of North Carolina College at Durham, now NCCU.
Booker was inducted in the Society of Golden Eagles in 2012, a
group that recognizes alumni celebrating their 50th class reunion.
Along with his classmates, the elder Booker was recognized during
the university’s Founder’s Day Convocation on November 2, 2012.
A separate ceremony for graduate and professional students will
be held on Friday, May 13, in McDougald-McClendon Arena.
Sunday, university spokesman
Michael Schoenfeld said. The
sit-in students wanted amnesty
from criminal or academic re
percussions before walking out,
said Mina Ezikpe, one of the oc
cupiers.
“If they don’t give us am
nesty, we’re not leaving and so
it’s up to the administration how
they want to proceed,” said Ezik
pe, a junior from Atlanta study
ing cultural anthropology.
It’s been about a decade since
the administration building was
occupied by protesters, Schoen
feld said, but “protests at Duke
are neither rare nor identical.”
Photos posted on the Twitter
account of the campus
newspaper shows graffiti on
signs and leaded-glass windows
urging Trask’s firing. Other pho
tos posted by the Duke Chronicle
show dozens of students chant
ing or seated on the lawn outside
the administration building.
The administrators that pro
testers want fired include one
top executive involved in a dis
pute with a parking attendant
two years ago. A lawsuit filed
last month by the contract traf
fic control officer accuses Duke
executive vice president Tallman
Trask III of using a racial slur
against her.
Trask has said parking atten
dant Syliva Underwood refused
to let him park in his usual spot
and stepped in front of his car.
He denied making any racial
comment.
Campus police investigated
Underwood’s allegations two
years ago, but she “chose not to
pursue her police complaint,” the
university said in a statement.
A campus institutional equity
office separately investigated the
allegation of an uttered racial
comment. “This investigation
also did not produce sufficient
evidence to confirm the allega
tions,” the statement said.
Duke’s current minimum
wage is $12 an hour, compared
to the federal and state mini
mum of $7.50, the statement
said. The school is pushing to
require companies with which it
contracts for campus services to
also pay at least $12 an hour, the
statement said.
1 year since death of
man shot while
runningfrom police
NORTH CHARLESTON,
S.C. (AP) - The family of a black
man shot to death by a white
police officer in South Carolina
while running away is mark
ing the one year that has passed
since his death.
Local news outlets report the
family of 50-year-old Walter
Scott is holding a moment of
silence at his gravesite Monday.
The family says Scott’s mother,
brother and other relatives will
lay flowers on his grave and then
address the media.
Former North Charleston of
ficer Michael Slager is charged
with murder in the April 4, 2015,
death of Scott, who was running
from a traffic stop. The shooting,
captured on cellphone video, re-
ignited the national debate about
how blacks are treated by law
enforcement officers.
Slager is out on bond before
his trial, which is expected later
this year.
Smithsonian to
acknowledge Cosby
allegations at new
museum
By Ben Nuckols
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
Smithsonian now plans to ac
knowledge the sexual-assault
allegations against Bill Cosby at
its new African-American histo
ry museum on the National Mall,
which will include two items re
lated to Cosby’s career in televi
sion and standup comedy.
The museum’s founding direc
tor, Lonnie Bunch, said in a
statement March 31 that visitors
to the exhibit will recognize that
Cosby’s "legacy has been se
verely damaged.”
The museum plans to include
the cover of a Cosby comedy al
bum and a comic book from his
pioneering TV drama "I Spy”
as part of its exhibit on black
entertainers and artists. Initially,
the museum planned to include
historical facts about the items
without mentioning the allega
tions.
Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame to
Enshrine McLendon - Again
HOUSTON, Texas - Legendary basketball coach and innovator John McLendon was announced as a
member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement class of 2016 to be honored Sept. 8-10
in Springfield, Massachusetts.
The announcement was made in Houston, the site of the 2016 NCAA Men’s Final Four, and televised
live on ESPN SportsCenter.
McLendon, who started his college coaching career at North Carolina Central University (then known
as North Carolina College) in 1937 and served as the Eagles head basketball coach from 1940-52, was
first enshrined into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1979 as a contributor. In September, he will
enter the hall posthumously as a coach.
Born April 5, 1915 in Hiawatha, Kansas, McLendon’s contributions to the sport of basketball are
virtually innumerable. His advisor at the University of Kansas was the inventor of basketball, Dr. James
Naismith.
During his time at NCCU, McLendon pioneered basketball’s full court game, using such strategies
as the full court press, the full court zone (now known as the zone press), the open center offense whose
variants include the “four corners,” the rotating pivot, and the double-pivot.
In 38 years as a head coach, he achieved a collegiate coaching record of 523 wins to 165 losses for a
.760 winning percentage, including a 239-68 record at NCCU. He was the first coach io win three con
secutive national championships, leading Tennessee State to NAIA National Championships in 1957,
1958 and 1959. He was also the first black coach in a professional basketball league (with the Cleveland
Pipers in the American Basketball League in 1961) and the first black coach at a predominantly white
university (Cleveland State employed him in June 1966).
McLendon died on Oct. 8, 1999 at the age of 84.
This year’s class also includes 27-year NBA referee Darell Garretson, eleven-time NBA All-Star Allen
Iverson, two-time NABC Coach of the Year Tom Izzo, three-time NBA Finals MVP Shaquille O’Neal
and four-time WNBA Champion Sheryl Swoopes. Distinguished committees focused on preserving all
areas from the game also selected four directly elected members. They include Zelmo Beaty from the
Veterans Committee, Yao Ming from the International Committee, Cumberland Posey from the Early
African American Pioneers Committee and Jerry Reinsdorf from the Contributor Committee.
North Carolina bathroom law
could be
By Larry O’Dell
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - The
fate of North Carolina’s new law
aimed at restricting restroom use
by transgender people could be
determined in Virginia, where
a school board has ordered a
teenager to stay out of the boys’
room.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in Richmond could rule
any day now in the case of Gavin
Grimm, who was born female
but identifies as male. Grimm
says he has to take a “walk of
shame” to use a restroom at
Gloucester High School.
Whatever the judges decide, the
impact will be far more sweep
ing than what Grimm envisioned
when he challenged the policy
last year.
“I did not set out to make waves
-1 set out to use the bathroom,”
Grimm says.
North Carolina’s bathroom
bill was unveiled, debated and
signed into law in a single day
last week, two months after the
appeals court in Richmond heard
arguments in Grimm’s case.
But two workers and a trans-
gender student at the University
of North Carolina are making
similar arguments as they seek a
federal injunction preventing en
forcement of the new law.
Among other things, the law
directs public schools, public
universities and government
agencies to designate bathrooms
and locker rooms for use only
by people based on their bio
logical sex, and says transgender
people can only use bathrooms
matching their gender identity
if they’ve had their birth certifi
cates changed, which in North
Carolina usually requires sexual
reassignment surgery.
decided in
The law has prompted a national
backlash. Businesses and politi
cians have announced boycotts
of North Carolina, and legal
challenges ensure that the wedge
issue will dominate the Republi
can governor’s re-election cam
paign against his Democratic
challenger.
Advocates on all sides will close
ly read the ruling, since U.S. Dis
trict Judge Thomas Schroeder in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina,
an appointee ofPresident George
W. Bush, will have to adhere to
any precedents set by the appel
late court, said Joshua Block, the
American Civil Liberties Union
lawyer representing Grimm.
“One way or another, what hap
pens in Gavin’s case is likely
going to set the rules of the road
for how the North Carolina case
proceeds,” Block said.
Grimm alleges that school board
policy requiring him to use girls’
restrooms or a single-occupancy
unisex bathroom available to all
students violates Title IX of the
U.S. Education Amendments of
1972, the federal law prohibit
ing sex discrimination in public
schools. He also says the policy
denies him equal protection
rights guaranteed by the U.S.
Constitution.
The North Carolina suit raises
similar claims, alleging that
transgender people who haven’t
received a sex-change operation
and changed their birth certifi
cate can’t access their preferred
restrooms, and are therefore
treated unequally from non
transgender people.
Since Grimm’s trial judge has
yet to decide constitutional is
sues, the appellate ruling will fo
cus on the Title IX question and
“won’t provide guidance about
Virginia
the constitutionality ofthe North
Carolina law,” said Kevin Walsh,
a University of Richmond expert
in constitutional law.
The U.S. Justice Department
filed a “statement of interest” in
Grimm’s case in July declaring
that failure to allow transgender
students to use restrooms that
correspond with their gender
identities amounts to sex dis
crimination under Title IX. In
North Carolina, gay rights ad
vocates warned that the new law
puts billions of dollars in federal
educational funding at risk.
North Carolina’s law also bars
local governments from making
their own restroom ordinances,
providing other protections from
discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity,
or requiring businesses to pay
higher wages or paid sick leave,
raising authority questions that
aren’t at issue in the Virginia
case.
Block sees a possible road map
in the 4th Circuit’s ruling strik
ing down Virginia’s same-sex
marriage ban. A federal judge
later told North Carolina law
makers that the appellate court
made such laws unconstitutional
throughout the five-state circuit,
which also includes South Caro
lina, Maryland and West Vir
ginia. The U.S. Supreme Court
later legalized gay marriage na
tionwide.
The use of public facilities by
transgender people has emerged
as the next most important le
gal issue for LBGT advocates,
and North Carolina is the first
state to require public school and
university students to use only
bathrooms that match their birth
certificates, according to the Na
tional Conference of State Leg
islatures.