08/20/95
WILSON LIBRARY
P n COLLECTION -
^° X 8890
CHAPEL HILL
**CHILL
UNC-CH
NC
5-8890
Carmita Lillies
RUTH £
VOLUME 95 - NUMBER 26
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, JULY 2, 2016
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
Cong. John Lewis victory
in Congress taken from
civil rights playbook
By Errin Haines Whack
WASHINGTON (AP) - Ber
nard Lafayette was all smiles as
he watched his civil rights com
rade John Lewis commandeer
the floor of the U.S. House for an
old-fashioned, marathon sit-in
over gun legislation.
Lafayette goes back with
Lewis to the student sit-in pro
tests in Nashville, Tennessee,
to the early days of the Student
they couldn’t get the attention of their government or the public.
“The purpose is to get people to sit down and talk with you,” La
fayette said. “Otherwise, they don’t respect you or think that you
have any power.”
“I did not anticipate coming to Congress to sit literally on the
House floor, but that’s what it took to raise this issue up,” Norton
said. “The opponent in this case, my Republican colleagues, appear
just as intransigent as our opponents in the days of segregation.”
Norton said she got word of the possible protest June 22. Before
long, Lewis and roughly a dozen Democrats had taken the floor, dis
rupting legislative business with demands for a vote on a proposed
gun bill, and refusing to leave.
Nonviolent Coordinating Com
mittee, and the Freedom Rides,
more than a half-century ago.
Now 75 and a professor at Em
ory University in Atlanta, La
fayette said he was tickled but
not surprised that Lewis, 76,
abruptly pulled this page out of
the civil rights protest playbook
so many years after their student
activist days - and after quietly
representing an Atlanta district
in Congress for nearly 30 years.
“To see him after these many
years still sitting-in ... that’s sort
of engrained in him, that confi
dence that direct action can bring
about some changes,” Lafayette
said.
Long heralded as the moral
conscience of Congress, Lewis
did not play by the rules when
he rallied fellow Democrats
and staged a 25-hour sit-in on
the House floor June 22 and 23.
There was something about the
need to persuade GOP lawmak
ers to act on gun control legis
lation that struck Lewis’ soul,
leading him to launch a rebellion
hardly seen in Congress, draw
ing inspiration from his hero,
Martin Luther King Jr.
“He taught me the way of
peace, the way of love,” Lewis
said June 23 during a rally out
side the Capitol, where he led
the crowd in singing “We Shall
Overcome” and vowed to stage
another sit-in when Congress
returns from recess. Democrats
say Congress must act to stem
gun violence in America in the
wake of the mass shootings at
an Orlando gay nightclub that
killed 49 people and injured an
other 53.
For Lewis’ student-move
ment cohorts, the strategy was
both natural and nostalgic.
“I don’t think anything like
this has happened, ever,” said
Eleanor Holmes Norton, also a
SNCC organizer as a college stu
dent, and now a Democrat who
been a non-voting delegate rep
resenting the District of Colum
bia in Congress since 1991. “We
are in an era of direct action, but
no one expects that members of
Congress would have to do this.
This is the kind of thing our con
stituents do to get our attention.”
Shirley Sherrod, a SNCC or
ganizer who worked on behalf of
black farmers in south Georgia,
pointed out that Lewis’ direct ac
tion spoke more to the nation’s
desire for its elected leaders to
do something about the deadly
mass shootings that keep hap
pening.
“It wasn’t just about what was
happening on the (House) floor,”
Sherrod said, noting that people
quickly gathered outside the
Capitol as the protest wore on.
“It brings the rest of the nation
into the struggle. When you’re
dealing with situations where
people don’t seem to care and
don’t want to listen, you have to
use what you have.”
And that refusal to listen, La
fayette explained, is what makes
nonviolent direct protest neces
sary. He drew parallels between
the congressional stalemate over
guns and the climate from the
mid-1950s into the 1960s, when
blacks fighting for equality felt
Cong. John Lewis, D-Ga, led a sit-in in the house of Representatives to focus on
gun control legislation.
(AP Photo)
Texas U. admissions can consider
race, Supreme Court rules
By Mark Sherman
WASHINGTON (AP) - In a narrow victory for affirmative action, the Supreme Court on June 23
upheld a University of Texas program that takes account of race in deciding whom to admit, an impor
tant national decision that was cemented by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
The justices’ 4-3 decision in favor of the Texas program ends an 8-year-old lawsuit that included a
previous trip to the Supreme Court, filed by a white Texan who was denied admission to the university.
Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion that the Texas plan complied with earlier
court rulings that allow colleges to consider race in pursuit of diversity on campus. “The university
has thus met its burden of showing that the admissions policy it used ... was narrowly tailored,” Ken
nedy wrote.
The court’s three more-conservative justices dissented, and Justice Samuel Alito read portions of
his 51-page dissent, more than twice as long as Kennedy’s opinion, from the bench.
“This is affirmative action gone wild,” Alito said. The university “relies on a series of unsupported
and noxious racial assumptions.”
In a separate dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas repeated his view that the Constitution outlaws any
use of race in higher education admissions.
With the death of Scalia in February and with Justice Elena Kagan sitting out the case because she
worked on it while serving in the Justice Department, just seven justices participated in the decision.
Scalia, long opposed to affirmative action, almost certainly would have voted with his fellow con
servatives. He was criticized for suggesting at arguments in December that some black students would
benefit from being at a “slower-track school,” instead of Texas’ flagship campus in Austin.
At the very least, Scalia’s vote could have made the result a tie and limited the high court to issuing
a one-sentence opinion upholding the lower court ruling in favor of Texas. In that instance, the result
would have been the same but without the Supreme Court endorsement offered by Kennedy June 23.
The university considers race among many factors in admitting the last quarter of incoming fresh
men classes. The state fills most of its freshman class by guaranteeing admission to students who
graduate in the top 10 percent of their Texas high school class.
The high court ruled in the case of Abigail Fisher, a white Texan who was denied admission to the
university in 2008. She contended she was rejected while African-American applicants with lower
grades and test scores were admitted.
The school said Fisher, who did not graduate in the top 10 percent of her class, would not have been
admitted with or without race as a factor. But officials did conditionally offer to allow her to transfer in
as a sophomore if she maintained a 3.2 grade-point average at another public college in Texas.
Instead, she went to Louisiana State University, from which she graduated in 2012, and pursued
her lawsuit. Fisher was recruited for the suit by Edward Blum, an opponent of racial preferences who
has been remarkably successful in persuading the Supreme Court to hear cases challenging the use of
race in education and politics.
Blum was behind a major challenge to the landmark Voting Rights Act that resulted in the court
eviscerating a key provision of the law, and he also led an unsuccessful challenge to states’ widespread
practice of counting all their residents, not just those eligible to vote, in drawing legislative districts.
The Supreme Court heard Fisher’s case once before and issued an inconclusive ruling in 2013 that
sent it back to a lower court and set the stage for the June 23 decision.
In 2003, the justices reaffirmed the consideration of race in the quest for diversity on campus. Their
decision then set a goal of doing away with such programs in 25 years.
“The most important part of this case is that the court reaffirmed what it said in 2003 which is that
diversity can be a compelling interest of a university in fulfilling its educational mission,” said Sher-
rilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
In a statement, Fisher said “I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has ruled that students apply
ing to the University of Texas can be treated differently because of their race or ethnicity. I hope that
the nation will one day move beyond affirmative action.”
Walltown Reunion Weekend included witha pa
rade. See photos on page 8.
Judges skeptical about
North Carolina voting
law changes
By Alan Suderman and Gary D. Robertson
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Members of a federal appeals court ex
pressed skepticism June 21 that North Carolina’s 2013 major rewrite
to voting laws, requiring photo identification to cast in-person bal
lots, doesn’t discriminate against minorities.
The three-judge panel met June 21 to hear arguments over wheth
er to overturn an April trial court ruling upholding the law.
Judge Henry F. Floyd questioned the timing of the changes - done
after Republicans took control of state government for the first time
in a century and after the U.S. Supreme Court undid key provisions
of the Voting Rights Act - and whether they weren’t done to suppress
minority votes for political gain.
“It looks pretty bad to me,” Floyd said.
But the law’s authors said they were aiming to prevent voter fraud
and increase public confidence in elections.
“It was not a nefarious thing,” said Thomas A. Farr, an attorney
representing the state.
The U.S. Justice Department, state NAACP, League of Women
Voters and others sued the state, saying the restrictions violated the
remaining provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act and the Consti
tution. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals fast-tracked the review
in an expected presidential battleground state, with competitive races
for governor and U.S. Senate.
Voters must now show one of six qualifying IDs, although those
with “reasonable impediments” can fill out a form and cast a provi
sional ballot. The voter ID mandate began with this year’s March
primary.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Judge James A. Wynn Jr. asked pointed
questions about why public assistance IDs, used disproportionally by
minorities, were not acceptable in the final version of the law.
“Why did they take it out?” asked Wynn, a former North Carolina
state appeals judge.
The laws approved by the General Assembly and signed by Re
publican Gov. Pat McCrory also reduced early voting from 17 to 10
days, eliminated same-day registration during early voting and barred
the counting of Election Day ballots cast in the wrong precinct.
The plaintiffs say the changes discourage voting by black and
Hispanic residents, who use early voting or same-day registration
more than white voters and are more likely to lack photo ID. South
ern Coalition for Social Justice attorney Allison J. Riggs said North
Carolina’s GOP lawmakers enacted a specific and unprecedented at
tack on minority voting rights that continued the state’s tradition of
suppressing minority rights.
“They knew the disproportionate impact of every one of these
provisions,” she said.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder, who presided over the trial
in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, determined the plaintiffs failed
to prove that the laws made it harder for minority voters to cast bal
lots. He focused on higher voter registration and turnout rates among
black residents in 2014, when many changes were implemented,
compared with 2010.
Attorneys for the state want to keep Schroeder’s ruling intact,
arguing in a brief that the laws “simply returned North Carolina’s
election system to the mainstream of election systems” used in the
country.
The appeals panel, which also included Judge Diana Gribbon
Motz, did not say when they would issue a ruling.
The same three judges considered the 2013 law in 2014.
At that time, Wynn and Floyd ordered a preliminary injunction
directing same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting continue
while the case was pending. A majority on the U.S. Supreme Court
soon disagreed and blocked that order for the November 2014 elec
tion. But subsequent court rulings allowed same-day registration and
out-of-precinct voting to resume.
Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina.
N.C. man charged with stabbing father to death
(AP) - A North Carolina man has been arrested and charged with
stabbing his father to death.
Durham police said in a news release that 54-year-old Donald
Fields Sr. was stabbed in his home shortly after noon Sunday. He
died at a nearby hospital.
Twenty-three-year-old Donald Fields Jr. has been arrested and
charged with murder.
It was not clear if the Fields has an attorney.