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Daily ®ar BM J? Volume 102, Issue 164 102 years of editorialfreedom Serving the students and the University community since 1893 IN THE NEWS Top stories from die state, nation and world Budget Amendment Vote Delayed at Least One Day WASHINGTON, D.C. Supporter of abalanced-budget amendment Wednes day delayed a showdown roll call on the measure until at least Thursday as they sought the single, decisive vote needed to avert a stunning defeat for a premier Re publican priority. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R- Kan., Wednesday abruptly put the Senate into recess as amendment proponents searched for the necessary 67th vote. They were offering a plan to wavering Demo crats that would gradually, during the next decade, protect Social Security from bud get cuts. Sen. Lany Craig, R-Idaho, a chief spon sor of the amendment, said he believed a final vote would be held within the next two days, even if the measure might lose. Fourth Juror Dismissed in O.J. Simpson Murder Trial LOS ANGELES A black man was dismissed Wednesday from the O.J. Simpson jury and said the prosecution had presented a "strong case” so far. The juror, Michael Knox, was replaced by a 38-year-old white woman who works for the phone company and who once described herself as a “touchy, feely” kind of person. Knox was the fourth juror dismissed. There had been numerous news reports that Knox was on the brink of dismissal for allegedly failing to disclose past domestic abuse an important issue in the case because Simpson was alleged to have abused his ex-wife before she was slain. In an interview, Knox wouldn’t say why he had been dismissed. Lawyers Say Susan Smith May Use Insanity Defense UNION, S.C. Susan Smith, who confessed to drowning her two sons after claiming a carjacker took them, likely will pursue a defense that hinges on her mental state but with a plea that still could subject her to possible execution, her lawyers said Wednesday. Circuit Court Judge William Howard ordered that Smith be examined by state doctors to determine her competence. However, Smith did not actually enter a plea, and her lawyers said they might wait as long as until her scheduled July 10 trial to do so. Smith faces two counts of murder in the Oct. 25 deaths of her sons, Michael, 3,andAlex, 14months.Popeis seeking the death penalty against her, which still would be possible even if she were found guilty but mentally ill. Warlord Takes Over Somali Airfield After Looters Raid MOGADISHU, Somalia Warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's militiamen swept into the Mogadishu airport Wednesday, chasing away packs of looters and filling the void left by a retreating U.N. mission. American and Italian troops watched from the nearby dunes while the militia men loyal to Aidid, who once carried a $25,000 U.N. price on his head, roared through the airport gates in stripped-down tracks and jeeps mounted with heavy weap ons. After the last U.N. peacekeepers left the airstrip in the morning, hundreds oflooters swarmed over walls and barbed-wire fences to pick over wooden pallets and what little else remained. Aid Convoys Into Chechnya Stopped by Russian Gov't ACHKHOY-MARTAN, Russia - As villagers fled fighting in southeastern Chechnya on Wednesday, relief groups and rebel leaders accused Russian troops of blocking or stealing shipments of medi cine and other humanitarian aid. Russian authorities have stopped all aid convoys into Chechnya since Sunday, Jean- Marc Bomet of the Red Cross said in Geneva. The rebel government of Chechen Presi dent Dzhokhar Dudayev said international aid destined for his republic had all been sold on the black market or seized by the Russian army. The Russian government and interna tional agencies are providing aid to refu gees outside Chechnya, but aid inside the Caucasus Mountains region has been lim ited by the war. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Weather TODAY: Partly cloudy; high mid-40s. FRIDAY: Mostly sunny; high upper 40s-low 50s. UNC to Limit Hiring of New Employees BYNANCY FONTI ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR The threat of budget cuts on higher education has resulted in a student rally at the state Capitol and anew hiring proce dure at the University. Student Body President-elect Calvin Cunningham participated in a rally Wednesday in Raleigh at the state Capitol building protesting tuition increases and budget cuts. Cunningham said all the UNC-system schools were represented among the roughly 50 students who participated in the rally Wednesday. Hunt Visits Kids As Part of Push For Smart Start BY MEGAN HANLEY STAFF WRITER Gov. Jim Hunt and his wife toured a Chapel Hill day-care center Wednesday to see firsthand the benefits the children and their families have received from Smart Start, his early-childhood development initiative that has been under fire from the legisla ture. Smart Start has already allocated $47 million to 12 counties for the program in 1994-95, but the General Assembly is threatening to cut the program’s funding as it debates the budget for the next two years. On Tuesday, Hunt announced the program’s expan sion to 12 more counties. The Hunts joined Working Mother magazine Editor in Chief Judsen Culbreth on Wednesday for a tour in which they sat at preschool-sized tables and ate a grilled cheese lunch with the children. Hunt talked with the 4-year-olds over milk and North Carolina shaped cookies and then joined parents for a roundtable discus sion about how Smart Start had affected them. The partnership’s chairman, John Walker, introduced Hunt to the mothers. Walker attributed some of the inspiration for the program to a mother who told them, “If you want to help my child, help me to help my child.” “If we don’t help them when they’re young, they will drop out of school, they will be a burden to the society,” Hunt said. “Smart Start can prevent this.” Smart Start allocated about $2.3 million to the Orange County Partnership for Y oung Children, a nonprofit organization charged with distributing the money throughout the community to im prove early-childhood development services. The board of directors of the partnership is made up of a cross section of individuals from the community, including the director of the health department, the director of social services, members of the business community and religious community and parents, Walker said. “This is the opposite of a welfare program, ” said the partnership’s executive director, Michele Rivest. “These are children of work ing parents who earn about $15,000 per year. These are parents who because of Smart Start have quality day care and are able to work and contribute to society.” CDS Eyes Facility, Meal Plan Changes Seconds, Please! Overhaul, South Campus Convenience Store Are in the Works BYRACHAEL LANDAU STAFF WRITER Carolina Dining Services is planning to make a number of changes in facilities and meal plan policies during the next year to expand and improve the University's din ing options. One of the key changes is a modifica tion in the Seconds, Please! meal plan that is intended to curb students’ complaints about not getting to use all their Seconds, Please! meals in a week. “We will be ever-evolving to make this the best food service for the customers on Dean: Law School Accreditation Not in Danger BY ERIKA MEYERS STAFF WRITER The UNC School of Law’s accredita tion is not in jeopardy, the law school dean said Wednesday. The law school needs to improve its building and facilities, but this will not prevent it from receiving reaccreditation, Dean Judith Wegner said. Wegner said the reaccreditation pro cess served two main purposes —to ensure that all law schools that received federal aid had high-quality educational programs and to give the universities outside feed back on what elements or individual pro grams of the university needed improve ment. There are different reaccreditation pro cesses for the different programs that a university offers as well as a procedure that evaluates the university as a whole. There is something curiously boring about somebody else’s happiness. Aldous Huxley Chipal Hill North Caroliaa THURSDAY, MARCH 2,1995 “We coordinated a statewide effort to bring together student representatives and impassioned students to express our dis pleasure with Gov. Hunt’s budget pro posal as it affects the University,” Cunningham said. He said the rally was a “first shot” at coordinating student efforts against the budget cuts among all system schools. “We went over to let them know we would be interested and involved in the spring,” Cunningham said. Because of the cuts in funding under Hunt’s proposed budget, the hiring of new employees to fill empty nonfaculty posi tions that are funded by state money will i * BF [V' • y Wm. 9 * 1 JSF w- 1 Wmfflm; ms • 1 Hr M • JK , ■ sA's l ' i x ,:-, -T- v jpgs , jgl - n i- II . „ . . # . DTH/CHRISGAYDOSH Gov. Jim Hunt shows 4-year-old Erika Hines a picture of the editor of 'Working Mother' magazine. The editor and the governor and his wife visited the Bi-City Center for Children and Youth on Wednesday to talk about early-childhood day-care programs. The Smart Start funding has provided the day care center with new learning materials, play ground equipment, teacher training and has helped many of the parents pay for their children’s care. “Asa single parent, I would have to stay home if it were not for the Smart Start program,” said Hillsborough resident Marilee Reeves. Reeves pays more than S6OO per month for infant care. Hunt said a major misconception about this program was that it was just another welfare program. “Smart Start can help us implement welfare reform,” he said. “Off welfare and into work.” this campus,” said Chuck Hackney, mar keting manager of CDS. CDS’ new meal plans will include four block-meal plans, the 14-meal-per-week plan and an expanded version of the gold combo plan. The new block plans will offer custom ers a set number of meals per semester rather than per week. Hackney said this would eliminate the problems of students not getting to use all their meals. “The Seconds, Please! plan is one of the fastest growing meal plans in the country,” Hackney said. The new block system aims to offer more choices and more flexibility, he said. Scott Myers, general manager of CDS, said the new plans also gave customers the opportunity to get more value out of their meal plans. When customers don’t use all their meals under the current plan, the “The law school is fully accredited and will remain so. Since this process started in 1993, we have made progress. ” ELLEN SMITH Director of public information for the law school Officials at the law school are optimistic about receiving sl2 million from the Gen eral Assembly for improvement of facili ties, but right now it is not certain that the funds will be allocated as such, said W. Travis Porter, vice chairman of the Board of Governors and a graduate of the UNC law school. “I think that we’ll be all right on those now be closely scrutinized. Vice chancellors will now review re quests to fill vacant positions to prepare for possible budget cuts next year, said Laurie Charest, associate vice chancellor of hu man resources. As of Feb. 16, the final approval for filling all nonfaculty positions must come from the vice chancellor of the division, and Chancellor Paul Hardin has instructed that the positions be filled only if it is absolutely necessary. The decision to require vice chancellors to review hiring requests came after Hunt proposed spending cuts that would force the University to trim its payroll. Some state legislators claim Smart Start threat ens to take children away from their families, Hunt said. But some parents who attended the event disagreed. “I think the reality of life in the ’9os is such that most people don’t live exorbitantly,” said UNC student Amy Cunningham of Hillsborough, who receives subsidies for her two children. “We all want what is best for our children and to compete in the work force, and the fact is that children need a helping hand.” Culbreth said more than 65 percent of mothers in North Carolina worked. “What else do they price they are paying per meal goes up. When the Seconds, Please! program was first started at UNC four years ago, 456 plans were bought. Now more than 2,400 customers have Seconds, Please! meal plans, according to the fall figures. “We think this block plan will be enor mously successful here at UNC,” Hackney said. Another addition that Myers said CDS hoped to make a reality was a convenience store on South Campus. “We are currently collecting information on what people will want,” he said. “We don’t know if it will happen, but we are hoping it will.” Myers said CDS was looking into reno vating Chase Hall to accommodate the new store. Structural changes also might be seen at See LENOIR, Page 2 funds, but there is no guarantee that we will get them,” Porter said Wednesday. In 1993, the Board ofTrastees approved plans for a sl2 million addition to the school, but the General Assembly only allocated $1 million in July for the con struction. Asa result, construction plans were temporarily put on hold. Provost Dick McCormick said the $1 million already allocated had gone to plan ning and design. “We have an architectural design that has been approved,” he said. The University’s reaccreditation pro cess, a routine procedure, is conducted in periodic cycles, Wegner said. The Kenan- Flagler Business School and the Univer sity as a whole also are going through reaccreditation now. “There have been controversies before See LAW SCHOOL, Page 2 Roger Patterson, associate vice chan cellor for finance, said crucial positions would still be filled. “We’ve tried to structure as much flex ibility in the process as possible so we can fill positions when we need to,” Patterson said. “That’s why we left it up to the vice chancellors to make these decisions.” Charest said the additional review was a preparation for budget cuts. “It is a way to take responsibility in hiring while there is at least the possibility ofbudget cuts on the horizon,” she said. Charest said the vice chancellors' ap proval would help ensure that the posi tions filled were essential to the University. Gays Facing Uphill Battle To Secure Equal Rights BY ANGELA MOORE STAFF WRITER One year after Lightning Brown and 12 other members of Orange County’s gay and lesbian community approached the Chapel Hill Town Council to talk about the discrimination and harassment they face every day, Brown and other activists are still fighting for equal rights. The Orange County Civil Rights Ordi nance, adopted June 6 by the Orange County Board of Commissioners, prohib its discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disabil ity, family status and veteran status. OnMonday night, Brown and Carrboro resident Susan Johnston went before the Town Council requesting that a person’s sexual orientation be added to the list of attributes protected in the ordinance. The council affirmed its support of including sexual orientation protection, and Mayor Ken Broun has written a letter to the county commission endorsing the request. Council member Lee Pavao said the entire Town Council supported the re quest put forth by Brown and Johnston. “The council went on record to endorse (sexual preference) being included in the ordinance,” PaVao said. At the state level, however, the ordi nance is expected to meet with consider able opposition due to the weighty Repub lican majority in the state legislature not eager to pass laws supporting rights for homosexuals. The battle in Orange County to protect sexual orientation has been fought for some time now. According to Human Relations Commission Director Lucy Lewis, the original list local delegates brought before the General Assembly in spring 1991 in- News/Features/Am/Spons 962-0245 Business/Advertising 962-1163 C 1995 DTH Publishing Coip. All rights reserved. “The idea is that units in the University need to look carefully at the positions that they fill,” she said. “We certainly don’t want to hire some one right now and then have to lay them off because ofbudget cuts,” Charest said. The tighter hiring process might help the University absorb budget cuts by not filling positions, Patterson said. “We wanted to make sure we were in the best position to deal with cuts, but we didn’t want to stop positions from being filled that needed to be filled,” he said “We may still be hurting, but we will not have to terminate anyone because we didn't fill positions.” need to know?” she said. "This is the North Caro lina child, and sbe has a working mother. I don’t think it takes a genius to figure it out.” During the session, Culbreth presented a plaque to Hunt honoring North Carolina as “The Most Exciting State” for early-childhood development. Working Mother, a national magazine that deals with issues that affect working mothers, honored the state in its third annual survey published this month. Hunt was also presented with framed hand prints of the 12 4-year-old children he ate lunch See HUNT, Page 2 eluded sexual orientation as a protected right. However, on the recommendation of former Sen. Howard Lee, D-Orange, sexual orientation was sacrificed to get the rest of the bill passed. “Senator Lee felt it would be easier to get the whole bill passed if sexual prefer ence was not included," Carrboro Mayor Eleanor Kinnaird said. “We were very disappointed when he took it out. We urged him not to.” The ordinance did pass through the legislature without sexual orientation protection —and went into effect Jan. 1. The county must seek permission from the General Assembly on issues such as this that set basic policy. No such policy has ever been passed by the assembly. County residents are protected against discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations and bias-related incidents. If a person behe ves he or she has been discriminated against, that person can file a complaint with the Human Rela tions Commission, which then investigates the complaint and attempts to resolve the dispute. With the ordinance as it stands now, gays and lesbians who believe they have been discriminated against have nowhere to go with their complaint, Brown said. “Lesbian and gay rights are not my first line interest in local government,” he said. “It’s been a back-burner issue for me, but I am gay, and I believe that the lesbian and gay community here is fantastic. They con tribute to the entire community and cer tainly deserve equal treatment.” Brown has approached the council about the issue in the past. “March 2 of last year, we brought in 12 people to the council who See CIVILRIGHTS, Page 2
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