J?
Volume 103, Issue 51
102 years of editorialfreedom
Serving the students and die Vnimsity community since 1/93
mi £ ha e 1 hooker
TAKING CHARGE
s 1
M \ rak-
Embattled Professor Resigns Post After
Summer of Controversy and Pressure
BYROBYN TOMLIN HACKLEY
ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR
After spending his summer immersed
in controversy over relationships he had
with students, Associate Professor James
D. Williams resigned his post in the En
glish department effective November 30.
Chancellor Michael Hooker said in a
press release July 20 that he had accepted
Williams’ resignation and said he was
“pleased to put the matter behind us. It
reflected unfavorably and unfairly on the
campus.”
The Williams situation prompted ad
ministrators to adopt an amorous relations
policy in April, which prohibits faculty
and staff members from engaging in amo
rous or sexual relationships with students
they evaluate.
Information about the 48-year-old
professor’s sexual exploits with under
graduate students was drawn to the atten
tion of university administrators during a
messy divorce and child custody case be
tween the professor and his ex-wife, Ashley.
UNC responded to the allegations of
misconduct by placing William*; on paid
leave during the spring semester and initi
ating an investigation.
In July, a sealed deposition given by
Williams before his divorce hearing last
fall was opened and revealed that he had at
least two extra-marital affairs with UNC
students.
The deposition also revealed that Will
iams admitted to having sex in his office
“half a dozen times” with UNC senior
AkoShimada. During his relationship with
Shimada, whom he married June 24, Wil-
IT’S COMING
That’s right Vacation time is almost over.
Only one thing can comfort you as summer
ends and a busy fall begins: The Daily Tar
Heel will be with you.
We resume regular daily publication
Wednesday, Aug. 23. From the first day of
classes, you can expect to find us in the
stands every Monday through Friday.
The DTH is looking for fresh faces to join
our staff. Applications are already available
in our office at Union Suite 104. Come by,
take a look around the office and grab an
application.
H you have any questions, please call us
at 962-0245.
WELCOME BACK EDITION
Satlg 3ar
Professor Williams' Time at UNC
After eight years in the English department James Williams
will leave his tenured post, effective Nov. 30.
Kmurir
19*7 Williams takes position in English department at UNC.
W9t Wiliams gives UNC Student/ex-girlfriend phone number of friend in
California who 'periodicefly paid for sex.*
1991 Williams gets $30,000 technical writing grant from IBM.
AafMt 1992 Wiliams becomes involved with then-UNC freshman Ako Shimada.
1991-1994 Williams pays six student assistants with IBM grant money. Shimada
recieves $2,484 for photocopying and clerical work.
child custody proceedings, which sparks UNC and SBI to investigate Wiliams for
misconduct James Wiliams wins custody of the couple's son.
Jammy 1995 Shimada is ordered by court to pay Ashley Williams SIO,OOO for
breaking up her marriage.
Jme 1995 investigations are completed and former Chancellor Paul Hardin
announces that Williams win recieve a reprimand in his file for paying Shimada
when they were involved. In a press release, Williams apologizes to University
officials. Wiliams marries Shimada.
Jaly 9 Chancellor Michael Hooker announces that he is initiating dismissal
proceedings against Williams over travel voucher discrepancy.
Mf 21 Hooker accepts Wiliams’ resignation effective November 30.
liams paid her $2,484 for doing clerical
work on a project funded by a corporate
grant he supervised.
In January, the Orange County District
Court ordered Shimada to pay Ashley
Williams SIO,OOO for breaking up the Wil
liams’ marriage.
The court records also state that Will
iams had a sexual relationship with at least
one other UNC student. The student had
been in an grammar course he taught in the
fall of 1990. Williams said he and the
student developed a relationship that be
gan in April 1991 which lasted four or five
months.
Williams said that after he and the stu
dent ended the relationship, she informed
him that she needed money and threat
ened to tell Ashley Williams about the
affair.
He refused to pay, but offered to give the
student the phone number of a friend in
Los Angeles who “periodically paid for
sex.”
In addition to the information about
Williams’ relationships with students, the
deposition says that he fathered a child
with a woman in California who adver
tised for a sperm donor. His illegitimate
For thejuture in the distance, and the good that I can do.
John Codrington Bampfylde
yfe Chancellor Strives to Improve UNCs Image
BY THANASSIS CAMBANIS
EDITOR
■ ichael Hooker has been spot
£ ‘kg ted in a lot of places where
w W m UNC has grown unaccus
tomed to seeing its chancellor.
Since taking office July 1, the youthful
administratorhasgivenbloodattheDean
E. Smith Center, spoken on WUNC
FM, visited the legislature and among
other things, has even entered the under
graduate library.
At age 49, Hooker accepted the offer
to become UNC’s eighth chancellor, leav
ing the presidency of the University of
Massachusetts system. The search com
mittee that chose him said he would
bring visionary educational leadership to
the flagship public university that needed
help in setting goals and gamering sup
port across the state.
Within a few days of his arrival,
Hooker began attadringhead-on the prob
lems he saw.
“We have no God-given right to exist.
We should be busting a gut constantly to
figure out how better to serve the pub
lic," said Hooker in an ad
dress to the Employee Fo
rum July 5, only his sec
ond working day.
The University, he said,
must work harder to serve
the state and to convince
legislators and N.C. resi
dents that UNC is not ar
rogant.
“The University,
rightly or wrongly, is dis
played as showing acer-
son was born four months after his child
with his ex-wife. Both children are named
Austin.
After the State Bureau of Investigation
and the UNC Internal Auditor’s Office
completed their investigations, outgoing
Chancellor Paul Hardin issued a statement
saying that it was inappropriate for Will
iams to pay Shimada for the clerical work
she did on the project he supervised.
Hardin placed a letter of reprimand in
Williams’ file, but chose not to pursue the
matter further because there had been no
amourous relations policy in effect when
his case began.
But rumblings in the N.C. legislature
turned the tide against Williams, and the
University. Hardin’s decision angered sev
eral legislators who said the case made
them question whether UNC was a worthy
expenditure.
“Parents put their trust in in the Univer
sity when they send their 18-year-old daugh
ters to college,” said N.C. Rep. Leo
Daughtry, R-Johnston. Daughtry said
Hardin’s decision left “a black mark not
only on UNC, but on the entire system."
See PROFESSOR, Page 5A
MoS!aUGUST2U99S
tain arrogance, hubris or disdain for the
people of this state,” Hooker said. “We
are the servants of the public."
The General Assembly was more will
ing to take a microscope and scalpel to
the University’s budget this year because
the Chapel Hill campus had not taken
enough pains to show how useful it was
to the state, Hooker said.
ARmi Atttwk
As chancellor, Hooker said his role
was to convey an attitude of service to all
members of die University community.
During the summer legislative ses
sion, leaders of the Republican majority
in the House criticized UNC for hosting
a Tobacco Control Summer Institute that
included advocates of tobacco industry
regulation.
Hooker described the handling of the
tobacco institute controversy as a public
relations mistake.
"It seems to me the University did not
do a good job with public relations,”
Hooker said. He said he thought the
University should make more of an effort
to communicate how research could help
the tobacco industry by finding new uses
for tobacco products as cigarette con
sumption falls.
Although the University should take
responsibility for its failure to publicize
its service mission, Hooker said budget
cuts in a time of economic prosperity
undermined one of the state’s best assets.
“I do think the legislature, the new
majority party in the House, especially,
has been a little myopic in failing to
realize that the University is the best in-
See HOOKER, Page 2A
Williamson Enters Insanity Plea
BY WENDY GOODMAN
CITY EDITOR
Attorneys for double-murder suspect
Wendell Justin Williamson have spent the
summer wrangling over the form of his
upcoming trial in October. Williamson
has pled not guilty by reason of insanity to
two counts of first-degree murder.
In three separate court appearances this
summer, Williamson and his lawyers filed
a series of motions in an attempt prevent
the prosecution from seeking the death
penalty because of his unstable state of
mind at the time of the shootings.
Defense attorneys filed a motion July
14 asking for two separate juries in an
attempt to ensure a fair and impartial trial.
They said that due to "expert opinions and
anticipated testimonyby lay witnesses, that
there is a great likelihood the defendant
will be found not guilty by reason of insan
ity.”
Stackhouse Goes Pro
Jerry Stackhouse, accompanied by Coach Dean Smith, announced at a press conference May 8 his intention of
entering the NBA draft Stackhouse went to Philadelphia as the No. 3 pick in the draft See stories on page A7.
Possible S4OO
Hike In Tuition
STAFF REPORT
JULY 30 - Students at UNC and N.C.
State could see a larger tuition hike than
other college students across the state.
On July 28, legislators in the N.C. Gen
eral Assembly passed an expansion budget
which will allow trustees at both N.C.
State and UNC to raise tuition by S4OO for
all students without legislative approval.
For some professional and graduate
schools, the trustees could raise tuition by
as much as s3,ooofor out-of-state students.
The hike would be used to increase faculty
salaries, financial aid and library funds.
However, UNC administrators have
expressed concern that the extra tuition
could hurt the very N.C. families the Uni
versity is supposed to serve.
The extra tuition, UNC System Presi
dent C.D. Spangler said, would put too
great a burden on low-income families.
“That’s not where the money should
come from it should come from the
General Assembly,” Spangler said.
Thirty-five percent ofthe revenue gained
from the undergraduate’s increase would
go to need-based financial aid. The addi
tional funds generated by the professional
schools’ increase would stay in each school.
Student Body President Calvin
Cunningham, who said he supported the
proposed tuition hike, lobbied the General
Assembly to pass it.
On the opposite side of the fence,
Spangler and the UNC lobbyists worked
hard in Raleigh to get legislators to kill the
proposal.
Chancellor Michael Hooker said that
he still hadn’t made up his mind on the
proposal, but that he saw arguements both
for and against the proposal.
“We are a very low tuition state,” he
said. “(But) you don’t want to accept the
idea that the burden for quality falls on the
back of the students. It’s a dangerous pre-
_—-
The trial for double
murder suspect
WENDELI
WILLIAMSON is
slated to begin
October 23.
Public defender
James Williams
contended in his
motion that by al
lowing the trial to
take place in two
phases —one jury
to decide innocence
orguiltand the other
jury to decide on the
sentence
Williamson would
be guaranteed a fair
trial.
Members of the
first jury could tech
nically oppose the
death penalty and
hear the case only to decide on the verdict.
The second jury would then hear another
trial to decide on a sentence of death or life
imprisonment. The second jury, however,
would only be needed if Williamson was
News/Fcaturts/Ans/Spons
Business/Advertising
© 1995 DTH Publishing Cotp. AD rights reserved.
cedent to set.”
Hooker said a “great university” de
pended on public funding. “It is premature
now to concede that principle.”
Eleanor Morris, directorofthe Office of
Scholarships and Financial Aid, said these
school-specific increases could limit op
tions for some students.
“I think it will impact access, the assur
ance that students can come here regard
less of their finances,” she said. “Those
who can afford to will be the ones who will
fill the classes.”
But she said that with 35 percent of the
increases going to financial aid, more stu
dents who need financial aid could get it.
“It’s asking those who can afford it to
pay for those who can’t,” she said.
Danni losello, an in-state senior who
has worked on campus while taking sum
mer classes, said since the proposed hikp
would help fund scholarships and finan
cial aid, itwasn’tsuchabadidea. “Forme,
it’s already a good deal,” she said.
But Lee Tatum, who is working on her
Ph.D. in German, had a different opinion.
“I wish I had gone to the other school I
was accepted to, just for financial rea
sons,” she said.
She said the salaries many graduate
students received as teaching assistants
wouldn’t provide enough money to cover
the tuition hikes.
“Every year we get a little bit of an
increase in our salaries, but not that much, ”
she said. “I think this is ridiculous that this
is done to us.”
Along with the possible S4OO increase,
the General Assembly agreed to raise tu
ition by $75 for in-state students and 7.9
percent for out-of-state students attending
UNC and N.C. State.
Sam Kirby, Will Safer, Thanassis Cambanis and
Bronwen Clark contributed to this story.
found guilty.
Defender Williams stated in the motion
that a single “death qualifying jury is more
likely to convict insane defendants than
jurors representing the whole spectrum.”
He supported this statement by citing past
cases and studies showing that when a jury
is not only deciding the verdict but also the
impending sentence ofthe defendant, there
is a tendency to support the position held
by the prosecutor.
These studies and cases showed if one
jury is seated to deliberate on both issues,
the jury is less likely to grant an acquittal on
grounds of insanity.
The motion stated the need for separate
juries was mainly due to the defense’s use
of the insanity plea. Defender Williams
entered a not guilty by reason of insanity
plea for Williamson at an arraignment
June 19.
See WILLIAMSON, Page 5A
962-0245
962-1163