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Volume 103, Issue 147
102 yean of editorialfreedom
Serving the students and die University community since 1893
INSIDE
THURSDAJf
UNC System Exploring Privatization Questions
BY ERIC FLACK
STAFF WRITER
A UNC student group has been protest
ing a study of the possible effects of priva
tizing on each of the 16 UNC-system cam
puses. The Coalition for Economic Justice
is fighting what members see as a push for
privatization of housekeeping services.
In 1995, the General Assembly ordered
the study of the potential savings that might
occur through privatization. Four General
Administration staff members and an out
side consultant will examine six means of
employment, including housekeeping,
groundskeeping, trash and hazardous waste
disposal.
According tocoalitionmembers, house
keepers could lose wages, the ability to
unionize and educational opportunities.
Students, who have historically supported
the housekeepers dating back to the 1991-
1992 Housekeepers Movement, have come
to the housekeepers’ defense once again.
Aaron Nelson Gamers
Endorsement From BSM
■ The group issued
endorsements in all contests
after its Wednesday forum.
BY JOHN SWEENEY
STAFF WRrTER
The Black Student Movement an
nounced their endorsements for the stu
dent government races Tuesday night, fol-
lowing a ninety
minute forum for
all candidates, in
which minority
issues took center
stage.
< Wvtions
tsm. i
The BSM endorsed Aaron Nelson for
student body president, Ladell Robbins
and Amelia Bruce for Senior Gass presi
dent and vice president, lan Walsh for
Carolina Athletic Association president
and Matthew Leggett for Residence Hall
Association president.
Both the BSM forum and the Sangam
forum which followed it allowed questions
on all issues. But it was the topic of minor
ity involvement on campus that dominated
discussion.
For student body president candidate
Aaron Nelson, that involvement went back
to his idea of building a stronger sense of
community on campus.
“I think that it is important that we
foster an environment with communica
tion between different groups so we all feel
comfortable with who we are,” Nelson
said. “Multiculturalism happens when you
continue to educate people about other
cultures.”
Devils Charter
Party Buses
To Chapel Hill
■ Anew alcohol policy has
prompted Duke students to
seek ftm outside of Durham.
BY CRISTINA SMITH
STAFF WRITER
Foryears, UNC students have suspected
that life at Duke University was, well,
rather dull. Finally, there is proof.
Duke Greeks are arriving on Franklin
Street by the busload, driven from their
gothic wonderlandby anew alcohol policy
that bans kegs in dorms and requires uni
versity-approved bartenders. Fraternities
and sororities charter two or more buses a
week, said a Duke transportation official.
“Compared to Chapel Hill, the bars and
restaurants in Durham aren’t as nice, ” said
Lee Kenna, a Duke student government
representative who linked the alcohol policy
to the increase in trips off campus. “The
environment in Durham is not as pro
college as Chapel Hill that’s one thing
you have over us.”
Currently, sororities and fraternities at
Duke are using the busing system to travel
between the Duke campus and Chapel Hill
See DUKE, Page 10
Tar Heels Top Tech
The UNC women's basketball team
defeated Georgia Tech for its
seventh ACC victory. Page 11
* 4^l
Kim Diehl, a member of the CEJ, said
the coalition could not let privatization
occur because of the negative effects it
would have on the housekeepers.
“We’re against privatization because
not only would they lose wages, but they
would no longer have a chance to union
ize,” Diehl said. “We’re against it because
of the consequences.”
Diehl also said programs such as Project
Lit, which holds morning classes to teach
housekeepers to read, write or obtain their
GEDs, might suffer because the private
contractors running the services would not
want their employees to take time from the
jobs.
According to student activist John
Dervin, also a member of the CEJ, worker
morale is below normal, and the changes
that privatization could bring would de
moralize them further. “There is already a
climate of fear on this campus that will be
elevated with privatization,” Dervin said.
“Any money saved is going to be less than
Student body president candidate Lee
Conner said he wanted to focus on encour
aging greater diversity in the classrooms.
“Our faculty should not look like card
board cutouts of each other. They should
be diverse people with diverse back
grounds,” Conner said.
Conner said he had worked to increase
faculty diversity during his term as chair
man of the Chancellor’s Student Advisory
Committee. He said the committee had
used its resources to compile lists of quali
fied minority educators to which the ad
ministration could refer when hiring.
Student body president candidates
Michael Farmer and Sean Behr said re
cruiting minorities for student government
would be key to their administrations.
“The biggest minority issue is getting
people involved in different groups,”
Farmer said.
He added that he would like to see his
administration be truly representative of
the student body.
“We have to cultivate a a community in
student government of women and mi
norities willing to take a role inside student
government,” Behr said.
All four candidates said they would
actively seek out members of a wide vari
ety of campus groups to play a part in their
administrations.
“I want my administration to be a rain
bow,” Conner said.
Senior Gass president candidate Kate
McNemey said she and her running mate,
Minesh Mistry, were concerned about the
low rate of four-year graduates among
African Americans.
McNemey said only seventy-eight per
cent of black students who entered UNC
lailij 3kr Mnl
Student Elections Poll
About This Series
The Daily Tar Heel conducted an intercept
poll of 406 students on campus during the
week of Jan. 29 - Feb. 2 to determine how
important they thought the following 10
issues should be to the next student body
president. The survey has a sampling error
of plus or minus 4.9 percent
Top 10 Student Issues
Q Conveying students' concerns to
administrators
O Conducting an ethical administration
©Stopping increases in tuition and
student fees
A Changing things that affect students daily,
such as dining and housing
0 Working with Student Congress to
allocate student activity fees
0 Improving safety on campus
0 Addressing the concerns of women
and minorities
0 Making cable and Internet more easily
accessible to students
O Serving as a liaison to state officials
0 Creating an executive branch diverse
in race and gender
Cfcspsl Hill, North Carolina
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8,1996
.ft
Will Tax Fall Flat?
Local economists have mixed
feelings about Steve Forbes' flat
tax proposal. Page 3
“lt is something we are not
taking lightly. We understand
the concern on the part of the
students and the employees. ”
HENRY HOLMES
Assistant Vice President of Finance for
UNC General Administration
the loss of morale.”
Task force member . Henry Holmes,
GeneralAdministrationassistant vicepresi
dent of finance, said the study was being
conducted in a serious, efficient manner
and the concern of the students was under
stood. “It is something we are not taking
lightly,” Holmes said. “We understand the
concern on the part of the students and the
employees. We share those concerns, and
we are treating this with the utmost respect
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Student body president candidate Sean Behr speaks at the Black Student Movement candidate forum
at Upendo Lounge in Chase Hall on Wednesday night.
were still enrolled at the beginning of their
fourth year and only forty percent gradu
ated after four years.
“That number is ridiculously low. Ob
viously, there is something wrong with this
system,” McNemey said.
Senior class president candidates Ladell
Robbins andAlex Thrasher saidtheywould
focus on getting more minority involve
ment in senior class activities.
Editor's Note: The Daily Tar Heel is running a series on the top five issues and the
student body president candidates' proposals for addressing them. Today, we
examine the No. 3 issue: stopping increases in tuition and student fees.
BY MARY-KATHRYN CRAFT
STAFF WRITER
Pocketbook issues are always a primary concern of voters and campus
election voters are no different.
In The Daily Tar Heel elections survey conducted last week, respon
dents ranked it as the third most important issue facing the next student
body president.
Students have seen the cost of a UNC education increase every year since
1991. In-state tuition for the 1990-91 school year was $604. This year, that
figure is $948, an increase of almost 5 7 percent over 1990-91.
Out-of-state students have seen even steeper hikes, with
tuition costs rising from $5,230 in 1990-91 to $9,064 for this
school year an increase of 72.3 percent.
The student body president plays a key role in dealing
with those officials who make the final decision over when
and how much to increase the cost of attending the Univer
sity.
Sean Behr, student body president candidate, said the student body
president was able to communicate concerns of the students with the
administration and the UNC Board ofTrustees. The student body president
also has the opportunity and information that most students do not have to
communicate directly with the chancellor, he said.
Behr said the key to dealing with tuition increases was to unite students,
faculty and staff either for increases or against them. It was not good to have
a fracture in beliefs such as with the S4OO tuition increase earlier this year,
Behr said. “The ultimate goal is to increase funding from the state,” Behr
said. “Weneedtoworkwiththestateandimproveourimage, andthatway,
we won’t have to increase tuition.”
See TUITION, Page 10
Nobody wants justice.
Alan Dershowitz
▼ -Ml ft ions
Iyp6
and caution.”
Other task force members are General
Administration staff members James
Smith, associate vice president of finance;
Jeffeiy Davies, associate vice president of
finance and Cynthia Bonner, associate vice
president of student affairs. An outside
consultant, M.G.T. of America Inc. out of
Tallahassee, Fla., will aid in the study.
The report, which the Board of Gover
nors will present to the General Assembly
on April 15, will be in four main parts.
Holmes said the first part would be a ge
neric report on all the factors regarding
privatization and higher education.
The second part will be based on a
survey that will be completed by each of
the 16-system schools. The team will de
velop a baseline survey to find out what all
the schools are currently privatizing.
Part three will be a time estimate for
how long it takes to go from starting the
study to the point when advertising for
contractors could take place. Holmes esti
" You have to have mass appeal in your
variety of events,” Robbins said.
Robbins said he would like to see Senior
Class events address the concerns and in
terests of a more diverse group of students.
Thrasher said he agreed.
“We think a lot of problems can be
taken care of by having more opportuni
ties,” Thrasher said.
Justin Harty, who is running for Senior
[issue 00'
J#3\
Stuck on saieiy:
Many of the candidates' promises
on safety are already being
addressed by police. Page 3
mated this time frame to be 12to 15months,
but noted that the more facets of the uni
versities they try to privatize, the longer it
will take.
The final part will be the results of visits
by the surveyors to three university cam
puses, N.C. State, North Carolina A&T
and Western Carolina. The purpose is to
study on site the six main facets and how
privatization will effect them.
Privatization is not anew idea on the
UNC campuses. East Carolina University’s
housekeeping management hasbeenpriva
tized for six years. UNC-Charlotte has
privatized trash and waste management
among other things. Food services was
privatized at UNC in 1971 after the Food
Services Workers Strike in 1969.
Jim Houston, director of purchasing at
UNC-Charlotte, said privatization existed
on every campus in the 16-university sys
tem. “They all have some areas of
privatization,” Houston said. “All cam
puses do.”
Class vice president along with presiden
tial candidate Charlie McNairy, said the
energy the two shared would bring in all
students.
“Attitude is everything, enthusiasm is
everything,” Harty said.
The student body president candidates
also addressed concerns about UNC’spub-
See FORUM, Page 2
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. DTH/FILE PHOTO
Despite a protest at last September's UNC Board of Trustees meeting,
the BOT approved a S4OO increase in tuition for undergraduates.
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Today's Weather
4 Chance of showers; high 50s.
Friday: Light showers: high 50s.
Gilbert:
Memo
Justified
■ The defense rested its case
Wednesday against the UNC
associate vice chancellor.
BY JAMIE GRISWOLD
ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR
HILLSBOROUGH The defense
rested its case Wednesday in the defama
tion suit against Associate Vice Chancellor
Lawrence Gilbert, following a ruling by
Superior Court Judge Gordon Battle that
denied a plaintiff’s counsel motion to re
voke Gilbert’s qualified privilege.
Gosing arguments will begin at 9:30
a.m. today in Orange County Superior
Court.
Burton Craige Professor of Law Robert
Byrd said faculty members enjoyed a quali
fied privilege to communicate information
of common interest to other faculty mem
bers, as long as that communication was
made in good faith and without malice.
Wilma Hanton, a former research ana
lyst in the Department of Biology, claims
that Gilbert libeled her in a May 1991
memo discussing her dismissal from the
University. Gilbert, who is currently a
William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of Biol
ogy, fired Hanton in 1991 while he was
biology department chairman.
A1 McSurely, Hanton’s lawyer, said
Gilbert's qualified privilege should have
been revoked because he put the allegedly
defamatory memo in approximately 70 to
80 mailboxes in an unlocked mail room
and therefore did not know who would see
the memo. McSurely also said only six or
seven of the students and employees who
received Gilbert’s memo had anything to
do with the electron microscope (EM) lab.
Battle said he thought Gilbert’s memo
enjoyed qualified privilege because it was
communication between personnel.
“I think it is appropriate for the chair
man of a department to communicate with
the members ofhis department, explaining
why he discharged a long-term employee, ”
Battle said.
Hanton was employed at the University
for 21 years before her dismissal on May
24,1991. She had been the primary techni
cian in the biology department’s EM facil
ity since themicroscope’spurchase in 1984.
Gilbert testified Wednesday that he had
fired Hanton because she resisted new rules
and regulations requiring her to keep a log
ofher activities in the EM lab and requiring
the department to bill for her time doing
microscopy work on faculty projects. The
newpolicywentinto effect onJan. 1,1990.
Gilbert also said he thought Hanton
had filed a grievance against him with the
See COURT, Page 4