®bp Hatty ®ar Mnl
JP
Serving the students and the University
community since 1893
Committee: University Needs Dual Labor Ties
Bv Arman Anvaki
Staff Writer
After vigorous and occasionally con
tentious debate, a University committee
decided unanimously Wednesday to rec
ommend that UNC accept membership
in two labor monitoring groups.
Following weeks of controversy, the
Licensing Labor Code Advisory
Committee voted to recommend to the
chancellor that UNC remain in the Fair
Labor Association and conditionally
join the Worker Rights Consortium.
TEARINC^rwCLOSET
From entertainment to legislation,
the gay movement is forging ahead.
Bv Kathleen Wirth
Staff Writer
Rock Hudson spent a lifetime hiding his homosexuality, fear
ful the secret would jeopardize his image as a 1950s sex symbol.
After rumors circulated among the Hollywood elite, Hudson’s
agent quickly married him off to secretary Phyllis Gates in 1955.
Predictably, the union fell apart within three years.
But almost half of a century later, gay and lesbian celebrities
refuse to be trapped in the closet - indicative of not only a height
ened visibility of homosexuality for mainstream America, but an
increased aggressiveness within the movement as well.
Indigo Girls musicians Amy Ray and Emily Saliers nationally
exited the closet in 1994. Actress and comedienne Ellen
DeGeneres’ famous 1997 coming out episode of her sitcom
“Ellen,” followed by an emphatic Time magazine cover declaring
“Yep, I’m Gay,” spawned “coming out” parties across the nation.
Kevin Williamson, direc-
tor and creator of the man, not <
y • \ teen-drama sensa- And as
X - \'v neighbor,
W' ~ 4 LI (/V?V ed as ever
A-i - . psf r f, (A fears are u
f.:.''';' isti
' ' ’
But acti
toward tol
f— l L. I In 1969
j what they
j I the streets
i r n_r arrests am
lUAJSTRATAIOXS Bi J AMES PHARR
Nun Recounts Long Walk
With Death Row Inmates
By Geoff Wessee
Staff Writer
A renowned lecturer who spiritually guided sev
eral death row inmates through the last minutes
before their executions addressed a packed crowd
in Memorial Hall auditorium Tuesday night.
Sister Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man
Walking,” recounted her experiences as spiritual
adviser to death row inmates and how meeting the
“victims of the state” led her to form a strong stance
against the death penalty.
Her speech, co-sponsored by the Gampus Y and
the Campaign to Find the Death Penalty, was part
of the University's Death Penalty Week.
“We are going to change this when we wake up
and see what’s happening,” Prejean said. “We are
going to change this the way we changed slavery
and other injustices in this country.”
Interim Chancellor Bill McCoy will
attempt to make the final decision with
regard to membership in both organiza
tions by April 3.
“I think what (the recommendation)
signifies is a willingness of the various
members of the committee and hope
fully the larger community to work on
this issue together,” said committee Co
chairman Rut Tufts. “Of course this is
just a recommendation to the chancellor.
We’ll have to see what he does.”
Students for Economic Justice, the
student organization that pressed for
tor and creator of the
teen-drama sensa-
Prejean maintained that regardless of the
method of execution, the death penalty should be
considered torture, which she said Amnesty
International defined as “an extreme mental or
physical assault against someone who has been
made defenseless.”
But she said people were torn about whether
executing death row inmates really compensated
for their crimes. “On the one hand, we have the
outrage we feel when we hear about these terrible
crimes,” she said. “But on the other hand, we have
the principles of not wanting to have people tor
tured and killed by the state.”
Killing a murderer only creates another victim,
she said.
Prejean moved the audience to tears as she
described one death row inmate saying goodbye to
See PREJF.AN, Page 2
We love without reason, and without reason we hate.
Regnard
WRC membership, does not favor the
committee’s recommendation, said
Todd Pugatch, an SEJ member and one
of three student members on the advi
sory committee.
SEJ members met with McCoy
Tuesday to persuade him to end UNC’s
ties with the FLA and join the WRC.
“(The recommendation) may not be
a position that SEJ as an organization
agrees with, but it definitely is not going
to forestall activism on their part,”
Pugatch said.
Wednesday’s meeting began with a
tion “Dawson’s Creek,” publicly came out in the
papers earlier this year.
This trend, which signals an unprecedented
acceptance by the mass media, has pushed
Generation Yto deal with a full-blown gay ,
rights movement that neither Hudson nor his /
agent could have imagined.
After his film, “The Next Best Thing,” pre
miered second at the box office this month,
grossing more than $5.9 million in ticket
sales, actor Rupert Everett became a sex sym
bol to both genders.
But, unlike his counterpart Hudson, Everett \
can embrace his sexuality both on the screen and \
off - revealing the evolving attitude of widespread
tolerance for gays, lesbians and transgenders.
Now, cultural icons like Ally Mcßeal and Roseanne are
locking lips with their female friends, and a gay
man, not diamonds, is a girl’s best friend on “Will and Grace.”
And as the token black sitcom character is replaced by the gay
neighbor, mainstream America, whether it likes it or not, is tun
ing in to a newly powerful gay culture.
“Once you see gays on national TV depict
ed as everyday individuals, people realize these
fears are unbased,” said Glenn Grossman, pres
ident of Carolina Alternative Meetings of
Professional and Graduate Students. “It’s push
ing the people who are anti-gay out of the main
stream and exposing them as bigots.”
But beyond the pop-culture arena, area
gay and lesbian youth say legal accep
tance of homosexuality continues to
\ plague the movement.
a Chris Allen, a gay graduate stu
| dent in the School of Public Health,
| said the popularity of gay-oriented
I films which star openly gay actors,
J have been a double-edged sword.
/ “Even though you think, on the sur
face, everything’s OK, but the fact is
that gays don’t have equal rights of the
federal level in terms of marriage and job security,” he said.
But activists say the movement advanced through small steps
toward tolerance that transcend the attitudes of mass media.
In 1969, hundreds of enraged gays and lesbians, frustrated by
what they perceived as unfounded harassment by police, stormed
the streets of New York City in violent protest, resulting in 13
arrests and four injured police officers. After police raided the
Stonewall Inn, a popular Greenwich Village gay bar, about 400
Thursday, March 23, 2000
Volume 108, Issue 17
roundtable tally of each member’s opin
ion of four options: joining both the
WRC and the FLA, joining only the
WRC, joining only the F LA or enrolling
in neither group.
Hie FLA is a nonprofit organization
comprised of apparel and footwear com
panies, labor rights groups and universi
ties.
The WRC is a group of companies,
universities and nongovernmental orga
nizations recently formed with student
input that claims it can better protect
workers’ rights at factories that produce
in l ™ ™ ■
(f~A| 'fa
T ■. :
spread '
loseanne are''^' v ~ *- -=— ~
&
GAY MOVEMENT
Part four of a 10-part series
examining the issues that
will face our generation
in the coming millennium.
it 8 a ' i ‘ *
BhF
■ a&pr
Jw|? ■■ If
RJHHHHI
DTH LAURA GIOVANELLI
Sister Helen Prejean speaks to a packed house at Memorial Hall on Wednesday evening.
Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking," was spiritual adviser to five death row inmates.
university apparel.
The committee’s eventual decision to
recommend both groups was surprising,
considering that in the initial discussion,
most committee members were either
indifferent toward or staunchly opposed
to WRG membership.
“I think that the WRC goes against
one of the principles that was set out -
working in concert with manufacturers
to bring about change,” said Director of
Athletics Dick Baddour, who attended
See VOTE, Page 2
youth laid siege to the tavern with an impromptu battering ram,
shouting “Gay Power” and “We want our freedom.”
Gays and lesbians had finally fought back.
To many, the Stonewall riots catalyzed the modem gay move-
ment, leading to the formation of support groups
nationwide, Grossman said. “Stonewall was
incredibly violent, but it also created visibility for
(issues affecting homosexuals),” he said.
In sharp contrast to the New York riots, the
1980s outbreak of AIDS, first viewed as a gay
disease, unintentionally opened closet doors as
thousands literally fought for their lives. “People
had nothing to lose by coming out because they
were going to die anyways,” Grossman said.
“AIDS really helped gays come out.”
As details surrounding Hudson’s death of
AIDS-related complications in 1985 surfaced,
the American public faced the unfortunate real
ity of a disease which knew no boundaries and
the hidden homosexuality of a man considered
by many to be the epitome of male virility.
Since the onset of AIDS and during the after
math of the Stonewall riots, America’s youth has
rejected open harassment, a generally accepted reaction against
homosexuality. Maia Kaplan, chairwoman of LINC's Queer
Network for Change, said Generation Y, through its own activism
and awareness, has curbed violent homophobic responses.
“More and more people are finding that kind of harassment
against gays unacceptable,” she said. “The younger generation feels
See GAY MOVEMENT, Page 2
News/Features/Arts/Sports 962-0245
Business/Ad vertising 962-1163
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
© 2000 DTH Publishing Corp.
All rights reserved.
Court: Fees
Don't Limit
Free Speech
The U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that student activity
fees could be used for
political campus groups.
Staff & Wire Reports
WASHINGTON - Public colleges
and universities can use money from
mandatory student fees to finance cam
pus groups engaging in political speech
some students find objectionable, the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
The court voted unanimously to
uphold the University of Wisconsin’s
student-fee system, w'hich the justices
said did not violate any student’s free
speech rights.
And while some University of
Wisconsin students were happy with the
decision, saying it allowed equal rights
for all student groups, supporters of lim
itations on fees said the decision was
unfair to students who objected to some
ideological groups.
Had the justices ruled the other way,
public colleges and universities across
America would have had to stop giving
money to controversial student groups
or figure out some way to give partial
refunds to students who wanted them.
“The First Amendment permits a
public university to charge its students
an activity fee used to fund a program to
facilitate extracurricular student speech
if the program is viewpoint neutral,”
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote.
Several law students objected to hav
ing some of their money funneled to lib
eral organizations. Their lawsuit identi
fied as objectionable 18 of the 125 sub
sidized campus groups, including the
International Socialist Organization.
Scott Southworth, the lead plaintiff
and now' an attorney, said in a recent
interview with The Associated Press,
“Asa conservative and a Christian, it
was frustrating to see the money going
to organizations I disagree with.”
David Muhammad, chairman of
UW’s student government diversity
committee, said he was very surprised
and happy with the Supreme Court’s
decision. “It was like cold water on my
face early in the morning,” Muhammad
said. “I was shocked.”
Muhammad said the decision gave a
boost to the confidence level of UW’s
student government, which had fought
for the university’s right to allocate fees
See FEES, Page 2
Thursday
Repairs in Progress
The N.C.
Botanical
Gardens
received a
flood of
anonymous
donations Wednesday to help repair
the historical Old Well gazebo that
was destroyed this week. See Page 3.
Open Up a Can 0f...
The baseball team broke its four-game
losing streak Wednesday with a 25-2
pounding ofTowson. Ryan Earey led
the Tar Heel charge by blasting a pair
of home runs and tying a career high
with seven RBI. See Page 11.
You Know You Want It
Take the helm and lead The Daily Tar
Heel into the next millennium. Apply to
be the next editor. Applications are
available in the DTH front office and are
due by noon Friday. For more informa
tion, contact current Editor Rob
Nelson at rnelson@email.unc.edu or at
962-4086.
Today’s Weather
Partly sunny;
Mid 60s.
Friday Sunny;
Low 70s.