VOLUME 111, ISSUE 159
Hopefuls to defend campaigns
TUESDAY HEARING TO RULE
ON REPORTED VIOLATIONS
BY BROOK R. CORWIN,
JENNIFER IMMEL
AND EMILY STEEL
SENIOR WRITERS
Charges of campaign violations
with grounds for disqualification
officially were brought against the
campaigns of student body presi
dent candidates Matt Calabria and
Lily West on Sunday.
Both candidates will face the
Board of Elections on Tuesday dur
ing an open hearing for their one
chance to defend their campaigns
before the board makes a ruling.
Calabria’s campaign is charged
with two acts of illegal political
solicitation: campaigning within 50
feet or visible sight of a computer
Official
requests
probe on
e-mail
BY BRIAN HUDSON
ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR
A U.S. congressman has called
for an investigation into alleged
sexual harrassment at UNC in
light of an instructor’s public rep
rimand of a student for a comment
he made in class.
The Department of English lec
turer, Elyse Crystall, sent an e-mail
Feb. 6 to students in JaerEnglisb
22 class after one student said he
opposed homosexuality during a
lecture entitled “Why do hetero
sexual men feel threatened by
homosexuals.”
The e-mail stated that the stu
dent was a “white, heterosexual,
Christian male ... (who) can feel
entitled to make violent, hetero
sexist comments.”
Crystall and the student who
made the original comment could
not be reached as of press time.
After learning of the incident,
U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C.,
sent a letter to Chancellor James
Moeser saying he would contact
N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper
SEL APOLOGY, PAGE 4
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Rape suspect
Robert Allen
Harris'
trial continues
today at
10 a.m.
with more
testimony.
Rape trial
testimony
continues
BY CHRIS GLAZNER
ASSISTANT CITY EDITOR
HILLSBOROUGH - The rape
trial of former UNO football play
er Robert Allen Harris continued
Friday with testimony from seven
witnesses, including law enforce
ment officers and a student who
claims Harris raped her in 2002.
The day began with Assistant
Public Defender Glenn Gerding
continuing his cross-examination
of Harris’ accuser, who said
Thursday that Harris, her ex
boyfriend, broke into her room
and sexually assaulted her in
March 2003.
Although the accuser’s name
was released in court, it is The
Daily Tar Heel’s policy not to pub
lish names or other identifying
information about individuals who
claim sexual assault.
Gerding tried to show inconsis-
SEE RAPE, PAGE 4
SPORTS
SHORT STRIDES
The Tar Heels snatch a narrow victory from
Florida State on Saturday PAGE 14
Serving the students and the University community since 1893
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lab, one instance outside Davis
Library and one instance outside
the Undergraduate Library.
West’s campaign faces three
charges: having an illegal cam
paign worker without compensa
tion and illegal political solicitation
at the Undergrad and at the
Student Union.
UNC alumnus Alistair Cooper,
West’s boyfriend, is accused of
soliciting votes in the
Undergraduate Library computer
lab during the final hour before
polls closed. Cooper also is accused
of being an unpaid campaign work
er, a violation for any nonstudent
The allegations are among a
handful that were brought against
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Senior Jennifer Richbourg rests her legs while remaining on her feet Saturday morning during Dance Marathon. Below: Senior Class President
elect Jovian Irvin cheers on the crowd before the start of the Marathon. The more than 600 dancers stayed on their feet for 1,440 minutes.
MARATHON YIELDS
MONEY, SORE FEET
BY MICHELLE JARBOE
FEATURES EDITOR
As more than 600 dancers crouched on the
floor, holding their swollen ankles and resting
their feet, Overall Committee Chairwoman
Haley West announced the fund-raising total
for the 2004 Dance Marathon.
A line of committee leaders lifted cardboard
signs bearing the total in the
moment of truth: Once
more, the marathon sur
passed its prior earnings,
amassing $170,584.92, up
about $3,000 from last year.
But the grand total repre
sented much more than dol
lars. Months of effort culmi
nated in 1,440 minutes of
2004 DANCE
MARATHON
dancing, representing aid given to 65 North
Carolina counties, meals fed to sick children’s
parents on more than 1,300 occasions during
the past year and donations from 58 compa
nies contributing to the For the Kids Fund.
“That commitment, that promise to stand
on your feet for 24 hours, to feel that tempo
rary pain, it means a lot to the families.... That
type of compassion really shines through in the
UNC student body,” West said.
Though the 2004 marathon’s fund raising
surpassed last year’s, the jump between the
two years in terms of dollars is markedly less
than in prior years. Between 2002 and 2003,
the fund-raising total increased by more than
$45,000, a leap that Publicity Committee
Chairwoman Mandy Helton attributed entire
ly to the 2003 institution of a mandatory fund
raising requirement of at least SSO per dancer.
“Really, there are going to be plateaus for
any fund-raising organization,” Helton said.
“We’re doing all that we can do right now to
raise money, and the way I look at it is that
www.dailytarheelxom
both candidates in 42 written
statements, 21 against each cam
paign, that the board spent six
hours weeding through Saturday.
“Everything was happening so
fast,” BOE Chairwoman Melissa
Anderson said. “We were getting
allegations left and right. It was
really difficult
to narrow down
what were alle
gations.”
The board
found that the
two formal alle
gations against
INSIDE
Exhausting
process leaves
candidates
frustrated
PAGE 3
Calabria’s campaign and the three
against West’s were the only ones
reasonably supported by evidence.
But the board noted that other alle
gations will be considered in the
context of all events that occurred
during the campaign season.
Both candidates said they
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whatever we raise is money the social workers
otherwise would not have.”
Dance Marathon fund-raising efforts this
year included a “For the Kids” Family 5K
Run/Walk, a benefit concert and a date auc
tion. Donations through the marathon’s Web
site also bolstered fund raising. “I feel like we
have added something great to the marathon
legacy, even though it looks like we only had
this small jump whereas before they always
had these huge jumps,” Business Management
Chairwoman Jessica Sherrod said.
The 2004 marathon boasted no title spon
sor, a spot historically awarded to Chick-fil-A,
which did not contribute to this year’s event.
Helton said marathon organizers decided to
eliminate the position in favor of amassing a
variety of smaller sponsors.
Instead, the marathon relied on more than
30 other corporate sponsors whose donations
ranged from SIOO. Many other groups pro
INSIDE
RALLY IN RALEIGH
Protesters dwarf a National Socialist
Movement rally Saturday PAGE 3
believd the charges against their
campaigns are unfounded and will
be dropped after Tuesday's hearing.
Calabria said Sunday evening
was the first he heard of the allega
tions that the board ruled legiti
mate. The BOE cites credible testi
monies from six witnesses in the
charges, five of whom the board
identified as West supporters.
Two of the original allegations
against Calabria’s campaign, con
cerning mass e-mailing and alter
ing the home page of a campus
computer, were dropped.
Calabria said that he spoke with
the campaign workers charged
with the violations and that they
told him they had measured their
distance from a computer lab.
“The difference between allega
tions against my campaign and
against Lily’s campaign is the dif
ference between felonies and mis
vided entertainment; marathon activities
included an athletic lip-sync and performanc
es by myriad a cappella groups and bands.
Parents of children assisted by the marathon
commended dancers for the devotion of a
weekend to fund raising instead of partying.
Parent and Duke University graduate Sharon
Kupit encouraged the dancers to push students
at her alma mater to start a similar marathon.
“I’d love to have you challenge the kids at Duke
to do this to benefit their hospital.... I cannot
tell you how much this means,” she said in one
of the evening’s most striking speeches.
Moraler Adrian Bissette said everyone par
ticipating in the marathon demonstrated
heroism. “I have a lot of respect for the people
out there,” said Bissette, a senior from Wilson.
“T\venty-four hours is a long time.”
Contact the Features Editor
atfeatures@unc.edu.
INSIDE
ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK
Dancers and moralers spend 24 hour's on
their feet in Fetzer Gymnasium PAGE 6
demeanors,” he said. “We were
brought up on technicalities that
will be impossible to prove if they
were committed at all.”
West has maintained since
Wednesday that Cooper was check
ing his e-mail in the computer lab
when the allegations against him
were reported.
West also defended Cooper’s
involvement with her campaign,
saying that he only provided moral
support and did not directly engage
in campaign activities. “I find it dis
appointing fhat these allegations
were brought forth only on the final
day of the campaign,” she said.
The BOE cites credible testi
monies from four witnesses, one a
Calabria supporter, in the allega
tion that Cocber was illegally solic
iting votes % moving around to
SEE BOE, PAGE 4
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TODAY Partly cloudy, H 55, L3B
TUESDAY Rainy, H 50, L 33
WEDNESDAY Cloudy, H 48, L 27
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2004
Matt Calabria
Lily West
Panel’s
book
debate
goes on
Group deadlocks
on final choice
BY JOHN FRANK
PROJECTS TEAM EDITOR
A group of passionate readers
transformed into passionate
debaters Sunday evening as the
committee selecting this year’s
summer reading book argued into
a deadlock about the final choice.
After reviewing more than 500
books, the committee has nar
rowed the selection down to two
“Enough: Staying Human in an
Engineered Age,” by Bill
McKibben and “Absolutely
American: Four Years at West
Point,” by David Lipsky.
Committee members noted
often that both books could spark
another explosion of controversy
in the contentious program’s fifth
year.
“We have to have a book that
inspires disagreement —but it
doesn’t have to be Quran II,” said
committee chairwoman Jan
Bardsley, referencing the
University’s selection of a book
with excerpts from the Islamic
holy book that initiated the first
controversy two years ago.
Last year the program again
came under scrutiny with the
selection of “Nickel and Dimed:
On (Not) Getting By in America”
by Barbara Ehrenreich.
In each of those years, the
process to select the book was con
fidential, but Chancellor James
Moeser opened up this year’s
process at the request of The Daily
Tar Heel.
At the group’s last scheduled
meeting Sunday, eight of the nine
committee members debated each
of the final five books, touching
often upon themes that have
plagued the committee since it
began the process four months ago.
The discussion largely focused
on the two front-runners, and the
group easily eliminated the other
three final books, “A Hope in the
Unseen,” “Life of Pi” and “Middle
of Everywhere.”
It was evident early on during
the three-hour meeting which
were the top two books, and the
committee was divided into two
distinct camps.
According to the committee’s
charge, it is to select a book by
reaching a “consensus” and use a
vote only if necessary.
But at least one member said he
wouldn’t support either book.
When the group first went
around the circle, disclosing each
member’s top choice, five of eight
favored “Enough.”
SEE BOOK, PAGE 4
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