VOLUME 112, ISSUE 5
■F
John McGowan (left) and Reginald Hildebrand
discuss this years summer reading choices during
the committee's meeting Wednesday morning.
Reading
committee
waits for
reaction
New group will make
alternate book selections
BY JOHN FRANK
PROJECTS TEAM EDITOR
A day after the selection of this year’s summer
reading book, those who ignited last year’s contro
versy are still skeptical about the University’s
intentions.
“I don’t want to declare a victory before the war’s
won,” said Michael McKnight, president of the
Committee for a Better Carolina, the conservative
student group that instigated last year’s contro
versy.
On Wednesday, a committee of faculty, students
and staff selected David Lipsky’s “Absolutely
American: Four Years at West Point,” by a close 5-
4 vote.
The book, which follows a group of cadets at the
well-known military academy, edged out “Enough:
Staying Human in an Engineered Age” by Bill
McKibben, which explores the dark side of the sci
entific cloning world.
While the author said “Absolutely American” is
not a political book, committee members think it
will be perceived as a conservative selection.
Since the selection appeases McKnight and
other conservatives who have criticized the
University’s previous two selections as “liberal
indoctrination,” many are writing off another con
troversy.
Last year, McKnight’s group ran full-page news
paper advertisements condemning the summer
reading program and the University with financial
help from the conservative Raleigh-based John
William Pope Foundation.
Walking away from the final meeting
Wednesday, a former representative from the foun
dation quipped that this year, they probably won’t
need advertisements.
Still, McKnight isn’t making any promises. He’s
worried that the alternative resources, the same
ones his group campaigned for last fall, will be
used to put an anti-military or liberal bias on the
discussion sections.
“You campaign for the alternative resources,
and well, I am going to get them,” he said. “We’re
moving past the plain liberal propaganda in the
book. Maybe we are moving it to the side
resources.”
Now that the book is selected, attention turns to
the Resource Development Group, which will
SEE BOOK, PAGE 2
Police searching for bank robber
BY CHRIS GLAZNER
ASSISTANT CITY EDITOR
Police are pursuing the suspect in an
armed robbery that occurred at about 10
a.m. Thursday at the Bank of America in
the Timberlyne Shopping Center.
The suspect is described as a white man
in his late 30s, who is 5 feet 10 inches tall
and weighs between 240 and 250 pounds.
Photographs taken during the robbery
show him with a beard and wearing sun
glasses.
Police also stated in a press release that
the suspect was wearing a red baseball cap,
a navy blue wind suit and bandages on his
face.
The suspect also had a bandage on one
of his fingers.
A statement released by the police said
the suspect threatened the bank teller with
a black semi-automatic handgun. Police
would not say how much money the sus
pect obtained.
No customers were in the bank at the
time of the incident and no injuries were
reported.
The suspect was last seen heading north
on foot on Perkins Drive.
M
SPORTS
VICTORY
UNC women's basketball team defeats
Florida State 71 -58 Thursday PAGE 5
Serving the students and the University community since 1893
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Smoking ban to begin in fall
Ehringhaus, Craige ground floors exempt
BY LAUREN HARRIS
STAFF WRITER
Beginning next semester, smoking
will be banned within the rooms, hall
ways and breezeways of all campus res
idence halls and apartments, unless
written requests are made for special
residential smoking rooms.
The ban, first proposed by the
Residence Hall Association last fall,
originally conflicted with state law on
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UNC freshman Lauren Aderholdt (in purple) passes through the Pit as snow falls Thursday. UNC classes were canceled after 5 p.m. due to the inclement weather.
SNOW DISRUPTS AGAIN
Winter conditions cause school cancellations , projected to persist through Friday
BY ADJOA ADOFO
STAFF WRITER
In a sudden change from recent
warm weather, late-season snow hit
the state Thursday afternoon, imped
ing travel and forcing schools and
offices to close early.
Forecasters issued a winter storm
warning for central and western
North Carolina through 6 a.m. today
as the snow and rain moved north
ward from South Carolina and
Georgia.
By early Thursday morning in
Sampson County, five inches of snow
had fallen, and government offices
were closed.
Chapel Hill police released this surveillance
photo of the suspect of a bank robbery.
Jane Cousins, spokeswoman for the
Chapel Hill Police Department, said the
suspect appears to be the same man who
robbed the Wachovia Bank in the
Timberlyne Shopping Center in early
February.
www.dailytarheel.com
the grounds that universities must
make an effort to provide residential
smoking rooms proportional to student
demand, housing officials said.
The new policy will require students
who wish to have smoking rooms to
submit written requests to the
Department of Housing and
Residential Education, which will pro
vide them with smoking rooms on the
ground floor of either Ehringhaus or
Dan Holland, a Clinton resident,
said his office was closed for the day
by 9:30 a.m. and that his kids were
sent home early from school.
“It snowed very early and came in
very fast here in Clinton,” Holland
said. “It’s unusual here, especially this
late in the winter.”
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools
also closed by 9 a.m. Across the state,
evening classes were cancelled at most
universities, including UNC-Chapel
Hill, which put the brakes on
University events happening after 5
p.m. By mid-afternoon, Orange
County Schools closed as the snow
began to affect roadways.
“We have pictures from both banks, and
it’s the same person,” she said.
In pictures from a Wachovia security
camera, the man is obscured partially by a
piece of paper, but the suspects in both
photographs have similar facial hair and
builds.
On Feb. 6, a man reportedly entered the
Wachovia branch with a handgun and
handed a note demanding money to a teller.
The teller submitted to the request and
gave him an undisclosed amount of cash,
police reports state.
The suspect in the Wachovia robbery
was described as a white man with brown
hair and a beard in his late thirties and of a
stocky build.
He was wearing a white baseball hat,
green jacket and blue jeans at the time of
the incident, police reports state.
Cousins said the department was receiv
ing help from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.
The investigation began Thursday with
a search for physical evidence and inter
views with witnesses.
SEE BANK ROBBERY, PAGE 2
INSIDE
STUDENT ELECTIONS 'O4
Student body president candidates aim to
restore credibility to the SBP post PAGE 3
Craige residence halls on South
Campus.
Christopher Payne, director of hous
ing and residential education, said
housing officials will be working with
the RHA and students to better accom
modate smokers on campus.
“Because all residence halls and
apartments will be smoke-free as of
next fall, we will be working more close
ly with students and student leaders to
identify locations where we can place
ashtrays outdoors in areas near each
housing community,” he said.
In Raleigh, though, there were no
road closings and only 10 minor acci
dents were reported by 3 p.m.
Thursday.
Though Orange County interstate
and state highway routes remained
clear, police still advised people to stay
at home.
In Greensboro, 15 to 20 minor acci
dents were reported, though only two
resulted in personal injury, according
to police dispatchers.
At about 3:15 p.m, although Wake
County and Durham interstate and
state highways were clear and traffic
was moving, roads were wet and icy.
But interstate highways in Guilford
Lawmaker shares
civil rights w orries
BY BRIAN HUDSON
ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR
A U.S. congressman contacted an
attorney Thursday afternoon to investi
gate a possible civil rights violation at
the University in response to an instruc
tor who reprimanded a student for
expressing his anti-homosexual views.
On Feb. 6 Elyse Crystall, a UNC
English instructor, sent an e-mail to her
entire English 22 class, chastising a stu
dent for his comments calling homo
sexuality disgusting and a sin.
Attention was brought to the e-mail
through a column published Feb. 12 in
The Daily Tar Heel.
U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., sent
a letter to Chancellor James Moeser on
Feb. 19 stating his concern about the
issue and his intent to seek further
action. The letter said he would be con
tacting N.C. Attorney General Roy
Cooper and the civil rights division of
INSIDE
DOWN & DIRTY
UNC will host the 4th annual Dirty South
Improv Festival this weekend. PAGE 4
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2004
Payne said decisions on where and
whether to establish new smoking loca
tions will be made in the fall.
“We feel like it is appropriate to have
some of these decisions made when the
residence halls are smoke-free to iden
tify patterns,” he said. “Students may
not know where new areas should be
now because they can smoke in their
rooms in some halls. We want to get
feedback from students first about any
definitive locations.”
SEE SMOKING BAN, PAGE 2
and Mecklenburg counties experi
enced worse conditions under heavy
snow and ice.
Interstate 85 from Charlotte to the
South Carolina state line had signifi
cant delays due to multiple accidents.
Conditions on Interstate 95 westward
to the Tennessee state line and near
the I-95/I-40 interchange in
Johnston County were just as bad.
The adverse winter conditions also
affected air travel at several airports
across southeastern states, including
Charleston, S.C., and Columbia, S.C.,
Atlanta, Greensboro, Raleigh, and
SEE WEATHER, PAGE 2
the U.S. Department of Education.
Jones said he discussed his concerns
with Moeser in a meeting Tuesday
scheduled before the e-mail incident.
“I shared with the chancellor my con
cern, not just with this professor, but if
there is a liberal bias at the University,
and how does this affect students with a
conservative position,” Jones said in an
interview Thursday morning.
He said he wanted to share broader
concerns about UNC’s political atmos-
SEE JONES, PAGE 2
WEATHER
TODAY Snow, H 38, L 25
SATURDAY Sunny, H 55, L 32
SUNDAY Mostly Sunny, H 63, L 46
Republican U.S. Rep.
Walter Jones
consulted a civil
rights attorney
about the actions
of a UNC instructor.
He said UNC often
shows a liberal bias.