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Records on Crystall case come to light
7 PAST INCIDENTS AID UNC’S
LOOK AT HARASSMENT CLAIM
BY JOHN FRANK
PROJECTS TEAM EDITOR
The incident in lecturer Elyse
Crystall’s English 22 class is just
one example of harassment in UNC
classrooms, according to records
submitted by the University in
response to a federal probe.
The materials highlight seven
Band pick
might be
too pricey
BY LAURA BOST
STAFF WRITER
After getting a verbal commit
ment from Sister Hazel to headline
the 2004 Homecoming concert,
the Carolina Athletic Association
now hopes to have a finalized con
tract in the band’s hand next week.
CAA president William Keith
said contracts for Sister Hazel and
the show’s opening act, Alabaster
Suitcase, are under review by the
CAA and will be passed on to the
Office of General Counsel today.
Alabaster Suitcase has agreed to
play for SSOO, and Sister Hazel,
whose manager told Keith that the
band usually charged $25,000 per
concert, has offered a $20,000 con
tract. But even with the reduction
in price, some CAA officials feel the
band’s asking price is too high.
CAA Treasurer Ginny Franks
said she thought a fair value for
the band would be somewhere in
the SIO,OOO range. “I feel like
what they’re offering could be
based on past prices,” she said.
Keith said he hopes to reduce the
band’s price and acquire local spon
sorship and the support of campus
groups to help fund the event.
The idea to hire Sister Hazel
came when Keith attended their
concert in February. Other bands
had been contacted, but Keith said
the band was “far and away the best
for working with the CAA.”
Last year, the Homecoming
headliner was chosen from a pool
of more than 50 potential bands
by soliciting the opinions of CAA
cabinet and committee members.
The committee negotiated with six
bands to find the best deal, said
Franks, the 2003 Homecoming
committee chairwoman. The com
mittee selected Virginia Coalition,
which played for $2,500.
This year’s bands were decided
on by Keith and CAA Vice
President Lindsay Strunk in
February, before Cabinet members
had been selected. Homecoming
Chairwoman Bayley Crane and
Vice Chairwoman Rachel High
were selected after the decision was
made. “I’m not going to say if I
think it is the best band for
Homecoming,” High said. “All I will
say is that we’re excited that Sister
Hazel is coming to play for us.”
The band announcement comes
almost six months earlier in the
year than CAA announced
Virginia Coalition for the 2003
concert. High said that despite the
early announcement, she doesn’t
feel the decision has been rushed.
The 2004 Homecoming concert
will be held in the Great Hall in the
Student Union, which seats 775
people. Keith said he estimates tick
ets will cost no more than $lO for
students, but does not know when
ticket sales will begin.
Contact the University Editor
at udesk@unc.edu.
The DTH apologizes for error in photo selection
There’s a knot in the pit of my
stomach, and it’s not going
to go away anytime soon.
I’m looking at Thursday’s
paper, the special page commem
orating progress in racial rela
tions since the Brown v. Board of
Education decision 50 years ago.
There’s a feature story in the
center of the page describing
challenges faced by Charles Scott,
the first black scholarship athlete
at North Carolina, and Dean
Smith, the coach who recruited
him.
And above the headline, there’s
a photograph of Walter Davis.
Now, ordinarily, this wouldn’t
be such a big deal. We would run
a correction and apologize for the
error, and all would be well.
But this situation isn’t ordinary.
The entire purpose of the
Brown v. Board of Education page
was to honor those who blazed
the trail and to acknowledge the
obstacles that make race relations
still far from perfect.
incidents in which students com
plained to UNC officials about sex
ual and racial discrimination in
classrooms in the past two years.
Most of the cases involve racial
issues, where black students said
they thought they were unfairly
singled out by white instructors. In
many cases, the complaint was
COUNTDOWN TO FINAL EXAMS
111
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Freshman Meg Petersen (front) sleeps as fresh
man Cassidy Johnson (center) and sopho
more Vivek Shah study Wednesday afternoon
in Davis Library. As the semester draws to a close,
the libraries will become more crowded as students
BRIAN MACPHERSON
SPORTS EDITOR
In a stroke of perverse irony, we
made that abundantly clear with
the photograph of Walter Davis.
It was an honest mistake. We
pulled out a file photo, and no
one— particularly myself paid
close enough attention to realize
it depicted the wrong person.
But in an era in which a ridicu
lous stereotype that all black peo
ple look alike persists, our mis
take becomes even more grievous.
I wince when my grandmother
watches a basketball game and
says, “How can you tell them
apart? They all look the same!”
I’d like to think my generation
is beyond that.
Top News
dropped after the University initi
ated an investigation.
One case in which students
interpreted a professor’s comments
as “insulting, ethnically and racial
ly insensitive, and possibly racist
and anti-Semitic” resulted in the
unnamed academic school under
taking several diversity initiatives.
While these incidents haven’t
escalated into an exterior investi
gation like the Crystall case, they
have prompted the University to
look more closely at what goes on
complete last-minute work and study for final
exams, which begin Monday. The first reading day
is on Saturday, followed by one on Wednesday. The
final day of exams is May 4. Commencement cere
monies will be held in Kenan Stadium on May 9.
But those stereotypes still do
exist, and we unintentionally per
petuated perhaps the most
shameful.
The selected photo of Walter
Davis who hit perhaps the
most famous regular-season shot
in school history depicts a man
with a thoughtfiil but vaguely
perplexed look on his face.
It’s probably the same look he’d
have if he saw the page con
fused by the mistake but sad
dened by the racial undertones it
might imply.
There are none. We made a
terrible mistake in the worst pos
sible situation, a careless blunder
in what should have been a mov
ing celebration of racial equality.
The Daily Tar Heel deeply
regrets such an egregious error,
and we sincerely apologize to
Walter Davis, Charles Scott and
our entire readership.
Contact Brian MacPherson
at brimac@email.unc.edu.
in its classrooms.
The records were part of a 2-
inch stack of materials submitted
April 6 to the U.S. Department of
Education’s Office for Civil Rights
in response to its request for mate
rials in the Crystall investigation.
Crystall is under fire for sending
an e-mail to her class in which she
referred to one of her students as
“privileged” and “heterosexist”
because of anti-homosexuality com
ments he made in class. U.S. Rep.
Walter Jones, R-N.C., called for the
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DTH FILE PHOTOS
Walter Davis (left) averaged 15.7 points during his four-year career at North Carolina, and Charlie Scott (right)
became the first black scholarship player at UNC when he made his debut in 1967. In The Daily Tar Heel's
Thursday commemoration of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the newspaper mistakenly published the
photograph of Davis above a story describing the challenges Scott faced in breaking racial barriers in the ACC.
federal investigation in a Feb. 19 let
ter to Chancellor James Moeser.
The records obtained Thursday
included a copy of a draft policy
being considered as a response to
the incident. Titled “Guidelines for
Promoting Inquiry in Literature
and Composition Courses,” it
defines how conversations inside
and outside the classroom should
be conducted.
“Participants in academic
inquiry are expected to emphasize
ideas and positions rather than the
BOT likely
to work on
extant halls
Discards plan to demolish
South Campus high-rises
BY EMILY STEEL
ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR
Several members of the University’s governing
board had a picture of the ideal South Campus in
their minds when they walked into a workshop to
review the campus Master Plan on Thursday morn
ing.
High-rise buildings like Morrison Residence Hall
were not in the picture.
But after four hours of debate and learning of the
domino effect that would occur by restarting housing
plans from scratch, the Board of Trustees backed
away from such a drastic solution and resolved to fur
ther investigate working within existing constraints
to renovate the buildings.
“There is not a good solution yet,” Trustee John
Ellison said after the meeting. “The fact is that there
is a positive compromise that can please everyone,
and it is really important that we find it.”
University planners will return to the drawing
board to consider both the financial and time con
straints associated with renovating or replacing the
high-rises with residence halls about five stories tall.
As plans now stand, renovations to Morrison
would cost over $64 million.
The renovations, which arose through student
concerns voiced in studies performed by the
SEE BOT, PAGE 17
Forum leader
to seek seat in
state Senate
BY CHRIS COLETTA
AND BRIAN HUDSON
SENIOR WRITERS
Tommy Griffin, the three-term chairman of UNC’s
Employee Forum, now is seeking office of a different
kind: a spot in the N.C. Senate.
Griffin, whose current post puts him at the helm of
the University’s more than 3,000 staff members and
nonfaculty employees, announced Saturday at
Pittsboro’s Democratic caucus that he will be seeking
the 18th District Senate seat recently vacated by for
mer Sen. Wib Gulley.
The 18th comprises a sliver of southwest Durham
County, as well as all of Chatham and Lee counties.
Though Griffin is a political novice, he said he
thinks his blue-collar background and bis ability to
unite people will make him a viable choice for voters.
“I’d be a strong candidate for working together,” he
said. “I believe that is what we need to do with sena
tors in Raleigh. The people need a voice —a voice like
mine, I think.”
Griffin’s tenure as chairman of the Employee
Forum has seen him campaign to improve salaries and
benefits for state employees. In addition, he recently
served as co-chairman of the Chancellor’s Task Force
for a Better Workplace, which penned a 34-point list
SEE GRIFFIN, PAGE 17
DTH/PAILIN WEDEL
| m Em
FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2004
people expressing them,” it states.
The Daily Tar Heel received the
investigation materials in response
to a public records request filed the
first week of April. The materials
provide a more complete picture of
the pressure UNC was under to
respond to the incident.
Records indicate that it didn’t
take long for officials to realize how
big the issue was going to become.
By the time the fifth e-mail related
SEE INVESTIGATION, PAGE 17
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