Freshmen expelled after hanging black mannequin from tree By Christine Tatum CPS Administrators at Antioch College in Ohio have expelled four first- year students who admitted to hanging a black mannequin by the neck from a tree on the school's campus. Students and school officials dis cussed the Feb. 23 "lynching" this week during a regularly scheduled community meeting designed to im prove communications on campus. At the gathering, four male students ad mitted they were responsible for the incident. One student who attended the meeting said the offenders apolo gized profusely for their actions and claimed to have pulled the stunt as a joke, not as an expression of racial hatred. About 7 percent of the 500 stu dents on campus are minorities. "The act of expression and its nega tive impact on the fabric of our com munity must be considered separately from the intentions of those making the expression and must be unequivo cally condemned," said the college's interim president, Bob Devine, in a statement released Thursday. "This clear violation of community stan dards requires a swift and unambigu ous institutional response that affirms Popularity African-American Studies growing By William Lee Western Illinois University CPS Correspondent Elisabeth Mistretta is used to be ing one of only a few white people in some of her classes. That's what she gets for taking courses in African American studies especially the ones that aren't core requirements, she said. Being a minority for once doesn't seem to bother the 19-year-old sopho more, who is minoring in Black World Studies at Loyola University in Chi cago. "I've heard it before," said Mistretta, who hopes the minor will help her cover black communities more effectively when she gets her first job in journalism. "Don't minor in it. It'll make you sound like you have an agenda." But that's not what Mistretta says she has in mind unless, of course, you consider her desire to see the world through different sets of eyes an agenda. She says she is simply one of a growing number of students who are exploring black studies to get a more complete picture of American history. Classmates compare stories and discover they are long-lost brothers By Christine Tatum CPS Better than anyone else sitting in class, Roger Barren figured he un derstood how much damage could be done to an infant. The type of dam age people don't necessarily remem ber, just deal with their entire lives. Roger Mansfield, sitting nearby, was thinking the same thing. Barren cracked a few jokes to ease his growing discomfort with the dis cussion. Mansfield, his newfound buddy of a few weeks, played off the wisecracks to deliver some of his own. Their senses of humor were nearly identical, and their timing im peccable. Everyone said so. Some folks even said they looked enough alike to be brothers. Now that would be something. After a couple of years of living on their own, two young men return to their childhood homes in Michigan. They're hired on the same day to our core values and re-establishes our sense of community standards, safety and well being." Devine also stated he will recom mend that faculty members make "anti-racism training" a degree re- quirement. The students have been ordered to leave campus no later than noon on Saturday. School officials are not re leasing the students' names "out of respect for their privacy," Antioch spokeswoman Karen Kovach said. Their dismissal was welcomed news to Laurel Holliday, an alumna who has published several books about international racial and ethnic relations. Holliday, did, however. criticize her alma mater for keeping the students' identities a secret. "I sincerely hope you will not con tinue to let these boys (to call them men would be too kind!) hide behind your pantlegs," she wrote in a letter sent to one school official. "In my state (Washington), they would be up on criminal charges for a hate crime." Despite the criticism, school offi cials are not releasing the students names "out of respect for their pri vacy," Antioch spokeswoman Karen Kovach said. "I feel like a whole other world ex ists that I was not aware of," she said. "Black people know more about white America than we probably know our selves, but whites walk around with blinders on." Despite many tension-filled cam- puses where affirmative action and race relations are at the forefront of discussion, some professors report a growing interest in African American studies. Last year, an estimated 1,000 students majored in the subject at 21 schools nationwide, no doubt an in crease since 1968 when San Francisco State University became the first to offer it. Though the number of stu dents minoring in the subject is more difficult to track, many professors say it's growing, too. "We have courses in music, art, lit erature, dance, history and sociology," said Howard McCluskey, chairman of Indiana University's African Ameri can studies department. "Students won't find all of that if they major simply in English." Nor will they necessarily get a chance to view society through black eyes - something many professors say they hope will help cool the country's work the same late-night shift at the same nursing home. Then they learn they're long-lost siblings. What are the chances of that happening? So slim, Barren and Mansfield later said, that they couldn't possibly have rec ognized each other when they met. "I was only two years old, wander ing around the streets of Detroit wear ing nothing but a diaper when I was found," 23-year-old Barren told his nursing assistant skills class at Washtenaw Community College in late January. His parents were alco holics who didn't seem to care what happened to him when the authorities took him away, he said. He was adopted at the age of four. His story startled 21-year-old Mansfield, who suffered as an infant from fetal alcohol syndrome. His par ents had abandoned him without food or water when he was little more than a year old. Police found him malnour ished, dehydrated and lying on a mat tress. The left side of his head was flat National Campus News Thursday, March 5, 1998 The Behrend College Collegian - Page 5 Campus briefs from across the nation and around the world Not Enough Black Coaches Study Finds College Press Service CHICAGO The percentage of black coaches of college basketball and football teams is running far behind the percentage of black athletes who participate in those sports and the percentage of black head coaches who lead those sports for professional leagues, a new study indicates. The study, conducted by Northeast ern University's Center for the Study of Sport and Society, revealed that in nearly every category, college sports programs are worse about hiring mi nority coaches than are professional programs. During the 1995-96 season, 61 per cent of men's basketball players at Division I schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association were black, compared with 17.3 percent of head coaches. At the same time, 52 percent of football players and 4.7 percent of coaches were black. The study also found that only 4.2 percent of the 7,101 head coaches for men's teams in the NCAA are black, and that only 7.1 percent of the 6,8881 head coaches of women's teams are black. "Those statistics are pretty hard to defend," NCAA Executive Director Cedric Dempsey reportedly told the Chronicle of Higher Education. "We've done a horrendous job." The center has released an annual report on hiring practices by profes sional teams for nine years. This is the oft-heated racial divide "It brings to mind the O.J. Simpson case," said Russell Adams, head of African American studies at Howard University. "(Whites) did not know how we saw justice in terms of race relations in this country. Until we all see (justice) in the same way, there will be a need to have continual edu cation." Some people challenge the major's usefulness when it's time to go job hunting after college, but many pro fessors say their students are market able for a variety of reasons. Gradu ates tend to head off to law school or get jobs in teaching and public policy making fields where they can right the wrongs highlighted during their stud ies, said Percy Hintzen, chairman of the African American studies depart ment at the University of California- Berkeley, one of only two schools to offer a Ph.D. in the subject. "If someone wants to be a doctor or an attorney (or a) city planner and not understand the realities of the in ner-city, (they) would be totally dys functional," he said. "AAS is not only an intellectual discipline. It deals with race relations, and I think that some one with an AAS degree entering into any job situation would be good." By why major in African American studies especially in an age when tened from lying on it so long. Their stories weren't the same, but similar enough for the pair to pursue the discussion during a short break. Barren told Mansfield his birth name had been "Fletcher." Mansfield's mouth dropped. "You're not going to believe this," he said. "But mine was, too." Barren's heart skipped a beat. Just another joke, right? Mansfield was always telling jokes. That's what he liked about him. That's why they clicked the moment they met, right? "I really wanted to believe we were brothers right then and there," Barren said. "I knew there was something in Roger that was a lot like the some thing in me that I've never been able to explain to anyone else, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. I just thought I would never know exactly where I came from." Not knowing whose blood courses through their veins always bothered Barren and Mansfield. They were re- first year the study included college athletics. The latest study did not in clude historically black colleges, a measure taken to avoid skewing re sults. Howard University Found Liable For Assault College Press Service WASHING TON A federal jury found Howard University and one of its former cam pus security guards liable for an as sault on a Jewish man who protested the appearance of a controversial speaker at the university in 1994. Under district-court orders, the uni versity and retired guard Robert Cyrus must pay Rabbi Avi Weiss $5,000 for the suffering he endured while being surrounded and threatened by an an gry crowd who had gathered to hear Khalid Abdul Muhammad speak on campus. Muhammed, a former spokesman for the Nation of Islam, has been widely condemned for his anti-Semitic remarks. Weiss claimed the crowd shouted and spat on him. He alleged that Cyrus ignored the crowd and ordered him to leave because he was "causing a riot." Weiss said Cyrus grabbed his signs and threw them on the ground when he refused to leave. Cyrus disputed the rabbi's account, claiming that he calmed the crowd and protected Weiss from serious harm. However, the jury decided that Cyrus' actions were unjustified and unreasonable. computer technicians out of college can land big bucks? Many students say they simply want to know their culture better. "When I came into contact with people who were immersed in that study, my eyes were opened," said Gloria Purifoy, a 25-year-old gradu ate student at Western Illinois Univer sity. "I decided no one can look down on me because I know myself. "I also learned to become proud of the things that we've been taught to look down upon, such as my fea tures," she added, pointing to her dark skin and tightly braided hair. Such awakenings aren't restricted to black students. "White students should take Afri can American studies for their own knowledge and to learn about the very important role of Africans (played in) American history," said 23-year-old Richard Culotta, a white junior at Western Illinois majoring in tourism and recreational park administration. "I found African American studies more relevant to society than many other courses." Added Mistretta: "Unfortunately we (take a class) for something that should be included in American his tory. Black history is a little footnote and should be integrated into U.S. history better than it is." bellious teens who stirred up trouble because they were always angry. An gry that their biological parents shunned them. Angry that they couldn't give a detailed family medi cal history to their doctors. Angry that they didn't even know why they tanned so easily each summer. The frustration got the best of them on several occasions. At 15, Barren landed in a juvenile detention center for breaking and entering, assault and battery and truancy. When Mansfield turned 15, his parents sent him to boarding school because they feared he was heading down a similar path. "I had no idea so much damage could be done before a child was 18 months old," said Ronnie Skrycki, Mansfield's adoptive mother. "As he grew up, it always seemed like we were dealing with the result without knowing the cause." Heart pounding and hands shaking, Mansfield raced home after the class, grabbed his adoption records and The university released a statement saying only that it had not violated the District of Columbia's Code of Hu man Rights and that it had not vio lated Weiss's First Amendment or civil rights. School officials declined further comment Students Demand the Renaming of College Dormitory College Press Service BLACKSBURG, Va. Much to the dismay of several students, Claudius Lee's name won't be stripped from the halls of a Virginia Tech dormitory. Several students are eager for the building to be rid of Lee's name be cause they suspect the former profes sor— who was also an alumnus of the school was tied to the Ku Klux Klan. Students working on a history as signment stumbled across an 1896 yearbook that lists what appears to have been the membership roster of a campus chapter of the Klan. Lee, the yearbook's editor, was described as "Father of Terror" and the group's leader. In 1968, the school named the dormitory after Lee, who had worked there as an engineering professor for 50 years. Virginia Tech President Paul Torgerson appointed a committee to investigate Lee's background. The group concluded that it is unlikely that the yearbook listing represented genu ine Klan activity. It also noted that the Klan had been dormant in Virginia 25 Colorado Senate passes anti-hazing bill By Jessica Gleich, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News DENVER—College fraternity pledges can rest easy. A Boulder County legislator's bill to ban hazing is advancing in the Colorado Senate. The Senate gave preliminary ap proval by a 26-9 vote Tuesday to SBIO6, sponsored by Sen. Terry Phillips, D-Louisville, which prohib its "any forced activity that recklessly or knowingly endangers the emo tional or physical health or safety of another person" during a student or gang initiation. "We're not talking about just play ful pushing around," said Sen. Sally called Barren's mother. The details matched too well to be coincidental, they decided. "There was a section that described our parents' physical characteristics, and it was the same right down to their education, skin tone and weight," Barren said. "Roger and I were adopted from the same agency. There were 10 siblings total, and all their birthdates were the same. We both had a sister who died of congenital heart failure when she was 3 months old. "We haven't taken DNA tests yet, but we really don't have to," he con tinued. "I'm convinced." So is Mansfield. "It's great because we are best friends and brothers, too," he said. "I'm still in shock about it. I haven't gotten all emotional because it really hasn't hit me yet. You hear about things like this on TV, but how many people do you know have actually had it happen to them?" years before and 10 years after the yearbook was published. "Our dilemma today is how to weigh the reprehensible judgment of an undergraduate over 100 years ago against the long and meritorious pro fessional life that followed those years," Torgerson said in a statement. "I do not believe that institutions can reconcile regrettable aspects of our histories by trying to change the record left to us in the past." Islamic Practices Stifled at Istanbul University College Press Service ISTANBUL, Turkey About 2,000 students at Istanbul University in Turkey protest school policies designed to eliminate Islamic practices on campus, the As sociated Press reported. Students chanting "Our education rights can't be taken away" took to the city's streets on Feb. 24 after uni versity president Kemal Alemdaroglu asked police to bar bearded men and women with their heads covered from campus, the AP reported. Public dis plays of Islamic traditions have been widely discouraged since the pro-Is lamic Welfare Party fell from power • in July. The ban isn't the only step the uni versity has taken to rid itself of Is lamic displays. In October, the school barred female students from register ing for classes if the photographs on their student IDs showed them with their heads covered. Hopper, R-Jefferson County. "We're talking about some really cruel things." Phillips said similar legislation in New Hampshire reduced the number of student hazing incidents by 30 per cent. His bill was prompted by incidents "We're not talking about just playful pushing around," Sally Hopper Colorado State Senator of fatal consumption of alcohol and exposure to the elements at college and university campuses in Colorado. SBIO6 makes it a crime to force alcohol or drugs on a pledge, or to deprive him or her of sleep or free dom of movement from captivity. Brutality from whipping, beating or branding while exposing someone to the elements would be covered by the bill. In addition to physical danger, the bill would prohibit acts that cause se vere emotional distress. Senate Majority Leader Jeff Wells, R-Colorado Springs, amended the bill to exclude ROTC military calisthen ics or sports team exercise from the definition of hazing. Phillips also narrowed the anti-haz ing rule to cover only student organi zations or criminal associations, such as gangs. Illegal hazing would be a Class 3 misdemeanor punishable by a fine of $5O to $750 and up to six months in jail. Upon final Senate approval, ex pected today, the bill will move to the House, where it will be carried by Rep. Dorothy Gotlieb, R-Denver.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers