A10 Greensboro News & Record, Friday, February 23, 1990
ClVil rightS FromAI
College
racism
targeted
By DONALD W. PATTERSON
thJhTTN^C- ^d^%mmittee to
$!*♦ i Comrniss«on on Civil
Rights plans to conduct an in-denth
review of racism on the campusefof
InifrtlCOlLeg?',highsch°ols^
junior hlgh schools later this year.
The project comes at a time when
been forced to deal with a series of
embarrassing racial incidents that
have educators troubled.
fitr^plf,S ranle from ^cial graffiti on walls to fraternities staring
skits in blackface to actual repSte
of violence, educators said
™ J1 ca™Puses that have avoided
such problems, officials are seeking
ways to prevent them from occur-
More than one chancellor or presi-
denthasaddressedtheproblePre^
"There is a shadow that has fallen
course to the shadow of intolerance," he told them.
tee sSe TK°f thf advisory com™t-
tee said Thursday they want to
know how dark this shadow hasbe-
To find out, they plan to survey
an unknown number of junior high
schools, high schools and colleges in
(See Civil rights, A10)
the state this fall.
Members of the committee said
racial incidents are spilling out of
the colleges and into the state's secondary schools.
"That example is being copied,"
said David B. Broyles, a professor
of politics at Wake Forest University and chairman of the advisory
committee.
Broyles said the committee also
plans to take testimony from people
with first-hand knowledge of bigotry and racial violence on the state's
campuses.
"Right now we have a lot of anecdotal evidence that racial incidents
are increasing on campus," said Joseph Di Bona, an associate professor of education at Duke and a member of the committee.
"Our first task is to survey the
schools and see whether it is going
up or down," he said.
Di Bona said studies have shown
that as racial incidents are publicized the frequency of such events
goes down, and the police are more
likely to investigate.
"This is a very important decision
to make," Di Bona said of the
group's plans.
The 11-member advisory committee helps the Commission on Civil
Rights identify and monitor racial
developments at the state and local
level.
As reports of campus racism have
increased nationally, the Civil
Rights Commission has encouraged
state groups to examine the problem.
"There's a good bit of interest in
this project," Broyles said, adding
that his committee would meet in
about six weeks to decide on the
exact approach their review will
take.
Broyles said the committee
should have something to report to
the Civil Rights Commission by the
end of the year.
In the meantime, educators said
they sense a troubling shift in attitude among high school and college
students.
"In the '60s, '70s and '80s, people
came to accept blacks," Di Bona
said. "Now they have to fight for
what they get. That is a new sentiment."
Educators also said they believe
students are spending four or more
years in college without having
their attitudes changed on racial
matters.
"My idea is that the problem is in
the curriculum," Broyles said. "Students are not being taught that the
Constitution is based on the recognition of natural rights, the dignity
of the human being. I just think
they are not learning that material
with any force."
When Broyles' committee met in
Raleigh earlier this year, Larry K.
Monteith, interim chancellor at
N.C. State University, described
recent racial incidents on that campus.
The incidents Monteith cited included student body president Brian
L. Nixon, who is black, receiving
threats; white students throwing
rocks at a pledge class from a black
fraternity; and white men chasing a
black woman across campus.
Elsewhere, at Duke, the editor of
a student publication called Jabber-
wocky lost his job after he published
a story that depicted black food service workers on campus as lazy.
Last April, a black student at
East Carolina University was suspended for assaulting three white
students in a residence hall.
Last June at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the
letters KKK were written on a chair
in a residence hall.
At the University of Noth Carolina at Greensboro last fall, white students masqueraded as black food
service workers.
Earlier this week at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington,
officials disciplined a black fraternity that used racial and sexual epithets at a public "step show."
A little more than a year ago,
UNC-Wilmington disciplined a
white fraternity that had its pledges
wear blackface at a Halloween party.
On the high school scene, students at Page High School in
Greensboro recently became upset
over a comment and cartoon in the
student newspaper "Pages By
Page" that they considered racist
and insensitive.
The day the newspaper was distributed, students walked out of
class and afternoon classes were
canceled. One week later, black students staged a sit-in and refused to
move until they had an opportunity
to talk with Principal Bob Clenden-
