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Clemson students apologize for gang-themed party criticized as racist
CLEMSON, S.C. — More than a dozen Clemson University students apologized at an emotional campus meeting for a gang-themed party many criticized as racist after photos emerged showing a white person wearing blackface, school officials said.
The university organized the meeting, allowing 15 partygoers to stand up one by one and express remorse in front of about 200 people.
“Some people really recognized the courage that it took,” said Gail DiSabatino, vice president for student affairs. There was discussion, tears, “and eventually there was hugging,” she said.
University president Jim Barker and the NAACP announced investigations into the party, which was held during Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, after photos emerged on line last week. The pictures featured some white students drinking malt liquor and at least one wearing blackface.
“They didn’t know that they were being racist. It’s really sad,” said Ranniece McDonald, a junior who is black.
McDonald said the meeting, which took place last Wednesday, was productive and the apologies seemed sincere, “for the most part.”
The school also has said it was investigating whether students were harassed or whether there was underage drinking at the party.
AK Steel settles Equal Employment Opportunity Commission race harassment suit
PITTSBURGH — AK Steel Corp. has agreed to pay $600,000 to settle federal charges that it condoned a racially hostile work environment at its Butler plant for years by allowing racist language, swastikas, nooses and Ku Klux Klan videos in various areas, including the employee lounge.
The problem was so pervasive that managers knew of it without complaints having been made by black workers, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which announced the settlement last Wednesday.
The Middletown, Ohio-based Fortune 500 company denied the allegations in the settlement agreement, which calls for employees at the plant to undergo annual training in equal employment opportunity policies.
Alan McCoy, an AK Steel spokesman, said the company has no tolerance for the alleged behavior.
“We deny [the allegations] and obviously were fully prepared to defend the allegations, but in the interest of judicial expediency and to move forward, we agreed to the settlement,” he said.
Gerald Patterson, who was from Lyndora, Penn., made the initial complaint, but has since died. The settlement will be split between his estate and seven other black employees.
“The racial harassment alleged in this case, including the use of derogatory ethnic terms, nooses displayed in the work environment and disciplining those who complained of race discrimination, represents some of the most severe misconduct this office has seen,” EEOC Regional Attorney Jacqueline McNair said in a statement.
The “sizable monetary relief” and training should deter “future acts of blatant racism,” she said.
Among other items mentioned in the suit was literature from the Populist Party — the party with which former Klan leader David Duke ran for president in 1988 — that referred to a Congressional candidate the EEOC contends was affiliated with the Klan.
Patterson had been one of about 20 black employees at the plant, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, EEOC officials said when the suit was filed in September 2003. The suit covered allegations for three years, but the EEOC said it fielded complaints from other black workers at the plant for years.
Wayne Williams, blamed in Atlanta killings, allowed to use DNA testing on dog hair
ATLANTA — State lawyers have agreed to allow DNA testing of dog hair that was used to convict Wayne Williams, who has been blamed for the murders of two-dozen children and young men in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
Williams was convicted in 1982 of murdering Nathaniel Cater, 27, and Jimmy Ray Payne, 21, and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Afterward, officials declared Williams responsible for 22 other deaths and those cases were closed.
The decision last Monday to allow DNA testing came in a response to a filing as part of Williams’ efforts to appeal his conviction and life sentence.
But while saying they had no objections to the testing, state lawyers also said it “would not change the results of this trial. [The] defendant cannot show that DNA tests, no matter what the results, would create a reasonable probability that the verdict would have been different at the time of trial.”
Williams’ lawyer, Jack Martin, asked a Fulton County Superior Court judge to allow DNA tests on dog and human hair and blood that might help win Williams a new trial.
During his original trial, dog hairs found on most victims were consistent with hairs removed from the Williams’ family dog. During the trial, witnesses testified they saw Williams with the victims even though most of the case against him was based on analysis of fiber and hair evidence found in Williams’ car and his parents’ home, where he lived.
“The good news is they’ve agreed to DNA testing,” Martin said. “We just want to see what the testing shows and we’ll argue about what it means later. It’s odd that they should claim the dog hair evidence doesn’t make any difference when they made such a big deal about it at trial.”
Williams, who is black, has contended he was framed. He has maintained that officials covered up evidence of Ku Klux Klan involvement in the killings to avoid a racial conflict in the city, which investigators have denied.
(Associated Press)
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