http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-88198.html Durham Herald-Sun March 23, 2001 Anti-Reparations Protests Continue By Jennifer Chorpening <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> DURHAM -- One hundred fifty students filed silently from the student union to Duke President Nan Keohane's office early Thursday to deliver petitions protesting a political ad against reparations for slavery that appeared in the Monday edition of the student-run newspaper. Like a funeral procession, the protesters -- black, Asian and white -- used one arm to hold the person in front of them and the other to hold signs that screamed their anger and hurt. "It's not a black thing," "Stop the hate," "Make The Chronicle responsible," the signs said. After entering Duke's Allen Building, the protesters slowly climbed the winding staircase and pushed through the glass doors of the administration offices. Keohane stood outside her door, flanked by several of her senior officers. The students brushed by, dropping into the president's outstretched hands reams of paper -- 269 signed petitions demanding the university account for its progress after past protests by black students in 1969, 1975 and 1997 -- as Keohane tried to shuffle the stack into an orderly bundle. They then moved down the long hall, turned, and made their way back out the door, their backpacks and trendy messenger bags slung over their shoulders, their dorm keys jangling on their chests off of long cords. After the students left, Keohane called the march a "very important way of making a statement." "It was appropriate and quite moving," she said, before retiring with administrators to discuss the petitions. The students demanded that the university make a progress report of demands from past protests and pull its advertising from The Chronicle if the newspaper did not give them two pages: one for an apology, and one to rebut the ad, titled "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea -- and Racist Too." In addition, the students demanded the newspaper reform its policy on reviewing ads, so that "offensive material is not published outside of the editorial page," and that the paper provide full and adequate coverage of minority events. The money received from the ad should be either returned or given to an agreed-upon organization or cause in the Durham or Duke community, they said. On Monday, The Chronicle published the full-page anti-reparations ad placed by the conservative columnist David Horowitz for $793.80. The ad argues that reparations paid to the descendants of slaves would be unjust, as recipients' sole qualification for receiving the payments would be skin color. In addition, the ad says American blacks are better off today than Africans; reparations have already been paid through welfare and the Civil War; and only a tiny minority of whites owned slaves, but all would pay the reparations. More than 200 students attended an all-day sit-in of a room near The Chronicle's offices Wednesday. They developed a plan of action late that night, and a smaller group of about 15 marched into The Chronicle after midnight. Told it was a private space and that police had been called, the group re-grouped at the Bryan Center, where 50 to 75 students spent the night. The silent march started at 10:30 a.m. Thursday and lasted about 30 minutes. Ronald Nance, a late-night housekeeper at the Bryan Center, said when he got off the elevator to clean the floor, he'd "never seen that many people here at 3 a.m." Usually, the Bryan Center closes at 3 a.m., but the students had special permission from the Duke Police to stay in the building. Nance, who is black, looked on as the students slowly dispersed from their circle. He said he hoped they would prevail, but that it was in God's hands. Around 6 p.m., Keohane e-mailed several of the student leaders and said she would pull together a report on previous demands by March 29. However, she would not promise to ask university departments and academic units to withdraw their ads from the newspaper. "If the university needs to announce, for legal and safety reasons, the conditions under which a bonfire may occur to celebrate a Final Four basketball victory, we need to publicize that broadly. The university administration does not tell individual offices where and what they may advertise and, in the interests of all the students who depend on The Chronicle for such information that is important to their academic and other decisions, it would be inappropriate for us to do so," she wrote. But, if The Chronicle does not provide the space for a rebuttal and refutation of the arguments in the ad, Keohane promised to "underwrite the full cost of the page." She reiterated the university's commitment to free and open inquiry, and dialogue about the issue in Duke's classrooms and open forums. "Through such dialogue, and through continuing to support one another sensitively in times of pain and hurt, we strengthen our university," Keohane wrote. Greg Pessin, editor of The Chronicle, said a response, signed by all the editors, would be given to the student protesters at a meeting late Thursday evening. This event was to occur after The Herald-Sun's deadline. Pessin had previously refused to apologize, saying, "Open debate, open discussion, should not be sacrificed for comfort." Pessin wrote in the newspaper's Wednesday issue, "The free exchange of ideas and the academic freedom so dear to our university cannot be realized unless all voices, regardless of controversy, are heard." Sarah Wigfall, Duke junior and a leader of the protest, said she'd never had a problem with race "at this school until Monday." This ad, she said, made her cry in her dorm room, where she and her roommate sent out a missive over an e-mail list compiled in the past for a party. So, instead of studying for an important test, Wigfall got one hour of sleep at the Bryan Center. "Life here is stressful enough at Duke," she said. "Now we have to deal with an issue that should never have occurred." The ad was sent to nearly 50 universities, of which at least 18 have refused to run it. At least nine student newspapers have run the ad, after which the newspapers at Arizona State, Berkeley and the University of California at Davis also apologized. Friday, student activists at Brown University -- where the ad appeared March 14 -- stole 4,000 copies of the paper in protest. -- Links related to this article: Text of Horowitz ad: http://www.frontpagemag.com/horowitzsnotepad/2001/hn01-03-01.htm Copyright (c) 2001 Durham Herald Company. All Rights Reserved. [IMPORTANT NOTE: The views and opinions expressed on this list are solely those of the authors and/or publications, and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official political positions of the Black Radical Congress (BRC). Official BRC statements, position papers, press releases, action alerts, and announcements are distributed exclusively via the BRC-PRESS list. As a subscriber to this list, you have been added to the BRC-PRESS list automatically.] [Articles on BRC-NEWS may be forwarded and posted on other mailing lists, as long as the wording/attribution is not altered in any way. 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