University Daily Kansan / Thursday, February 6, 1992
CAMPUS / AREA
3
Invisible racial lines still divide students
By Svala Jonsdottir
Kansan staff writer
When Brian Rainey goes to class, he is usually the only African American in the room.
Of 25,168 students enrolled at the Lawrence campus last fall, 678 were African Americans.
"I wish there was someone else there that I could relate to, but there is not much I can do about it," said Rainey, a Kansas City, Mo., senior.
Rainey said that he thought racism was not a major problem on campus, but that the same could not be said about other parts of Lawrence.
"I hate it when I go to a store and the attendant stares at me and follows me around," he said. "You can't get hurt, but you can feel they don't trust you."
Tracy Moore, St. Louis senior, said that being an African-American student at a predominantly white university was an important part of what she as though she needed to prove herself.
"I sometimes get the feeling I have to say something clever at the beginning of the semester so they think I am here because I earned it, not because I am on a minority scholarship or the University just let me in," she said.
Most of the people Moore has met on and off campus have been white. Most of her friends are African-
American, she said.
"You tend to be with people who are similar to you," she said. "You think they will understand at least some of the things you are talking about."
Amy Epnemer, Kenilworth, Ill., junior, said she had one African-American friend, whom she had known since high school, at the University of Kansas.
"They just seem kind of unapproachable, in their own cliques," she said. "I think they don't want to make me feel important, since they we are prejudiced."
Last fall, Epmeier's sorority arranged a Halloween philanthropy with a Black fraternity and a Black sorority, she said.
She does not remember any African-American woman participating in rush for her sorority, and most African-American women who want to live in a Greek house join the Black sorority she said.
"The they think they will not be asked back to the other houses," she said.
"They don't give people a chance to accept them."
Eric Doherty, Leawood freshman.
said he did not think race relations were a big problem at KU.
"If someone stands next to you in line who is different from the group, you make a comment," he said. "It is just human nature. But I have never seen anything rude taking place."
Doherty is in a fraternity in which most of the members are white, but he said minority students were not discouraged from joining.
"I have never seen anyone turned
upholstery to his race or background," he said.
Charles Karanja, Nairobi, Kenya, graduate student, is in his first semester at KU, but he said he was used to being in a minority, he said.
"In Kenya I went to a predominantly white high school, and I was an undergraduate at the University of Texas," he said.
He said that he was one of only a handful of Blacks in the University's master of Business Administration program, so that it did not interfere with his studies.
Karanja said he received a harassing phone call after he had been in lawrence two weeks. The unidentified "ginger" and told him to go home, he said.
"If I got a call like that every day, then I would have something to worry about," he said. "It is just one person out of 26,000 students here. It is not going to bother me."
African Americans, feeling isolated in a white student population, can be perceived as unsociable by whites
Photo illustration by Brian Schoens/ Special to the KANSAN
Derek Nolen/KANSAN
Charles Gienau, a facilities operations employee, looks at the aftermath of a runaway truck. While loading tree-limbs onto the back of the facilities operations truck, Gienau noticed the truck beginning to roll. The truck rolled downhill and hit a car, pushing it out of its parking space. No one was injured.
Runaway truck!
Turner denies drug charges
By Michelle Betts
Kansan staff writer
Former KU affirmative action director James "Skip" Turner denied yesterday that he had sold drugs to a Lawrence transient charged with first-degree murder.
Turner took the witness stand for about 25 minutes during second-day testimony in the trial of Kenneth L. Morris, who is charged with the murder of Danny Davis, 40, of Lawrence.
Defense attorneys pressed Turner on Morris' allegations that he had sold Morris cocaine the night Davis was killed. But Turner denied he had sold any drugs, just as he had denied the charge during a preliminary hearing in October.
Morris is charged with bludgeoning Davis with a golf club early Aug. 8. Davis died Aug. 13.
During his testimony yesterday, Turner said he went to Davis' house, 619 Illinois St., about 8 p.m. Aug. 7. Turner said he went with Davis to the Jet Lag Lounge, 610 Florida St., for about 15 minutes, and then went to his house with Davis and Davis' girlfriend
to play pool.
The three then returned to the Jet Lag Louge about 1 a.m. and about 1:35 a.m. Tester ternished
Turner estimated that Davis drew a number of wives of him. Iwu juxed
drinks and 13 12-ounce beers while together. He said that he had had two vodka tonics and two glasses of white zinfandel.
James Turner
He testified that he took Davis' girlfriend home and then took Davis to the house on Illinois Street. The house was locked and Davis could not get in, so Turner offered him a credit card to open the back door with.
Turner testified that he then saw two people in the carport: a dark-skinned, heavy-set woman and a man with a long, blond ponytail and tattoos on his arm. He could not, however, identify the man positively as Morris.
Davis talked to them and then
crawled through a basement window to enter his house, but Turner did not see them after that, he said.
Davis opened the door from the inside for Turner, who went into the house and talked to Davis for about five minutes, then went home, he said.
Francis Cuppage, a professor of pathology at the University of Kansas Medical Center who performed an autopsy on Davis, testified yesterday that cocaine and Valium were found in Davis' blood before he died.
During testimony, Turner denied giving Davis cocaine or Valium, and he said he did not see Davis take any drugs in the hours before he was bludgeoned. Turner said that the only time he had seen cocaine was on television.
Defense attorney James Rumsey said that Turner's claim that he left Davis' house about 1:45 a.m. Aug. 8 conflicted with the police report filed about the case, which said Turner left the house about 3a.m.
Morris testified during the October preliminary hearing that Turner left Davis' house about 7 a.m.
Turner resigned as KU director of affirmative action in early November.
Student Senate opposes parking plan
By Jay Williams
Kansan staff writer
Student Senate voiced its disapproval with the KU Parking Board and University Council at last night's Senate meeting.
Senate unanimously passed a petition objecting to a decision that could make parking lot 14 restricted to students until 8:30 p.m. Students now can park in the lot after 5 p.m.
The lot, situated behind Fraser Hall, has 22 permit spaces.
The petition said that students
were given lots of Paterson Library
and other campus resources.
The council recommended the 8:30 p.m. restriction to Del Shankel, interim executive vice chancellor. Shankel will make the final recommendation to Chancellor Gene Budig soon.
Jason McIntosh, senior senator and co-author of the petition. said theeti-
tion could help Shankel make a recommenda-
dation favorable to the students.
Shankel said that he would take the petition into consideration when making it.
"It is useful to know what the students think," he said. "Between the faculty and the students, we have two diametrically opposite views."
McIntosh said that about 600 students had signed a different petition protesting the recommendation.
Classified Senate and the University Professional Staff Association supported the position taken by Student Senate, he said.
"If the students get together with Classified Senate and UPSA, we can change this," McInish said.
Mica Ashmore, All-Scholarship Hall Council senator, said the proposed change would affect students who live in the scholarship halls near lot14.
The construction of Amini Scholarship Hall in the 1300 block of Louisiana meant losing about 15 parking spaces in the area, he said.
The lack of parking raised safety concerns, Ashmore said.
"Lot14 is close to Miller and Watkins halls," he said. "There a lot of women walking alone at night."
One reason parking services gave for the proposed change was that faculty said they could not park close enough to their offices if they had office hours at night.
But Patrick Dilley, graduate senator, said that the students he talked to were not happy with the decision.
"I think it is unfair for faculty to have office hours at night where students couldn't park to see them." he said.
Dilley said parking services needed to be revised.
"Who are they serving?" he said.