√
VOL.101, NO.47
THE UNIVERSITY DAL KANSAN
KANSAS STATE
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
TOPEKA KS 66612
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
UESDAY,OCTOBER 29,1991
ADVERTISING:864-4358
(USPS 650-640)
NEWS:864-4810
Turner placed on paid leave pending inquiry about slurs
By Justin Knupp and Melissa Rodgers
Kansan staff writers
James Turner, director of affirmative action, was placed on indefinite administrative leave yesterday. Del Shankel, a spokesman for chancellor, said in a prepared statement,
Thomas Berger, who was assistant director from 1988 to Fall 1990 when he became associate director, will serve as associate director while Turner is on leave with salary.
The University of Kansas is beginning an internal investigation into allegations that Turner used the terms "fat Indian chick" and "faggot" during an interview last week, according to the prepared statement.
"We deplelé the type of language attributed to us, and we were investigating the unspecified." Shankel
Turner said yesterday that he had used the terms "fat Indian chick" and "figgot" during the Wednesday interview at his home but that the statements were taken out of context.
1 the terms *tat* Indian chuck’ and ‘raggot’, but not to describe certain indi-
viduals
Turner used one expression last week when describing the time he spent with murder victim Danny Davis hours before Aug. 12. He played with a golf iron Aug. 8. Hedged Aug. 13.
Turner said yesterday that Davis had used the term "fat Indian chick" on the morning of Aug. 8 to describe a woman waiting for Davis at 619 Illinois St. Turner dropped off Davis and Davis' girlfriend off Davis, where Davis was staying at the time.
"I told you that Danny came up on me in the car after I dropped him off and used
the term 'fat Indian chick' to describe the woman, "Turner said. It wasn't me who said that, and I meant that it was someone else who said it. It's not what it said."
However, according to reporters' notes from the initial interview, Turner had said that when he drove people and his girlfriend to the house, "two people were waiting for Danny – a man with tattoos and a fat Indian chick."
Turner then said yesterday that someone else had used the term 'faggot' and denied that he had used the term as part of his own wording.
He said Wednesday's discussion about sexual harassment charges at the KU School of Law had been initiated by the reporters.
"I remember one of you, I don't recall which one asked, one said, 'What can you tell me?'"
Wait, let me look at the first sentence again.
"i remember one of you, I don't recall which one asked, one said, 'What can you tell me?'"
Is that correct? Yes.
Reporters' note show that Turner initiated the topic of conversation as the initiator.
"Maybe I did bring it up, maybe I
did turn in her about the complaint.
She wasn't really ill, but could
be hurt."
Turner said he told reporters Wednesday that he could not talk about the case because it was confidential and that he did not know much about it. He said that, instead, he had given reporters a scenario in which he would employ to illustrate a similar situation.
"The word 'faggot' was used in a different situation and said by other people," Turner said.
He claimed that he only had repeated the words of another person.
*One of these guys came to our office at (a different university) and said, "He is a faggot anyway so why is the university protecting him?" He said.
But according to reporters' notes
Turner had made the comment in refer
ence to a KU professor as he described secalal harassment allegations at the law department.
Commenting on an earlier statement by Turner that Shankel had told him not to speak to anyone about the Davis case, Turner said, "I only report to Gene Budig.
"I have never been censored by the University in any way. Del Shankel doesn't tell me anything. He is only interim. He knows it and so do I."
Turner also said that reporters had stated incorrectly that he had introduced an African-American man at his house Wednesday as Berger, who is white, from the affirmative action office.
Turner said he had told reporters that Bergen were going to a meeting later that day.
"The person who picked me up that night had nothing to do with that," he said. "If you啦 assumed it was Dr. Berger, that was wrong."
However, as reporters stood in his driveway after the interview Wednesday, Turner gestured to an African-American man who had driven into his driveway.
"This is Dr. Berger from the University," Turner said. "You know him. That's who's in the car. He's going to get me some cigarettes."
Responding to a reporter's statement that he had seemed confused during the previous interview, Turner said he had just awakened when reporters arrived.
"Because of waking up that way on Wednesday, I may have taken things out of context," he said. "Maybe we are not on the same wavelength."
Turner said that his doctor had put him under pressure for a condition related to hypothyroidism.
"When I first start start it, the drug makes me drowsy and woody," he said. "I
James 'Skip' Turner
EDUCATION
Position: Director of the office of affirmative action官员Norfolk VaNorfolk Va
B. A., political science Howard University
Graduate work, educational and personnel administration Howard University
PREVIOUS POSITIONS
Associate director of affirmative action, 1984-1987
Melissa Unterberg / KANSAN
Chief affirmative action officer at Central Michigan University
Executive director of the University of Maryland Office of Human Relations.
Source: The Office of University Relations
Melissa Unterberg / KANSAN
am taking about seven different medications right now."
When asked about other possible side effects from the medication, Turner terminated the interview.
Berger said yesterday that he had no idea and no comment about why Turner had referred to the African-American manas Berger.
"I was shocked this morning like everyone else," he said. "However, Turner's leave will not affect the immediate operations of the office. The difficulties will be to adjust to the loss of a person in the office and a valued colleague."
Freshmen to vote again for officers
By Blaine Kimrev
Kansan staff writer
Two sets of inconsistent campaign rules led a board of class officers hearing panel Thursday to question the fairness of
The three coalitions that ran in the freshman board of class officers election Oct. 10 and 11 will have to run again this week
Because the coaliations, Ability, Unity and Thumbs up, interpreted the two sets of rules differently, the hearing panel decided another election should be conducted from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday and Friday in front of Strong Hall.
Although the first set of campaign rules had worked effectively for the past several years, Rob Swindle, sophomore class president, introduced a new set of campaign rules for the next year. The class Bahr, senior class president and hearing panel member
However, Swindle said that Kristine Jarvis, sophomore class secretary, had presented him with the second set of cards.
Jarvis told him the new rules were a recommendation from an Organizations and Activities Center administrator, Swin-
Barbara Ballard, adviser to the senior board of class officiates and is not one who did no one really was sure where the set of rules had been placed.
Weston Hyter, Thumbs Up coalition presidential candidate, said last week that a re-election would be unfair.
Bahr disagreed. Bahr said that although the Thumbs Up coalition had received the most votes during the original election, the coalition had broken rules from both sets of campaign guidelines.
Therefore, she said it was not unfair to ask the coalition to run again.
Ballardagreed.
"They may not all have been happy about the hearing situation," she said. "I would like them known by election."
Accident kills KU professor
David Axman, Lawrence police officer, examines the bicycle of a KU professor who was killed yesterday in an accident at the intersection of 23rd Street and Ousdahl Road.
Larry Havlicke, 59, 257 Cedar-Ave, was killed after the bicycle he was riding was struck at the truck belonging to the Fri-Faco Group.
Havlicek was a professor in the department of education and had taught at KU since 1967.
Lawrence police Lt. Dana Aftaffer said the truck was traveling west-bound on 23rd Street when it struck a dumpster along north through the intersection.
Police said the driver of the truck was not cited, pending review of the case by the Douglas County district attorney.
Lawyer aids ACLU in harassment case
By Rochelle Olson
Kansan staff writer
His mother's words and the sense of justice he learned from the Methodist church helped pull Nelson toward a more religious orientation with the American Civil Liberties Union.
"No one has a right to interfere in anybody's rights," Nelson's mother would say to him when he was growing up in Salina.
Ron Nelson said his mother and his Methodist upbringing shaped his views about the importance of personal rights.
Nelson, 35, said his mother always old him to put himself in someone else's hands.
Nelson now works with the ACLU as a cooperating attorney. He represents two current and two former female law students at the University of Kansas who have filed sexual harassment grievances with KU.
complaints. Nelson said.
The women are not satisfied with how the law school and University work together.
The ACLU issued a news release on Oct. 18 that stated it was investigating University grievance procedures.
He would not say whether he thought the professor involved in the three cases pending at the office of academic affairs should be fired.
Nelson has been at the center of the controversy since the news of the investigation became public.
The goal of the ACLU investigation is to break the silence at the KU School of Law concerning sexual harassment, Nelson said.
Nelson was a junior at Kansas State University planning a career in veterinary medicine when he felt the tug of a legal career.
Nelson is not being paid for his work on the cases. He estimated he had spent 40 hours on the case since he first took it in mid-September.
"Constitutional law was what I enjoyed the most." he said.
He graduated from Kansas State in state with major in political science and law.
Nelson became the first president of the K-State chapter of the ACLU. He said he continued his involvement with the ACLU while studying law at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka.
But Nelson decided to leave the security of the firm in 1987 and start a solo practice because he no longer wanted to be another, who was a partner at the firm.
When he graduated in 1981, he went to work for a medium-sized law firm in Overland Park. He litigated insur-
ance cases during the six years he was at the firm.
He took as many civil procedure and constitutional law classes as he could,
"I wanted to go out on my own," he said.
A lot of time is spent defending
employees in termination matters and ensuring that they get due process. Nelson said.
"The main thing you aren't being told by anyone what, or where to do something," Nelson said. "The only people you are responsible to are you
He said that having a solo practice gave him more client contact and allowed him to work on his own cases, not someone else's.
James Concannon, dean of law at Washburn, was not surprised that Nelson was handling a case for the ACLU.
He knew Nelson when Nelson was a law student in his evidence course at Washburn.
"Since he was in law school, and I know throughout the period he's been practicing, he's been actively involved in the ACLU." Concannon said.
He said he thought Nelson would continue to be involved with the ACLU as long as he was practicing law.
"He's a good, inquisitive lawyer," Concannon said.
Two West Bank settlers die in terrorist attack
The Associated Press
MADRID, Spain — In a deadly outbreak of terrorist violence just two days before Arab-Israeli peace talks, attackers firing automatic weapons killed two Jewish settlers yesterday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Hours earlier, two separate terrorist attacks in Turkey by a Muslim group opposed to the talks killed an American journalist and wounded an Egyptian diplomat.
The West Bank attack, in which assailants ambushed a bus carrying settlers opposed to trading land for peace, appeared likely to harden Israel's defense against enclaves and put a sharp focus on Israel's off-tended worries over security.
Israelis blamed the Palestinians and vowed revenge for the shootings, which also wounded six people, including five children.
"Whohever was looking for a proof that we have nobody to discuss peace with, that our enemies want to continue to kill us and to destroy us got the message tonight," Cabinet Minister Rehaven Zeeki told reporters at a rally in Tel Aviv. As word spread of the deaths, the crowd swelled to 50,000 people, some shouting "Death to the Arabs!"
Zalman Shoval, Israel's ambassador to Washington, said of the attack: "It certainly harms the atmosphere, and it raises some very grave question marks with regard to their attitude toward this whole process."
Hanan Ashrawi, a representative for the Palestinian delegation, condemned the violence but explained it to Mr. Hamas as "the violence" of the Israeli occupation.
"Unless we really work hard to remove causes of conflict and the causes of violence, it's going to go on," she said in a television interview. Ashrawi also predicted more attempts to disrupt the talks.
There have been several Muslim fundamentalist calls for attacks to impede the conference that begins Wednesday in Madrid, Spain. A Lebanese newspaper reported yesterday that a group called for suicide attacks on the Jewish state and said the peace conference was "high treason."
On the diplomatic front, Israel protested to the United States about plans to grant a full-length opening speech to the Palestinian delegation. Israel also rejected a freeze on settlements in the occupied territories.
American kill Egyptian wounded in bombings
Violence precedes Mideast talks
Knight-Ridder Tribune News
Pakistani and Jordanian delegates arrived in Madrid to an enthusiastic greeting from a score of supporters. Young Palestinians and Spanidians waved placards saying in Arabic, Spanish and English. "Long Live a Free and Independent Palestine."
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev arrived last night and President Bush arrives today, a day before the conference begins at the 18th-cen
At the White House, Bush said he hoped the talks would be a first step to peace, but cautioned that "there's a long, long way to go."
Israeli officials protested they had been taken by surprise by a decision to allow the Palestinians a full opening speech in addition to the speech by the Jordanian delegation's leader, instead of sharing the time on Thursday.