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USC Ousted in first round Falls to Memphis 59-43 in Kansas City, Mo. . . - - www.dailygamecock.com MONDAY, MARCH 22, 2004 Since 1908 USC responds to ZTA incident BY ADAM BEAM THE HAMECOCK ^ USC has moved a black staff member into the Office of Greek Life, and Zeta Tau Alpha’s nation al president has offered a formal apology in response to a March 2 incident during a ZTA fund-rais er for breast cancer research. ZTA National President Julia Hill said in a news release that ZTA “deeply regretted that our worthy intentions were marred by the inappropriate actions of a few individuals.” Hill also stated that ZTA does not condone the actions and apologized to “all members of the university community. ” The statement was sent to USC’s ZTA president Lindsey Dupree in an e-mail March 17. The e-mail contains the disclaimer that ^t “may be released to the press as approved by our national presi dent.” USC staff member Michael Goodwin, who is black, has been transferred to the Office of Greek Life as interim associate director until the position can be perma nently filled sometime this sum mer. A group of minority student organizations requested a black presence in the Greek Life office after Tim Tice, a second-year his tory student representing Alpha Delta Pi, wore black body paint to re-enact Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl halftime performance dur ing ZTA’s Big Man on Campus fund-raiser. Goodwin said he was told of his new job Thursday afternoon and started Friday. Goodwin, who is keeping his current job as associ ate director of multicultural af fairs, said it would be like juggling two jobs. “It was shocking,” he said. “But I think it is important for the uni versity to make some type of effort to try and meet the needs of the ♦ ZTA, SEE PAGE 3 PHOTO BY MORGAN FORD/THE GAMECOCK Student Life Director Jerry Brewer answers a question during Tuesday's meeting with students. PHOTO BY MORGAN FORD/THE GAMECOCK Program director Rachal Hatton works on WUSC’s fund-raiser, which runs through Sunday. WUSC copes with FCC regulations BY IRA KLEIN THE GAMECOCK After the backlash surrounding February’s Super Bowl halftime show, USC’s student radio station has had.to cope with new FCC regulations that raise the maximum fine for what is deemed “indecent broadcasting” from $27,500 to a maximum of $500,000. The fine applies not only to indecent programs but to each incident of inde cency. Performers, disc jockeys and the station or distributor can be fined. While many advocate the new legisla tion as a necessary step to protect chil dren from sexually explicit or inappro priate material, others say the new reg ulations are particularly harmful to low-budget, local, low-wattage stations. “These new regulations are espe cially harsh for local radio stations like us, because the fines are just so outrageously high that a station like WUSC would never be able to afford it,” said WUSC disk jockey and first year electronic journalism student Stephen Waldon. “It’s scary to think that just one minor incident could put us out of business forever.” But while there is a threat of fines, most WUSC announcers say the regu lations haven’t immediately affected the station. “We’ve always kept a fairly clean slate of programming, because the FCC states that what constitutes indecency is determined by the standards of the surrounding community that receives the broadcast. Since Columbia is such a southern, conservative place, in order to conform to these standards, we’ve al ways had to be extra careful in making sure we don’t let anything that could be objectionable slip onto the airwaves,”, said Nate Welker, a second-year mar keting student and WUSC announcer. Welker said the station keeps an “ob scenity log” in which any profane lan guage —spoken or in a song—must be recorded with the date and time aired. “This ensures that we don’t get any surprises from the FCC,” Welker said. “Since we have everything written down, if there ever was to be any sort of trouble with indecency, we could at least show the FCC that we know about it and that it was an accident.” The FCC prohibits seven obscene words from being broadcast in addi tion to “sexually explicit” words. Some obscenities are allowed on the radio but only as long as they are not used in a sexually-explicit manner. According to WUSC executive staff member Jordan Redmond, a third year English student, if an announc er receives complaints of indecency at WUSC, the radio station would pay the fines, but the announcer would likely lose his show. “It really depends on whether the indecency was intentional,” Redmond said. Another WUSC announcer, fourth year journalism student Megan Treacy, pointed out that CDs at the station are labeled with stickers denoting which tracks have been deemed acceptable to play by the station manager. She said many commercial radio stations pay a monthly fee to the FCC to subscribe to “safe harbor,” which allows more flex ibility in broadcasting what would nor mally be deemed “indecent,” between the hours of midnight and 8 a.m. Because WUSC is a low-budget station, it cannot afford to subscribe to this ser vice, so it has to keep all programming within the normal bounds of FCC de ♦ WUSC, SEE PAGE 3 National.championship . Carolina debate team takes first national title BY ALLYSON BIRD THE GAMECOCK The USC debate team returned from spring break with the first national title in its 150-year his tory. Fourth-year political science student Glenn Prince and third year political science student J.D. Shipman beat out the top 48 teams in the country on March 13 and 14 at the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence at the University of California, Berkeley. The team will participate in a ^mblic exhibition round on busi JP^ss ethics Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Gambrelll52. “We got our spring break shaved a little bit short,” Shipman said. In fact, the team spent March 9-11 preparing for the competition and the rest of the week traveling and competing. Prince said the team meets ev ery Tuesday night when each of the 10 members submits his re search assignment. They practice debating once a week, and each member is assigned a newspaper to study. Shipman said information from mainstream news sources like CNN and Fox is generally dis counted. “All they do is read and write briefs,” said David Berube, debate director. “We usually spend 20 hours a week on cases. That’s a pretty con servative estimate,” Shipman said. He said he missed 17 days of class in the fall semester, since the debate season runs from October through April. The team works from six broad areas of research, such as international justice or interna tional finance, and, based on the flip of a coin, chooses either the topic or the resolution of the de bate. The two debaters then prepare for 15 minutes before one mem ber assumes the role of govern ment and the other the role of op position. “Every round is a different res olution. We just guess at what it will be and hope we luck out,” Shipman said. In addition to the title-winners, USC’s second team — second-year economics and political science student Chris Dickson and third ♦ DEBATE, SEE PAGE 7 Student plays her way to Italy for 5-week music program BY GREG WEBSTER THE GAMECOCK When Eliza Hesse picked up a violin for the first time, she could hardly get her fingers around the bow to hold it up. Her 1/32-size violin seemed big next to her three-year-old frame. But when Eliza reached down and picked up her instrument, she had no idea of the musical ca reer that lay in the path ahead of her. Her musical talents will take her to Italy in three months to participate in the prominent Rome Festival Orchestra. There, Hesse will play with other musi cians from all over the world in the five-week educational/per formance program. ♦ ROME, SEE PAGE 7 R.I. university incites debate with whites-only scholarship BY MICHAEL MELLO THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BRISTOL, R.I. - On the campus of Roger Williams University, a small liberal arts school unaccus tomed to student activism, the College Republicans are reveling in the debate they’ve kicked up by offering a scholarship for whites only. The $250 award — which re quired an essay on “why you are proud of your white heritage” and a recent picture to “confirm whiteness” — has invited the wrath of everyone from minori ty groups and school officials to the chairman of the Republican National Committee himself. Jason Mattera, a junior who started the conservative campus group in his freshman year, said kindling debate over free speech and affirmative action was just what he wanted, and he promises more. They did such a good job that school President Roy Nirschel, who has clashed with the group before, cut short a trip to ♦ SCHOLARSHIP, SEE PAGE 8 What's.lnside " ♦FORMER S.C. GOVERNOR DIES John C. p West dies fllcancer at age 81. FOR MORE ♦ FRATS AT BAT Fund raiser benefits , chfraTren with csfeer. FOR MQRE SEE PAGE W-_ 8 ♦ GRAY AREA Race continues to rear its ugly head at Carolina. FOR MORE SEE PAGE 9 ♦ TUNED IN WUSC disc jockeys put music }__ first and have fun doing so. FOR MORE SEE PAGE 10 ♦ WALLFLOWERS Men’s basketball bounced from Big Dance. FOR MORE SEE PAGE 13 J Index Comics and Crossword 12 Classified _15 Horoscopes 12 Letters to the Editor 9 4. Online Poll 9 Police Report_ 2 Entertainment News 2 USC Calendar 2 _|_ Ttie Gamecock Sprinted on | recycled paper. Visit us online at: www.dailygamecock.com I 1