Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Quote, Unquote ‘This is between he and Virginia Tech.’ Jason Snyder, USC spokesman, on the embezzlement charges of former USC Dean of Engineering Craig Rogers. Whe (Bamecock Serving the Carolina Community since 1Q08 Editorial Board Kenley Young • Editor in Chief Brad Walters • Managing Editor Brock Vergakis • Viewpoints Editor Peter Johnson • Assistant Viewpoints Editor NAACP must learn to compromise on flag issue South Carolina legislators passed a proposal last Wednesday to remove the Confederate flag from atop the Statehouse and place it in a memorial on the grounds near the Capitol. Many conservative Republican senators compromised on the issue and voted overwhelmingly to take the flag down. Along with the House’s passage of MLK Day as a state holiday, which was voted on Wednesday as well, this is the most important advancement in civil rights in South Carolina in a very long time. The Confederate flag issue has made no progress since the Na tional Association for the Advancement of Colored People de manded it come down at the beginning of the year. Now, with a breakthrough appearing very likely, pending the House’s passing of the proposal, the NAACP is saying that isn’t enough. Even some traditionally pro-flag senators like conservative Re publicans Arthur Ravenel and Glenn McConnell compromised their beliefs and voted for the proposal. It is extremely difficult to win a war with just one battle. The NAACP is being too ambitious and seems to have lost sight of its original goal: to see to the removal of the Confederate flag from the Statehouse dome. It needs to learn to compromise rather than make more de mands without having accomplished anything to begin with. If the NAACP steps up sanctions if the flag is put on the monument, as it is threatening to do, then there is no point in taking it down in the first place. The organization should take what it can get for now and then work toward further advancements. Gamecock housing falls short to Gators Che department of housing could learn a lot from other uni versities in the South, most notably the University of Flori da. One of the biggest complaints among students who live on campus at USC is the feeling of being treated like a child. One of the biggest culprits in making this feeling so prevalent at Car olina is the visitation policy that residents don’t have the choice of changing. At Florida, each residence hall determines its own visitation policy by voting. Students at USC have no choice in determining visitation policy. If a student doesn’t get into a residence hall with the type of visitation policy he wants, than he’ll be required to adhere to whatever visitation policy is forced upon him. USC needs a more democratic way of deciding visitation policies. Hav ing students vote on their visitation policies would be a good start. Maybe if these policies were changed, students would be more likely to stay on campus and a greater sense of community would begin to emerge. With the policy as it is now, a sense of communi ty is the last thing being promoted. The amount of responsibility being delegated to UF students who live in residence halls doesn’t end with visitations either. For all of you who miss your favorite pets, consider transferring and becoming a Gator. Florida allows for guinea pigs, dwarf rabbits, turtles, lizards, chinchillas and non-predatory birds to be housed right along with its students. Sometimes, students need the com fort of a loving pet to make it through trying times, and having a goldfish just doesn’t do the trick About us The Gamecock is the student newspaper of The University of South Carolina and is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the fall and spring semesters and nine times during the summer with the exception of university holidays and exam periods. Opinions expressed in The Gamecock are those of the editors or author and not those of The University of South Carolina. The Board of Student Publications and Communications is the publisher of The Gamecock. The Department of Student Media is the newspaper's parent organization. The Gamecock is supported in part by student activities fees. Address The Gamecock 1400 Greene Street Columbia, SC 29208 Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Student Media Area code 803 Advertising 777-3888 Classified 777-1184 Fax 777-6482 Office 777-3888 Gamecock Area code 803 Editor gcked@sc.edu 777-3914 News gamecocknews@hotmail.com 777-7726 Viewpoints gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com Etc. gcketc@sc.edu 777-3913 Encore! gamecockencore@hotmail.com 777-3913 Sports gamecocksports@hotmail.com 777-7182 Online www.gamecock.sc.edu 777-2833 Submission Policy Letters to the editor or guest columns are welcome from all members of the Carolina community. Letters should be 250-300 words. Guest columns should be an opinion piece of about 600-700 words. Both must include name, phone number, profes sional title or year and major, if a student. Handwritten submissions must be personally delivered to Russell House room 333. E-mail submissions must include telephone number for confirmation. The Gamecock reserves the right to edit for libel, style and space. Anonymous letters will not be pub lished. Photos are required for guest columnist and can be provided by the submitter. Call 777-7726 for more information. The Gamecock Ken ley Young Editor in Chief Brad Walters Managing Editor Brock Vergakis Viewpoints Editor Clayton Kale News Editor Brandon Larrabee Associate News Editor Rebecca Cronican Ann Marie Miani EtCetera Editors David Cloninger Shannon Rooke Sports Editors Kristin Freestate Copy Desk Chief Renee Oligny Copy Editor Kevin Langston Encore Editor Student Media Ellen Parsons Director Susan King Creative Director Kris Black Julie Burnett Todd Hooks Betsy Martin Kathy Van Nostrand Creative Services Kenton Watt Advertising Manager Carolyn Griffin Amy Goulding Travis Lynn Photo Editors Will Gillaspy Online Edita Peter Johnson Asst. Viewpoints Editor Kelly Haggerty Patrick Rathbun Asst. News Editors MacKenzie Craven Asst. EtCetera Edita Elizabeth Rod Asst. Sports Edita Rob Fleming Asst. Encae Edita Charles Prashaw Shawn Singleton Charlie Wallace Senior Writers Emily Streyer Editorial Contributor Business Manager Sherry Holmes Classified Manager Erik Collins Faculty Adviser Jonathan Dunagin Graduate Assistant Robyn Gombar Gina McKelvey Melissa Millen Brantley Roper Nicole Russell Adw/tising Staff College Press Exchange Campus Issues It doesn't pay to be average I have noticed a disturbing trend in my four years at this fine learning in stitution. Ap parently, some students are just better than oth ers. Whether it happens in housing assign ments, class sign ups or even on the cafeteria line, average students are put on the hack r ■ ® ■ * ■ Peter Johnson is a journalism senior. He can be reached at gamecock viewpoints® hotmait.com burner for students whom USC holds in higher regard. One class being offered in the fall, Journalism 303, has three sections, two of which are full and one of which is restricted to Honors College students. Of the 15 seats to be filled in the class, seven are open. Even worse is what is offered for Journalism 201. There are four sections. The Honors College sec tion is TTH from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and has ONE seat filled out of 15. There are three sections for average Joe, all at inconvenient times: TTH 8 to 9:15 am. and MW 5:30 to 6:45 p.m., which are full, and Saturday morning between 9 and 11:30 a.m., which has one seat out of 35 filled. Riddle me this: If you are going to foolishly offer a Saturday class, shouldn’t it be the one for hon ors students? After all, in theory they would be up Friday night study ing for their rigorous schedule filled with honors classes while the average screw-ups like you and me are out drinking, right? These classes are supposedly more challenging, but in many cases they are no more rigorous than regular class es. Meanwhile, non-honors students are rushing for overrides. The same problem exists within the other col leges at USC, and nobody seems to think that there is anything wrong with this. I understand that honors students deserve some special privileges, but the line must be drawn somewhere, and USC is not striving to do that. Housing is even more ridiculous. Most honors freshmen live in Maxcy, a plush wonderland of freshman fun, fully equipped with newly renovated suite-style rooms that dwarf those of the Towers and Bates House. Meanwhile, Preston, which con siders itself the intellectual oasis of this peasant village known as USC, is the most arrogant and pompous of all. 1 have overheard them referred to as “elitists,” but that does not begin to describe it, people. They have their own “luxury din ing facility” where they and only they can enjoy eating exclusively with oth er Prestonians for the whole two hours it remains open, and then they com plain when they are forced to eat “com mon-folk food” at the GMP. It’s tough being a king. And since last fall, some privileged honors freshmen have lived in Cap stone, which used to be exclusively for upperclassmen. Pretty soon they’ll be moving us into cardboard boxes and putting us behind the Russell House next to the smelly dumpster. Meanwhile, athletes enjoy even greater amenities because of prowess of mind rather than prowess of body, which is worse, if you ask me. Just be cause you play a sport doesn’t mean that you should be able to be treated like a god. The members of the Gamecock football team, despite going winless last season, still have one side of The Patio in Patterson roped off for their eating pleasure. One Gmiecock staffer, after attempting to get more mashed potatoes from the “football side” of Patterson, was threatened and told that if she were caught doing it again, they would kick her out! Doesn’t that seem a bit rash? And athletes only seem to live in the good dorms. The day a freshman football player lives in the Towers is the day hell freezes over. A much-too high percentage of East Quad residents next fall could be made up of athletes, and most of us know that South Quad traditionally has had a lot of athletes. The university denies the fact that athletes get preferential treatment in classes and living arrangements, but it is evident. As regular students, we don’t have the option of calling a tutor at any hour of the day or night to help us with our homework. That isn’t what college is about. College is about re sponsibility. If you don’t do the work, you pay the price. Neither honors kids nor athletes are to blame for the special privileges they receive; the university is. If some one came up to me and told me that I could live in a nicer dorm and eat at a better dining hall, I would listen. If they told me I could get all the class es I wanted at the times I wanted them and have a tutor on call 24 hours a day, I wouldn’t walk away. But I wouldn’t be blind to the fact that this special treatment is wrong. This philosophy reeks of the segre gation defenses of the ‘50s. As far as the university is concerned, the way it treats regular students is “separate but equal.” This system has the same evident flaws as segregation. Will there be sep arate athlete or honors bathrooms on the horizon? Do we not all bleed the same color? Our freedoms are being restricted and we are standing by while it all happens. We can’t deny that this is going on. As Cosmo Kramer once said, “Am I insane? Or am I just so sane that it completely blows your mind?” Letters Disorders can be blamed on media People do blame the media for an enormous amount of things, and when these outcries are made because of slanted political or social coverings, they are perfectly legitimate. I think it’s a bit preposterous for you, how ever, as an individual editor on a col lege newspaper, to bear the weight of all media blame on your shoulders and attempt to make a stand against it. It’s true that blame for under-attended campus events and coverage of cam pus groups and politics does not fall with your media, but with individu als. I completely agree with you on those points, and I truly wish people would take more responsibility for themselves and their actions. In the fervor of your grandiose rant, though, you made some slanted statements of your own. I doubt that the women’s studies class you attended was( referring to journalistic media like The Gamecock in their discussion of media effects on body image and eating disorders. Peo ple do not develop eating disorders because they were exposed to skewed foreign-policy facts in a newspaper ar ticle. People do develop eating disor ders from individualized effects of watching certain genres of television, movies and magazines. I’m assuming that, as Viewpoints editor, you prob ably have an opinion on this, but since your area of expertise is in print jour nalism and not in women’s studies, health studies, advertising, media arts or fdm studies, your opinion on that issue hardly belonged in this particu lar column on media blame. Perhaps people are so eager to use your media as a scapegoat because it so often makes attempts (either de liberately or through sheer lack of in sight) to incite reaction at even the cost of misrepresentation. Kathy LaLima Ait History Junior War was fought over slavery Mr. Wright, I’m guessing you did not read The State on April 1, not the April Fools’ section, for this is not a joking matter. There was an article titled “The Civ il War Fought Over Slavery, Not States Rights.” A couple of quotes includ ed, “Slavery is our king; Slavery is our truth; Slavery is our divine right” and “Give us slavery or gives a death.” These quotes were made by William Preston and Francis Pickens. Their reasons for fighting a war seem clear to me. Yes, the flag has different mean ings for different people, but trying to tell us the war was not fought over slavejy seems a little ridiculous. Maria Teixeira Geology Graduate Student State Issues Slavery true cause of Civil War outh Carolina possesses a strange ability to hold on to the past. While it’s im perative for a culture to heed the failings of its past, over-re liance on tradition certainly hin ders the capacity to successful ly progress. In the current Confederate flag drama, the di visive debate over the Civil War’s cause has only exacer bated the defiance of those striv ing to preserve the flag’s loca tion atop the Statehouse dome. Likewise, one side asserts that the Confederate govern ment implemented racist poli cies, and one side defends that the Confederate States of Amer ica was absolutely just. ^nnnnrtpn: nf thp Naval lark Corey Ford is a political sci ence sophomore. The Viewpoints editor can be reached at gamecock viewpoints® hotmail.com hold the position that the war - the War of Northern Aggression, as some like to label it - was caused V overly hawkish attempts to curtail the rights of iflu vidual states. Many opponents of the flag, of course, claim that the Civil War occurred directly because of the issue of slavery. The sad truth: Unfortunately, slavery was the cause of the Civil War. Consequently, the flag should be re moved for this very reason. Unlike states’ rights or fed eral tariffs, slavery was the one issue that could not be compromised or resolved in the chambers of Congress. Slavery enraged men and women enough that they did not want to even address the issue; a gag order - one to never discuss the slavery question - was enacted by the House of Representatives only to be overturned by the leadership of former President John Quincy Adams. The root cause of South Carolina’s secession from the Union on Dec. 20, 1860, was that a Republican, Abraham Lincoln, was elected president of the Unit ed States. The formation and the initial ideals of the Republican Party were in direct correlation with the problem of human bondage that occurred primarily in the Southern states. In a mutinous protest of the Kansas Nebraska Act because of its violation of the earlier K t souri Compromise, the Republican Party began. The party struggled to elect officials, and Congressman Lin coln lost a race for the U.S. Senate to Stephen Dou glas over the effect of slavery’s westward expansion. Yet, Lincoln avenged this loss by beating Douglas and two others for president in 1860. With Lincoln set to occupy the White House, the South Carolina Leg islature pre-empted any dealings with the slavery is sue by simply seceding. The domino effect transpired with states like Alabama and Mississippi following South Carolina’s lead to Fort Sumter. The Confederate government did dictate racist poli cies. Many “scholars” have claimed that thousands of African-Americans fought on the Confederate side es pecially in the final years of the conflict. True, they did; but be wary of the statistic. Depleted by contin uous debacles in the West and the utter defeat at Get tysbuig, the Confederate Army needed to replenish £ ranks. Forced into service by the CSA, male slaves be came a desperate measure devised to help stop the he morrhaging. The true standard to the policies has to be the act passed in direct reference to the formation of the 54th Massachusetts, the first African-American Union reg iment. The government made all black Union soldiers who were captured subject to immediate death, while white Union soldiers were only sent off to Libby Prison or Andersonville. A direct violation of human rights exists in this policy. The cause of the war, however, must not be con fused with what the men fought for in the war. Yes, most Southern soldiers did not own slaves, and from what their representatives told them, the war was waged in defense of states’ rights. Let’s be honest though: How many of these soldiers knew the actual extent and con text of the war? The Southern lifestyle was primarily rural. 1 .* men had no access to instant media in order to have a true handle of the current events. So, how can one sur mise that they knew exactly why the war was being fought? A popular statement of the time labeled the Civil War as “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” The wealthy planters, who consequently ruled the gov ernment in aristocratic fashion, certainly wanted to nrntect their best interest, which was indeed keenine slavery legal. Now, most Confederate soldiers believed they were fighting for honor of one’s family or home, and they deserve to be respected for their beliefs. One should never be ashamed of one’s ancestors. Sadly, the Con federate government, treasonous in its rebellion, vi olated the sovereignty of the federal government, es tablished under the Constitution. Honor the soldiers, but do not honor the causes of disunion or racism. In order for South Carolina to address the more pressing issues of education, rural economic aid, child health care and environmental protection, we nmst rj solve this mockery immediately. The time foV?oiifti Carolina to move forward has come by removing the flag and finally ending our obsession with a culture dis tant in relevance and tainted by injustice. W *