NO PLACE LIKE HOME
After a week
of hard work,
students and
Habitat
volunteers
complete a
house, which
is being
moved today
to Graham’s
Alley off
Gervais
Street photos,
CLOCKWISE FROM
TOP. BY ROBERT
GRUEN, ANNIE LEE
AND AARON HARK.
Workers air
grievances
to NAACP
use maintenance
employees speak
at forum about
discrimination
BY DARRYL GREEN
THE GAMECOCK
In a forum with USC’sNAACP
chapter on Thursday, three uni
versity maintenance workers
spoke about what they perceive as
discrimination, including pay
gaps and unequal promotion prac
tices, by the university.
Ron Derrick, one of the work
ers, discussed the pay gaps he has
experienced during his 23-year
tenure at USC.
“Here’s my biggest problem. I
make $32,000 per year, whereas
my white counterpart makes
$44,000 with a limited educa
tion.
“I have to work with people
who can’t spell the word ‘cat’ or
‘dog’ and who do not have a high
school education. I have a college
education, and they don’t,” he
said.
Twenty-six African-American
maintenance workers have filed
complaints in federal district
court seeking relief for employ
ment discrimination. The State
Human Affairs Commission and
the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission have
found probable cause that dis
crimination had taken place.
Derrick said the EEOC discov
ered black Workers at USC are
normally started at a lower rate
per week or per hour than are
white workers.
“We were told to ‘just wait and
see’ or ‘we’ll get back with you
shortly.’ Those things never
worked out.”
Derrick said he and the other
workers who filed the suit haven’t
felt any tension from their
coworkers but have experienced
“a small amount of harassment
from management.”
He said students can help by
making other students aware of
the discrimination claims.
The workers claim they and
other African-American mainte
nance workers have routinely
been overlooked for promotions.
The university denies allega
tions the maintenance workers
were ever discriminated against.
Of the 137 maintenance work
ers at the university, 34 are
black.
♦ NAACP, SEE PAGE 3
Forum clarifies
ambiguities
of advisement
Students express
frustration, ask
faculty questions
at SG event
BY ADAM BEAM
THE GAMECOCK
At a public forum to help stu
dents better understand the ad
visement process, second-year
English major Alissa Cooper wast
ed no time in asking the faculty
panel questions when the floor
opened.
“I wish you guys would have
been my advisers,” she said.
Like most freshmen, Cooper
came to USC in the dark about
what classes she should take and
how she should sign up for them.
“1 don’t feel that I was given
enough information about what I
needed to do, how I needed to plan,
and how I was going to get an ed
ucation,” she said. “I basically had
to do it all myself.”
It was problems like these that
sparked Chrissy Stauffer, a student
senator for the College of Liberal
Arts, to plan three public forums
for the Colleges of Science and
Mathematics and Liberal Arts and
Moore School of Business. She
wanted to provide students with an
opportunity to ask advisors ques
tions about how the process works.
“When we hear of students con
cerns, we always try to thiuk of
the best way to voice them to the
administration and the powers
that be,” said Stauffer, who also
serves as chair of the Academic
Committee. “This is just one way
that that could happen, that stu
dents can do something construc
tive with their complaints and
their praises.”
Tom Cafferty, a psychology pro
fessor and member of the panel in
Gambrell Hall, said, “I think it’s
uneven.”
“I think it can be very good at
parts of the university and some
departments; others, it could be
better,” he said.
As psychology department un
dergraduate director, Cafferty was
pleased with the forum’s results.
“I think... getting feedback and
input from students is an impor
tant part of the process,” he said.
“It’s difficult sometimes to know
what people need to change.”
One proposal to improve the ad
visement process is the imple
mentation of DARS — Degree
Auditing Report System. A total
ly electronic system, DARS would
allow students to perform a degree
audit for the major of their choice
and see which program best suits
their interests.
According to Mel Miller, direc
tor of Research, Grants and
Planning, the program, already in
pilot tests with the Business '
School and College of Journalism,
has had “very positive” reactions
♦ ADVISEMENT, SEE PAGE 2
USC set to top last year’s blood donations
BY KEVIN FELLNER
THE GAMECOCK
Hundreds of USC students
and Columbia residents have
filled the Russell House
Ballroom all week to donate
blood to the American Red
Cross, and organizers said
Wednesday night that USC was
on pace to exceed last year’s
blood drive’s total.
American Red Cross staff
member Nikki Brown said this
year’s turnout has exceeded ex
pectations. “We have seen over
300 people each day,” she said.
“I’ve been doing this for four
years, and this is by far the best
year I’ve seen.”
President John Palms donat
ed on Thursday evening.
Brown said the average wait
was about 30 minutes, which she
said shows the students’ dedica
tion to donating. She said the cu
mulative amount of donated
blood wouldn’t be totaled until
Saturday. But she speculated
USC would top last year’s dona
tions.
The blood drive is an annual
competition against Clemson
University during the week of the
Carolina-Clemson football game.
The USC Fraternity and Sorority
councils and Clemson’s Alpha
Phi Omega cosponsor the event.
Fraternity Council co-chair
man Lyon Bixler of Chi Psi said
this year’s blood drive was pro
moted at USC more extensively
♦ BLOOD DRIVE, SEE PAGE 3
USC President John Palms, out to beat Clemson this year,
donates blood Thursday evening, photo by Andrew rogers
Taliban power shrinks as leader threatens U.S.
BY ELLEN KNICKMEYER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BANGI, AFGHANISTAN -
Northern alliance forces and
Pashtun tribesmen encircled two
of the Taliban’s last remaining
strongholds at opposite ends of
the country Thursday. The
Taliban’s supreme leader vowed
to fight to the death and to seek
the “extinction of America.”
Backed by U.S. warplanes, the
alliance laid siege to the northern
city of Kunduz, where the de
fenders include an estimated 2,000
to 3,000 foreigners loyal to Osama
bin Laden.
In the south, the Taliban clung
to tenuous control of its birth
place, Kandahar. Opposition
leader Hamid Karzai said his
sources told him there was “tur
moil” in the city; other sources
said local Pashtun tribesmen had
surrounded the city.
A U.S. official, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said
there were spurts of fighting near
the city center as the Pashtun
fighters advanced. Most of
Kandahar province, outside of the
city, is in the hands of anti
Taliban rebels, he said.
Gen. Tommy Franks, the U.S.
commander of the Afghanistan
campaign, said American special
forces were operating near
Kandahar. Inside the city, Franks
said, “we do see signs of some
fracturing” within the Taliban
ranks. Pashtuns are
Afghanistan’s largest ethnic
group, and served as the back
bone of the Taliban’s harsh five
year regime.
Pakistan strengthened its bor
der defenses closest to Kandahar
with tanks and extra troops, wor
ried that unrest — and bin Laden
supporters — could spill across
the frontier.
In other developments:
— Eight international aid
workers arrested three months ago
for preaching Christianity in
Afghanistan were reported in good
condition in Pakistan after being
helicoptered to safety by U.S. spe
cial forces. The women in the
group, including two Americans,
signaled to their rescuers by burn
ing the body-covering burqas they
had been forced to wear.
— U.S. Homeland Security
Director Tom Ridge confirmed
that documents that would be
helpful in making a nuclear de
vice were found in a building in
Kabul, described as an al-Qaida
safe house. But Ridge said the
documents contained informa
tion taken off the Internet that
could have been widely available
to people other than terrorists.
— In Washington, the
Pentagon said some senior
Taliban and al-Qaida leaders
were killed in airstrikes this
week, but had no evidence bin
Laden was among them. Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
told a news conference the United
States will find bin Laden even if
he leaves Afghanistan.
The Taliban supreme leader,
♦ AFGHANISTAN, SEE PAGE 3
uses PAST
Nov. 21,1987
The 12th-ranked Gamecocks
upset the eighth-ranked
Clemson Tigers in a
nationally televised football
game in Columbia.
WEATHER
Today Tomorrow
Mostly cloudy. Sunny,
68/46 73/45
INSIDE TODAY’S ISSUE
Harry Potter casts
spell on theaters
Highly anticipated movie
opens today. ♦ PAGE 7
I< USC-Clemson set
to kick off Saturday
Gamecocks try to stop losing
streak to Clemson. ♦ PAGE 10
ONLINE POLL
Out for blood
Do you plan on giving blood
this week?
YES 51%
NO 41%
MAYBE 8%