Reactions to Contemporary Activist-Scholars and the “Midwestern Mystique”:
A case study utilizing an evolving methodology in contentious contexts.

Education

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Sascha D. Meinrath

Unpublished Master's thesis

ca. 2000

Open Letter to Chief of Police Barbara O’Connor
Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Police

http://unitcrit.blogspot.com/2010/11/open-letter-to-chief-of-police-barbara.html

Open Letter to Chief of Police Barbara O’Connor
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
posted under campus ethics , campus police , open letter , race by Unit for Criticism
[The below post is an open letter to University of Illinois Chief of Police Barbara O’Connor which we publish at the request of several signatories. The letter responds to the use of the "Illini Alert" system by campus police.]


November 15, 2010

An Open Letter to Chief of Police Barbara O’Connor:

We write with grave concern about your recent use of the "Illini Alert" text‐messaging system on Monday, November 8, 2010 to report the assault in Forbes Hall and to search for the suspect in that incident.

The use of the system in this case was, at best, an overreaction to the incident, and, at worst, a misuse of police power that smacks of racial profiling. To tell every member of the campus community to call 911 if they see a “black male, salt/pepper hair, 40‐50 year old, 5’11, 170, med build” does not increase safety on our campus. On the contrary, through such a sweeping announcement, you have in fact put a considerable part of the campus community at risk, placing under suspicion valued colleagues, coworkers, students, and visitors solely on the basis of their race and gender. Given the local history of racial tensions, which seem to have increased dramatically over the past year, this kind of alert only exacerbates the very distrust that has been so corrosive on campus and in local communities. We believe that the use of electronic media such as text‐messaging and email to issue crime alerts has been profoundly counterproductive, with the accumulated effect of generating widespread fear and suspicion that all too often gets expressed through racial divisiveness.

The sexual assault of a student is a deeply serious matter and deserves a swift and thorough response by police and campus authorities. We are as concerned as anyone else on this campus for the safety of our students in the dorms and elsewhere. We also believe that it is important that such incidents be handled in ways that do not inspire panic or rely on racial stereotypes, but rather that educate students, faculty, and staff about the most likely scenarios for sexual assault and other crimes on our campus.

We condemn the use of the mass‐alert (text message) system to respond to such incidents. While it may be appropriate to use this technology to respond to rare cases of imminent widespread threat, such as a tornado or a bomb scare, the text‐alert system was completely inappropriate—and, indeed, reckless—in this case. We are extremely troubled that you could issue such an alert, given the appalling history of racial profiling in this country. We understand that the Clery Act requires the University to give timely warnings of crimes on our campus, but we believe that it is possible to meet that requirement via other available media. We expect you, as the police chief of a leading university, to take considerable care and responsibility when making a decision about when or if race should be mentioned in any communication. At a minimum, we urge you to use every opportunity to inform the public of the dangers of stereotyping and to remind us all of the tremendous contributions made by all racial and ethnic groups in our diverse campus community.

While you may have intended to protect students, faculty, and staff, instead you have done serious damage to the racial climate of our campus and local community. We want you to realize that electronic crime alerts, especially last Monday’s text message, undermine the ongoing and often difficult work that we do in our programs and organizations regarding race, gender, and sexual orientation, along with our daily efforts to make this campus a diverse, safe, and open‐minded place to learn and work.

We urge you to immediately revise your policy for issuing such alerts; to apologize to the campus community for this irresponsible use of police power; and to confer in meaningful and sustained ways with those of us who are committed to the pursuit of racial and gender justice and equity on our campus.

Sincerely,

Executive Committee of the Campus Faculty Association
Senate Committee on Equal Opportunity and Inclusion
Professor James Barrett, Chair, Department of History
Professor Merle L. Bowen, Director, Center for African Studies
Professor Jorge Chapa, Director, Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society
David W. Chih, Director, Asian American Cultural Center
Jennifer DeLuna, Assistant Director, La Casa Cultural Latina
Professor Jennifer Hamer, Faculty Co‐Chair, Black Faculty and Academic Professionals Alliance
Whitney Hamilton, President, Women of Color
Professor Dianne Harris, Director, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities
Professor Ronald L. Jackson, II, Head, Department of African American Studies
Rory G. James, Director, Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center
Veronica M. Kann, Assistant Director, La Casa Cultural Latina
Tony Laing, President, Black Graduate Student Association
Professor Isabel Molina, Director, Latina/Latino Studies Program
Pat Morey, Director, Women’s Resources Center
Leslie Morrow, Director, LGBT Resource Center
Professor Chantal Nadeau, Director, Gender and Women’s Studies Program
Professor Lisa Nakamura, Director, Asian American Studies Program
Ben Rothschild, Undergraduate‐Graduate Alliance
Stephanie Seawell, Co‐President, Gradate Employees Organization
Professor Siobhan Somerville, Co‐Chair, LGBT Advisory Committee
Regina Mosley Stevenson, Academic Professional Co‐Chair, Black Faculty and Academic Professionals Alliance
Katie Walkiewicz, Co‐President, Graduate Employees Organization
Professor Robert Warrior, Director, American Indian Studies Program
Amaziah Zuri, Chair, Students for a United Illinois

cc:
Robert Easter, Chancellor and Provost, University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign
Michael J. Hogan, President, University of Illinois
Joyce Tolliver, Chair, Senate Executive Committee, Academic Senate, University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign

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8 Comments
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Anonymous Rob Rushing said...

While I am in complete agreement with the "Open Letter"'s concerns about racial tension on campus, racial profiling, and the need to educate members of our community about racial stereotypes and their links to popular, and erroneous, ideas about crime, I don't agree with its conclusions about the Illini Alert regarding the Forbes Hall assault on November 8, and I have concerns about how the "Letter" represents both the crime and the police response to it. (I'll have to post this across two comments, since it's slightly too large.)

1) The "Open Letter" expresses a concern with racial profiling, but this seems somewhat misplaced. Racial profiling refers to the systematic presupposition of guilt on the part of a particular racial group. "Anyone who looks Latino is likely to be an illegal immigrant," or, "people who look 'Arabic' should be searched at airports because they are more likely to be terrorists." The logical fallacies at work in these forms of stereotyping are well known and fairly obvious. That said, however, the Forbes Hall assault represents something different: an actual crime was committed by a specific individual. The police know certain facts about the suspect: his sex, race, height, weight and build. These are not hypothetical characteristics of a potential and imaginary bogeyman, but an actual description of a concrete individual. One cannot help but notice that the "Open Letter" does not go on to cite the Illini Alert's description of the suspect's "non-puffy grey jacket," his "weathered boots," and "freckles or acne scars around temples and his ears--descriptions that also suggest that this is not a case of the generic "Unidentified Black Males" from The Sopranos who can be conveniently slotted in as the perpetrators of any and every crime. I am also concerned that the "Open Letter" distorts the wording of the original Alert (or at least, what is posted at the U of I police web site, which is what the "Letter" links to), which does not tell "every member of the campus community to call 911 if they see a 'black male, salt and pepper hair…'" In fact, the original Alert describes the individual, the crime, and the police response, before asking the recipient to "report any suspicious individuals by calling 911." In fact, every crime alert from the Chief of Police suggests that "suspicious individuals… should be reported to our regional dispatch center by calling 911." Will some irresponsible and racist people take this as a confirmation of their prejudices, or call 911 at the sight of every African American male near campus? Tragically, I don't doubt it, but I'm afraid those people are extremely clever at finding ways to confirm their prejudices, with or without the help of Illini Alerts.

November 16, 2010 5:41 PM
Anonymous Rob Rushing said...

2) Does this description--especially if read carelessly--fit a number of people who are hard-working, highly productive members of our campus community? Yes, but unfortunately so does any description. Should we have simply been told that the suspect was male, middle-aged and of a certain build? That, of course, would have simply left a much larger group of innocent individuals as possible suspects, and made any attempt to locate the suspect quickly--the reason for the use of the Illini Alert--less useful. The police have also released a sketch of a suspect in a recent "peeping Tom" case, and no doubt that sketch also resembles many people, but no one has expressed any concern about the many stereotypes it may perpetuate (about young men, about the kind of people who have mohawks, about economic class…). Obviously the factor that concerned the authors of the "Open Letter" is the race of the suspect (the Peeping Tom appears to be white), and I agree with them that race is special: for its continuing social, economic and political injustices, its history of being tied to sexuality and crime, and for many other reasons. I just think that one of our undergraduates had a big guy bust into her shower in the middle of the day, a guy who groped her and then hit her in the head--and I think our interest in catching the criminal and making sure it doesn't happen again trumps other concerns that appear to be ill-founded in this case.

3) Finally, the "Letter" seems to be particularly troubled by the use of the Illini Alert system. The use of the Alert system was, we are told, an "overreaction" to an "incident--such language seems to me, however, to belittle and diminish the gravity of the crime and the trauma it represents both to the victim, and to a significant portion of the campus population. We can agree that an overreaction to an incident would be the use of the Illini Alert system for burglary or vandalism, but its use for violent crimes, let alone violent sexual crimes, seems to me to be quite reasonable. I am prepared for the fact that we may disagree about this. My own take is that sexual violence directed against one individual produces a collective trauma that is in fact widespread, and we have had every indication since the Forbes Hall assault that the campus community as a whole has indeed been traumatized. More than by a bomb scare? Perhaps. Less than a tornado? Probably. The authors of the letter may legitimately disagree, but they should also recognize that this is not a clear-cut case of a "completely inappropriate and indeed reckless" warning, but an argument over degree.

November 16, 2010 5:44 PM
Blogger Unit for Criticism said...

The authors of the Open Letter have asked us to clarify that when the Unit for Criticism first formatted this post we included a link to the November 8 mass email (which we have since removed). The Open Letter was referring primarily to the 11/8 text message. The text message used the abbreviated description that the Open Letter cites.

We apologize for the confusion.

November 16, 2010 10:47 PM
Blogger Andrew said...

Wow, you professors are so far out-of-touch with reality it's absurd. The race of a suspect is a key identifying factor that will help ensure their apprehension--knowing if a suspect is white, black, latino, asian, or whatever instantly narrows down the search. Furthermore, the police are merely reporting the facts--there is no racial bias in these reports whatsoever. The fact of the matter is, black people commit crimes at a much higher rate than do white people. To try and cast this fact aside is to ignore reality.

This letter does nothing but discredit your own reputation. You professors really do live in a hole if you think that race has anything to do with these reports.

November 17, 2010 6:54 PM
Anonymous justin said...

yeah i disagree completely with you idiot professors, why do you think jails are overcrowded with black gang members. and i say this as a black person myself

November 17, 2010 7:00 PM
Comment deleted

This post has been removed by a blog administrator.

November 17, 2010 10:02 PM
Blogger Unit for Criticism said...

Andrew and Justin, welcome to Kritik. I am Lauren Goodlad, one of the moderators of this blog and Director of the Unit for Criticism. Please note the policy on the top righthand side of your screen which asks that you debate arguments rather than make personal remarks and refrain from abusive commentary. Justin, this means that something like "idiot" won't pass muster here so I will ask you to rephrase. Anonymous, we also ask that all posts be "signed," even if only with a consistent moniker. Also your comment unfortunately violates the policy I've just described. I will delete it for now but I sincerely welcome you to rephrase if you care to present your arguments in serious fashion. Many thanks. (LG)

November 17, 2010 10:54 PM
Anonymous Jenn said...

I think this letter was very well written and I am glad that a more formal statement has been made about this issue. Though race is also included in crime-alerts when perpetrators are White, the truth is that such a description does not prompt most people in the community to become extra suspicious of every White individual that then passes them; unfortunately, I argue that our society, and thus the UofI campus, has not yet reached a point where the same can be said for Black individuals. Considering the diversity on campus, adding race to crime-alerts is more likely to increase hurtful race relations than it is to increase the likelihood of finding these perpetrators.

Whether or not to include race in crime-alerts may not be a straight-forward, cut and dry issue, but I think it is a good thing that we are raising questions about this, and I hope that it prompts respectful and productive discussions.

Polar bear deconstruction - Smile Politely editorial

Police, Crime, Gangs

http://www.smilepolitely.com/opinion/polar_bear_deconstruction/

Full text (with comments)
Polar bear deconstruction

featured_post

Posted in OPINION by Joel Gillespie on Monday, November 8, 2010 at 5:59 am

“Polar bear hunting” has been scaring the hell out of white Champaign-Urbana for almost two months now. Reports of possibly-coordinated, race-motivated attacks by black males on their caucasian counterparts for purposes of sport have captivated the newspaper-devouring public. What in the world is happening? Have you perhaps been able to avoid the media coverage of these attacks, or need a refresher course? Let’s look at the paper of record:

“POLAR BEAR HUNTING” COVERAGE IN REVIEW

Over the course of four weeks from September 9 to October 6, the News-Gazette ran eight front-page stories regarding black-on-white battery incidents in Campustown and Champaign. Battery cases don’t generally get much coverage in the N-G (I’ll come back to that), but on September 6, a piece entitled “Information sought on aggravated batteries” appeared on page A-4. The Champaign Police Department was looking for information on two attacks in August involving groups of black assailants and white victims, both in Campustown. From then on, battery was front-page news:

1. September 9: “Senseless attacks appear to be linked” (titled “Unprovoked attacks appear to be linked“ in its online version). Following two bizarre attacks on pre-adolescent boys—one in Eisner Park and one in Clark Park—possible links are drawn to the August attacks in Campustown. CPD Sgt. Jim Rein puts a undeniably catchy name to this phenomenon: “Years ago, I can’t say a specific year, that was part of a local gang (rite) to see if you could knock out someone with one punch. They call it polar bear hunting.“ The N-G would later run a retraction regarding the use of the phrase, as Rein intended the phrase to describe events in past years and not necessarily describing these attacks in those words, but you can’t put a genie back in the bottle, as they say.
2. September 18: “Two Charged in attack on UI Campus,“ regarding arrests for a separate Campustown battery incident that occurred on September 17.
3. September 20: “Police chief to suspects: we’ll put an end to this,“ noting that two Urbana men had been arrested for aggravated battery and hate crime. CPD Chief R.T. Finney is quoted as saying, “We are familiar with what they’re doing and how they’re operating and we’re beginning to turn the tables on them. We’re basically hunting them.“ State’s Attorney Julia Rietz: “The most appropriate charge for them was aggravated battery and not hate crime. That’s because aggravated battery on a public way is a more serious offense than hate crime and hate crime is harder to prove.“
4. September 29: “The epitome of cowardice“ (or “Former TV weatherman victim of unprovoked attack” if you’re reading online), as Mike Sola was beaten following a Centennial football game, featuring this item: “(Earlier reports indicated a slang term of “polar bear hunting” for these attacks, but police officials say that term is not evident in the recent attacks.)“
5. October 2, 5 and 6: Arrests made of several teens for their role in the aggravated battery of Mr. Sola.
6. October 3: “Embarrassing to our community“ (or “No evidence of coordination in series of attacks” online), featuring statements from local black business owner Seon Williams condemning the attacks. The article included a map (right, click here to embiggen), provided by the CPD, showing locations of “recent battery cases reported in Champaign.“ The article features this statement: “Since Aug. 15, there have been 20 attacks on white males, mostly in the campus area, committed mostly by groups of young black men.“

An editorial, published the following day, October 4, in the N-G, titled “It’s obvious what assaults are about,“ repeats the assertion that “All the victims have been white males and all but one of the attackers have been black males. (One was a Hispanic male).“ Also in the editorial, it’s noted that “[the phrase ‘polar bear hunting’] ... was resurrected by the news media when the recent series of attacks started to show an undeniable pattern.“ If you’re the news media outlet that did the resurrecting, it takes a certain lack of self-awareness to blame “the news media” writ large for that.

Some questions at this point:

* Holy cow, is that true? All of the battery cases reported in Champaign between August 15 and October 4 were perpetrated by black males on white males, except one in which the attacker was hispanic?
* 20 attacks in a period of about six weeks in Champaign sounds like a lot, especially since I’ve been told about several of them in breathless front-page newspaper accounts emphasizing their racial component. But how does that look in context? How many cases of battery and aggravated battery would be expected during that time period, and what is the usual demographic distribution?
* These incidents being reported are all in Champaign. Why doesn’t Urbana have similar problems?
* I’ve heard that the north end of Champaign has problems with crime (in fact, I seem to recall reading about many of those crimes in the N-G on a daily basis), but according to that map, it’s the safest part of town, with nary a battery case to be found. Have my thoughtless perceptions been couched in racial prejudice?

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE MAP

The first question is pretty easy to answer. If you look more closely at the map above, you’ll see that two of the incidents involve victims who are black males, one is an asian male, and there’s an additional hispanic male in a group with three white males who were victimized (the only incident noted as involving multiple victims). Also, the way it was phrased in the editorial made it sound like one of the attackers was a hispanic male, when in fact one of the victims of an individual attack was, and none of the attackers were. Additionally, a subsequent N-G report noted that the victim of the September 12 battery on the 500 block of E. Green was of Polynesian descent, whereas he’s described as a white male on the map.

So, that’s actually only 14 out of the 20 incidents that are “attacks on white males.“ It’s possible that a 100% correlation in a tiny sample size could imply causation, but 70%—especially in a community that is 73.2% white—doesn’t mean much of anything.

The N-G editorial board, Mary Schenk, and whomever her editor is can be given a pass for not being aware of the one victim who was Polynesian. However, missing the other five victims of color is due to either miserable reading comprehension or an over-enthusiastic desire to keep riding the narrative that they’d been presenting to the public. Or perhaps a mixture of the two.

DIGGING INTO THE NUMBERS

In order to answer the rest of the questions, we engaged the Champaign Police Department for more information. Chief Finney, in an email from October 15 in which he’d discussed sending us the updated battery map, said, “I could also send you the various demographics of specific crime codes for 2009. Those would be separated by crime, IE: Robbery, Agg. Battery, etc… It is a hand count so it breaks down only by white, African American, Asian, Hispanic.“

Gary Spear, CPD Crime Analyst, provided us an updated map of battery cases in Champaign (download the pdf here) on October 19. This map included five subsequent incidents in addition to the 20 on the map published in the N-G. They were: a “sexual orientation related” battery of a white male by two unknown-race males at 6th and Green; two white female victims battered by three black females at the Clybourne; an attempted robbery of a white male by two males, one black and one unknown, at 6th and Healey; a black female victim battered and had her clothes stolen by three black males at 100 S. Country Fair; and a victim of unspecified race battered by four black males in the lot behind the Highdive in downtown Champaign.

Spear also provided a list of numbers of crimes by type in Champaign for 2009 and 2010 on October 20. For instance, there were 347 cases of aggravated battery and 217 cases of battery in Champaign in 2009, for a total of 564 (an average of 47 per month). In the first nine months of 2010, there have been an average of 47 batteries and aggravated batteries per month. (Please note that at this rate, it would be expected for there to be about 66 incidents of battery and aggravated battery in the time period (42 days) covered by the map which appeared in the N-G.)

These items were helpful, but didn’t provide the location or demographic information to put the recent attacks into context, and the CPD stalled and finally balked at providing additional statistics. So, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request with both the City of Champaign and the City of Urbana for location and demographics of assailant(s) and victim(s) for all batteries and aggravated batteries for 2006 through 2010.

Urbana supplied the information requested in a timely manner, producing a 138-page printout, and even the data in spreadsheet form upon additional request. The results were eye-opening and very consistent from year to year:

* Urbana experiences slightly more batteries and aggravated batteries than Champaign (an average of 652.6 per year from 2006 to 2010)
* Demographically, the incidents break down as follows: black on black: 280 per year on average; white on white: 133 per year; black on white: 138 per year; white on black: 30 per year; and other combinations or unknown assailants account for the balance (71 per year) of the incidents.
* Phrasing it differently: blacks commit three-fourths of batteries in Urbana, but a white person is just as likely to get battered by a white person as they are a black person, and the number of blacks who are victims of battery is roughly equal to the number of whites. Download a pdf of the chart shown below here.
* The variation from year to year was pretty small, but 2008 notably had increased rates of both black on white (169) and white on black (60) incidents. Download a pdf of the data summary here.

I did not map out the Urbana incidents because of time constraints and lack of ambition, although location information was supplied. If anyone wants to take a crack at it, shoot me an email and I’ll send you the spreadsheet. (UPDATE—11/17/10: Thanks to Tim Green, there are now more maps of this data available than you could ever want.)

Meanwhile, I’d received no response to the Champaign FOIA after a week, and I stopped by the police station last Wednesday to check on it. The records department supplied two pages with maps, one for 2007-2010 cases and one for 2005-2010 cases. You can download both maps here, and the 2005-2010 map is shown below.

I was told by records desk personnel that it was against CPD protocol to supply demographic data for crimes. When I told them that Urbana had supplied the data, I was politely told that I was not in Urbana. An email request to Rene Dunn of the CPD for an explanation for the denial of this portion of the FOIA request—as well as an explanation for the reasoning behind supplying demographic data for crimes on the battery map but not for the bulk of them—was not returned.

Because of the huge number of data points displayed on this map, it’s difficult to get an exact count for how many battery and aggravated battery incidents occur in each part of town, but it’s clear that the north end and Campustown see most of the cases. It’s very unusual that there were no incidents north of Church Street on the battery map printed in the N-G (nor on the updated map supplied to us).

Combined with the low number of incidents catalogued on the “recent battery cases” map (compared with the number of batteries and aggravated batteries expected for that time period), the possibility exists that data was selected for public consumption which fits a particular narrative. I also asked the CPD about this discrepancy in the same email, which was not returned, about the FOIA denial.

MORE RECENT EVENTS

For what it’s worth, there have been at least four incidents of battery or assault involving caucasian assailants in Campustown reported in the N-G in the past two weeks.

At right is Christopher Thamm, arrested in the parking deck beating linked above. The newspaper report didn’t identify his race, but I figured it was worth the trouble to file a FOIA request for his mugshot.

I would really like to begin referring to white-on-white violence as “cracker jacking.“ I think that it’s at least as catchy as “polar bear hunting,“ and more descriptive. Who’s with me?

Also, on October 27, a white Urbana teen was beaten by a black teen who told him, “It’s because you’re white.“

IN CONCLUSION

There is a lot of racial tension in our community for reasons both recent and historical; that much is undeniable. There’s also a clear problem with battery and aggravated battery: there were 691 aggravated batteries in Champaign and Urbana in 2009, and compared to Bureau of Justice statistics for 2008 in Illinois, a community with a population of 112,616 (according to the most recent census figures) should expect to have 341. These are serious crimes which need to be taken seriously, and the frequency with which they occur (three batteries and aggravated batteries, every day of the year, on average) is a real problem.

However, there’s a reason you don’t read front-page stories about each of these three incidents every day: most (about 80%, if Urbana demographic data can be extrapolated to Champaign) don’t fit an inflammatory narrative of black-on-white. Media-driven hysteria which assigns a storyline to statistically-insignificant small sample sizes, cherry-picked data, and attempts to assign motivation and connection to crimes which are ultimately appear to be unrelated (except in their demographic makeup), is an extremely unhealthy way to approach these issues.
38 comments
Rob McColley avatar featured_post
Rob McColley
11/08/10 at 11:46
#1

white on white: 133 per year; black on white: 138 per year

See, we hate us just as much as they hate us. So we’re even.

BTW, I believe “cracker jacking” also refers to self-abuse.
Mark Laughlin avatar featured_post
Mark Laughlin
11/08/10 at 11:58
#2

Joel,

On the plus side, I’m glad you categorized this article in the Opinion rather than the News section.

However, your article reads to me as a good example of the ability of many people (often liberal white people) to rationalize, excuse and minimalize pretty much any criminal behavior, as long as the criminal is black.

In my opinion, the coverage of these attacks in the Gazette has been much more grounded in reality than your assessment above.

It seems kind of transparent to me that you started with a thesis - the polar bear attacks aren’t REALLY racially motivated, that’s just racist Gazette propoganda - and then went after any statistics you could find to support it.
username
David Foster Wallflower
11/08/10 at 11:04
#3

1. Nowhere in this do I see Joel attempting to excuse assault and battery. If it has been “minimized”, it’s only due to proper placement within the larger context of battery cases, something that, in my opinion, gets us a little closer to reality and serves to highlight the problem of violence across the community rather than dismiss individual accounts.

2. If Joel is starting with a thesis and looking for statistics to back that up…well, then I’d say that he and The News Gazette are on pretty equal footing in that regard. And at first glance, Joel’s statistics are looking more “grounded” than the Gazette’s.

Finally, if I were desperate to prove that there’s no basis in the intended assertion of black on white crime to the point that I’d cherry-pick all my statistics — I wouldn’t end my article with an account of a black teenager saying, “It’s because your white.“
Doug Hoepker avatar featured_post
Doug Hoepker
11/08/10 at 11:07
#4

Mark, I gotta agree with Wallflower. Joel went to the extent of seeking (and getting, to some degree) a significant amount of detailed information, then processing that information, before coming to a conclusion. So what if he started with a hunch? (And I’m not convinced he did, other than the hunch that the N-G was doing a suspect job reporting these crimes.) That’s how columnists typically work. The N-G editorial presents its hunch without so much as lifting a finger to prove it right or wrong.
Tracy Nectoux avatar featured_post
Tracy Nectoux
11/08/10 at 11:20
#5

David: If Joel is starting with a thesis and looking for statistics to back that up…

Doug: Joel went to the extent of seeking ... a significant amount of detailed information, then processing that information, before coming to a conclusion. So what if he started with a hunch?


Isn’t that the way the Scientific Method works?
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Edward Burch
11/08/10 at 11:31
#6

I challenge any reader to point to an instance of rationalizing or excusing of any of the crimes described in this article.
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Tim
11/08/10 at 11:39
#7

Joel,
Thanks for taking the time and trouble to put this together.
Mark,
You misread the thesis and the poitn of the article. Joel’s point is not whether or not the individual attacks are racially motivated. Some clearly are, but for other it is impossible to show. Nothing here excuses even one of the actual crimes. Joels piece looks at the centrol role played by the NG in blowing this entire story way, way, way out of proportion, and in presenting a skewed picture of reality by focusing on certain events (black on white assaults) over others.
That is incredibly important in a community with racial tensions as high as ours. We don’t need irresponsible NG reporing inflaming the community. These attacks did occur, and some were racially motivated. The experience of individual victims is terrible, and the crimes themselves are inexcusable.
But crime in our community is overwhelmingly not racially motivated black on white crime. In presenting so many stories and editorials that suggest this much, along with giving a name to it, all while minimizing reporting of other crimes and overall data that might put this in perspective, the NG took an active role in creating the problem and how the community should feel about it.
That role deserves to be criticized.
username featured_post
Anna Barnes
11/08/10 at 11:09
#8

Thanks for shedding some light on this Joel.
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Jose Rodriguez
11/08/10 at 11:20
#9

Joel,
I totally agree with you on how media is being bias on this issue, namely publishing articles that is relevant to the theme of their interest, which is black on white. In fact, your data has proven your thought to be correct.
I am pretty much a conspiracy type of guy, and below are some of the questions that pop-up in my mind.
1) Why doesn’t champaign release demographic data of crimes while urbana does? Could it be an order from the ones in power?
2) Why did the media choose the theme “black on white” instead of the other way around? I understand the fact that about 73% of champaign is white and choosing such a title could possibly boost the sale of the newspaper, but could it be more than that? Could it be the ones in power using the media as a tool to brainwash us to believe that’s what’s going on?
3) Last but not least, who would benefit the most out of all these? The individuals who wrote the articles? Newspaper company? Our community? Extremist who plan on starting something? Or the ones in power?
4) I still haven’t read any news about the mayor’s thought on the issue. Could he be waiting for the right moment to speak to the public so that he could gain support when he makes a move in the future? Could it be a republican vs democrat thing that we are being dragged into?
“http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/ct-met-champaign-mayor-0418-20100416,0,2577579.story”
(It’s a link to an article about how the mayor didn’t believe our president to be an American.)
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Duncan
11/08/10 at 11:25
#10

An interesting article. It’s interesting to see how these stories fit in with everything else that we don’t hear about.
It would be interesting if it was somehow categorize the assaults,etc. based on some sort of motivation. How many of these assaults start as two (or more) jackasses arguing? How many take place as part of a robbery (do they count that as assault or is it separate?)? How many are just some random guy getting jumped?
I realize that such information is hard to come by, but since there seem to be so many possibilities, having some context would be interesting.
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Gail Taylor
11/08/10 at 11:48
#11

Does anyone else find it intriguing that the number of attacks by black youths in the community have been on the rise since Kiwane Carrington was fatally shot by a Champaign police officer? I don’t recall seeing the News Gazette explore the possible correlation between the shooting and increase in number of attacks or other news sources. I’m aware that proving this tyep of cause-and-effect is hard to do but also think it’s worth considering due to interrelated and overlapping social relationships that exist among members of the Champaing and Urbana communities.
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Gail Taylor
11/08/10 at 11:51
#12

Could you add a spellchecker to the commenting feature available on this site? ;-)
Tracy Nectoux avatar featured_post
Tracy Nectoux
11/08/10 at 11:23
#13

Hi Gail. We do have a spellcheck feature. It’s that little “ABC” box furthest right of the coding options.
Joel Gillespie avatar featured_post
Joel Gillespie
11/08/10 at 11:50
#14

@Gail: That’s certainly the subtext with much of this coverage. Without demographic data for crimes committed in Champaign, I couldn’t speak to that directly. There’s been no upward trend in numbers of batteries and aggravated batteries by black perpetrators in Urbana in 2010. Black on white attacks are actually slightly down, and black on black attacks are slightly up. The total number of batteries and aggravated batteries in Champaign are steady from 2009 to 2010, but without the CPD releasing any more information, any conclusions based on that information will be anecdotal and prone to confirmation bias. The amount of news coverage surrounding black-on-white battery cases has certainly skyrocketed in recent months, leading to the perception that the actual number of incidents has increased. One of the points of this article was to demonstrate the lack of statistical basis for that point of view.
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Robert Knilands
11/08/10 at 11:02
#15

I think you proved your case about the N-G mishandling some things, but I don’t think you have disproved any motives for these crimes.
For example, crime was high in 2009, too. An equally high rate of batteries in 2010 doesn’t disprove anything. Maybe crime would have fallen but for these assaults.
You have a ways to go here. N-G mess-ups are not exactly the Holy Grail.
Also, to Gail, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for the N-G to correlate much of anything. Their coverage of almost all issues is reactionary at best.
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johnny
11/08/10 at 11:03
#16

Stupid News-Gazette. Let’s all walk alone late at night to prove how full of it The News-Gazette is.
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guest
11/08/10 at 11:59
#17

what have you proved exactly? you sound like an apologist. just because the NG screwed up some of the information intentionally or unintentionally doesn’t prove or disprove anything. maybe they should have not used the term polar bear hunting but what does that have to do with the possibility that these attacks are actually racially motivated? just because there are other violent attacks happening in the community says nothing about the possibility of an actual group of people perpetrating these crimes based on race.
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anonymous
11/08/10 at 11:15
#18

This is the best analysis regarding this issue that I’ve seen yet. Thanks, Joel. I ask the following in an effort to better understand and not to suggest any conclusions. Also because statistics are not intuitive for me…
If the population of CU is somewhere around 70% “white”, then don’t the Urbana demographics show that batteries are quite disproportionately committed by “blacks”? And that the ratio of “black on white” crime vs “white on black” crime is also way out of proportion? In other words - using rounded estimates - there are roughly three times as many white residents in CU, yet “black on white” batteries (in Urbana, at least) are three times as likely as “white on black” batteries. Isn’t that the opposite of what we’d expect if race was in no way whatsoever an issue, or at least a marker of some other issue?
This disparity strikes me as important - not because it shows that “black on white” (or any other) batteries are explicitly or consciously racially motivated (I don’t think stats can tell us what offenders were thinking), but because it shows that “blacks” are much more likely to commit a battery at all, for whatever reason. If we are looking for racially-related causes to this phenomenon, perhaps we shouldn’t be focusing on the concept of “hate crimes”, but rather on the subtle, historic, and persistent forms of racism that create social conditions in which blacks are more likely to commit (or at least be apprehended for) battery. Sure, Kiwane’s killing may be a part of that, but maybe we should expand our scope to think about income and educational disparities, as well as culturally reinforced psychological biases, that create these social patterns.
I guess I’m saying something like: The NG is using the absolute wrong data set and sensationalizing the issue. That’s indefensible. But maybe we (as a community, not our conservative newspaper) really do need to ask why “blacks” are so much more likely to commit battery than “whites”, relative to the population ratio of those two groups. Instead of arguing that this disparity really doesn’t exist, should we instead recognize that it is the case and exert some serious effort to figuring out why that is and how we can reverse the trend byh taking positive action?
Or am I totally misinterpreting the stats?
[PS: I use quotes above because I highly doubt that all ofenders and victims fit nicely into the categories wea re discussing.]
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J Hannah
11/08/10 at 11:40
#19

Thanks for researching and writing this, Joel.
John Steinbacher avatar featured_post
John Steinbacher
11/08/10 at 11:40
#20

The most depressing thing revealed to me in the numbers listed above (and by looking up the racial demographics of Urbana), something that I guess isn’t completely shocking — if you are black in Urbana you are over 4 times more likely to be a victim of an assault, regardless of who is committing it. I’m guessing the situation in Champaign is somewhat similar.
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Bubba Bourbon
11/08/10 at 11:43
#21

A few thoughts for discussion:
1. It would take quite an exhaustive review of police records, but how many of the assaults last year, or in previous years, involved more than one african-american on a lone white male? I think that stat would make or break the debate on whether or not the N-G is sensationalizing something. You can compare stat numbers about assaults all you want, but I would like to see a comparison of apples to apples.
2.Anonymous makes some interesting points, although I don’t know if I agree with them all. I did however, recently read this news story, and thought it probably plays a role in some of the things anonymous is describing:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UNWED_BIRTHS_72_PERCENT?SITE=OHTOL&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
3. Bottom line is crime is happening in our streets and across our great Nation. Blaming, poor reporting on by both sides of the isle, finger-pointing, sympathy, the judicial system and/or fear aren’t going to solve the problem.
Jason Z. avatar
Jason Z.
11/09/10 at 11:00
#22

I think you’re using faulty logic when saying that 70% of the assaults are on white males, and this isn’t out of the ordinary for a community that’s 73.2% white. Your population for that sample should be the total assaults in Champaign, not the racial composition for the community.

We don’t have demographic information for the assaults in Champaign, but assuming that the demographics of assault are equal for Champaign and Urbana, and using the data Joel provided from the City of Urbana we can expect the percentage of total assaults to play out like this:
Black assaults Black 43%
White assaults White 20%
Black assaults White 21%
White assaults Black 5%
Unknown 11%
So in the time period analyzed by the News-Gazette, the number of black assaulting white incidents increases by ~50 percentage points from what is expected. This leaves me with a number of questions…Does this represent a significant increase in race related violence? Is this a blip in the data that will even out over time? Is this an unexpected number of incidents for the time period in question? And from a policy standpoint, if this does represent a significant uptick in violence at what point is it incumbent on the police to say something about it to keep the populace informed of an observed trend?

Looking at the data this way makes it seem as if there was some sort of an increase in black assaulting white violence at the time of the News-Gazette articles. I’m making assumptions here and I’m not a criminologist, so I’ll leave further analysis or criticism to others. And of course, this is probably a good time to throw out the old line about lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Joel Gillespie avatar featured_post
Joel Gillespie
11/09/10 at 11:35
#23

@Jason: You can draw your own conclusions, but I’ll just point out again that there were less than one-third the number of incidents on the CPD battery map published in the N-G as would have been expected for the time period examined (20 vs. 66), and that the geographic distribution of the crimes was not what was usual for such crimes over the past five years.
@anonymous, et.al.: African-americans are certainly over-represented on both the giving and receiving ends of these crimes. It’s a very relevant part of the story. Thank you for calling attention to it.
Rob McColley avatar featured_post
Rob McColley
11/09/10 at 11:57
#24

I believe this to be an appropriate juncture for me to demand reparations.
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SF
11/09/10 at 11:52
#25

It’s time for a logic break: the flaw in the News Gazette reporting was twofold - 1) that incomplete statistics were presented selectively to portray an incomplete story about a complex issue; and 2) that the incomplete story is a narrative concerning the “motivation” of certain violent crimes in the area.
I am particularly concerned with the latter issue, motivation. Numbers regarding the occurrence of crime do not provide substantive information, direct or indirect, about the subjective field of motivation - what and why people want and do things. If commenters and the public at large want to discuss the topic of what motivates these attacks, they need to interview the attackers and ask them why they committed the crimes, and they need to be ready, in a posture of listening, for more than one answer. Until then, opinions on racial motivation are at best opinions and at worst, biased speculative assumptions without statistical or sociological rigor.
Thank you, Joel, for addressing this serious issue seriously by doing research, publishing _more complete_ statistics (statistics are never totally complete), and by calling attention to the alarmist rhetoric being used. Your article - which is actually more appropriately news than opinion - reveals that there are some racial patterns in the local assault statistics, but mainly that attackers are more likely to be black, and victims are about equally likely to be white or black. To pretend or believe that white victims deserve more protection or media attention than black victims, or that assault is primarily motivated by racial tension and not by other overlapping factors, is to be a racist. Perhaps not a violent one, but someone who employs irrational fear and assumption to make spurious conclusions that assault us all intellectually, regardless of race. Is that what people aspire to be and to do? And if so, what “motivates” that?
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Robert Knilands
11/09/10 at 11:56
#26

No offense, SF, but that’s crazy talk, particularly this: “If commenters and the public at large want to discuss the topic of what motivates these attacks, they need to interview the attackers and ask them why they committed the crimes, and they need to be ready, in a posture of listening, for more than one answer.“
So you think they are not only going to admit to the crime, but also provide a complete explanation as to why it was committed? Seriously?
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SF
11/09/10 at 11:15
#27

Since you asked - Yes, I mean that seriously in the sense that until you try to ask, you can’t say you really looked in every place you could for an answer. There is no guaranteeing what the results will be or that they will follow the same pattern for every person… but after all, that is why assumption should be avoided in the first place. I’ll accept that demanding more out of ourselves and our fellow human beings may be considered “crazy” by some, but I will continue to do it, anyway, and if you were to ask me about my motivations, I wouldn’t consider them so crazy and I’d probably give you a more complete explanation than you wanted (and a less complete explanation than I wanted). Therein lies the problem in general - people have limits on what they want to hear and what they want to believe, but they don’t disclose those limits before they make their proscriptive statements. I appreciate that you that you mean no offense by your response, and I likewise mean no offense with mine. If anything, I appreciate the opportunity to clarify my idea.
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anonymous
11/10/10 at 11:58
#28

an addendum to #18 (that brings up more questions than answers):
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?src=me&ref=general
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Kerry Pimblott
11/14/10 at 11:12
#29

Excellent piece Joel. I really appreciate you providing this and I have sent it on to folks that I know would find your FOIA findings helpful in explaining recent events.
I think the other key piece is that the “Polar Bear” frame is based on the assumption that these supposedly coordinated/correlated attacks had no motive other than race. The NG map belies that claim since several were robbery attempts and, therefore, irrespective of folks race should not be considered as evidence of the larger narrative.
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Robert Knilands
11/14/10 at 11:04
#30

“The NG map belies that claim since several were robbery attempts and, therefore, irrespective of folks race should not be considered as evidence of the larger narrative.“
Yet there were also attacks that were not robberies.

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melissa mitchell
11/15/10 at 11:29
#31


<div>
in the “who asked me?“ dept., i realize this will be a decidedly un-hip/old-fart, likely unwelcome response to your investigative editorial, or whatever this piece might be labeled. nonetheless, since i typically find it impossible to keep my mouth shut when i have an opinion ...
i’m sorry, but after 30 years of reading one after another C-U “alternative” bash the N-G’s reporting, i just find this whole premise (N-G, evil; alternative, good) wearisome. yes, the N-G’s editor/publisher/president is an undeniably stodgy conservative who doesn’t reflect “our” views. gee, news flash! U.S. media is owned and run by conservative white men! stop the presses! read what you will into what your local daily newspaper publishes, curse it among your friends and neighbors (as i’m sometimes inclined to do among mine) and please, move on. get over yourselves, already. would it be too much to ask for SP to just REPORT, DAMN IT? (or editorialize, as the case may be, without out the overwrought “us vs. them” supertext?)
you may have a legitimate, misreported-by-local-print/broadcast-media story here. or not. it’s really hard to tell because your lede is buried.
meanwhile, i suggest that you consider walking a mile in the shoes of a real, live journalist, i.e., try daily reporting on for size. the results might be humbling.
</div>

Rob McColley avatar featured_post
Rob McColley
11/15/10 at 11:39
#32

I think it’s a fine rant, Melissa. Personally, I encourage you to open your mouth when you have an opinion.

I disagree about “objective” or “straight” news reporting. It doesn’t exist. You seem to concede that point while also perpetuating the ethos that bore it.

The olde tyme admonition about reporting “just the facts” is outdated because the impetus for it (particularly the “scarcity” concept in broadcasting) disappeared in the wake of new technologies.

SP promotes a variety of voices from various points on the spectrum. To the extent that each voice can buttress its contention with supporting facts, the reader should be able to discern the truth via careful, independent evaluation of the arguments.

You’ll always get a better understanding of history from biography, rather than textbook.
Seth Fein avatar featured_post
Seth Fein
11/15/10 at 11:47
#33

@“MelissaMitchell”—

Thank you for your “rant” — it’s a welcomed one. And it kind of illustrates the role that SP.com is supposed to play in the world of C-U’s sometimes tepid, half-assed, frequently-misappropriated reporting.

But there is something that you should know, something you should walk away with, as you are screaming at us about how “we should become actual journalists for a day!“ or to JUST REPORT, DAMMIT!“:

That’s not our job. It’s not our role. Of course, it can be, and there have been times where a few of our writers have done straight news pieces akin to something that the N-G would write, but on the whole, that’s not who we are.

That’s why this website isn’t called, “Champaign-Urbana’s Online Newspaper.“ We’re NOT a newspaper. We don’t have beat reporters. We don’t have a “staff.“ No one is listening to the police scanner, and certainly, no one is being assigned any stories on which to report.

We are, to be certain, a collection of wayward writers living and working in Champaign-Urbana, who care enough about this community to help create an alternative voice to the “mainstream” media through passionate and sometimes extremely sophomoric writing.

We are chemists, engineers, stay-at-home-Dads, photographers, lawyers, librarians, tech assistants, promoters — that’s what WE DO for a living.

What we do at Smile Politely is different than what the reporters at The News-Gazette do. Please, remember that. It’s not fair to compare the two.

Your screaming at us to walk in the shoes of a journalist would be an admirable bellow, except for the fact that you are extrapolating our “role” in the community based on what YOU want from us as opposed to what we ACTUALLY are.

What Joel did here is simple: he highlighted a couple of facts, or facts left out, of what the NEWSPAPER — you know, the one that actually stakes a claim as being a SOURCE for NEWS — “reported” on. And he did it with research, and with YES — a certain perspective.

Now, I’ll let Joel speak for himself, on that issue entirely, but from my perspective, the fact that, as you state, “after 30 years of reading one after another C-U “alternative” bash the N-G’s reporting,“ — well, that might speak volumes about the truth.

I recognize that nothing is going to be perfect, but if you can step back from your perspective on the N-G (it’s evident that you are closely tied in), you might see that there is a definitive reason that people find the reporting in the Gazoo to be so troubling AT TIMES.

And please, keep that in mind. It’s only AT TIMES. Much of the time, the reporting is sound, fair, and well-researched. I love writers like Thilmony, Merli, Des Garennes, and the like. =)

But for whatever it’s worth, isn’t this right here a valuable moment? The fact that this is even being discussed in a forum like this one? It likely wasn’t OK to classify these attacks in such a way that inspired controversy, but it was done, and now, the community is calling them out, discussing it, and looking to what comes next.

It’s a proud moment for me, as a co-founder of the magazine.

Now THAT is America. Right there. Boom.
Joel Gillespie avatar featured_post
Joel Gillespie
11/15/10 at 11:46
#34

@Kerry/Robert: Speaking to the robbery/battery issue, it’s worth noting that (at least in the last two years) there are more than five cases of battery and aggravated battery for every case of robbery or armed robbery in Champaign. (564 cases of battery and agg. batt. in 2009, 428 in 2010 through September; 105 cases of robbery and armed robbery in 2009, 79 through 9/30/10) When people want to steal things in Champaign, they’re much more likely to burglarize a home or vehicle (1,117 cases in 2009) than mug someone on the street. So, pointing to the fact that many of these recent attacks didn’t (or did, for that matter) involve robbery isn’t really a relevant point in the grand scheme of the number of people who are beaten up. I’m not qualified to get into the psychology of why one person punches another, but at least in our community, financial gain doesn’t seem to be a prime motivator.

@MelissaMitchell: Would I be wrong in suspecting that you didn’t read the (whole) article? Sorry for “burying the lede,“ but there’s a lot of context that one would or wouldn’t have depending on how much they pay attention to the N-G, and I wanted to make sure my cards were on the table and that everyone understood where I was coming from. It’s not an inverted-pyramid news piece, it’s a magazine-length research article, and I gave my readers enough credit that they could skip over the recap at the beginning if they had been reading the paper every day throughout. I’d make some sort of condescending remark about shortened attention spans of the younger, internet-addled generation, but you’ve already established yourself as older than me.

It’s certainly not productive to just bash on the N-G because they’re unhip, or stodgy, or whatever, but when they get their facts wrong, present information out of the larger context, fan the flames of racial tension with selective reporting, and present cherry-picked evidence of a trend that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, I think it’s the duty of the alternative press to call them on it. Yes, they do this every day as their job, but when they do their job poorly, then there needs to be some accountability.
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Robert Knilands
11/15/10 at 11:38
#35

My response was aimed at what sounded like another attempt to disregard any and all motives because a portion of data did not agree with those motives. But I’m just about done playing logical chess with the crime issue. The campus area has problems to resolve, and I don’t think a sociology lecture is going to fix them.
Regarding the criticism of the N-G: I don’t agree with some things SP writes. This article and some of the subsequent discussion are among them.
The irritating thing with the N-G, though, is the apparent disregard for anything approaching objectivity for some issues. Rob McColley makes the valid point that no outlet is entirely unbiased.
But the N-G makes little to no attempt in many cases to mask this. I have little patience for trying to sort through the “facts” of an article to figure out which are valid and which are part of an agenda.
Also, the paper has been 180 degrees off with an increasing frequency. A few articles were clearly entered into with a pre-conceived notion, facts be damned.
It is true that many alternative publications have appeared in C-U and then died. That in itself, though, does not make all of them non-credible.
Finally, as someone who was once a “real” journalist, I think the retort of “You don’t know how hard we work!!!!!!“ gets a little tired. (Sports people are notorious for making this excuse, by the way. They are adept at compartmentalizing people into 4-5 groups and then dismissing the concerns of each group. It’s very entertaining but not conducive to improvement.)
To me, journalists’ performances were like a mildly difficult college class. Some people cared enough to push themselves, and they generally did the best, although they also got more work dumped on them. Others worked when they felt like it, but they slacked a little, too, probably to avoid getting more work. Then you had the people who did the bare minimum to pass.
Also, there are/were some hideously awful “writers” hanging out in newsrooms. They could not write a complete sentence, much less turn in a professional article. Based on some of what I see on the Internet, I assume that has not changed. Yet they are somehow always protected by some manager in the workplace. I have various theories on this, but I think many people realized very quickly that they weren’t getting an “F” if they misspelled a source’s name.
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millie wink
11/15/10 at 11:37
#36

Late to the game, but anyway, thanks very much for this work, Joel. It’s important and worth doing because SOMEONE needs to point out the white bias of the major print “news” source in this town. They seem reluctant to print such critiques in their own opinion pages.
Rob McColley avatar featured_post
Rob McColley
11/16/10 at 11:41
#37

“What happened?“ moaned the student, groggily rubbing the apple-sized bump on the back of his head.

“White bias in the media, son,“ answered the cop. “Did you see their faces?“ he added. “Were they wearing fedoras?“

#38

Rob wins!!
ps-the bias has gotten so bad, C-U has had to bring in extra troops, of other ethnicities, from distant lands such as rantoul to fight the bias. I’d reference the story but don’w want to be blasted for linking to such a racist, poorly-written rag.

Joel Gillespie

Smile Politely

2010

Black Faculty and Academic Professionals Alliance webpage internet archive

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.uiuc.edu/ro/BFAPA/

Three-part series on Project 500

http://www.dailyillini.com/news/2008/10/21/how-project-500-shaped-diversity-on-campus

http://media.dailyillini.com/media/2008/10/21_500/500.mov

How Project 500 shaped diversity on campus
Paolo Cisneros Contact me
Melissa Silverberg Editor in Chief Contact me
Posted: October 20th, 2008 - 11:00 PM
Updated: September 19th, 2009 - 8:08 PM
Tagged with: Clarence Shelley, Person Attributes, Person Career, Person Communication, Quotation, News
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A three-part series examining the issue of race on campus during the 40th anniversary of Project 500.

Clarence Shelley first arrived at the University on a quiet day in July with the intention of changing the institution forever. Forty years later, he can't help but smile when he recalls the naivete of it all.

Editor's note: This is the first of a three-part series examining the issue of race on campus during the 40th anniversary of Project 500, a program that brought 500 black students to the University in 1968.

Clarence Shelley first arrived at the University on a quiet day in July with the intention of changing the institution forever.

Forty years later, he can't help but smile when he recalls the naivete of it all.

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Student, director recall historic event

Click to view a video.

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Project 500 in 1968

Click to view photos.

Shelley was contracted by the University in the summer of 1968 to direct the Special Educational Opportunities Program. The initiative aimed to bring more than 500 low-income black students to the University in an effort to increase racial diversity during a period when the United States found itself bitterly divided over issues like the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.

With time, the program, which became commonly known as Project 500, laid the groundwork for racial integration and the cultural resources that exist on campus today.

"It was a very uncomfortable time," Shelley said. "We were asking the University of Illinois to see itself as a social change agent."

Today, Shelley serves as the special assistant to the chancellor. Inside his office above the Illini Union Bookstore, a portrait of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X overlook his desk. His involvement in Project 500 remains one of the defining moments of his career.

Call to action

The race riots of 1967 signaled a violent shift in the national movement for civil rights.

The Kerner Commission Report, a statement released by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, claimed, "Our nation is moving towards two societies - one white, one black - separate and unequal."

In Champaign, local civil rights leaders responded to the report with disdain.

"All the Kerner Report amounts to is a national declaration that there is bigotry," Champaign activist John Lee Johnson said in a 1968 interview with The Daily Illini. "The total community doesn't give a damn."

Johnson went on to say that race riots in Champaign were highly probable because of the segregation that existed within the community.

The tension escalated on March 7, 1968, when the University's Interfraternity Council admitted to segregation within its rush system. Less than a month later, the stress on society became even more clear when King was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.

The following months saw a great deal of debate about the role of race on campus, most of which was led by the small but highly active Black Students Association.

Finally, in May of 1968, then-Chancellor Jack W. Peltason announced the formation of Project 500.

Soon after, Shelley was hired as its director. To this day, he credits Peltason as being a man who was ahead of his time.

"I think he took a leap of faith more than anything else," Shelley said. "He had a very strong social conscience."

A team of student recruiters, which Shelley said was largely unprepared, spent the summer of 1968 traveling the country in search of students who, under normal circumstances, would not have been able to attend the University.

The bulk of students the team enrolled came from Chicago and East St. Louis, Ill., but others came from as far away as New York City and Philadelphia.

A week before classes were scheduled to begin, about 580 black students converged on campus in what was soon to become a social experiment that would forever change the face of the University.

Welcome to campus

Nathaniel Banks, a native of Champaign, was one of the local students who enrolled in Project 500.

"This campus was a lot different in 1968," he said. "It was very homogenous, mostly affluent white students from northern Illinois, so there was a degree of hostility in that time."

During the 1967-68 academic year, only about 50 black students were enrolled at the University.

Some of those students told Shelley that is was possible to spend months on campus and never see another black face.

In an effort to build a sense of community among the recent arrivals, as well as administer placement tests and other administrative protocol, Shelley organized for all the new students to spend the week before classes in the Illinois Street Residence Hall.

The attempt to prepare them for their new lives - and to prepare the rest of campus for their arrival - was hectic and ultimately insufficient, Shelley said.

"How do you prepare a university for a different kind of student?" he asked.

Shelley described the atmosphere on campus that week as disdainful toward the new black students.

There was a feeling among other students that the new arrivals did not deserve to be there.

Banks agreed that the atmosphere was antagonistic, but said organized resistance to the program was very rarely an issue.

"There didn't need to be an organized group because the entire environment was hostile," he said.

One night, as he was walking down Green Street, Banks was shot in the head with a pellet gun. Such incidents, he said, were far from isolated.

The day before classes began, the students were moved out of ISR and into other residence halls on campus. The majority went to dorms in the complex now known as the Six-Pack in addition to Barton Hall and Lundgren Hall.

It was then that a sense of dissatisfaction with the University began to develop among the black students.

Some were assigned to temporary housing in the residence hall lounges, and others felt they had been misled as to how much financial aid they were set to receive.

In an effort to resolve their grievances, more than 250 black students met on the south patio of the Illini Union on the night of Sept. 9, hoping to speak with Chancellor Peltason.

What was to come would set the stage for the rest of their collective experience on campus.

Peltason would never attend the meeting because he was told by fellow administrators that doing so would be unsafe, Shelley said.

When rain started to fall, the students moved inside to the south lounge of the Union, where they waited for a meeting that would never take place.

At midnight, the Union closed and when students refused to leave, local police departments arrived on the scene and arrested 252 individuals.

Most were detained overnight in jails in Champaign and Urbana, but others were held in Memorial Stadium because of a lack of available cells.

"It was a mess," Shelley said.

Soon after, Chicago news media depicted the incident in a very negative light.

A Chicago Tribune article reported that $50,000 in damage had been done to the Union during over the course of the night when, in actuality, only about $3,500 in damage occurred after someone took a knife to paintings of past University presidents.

Patricia McKinney-Lewis was among those arrested. She said she was shocked after seeing the incident classified a "riot" by the Tribune.

"There was no riot," she said. "I saw none of that."

Despite such testimony, pressure from multiple sources was on the University to cancel funding to the program and expel all black students. Peltason, though, stood firmly behind the project.

"He was quite a man," Shelley said.

Legal charges against the students were eventually dropped after protests by student groups, and testimony from an unidentified source suggested the damage to the Union was committed by a private citizen and not a student affiliated with Project 500.

Despite the ordeal, both Shelley and Banks believe it had a bonding effect for the students.

"They caught so much hell, they felt close to each other," Shelley said.

Forty years of progress

Back in his office, Shelley spoke slowly and deliberately as he recalled the summer of 1968. He said he is amazed by the progress the University has made in promoting racial equality during the past 40 years.

"Now, our (black) students don't find being here such a big deal because they have been reared and prepared to come here," he said.

"They don't have the same feeling of isolation that they had in those days."

Still, he believes he failed in his attempt to refocus the goals of higher education.

"People don't come to universities, for the most part, to be social change agents," he said. "They come here to live the life of the mind, to reflect in tranquility, to think deep thoughts and write long papers that nobody reads."

He said his belief that he could change the university system was naive and immature.

Nevertheless, he sees progress being made in other areas.

Today's black graduates often take for granted the education they've received, he said.

"They have, in many ways, taken on the institutional arrogance that is a part of the culture here," he said.

"They have no doubt that our graduates are superior to people who end up at Western and ISU and Carbondale."

He paused in thought and leaned back in his chair.

"That's progress I guess," he said.

Melissa Silverberg contributed to this report

===

Thanks for Project 500

Terry Townsend, Urbana
Posted: October 27th, 2008 - 11:00 PM
Updated: October 27th, 2008 - 11:00 PM
Tagged with: Person Career, Letters to the Editor
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On April 10, 2007, at my request a meeting was convened with University of Illinois at Urbana Chancellor Richard Herman and several stakeholders to review and seek the chancellor's approval for a special event to celebrate and commemorate the 40th anniversary of Project 500. We were gratified to receive Chancellor Herman's approval for the proposed event.

Professor James D. Anderson, head of the Department of Educational Policy Studies, brought the 40th anniversary of "Project 500" to my attention. David Addison, former president of the first Black Student Association, attended our meeting. I personally influenced the first Black Alumni Reunion on the Urbana campus, which was organized by an undergraduate student, Linda Edmonds. Over the years, these events were isolated black events.

I framed this event as a Black Alumni Reunion with the theme of the 40th anniversary of "Project 500." My objectives were twofold.

1. Spotlight the University of Illinois institution-wide effort.

2. Broaden our reach through yearlong activity with alumni.

I have been informed by the University of Chicago that it will celebrate and commemorate "Project 500," this entire school year. Assistant Chancellor Patricia Justice had suggested the same for the Urbana campus.

I have achieved my objectives and would like to thank all of the people for their hard work. I'm sure it will be a successful event and more.

Terry Townsend

Urbana

University of Illinois Black Alumni Newsletter
at Urbana - Champaign

Inaugural issue

Spring 2009

ACCESS Initiative Grant Proposal and Project Records

Unity March 2010 Documents

Activism, CUCPJ

Unity March remembers past, looks toward future
By Patrick Wade
Created 10/10/2010 - 8:15am
Sun, 10/10/2010 - 8:15am | Patrick Wade [1] Contact Author [2]

Event focuses on death of Kiwane Carrington, work done to heal rifts in community

CHAMPAIGN – On the anniversary of the fatal police shooting of Kiwane Carrington, marchers walked a little more than a mile, but organizers and city officials say there's still a long way to go.

Saturday's seventh annual Unity March focused on remembering then-15-year-old Carrington, who was shot and killed on Oct. 9, 2009, in an altercation with police when they thought he was breaking into a home at 906 W. Vine St.

Marchers returned to that address Saturday before making their way – signs, megaphones and makeshift drums in hand – to the community garden just outside Stratton Elementary School, where they planted two trees to memorialize Carrington.

"The trees don't produce fruit immediately," organizer Aaron Ammons said after the first was planted. "There won't be cherries here tomorrow."

But give it a few years, he said, and the fruits will bloom. Marchers are hoping the same can be said about their efforts to repair rifts in the community, which became more apparent in the months following Carrington's death.

"We still got a long way to go," Ammons said.

Community activists and city officials mingled during and following the march, and some were impressed by a former TV weatherman's participation. Mike Sola, the meteorologist who at the end of September became one of a growing number of white men who have been attacked by young black men, said it was important to build relationships instead of creating barriers.

City Manager Steve Carter said Friday that, while there is still work to be done, there has been progress in the past year.

"I think a lot has happened in the last year, and I think a lot of people have been involved in making an effort to see some improvement in the way people work together," Carter said. "So I would say there's really been some good progress.

"But just in the area of race relations, we've had our ups and downs. I don't think there's any doubt about that, just like any other urban area in the country."

Following the Carrington shooting last year, Carter and other city officials began working on what they call the "six initiatives," goals they set that they believed would guide their efforts to encourage social change in the community.

"We heard a lot at the beginning that nothing is going to change, and we wanted to prove those naysayers wrong," Carter said.

That involved, among other goals, bringing the community together in an open forum to discuss ideals of what the community should look like.

City officials are now working with community groups to implement some of the ideas conceived at that March forum.

City officials have also tried to make the police complaint process more accessible and have revised the police department's use-of-force policy.

"From the beginning, we didn't think these were going to solve everything out there, but it was really meant as a show of faith that the city was committed to making some changes," Carter said.

But it is going to take everyone in the city to effect real change, said Seon Williams, a Champaign businessman who has been vocal during the past year.

Saturday's march was a good example, he said.

"This is community," Williams said. "This is what community looks like."

More focus needs to be put on helping and educating children, he said, and everyone needs to build better relationships. Even relationships among the black community have broken down, Williams said, let alone connections between black and white community members.

"We made some forward movements," said Jamar Brown, a member of the city's human-relations commission and one of Saturday's marchers. "But obviously we are not where we ultimately need to be."

Brown said events like Saturday's march, which included people of different races and socioeconomic backgrounds, are good for community relations.

"There's no arguments out here. There's no fighting out here," Brown said. "These things have to continue on a regular basis because there's so much negativity out there."

It was an emotional day for some of Carrington's family members who participated. Kenesha Williams, Carrington's sister, said the march was a positive event, but the circumstances were unfortunate.

"It had to take this to bring the whole community together," she said.

Timeline: What has happened in the year since the shooting incident

Oct. 9, 2009

15-year-old Kiwane Carrington is shot and killed during a struggle with a Champaign police officer, later identified as Daniel Norbits, after Carrington was believed to have been breaking into a home at 906 W. Vine St. At the time, Police Chief R.T. Finney was on the scene and involved in a struggle with another teen.

Oct. 13, 2009

The second teen, 15-year-old Jeshaun Manning-Carter, is charged with aggravated resisting an officer.

Oct. 14, 2009

Mourners hold a candlelight vigil for Carrington at the home where he was killed. "Let's not let Kiwane's death be in vain," says the Rev. Charles Nash.

Oct. 20, 2009

Speakers parade to the microphone in the city council chambers, calling for changes to police policies, the resignation and firing of Finney and Norbits, and social change.

Oct. 22, 2009

Activists organize a march through downtown Champaign to speak out against police harassment and brutality. "I miss Kiwane and wish he was here," says Terriona Richardson, Carrington's girlfriend. "I want justice for him."

Nov. 12, 2009

The Illinois State Police deliver a report to Champaign County State's Attorney Julia Rietz detailing the police agency's investigation of the Oct. 9 shooting. The investigation determined the shooting was an accident.

Nov. 20, 2009

Chicago attorney James Montgomery Jr. files a wrongful death lawsuit against the city on behalf of Carrington's family.

Dec. 8, 2009

After reviewing the state police report, Rietz announces she will not file any criminal charges against Norbits. "It definitely ranks up there as one of the more difficult cases (because of) the gravity of the situation," she says.

The same day, Champaign city officials release their "six initiatives," which they say will guide their response to calls for change during the coming months.

Dec. 9, 2009

Finney asks the U.S. Department of Justice to review the incident and look at whether there were any civil rights infractions.

Jan. 12

City officials name two advisers who will lead a probe to examine whether internal police policies were disregarded during the incident.

The same day, the Champaign City Council approves changes to the department's use-of-force policy, one of the "six initiatives."

Feb. 18

A Champaign County coroner's jury rules the shooting an accident following an inquest.

March 15

The city holds a community forum to gather comments from the public on how to move forward. More than 250 people attend. "While there are things we can do individually," says City Manager Steve Carter, "it's working together that will result in the greatest community impact."

April 13

Rietz dismisses the charges against Manning-Carter after speaking with him directly. The dismissal followed petitions asking Rietz to dismiss the charges, but she says those petitions had no influence on her decision.

April 22

Carter announces that Norbits will be suspended for 30 days following the release of a report that determined he mishandled his gun, which resulted in the accidental shooting.

April 23

Norbits appeals his suspension, which, according to his police union attorney, "is not justified and not fair."

May 21

After meeting with Norbits and his attorney, Carter denies Norbits' appeal. The issue next goes to mediation, which is still pending.

June 22

The Champaign City Council unanimously approves changes to the police complaint process as recommended by a nine-member committee. The changes were listed as one of the "six initiatives."

Sept. 21

The Champaign City Council settles a wrongful death lawsuit with the family of Kiwane Carrington for $470,000.

Oct. 9

Activists organize a "Unity March" to remember Carrington beginning at the spot where he was killed one year earlier.

-------------

Champaign council to vote on wrongful-death settlement
Mon, 09/20/2010 - 10:00am | Patrick Wade Contact Author

CHAMPAIGN – Nearly a year after the fatal police shooting of 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington, the city council this week could approve a $470,000 wrongful-death lawsuit settlement with his family.

A vote on that agreement is scheduled during the council's regular meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Champaign City Building, 102 N. Neil St.

City Attorney Fred Stavins said "it's difficult to explain" how the parties involved reached a dollar amount in a case like this, but part of it is that "both parties evaluate their risk of uncertainty."

"Whenever there's a trial, there's an uncertain result," Stavins said.

The settlement would preclude the case from going to trial and is the product of months of negotiations between the city and Mr. Carrington's family. Chicago attorney James Montgomery Jr. filed the lawsuit on behalf of the family in November 2009, more than a month after the fatal shooting.

Montgomery did not return phone messages seeking comment.

The total legal costs for the city amount to just less than $500,000 after $25,000 in attorneys' fees and other costs are considered. The city's liability insurance will cover about half the costs because the insurance policy includes a $250,000 deductible, which will come out of the city budget. The city council still must approve the settlement before it is finalized.

Mr. Carrington was shot and killed on Oct. 9, 2009, during a physical struggle with Officer Daniel Norbits. Champaign police believed Mr. Carrington was breaking into a home at 906 W. Vine St. An internal investigation following the incident deter- mined Norbits mishandled his gun, resulting in its discharge during the struggle. The event was declared an accident and no criminal charges were filed.

According to the suit as it was filed in November, Mr. Carrington "was not armed with any gun or any other deadly weapon, nor did he pose a threat to defendant city of Champaign or its agents."

--------------


University demographic should be of concern
Imbalanced enrollment
The Daily Illini Editorial Board Contact me
Posted: September 15th, 2010 - 10:16 PM
Updated: September 16th, 2010 - 11:08 AM
Tagged with: admission, demographics, Editorials, enrollment, students, The University
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The University has released the demographic and academic information for the class of 2014. And while their classroom achievements are testaments to the selectivity of our University, we are worried about a startling decline in African-American student enrollment.

Though the University accepted 11 percent more Latino/a students this year, more closely mirroring the state’s ethnic makeup, the African-American population in the freshman class is at disturbingly low levels — their enrollment numbers dropped by nearly 18 percent from last year and make up only 5 percent of the freshman class.

In the University’s press release, the sentence following the paragraph detailing the decrease in black student enrollment reads, “The campus is analyzing data to determine areas in which it can ensure that minority students find Illinois an attractive option.”

Here’s to hoping that the University honors that statement.

As a Land Grant Institution, the University should have accessibility to the residents of Illinois as a core mission. The percentage of African-Americans in the state of Illinois is around 15 percent, according to U.S. Census information. With the freshman class’s percentage hovering around 5 percent, it is obvious our school does not reflect the level of diversity in our home state.

There are many possible reasons as to why this is.

With this year’s freshman class having to pay 9 percent more tuition than the class of 2013, it is possible that the University is pricing themselves out of the market for a substantial percentage of the state of Illinois. It’s hard to blame the University for having to raise tuition. With the state still owing us millions, the administration had to raise money somehow, and they are doing it in ways other than just raising tuition (think: hiring freezes, faculty buy-outs, etc.).

Or maybe the reason for this drop is due to other factors entirely. But whatever the reason is, the University should be working hard to correct this imbalance. This school should be an appealing option for all students.

Members of the University community have fought hard for greater diversity throughout its history. It would be a terrible tragedy for all their work to come undone.

-------------


The Last Thing Needed
An Editorial by Local Yocal

CHAMPAIGN- Shortly after police killed unarmed 15 year-old Kiwane Carrington, many of Kiwane's peers stepped forward and publicly testified about their experiences with the Champaign Police Department. The youth claimed they were often followed by police for no reason, stopped, searched, asked to provide I.D., and "shaken down' for information as to their living situations and who they hang with. If they were seen as the least uncooperative, they were often ticketed with city fines of $70-$100 for jaywalking, loitering, curfew violations, or failure to walk on a sidewalk where none exists, as is the case on Hedge Road in Champaign.

One of the revolutionary features of the 2004 documentary Citizens Watch filmed by Martel Miller and Patrick Thompson, were the interviews with those stopped by police and they described their perception of the police. The bottom line from all participants was a sense that police were targeting them on account of their race and were disrespectful. At one point in the film, a ten year old in the foreground of a police patrol shouts, "They's arresting us because we's black." The story still not believed, yet briefly filmed in the 34-minute documentary, was the aggressive way blacks are patrolled by police, compared to the jarring difference in the way students and faculty are patrolled on campus. The difference is a testament to the umbrella of White Privilege granted by the need for U of I student customers.

The culmination of the police department's racial hostility apexed in the 2009 Carrington Killing as the Chief of Police himself was unable to interview two children trying to get into a locked backdoor. Instead, the Chief threatened to kill them by aiming his pistol, and shouting, "Stop or I'll shoot you!", a phrase later deemed adequate for a burglary investigation involving children. When it comes to race relations, the police and the black community have a long way to go. Despite the year after year embarrassment of the IDOT Racial Profiling statistics, the Champaign Police Department pretend everything's cool behind the face of their publicity director. Police encourage the community's help, but want only a certain kind of citizen involvement in their affairs. Only the snitch with good information need apply.

Added to the hostile police attitude is the sorry state of education for local African Americans. For nearly a decade, the Unit 4 school district was under a federal court's watchful eye for the perpetual underachievement African American students turn in year after year. Blacks continue to be overly represented in categories of medication, diagnosis of a disability, discipline, suspension, expulsion, arrests, and drop-outs. Scholarship, construction, or small businesses seem to be conspicuously absent from the resumes of young blacks graduating from our high schools. Gifted students leave town as fast as possible, and so very few local minority students make it over to the Big U, as the university becomes increasingly financially impossible. Mix in, some say, a 40% unemployment rate for black males, and the underground market for recreational drugs becomes the easiest game in town. In all the recent economic developments made over the decade, few, if any, exist in the North End.

The economic climate for the black male is further contaminated by law enforcement's habit to exaggerate the unpredictable fierceness of black youth. Gangs, like the "North End Gorillas", become mythical crime syndicates in the imagination of the State's Attorney's February 2009 press releases. In reality, such gangs are mere idle talk from students mimicking the stuff found on MTV. Without a shred of documentation, police yearly sell the lullaby that Gangs from Chicago! are swarming to our area to sell our children bad drugs. And thus, patrols and tactics are designed accordingly to protect the holy campus from the local savages.

The Carrington Killing inspired a real community-wide dialogue regarding how we want to be policed; when suddenly; beginning in August of 2010, "polar bear hunting" appeared in a pattern of late-night, senseless attacks (over 20 in all) on white males by groups of black youth. The least tolerable crime for polite middle class society had reared its ugly head, courtesy of the front pages of The News-Gazette. The police practices that led to the Carrington killing were forgotten from public memory as the man who first pulled a gun on Kiwane assured us, "In our interviews of the people we've arrested, we're not getting any gang information."

The Chief did not specify if police were randomly detaining people for questioning about the attacks, or how many of these type of arrests have been conducted. Police have gloated to the media that they are now perched on parking decks overlooking the campus area, "hunting" the perps of these dastardly assaults. The gun toting, throw-the-book-at-them crowd from the surrounding towns are ignited to suggest a vigilante backlash, and whatever civil rights and youth programming that could have been gained, are now off the table during the hunt for these "knuckleheads". Local radio commentator Jim Turpin of WDWS expressed the current public imagination with a story of walking in a parking lot when a group of black males appeared, and because of the recent attacks, he told his nodding audience, "I was scared." Imagine trying to find a job in this climate.

Because of these attacks, (just as horrible as the rapes of campus women year after year), all the poor habits and abuses employed by the CPD have gained further justification. The attacks will do little to help the fragile relationship citizens of good-will are trying to establish as sincere people have gathered to fashion a sustainable future together. There are problems the police have created. There are problems created by poverty. Whether those fundamental issues become lost on the community or not, is uncertain since the focus has shifted to finding and prosecuting the bullies.

Eavesdropping article - with references to VEYA/CUCPJ case

Police, Activism

Press Release · Press Release · Press Release · Press Release

For Immediate Release

August 19, 2010
ACLU seeks end to prosecutions for recording public conversations with police



CHICAGO – Responding to a series of incidents in which individuals in four counties in Illinois have been charged with violating Illinois’ eavesdropping law for making audio recordings of public conversations with police, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois today asked a federal court to rule that the First Amendment bans such prosecutions. The ACLU lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Chicago, argues that individuals (and organizations such as the ACLU) may make audio (and video) recordings of police who are performing their public duties in a public place and speaking in a voice loud enough to be heard by the unassisted human ear.



The case is of particular import because the law is being used to arrest and prosecute those who want to monitor police activity in order to deter or detect any police misconduct. In Champaign a few years ago, for example, a group of community activists attempting to document police practices in predominantly African American neighborhoods were charged with violating the Illinois eavesdropping law when they filmed and recorded police interactions with citizens in the public way. (The charges were dropped only after the installation of a new states attorney.) In Chicago, State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez currently is prosecuting an individual for violating the eavesdropping statute by recording police officers.



Illinois’ eavesdropping law criminalizes the recording of certain non-private conversations, one of a small handful of states that does so. Similar prosecutions have occurred in other states, including Massachusetts and Maryland. Yet even as the Illinois law criminalizes civilians who audio record police, the law allows police to audio record civilians during traffic stops and in other situations.



The ACLU recently felt the limitation of this law. The media reported that Chicago police were conducting random searches of bags and backpacks of individuals who were passing by Chicago beaches on the pathway that runs adjacent to the beach and Lake Shore Drive. When the ACLU investigated, it could not use widely available audio/video recording devices – like the smart phones carried by millions of Americans – to document police activity and conversations, because doing so would risk arrest or prosecution.



“There is a lot of talk about the need for more transparency in government – we should demand that transparency from the police,” said Harvey Grossman, Legal Director for the ACLU of Illinois. “Organizations and individuals should not be threatened with prosecution and jail time simply for monitoring the activities of police in public, having conversations in a public place at normal volume of conversation.”



“Illinois’ eavesdropping law does not permit individuals or groups such as ours to gather critical information about police activities – information that we share with our members, policy makers and the general public,” Grossman added.



The lawsuit was filed against Anita Alvarez as the State’s Attorney of Cook County. She is sued in her official capacity as a prosecutor charged with enforcing the law. The ACLU of Illinois argues that the law infringes on the First Amendment right of individuals and organizations to gather information about the police, to share such information with the public, and to use such information to petition government for redress of grievances or policy changes. The ACLU seeks a court declaration and injunction against the application of Illinois’ eavesdropping law to allow audio recording of police performing their public duties in a public place while speaking in a voice audible to the unassisted ear.



“It is not acceptable that an organization such as the ACLU of Illinois is threatened with prison time for conducting legitimate investigations into police action in Illinois,” said Adam Schwartz, Senior Staff Counsel for the ACLU of Illinois. “We should not be forced to choose between fulfilling our mission and risking prison time for staff members.”



“If this law stays in force, it will remain difficult for many citizens in Illinois to monitor and seek reform of police practices,” added Richard O’Brien, a lawyer with the Chicago office of Sidley Austin LLP who is cooperating with the ACLU on this case. “It is time to change this law and let transparency shine into the practices of our law enforcement agencies.”



Assisting Grossman, Schwartz and O’Brien on the case are Linda R. Friedlieb and Matthew D. Taksin of Sidley Austin LLP and Karen Sheley of the ACLU of Illinois.



# # #



A copy of the complaint if available at http://www.aclu-il.org/featured/2010/Complaint-ACLUvAlvarez.pdf







Edwin C. Yohnka

Director of Communications and Public Policy

American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois

312.201.9740, ext. 305

eyohnka@aclu-il.org

History of Project 500

Black Experience on Campus, Student Activism

Prepared for the Black Alumni Reunion in 2008, this brief history surveys the continuing legacy of Project 500, an effort to bring in 500 African-American undergraduates to UIUC to break the chains of historical inequalities on campus.

UIUC

2008