WEATHER
Today
I N ^ I n I? s P° rts see Page 3
■ IT ^ I 1/ C opinion ... see Page 5
1K3H
Tomorrow
IIGH
j TH
YEAR • ISSUE 160 • 6 PAGES
TEXAS flOM UNIVERSITY ■ COLLEGE STATION. TEXAS
Tomorrow
Opinion:
‘He said, she said’ debate over
Johns Hopkins University
report that women drivers
are more susceptible to
vehicular accidents.
MONDAY • JUNE 29 • 1998
coming comet
iouston basketball assistant coach takes
Ishot at heading A&M’s women’s team
Associate professor in sociology
recognized for contributions
By Katie Mish
Staff Writer
tie Gillom, an assistant
laci for the WNBA's Houston
>mets, accepted the coaching
>ot for the Texas A&M
'on ten's Basketball Team Fri-
iv morning.
^■thletics director Wally
rotf said Gillom will bring a
ff< rent perspective to the
omen's team, with her expe-
enee at both the collegiate
hd professional levels.
i "I rom the recruiting aspect.
His one of the best, and she
digs an excellent coaching
||qplaying background with
Ifrom the college and pro-
lonal ranks," Groff said.
^Jillom worked as an assis-
H coach for 16 seasons at
^wersity of Mississippi, un-
pferlcoach Van Chancellor, the
oarh she also played for dur-
Tier college career.
)uring her time with Ole
JpSs, the team had 15 appear-
TRs in the NCAA tourna
ment. Gillom joined Chancel
lor again in 1997, helping the
Houston Comets to the first
WNBA championship.
It was a long
and difficult search,
but at the same time,
it was rewarding.”
— Linn Hickey
Texas A&M senior associate
athletics director
Texas A&M senior associate
athletics director and search
committee chair, Lynn Hickey,
said A&M now has a guide for
the future.
"It was a long and difficult
search, but at the same time, it
was rewarding," Hickey said.
"We are extremely excited to
have someone of Peggie's cal
iber and experience heading
our women's basketball pro
gram. I feel that we've defi
nitely found a great leader for
■ the future of our program."
Gillom said she looks for
ward to coaching the Aggies,
and being part of the Big 12
Conference. She said she sees
this as a good change of direc
tion for her career.
"I can't wait to get into a
great conference in the Big 12
and working toward our
main goal of winning the Na
tional Championship,"
Gillom said. "I'm just excited
and eager to be working and
learning about this great pro
gram. This is a great opportu
nity for me and I'm just glad
to be an Aggie."
Gillom is the sixth head
women's basketball coach in
A&M history.
She replaces A&M coach
Candi Harvey, who resigned in
April to coach in the American
Basketball League.
By Patrick Peabody
Staff Writer
Edward Murguia,
Texas A&M University
associate professor of so
ciology, has been selected
by the American Socio
logical Association (ASA)
for a two-year term as di
rector of its Minority Af
fairs Program.
The position Murguia
will be filling is that of Staff
Sociologist and Director of
Minority Affairs at the Ex
ecutive Office of the ASA.
"It is a good opportu
nity for me to work at the
national level," Murguia
said, "I hope to gain
some knowledge of na
tional issues, and can use
my expertise of South
western issues."
Murguia will assume
the full-time position on
Aug. 1 in Washington,
D.C.
He will direct ASA's
Minority Fellowship
Program, a graduate
program, and the Minor
ity Opportunities
through School Transfor
mation Program, an un
dergraduate program.
The Minority Fellow
ship Program was created
in 1974 with funding from
the National Institute of
Mental Health (NIMH).
Since the program began,
more than 180 fellows
have received their Ph.Ds
in sociology. Currently,
there are 35 fellows.
The Minority Oppor
tunities through School
Transformation, was
founded in 1990, and is
founded by the Ford
Foundation.
Its purpose is to en
hance undergraduate
training, enabling the
students to go on to
graduate school.
Murguia said that one
of his main focuses will
be to maintain diversity
in the programs.
"I also hope to main
tain what we have going
so far," he said. "These
programs give students
good understanding that
they could get better with
good training."
Murguia also said mi
norities play an important
part in the profession.
"The can reflect on their
own background," he
said, "They can go back
with their knowledge to
help local problems that
would have otherwise
have been overlooked."
Murguia said this pro
gram expands opportuni
ties for all minorities.
"These programs act as
a mechanism for the oth
erwise, disadvantaged,"
he said. "It allows them a
chance to make decisions,
and to make a difference."
"Ed will not only
provide leadership to
sociology," Rogelio
Saenz, professor and
head of the Texas A&M
Department of Sociolo
gy, said, "but also to
other social and behav
ioral sciences in issues
regarding the prepara
tion, mentoring, and
training of minorities."
Murguia, after his
two years of service,
will have the option of
staying there or return
ing to A&M.
"I hope it is a win-win
situation for everyone in
volved," he said, "myself,
the University, and the
ASA Executive Office."
Photo By brandon Bollom/The Battalion
Edward Murguia, associate professor of sociology, was
named director of the ASA’s Minority Affairs Program.
leath sentence
mmuted
life in prison
ECUMSEH, Mich. (AP) — Texas' lifting of a death
entence for a one-eyed, confessed serial killer has been
luded by the former prosecutor who won his convic
tion in his mother's Michigan
slaying 38 years ago.
"He's really the only murderer
I felt sorry for," former Lenawee
County prosecutor Ken Glaser Jr.
said after Henry Lee Lucas, 62,
was spared from becoming the
oldest inmate ever executed in
Texas.
Texas Gov. George W. Bush on
Friday accepted a recommenda
tion from the Texas Board of Par
dons and Paroles to commute the
sentence to life in prison. The
rd reviewed the conviction at Bush's request.
|-ucas had faced lethal injection Tuesday in the death
fa hitchhiker. Her corpse — clad in only orange socks
B'Vas found in 1979 in a ditch north of Austin.
NVhen arrested in that case, Lucas generated enor-
|ous publicity by confessing to nearly 600 murders in
■east 22 states. He later recanted all of them, includ-
■ that of his mother in 1960 in Tecumseh — the one
hying he consistently had acknowledged.
Bautin issuing the reprieve. Bush said jurors "did not
and could not have known that Henry Lee Lucas
V a pattern of lying and confessing to crimes that ev-
|ence later proved he did not commit."
■To Glaser, Bush's move was just.
■ 'For a murder they're not sure he committed, it's
‘P'^tty stiff penalty to put him to death, although
■committed others," Glaser told The Daili/ Telegram
■Adrian. "I think they should just keep him in jail
or life."
■Fucas still faces six life sentences and 210 years in
■son for three other murders.
■hi I960, Glaser successfully argued for Lucas' con-
■tion in his mother's stabbing death during a linger-
« dispute in their Tecumseh home.
I It was an argument about nothing as I remember,"
»ser recalls of Lucas, then 23 and from a household de
scribed as dysfunctional. "He came across as a pathetic
jSj n g boy ... who let his temper get the best of him."
I recall his appearance vividly because he constant-
a d tears dripping down his cheek. He wasn't emo-
na F He just had a watery glass eye," the result of be-
3 stabbed by his brother years before.
Ho was quiet, down and withdrawn. He answered
ostions directly. He seemed like a kid who felt bad
admitted it when he did something wrong."
After jurors convicted Lucas of second-degree mur-
J r ' he was sentenced to 20 to 30 years behind bars be-
jCbeing released in the early 1970s.
He later was arrested and pleaded guilty to trying to
cj^P a 16-year-old girl standing alone at a bus stop
abduction thwarted when a passer-by intervened.
0r that offense, Lucas was handed a three-year sen-
'ce by Lenawee County Circuit Judge Harvey Kosel-
F/who found Lucas less sympathetic than Glaser.
He was a sweet-talking fellow who didn t look as
Hgerous as he was," Koselka said. "I don't recall him
Iri g remorseful," Koselka said last week.
Model students
JAKE SCHRICKLING/The Battalion
Brent Swain, an architecture graduate student, and Yuko Hattori, a senior
environmental design major, work out problems with their model for Archi
tectural Design IV (ARCH 405).
Klan rally
Black Panthers, Ku Klux Klan
meet in Jasper over weekend
JASPER, Texas (AP) — The week
end Ku Klux Klan rally here had die
stated purpose of condemning an
African-American resident's horrific
death by three white men accused of
chaining him to a pickup truck, then
dragging him along a country road un
til his body shredded to pieces.
The real reason for the assembly
was less noble.
"The media was real important,"
Michael Lowe, grand dragon of the
Klan and its regional director for oper
ations in Louisiana, Texas and Missis
sippi, said. "I'm real pleased."
He should be.
The only wounds suffered by the
Klan were a few dents in car fenders
caused when African American ac
tivists tried to storm their vehicles as
the two dozen Klansmen departed the
Jasper County Courthouse.
Otherwise, the Klan received a
huge dose of media coverage at an
event where essentially nothing hap
pened. Only two people were arrested
and no one was injured.
Despite their weird appearance in
robes and hoods, the Klan even man
aged to come off almost civil com
pared to the frenzy of the New Black
Panthers and black Muslims who
blew into Jasper carrying shotguns
and rifles, then tried to crash the
Klan's party.
Equally culpable in this perfor
mance Saturday were the Klan's un
witting accomplices in the media, a
force of reporters and photogra
phers that numbered about 200 —
equalling the number of spectators
— and whose antics often resembled
a swarm of insects flitting from hive
to hive.
As a handful of Muslims rounded
the comer into view of the courthouse
square, a horde of television cameras
and still photographers bolted from
the courthouse lawn in a stampede.
This scrambling would be repeated
every time one of the African Ameri
can militants made an effort to ap
proach the Klan corral police had set
up on the courthouse lawn.
Nearly 50 television cameras were
focused on the courthouse door just
after high noon Saturday as the
Klansmen — 15 of them in white
robes, three others in black robes and
seven in other garb — filed into the
homemade bullpen marked off by
orange plastic fencing.
If you've never been to a public K1 an
rally, you need to know these things are
not run like a well-oiled machine.
Lowe set up a speaker system and
a tape machine that started out by
blasting "The Battle Hymn of the Re
public." The tape eventually stopped,
started again, stopped.
Then spectators were treated to
rhetoric about the Klan not being in
volved in the June 7 slaying of James
Byrd, about how the Klansmen are just
law-abiding Americans.
Unlike other Klan rallies in recent
years, there was no table set up for dis
tribution of printed flyers or purchase
of Klan T-shirts or trinkets.
Instead, several Klansmen
passed out business cards, work
ing the crowd lining the fence like
seasoned politicians.
"We've got some supporters
here," Lowe, who traded his tra
ditional robe for a business suit
and tie, said.
More music. More oratory. Eventu
ally one of the speakers, Darrell Flinn
of the Klan's Vidor chapter, about 50
miles to the south, got around to blast
ing the liberal media.
One of the Klan members, a young
woman, took photographs of the
Klansmen being photographed.
The cameras whirred. Reporters
scribbled furiously. And Lowe
smiled throughout.
State board denies A&M law and legal studies programs
By Rod Machen
Assistant City Editor
On Thursday, a committee of the Texas
Higher Education Coordinating Board de
nied Texas A&M University's request to add
law and legal studies to its table of programs.
The request was the next step in
A&M's affiliation with South Texas Col
lege of Law, a private school in Houston.
The universities committee of the Coor
dinating Board voted 6-2 in favor of a rec
ommendation by its staff to reject A&M's re
quest. The issue will be voted on by the full
board at its quarterly meeting July 16-17.
The staff report included several rea
sons for the rejection:
•Although A&M and South Texas offi
cials have said they would keep the part
nership private, there is a possibility that in
the future public funds would be requested.
•Texas already has four public law
schools, and this duplication would not
be beneficial.
•A&M officials said adding a law
school would increase the University's
prestige. The staff thought A&M has oth
er ways of accomplishing this without
adding a law degree.
Wendy Marsh, a member of the board
who supported A&M, said the affiliation
is "a very visionary partnership."
"Since [South Texas] is private, the Hop-
wood decision doesn't affect them," she
said. The Hopwood decision forbade pub
lic universities in Texas from using race as
a factor in admissions.
This is not the first time A&M has en
tered into a partnership with a private pro
fessional school. In 1996, the Texas A&M
system added the private Baylor College
of Dentistry.
Marsh said the two affiliations are not
that different.
"Some people see a distinction," she
said. "I don't."
Ray Bowen, president of Texas A&M,
said this is not a setback.
"I'm confident the Coordinating Board
will approve this eventually," Bowen told
the Houston Chronicle. "This board tends to
approach major issues slowly."
While the real decision will come at
the board's July meeting. Marsh said the
request should be approved within the
next year.