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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 16, 1999)
HAIR DESIGN 694-9755 Formal Up Do’s 118 Walton Dr. Across from Main Entrance to Texas A&M O 1/2 Price Margarita w/ Purchase of Any Entree Bryan Location 3610 S. College Ave. 846-4275 CoUege Station Location 2003 S. Texas Ave. 696-2076 Help Spread Your Aggie Spirit Before we beat the hell outta t.u. let’s pass on the Aggie spirit to Camp For All r ^OR/Av Cv Va Aggie Orientation Leaders will have a Bonfire Tree filled with things that Camp For All needs in the MSC November 15-19. Please stop by and grab a flame from the Bonfire, purchase the flame item, and bring your spirit gift to Room 314 YMCA for donation to Camp For All by Monday, November 22. Any questions about Camp For AH or the Bonfire Tree may be directed to Jason Word, Jenny Barratt, or David Kessler at 862-2746. Aggie Orientation STUDENT Department of Student Life Leader Program LIFE Student Life Orientation The Perfect Gifts for Your Aggie Graduation. Citizen Watches with Official A&M Seal Gold-Tone $179 00 Two-Tone $159 00 Quartz Movement. 3 yr. Warranty. Water Resistant. *Call for Quantity Prices Available in Mens and Ladies Sizes Sorry no mail orders John D. Huntley ‘79 313B S College Ave. 846-8916 TAG-Heuer SWISS MAD€ SINCE I860. An official authorized dealer for Tag-Heuer and Breitling. BREITLING 1884 Page 6 • Tuesday, November J 6, 1999 s TATE African-American friends testi on behalf of Berry in Jasper tri JASPER (AP) — Several black friends testified yesterday on behalf of a white East Texan accused of dragging a black man to death be hind a pickup truck, saying they did not believe he was a racist. Joseph Glenn, Larry Don Buford and Ann-Marie Norman all testi fied they have no reason to believe former movie theater manager Shawn Allen Berry is a bigot. “Shawn [Berry] had black friends,” Buford said. “Sometimes if a [black customer] at the theater didn’t have enough for a ticket, he’d give them money out of his pocket or give them a ticket.” Glenn, who once worked with Berry at a tire store, said he had never heard Berry make racist state ments and that Berry was close to John Jefferson, a black man who is now deceased. Berry cried at Jef ferson’s funeral, Glenn said. The three were among a parade of more than a dozen witnesses who told jurors that they had nev er known Berry to be a racist. Some also testified that Berry did not like confrontation and backed down from fights. Berry’s brother, Louis Berry, said they were not raised to hate blacks or anyone else. “1 know people would expect me to say that because he’s my brother, but it’s the truth,” he said. Prosecutors in the capital murder case have not tried to prove that Berry, 24, har bored long standing racial prejudices. i. They do charge that he participated in the June 7, 1998, dragging death of James Byrd Jr., making him as culpable as his two former roommates, who al ready have been convicted and sentenced to death. Berry and the roommates picked up an inebriated Byrd, 49, along a Jasper road. Byrd was tak en outside of town, beaten, chained to the back of Berry’s pick up and dragged three miles along a '7 did not find him to espouse any white supremacist dogma or doctrine,...." Dr. Edward Gripon Witness rural road. Byrd’s decapitated corpse was left beside the road. John William King, 25, and Lawrence Russell Brewer, 32, were portrayed at their trials as avowed white suprema cists covered in racist tattoos. Berry could join King and Brewer on death row if jurors de cide he was more than the fright ened bystander he claims to have been. Dr. Edward Gripon, whose tes timony helped put King and Brew er on death row, said yesterday that Berry did not share the racial ha tred of his friends. “I did not find him to espouse any white supremacist dogma or doctrine, and there’s no prior histo ry to indicate that,” Gripon said un der questioning from Berry’s attor ney, Joseph C. “Lum” Hawthorn. Gripon conceded that Berry showed “relatively poorj; in picking up Byrd whe about his friends’ allegi| | racist prison gang. Prosecutors asked se ■. nesses why Berry moveJ| racists. Christie Marconiu girlfriend, explained if grandfather evicted hk: : house about 15 milesotL town because he did nr able transportation towob| ten borrowed a vehicle: . her grandfather’s name. “If my grandfatherwc.: let him stay at the house never would have mota Marcontell said. When asked aboutac.:. she once filed claiming:, abused her during a doiir pute, Marcontell said she:! a ted the events. Dr. Lynn Pearson,anon surgeon who examinedBr days before the killing. - that a broken bone in . . hand would have made : to struggle with ByrdorheJ heavy chain. Supreme Court hears debate over pray before public high-school football gam WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court re-entered the emotional debate over school prayer yesterday, agreeing to decide whether public schools can let students lead group in vocations at high school football games. A Galveston County, Texas, school board is asking the justices to overturn a lower court ruling said student-led prayers over the public- address system at football games violate the constitutionally required separation of church and state. “The school district is not causing prayer or endorsing prayer if it leaves to the student the choice of what to say,” school district lawyer Lisa A. Brown said after the nation’s highest court granted review. “There’s a long tradition in many states of having this pre-game cere mony of having a moment of reflection before the game begins.” But the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans Unit ed for Separation of Church and State contend ed such prayers at officially siponsored school events violate the Constitution. “The school’s giving you the microphone; it will sound like an officially sanctioned religious statement, and that’s what has no place at a high school football game,” Lynn said. The Supreme Court’s decision, expected by late June, could help clarify the jumbled state of the law surrounding school prayer. The justices’ last major school-prayer ruling, in 1992, barred clergy-led prayers at public school graduation ceremonies. “The Constitution forbids the state to exact re ligious conformity from a student as the price of attending her own high school graduation,” the court said then. The ruling was viewed by many as a strong reaffirmation of the highest court’s 1962 deci sion banning organized, officially sponsored prayers from public schools. But in 1993, the justices let stand a federal appeals court ruling in a Texas case that allowed student-led prayers at graduations. That ruling, which also applies to Louisiana and Mississip pi, conflicts with another federal appeals court decision barring student-led graduation prayers in nine Western states. Yesterday’s case comes from an area of the country where some people joke that football is almost a religion. Four students and their parents sued the San ta Fe Independent School District in 1995, seek ing to end student-led prayers over the public- address system at home football games in the Houston suburb. The district’s policy allows stu dents to give an “invocation” or “message.” The students also challenged the district’s pol icy of allowing student-led prayers at graduations, but the Supreme Court said its review will be lim ited to the issue of prayers at football games. A federal judge allowed student-led prayers at football games if students were told to keep them “nonsectarian and non-proselytizing.” The case does not involve prayers in team locker rooms. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision and said student-led prayers at high school football games are always out of bounds. Football games are “hardly the sober type of annual event that can be appropriately solem nized with prayer,” the appeals court said with a 2-1 vote. The school district’s appeal to the Supreme Pick up your FREE AGGIE RING pictures At the Senior E-Walk table located in the MSC. 11-8 to 11-19 Some past school-prayer rulings! Supreme Court: • Public school officials cannotr: students to begin each school dayr nized prayers by saying a state-cor prayer. Engel vs. Vitale in 1962. • Public school officials cannot students to recite the Lord's Prayer from the Bible as part ofadevotior else. School District ofAbington Tom Schempp in 1 963. • Public schools generally must 3^- student prayer groups to meet and l ship if other student dubs ave permitt# school. Westside Boord of Education vs. “ gens in 1 990. • Clergy-led prayers — invocation!- benedictions — at public school gracL' ceremonies violate the constitutional quired separation of church and state.t| Weisman in 1992. Court said its policy “neither requiresr hibits a religious message” and is “aimed] sons with the maturity to realize tl: sage given is, in fact, that of a student; that of the state.” Barring students from sayingapraye: violate the Constitution’s free-speedi; tee, the district’s lawyers said. The district’s appeal was support; friend-of-the-court brief submitted byT; eight other states — Alabama, Cc Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, NebrasL Carolina and Tennessee. Bonfire long sleeve t-shiili and sweatshirts are on sale in the MSC this week between 10 and Long sleeve $14 Come on Baby Light my Fire Sweatshirts $20 From Trash to Tradition Brought to you by Traditions Council 4^ MSC HOSPITALITY presents... Hunger <& Homelessness Awareness Week November 15th-19th WEDNESDAY 11/17/99 12:00pm Come join a discussion panel featuring homeless members of the B/CS community. Learn about hunger and poverty in our local area. MSC FLAGROOM Questions call 845-1515 t Personswithdisabilitiejplrasecall8<5-I515toiiilomuijofyom- /t special needs. We request nctif cation three (3) wirtdng days piior to the event to enable o to astst you to the best of our abilities. This week: THURSDAY CAMP OUT FOR A CAUSE The Grove 6:00-dawn From 6:00-8:00 enjoy FREE food and pitch your tent. Beginning at 8:00 with Dr. Southerland, Yell Leaders, Date Auction, music by 24/7 & Black Bird, and a late night movie. FRIDAY Koldus 110 12:30 HUNGER BANQUET An opportunity to gain an understanding of how much poverty and hunger exists, tickets: $3.00 MSC E.L. Miller" Science and Technology Committee Science and Technology Tour and Professional Development Trip - Austin Institute for Advanced Technology Friday, November 19th MSC E.L. Miller presents its first tour and professional development trip 10 Institute for Advanced Technology, a research lab for the U.S. Military. Information about internships, co-ops, and permanent positions will ben 1 ' available, and resumes will be accepted. Cost for the trip will be $3.50. VY may possibly be visiting other sites in Austin as well. ac For more information, please call 845-7 , €>25 by noon on Tuesday, November 15th.