News India Times
July 17, 2015
6
– that’s all you need to know
U.S. Affairs
ByMark Berman
– COLUMBIA, S.C
outh Carolina Gov.
Nikki Haley signed a bill
Thursday ordering the
removal of a
Confederate battle flag
flying near the state Capitol, a
remarkable event that would
have been inconceivable just
weeks ago.
“The Confederate flag is com-
ing off the grounds of the South
Carolina statehouse,” Haley, a
Republican, said at a packed
news conference in Columbia.
In her remarks Thursday,
Haley spoke of the nine victims
of last month’s church shooting
in Charleston and their relatives,
who offered the accused gun-
man forgiveness and prayer last
month. This compassion, she
said, helped lead the state’s legis-
lature to send her the bill allow-
ing for the flag to be taken down.
“This is a story about action,”
she said. “This is a story about
the history of South Carolina.
And how the action of nine indi-
viduals laid out this long chain of
events that forever showed the
state of South Carolina what love
and forgiveness looks like.”
Haley used nine different
pens to sign the bill Thursday
afternoon, saying that after the
signing, each pen would be sent
to the families of the nine church
victims. She was surrounded by
dozens of victims’ relatives, law-
makers and other officials who
burst into loud applause after
she finished signing the bill into
law.
“So 22 days ago, I didn’t know
that I would ever be able to say
this again,” she said, speaking of
the time since the church mas-
sacre took place. “Today, I am
very proud to say that it is a great
day in South Carolina.”
Haley signed the bill a little
more than two weeks after
reversing her earlier position and
calling for the flag to come
down, providing a powerful
impetus for state lawmakers to
take up the issue.
Early Thursday morning, the
state House of Representatives
agreed to send the bill to Haley
following 13 hours of increasing-
ly contentious debate.
Lawmakers spent long periods
discussing possible amend-
ments, offering personal speech-
es and, at times, directing emo-
tional pleas to their fellow repre-
sentatives.
“I saw passions get high, I saw
passions get low, but I saw com-
mitment neverending,” Haley
said Thursday.
According to the bill, the flag
has to come down within 24
hours of Haley’s signature. She
said it will be removed Friday at
10 a.m. and taken from the flag-
pole to a Confederate relic room.
“We are a state that believes in
tradition,” she said. “We are a
state that believes in history. We
are a state that believes in
respect. So we will bring it down
with dignity, and we will make
sure it’s put in its rightful place.”
The flag had seemed all but
immovable just a month ago, but
it suddenly became the nexus of
controversy after a gunman shot
and killed nine parishioners
inside the Emanuel African
Methodist Episcopal Church in
Charleston. A racist manifesto
found online belonging to
Dylann Roof, the alleged gun-
man, was littered with references
to the Confederacy and images
of the Confederate flag.
In the days and weeks after
the church massacre, a growing
chorus of voices criticized the
flag’s prominent position near
the Capitol, while antipathy
toward Confederate imagery
spread remarkably quickly
across the South.
This debate also surfaced on
Capitol Hill inWashington, as
lawmakers battled Thursday
over the Confederate flag’s place-
ment in federal cemeteries for
veterans.
House Speaker John Boehner
(R-Ohio) said he would create an
informal, bipartisan group to
look at any displays of
Confederate memorabilia —
including, most likely, those in
the U.S. Capitol.
Meanwhile, South Carolina
state law had previously dictated
that the flag has to be flown at
the Confederate Soldier
Monument, which was dedicat-
ed in 1879 to honor those who
died during the Civil War. In
2000, as another controversy
over the flag raged, the state leg-
islature passed a bill moving the
flag from the Capitol dome and
placing it near the monument.
Haley, like numerous other
politicians who have recently
called for the flag’s removal, had
not previously seemed amenable
to moving it, but her position
changed in the wake of the
church shooting.
– Reuters
S
Haley Makes History Signing Bill To Remove Confederate Flag
Reuters
By Joan Biskupic
–WASHINGTON
H
arvard and the
University of North
Carolina (UNC) moved
this week to delay lawsuits by a
conservative group alleging that
the schools unfairly limit the
number of Asian-American stu-
dents admitted.
The universities have cited
last month’s U.S. Supreme Court
decision to revisit a white stu-
dent’s lawsuit against the
University of Texas that claims
consideration of an applicant’s
race violates the Constitution.
The schools say the lawsuits
against them should be sus-
pended until the Supreme Court
rules on the Texas dispute, likely
by June 2016.
The lawsuits, which also chal-
lenge race-based admissions,
were filed in November 2014 in
Boston and Greensboro, North
Carolina, by a group called
Students for Fair Admissions,
run by conservative advocate
Edward Blum.
For decades, U.S. colleges and
universities have adopted poli-
cies known as “affirmative
action,” in which admissions
officers use race as one of many
screening criteria to bring
greater racial diversity to cam-
pus. Some white students, and
now Asian Americans, contend
such policies discriminate
against them. Students for Fair
Admissions says Asian
Americans are held to a higher
standard to restrict their num-
bers.
Harvard and UNC deny any
discrimination and say their
practices are based on decades-
old Supreme Court precedent.
The Blum challengers want to
overturn that 1978 precedent,
Regents of the University of
California v. Bakke, which for-
bade quotas but permitted col-
leges to use race as one factor
among many to obtain a diverse
class. That ruling has primarily
benefited blacks and Hispanics.
The three cases, all initiated
by Blum and his associates, con-
stitute the strongest attack in
years on affirmative action,
which has survived challenges at
the Supreme Court by tight
votes. The universities being
sued are fighting to maintain
such diversity policies.
(reut.rs/1EYqyT4)
In their motion this week to
stay the proceedings, Harvard
and the University of North
Carolina contend that a
Supreme Court ruling in the
University Texas dispute would
clarify the “legal framework and
standards” for their cases.
Harvard lawyer SethWaxman
said the three cases are “inextri-
cably linked” because they were
organized by Blum, who for
years has been enlisting plain-
tiffs to reverse racial practices on
campus and in voting rights.
Blum said Thursday that his
lawyers will oppose Monday’s fil-
ings asking to suspend the cases.
He called the moves by the uni-
versities an effort to evade court
rulings that could end the
nationwide use of race in admis-
sions.
The Harvard and North
Carolina lawsuits are at an early
stage, when parties would be
exchanging documents. The
plaintiffs want records that
would reveal how admissions
officers screen and select stu-
dents.
For the long-running case
against the University of Texas,
Blum recruited Abigail Fisher, a
friend’s daughter, who was
rejected in 2008. Her lawsuit
claims the school’s policy
unconstitutionally favored black
and Hispanic applicants with
lower test scores.
For the lawsuits on behalf of
Asian-American students against
Harvard and the University of
North Carolina, Blum set up
websites encouraging students
denied admission to join his
cause.
Advocates for African-
American and other minority
students contend they are the
“real targets” of Blum’s efforts
and have asked judges to let
them join in the two cases. A
Boston-based U.S. District Court
judge last month rejected their
motion to intervene. Lawyers for
the minority students are
appealing. A separate motion to
intervene in the North Carolina
case, made on June 29, has yet to
be acted on.
- Reuters
U.S. Universities Seek To Delay Lawsuits Over Asian-American Admissions
South Carolina Governor Nikki
Haley signs a legislation
permanently removing the
Confederate battle flag from the
state capitol grounds, following an
emotional debate spurred by the
massacre of nine black
churchgoers last month on
Thursday in Columbia, United
States, July 9.
