Today The Observer introduces • Scene previews Nazz, with pro­ En garde! its new daily files and pictures of the bands and a brief history of the battle of the • Irish fencers lead after the first day of feature section: 8ce11e bands. NCAA championships. p. 28 p. 13-5 Friday, March 20, 1998 • Vol. XXXI No. 110 THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING NOTRE DAME AND SAINT RY'S 'Collective' becomes part of Women's Month By ALLISON KOENIG sponsored activity to remem­ Governance's approval of the tive probe into campus climate, Curtis was pleased with the Associate News Editor ber rape victims as part of the Feminist Collective. the group's constitution, and Feminist Collective's first meet­ Women's Month activities on According to student govern­ the implications of the Catholic ing. "There was a good turnout. The Feminist Collective. the campus. ment constitution, Eldred is the Church in allowing a student People seemed excited and nflw Saint Mary's College stu­ "We wanted to definitely hold only administrator with the group to independently explore enthused," she said. dent group founded by former a meeting this week," said Kelly power to deny a BOG approved issues of sexuality. Curtis added that there were members of The Alliance, held Curtis, a member of the club that official status. She Hickey passed the deferment, numerous new students present its first official meeting last Feminist Collective. "We'll have exercised that power a few and the ultimate decision on at the meeting, people who had night. longer and more formal ones in weeks ago when she denied the fate of The Alliance, to not previously been active with The group met in the the future. It's kind of hectic The Alliance club status, which incoming the president, Eldred. The Alliance's plight to be rec­ Women's Resource Center for a right now with Women's Month they had achieved one year She released her decision three ognized. brief introductory session and activities going on." ago. weeks ago in a letter addressed The Feminist Collective's sec­ then several members proceed­ So far, College president College president emeritus to the entire Saint Mary's com­ ond meeting will take place ed to participate in the "Take Marilou Eldred has not William Hickey had placed The munity, which explained her next Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. in Baek the Night Walk," a released an official statement Alliance' on official hiatus, citing decision to deny the club's exis­ the Women's Center. A stan- Student Academic Council- about the Board of the need for a more investiga- tence on campus. see COLLECTIVE I page 4 FRIDAY FEATURE Varsity sports takin;g time in 'free-Illay' RSRC By DAVID FREDDOSO Senior Staff Write~ The staff of the new Rolfs Sports Recreation Center does reserve sections of its facilities for varsity practices, contrary to students' belief that the facility promised unrestricted student use. .._; =-·'llt-'i•JII University officials report­ ... .·-;;·, -·-:.·>~·.: edly built the Rolfs Center in • "New center · ...·.~ .... ·- ~~J~-- part to alleviate the problem -~ ~~~ .... ~·~: yields more ... -~...-:>;;~ of "bumping" club teams hassle than rec- Observer photos by Dan Cichalski and students from the Joyce rearion" p.ll he facade of the Lorraine Motel remains mostly intact Center and Loftus so that ....._ ______, T (above), with the entrance to the National Civil Rights varsity sports ean practice Museum to the left. Below, a wreath marks the spot on the there, according to an earlier article in The balcony where Martin Luther King was shot April 4, 1968, Observer. "Free-play in the Joyce Center is difficult King's legacy after leaving room 306 to head to dinner. because there is no regular schedule, and it is hard to know what is available when. The • • Rolfs Center will put an emphasis on free­ play," said director of RecServices Sally survives In Derengoski in the Feb. 13 issue of The Observer. Now, the women's volleyball team blocks off one basketball court for its practices in Memphis the Rolfs Center most afternoons since the facility opened. "The building is still 99.9 percent recre­ ational," Derengoski said in response to the By DAN CICHALSKI students' percE:ption that Rolfs should be Senior Staff Writer campus's top-flite facility for students only. "[Space for varsity practice) was in fact MEMPHIS, Tenn. part of the plan from the very beginning," n his final day, just before an assassin's bullet Derengoski said, reporting that the volleyball struck Martin Luther King Jr. on the balcony of team has space reserved for three hours in OMemphis's Lorraine Motel, America's leading civil the afternoon. rights figure joined those staying with him in ... a pillow "The agreement was that they'd be done by fight. 6:30p.m.," she said. While most people growing up in America have learned The concession of some space to the volley­ about the struggle King led for blacks in the 1950s and ball team made the athletic department more '60s. and of his speech in Washington and his march to willing to give more money for the project, Montgomery, the National Civil Rights Museum in this Derengoski said. Tennessee Mississippi River city provides a comprehen­ "We have gotten another court which we sive, somewhat interactive look at the entire movement, might not have gotten," she said, adding that dating all the way back to Pilgrim days. the court floors in the Rolfs Center are top-of­ On April 4, the museum will commemorate the 30th the-line, and that such floors might not have anniversary of King's assassination. A wreath hangs from been affordable had it not been for the agree­ the balcony outside room 306, near the spot where King ment. fell after being hit by the bullet fired from a rooming Regardless, the Rolfs Center has contin­ house across the street. Two vintage cars sit beneath the ued to attract many students, faculty, and rooms. and most of the motel's exerior has been pre­ staff. served - right down to the teal doors of each room. "We've been averaging about 1,500 people The 1 0,000-square-foot museum opened Sept. 28, 1991, Inside, the museum goes back a lot further than 1968. per day," Derengoski reported. in the building that was once the motel where King spent Visitors are first ushered to a special exhibit, which cur­ She added tha1t the center will try in future his last few days. The motel - originally the Windsor rently highlights black music from slave spirituals through months to be very responsive to the particu­ Hotel when it was built in 1925 -was scheduled for fore­ Motown. While walking through "Wade in the Water," lar needs of its clientele. closure in 1982, but a local nonprofit group saved the "We have a turnstile that ties into the building for conversion into the museum. see MEMPHIS/ page 6 see RSRC/ page 4 page 2 The Observer • INSIDE Friday, March 20, 1998 • INSIDE COLUMN Oh, What a Sacrifice U.S. denies visas to II Cubans for academic conference I am not going to cat BERKELEY, Calif. D >,~,,,; .. ·••J Berkeley Mayor Shirlny Dean and meat today. This is an amazing state­ ment, I know. It is Friday, ~,£;~:~~~~r~~;~::~!!~nf~; D .'"rl! e y ~!~~~~:~Ir:;~~::~,~~~~:~~(::~~l:;l~r~d~ it is L1mt, and all we good Department's refusal to grant visas University of Caltforttia speakers into the country. Dorners shun the flesh of to 11 of the featured guests. Jeff Mackler, a conference orga- animals as representation The conference, scheduled to take convince Secretary of State Madeline nizer, said yestnrday that at lnast 11 of our holiness and sacri­ plaee Wednesday through Saturday, Albright to make an exception in this Cubans are going to speak at the fice and utter smallness is designed to present academics and case. conference and six of tho pnoplo who in the eyes of God. Heather MacKenzie professionals from both countries an "To selectively deny visas to some were denied entrancn into thn coun­ Plus, I really have no A.sistant Managing Editor opportunity to discuss issues that of the invited speakers on the basis try are expected to speak on video. choice if I eat in the din- Cuba currently faces, including race outlined above is to impose censor- "The conferPnce, of course, has ing hall. The ritual n~placmnent of the imitation relations, technology and the free- ship, inhibit free speech and free been dealt a blow, but not a fatal bacon bits with half-baked cheese sticks makes dom of politieal thought. flow of information and deter free one," he said. the point abundantly dear: This is a Catholic A 1985 policy imposed by then- educational exchange," stated a let- But Ling-Chi Wang, chair of thn University. There is no way Notre Dame will be President Ronald Heagan bans offi- ter sent to Albright and signed by ethnic studies departm1~nt and an a part of my heathen appetite for beef during cials in the Cuban government and U.S. Heprnsentative Esteban Torres organizer for the confernnc1~. said thn the Lenten season. I'm surprised the adminis­ members of the Cuban National Party and 20 other members of Congress prnrecorded videotapns will take tration hasn't called Wollin's and ordered them from entering the country. from California. away the main ingredinnt of thP to rmnove meat from the menu. When event organizers announced "Let us be an example to Cuba by "Dialogue with ·Cuba" confPrnncl~. We are good Catholics and we sacrifice eating that 11 Cubans could not enter the permitting a variety of opinions with- Now scholars will not be abln to havn meat on Fridays.