THE
BLACK HISTORY MONTH EDITION
Daily Egyptian SERVING THE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY SINCE 1916.
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SIU committed to diversity despite the ban on affirmative action Alli Goering agoering@dailyegyptian.com
Most universities believe that having a diverse student body helps students learn. The recent roll back on affirmative action requires university admission departments to look past what makes students diverse and focus on academics. “The Supreme Court [historically] said that as long as an affirmative action plan is narrowly tailored to meet that diversity objective, which is in legal parlance, called a compelling interest, as long as a narrowly tailored program meets a compelling interest it’s constitutional. Now there is a new set of justices that disagreed with that precedent,” said SIU journalism professor William Freivogel. At the University of California Davis, the medical school had certain spots to be filled by students that would qualify as diverse. Similarly, Harvard gave students points in admissions based on race, gender or other characteristics that could diversify the student population. “The Supreme Court [recently] said that it was a quota. The quota was not narrowly tailored to achieve diversity and they were unconstitutional and illegal,” Freivogel said. In 2023, the Supreme Court disallowed affirmative action, requiring college admissions to retire the former precedent and stop accepting students based on the opportunity to diversify. There have been conservative groups that have been challenging corporate diversity, equity and inclusion programs as well. “It was Title Seven of the Civil Rights Act, which makes it illegal to discriminate against race. So now a lot of the open questions are, what if you have a private corporate employer? To what extent can they still be pushing to have their workforces have diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Freivogel said. In California, voters passed an initiative over a decade ago to get rid of affirmative action in college admissions. This initiative led to a AFFIRMATIVE ACTION | 5
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2024
VOL. 107, ISSUE 23
Salukis in Springfield gives Black students a chance to watch history Jasmine Thompson jthompson@dailyegyptian.com
Members of the Black Affairs Council (BAC) and Undergrad Student Government (USG) went to their sixth annual Salukis in Springfield conference to watch Governor J. B. Pritzker deliver his State of the State Address to Illinois residents on Wednesday, Feb. 21. President and coordinator of administrative affairs of the BAC, Sarah Alli-Brown was the main organizer of the event. “Essentially, the administrators before me that had B.A.C., wanted a way for Black students to get into legislations and a way for black students to get more involved when it came to the government and rules,” Alli-Brown said. “So what better way to do that then to co-sponsor this event with student government. So they’ve been on this SPRINGFIELD | 9
Members of the Black Affairs Council (BAC) stand in front of an Abraham Lincoln statue Feb. 21, 2024 at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. Jasmine Thompson | jasminethompson@dailyegyptian.com
Black History Month a time to revisit early trailblazing athletes of SIU Ryan Grieser rgrieser@dailyegyptian.com
Too often, fans only think about the players that are on the team now. What they forget is that there is an entire lineage of athletes that came before them, paving the way for these current athletes to don the maroon and white. All of the athletes in this piece are Saluki Hall of Famers, having led excellent athletics careers during their respective times at SIU. All of the athletes are also Black; because it is Black History Month, this piece is meant to again publicize their accomplishments and provide the background for how today’s athletes’ experiences are shaped by those of the past. It’s important to note that most
Photos provided by Saluki Athletics Graphic by: Peyton Cook | @_peytoncook_
major sports at SIU were devoid of Black student athletes for much of their early existence, which explains the lack of athletes on this list until the 1950’s. Harvey Welch broke the color barrier in men’s basketball in 1951, one year after Earl Francis
Lloyd did so in the NBA with the Washington Capitols. Welch’s career helped to pave the way for many standout athletes to have standout athletic careers and mold lasting legacies at SIU. It’s worth noting that Welch and SIU’s first Black quarterback, Bill
Norwood, were not the first Black athletes at SIU. Saluki Hall of Famer Eugene Payton, a track star who was also the first Black athlete to be elected as a captain of a sports team, predated both, graduating in 1938. Black athletes also had an early ATHLETES | 10
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