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WORLD AND LOCAL NEWS
Rights group prepares to sue Chevron over Nigeria
aths
Lawyers for Nigerian human rights activists are preparing
file a lawsuit in the United States against Chevron Corp.,
sging that the U.S. oil giant was complicit in the deaths of two
)testers in an incident on an offshore oil platform last May.
e case stems from an occupation of the Chevron-operated
rabe offshore oil rig by about 100 demonstrators, one of a
awing number of actions in the oil-rich region by groups
testing pollution by the oil companies. Chevron informed the
thorities, and military and armed police were flown in on
evron helicopters to end the occupation. It quickly turned
dent and two protesters were killed and several others
lunded.
Iran foundation raises bounty on Rushdie
An Iranian religious foundation has raised its $2.5 million
unty on the head of British author Salman Rushdie by
00,000. A hard-line Iranian student group has also offered one
lion rials ($333,000) to anyone who carried out the fatwa, or
igious order, to kill Rushdie. In September, Iran and Britain
d they would upgrade diplomatic ties to ambassadorial level
;er the Iranian government formally dropped a threat to
ishdie’s life and the British government dissociated itself from
: contents of the book. All sides to the controversy acknowledge
it nobody can rescind Khomeini’s death order.
34 sentenced to death for Sierra Leone coup
A military court Tuesday condemned 34 officers to death by
ing squad for crimes linked to the 1997 coup that toppled Sierra
one’s president. The 34 were found guilty of treason, murder
d other crimes committed by the junta, which held sway for
months until President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah was restored to
wer in March by a Nigerian-led West African intervention
rce. Although Kabbah’s return was hailed as a victory for
mocracy in West Africa, fighting between his forces and ousted
ita fighters and their rebel allies has continued in the country’s
st.
Beaten gay student dies
Authorities plan to file murder charges in Monday’s death
Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who
is pistol-whipped and tied to a fence post a week ago in an
:ack denounced nationwide as a hate crime. Police have said
bbery was the primary motive for the attack. But one of the
ur suspects being held told police that they wanted to get back
Shepard for making passes.
Amtrak slapped with class-action suit
Lawyers representing 13 former and current Black managers
ve filed a class-action lawsuit against Amtrak claiming that it
ndones discrimination. The suit alleges that Black managers
s paid less, are promoted or hired less frequently than whites
id that senior managers have made racially derogatory
itements to Blacks. One plaintiff, Roberta Perry, says her co-
arkers called her “nig#er bi#ch” and often referred to the route
am New Orleans to Chicago as “the nig#er and chicken bones
ecial.”
School pays for itself
Students looking for help paying off loans after graduation
ay want to head back to school — to teach. Under the education
11 passed by Congress last week, graduates who teach five years
a poor district can have $5,000 in debt forgiven. The private
ctor is also encouraging community service: Andersen
insulting has a new program to hire graduates from schools
:e the University of Michigan, but lets them first work for two
;ars at Teach for America.
Protests greet Supreme
Court’s first day of session
By Howard Franklin
Staff Writer
Almost a thousand civil
rights activists gathered on the
steps of the highest court in
the land, October 5, to protest
the failure of the Supreme
Court Justices to hire more
minority law clerks.
"This Supreme Court
ought to be ashamed of itself.
After having existed now for
200 years, [it still] denies day-
in and day-out opportunity
for law clerks of color to have
a chance to come in and shape
policy," said Kweisi Mfume,
president of the NAACP,
which organized the rally.
Mfume and 18 others,
including two Morehouse
students, were arrested at the
end of the march after they
peacefully crossed a police
line in a symbolic attempt to
deliver resumes of qualified
minority law students to the
Court.
They were charged with
violating the federal law that
bars demonstrations on
Supreme Court grounds, but
were released later in the day.
"The Justices don't see us
as law clerks; they want to see
us as basketball stars," the Rev.
Jamal Bryant, an NAACP
official, told demonstrators at
the gathering.
The protest was spurred
by a report last March in USA
Today which pointed out that
fewer than 2 percent of the 394
law clerks hired by the Justices
during their tenure were
African Americans. Hispanics
represented 1 percent of the
hires and Asian Americans, 5
percent.
No Native American has
ever served as a clerk, a fact
that was not lost on the
demonstrators.
"The First Americans
should not be the last
Americans to clerk for the
Supreme Court," read one
sign.
Clerks play an essential
behind-the-scenes role in
screening cases and drafting
the Court's opinions. Since
they make the first
determination of the cases to
bring to the Justices' attention,
clerks can guide the fate of a
multibillion-dollar
commercial dispute or make
the difference between life and
death for a condemned
prisoner.
Typically, such a clerk is a
25-year-old white male, a year
out of Harvard.
"With so few minorities
filling the positions, the court
misses out on diverse views,"
said the Rev. Staccato Powell,
general secretary for the
National Council of Churches.
Civil rights leaders at the
protest were particularly
critical of Chief Justice William
Rehnquist, who has never
hired a Black clerk.
"If the Chief Justice can't
find a single Black law clerk in
more than a quarter of a
century, that speaks volumes
about his soul," civil rights
scholar Roger Wilkins said.
For his part, Rehnquist
refused to meet with NAACP
representatives, saying such a
meeting will not serve any
"useful purpose."
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