Members of the Black Student Union rallied in the King Memorial Commons Friday to urge black students to band together and fight incidents of what they called institutional racism at NIU.

Pam Bozeman, former BSU president, told the black students who were among the nearly 200 people gathered at the rally to “forget their personal differences” among themselves and form a union. She told students they must be strong to be able to fight racism and that they cannot face the fight as individuals.

BSU President Tracy Deis said that although coming together as one is important, her main concern Friday was “the pity that is starting to slide toward Sigma Chi.”

The NIU chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity is suspended because of a Nov. 20 incident in which the fraternity performed a skit in blackface.

“I’m pissed, and I’m sure everyone else is,” Deis said about the incident. She said the fraternity should not be excused for the skit because “if (the members of Sigma Chi) were so sorry, then we would have gotten more than just a form letter of apology from them, and more than one member of the fraternity would have been present at my mass meeting (Thursday night) to apologize.”

Michael Patrick, a member of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, said, “As far as Sigma Chi goes, blackface is derogatory to black people as a whole.” He said university sanctions of taking rush privileges away from Sigma Chi is not enough punishment because “it’s not that hard to survive without rush for a year.”

L. Bowsky, a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, said, “Right now the sanctions against Sigma Chi are nothing more than a slap on the wrist.” He suggested that greater sanctions be taken against the fraternity and that the Delta Phi Epsilon sorority also be punished because it sponsored the program in which the skit was performed and did nothing to prohibit the skit.

Deis told students to attend Sunday night’s Student Association meeting to show the SA their opposition to allowing Sigma Chi to remain on campus.

Students at the rally also spoke out against The Northern Star and accused the paper of being a racist publication.

Miriam Moore, editor of Life-Line, a publication directed toward black students, said she had a personal grievance with the Star because “in the past four years, the Star has done nothing but slander and misquote blacks.”

Moore complained that the Star should have printed a front-page story in its first issue following the coronation of the 1988-89 Homecoming king and queen because this semester was the first time both crowns had been won by blacks.

Bowsky said the Star should print a front-page formal letter of apology to the Homecoming royalty. He said the Star is one of the worst newspapers he has ever read and that it is comparable to Thunderbolt, a racially derogatory publication which was found on campus in September of 1987 and again in March and October of 1988.