State university officials said incidents of racial discrimination on their campuses have been minimal during the spring semester.

NIU has had to deal with occurences of racial discrimination this semester such as the shoplifting incident at Holmes Student Center bookstore and distribution of a racially-derogatory newspaper on campus.

Jean Paratore, assistant vice president of student affairs at Southern Illinois University, said there have been no recent incidences of physical occurences between black and white students on campus.

Paratore said there have been a few demonstrations and open discussions concerning the Black Studies program at SIU. “About three years ago, certain Black Studies classes were dropped from the general education curriculum and some students want the classes reinstated.

“Plus, the black students want the Black Studies program in general to be enhanced with additional faculty and courses.”

As a result, the dean of SIU’s College of Human Resources decided to add two faculty positions in the Black Studies program next year, she said.

“One incident of racial discrimination on SIU’s campus this spring was a theft in the student center in which the suspect was described as a black male wearing a black leather jacket and black gym shoes,” Paratore said. “Later that day the police pulled over and questioned a man fitting the description. The man was very offended, because he felt he was being questioned just because he was black.”

“It wouldn’t have been right if the police officer didn’t pull the guy over, but the man thought it was racism and wrote a letter to the editor.”

On Jan. 21 at NIU, four black students were accused of shoplifting from the HSC bookstore. This incident promted the requests of four signed letters of apology from the bookstore and a public verbal apology for the store’s actions. An NIU committee is studying the incident.

During the week of March 21 through 25, Thunderbolt newspaper was mailed to NIU students, both on- and off-campus. The newspaper’s editor said the sample copy distribution at NIU was sponsored by a local subscriber.

Lawrence Juhlian, assistant vice president for student affairs at SIU said, “I have not seen or heard of Thunderbolt newspaper on campus at all. I am aware of Thunderbolt being a white supremacist newspaper, but it doesn’t exist on this campus.”

Earl Bracey, assistant vice president for student affairs for special services at Western Illinois University, said there have been no racial incidents at WIU noteworthy of alarm.

Bracey said, “There was a meeting of some faculty members and a group of students who wanted to address the issue of the amount of funding which a certain facutly member thought was given to the minority students.

“Our campus has not experienced the type of racial situation the exists at NIU for two reasons. One, we have a very active program to provide multi-culturalism on campus, and two, we have student and faculty leaders who support a pluralistic society and treat everyone fairly,” he said.

“We haven’t had a single issue of Thunderbolt newspaper on campus. I have heard about it in reference to the incidences at NIU, but not at WIU,” Bracey said.

Stanley Levy, vice chancellor for student affairs at University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, said, “Racism exists at any university in this part of the Midwest. It is endemic to the this part of the country.

“There are always things going on, whether it is incidences in the community or on campus, and whether it is graffiti on a wall or a comment in the resident halls,” Levy said.