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ARTS The Current Pivot Multi-Arts Festival brings old-fashioned fun to Uptown
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Thursday, May 23, 2013
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Son of construction worker sues
Lawsuit says NU contractor responsible for fatal accident By PATRICK SVITEK
daily senior staffer @PatrickSvitek
The 21-year-old son of a construction worker killed last week by a falling beam is suing the general contractor for Northwestern’s new Music and Communication Building. Michael Kerr, 57, was hit in the head and chest by the 16-foot, 70-pound beam after a crane knocked it off the sixth floor shortly after 7 a.m. May 16, officials said. Kerr, who was on the ground floor, was taken to Evanston Hospital and pronounced dead at 8:55 a.m. Kerr, of the 2400 block of Hart Street in Dyer, Ind., died from multiple injuries, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. His death was ruled an accident. Michael Kerr, the construction worker’s son by the same name, filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday in Cook County Circuit Court against Power Construction Company of Schaumburg. The four-count suit alleges Power Construction is responsible for Kerr’s death and did not do enough to prevent it, including
By CIARA MCCARTHY
the daily northwestern @mccarthy_ciara
properly securing construction materials and inspecting the work environment. NU is not named in the lawsuit, which asks for the jurisdictional
94% 10% Combined facility-based setting
Infographic by Walter Ko and Kelsey Ott/The Daily Northwestern
Bill would expand disabled workforce the daily northwestern @EdwardCox16
A bill that would provide more working opportunities for disabled people sailed through the Illinois General Assembly on Tuesday with the leadership of Sen. Daniel Biss (D-Evanston). The Senate unanimously voted to send The Employment First Act to the desk of Gov. Pat Quinn. The legislation would reform a statewide working environment for disabled people that has been defined by subminimum wages and segregation, supporters of the bill say. “People with disabilities deserve the opportunity to work,” said Rep. Robyn Gabyl (D-Evanston), who signed on to the bill as a co-sponsor. Disability rights groups have
“Failure to learn and sing any of these works will result in a grade of F for the Spring Term,” Nally responded, according to the email exchange McNair shared with The Daily. McNair’s complaint comes amid heightened tensions over race relations on campus, something he alluded to in his email to The Daily. The most recent incident McNair pointed to was NU maintenance worker Michael Collins’ saying he found a black teddy bear hanging from his desk. After sharing the email exchange with The Daily, McNair did not respond to requests for further comment. czak15@u.northwestern.edu
» See FAIR HOUSING, page 6
‘ABSOLUTELY DISTRAUGHT’ The 21-year-old son of the construction worker killed on campus last week is suing the general contractor for Northwestern’s new Music and Communication Building.
minimum of $50,000 in damages per count. In Cook County, a specific dollar amount is not determined until later in the legal process in such cases.
lobbied to make Illinois an “Employment First” state as part of a national movement to direct more state and federal dollars to integrated work settings instead of sheltered workshops, also known as facility-based work settings, which mainly employ disabled people. Equip For Equality, a Chicagobased disability rights group, has worked with the government to shape the legislation, said Barry Taylor, vice president for civil rights and systemic litigation. Many state-run institutions such as the Kiley Developmental Center in Waukegan, Ill., are in need of changes to provide more opportunities to disabled people, Taylor said. Taylor is a member of the Employment and Economic Opportunity for Persons with Disabilities task force, which recommended the reforms to » See EMPLOYMENT, page 6
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
Louis Cairo, the younger Kerr’s attorney, said his client’s family is “absolutely distraught” over the loss » See LAWSUIT, page 6
Grad student protests poetry performance By CAT ZAKRZEWSKI
By EDWARD COX
Hundreds of low-income renters in Evanston will have expanded housing options starting in August, thanks to the passage of an ordinance by the Cook County Board of Commissioners earlier this month. The ordinance prohibits landlords from discriminating against holders of housing choice vouchers, which activists say has been common practice in suburban Cook County. Evanston’s Housing and Homelessness Commission discussed drafting and passing a similar ordinance at its meeting Friday. The passage of the county ordinance concludes a 15-year struggle on the part of activists in Cook County. Chicago has had a similar ordinance in effect since 1998, but most renters in suburban Cook County have been without the protection until now. Gail Schechter, executive director of the housing nonprofit Open Communities, said the type of discrimination the ordinance prohibits is “very common” in communities like Evanston, where she estimated about 500 people use vouchers to pay for housing. “It’s common practice that landlords in the suburbs have just said no to voucher holders,” she said. Housing choice vouchers subsidize housing costs for eligible candidates. Qualified renters pay 30 percent of their income to the landlord, and the Housing Authority fills in the rest. In the past, landlords discriminated against voucher holders and claimed it was because the Housing Authority was late on payments and inspections, Schechter said. Schechter said some of these complaints were smokescreens for discrimination based on race, ability status and single-parenthood. The push for this ordinance has been ongoing in Evanston for many years. Landlords managed to shoot down such an amendment before it reached City Council in 2002, Schechter said. Commissioner Larry Suffredin represents the 13th district, which includes Evanston, and co-sponsored the ordinance. He said he had been fighting a 12-year battle to get it passed. Suffredin called housing choice vouchers “the main federal housing program.” “If people could discriminate against it, the majority of Cook County couldn’t participate in the most successful housing program offered,” he said. The ordinance will not increase the availability of affordable housing in Evanston, but it will allow lower-income renters to move to areas that do not have affordable
Skylar Zhang/Daily Senior Staffer
Where do disabled people work?
Integrated employment
County protects housing vouchers
daily senior staffer @Cat_Zakrzewski
A Bienen graduate student is claiming his professor plans to fail him for refusing to perform a song with lyrics written by Walt Whitman, a poet he described as a “self-documented racist.” Timothy McNair, a first-year graduate student on a full scholarship for voice and opera, said he first reached out to Bienen Prof. Donald Nally on May 11, when he wrote an email explaining why he does not want to participate in an end-of-the-year concert June 8. “After receiving the new music for Chorale and observing the ‘Song of Democracy,’ poetry by Walt Whitman---I refuse to perform this piece under any circumstances,” McNair wrote to Nally, according to an email exchange McNair shared with The Daily. “Walt Whitman was a selfdocumented racist who is known for having called freed Blacks ‘baboons’ and his writings which saw them as a threat to White Democracy.” In a statement, University spokesman Al Cubbage said NU does not comment on “academic issues regarding individual students” due to federal regulations. “However, the University’s expectation of all students is that they complete work assigned by their professors,” Cubbage said. Although Whitman supported the Union during the Civil War, he envisioned a white American union “without any vision for freed Blacks”
and called blacks “unfit for voting,” McNair said in an email to The Daily. In the same email to The Daily, McNair called Nally’s subsequent response a “racially insensitive and disregardful act.” Three days after his initial email, McNair said his professor responded, stating all students must learn and perform “the assigned repertoire,” which includes “Song of Democracy.”
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Walt Whitman was a self-documented racist who is known for having called freed Blacks ‘baboons.’ Timothy McNair, first-year graduate student
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