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THE DAILY ILLINI
MONDAY October 5, 2020
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The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
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Vol. 150 Issue 13
Kingfisher advocates to ‘take it slow,’ build alumni support er that be current students, alumni or studentathletes,” Yun said. “We’re trying to take it slow, build up more support and reach out to athletes and alumni.” In an effort to facilitate a dialogue that resolves misconceptions surrounding the kingfisher mascot within the athletic department and better involve athletes’ opinions, the kingfisher task force will be attending the Student Athlete Advisory Committee meeting on Monday. One of the more dominant misconceptions that the task force wishes to address is the belief that “Fighting Illini” will be removed with the adoption of the kingfisher. “We’re going to keep the name ‘Fighting Illini’ because originally when that name was formed, it didn’t have a chief mascot,” Yun said. “The NCAA allowed us to keep that name as long as we remove any ties with Native American imagery or symbolism.”
BY ALEXANDRA GERGOVA CONTRIBUTING WRITER
RYAN ASH THE DAILY ILLINI
Demonstrators march through the intersection of Green and Wright streets during the UIPD protest on Thursday. Protesters marched from the Illinois Police Department Headquarters to the University of Illinois Police Training Institute.
Protesters call for defunding UI police BY SALEM ISAF ASSISTANT DAYTIME NEWS EDITOR
On Thursday evening, protesters gathered outside the University of Illinois Police Department headquarters equipped with pots, pans and megaphones. This wasn’t a regular protest, but what is known as a cacerolazo: a form of protest in which participants bang pots, pans and kitchen utensils together to create noise. The demonstration was a collaborative effort between many different activism-oriented campus groups. This included the Graduate Employees Organization, Defund UIPD, Black Students for Revolution, People Over Profit Champaign-Urbana and Champaign County Anti-
Racist Coalition, among others. Beginning at 5 p.m., individual demonstrators began giving speeches and sharing experiences of racism on campus, as well as instances of combating racism. One protester rapped a song he had written himself. Austin Hoffman, graduate student in LAS and one of the lead organizers within the GEO, delivered many demands to the University. One of these demands was for the University to divest from the police budget and use those funds for the African-American studies department, Counseling Center and other mental health resources on campus. He also demanded the University cut ties with companies that profit
off prisons and invest more broadly in the community and Black students, faculty and staff. “We are only asking UIUC to live up to its peer institutions,” Hoffman said. Candice Livingston, graduate student in EPOL and Defund UIPD organizer, explained the significance of the Oct. 1 date for this protest. “The University of California System Cops Off Campus Coalition chose this day as the starting point for their year-long struggle to get police off of their campuses by fall 2021,” Livingston said. Their protest was meant as an act of solidarity. A little after 6 p.m., the group of demonstrators began marching, moving
Following the majority endorsement of the kingfisher mascot by the University senate on Sept. 22, the proposal’s organizers are refusing to rush the process. Instead, they’re working to increase student and alumni support prior to officially convening with Chancellor Robert Jones and his administration. Because this is the first successful mascot proposal to pass through the University senate, there is no precedent set that delineates an official adoption process. Instead, Illinois Student Government’s “kingfisher task force” is now focusing its efforts towards reaching out to various student, athletic and alumni bodies to ensure that no voice is left out, said Dana Yun, chair of the task force and junior in Engineering. “A lot of other universities that have implemented new mascots have always left somebody out, wheth-
SEE KINGFISHER | 3A
down to Green Street and taking it to Fourth Street, before heading south down Fourth Street and stopping in front of the Police Training Institute. There, the microphone was handed to Drake Materre, a recent graduate of the University and avid activist. He gave a moving speech and was followed by speakers from Students for Justice in Palestine. The protest concluded just after 7 p.m. “After today we will be continuing with the education,” Livingston said. “We will have more direct actions, we will be doing more collaborations, and we will be directly addressing the administration.” ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF SPENCER HULSEY
isaf2@dailyillini.com
Test return times down to eight hours BY WILLIE CUI CONTRIBUTING WRITER
RYAN ASH THE DAILY ILLINI
A Champaign resident receives her ballot during early voting at the Champaign County Clerk’s office on Sept. 24. In Champaign County, 117,000 mail-in ballots have been requested.
CU officials encourage mail-in voting BY VIVIAN LA CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Due to social distancing guidelines and the Center of Disease Control’s recommendations, local election officials and organizations are strongly recommending voters to cast their ballots through the mail instead of voting in-person. The usual controlled chaos of conducting an election has become more complicated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, something that election officials, students and voters alike are adjusting to in terms of organizing vote-by-mail and holding virtual events. “It ’s been extremely busy, extremely detailed and nuanced for us to run this election amidst the
pandemic and the insertion of vote-by-mail to the degree that it’s been made accessible,” Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons said. Ammons said that implementing vote-by-mail has been an “extraordinary feat,” calling the office to run two elections at the same time. But he is insistent that voting by mail is safe, secure and very convenient. “We haven’t had any widespread issues of voter impersonation,” he said. “As the local election authority, I will be voting by mail … I would not tell people to voteby-mail if it was not safe and secure.” Across the 118 precincts in Champaign County, there are about 120,000 regis-
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tered voters. Approximately 117,000 mail-in ballots have been requested. The first 25,000 ballots were mailed out on Oct. 2. The County Clerk Office is unable to report specifically on how many registered voters are students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. One in-person voting location, the Brookens Gym, has been open for Champaign County since Sept. 24. An additional 11 locations will open on Oct. 19, with three being on campus. One location will be at the Activities and Recreation Center in multipurpose room five or six, Ammons said. SEE VOTING | 3A
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Following weeks of delays reported by students and staff, members of the University’s SHIELD COVID-19 testing team said test turnaround times have dwindled significantly. Dr. Timothy Fan, a member of the SHIELD team and professor of veterinary clinical medicine, said that the average time that it takes to receive a COVID test result after submitting a sample on campus is now between eight and 8.3 hours. “When you swipe your i-card, you have a sticker that’s printed and you have an order for a COVID-19 test generated,” Fan said. “The other timestamp that we have is when the final result gets pushed to the electronic medical record system.” When asked about the previous delays, members of the SHIELD team attribute them to the large influx of COVID tests requested, especially during freshman move-in and directly following Labor Day, when some wait-times exceeded 48 hours. “Maybe three weeks ago, four weeks ago we were receiving 18,500 samples in a day,” said Fan. “That was just not physically feasible for us to get through in a day.” This peaked on Aug. 24 when they received 18,598 tests for processing. According to the University’s COVID dashboard, the lab processed about 1,000 fewer tests that day. “We were not able to complete (testing) from the day before, before the new sam-
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RYAN ASH THE DAILY ILLINI
Senior Eric Peronto places his completed COVID-19 test into the receptacle at the Illini Union testing site on Wednesday. The receptacles are then shuttled to the diagnostic laboratory.
ples came in,” Fan said. “It collect saliva samples,” Fan was like a mounding-up snow said. mound.” “Students do it twice a This large influx of tests led week, and faculty and staff the SHIELD team “to become more targeted in how (they) SEE TEST RESULTS | 3A
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Features: Amidst pandemic, voters submit ballot remotely
Opinions: Judge Coney Barrett can be Catholic and impartial
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