SERVING THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN COMMUNITY SINCE 1900 @THEDAILYTEXAN | THEDAILYTEXAN.COM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2018
VOLUME 118, ISSUE 109
N E WS
O PI N I O N
S CI E NCE &TE CH
S P ORTS
LIFE&ARTS
Two new food options will be opening on Guad this spring, including a tea bar. PAGE 2
Editor-in-Chief candidates lay out their visions for the Texan, political responsibility. PAGE 4
An online course is teaching journalists how to use bots to interact with readers. PAGE 5
Baseball hits the road to play weekend series with No. 23 LSU in Baton Rouge. PAGE 7
Meet the students volunteering with troubled girls at Austin’s juvenile detention center . PAGE 8
T H E
5%
UNIVERSITY
Black alumna details racism Betti Poindexter-Blackshear shares experience as architecture student in ‘60s. and played a vital role in getting Poindexter-Blackshear through the program. “(Taniguchi) personally took an interest in me and really realized I did have some talent, regardless of what other people thought,” Poindexter-Blackshear said. “Taniguchi and one of my professors really made an effort to try to help me.”
By Brianna Stone @bristone19
F
or most people, their college years are some of the best years of their life. For Betti Poindexter-Blackshear, her college years were some of the most difficult and challenging. As a black woman at UT in the 1960s, she was challenged both academically with rigorous coursework and mentally by existing in a space where people of color were not welcome. Poindexter-Blackshear was among a very small group of black UT students, estimating there were only about 150 black students out of 20,000 or 30,000 total students. In the fall of 1964 when she decided to attend UT, she said she had no clue what she was getting herself into.
Going to UT
While studying engineering at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college, two black professors — who were both graduates of UT Architecture — thought she was very talented and suggested she attend UT to study architecture. After some debate with her parents, Poindexter-Blackshear decided to take this advice and go to UT. It wasn’t her first time in Austin, but it was her first time interacting with white people in an academic environment. She said
Segregation and social activism
mel westfall | the daily texan staff going to UT was a culture shock for her. “I wasn’t aware that I would be constantly intimidated and not accepted or respected as a human being,” Poindexter-Blackshear said. “That was the most shocking to me.” Poindexter-Blackshear said the environment was very unwelcoming toward black people and she recalls often seeing the Texas Cowboys, an all-male spirit group, performing blackface minstrel shows as she walked from her dorm to campus. “(My time at UT) stripped so much of my confidence away and I felt it was purposeful in trying to destroy not only me, but an entire race of people who just wanted the same equality and opportunities other people had,” PoindexterBlackshear said.
Architecture at UT
In a white, male-dominated field, Poindexter-Blackshear found herself alone as the only woman in her graduating class, black or white. “There were very few white students who reached out to me, so I felt isolated being the only female in architecture,” Poindexter-Blackshear said. “There were two black men who were in my same class, and I always looked at them as the individuals who protected me.” Poindexter-Blackshear said it was shocking how badly she was treated. Often students, and even two professors, would tell her to drop out because they did not want her in class. However, Alan Taniguchi, the dean of the architecture school from 1968 to 1972, had a different perspective than most
In the late 1960s, UT was supposed to be desegregated, but black students still were not welcome at most places. Poindexter-Blackshear said she and the majority of the other black students lived in Almetris Co-op, an all-black residence. “It was a struggle, mentally, to exist in that kind of environment,” Poindexter-Blackshear said. “(If you were black) you were not welcome.” After seeing the mistreatment of black people in Austin and around the nation, Poindexter-Blackshear became very involved with civil rights activism. While at UT, she was part of several demonstrations, sit-ins and protests, on and off campus. She was even arrested during one sit-in, but was soon after bailed out of jail by a civil rights lawyer. “I also went to some football games to protest, because at the time I was there, the coach, Darrell K. Royal, did not allow
BLACK page 2
courtesy of betti poindexterblackshear TOP: Betti Poindexter Blackshear during her first year at UT in 1964. Bottom: Today Patti Poindexter -Blackshear, 73, is retired and lives in Cypress, Texas.
This is The Daily Texan’s second installment of The 5% Project in collaboration with the UT-Austin chapter of National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).
UNIVERSITY
CAMPUS
Universities accountable for sexual misconduct, US bill says
SG candidates Goss-Lee promise transparency
By Sami Sparber @samisparber
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including Texas Republican John Cornyn, introduced legislation last week holding public universities accountable for sexual abuse committed against students. The bill, called the Accountability of Leaders in Education to Report Title IX Investigations Act, requires university leaders to certify they have reviewed any reports of sexual abuses perpetrated by employees and confirm
MISCONDUCT page 2
By Katie Balevic @katelynbalevic
Sophomores Austin Goss and Denny Lee are running for Student Government president and vice-president, respectively, in an attempt to make the organization more fiscally responsible and transparent. While the SG executive board traditionally receives tuition wavers and stipends, Goss and Lee said they will refuse this compensation. “We’re not going to take a dime, and neither is anyone that works for us,” Goss said. “There are people here who could use it way more than us.” Lee said SG overspends their budget and does not tell the student body where money is going. “We don’t know what’s going on,” Lee said. “They just make these decisions on their own. We might have voted for them, but we don’t really have a say.” Goss, a government and political communication sophomore, said they plan to use the money to set up a fund to mitigate the $20 financial burden of
transcripts for students. “There’s not much that can be done unless we take that initiative and put money aside,” Goss said. “Right out of the gate, our best chance to get something done on campus is through taking that (money) and putting that in a transcript fund.” The Goss-Lee alliance also said SG meetings — which are open to the public, live-broadcasted on Facebook and have legislation posted on the SG website — should be more transparent. They hope to increase the visibility of the legislative process by publishing summaries of each meeting’s work on social media, Lee said. “I think that Student Government doesn’t really work out well (because) it doesn’t really do anything,” said Lee, a petroleum engineering sophomore. “We want to change that and make sure everybody knows what’s going on inside the Student Government.” Goss said SG also has attendance policies that are too lenient, allowing representatives to skip meetings without consequence. “We’d like to enact a ‘two strikes you’re
angela wang | the daily texan staff Government and political communication sophomore Austin Goss (right) is running as student body president with petroleum engineering sophomore Denny Lee as his vice-president. out’ idea, so if you don’t show up to two meetings, you’re done, unless you have an excuse or a doctor’s note,” Goss said. Goss said they also want to dissociate the University’s connection with Greek life in response to hazing incidents at
RING WEEK
other campuses that have garnered national attention. “I just think (Greek life has) come under a lot of controversy,” Goss said. “I just don’t see why our University needs to be involved with them.”
Ring Ring Week Week ends ends today! today! Order today, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Order today, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Etter-Harbin Alumni Center Etter-Harbin Alumni Center
texasexes.org/rings texasexes.org/rings
COMPLETED HOURS REQUIRED: Undergraduate, 75; Graduate, 16 COMPLETED HOURS REQUIRED: Undergraduate, 75; Graduate, 16