12 • Bay Area Reporter • November 12-18, 2015
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t College athletes’ action spurs president’s resignation by Roger Brigham
Steven Underhill
PHOTOGRAPHY
feces on the wall of a dormitory. Sick and tired of living in a hosocially aware football players in tile, literally shitty environment, Missouri this week showed soand seeing no response from the cially aware football fans in Texas that school administration to actions are more effective than words. deal with the situation, November began with voters in students demanded and Houston rejecting a city ordinance then forced action. that would have provided non-disStudent Jonathan crimination protection for individuButler went on a hunals regardless of sexual orientation or ger strike November 2, gender identity, as well as sex, race, demanding the resigcolor, ethnicity, national origin, age, nation of Tim Wolfe, familial status, marital status, milipresident of Mizzou. tary status, religion, disability, genetAt first it drew miniic information, and pregnancy. That mal attention; gay forrejection by the electorate left Housmer Missouri football ton as the largest city in the country player Michael Sam said he took without protection for LGBT indiwater to Butler on the second day viduals. The campaign for that rejecof his hunger strike and found just tion was fueled by false propaganda a couple of tents camped out next saying the ordinance would allow to him. men to use women’s bathrooms. But more and more students Outraged activists immedibegan camping out with Butler, and ately sprang into discussion, the tide was turned Saturday, petition-filing, blogging, and November 7, when half of the letter writing. Their targets: black members of the Mizzou big-ticket major media events football team withdrew from that provide millions of dolfootball preparation activities. lars for the local economy and That prompted coach Gary hundreds of cameras and miPinkel to say he supported crophones to capture not just the football protesters, a facthe events, but also the proulty group lined up behind the tests surrounding them. Speprotesters, and, with the unicifically, protesters wanted the versity facing the likelihood NCAA to take the 2016 men’s of having to pay $1 million to Final Four basketball tournaBrigham Young University if ment away from Houston and it canceled its next game, the for the NFL to pull the plug on university’s board of curators, Houston’s Super Bowl LI in its governing body, called an February 2017. emergency meeting Monday, The Human Rights CamNovember 9. paign wrote a letter to NFL At the start of that meeting, Commissioner Roger Goodell Wolfe resigned. asking for an emergency meetOnly time will tell us the ing to discuss the situation, Missouri student Jonathan Butler staged long-term changes this Noand a petition was launched on a hunger strike over racist incidents at the vember’s events will cause change.org asking for the event university. in Columbia and Houston. to be moved. The NFL nixed In the short term we are left both ideas, saying it would do with the impression of the its best to assure visiting fans would have been escalating since nationalpower athletes have when they act be protected at the event. ly publicized police violence in Fercollectively and with a sense of soYou know, the same kind of asguson, just 200 miles away, earlier cial consciousness, a willingness to surance Qatar is providing queers this summer. As the school adminsacrifice their dreams, and hopes who decide to attend its World Cup. istration remained as silent as Presifor the betterment of others. Similarly, the NCCA said it would dent Ronald Reagan in the early Talking heads in Texas couldn’t not move the Final Four, but said years of the AIDS crisis, the student stop events months and years Houston could not expect favors body president said he was called a away. Athletes in Missouri down the road. racial slur while crossing campus, showed they had the power to kill “It takes years to plan and implean African-American acting troupe an event a week away – and the ment this world-class event,” said Dan said they were racially taunted while will to do so. Gavitt, NCAA vice president of men’s performing, and – the final straw – Guess that’s why they call it the basketball championships. “We will a swastika was smeared in human Show Me State.t
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continue our work with the Houston Local Organizing Committee to provide an inclusive environment for the student-athletes competing in and visitors attending our games and events in April. This vote, however, could impact the NCAA returning to Houston for a future Final Four. There are many factors in a thorough bid process that the NCAA considers when determining what cities will host the Final Four, including, but not limited to, local, city, and state laws and ordinances.” Meanwhile, as protesters in Houston were producing sound bites, protestors in Missouri were producing results. Racial tensions on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia
John Conley, priest who was whistleblower, dies by Cynthia Laird
F
ather John Conley, a gay man who entered the priesthood later in life but was castigated by Archdiocese of San Francisco officials after he reported to police a fellow cleric who he suspected of sexually abusing an altar boy, died November 4 at his residence in South San Francisco. He was 71. Mr. Conley was a federal prosecutor when he decided to follow his dream of becoming a priest. According to a news release from the archdiocese, Mr. Conley entered
Saint Patrick’s Seminary and was ordained to the priesthood April 17, 1993 at Saint Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco by then-Archbishop John R. Quinn. But it was in his role as a whistleblower that he made news, having witnessed what he believed were improper actions by another priest, James Aylward, at a Burlingame church in 1997. Mr. Conley reported the incident to his superiors but was later viewed as an outcast by Aylward’s supporters. See page 13 >>
courtesy Kate Hoepke
Father John Conley
Obituaries >>
Mark Gittus
October 4, 1958 – October 31, 2015
M
ark Gittus died peacefully at a Phoenix, Arizona area hospice at age 57. He was a resident of the
San Francisco area for the past 30 years. Mark is survived by his mother and two brothers. He was a co-founder and creative director at U.S. Pacific Media and later became an independent computer consultant. For the past several years, Mark owned an Alcatraz tour brokerage company. Most recently, he was an account executive for Compete
magazine in Tempe, Arizona. Friends and family are invited to a memorial service at 11 a.m. Saturday, November 21, 2015, at Sunshine Acres Children’s Home, founded by his grandparents, at 3405 N. Higley Road, Mesa, Arizona, 85215. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Sunshine Acres.