UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
VOL. 110, NO. 17 ● SINCE 1908
MONDAY, MARCH 19, 2018
3 injured, 1 arrested in Five Points shooting
SWEET 16 BOUND Read our game coverage online and in our newsletter
T. Michael Boddie
@THEHUMANBODDIE
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Shots rang out in Columbia’s Five Points entertainment district shortly before 2 a.m. Sunday morning following the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day festival. Three men were shot, making the Greene and Harden Streets incident the second shooting in one of Columbia’s popular entertainment districts in six months. Nine people were shot in the Vista in September. All three of the victims were males in their early 20s, none of them from Columbia. Two victims, one a 20-year-old from Winnsboro and the other 22-year-old stationed at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter and one a 22, were not identified by name. The third victim was identified as 23-year-old Howard Boone Jr. from Raleigh, North Carolina
66 FINAL
SEECRIMEPAGE2
Sara Yang / THE DAILY GAMECOCK
SG candidate diversity echoes USC, US history Larissa Johnson @LALARISSAJ
W hen Li ndsay R ichardson was campaigning for student body president in 2014, a fraternity brother came up to her after a presentation. “He was just like, ‘Yeah, I hope you know I really like your ideas, but I won’t be voting for you because you’re a woman,’” Richardson said. She won, and became the second female African-American to serve in the highest student leadership position at USC. After Richardson left office and went to USC’s law school, three white men were elected.
Larissa Johnson / THE DAILY GAMECOCK
With three African-American and three female candidates out of 11, the 2018 Student Government elections saw the most diverse pool in years. As a result, April 3 will see an AfricanAmerican president and female vice president sworn into office. But the diversity this year was unusual. Only 20 percent of students who have filed in the past decade to run for executive positions in St udent Government are women. That’s much lower than campus as a whole, where women make up 53 percent of students. And while 14 percent of candidates over t he last 10 yea rs have been A frican-A merican, slightly higher than the percentage of campus, only 6.7 percent of elected executives were African-American. “Universities are storehouses of ideas. And how can you have the best ideas if
all ideas aren’t included?” chief diversity officer John Dozier said. Candidates themselves don’t typically think about race or gender as a defining characteristic of the campaign. Yet for students across campus, simply seeing representation of people who look like them and understand their perspectives means a lot. “For women, for African Americans, for people of color, to see someone in that high office, it’s just a reminder that they too can belong here, that they too can make a difference here, and that they too can be leaders,” Richardson said. R icha rdson’s proudest accomplishment as president was starting Cocky’s Closet, a program for students who can’t afford formal business attire. She was motivated by students she knew that would benefit from the program. “The pathway that was paved for me to win was paved by a lot of people that came before me,” Richardson said. A history of firsts “Skeptics have long said it would be a snowy day in Carolina spring before we had a Black Student Body president,” read The Gamecock on March 26, 1971. “The skeptics were right, only the order of events was wrong.” Har r y Walker was elected i n a landslide vote eight years after campus desegregated in 1963. A Student Government outsider known for his knowledge and poise, Walker became the first non-white leader since SG formed in 1908. Dozier con nected what happened on U S C ’s c a m p u s t o the broader national cl i mate — A f r ica nA mericans have only been protected from discrimination since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Another group protected under the landmark act was women. A nd two years after Walker, the first ever female student body president was elected — Rita McKinney. “At the time I ran, I really didn’t think much about [being the first],” she said. “It just kind of didn’t really factor into
why I decided to run.” While she wasn’t the first female candidate, she was the first to win the presidency, drawing attention from local media. But like Walker, she preferred to focus on campaign points instead of her historical significance. T he f i r st women stepped onto USC’s c a m p u s i n 18 95, t he e a rl ie st of a ny institution in South Carol i na. But none were elected to t he highest student office for the first 66 years of SG history. “I n t he A merican South, gender norms are a l it t le more patriarchal,” women Harry Walker a nd gender st ud ie s Student body president 1971 p r of e s s or D r u c i l l a Barker said. According to Barker, differences in women’s historical role in the home similar stereotypes or societal pressures. The LGBT community, present on are responsible for the stronger gender distinctions, especially when intersecting campus since its creation yet hard to track historically, has seen representation with race. “For an African- in the highest office twice in recent American woman to years. Zach Scott, elected in 2004, was be seen as a leader likely the first openly gay student body of men, that’s a real president. And the growing Hispanic and Latino st retc h for some population on campus, which has risen people,” she said. It took almost 30 to 4 percent, has yet to see an executive years after the first officer. Today’s struggles and successes African-A merican Since Walker and McKinney, SG has man, Walker, for t he st udent body seen 12 African-American and 9 female to elect an African- student body presidents, or 40 percent of American woman as the 47 presidents since 1971. Appointed St udent Government president — Jotaka positions see a lot of diversity. Under Eaddy in 2000. “There are a lot Student Body President Ross Lordo, of stereotypes about how black women more than half of officers are female and lead: that we’re typically aggressive, that 14 percent aren’t white. When choosing we’re angry, and that’s not true at all,” the Freshman Council, SG leaders Richardson said. “We’re often kind of create a group that represents campus as put into a box that we can never be soft equally as possible. The senate, which is elected by college, or compassionate, that we’re always kind of like the superwoman, but the angry also has been fairly representative over superwoman.” SEEDIVERSITYPAGE2 Other campus communities face
“For an AfricanAmerican woman to be seen as a leader of men, that’s real stretch for some people.” — Drucilla Barker
Female
Non-white
Female
Male Female
Male
53% of the student body is female but only 20% of SG candidates are
White
Male
SG leadership is 83% white and 70% male