News
Quick Takes: U. of Central Fla. Police Officer Killed, American U. President Defends Spending, Furor Over Pink Locker Room at Iowa
September 26, 2005
- An undercover police officer from the University of Central Florida, working to control underage drinking before a home football game, was shot and killed by an Orlando police officer Saturday, The Orlando Sentinel reported. A Central Florida student was also shot and injured. While reports were sketchy, The Sentinel quoted witnesses as saying that the undercover officer pulled out his gun and fired in a confrontation with students, and that the Orlando police officer then shot him, without knowing that the gun-toting man was an undercover police officer.
- The president of American University, Benjamin Ladner, told The Washington Post that most of the $500,000 in spending that a recent audit has questioned was legitimate and consistent with his contract. Ladner is on leave pending a board review of his spending, which included many lavish meals and home improvements. Ladner did acknowledge that he should have reimbursed the university for some expenses, such as an engagement party for his son. In an article Sunday, The Post reported that the university's board is split on whether to keep Ladner -- possibly with new spending controls -- or to remove him.
- A University of Iowa law professor received death threats and abusive e-mail messages after she criticized the university for maintaining a tradition of painting the visiting locker room in the football stadium pink, The Des Moines Register reported. The pink decor dates to the 1970s as part of a strategy of softening up football opponents. The Register said that the threats -- apparently from Iowa football fans who admire the strategy -- started after Erin Buzuvis, a law professor, told a local reporter: "With a pink locker room, you're saying that 'You are a girlie man. You are weak, like a girl.' That implies that girls are non-dominant, therefore, lesser. And that is offensive."
