Six University of South Carolina students and one Clemson University student were killed early Sunday morning when a fire started in the beach house where they were sleeping. Six of their friends also in the house were able to escape with minor injuries. The group, comprised primarily of members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity and of the Delta Delta Delta sorority, was vacationing for the weekend in Ocean Isle Beach, a resort town in North Carolina. Investigators have determined that the blaze began on a rear porch before rapidly spreading to the second story and consuming most of the two-story home. They are still working to determine what started the fire. Authorities told the Associated Press that they have been able to notify friends and relatives of most of the seven students killed, but the identities of the victims will not be released before Wednesday.
In the second display of discrimination at Columbia University in less than a month, a swastika was found painted on the door of Elizabeth Midlarsky, a Jewish professor, Wednesday morning, according to The New York Times. Midlarsky, a clinical psychologist at the institution, said that she had also received anti-Semitic flyers in her work mailbox in recent weeks. "I see this as an attack of extreme hate and extreme cowardice by someone trying to make a point," Dr. Midlarsky was quoted as saying in the Times. In a previous act of discrimination at the college that received widespread media coverage, a noose was found on the office door of a black professor, Madonna G. Constantine, on Oct. 10.
Minority professors are underrepresented in the nation's higher-education science and engineering departments, according to a report written by Donna J. Nelson, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Oklahoma, that was released Wednesday. Entitled "A National Analysis of Minorities in Science and Engineering Faculties at Research Universities," the report showed that while blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans make up 28.7 percent of the American population, they constitute as little as 2.2 percent of the faculty in certain academic departments. The report also found that the proportion of minority faculty members diminished at higher levels -- the majority of minority faculty members are assistant professors. In compiling the report, Nelson interviewed department chairs at the top 100 institutions across 15 different academic disciplines to collect information on tenure and tenure-track professors.
