uncnews.unc.edu

Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:

International Coverage

North Carolina voters pass amendment banning same-sex unions
"The Takeaway" Public Radio International
...While much of the attention surrounding the amendment has centered on same-sex marriage, Kareem Crayton, associate professor of law at the University of North Carolina, explained that it affects all domestic partnerships. "Somehow, between the initial plan that was devised in the House in North Carolina and the time it found its way onto the ballot as Amendment 1, the language tended to expand to any question involving a domestic relationship, and a domestic relationship would be a domestic relationship by either a differently-sex couple or a same-sex couple," Crayton said. "I think most of the recent debate about the amendment going too far was that it expanded the prohibition to affect relationships that most people thought were pretty much intact."

Gay-Marriage Fights Show Obama’s Dilemma in Battlegrounds
Bloomberg News
The North Carolina measure that passed yesterday strengthened an existing law against gay marriage to prohibit civil unions as well, said Maxine Eichner, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill. “There are three states that I would put in the category of having language as broad as ours, which are South Carolina, Idaho and Michigan,” she said.

National Coverage

North Carolina's New Ban on Same-Sex Unions Leaves Faculty
Benefits and Recruitment Efforts in the Air
The Chronicle of Higher Education
...Students throughout the university system are allowed to add a same-sex partner to their health-insurance plans, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill gives the same-sex partners of its students access to student housing and certain recreational facilities. "All these benefits are highly questionable with the passage of the amendment," said Maxine Eichner, a professor of law at the Chapel Hill campus's law school.

UNC Studies Impact of State's Ban on Gay Marriage
Inside Higher Ed
University of North Carolina officials -- both at the system and campus levels -- are studying the impact of the state's new ban on gay marriage. The measure, passed Tuesday, says that the state can only recognize a marriage between a man and a woman as a "domestic legal union," and officials are uncertain what impact that could have on the generally limited benefits currently available to university employees with same-sex partners.

Uncertainty for North Carolina same-sex couples after gay marriage vote
CNN
..."This state has long exhibited two parallel trends of political thought," said Ferrel Guillory, head of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Program on Public Life. "There's this modernist, progressive element to North Carolina, which is expressed in its major universities, in its development of the modern economy, the Research Triangle. There's this movement to modernize in North Carolina that’s been going on in the postwar era. But the overlay is a stream of cultural conservatism."

Opportunity around the country
USA Today
...In North Carolina, where the poverty rate is 16% and unemployment hovers at 9.7%, it's not surprising that fewer residents move up economically, says Gene Nichol, director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. "The South is the native home of American poverty," he says.

Ban College Football? Breaking Down a Debate (Blog)
The New York Times
...Green, eloquent, self-contained and square-jawed (of Tuesday night’s participants, you would undoubtedly want him delivering your closing statement on a network legal drama), said he had “grave concerns” about concussions, but also denied the problem was as widespread or severe as Gladwell implied. Citing a study from the University of North Carolina, he said there were more direct fatalities in lacrosse, water polo and baseball than football, so why not ban those sports?

Regional Coverage

Pollution Tilts Undersea Arms Race
"The Environment in Focus with Tom Pelton" WYPR-FM (Baltimore, Maryland)
An ancient arms race on the ocean's bottom pits shell crushers, such as blue crabs, against shell builders, such as clams and oysters. Research by Justin Ries of the University of North Carolina (above) concludes that carbon dioxide pollution creates acidic conditions that accelerate shell growth for the predators but slows down the building of shell defenses by their prey.
Note: This interview was recorded in the Carolina News Studio.

State and Local Coverage

Hold on to your caps: It’s graduation weekend
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Get out your caps and gowns. It’s commencement weekend in the area. All three local universities will be holding their commencement ceremonies over the next several days, sending out nearly 12,000 students total clutching their diplomas in their hands. ...At 9:30 a.m. about eight miles away, UNC Chapel Hill will hold its main commencement ceremony, at Kenan Stadium. Around 5,600 undergraduates, graduate and professional school students will receive their degrees. They will hear Michael Bloomberg, New York City mayor and founder of Bloomberg LP, deliver the commencement address.

Amendment foes vow no let up
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
...UNC-Chapel Hill law professor Gene Nichol said Wednesday that a challenge to the state constitution would proceed like any other lawsuit alleging that someone was harmed. The simplest challenge would come from one of the people who work for a municipality that offers domestic partner benefits, which the amendment forbids. “The easiest lawsuit would be one of those folks suing because they used to have something they are now not going to have,” Nichol said. “That would be a clear dollars-and-cents injury.”

Election board may discuss controversial church sign issue
The Star News (Wilmington)
Other churches in North Carolina that served as polling places also had messages that weighed in on Amendment One, including churches in Johnston and Cumberland counties, said Elizabeth Haddix, a staff attorney for the UNC Center for Civil Rights, which sponsored an election day hotline. On Tuesday, Haddix said the center was looking into whether the sign violated election laws.

'This Is Our State, This Is Our Country:' Amendment 1 Opponents Rally On Campus
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
More than 80 people – students, families, residents – gathered on the steps of UNC’s South Building to protest the passage of Amendment One. ...And UNC LGBTQ Center Director Terri Phoenix says all are there to gather strength from each other at the heart breaking results of the primary.

Thorpe honored with room naming
The Star News (Wilmington)
Friends, family members, alumni, and colleagues came together to celebrate the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Division of Radiologic Science's founding faculty members, including Wilmington's own Robert L. Thorpe, by naming its School of Medicine Bondurant Hall classroom in their honor on March 4.

SAS, Blue Cross team up on patient care
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
That effort included last year’s formation of a think tank at its Cary headquarters, the SAS Center for Health Analytics and Insights, which is spearheading the collaboration with Blue Cross. In November, SAS teamed up with UNC-Chapel Hill’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center to develop a new product to improve patient care.