The Daily Tar Heel on Nov. 16 carried a story about football player Jimmy Hitchcock donating $150,000 for the BCC. Those who were around at the time will recall that he was one of 17 who occupied parts of South Building, including then-Chancellor Hardin's office, for two weeks in April 1993. They were finally arrested and moved out. But Hardin, in one of a series of shameful cave-ins to the radicals, asked the district attorney not to press charges. So they got no punishment for their actions.
The ostensible purpose of the occupation was to force Hardin to call a special meeting of the Board of Trustees to demand that they approve an even more bloated version of the BCC than the present one -- 53,000 square feet on the area beside Wilson Library and Dey Hall. In early 1992, the group working for a freestanding BCC was demanding "only" 23,000 square feet -- about double the size of many of the classroom buildings on campus. Now, after a process characterized by extreme irregularity at all stages, the size appears to have been fixed at 44,500 square feet -- most of it being unnecessary for the academic mission of the University.
Ed Williams
Class of '50
