http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=7541

Civil rights group blasts editor of college newspaper (updated)
Request action from SOSU president

Sam Lewin 2/7/2006

A Native American civil rights group has filed a formal complaint over an
Oklahoma college’s student newspaper.

The letter comes after students working for The Southeastern, the paper for
Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, published yet another
article critical of American Indians.

“We are extremely angry, disappointed and amazed that [the college’s
administration] has so far chosen to disregard a series of insulting and
blatantly racist statements against American Indians printed in your own
university paper,” wrote Peggy Larney and W. Keith Overstreet of the Indian
Citizens Against Racial Exploitation.

The controversy began last December when a columnist that calls himself
“The Amazing” Beau Chadwell referred to Native Americans as "savages” and
used other racial slurs.

The flap over those comments led to an article in the Native American
Times. In the paper’s next edition, Southeastern managing editor Jason May
wrote a column called “Beau Knows critics ignoring the real issues.”
In the column, May writes that he was “scalped” in the Native American
Times story, and suggests one of the reasons the paper has not received
complaints about Chadwell’s comments is “because 50 percent of Native
Americans are at a below basic literacy level.”

For Lamey and Overstreet, these latest racially charged comments were the
final straw.

Referring to May as a “condescending beginner,” they ask Southeastern
President Glen Johnson to review the articles for violations of the
school’s racial/ ethnic harassment policy.

“May… writes a very reckless, mistake-filled, dangerous, defensive and
strongly inciting article,” states the letter.

A Southeastern spokeswoman told the Native American Times that Johnson had
received the letter and was reviewing it.

Laney and Overstreet also take issue with the following sentence in May’s
article: “Native Americans are also 200 percent more likely to commit
homicide.” That claim, they say, is flat-out wrong.

“If [May] will consult with the expert information on hate crimes contained
within the website of the U.S. FBI, he will find that American Indians have
the lowest incidence of committing violent crimes, including ones motivated
by racial hatred than any racial group in America. Further, in a past
study, the U.S. Department of Justice found that American Indians are far
more likely than any other racial group or minority to be victims of
violence by non-Indians…his reckless statements are false,” they write.

Dustin Knight, a Choctaw student at the school who has been following the
controversy said, "it’s ridiculous[for May] to use statistics that aren’t
true.”

He also said the original artcicle from Chadwell should never have run in
the first place.