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25 Years After Murder, 'Laramie Project' Stages Reading in Wyoming
It has been 25 years since the body of Matthew Shepard was discovered in Laramie, Wyoming. The gay college student had been tied to a fence post, tortured, and left to die.
The murder drew national attention to violence against gay people, and attracted the interest of theater director Moises Kaufman, who turned the horror into art with "The Laramie Project."
This 25th anniversary has triggered deep sadness for Kaufman, founder and artistic director of the New York-based Tectonic Theater Project. He wonders about all the things Shepard could have become.
"Every year around this time, it's painful to remember, but this one has hit particularly hard," Kaufman told Theh Associated Press.
After Shepard's 1998 killing, Kaufman and members of Tectonic traveled to Laramie and wrote the play based on more than 200 interviews. "The Laramie Project" is a poignant mix of real news reports and actors portraying friends, family, police officers, killers and other Laramie residents.
This week, Tectonic is marking the anniversary by gathering the original cast and creators, and some of the people represented in the piece for a staged reading and conversation as part of the 2023 Shepard Symposium at the University of Wyoming.
"The Laramie Project," one of the most frequently performed plays in high schools, has been performed in more than 20 countries and translated into more than 13 languages. It is among the top 10 most licensed plays in America.
"Precisely because it wasn't about Matthew Shepard, precisely because it was about the town of Laramie is why it continues to resonate," said Kaufman.
"We were hoping that it wouldn't be relevant anymore. But it is every day more relevant. Hate crimes all over our nation are at much higher rates than they were when Matthew Shepard was killed."
He pointed to an increase in anti-Asian incidents since the pandemic began, and assaults on transgender and gender-nonconforming people.
In 2009, Kaufman was on hand as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed by then-President Barack Obama. The act expanded the 1969 federal hate-crime law to include crimes based on a victim's sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
"The Laramie Project" has consistently been the subject of pushback by some conservative school districts, and this year faces banishment from Florida stages due to what critics call the "Don't Say Gay" law.
Elsewhere, theater creators across the nation say school censorship is getting worse, particularly around material with LGBTQ+ themes. Cardinal High School in Middlefield, Ohio, canceled a production of "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" due to content issues.
Kaufman is also alarmed that the Lansing Board of Education in Kansas voted to remove the script of "The Laramie Project" from the school curriculum.
"There has always been — since the inception — a couple of theaters every year where the board of the school says no. All right. But this last year was the first time that the book itself was banned from a classroom."
Kaufman has always been cheered by the students who find a way to perform the play despite barriers, becoming what he calls artist-activists. "My belief is that the best art occurs at the intersection of the personal and the political," he said.
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Payments to college athletes to range from a few dollars to more than $1M under settlement
Thousands of former college athletes in the U.S. will be eligible for payments ranging from a few dollars to more than a million under the $2.78 billion antitrust settlement agreed to by the NCAA and five power conferences, a deal that also paves the way for schools to directly compensate athletes while attempting regulate payments from boosters.
Details of the sprawling plan were filed Friday in federal court in the Northern District of California, a little more than two months after the framework of an agreement was announced. The deal must still be approved by a judge.
"College athletes will finally be able to share in the billions of dollars their compelling stories and dynamic performances have generated for their schools, conferences, and the NCAA," the filing said. "This is nothing short of a seismic change to college sports following more than four years of hard-fought victories in this case."
The full term sheet includes guidelines on roster caps for individual sports that will replace scholarship limits; how the new financial payments will be monitored and enforced to ensure compliance by schools; how third-party payments to athletes will be regulated; and how nearly $3 billion in damages will be doled out over the next 10 years.
Those payouts will vary drastically and are determined by sport played, when, how long and what conference an athlete competed in. While Division I athletes across all sports will be eligible to collect damages, the majority of damages is expected to go to football and basketball players from power conferences because those leagues and teams generate most of the revenue that comes from billion-dollar media rights contracts.
The deal covers three antitrust cases — including the class-action lawsuit known as House vs. the NCAA — that challenged NCAA compensation rules dating to 2016. The plaintiffs claimed NCAA rules denied thousands of athletes the opportunity to earn millions of dollars off the use of their names, images and likenesses.
The NCAA lifted its ban on athletes earning money through endorsement and sponsorship deals in 2021.
The agreement does not settle the issue of whether college athletes should be deemed employees, but it does include language that would suggest the deal would be subject to change if "a change in law or circumstances permits collective bargaining."
The NCAA and college sports leaders continue to plead for help from Congress in the form of a federal law that would supersede state laws and allow the association and conferences to self govern without fear of future antitrust litigation.
"This settlement is an important step forward for student-athletes and college sports, but it does not address every challenge," the commissioners of the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, Southeastern Conference and NCAA President Charlie Baker said in a joint statement. "The need for federal legislation to provide solutions remains. If Congress does not act, the progress reached through the settlement could be significantly mitigated by state laws and continued litigation."
While that help still seems unlikely to come soon — especially with a presidential election months away — college sports leaders hope the settlement can provide some certainty for schools and finally stem the constant legal attacks on its antiquated model of amateurism.
Paying athletes
The NCAA and conferences have agreed to amend their rules to permit a landmark compensation system that allows schools to share up to about $21 million in athletic revenues with their athletes annually, starting in 2025.
The NCAA and conferences will be permitted to make rules that prevent schools from circumventing the cap.
That number is derived from taking 22% of the average revenue generated through media rights contracts, tickets and other sources by power conference schools. The agreement will create an audit system that allows plaintiffs to monitor athletic revenue, which is expected to rise in the coming years as new media rights agreements kick in for conferences and the College Football Playoff.
Athletes are projected to receive $1.5 billion to $2 billion annually.
All athletes will be eligible to receive the new financial benefits, but each school will be permitted to determine how they want to divvy up the money among sports. How exactly Title IX gender equity rules apply is still unclear and will require federal clarification. How schools comply with Title IX will be the responsibility of each institution.
Scholarships and rosters
Replacing scholarship limits with roster caps could mean even more athletic scholarship opportunities in Division I.
Most notably, major college football teams will now be permitted to have 105 player on scholarship instead of the current 85, though schools will no longer be required to give full scholarships to every football player.
Partial scholarships have been used in some sports for years, but will now be permitted in all.
The roster caps for baseball (34), softball (25) and volleyball (18) will also allow for a significant jump in the number of scholarships schools can provide in those sports, though schools will not be required to meet the cap.
NIL deals and oversight
NCAA rules have been tweaked to allow schools to be more involved in providing NIL opportunities for college athletes, but they will still be allowed to strike deals with third parties.
However, athletes will be required to report deals with third parties that surpass $600 to an outside clearinghouse.
The NCAA is also creating a public database that it hopes will allow athletes to assess fair market value.
Booster-funded NIL collectives have become a common way athletes are compensated, but now those deals will be subject to review through an arbitration process to determine if it is for a "valid business purpose," according to the agreement.
Violations could lead to eligibility penalties for athletes and sanctions for schools.
Damage payments
The plaintiffs in the House case are responsible for doling out damages. Included in Friday's filing was a chart breaking down the categories of eligible athletes along with four different types of payouts they could be in line to receive.
According to the plaintiffs, about 19,000 power conference football players and men's basketball players will be in line to receive an average of $91,000, with payments ranging from $15,000 to $280,000 just for what is referred to broadcast name, image and likeness.
Some of those same athletes could also be in line for tens of thousands of dollars more related to lost opportunities to earn NIL money while in college and what is deemed by the plaintiffs as pay-for-play. Plaintiffs' lawyers say a few athletes will be eligible to receive upward of $1 million.
Next steps
Plaintiffs' attorneys say they will file a motion for preliminary approval and — if granted — a public website will go up in about two months where former college athletes can determine how much they are eligible to receive.
Still, the settlement is months away from final approval. There will be an opportunity for athletes who are members of the plaintiffs' class to object to the settlement and ask to be excluded. Already one school, Houston Christian, has objected — though the judge denied its request to intervene.
"We are moving forward in the right direction by giving college athletes what they have EARNED & DESERVE which has been long overdue," said Sedona Prince, a college basketball player now at TCU and one of the plaintiffs in the House case. "We still have a long way to go and I pray athletes ask more questions and demand more answers from the leaders at their schools, conferences and the NCAA."
Survey: US college students score low in civic literacy
A recent survey commissioned by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that college student in the United States are lacking in civic education.
Writing for Ed Source, Emma Gallegos reports that most of those surveyed don’t know the terms lengths for members of Congress, and a third couldn’t identify the speaker of the House of Representatives. (July 2024)
Tips for first-year international students in the US
Book your flights right away, get a U.S. phone plan, make sure you have linens for your dorm and attend orientation – that’s some of the advice international students have for first-year college students coming from abroad.
U.S. News & World Report compiled helpful tips for students studying in the United States for the first time. (July 2024)
Survey: Social integration, career prep are important to international students
A recent survey of international students in the United States found that before starting school, they were concerned about personal safety, making friends and feeling homesick.
Inside Higher Ed reports that international students want specialized orientations, peer connections, career preparation and job placement to help make their college experiences successful. (July 2024)
US advisory council ends Nigeria visit, signs student exchange deal
Members of a U.S. presidential advisory council have approved a student exchange deal between an American college and a Nigerian university as part of the council's effort to strengthen collaboration on education, health, entrepreneurship and development between Africa and Africans living abroad.
The council also visited a health facility supported by the United States Agency for International Development in the capital.
Nigerian authorities and visitors chatted with members of the U.S President's Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement as they toured a healthcare facility in Karu, a suburb of Abuja, on the last day of the council's three-day visit to Abuja and Lagos.
The facility is one of many supported by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, to improve the management of childhood illnesses, family planning, immunization and delivery.
The tour was part of the council's effort to promote African diaspora-led investments in technology entrepreneurship, education and healthcare delivery.
"They're doing a phenomenal job there, it really gave us a sense of what the healthcare system is in Nigeria," said Deniece Laurent-Mantey, executive director of the advisory council. "This is our first trip as a council to the continent and we chose Nigeria for a reason — the diaspora in Nigeria is very active, very influential, and they're really a source of strength when it comes to our U.S.-Africa policy. And so for us coming to Nigeria was very intentional."
The council was created by President Joe Biden in September to improve collaboration between Africa and its diaspora in terms of economic and social development.
Akila Udoji, manager of the Primary Healthcare Centre of Karu, said officials in Nigeria were pleased that the council members were able to visit.
"We're happy that they have seen what the money they have given to us to work with has been used to do, because they have been able to assist us in capacity-building, trainings, equipment supply and the makeover of the facility," Udoji said.
Earlier, the council signed a deal for a student exchange program between Spelman College in the southern U.S. city of Atlanta and Nigeria's University of Lagos.
Laurent-Mantey said education exchanges are one of the council's top priorities.
"In Lagos, we had the president of Spelman College — she's also a member of our council — she signed an agreement with the University of Lagos to further education exchange programs in STEM and creative industries between those two universities," Laurent-Mantey said. "And I think for us it's very important, because Spelman College is a historically Black university, and so here we are promoting the importance of collaboration between African Americans and Africans."
In March, the advisory council adopted its first set of recommendations for the U.S. president, including the student exchange initiative, advocating for more U.S. government support for Africa, climate-focused initiatives, and improving U.S. visa access for Africans.
The council met with Nigerian health and foreign affairs officials during the visit before leaving the country on Wednesday.
