Investigation, protests continue over assault

Tension escalated yesterday as protests continued outside Campus Copy Center, the site of an allegedly racially motivated assault last week. About 20 students handed out flyers and carried posters in front of both Campus Copy Center locations throughout the day yesterday, advising passersby to boycott the Walnut Street stores until the allegations of the assault are investigated. Graduate School of Education student Gregory Seaton has alleged that he was denied service and then beaten by four Copy Center employees last Tuesday. Campus Copy Center representatives deny the accusation of a racially motivated assault. The incident is currently being investigated by University Police, who originally classified it as a simple assault. Protests continued after a statement was issued yesterday by University President Judith Rodin -- one of several demands made by protesters on Monday. Over two dozen student groups -- including Tzedek Hillel, the Progressive Activists Network and the United Minorities Council -- still are demanding that Penn withdraw its financial support of Campus Copy until a thorough investigation is complete, emphasizing that they are not jumping to conclusions about either party's guilt but only asking for a complete investigation. "This is serious," said UMOJA Political Action and Research Committee Coordinator Kimberly Noble, a College sophomore. "The allegations make no difference because both people agreed that four [Campus Copy employees] were involved in a physical altercation." In response to student protests, Penn is planning an open forum in which concerned students and representatives from Campus Copy Center can voice their opinions on the incident, University spokeswoman Lori Doyle said. "We are always concerned when we hear reports about insensitivity to our students or any member of the Penn community," Doyle said. The initiative to hold the forum followed a decision by the Undergraduate Assembly to cancel a meeting yesterday morning between representatives of Campus Copy and student groups. "We felt that we did not want to interfere with the investigation at this point, and we felt that students felt that having it at the Copy Center was not a good location," UA Chairman Michael Bassik said. "We thought we needed a more neutral location," he added. Campus Copy Center owner Stan Shapiro said he regretted that the meeting was canceled. "We openly volunteered to have people visit us here and were told that certain people weren't comfortable with that," Shapiro said. "The ball is actually in Mr. Bassik's court to arrange a venue and time that is suitable to all," he added. Doyle said that the University has also decided to issue a statement of principles clarifying the relationship with Penn-supported vendors. The statement of principles, intended to set guidelines for how the University expects vendors to handle altercations with customers, will come out "very quickly," hopefully within a few weeks. Both Campus Copy and Seaton are currently employing legal council, though Doyle said that to her knowledge, Seaton has not filed a lawsuit. Seaton refused to comment on the status of a potential lawsuit. Despite Seaton's allegations that the incident was racially motivated, students said their complaints are unrelated to race. "Our purpose is not racially motivated, it's about safe businesses," College senior and W.E.B. DuBois College House Council President Desiree Nelson said. "Four against one, that's not right," she added. The students, who said they were protesting not as members of minority student organizations but as "concerned students," said they objected to the fact that Campus Copy Center is the only store where students can buy course materials for some classes. "There are lots of other options for bulkpacks, and we feel that professors should look into that... We think the administration could encourage that process," Wharton senior Erika Coleman said. Coleman said she was not sure how long the protests would continue. The protesters were joined by several counter-protesters, including employees of Campus Copy Center who handed out statements written by witnesses to the incident. "I felt I had to act fast and I then proceeded to put my left arm around Mr. Seaton's neck and I pulled as hard as I could to get him off my friend. I thought he was either going to pass out or eventually let go," one employee wrote. "My intentions were not to hurt Mr. Seaton, but rather remove him from being on my friend," he added. Another counter-protester asked to be charged five dollars for a sheet of paper to actively support the store.