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Most say St. Sabina's ban unreasonable
June 2, 2001
More Chicagoans polled said safety was not a legitimate concern for Roman Catholic schools that chose not to admit largely black St. Sabina School into an intramural sports league. In a CBS 2/Sun-Times survey taken on Friday, 52 percent of respondents said that safety concerns were not a legitimate reason to exclude the school from the league; 35 percent said they were legitimate, and 13 percent said they were not sure. Non-Catholics, women and younger people were more likely to say that the concerns were not legitimate. Blacks were far more likely to agree. The survey of 600 Chicago area residents has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. It was conducted by Survey USA. Callers to a nonscientific phone-in poll at the Sun-Times, the Morningline question, differed from the people polled. When asked if the Catholic League parents are motivated by racism or legitimate safety fears, 74 percent said safety. The Southside Catholic Conference voted 11-9 last week against admitting St. Sabina's teams to the league. Concerns about safety in St. Sabina's neighborhood were intense and widespread among the league members, league treasurer Rick Jedrey said. "Basically, their concern was a safety issue of a young mother going over to St. Sabina's on a Thursday night for a fifth-grade girls basketball game on an August night, by herself," Jedrey said. St. Sabina is at 78th and Throop in the Auburn-Gresham community, which is 98 percent African American, a mix of middle- and lower-income families who live in bungalows and small three-flats. With 32 homicides last year, the Gresham police district, which includes St. Sabina, ranked ninth of 25 city districts in total number of homicides.
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