Florida A&M; President Discusses Hazing
MALVEAUX: The president of Florida A&M; University talks with CNN about allegations of hazing at the school. Authorities are investigating the death of drum major, Robert Champion, in a suspected hazing incident. Since Champion's death, other alleged beatings involving the band have now come to light. CNN's Jason Carroll caught up with the president to find out what is the school doing.</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): James Ammons, that man in the car there, is Florida A&M;'s president. (on camera): Hi, how are you. I'm Jason Carroll with</s>CNN. JAMES AMMONS, PRESIDENT, FLORIDA A&M; UNIVERSITY: hey, Jason. How are you doing this morning?</s>CARROLL: I'm well, thank you. (voice-over): As university president, the buck, so to speak, stops with him. (on camera): We've reached out to you, as you know, several times in the past but have not been successful in terms of getting you to respond. (voice-over): Despite numerous phone calls and e-mails, Ammons had not responded to our questions about hazing. So we caught up with him on campus. (on camera): Do you believe though in any way, shape or form the university has done enough to stop what has happened at the school in the past?</s>AMMONS: Let me just say this. Our number-one priority is the health, safety and well being of our students. And with this tragic situation that we have involving the death of Robert Champion, our hearts just go out to his family.</s>CARROLL: As you know, before Robert Champion's death, you had another situation with another young woman here at the university. She was hazed. As a result, three young men have now been arrested. That was before his death. So the question is, why wasn't something done before?</s>AMMONS: We have policies, procedures. And every instance of hazing that we've had had, has gone through the investigatory process.</s>CARROLL: But isn't it clear that the policies --</s>CARROLL: -- that you have in place aren't working and that those policies need to be changed?</s>AMMONS: One of the things that we have found with hazing is that there is a -- there is a veil of secrecy. This is a culture, not just here at Florida A&M; University, it is on colleges and university campuses all across America.</s>CARROLL: Have you made any headway into making some changes here at the university, things that you can tell us? Some tangible things.</s>AMMONS: There have been people incarcerated as a result of hazing. So, I mean, there is a stiff law. There are legal consequences for anyone engaged in hazing. We have adopted policies, procedures. But what I think you --</s>CARROLL: But none of it seems to be working.</s>AMMONS: Well, but the other thing -- the other thing is that when you look at the number of cases that we have had on our campus and you look at cases on other campuses, there is not a rampant kind of behavior.</s>CARROLL: Do you believe you bear personally any responsibility for what has happened to any of these students here?</s>AMMONS: Personal responsibility? I have done everything in accordance to the law here in the state of Florida.</s>CARROLL: About three hours after that interview we received this document from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which says, "During the course of their investigation, they uncovered possible fraud and/or misconduct by employees here at the university." (voice-over): The document reads, "The department has initiated a separate criminal investigation to examine these matters." So to find out more about the new investigation we wanted to talk to Mr. Ammons again. We just wanted to follow up with you about that possible follow- up interview with Mr. Ammons.</s>CARROLL: Ammon's spokeswoman said she would get back to us. She never did. Shortly after that, an interview scheduled with the chairman of the university's board of trustees, Solomon Badger, was canceled. Students and band members we spoke to disagree on how the problem has been addressed and whether it can be solved.</s>RYAN RICHARDS, FLORIDA A&M; UNIVERSITY BAND MEMBER: We definitely realize our faults and where we went wrong. And we're just trying to move forward from there and take steps necessary to move forward.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yesterday, my friend --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is up to us.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have to make change.</s>CARROLL (voice-over): Jason Carroll, CNN, Tallahassee, Florida.</s>MALVEAUX: So should the Florida A&M; band be suspended for years because of hazing? In the next hour, we'll hear from a guest who says yes. Author and college president, Walter Kimbrough, joins us to talk about the hazing issue. President Obama is about to go around Congress again and unveil a new pay protection for home health care workers. He's going to appear at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building shortly. You are seeing a picture there as we wait. The government has long classified home health care workers as companions for elderly and disabled Americans. What does that mean? It means they are excluded from federal wage and overtime rules. But with the coming surge in the elderly population, the president wants to change that. Almost two million people now work as home health care providers, and will be impacted by today's action. They earn an average of $17,000 to $20,000 a year, putting many of those folks below the poverty line. I want to bring in Gloria Borger, who is joining us from Washington. Gloria, obviously, it is a significant announcement here. But it is set against this backdrop of Washington gridlock. We are talking about the payroll tax cuts. We're talking about a possible government shutdown here. In looking at what we are seeing play out over the next couple of weeks, do we think that anything is going to get done?</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, they have to get something done. They have to get something done if they want to avert a shutdown of the government. And they have to get something done, quite honestly, Suzanne, if they want to get re-elected. I mean, these members of Congress understand that the public is incredibly unhappy with them. I just got a new poll this morning from the Pew Research Center which says the public discontent with Congress has reached record levels and that two in three voters say that you ought to throw all incumbents out. That's pretty bad. The Republicans are getting most of the blame for it. But the Democrats had better watch out also. So they'd better figure out a way to avoid shutting down the government, to extend the payroll tax cuts and to go home. Because at least at home they can't do any harm, right?</s>MALVEAUX: Yes. That's one way of looking at it. What do you think --</s>BORGER: Yes.</s>MALVEAUX: How effective do you think the strategy is for the White House that's been so frustrated of not being able to see Congress move forward on this very specific and critical legislation? Now you've got the president issuing all these executive orders, going around Congress.</s>BORGER: Right. Look, it is very clear what his campaign strategy is. He's going to run against a do-nothing Congress. The problem for him is that there are also Democrats in Congress, as well as Republicans. But Republicans in the House the other day really inoculated themselves on the payroll tax cut because they passed a version of the payroll tax cut. They included in it a provision that says you can start building that controversial Keystone Pipeline, which the Democrats don't like. The Democrats in the Senate yesterday gave a little and said, OK, we don't want to pay for the payroll tax cut by taxing millionaires, we're giving that up. But they still can't seem to get together and the clock is ticking. At some point, the American public is going to say, "why do we always have to stand at the edge of a cliff before we can get anything done?" This is not the way to run the government and, quite honestly, it does give the president a good line to say when he's campaigning.</s>MALVEAUX: All right. Gloria, I feel you, I understand, and standing on the edge of the cliff is how we all tend to feel this way now.</s>BORGER: We keep walking up to it.</s>MALVEAUX: Yes, absolutely, every single time now. And we're going to keep an eye out on the White House. The president's going to be making a statement very shortly, so we'll keep our eye on that event and bring it to you as it becomes available live.