University of Louisville bans credit card solicitors

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The University of Louisville banned credit card solicitors after students were offered racially offensive and sexually explicit T-shirts during an on-campus promotion.

The shirts were given away to students who applied for a credit card backed by Bank One during a campus visit last week. A caricature of a voluptuous black woman, a Bank One logo and "10 Reasons Why Beer is Better than a Black Man" appeared on the shirts.

Most of the reasons were sexually explicit and included "A beer can't get you pregnant," and "A beer doesn't yell at your kids."

"Bank One is outraged that such a thing could happen," said Nancy Norris, a spokeswoman for the Chicago-based bank. "That offensive T-shirt was not approved by Bank One."

On Monday, Bank One fired FrontLine Event Marketing, the Philadelphia-based firm handling the promotion. Norris said Bank One is considering taking legal action because the T-shirts depicted the bank's logo without permission.

FrontLine president Ed Solomon said the shirts were not produced by his company, and believes they came from the two unauthorized workers who were hired by an independent contractor.

"We just have found this incident to be totally offensive and we are outraged by it," Solomon said.

Bank One was the only credit card vendor allowed on the Louisville campus. The university's five-year, $1.9 million agreement expires today and university officials planned to stop on-campus solicitation in their next contract.

University President Jim Ramsey announced the ban last Friday, a day after two promotions workers were escorted off campus. Officials did not see the T-shirts until a confrontation between the workers and students offended by the shirts.

"I would like to add my own personal apologies to the students, faculty and staff who were appropriately offended by this deplorable incident," Ramsey said in an e-mail.

Representatives from Bank One plan to apologize.

and discuss the incident at a campus diversity forum Tuesday.