ENTERTAINMENT : CBS Suspends Rooney 3 Months for Racist Remarks to Magazine
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NEW YORK — CBS News suspended Andy Rooney for three months without pay today after confronting the “60 Minutes” humorist about racial remarks attributed to him by a gay magazine.
CBS News President David Burke, who took the action after a meeting with Rooney, declined to comment on his reasons but said in a statement he made it clear to Rooney that CBS News “cannot tolerate such remarks or anything that approximates such comments.”
Rooney, who earlier drew criticism from homosexual and lesbian groups for remarks he made in a December TV special, “A Year With Andy Rooney: 1989,” denied making the racial comments, contained in an article in The Advocate.
The Los Angeles-based magazine quoted Rooney as saying that “most people are born with equal intelligence, but blacks have watered down their genes because the less intelligent ones are the ones that have the most children.”
“They drop out of school early, do drugs and get pregnant,” Rooney was quoted as saying.
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