1 Students protesting racial comments by the president of New Jersey's state university staged a basketball court sit-in Tuesday that forced suspension of the game.
2 The crowd, mostly whites, shouted 'Get off the court' and 'We want hoops' to the 150 students, mostly blacks, who took to the court during halftime at Rutgers University's athletic center.
3 Rutgers President Francis L. Lawrence was not at the game. He has been criticized for his comments last fall that minorities don't have the hereditary genetic background to do well on college entrance exams.
4 As some students sat in the middle of the basketball court, several others circled them, carrying banners blasting Lawrence.
5 'How do we deal with an intellectually disadvantaged president? We fire him,' read one.
6 Police and university officials negotiated briefly with the students while the Rutgers team and the University of Massachusetts team returned to the locker room. About a half-hour later, the athletic league commissioner ordered the game suspended and the crowd was asked the leave.
7 Rutgers' vice president of student affairs, Roselle Wilson, said a university policy prohibited removing the protesters as long as they were peaceful. The protesters left peacefully after the game was suspended.
8 Pete Kowalski, a spokesman for Rutgers' sports department, said there were no arrests.
9 Lawrence could not be reached for comment. His phone number is unlisted and university spokeswoman Pam Orell said it was too late to contact him.
10 A recording of Lawrence's Nov. 11 comments was distributed by the faculty union last week.
11 Noting that blacks score below the national average on college entrance exams, Lawrence said: 'Do we set standards in the future so that we don't admit anybody with the national test? Or do we deal with a disadvantaged population that doesn't have that genetic hereditary background to have a higher average?'
12 Lawrence apologized last week for 'the damage and the pain' he had caused and said he could not 'explain a remark that said precisely the opposite of my deeply held beliefs.'
13 Lawrence, who became president in 1990, said he would not step down, despite calls for his resignation. School officials said they had no plans to discipline Lawrence.
14 Lawrence has long been an advocate of increasing black enrollment at Rutgers and other institutions of higher learning.
15 About 31 percent of the state university's 40,000 students are minorities.

Rutgers President Francis L . Lawrence was not at the game . He has been criticized for his comments last fall that minorities don ' t have the hereditary genetic background to do well on college entrance exams .
He has been criticized
Who criticized him?