briefs

(U-WIRE) SOUTH BEND, Ind. – After every resident of at least three Notre Dame dorms… (U-WIRE) SOUTH BEND, Ind. – After every resident of at least three Notre Dame dorms received racist letters last week, University officials have reached out to the student body to condemn the message and warn that more letters might arrive.

In an e-mail to the student body sent Friday, University President Father John Jenkins and Vice President for Student Affairs Father Mark Poorman dismissed the writer’s claims as “blatant prejudice” and reiterated Notre Dame’s stance on racism.

The writer of the one-page letters – who identified himself in the document as a man from North Dakota – sent an envelope to each room in at least two residence halls, addressing them simply to “Occupant,” Jenkins and Poorman said.

The Observer has since learned that at least one more dorm received the letter. Though Zahm, Lewis and Knott Halls were the only confirmed recipients of the letter Sunday night, Jenkins, Poorman and the rectors of the targeted dorms said there is a possibility more of these letters might arrive in the next days.

The letter, Jenkins and Poorman said in their e-mail, “makes the false and abhorrent argument that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites.”

In the letter, the writer claims that “on average, blacks are less intelligent than whites and the reason why is genetic.”

He cites various books and magazine articles to support his argument that putting more resources into predominantly African American schools will not result in “significant improvement” in these communities’ levels of education. He further condemns the United States’ decision to give aid to African countries.

In April 2007, the same man sent 354 letters to residents in seven different dorms in Ohio State University, reported the school’s student newspaper, The Lantern. The paper chose not to disclose the writer’s name, which – as in Notre Dame’s case – was included at the end of the letter.

The Observer was not able to contact the man Sunday and is, therefore, not releasing his name either. It was not immediately clear why the man targeted Notre Dame or how the dorms that received the letters were chosen.

Jenkins and Poorman said in their e-mail they were working with a U.S. postal inspector and officials at Ohio State to evaluate a course of action for the University. Poorman declined to comment on this statement Sunday.

The letters were sent from Pembina, a town of 642 in North Dakota, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. -By Marcela Berrios The Observer (Notre Dame)

(U-WIRE) BOSTON – Massachusetts lawmakers might end up passing more than legislation if three proposed bills reducing punishment for marijuana possession from jail time to a small fine are voted into law.

Proposed Senate bills No. 1121and No. 1011would replace criminal penalties for possession of less than one ounce of marijuana with a civil fine. House bill no. 2247 will create a program to make it legal for people to grow, smoke or possess marijuana with a doctor’s written certification.

Under current Massachusetts law, people arrested for possession of any amount of marijuana can face up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $500, according to the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy.

Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition President Keith Saunders said previous polls show voters in the commonwealth support the bills. He said the proposed legislation is based on public policy questions MassCann and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws have asked since 2000. -By Rachel Leamon The Daily Free Press (Boston U.)

(U-WIRE) DURHAM, N.C. – After one million years of evolution, Duke students actually aren’t so different from their primate relatives when it comes to on-the-fly mental math.

The information comes from a study by Jessica Cantlon, a researcher at Duke’s Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and graduate student in psychology and neuroscience, who compared basic addition capabilities in rhesus macaques and college students. On average, Cantlon found that the students’ accuracy was only slightly better than the monkeys’.

The study was published last month in the Public Library of Science Biology journal and suggested that a common evolutionary base gave rise to pre-verbal cognitive processes in both primate species.

In the experiment, each group was presented with two sets of dots on a computer screen, followed by several choices-one of which was the sum of the first two quantities. The human subjects were asked to touch the correct answer as quickly as possible without counting verbally. Response times were usually within a second.

“When college students do the same task very rapidly, they use the same process that monkeys use-this kind of fuzzy arithmetic where they don’t know exactly how many there are, but have a rough idea,” Cantlon said.

The students chose the correct total about 90 percent of the time, whereas the two monkeys-nicknamed Feinstein and Boxer after the California senators-trailed them by 10 percent. The primates’ accuracy was high enough to rule out randomness as a factor. -By Patrick Baker The Chronicle (Duke)