COLLEGE SHORTS

Author: Katie Flagg

Princeton students advocate chastity

At Princeton University - largely regarded as the country's most conservative Ivy League school - a small group of undergraduates is pushing the discussion of sexual issues on campus in an entirely new direction. According to these students, in the sexually-charged atmosphere of the University's social scene, one alternative sexual lifestyle - chastity and abstinence outside of marriage - is not getting enough attention.

It was with this in mind that Cassandra Debenedetto, a sophomore at Princeton, helped found the Anscombe Society last fall. The society, which promotes traditional sexual values, is named after Elizabeth Anscombe, the Cambridge University Catholic whose 1997 essay "Contraception and Chastity" is a touchstone for many conservative Roman Catholics regarding the defense of the papacy's rules for sexual behavior.

At Princeton, the largely conservative, heavily Catholic Anscombe Society maintains that it seeks not to pass judgment but only to inform the student body. "Even though morality does factor into it, we want to enrich the discussion of sexual issues and family," said Debenedetto. The group presents sociological data and medical research to promote their values in an atmosphere that they feel not only condones but expects sexual activity among young adults.

"Immediately, when you get on campus, you're just bombarded with sexual material," said Joan Claire Krautmann, a sophomore at the University, who recalls flavored condoms handed out by her residential adviser freshman year.

At Princeton, reactions to the society have been varied. College officials do not take a position on the sexual lives of their students, only maintaining that information is better than ignorance. Among students on campus, the response to the abstainers has ranged from "It's about time," group members say, to outright hostility.

- The New York Times



Dorms evacuated due to hate mail

Officials at Trinity International University in Bannockburn, Ill. urged nearly 200 minority undergraduates to evacuate their dormitories after repeated racist letters arrived late last week. The hate-filled handwritten notes - including growing threats of violence and arriving within days of the anniversaries of the Columbine school shooting, the Oklahoma City bombing and Hitler's death - sparked concern in administrators and students alike.

The conservative Evangelical Christian college reported that three students, two of them black and one Hispanic, received the hate mail through the campus mail system over the course of two weeks. In the aftermath of these letters and the university's recommendation for evacuation, 43 minority students left their rooms for hotels last week while others stayed with local families. Late last week, it was not yet clear when, or if, the black and Hispanic students would return to their dormitories.

Police Chief Kevin Tracz believes that one person wrote the letters, and speculates that the writer was most likely a Trinity student. The letters made specific references to the individuals instead of large groups. While no connection has been found among the recipients, the letters were sent to a crime lab for analysis.

In an effort to better protect the university and its students, extra guards and policy officers patrolled the campus last week as students gathered to pray.

Of the university's 1,104 undergraduates, 14 percent are black and four percent are Hispanic.

- The New York Times