Quick Takes: Virginia's New Laws on Campus Safety, Presidents Question NCAA on Beer Ads, Amherst Goes Need-Blind for Foreign Students, Big Gifts for Tufts and Lesley, Indian Supreme Court Upholds Admissions Quotas

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Quick Takes: Virginia's New Laws on Campus Safety, Presidents Question NCAA on Beer Ads, Amherst Goes Need-Blind for Foreign Students, Big Gifts for Tufts and Lesley, Indian Supreme Court Upholds Admissions Quotas

April 10, 2008

By

Scott Jaschik

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine on Wednesday signed into law a series of bills introduced in response to last year's killings at Virginia Tech. Among the measures are requirements that public colleges establish threat assessment teams and emergency plans, that public and private colleges be allowed to request complete mental health records held on its students from their time at previous institutions, that public colleges establish procedures to release educational records to the parents of dependent students, and that public colleges establish procedures for notifying parents of students who receive mental health treatment at the institution's student health or counseling center "when there exists a substantial likelihood that the student will, in the near future, cause serious physical harm to himself or others as evidenced by recent behavior or any other relevant information or suffer serious harm due to his lack of capacity to protect himself or to provide for his basic human needs."

More than 100 college presidents and athletics directors have charged that the National Collegiate Athletic Association is not following its own rules on beer advertising during the NCAA basketball championships. The NCAA set limits of 60 seconds per hour, and not more than 120 seconds per game, but the Center for Science in the Public Interest reported that more than 270 seconds of beer advertising was seen during Monday's championship game. "Allowing 60 seconds of beer advertising per hour of collegiate sports is bad enough," said Tracy Downs, manager of the Campaign for Alcohol-Free Sports TV, a project of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "But exceeding that limit shows that the NCAA has a cavalier, 'devil may care' attitude about exposing kids to beer ads. They don't even care enough to enforce their own policy."

Amherst College announced Thursday that it would extend its need-blind admissions policy to foreign students. Even among the relatively few private colleges that are need-blind, very few apply the policy to students from outside the United States.

Tufts and Lesley Universities each announced gifts of $136 million -- the result of a split of a trust set up by a support of both institutions. For Lesley, the gift will roughly triple the endowment.

India's Supreme Court today upheld a quota of 27 percent of slots at universities for members of "other backward classes," The Hindu reported. The ruling came in a major challenge to India's affirmative action programs, many of which use quotas. The court's ruling today said that the "creamy layer" should not benefit from the set-aside. That term refers to students who are members of the class that benefits, but who by virtue of family wealth or position are not deemed eligible for the admissions help.

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