M O N D A Y NOVEMBER 10, 2003
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVIII, No. 110
An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891
Hate crime and thefts top campus crime report
Simmons explains capital campaign
BY ZACH BARTER
Officers are investigating the Thursday night assault of a male Brown student near Pembroke campus as a hate crime. The assault capped a three-week period that included a number of thefts as well as a robbery on Oct. 26. The student reported walking at the corner of Brown Street and Meeting Street around 11 p.m. when a black SUV pretended to run him down. The car’s occupants then yelled racial slurs at the student before driving away. The Department of Public Safety informed the campus community of the assault in an e-mail Friday afternoon. A female student later reported seeing the SUV drive past her with one female and five male occupants. DPS is asking for anyone with information about the assault to help in the investigation. The assault follows the Oct. 26 robbery of a female RISD student outside Andrews Hall. The three-week period ending Nov. 6 saw the thefts of three car stereos and two bicycles. DPS also received reports of a stolen laptop, cellular phone, entertainment system and purse. DPS received reports of vehicle break-ins on Cushing and Charlesfield streets and at the corner of Prospect and Waterman streets. Bikes were reported stolen from outside Perkins and Barus and Holley. A resident of Grad Center C reported the disappearance of his laptop computer and camera from his room on Nov. 3. Both the inner room and outer suite doors had been propped open. A resident of Grad Center A reported the disappearance of her cellular phone from the building’s kitchen, where she had left it unattended. DPS also received a report of a stolen handbag from an office in the CIT. A DVD/VCR player, as well as a stereo unit and Nintendo 64 system, were reported stolen from the Goddard lounge between Oct. 28 and Oct. 30. The door had been left unlocked. Herald senior staff writer Zach Barter ’06 covers crime. He can be reached at zbarter@browndailyherald.com.
Photo courtesy of Juhyung Harold Lee
Over 200 people attended Saturday’s Asian American History Month Convocation in Salomon, where members of Mango Tribe, an ensemble of multi-ethnic, lingual and disciplinary Asian/Pacific Islander American women, performed a combination of slam poetry, dance and song.The event, sponsored by the Third World Center and WORD!, also featured a performance by alum Vincent Chong ’03. A Salomon lobby exhibit of Asian-American activism at Brown greeted attendees of the convocation.
The gifts Brown’s capital campaign collects today will shape the scope of the campaign and sharpen the Initiatives for Academic Enrichment, according to President Ruth Simmons. In the opening stages of the campaign’s initial phase, Simmons is responsible for soliciting gifts “at the top of the pyramid,” she told The Herald Friday. At this level, the task becomes identifying a project that interests the donor and then modifying the project to meet those interests, she said. While the campus is familiar with the initiatives, input from donors will add “twists” to plans for new student residences, fitness facilities and the expansion of the faculty, Simmons said. A donor’s interest in building a café, for example, could influsee SIMMONS, page 4
Int’l Writers Project supports oppressed writers Panelists agree treatment of writers reflects state of country BY HANNAH DEAN
The International Writers Project’s Saturday panel illuminated the implications of writing under extreme governmental censorship. The project, inaugurated this weekend by the “Freedom to Write” conference, is designed to provide safe havens for writers who are persecuted and prevented from writing in their own countries. Much of the discussion on Saturday focused on the trouble of finding a safe place to write. A place to imagine, panelists agreed, is the best defense against oppressive conditions. “The state of the writer is a telltale sign of how the country will fare,” said Joanne LeedomAckerman, novelist and vice president of International PEN Considering the state of free speech in the United States, this is not a promising sign for its politics, she said. Recent anti-terrorist legislation clearly deprives American writers of their freedom of expression, according to Leedom-Ackerman. Citizens
must fight such legislation for their own protection, and also for the sake of persecuted writers everywhere, she said. Countries like Eritrea and Zimbabwe now use American anti-terrorist laws to justify more heinous acts of oppression, such as the suspension of privately-owned news publications, said Larry Siems, director of PEN America. “Fighting this at home is a way of helping writers and readers around the world,” he said. Caribbean poet and scholar see IWP, page 4
Nobel laureate and poet discuss antiterrorist laws and writers’ safety BY SHEELA RAMAN
America’s anti-terrorist legislation supports the oppression of creative arts, worsening the plight of persecuted writers across the globe, according to writers at the inaugural celebration of the International Writers Project over the weekend. “Most Americans don’t realize that a huge prison is really being
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constructed around them,” said Wole Soyinka, a Nigerian Nobel laureate and the celebration’s Saturday keynote speaker. The two-day event, “Freedom to Write,” took place Friday and Saturday in Starr Auditorium and marked the official welcome of the IWP’s first fellow, Shahrnush Parsipur, to Brown. Parsipur is an exiled Iranian novelist who has been imprisoned twice in her country for her work. To help support creative writers who are targets of repressee WRITERS, page 4
Cultural dinner brings the world to Brown BY LOUIS TEE
Nick Neely / Herald
The Hellenic Student Association were one of the many groups that performed at Friday’s BRIO World Cultural Dinner.
I N S I D E M O N D AY, N O V E M B E R 1 0 , 2 0 0 3 Korean artist recreates his living spaces in installation at Bell Gallery in List arts & culture, page 3
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Flags from 60 different countries adorned the walls of Andrews Dining Hall Friday as the Brown International Organization celebrated its fifth annual World Cultural Dinner. Cuisine from all over the world and performances by Brown student groups drew about 160 people to the event. After an opening address by BRIO President Sendi Kalaora ’05, where she welcomed the audience with greetings in several languages, the night kicked off with Latin dancing by the Brown Ballroom Club. see BRIO, page 8
TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T Andrew Tobolowsky ’07 explains what to watch and what to ignore in the NBA sports, page 12
Field hockey plays well but falls short of Ivy title with weekend loss to Yale sports, page 12
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