Dartmouth attorneys filed a motion Friday to dismiss the negligence and wrongful death lawsuit brought by Christina Porter's parents regarding Porter's death from a skiing accident at the Dartmouth Skiway in 2004. Porter's parents argue that their daughter's ski instructors allowed her to ski down a slope that was too difficult for her and to do so without a helmet. The College's motion asserts that the case should be dismissed on the grounds that the suit was filed after the statute of limitations had elapsed. The College further alleges that Porter's ski instructors exercised a reasonable standard of care on the day of Porter's death, maintaining that the instructors' belief that Porter was adequately prepared to ski that particular run was reasonable. The standards at the time of the accident did not require adult skiers to wear helmets.
This year's class of college freshmen in the United States is wealthier than any previous freshman class in the last 35 years, according to a recent study by the Higher Education Research Institute, a part of UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Their families' income, on average, is 60 percent higher than the national median. "Students from wealthier families can endure greater fluctuations in 'sticker price' than poorer students," UCLA professor and co-author of the report Jose Luis Santos said. "As a result, more students entering college come from homes that are increasingly wealthier than the national median income."
An anti-abortion demonstration at UNH on Monday provoked controversy throughout the campus because of its billboard-sized photos of aborted fetuses standing alongside pictures of the Holocaust, a juxtaposition aimed at equating abortions with genocide. The demonstration was a part of the Genocide Awareness Project, an anti-abortion movement that is working to display its billboards on campuses throughout the country and to spark a debate about abortion. A few interviewed students expressed concern about the graphicness of the photos, but the president of UNH Students for Life, Lauren Daigle, disagreed. "The image is shocking because abortion is shocking." Daigle told the Manchester Union Leader.
--Compiled by Allyson Bennet, Michael Coburn and William Schpero/The Dartmouth Staff
