Hotly (Ear HpH
Local Youth Grabs
Top Math Honors
Bv Erica Coleman
Staff Writer
Facing nearly 120 students from 22
local schools and 48 math problems, an
area middle schooler took top honors at
the 17th annual MATHCOUNTS com
petition.
Justin Lo, an eighth-grader at
McDougle Middle School, received first
place in Saturday’s individual rounds of
competition that challenged local sev
enth- and eighth-graders to complete
mathematics problems as accurately
and quickly as possible. The competi
tion took place at Martin Middle School
in Raleigh.
Justin credited his mother, Li-Lin Lo,
as a main factor in his win. She helped
him train at home by finding practice
problems on the Internet.
“It’s lots of fun to do math for me,”
Justin said. “Sometimes I do math at
home just for the fun of it.”
According to Li-Lin Lo, very early in
Justin’s life she could tell that he had a
good memory and a natural inclination
toward numbers.
“He was into numbers,” she said. “He
always had them in his head.”
Tryouts for the MATHCOUNTS
competition began early last November
at McDougle Middle School in Chapel
Hill.
Contestants were required to take a
test and the students with the best scores
Fla. Seeks End to Affirmative Action
By Alicia Gaddy
Staff Writer
Florida Gov.Jeb Bush recently intro
duced a plan to end race-based admis
sions at University of Florida-system
schools and provide an additional S2O
million in financial aid.
While Bush touted the move as an
effort to increase diversity on Florida
campuses, others said it would have the
opposite effect.
Justin Sayfie, spokesman for Bush’s
office, said the One-Florida Initiative,
originally proposed in November,
would use socioeconomic status and
geography instead of race and ethnicity
as admissions criteria.
“Governor Bush is opposed to racial
preferences and race-based admissions,”
Sayfie said.
As part of the One-Florida Initiative,
all students who graduate in the top 20
percent of their high school class would
receive admissions to the University of
Florida system. The additional aid
would help pay for these students.
“Part of the plan will increase state
based financial aid by 43 percent,”
Sayfie said.
The plan will go to the UF Board of
Regents later this month, and will then
go to the Republican-led legislature.
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were chosen as finalists to try out for
McDougle’s team.
Steve Messiter, a co-coach forjustin’s
team, said an important requirement for
potential contestants included a strong
love for math.
“It was very important for the con
testants to show interest,” he said.
Along with co-coach Sarajasinski,
Messiter worked with Lo and the other
McDougle middle schoolers starting in
early November.
Justin said he learned various types of
problems and how to solve them at
these practices.
“(They taught us) techniques of how
to do the problems so that we would be
able to do them faster than the slow
way,” he said.
In the future, Justin said he hoped to
make a career out of research science,
although he also said he enjoyed playing
the violin and writing concertos, a
hobby he has been pursuing for nine
and-a-half years.
Having won the local round, Justin
will go on to compete statewide against
other winners in similar competitions in
Hickory on March 18.
Fourth-place winner Charles Yu, who
was also on the McDougle team, will be
accompanying Lo to the state competi
tion.
Contestants will then vie for the
opportunity to travel to Washington,
D.C., for the national competition.
“I think the problem is that
Jeb Bush’s proposal is one that
is not helpful toward the
integration of schools...”
Hilary Shelton
Washington, D.C. NAACP Director
If the plan passes, Sayfie said the new
admissions standards and the financial
aid package would add between 400
and 1,200 new minority students to the
10 University of Florida schools.
Sayfie said he expected the legislature
to approve the plan.
But some officials doubted the posi
tive effects of the One-Florida Initiative.
Hilary Shelton, director of the
Washington, D.C., National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People,
said the plan was a step backward for
Florida.
Shelton said he was hopeful about the
state’s new financial aid program, but he
said aid did not make up for the end of
race-based affirmative action policies.
“1 think the problem is that Jeb
Bush’s proposal is one that is not helpful
toward the integration of schools in
Florida,” Shelton said. “The state of
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Justin Lo, first-place winner of the local chapter MATHCOUNTS competition, prepares for the statewide competition
with his teacher Steve Messiter at McDougle Middle School.
Messiter, who will now be working
one-on-one with Justin in preparation
for the statewide competition, said he
Florida has an awful history of integra
tion.”
He added that Florida’s historically
black universities might lose some of
their identity if the plan passed.
Sayfie said the plan would help inte
grate all system colleges and universi
ties, benefiting the entire education sys
tem, including historically black colleges
and universities.
“There’s really no adverse effects on
the state’s historically black colleges,” he
said.
But N.C. schools are not following in
Florida’s footsteps.
UNC-system Vice President Joni
Worthington said affirmative action poli
cies were still used in admissions to
UNC schools.
Worthington also said the UNC sys
tem had recently reviewed its admis
sions policies.
“In late 1997, President Broad asked
all l() chancellors to conduct a careful
review of financial aid policy,” she said.
“All of the chancellors have assured the
president that our policies in admissions
and financial aid comply with N.C. law.
“Diversity is, of course, an integral
part on all Hi campuses."
The State & National Editor can be
reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.
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hoped the MATHCOUNTS program
would jump-start other students’ interest
in math.
Study: Oral Sex Poses HIV Risk
The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention used
a study of gay men to
determine risks of oral sex.
By Eugene Wheeler
Staff Writer
Researchers have found evidence
that a significant percentage of new HIV
infections in some groups of gay men
result from oral sex.
The study, conducted by the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention,
focused on HV2 gay men in San
Francisco who had recently contracted
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Of those men, 7.8 percent acquired
the disease from performing oral sex,
indicating that oral sex poses a higher
risk than previously thought.
In the study, cases in which oral sex
appeared to be the route of infection
were extensively evaluated. If the sub
ject displayed other risk behaviors for
contracting HIV, oral sex was excluded
as the cause of infection.
The CDC’s new testing method
allows researchers to pinpoint the first
time how and when an individual con
“I hope it will get more people
involved in math, as a competition
rather than class.”
traded the HIV virus.
Because of the stringent require
ments, the study’s results might actual
ly be a low estimate, according to a
CDC press release.
John Leonard, executive director of
the Gay City Health Project, a Seattle
based initiative aimed at controlling the
spread of AIDS in the gay community,
said the study provided important infor
mation on the spread of AIDS.
“We have always known that oral sex
is less risky than anal sex, though not
risk free,” he said.
“This study’s findings underscore the
importance of communication with your
sexuai partners about YITV/STD status
and what risks you may or may not be
willing to take.”
Chatham County Health Director
Wayne Sherman said HIV could be
transmitted through oral sex if the per
son giving oral sex to an infected person
had an open sore in his or her mouth.
He said information about the dan
gers of oral sex must be distributed to
the public to increase awareness.
“Condom use is essential,” Sherman
said. “But not just anal and vaginal sex,
but now even oral sex - unprotected sex
is risky sex.”
Emily O’Barr, coordinator of human
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Tuesday, February 8, 2000
The City Editor can be reached
at citydesk9unc.edu.
sexuality programs at the UNC Center
for Healthy Student Behaviors, also said
students needed to be aware of the dan
gers associated with oral sex.
“Some students know, but not
enough students realize the danger asso
ciated with oral sex,” O’Barr said.
“Too often people don’t consider oral
sex (to be) sex.”
She said the important thing was not
whether or not it was technically con
sidered to be sex, but whether or not it
spread disease -and it does. “Since this
is a risk, you need to pay attention to it,
and you need to make choices you can
feel good about,” O’Ban said.
She said there weTe no statistics on
sexual activity or STD infection of UNC
students, but the dangers were real.
“Qualitatively it is happening - all
STDs on campus,” she said.
O’Barr said next week was National
Condom Week and that the Center for
Healthy Student Behaviors would be
working to raise awareness on campus.
She said students interested in confi
dential HIV testing or STD prevention
programs should contact the Center for
Healthy Student Behaviors at 966-6586.
The State & National Editor can be
reached at stntdesk9unc.edu.
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