In the news

SOHAIB SULTAN, the Muslim chaplain at Wesleyan University and Trinity College and the author of The Koran for Dummies, will begin work next month as the University’s first coordinator for Muslim life. Sultan said his initial priorities will be to develop the social and religious activities of Muslims on campus, enhance interfaith dialogue, and organize lectures and conversation “to critically examine Islam’s role in our lives and in the world.” The three-year position in the Office of Religious Life recasts what had been the part-time position of Muslim chaplain. Wasim Shiliwala ’09, president of the Muslim Students Association, said he expects Sultan to be “a great resource.” The group has between 60 and 100 members, but the number of Muslim students probably is larger, Shiliwala said.

A federal CIVIL-RIGHTS INVESTIGATION of Princeton’s admission process has broadened from reviewing the complaint of a single student claiming anti-Asian bias to a wider look at the admission of Asian students in the Class of 2010. The case began in 2006 when Jian Li, a Chinese-American student with a perfect 2400 SAT score, was placed on the waiting list at Princeton before being rejected for admission. Li said he had been discriminated against because he is Asian. He enrolled at Yale, and is now at Harvard. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights decided in January to open a broader compliance review to determine if the University “discriminates against Asians, on the basis of race or national origin, in its admissions process.” University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ’96 said Princeton does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin. She said the University has continued to provide information to investigators, and is confident that the federal review “will affirm that our admission policy is in full compliance with Title VI” of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PREPARATORY PROGRAM, an academic and cultural enrichment program for high-achieving, low-income high school students from Trenton, Princeton, and other local districts, honored the 23 college-bound seniors in its fifth graduating class June 4. This year’s ceremony also saluted the program’s first college graduates, who joined PUPP in 2001 and finished their undergraduate studies this spring. Sixteen of the 21 original PUPP graduates completed their degrees in four years, including two Princeton alumni, Karl Micka-Foos ’08 and Jamie Sparano ’08. Jesus Lopez, a PUPP alumnus and 2008 Syracuse University graduate, will begin working toward a master’s degree at the Woodrow Wilson School this fall.

A New York appeals court ruled last month that the University is entitled to $9.6 MILLION in insurance payments toward the cost of its defense in the so-called donor-intent lawsuit filed by members of the family of the late Charles Robertson ’26 and his wife, Marie. The National Union Fire Insurance Co. had sought to limit its payment to $5 million. The Robertson family and the University have spent an estimated $50 million in legal fees since the suit was filed in July 2002.