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Friday April 21, 2017 vol. CXLI no. 48
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Racist flyers posted around U. campus By Sarah Hirschfield staff writer
On April 20, racist flyers were spotted in four places around campus, according to an email sent to University community members. This news comes as similar posters have been found on other college campuses across the country. The flyers, removed after a complaint was made to the University, belonged to a white nationalist organization, noted Michele Minter, Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity, in the email. Flyers were found “taped to a door at Stanhope Hall, to the main entrance of the Center for Jewish Life (CJL), to a Murray Dodge door, and in East Pyne Hall,” she mentioned. The flyers’ content included
“anti-immigrant, racist and anti-Semitic comments.” According to the caller who reported the incident, the individual posting the flyers was wearing dark clothing and a ski mask. The suspect has not been identified. This is not the first time such an incident has happened on the University’s campus. Last year, a white nationalist hacker sent anti-Semitic flyers that promoted the neo-Nazi and white-supremacist website The Daily Stormer to University printers across campus. The University will not release the name of the organization identified on the flyers, according to Daniel Day, Assistant Vice President for Communications. The CJL has not responded to request for comment.
U . A F FA I R S
U. releases public preview of new website By Kristin Qian staff writer
The last time the University updated its website was 2007 — when there were no tablets and few mobile devices. On April 19, the University released a public preview of a new design for its main website. The new website f luidly adapts from a mobile to computer screen. Students, faculty, staff, and other visitors to the site are welcome to provide input and feedback on the new website design. In 2015, the University administration signed a fiveyear plan to redesign the site, according to Daniel Day, assistant vice president of communications. This project brings together the Office of Communications and the Office of Information Technology in a joint collaboration effort with the New York-based firm Digital Pulp. Every page of the site
was built by hand based on the designs that Digital Pulp provided to the University, Day said. “We want the website to represent Princeton as it is today and where it’s heading. It’s one of the world’s great research universities,” Day said. “We have this outstanding mission of teaching and research, and we have extraordinary students, faculty, and staff who engage in that mission, and our website should ref lect Princeton’s stature in academia and the world.” Throughout the redesigning process, the team interviewed students, faculty members, University staff, and prospective students in order to collect concerns about the current site. They also hosted forums at residential colleges and gave presentations to various groups on campus, including the Undergraduate Student Government and Graduate Stu-
ON CAMPUS
IMAGE BY JANE SUL
Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman from Northern Iraq, spoke with Bernard Haykel with the help of her interpreter during a high-profile event on Thursday.
Yazidi genocide survivor Murad recounts ISIS escape By Jane Sul contributor
“My story is just one story among thousands of Yazidi families,” said Nadia Murad, a human rights activist who was formerly held captive by the Islamic State. Murad spoke to an audience of approximately 200 community members on Wednesday, recounting her story of surviving ISIS’ brutal genocide and her current work as a human rights activist. “For thousands of years, the Yazidi minority coexisted with many religions. The Yazidis have never had any problem,” she said. dent Government, Day noted. “It really has to convey Princeton for many audiences,” he explained. In addition, research was performed using analytics and tracking software to better understand user behavior in order to optimize how people access the site, Day said. “Tastes have changed over the last ten years,” Day said. The new site embodies a new philosophy that is more visually oriented, featuring prominent photo banners on each page, videos, and other multimedia content that enhances the browsing experi-
Standing behind the podium with an interpreter by her side, the 24-year-old moved the audience with her calm yet commanding presence. Despite having expressed worries about communication challenges in a recent CNN interview, Murad’s speech to the University community transcended any possible language barrier. Since escaping captivity, Murad has worked to help those who are still victims of the ongoing ISIS genocide. In 2016, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the Iraqi government, and she also became the first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of
Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations. Murad stressed that despite practicing a faith different from Islam, her ethno-religious group of around half a million has always coexisted peacefully with others in the northern Nineveh Province of Iraq. Yet, everything changed in August 2014, when ISIS began making its way from Mosul to the Sinjar region, which is mainly inhabited by the Yazidis. “We were terrified at the news that ISIS was committing crimes against minorities,” she said.
ence. Atmospheric photos that ref lect on the beauty of the campus, including expansive landscapes and architectural details, are also spread throughout the website. “The site seems to enable a little more intimacy with what we sometimes take for granted at Princeton,” said University creative director Laurel Cantor. “I see great potential for people sending us photos and sending us permission to use the photos that get us closer to areas of the University where we might not
ON CAMPUS
See WEBSITE page 3
See STORY page 1
COURTESY OF BETA.PRINCETON.EDU
The University released a beta version of its new website on April 19. The new website includes more pictures, videos, and multimedia content than its predecessor. It is also designed to be accessible to people of all abilities.
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Graduate group speaks against AFT By Rose Gilbert staff writer
On April 20, the Princeton Unionization Information Committee gave their first presentation advising against unionizing with the American Federation of Teachers. Around two dozen people attended the meeting. Princeton Graduate Students United voted to unionize in affiliation with the AFT in October 2016, but University graduate students don’t yet have a contract because they are still in the process of gathering the minimum numbers of signatories needed to hold elections and negotiate a contract. The Princeton Unionization Information Committee is a group of graduate students working to ensure that graduate students are fully informed about unionization at every step of the process. Members of the committee feel that graduate students’ interests fall outside the purview of the employerlabor relationship implied by a union.--Ellie Miller, a first-year graduate student in the neuroscience department and a member of the committee, said that the group’s main goal was to make
In Opinion
Senior columnists Max Grear and Beni Snow write letters to admitted students and parents, while Hayley Siegel attacks Princeton’s admissions policies and the Editorial Board recommends the release of eating club demographics. PAGE 4
Today on Campus 3 p.m.: Music in Mind Q&A in Campus Club with Amy Madden ‘74, a blues and rock bassist and songwriter to hear her unconventional career path from an A.B. in Art and Archaeology at Princeton to music performance.
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Murad: I suffer because my community suffers MURAD
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According to Murad, some members of the community had heard about the potential threat and subsequently fled to the nearby Sinjar Mountains. However, most individuals, including the elderly and disabled, were unable to leave before ISIS arrived. Furthermore, ISIS supporters in neighboring villages made it difficult for Yazidis to escape unnoticed. Within the timespan of a couple months, ISIS succeeded in its plan to massacre approximately 5000 Yazidi men, as well as enslave thousands of women and children. Among those killed were six of Murad’s brothers. “They gave us two options: Convert to Islam or die,” Murad said. Murad added that ISIS rationalized the genocide as exterminating a faith it deemed inferior in order to better the Muslim community. ISIS militants labeled the Yazidis as “not people of the book,” Murad explained. After forcefully converting the remaining Yazidi women to Islam, ISIS members then proceeded to abuse the women mentally, physically,
and sexually. Murad, who was among the enslaved population, said she was raped repeatedly. “They distributed us amongst themselves,” she said. In 2015, Murad was able to escape with the help of a neighboring family. She was given a fake ID and was smuggled through various checkpoints. After briefly residing at a refugee camp in Iraq, she found refuge in Germany. Since then, Murad has spoken multiple times to the United Nations to raise awareness about the genocide and encourage national leaders to do their part to halt this ongoing violence. Murad created Nadia’s Initiative in the hope of helping victims of genocide and human trafficking and so that she may “have a role in rebuilding their lives and their communities.” She is also currently working with international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney to bring justice for these victims. When asked about how she finds the motivation to continue working, Murad cited her mother, her six brothers, and countless other members of the community who have either perished or are still en-
The Daily Princetonian
FridayApril 21, 2017
Long Distance Annie Zou ’20
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The Daily Princetonian
Friday April 21, 2017
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Day: Students, staff, faculty, and community members contributed WEBSITE Continued from page 1
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be sending a photographer routinely,” Cantor said. “[The site] gives an overall truer picture of Princeton than we’ve been able to capture,” she added. The front page of the new site displays news articles in grid format through photo thumbnails, with upcoming events and links regarding academics and work at the University smoothly weaved in. Headlines are in Princeton Monticello font, and Franklin Gothic is used for most body text. Featured events include links to maps displaying event locations, which the old site did not
have the capacity to do. The new site also aims to quickly get people where they need to go, Day said. Each page contains a fixed utility menu with quick links for students, and the new site now implements Googlebased searches. The navigation has also been simplified to include five major tabs: Meet Princeton, Academics, Research, One Community, and Admission & Aid. Another important design modification of the new website is its emphasis on accessibility and inclusion and creating improved user experiences for members of the community with varying abilities. “In the University’s commitment to being inclusive,
we want to produce a site that anyone should be able to read or access,” Day said. “For anyone with an impairment, we’ve set the site to the highest standards we can so anyone can access this site.” Day also noted that the site will incorporate a lot of social media connectivity once it is fully launched, but these features are not currently active because the site is in test mode. The preview site will be open for one month, with the goal of May 18 set as the date to formally switch to the new site. During this month, University staff will continue polishing the website. Feedback will be accepted in real time and changes will be made to best accommodate
the comments and requests received, he said. “The site really ref lects the entire campus, so we had a lot of people making choices,” Day said. “We’re hoping to lead the way with this site so that other offices and departments will be able to borrow components from this design and adapt them for their own uses,” Day explained, noting that the new website team has met with departments and offices across the campus community. “We’re never really going to declare this site fully complete because we want to keep iterating and keep improving this site over time,” Day noted.
PUIC: Graduate students “have it pretty good as is” PUIC
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sure graduate students were fully informed about unionization and what it means to unionize. Miller said that one of the committee’s primary objections against unionizing under the AFT is that the AFT doesn’t allow unionization by department, adding that “one blanket contract” wouldn’t adequately address the needs of different disciplines. In particular, Miller said that the needs and interests of humanities and science students tend to be fairly different. The committee presented a series of drawbacks of unionization separate from the “blanket contract” issue. Members first noted that unions were
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authorized and constrained by National Labor Relations Association and the National Labor Relation Board, and that only local dues are usually negotiated democratically on a local level, while state and national dues are normally calculated as one to two percent of students’ paychecks. They also stressed that students “have it pretty good as is,” and that it isn’t guaranteed that students’ base stipends will be raised to cover dues. The committee also expressed concern that unionization wouldn’t adequately address some of graduate students’ most pressing problems, including housing, which may or may not fall under the “terms and condition of employment” that the NLRA authorizes for collective bargaining.
Clay Hammel, a second-year chemical engineering graduate student, stressed that the committee would be much more supportive of unionization if PSGU wasn’t affiliated with the AFT. Hammel cited the case of Cornell Graduate Student United members, many of whom have complained that their affiliation with the AFT compromised the autonomy they had been promised and that the AFT had rushed them into making decisions. Hammel cautioned that the committee was suffering from “data starvation” due to the scarcity of comparable private universities with graduate student unions, adding that the committee regarded the CGSU as their primary model. Many graduate students felt particularly restricted by the AFT’s prohibition on unionizing. Nivedita Rangarajan, a firstyear neuroscience graduate student, said she felt unionization would create an “unnecessary roadblock” between students and administrators by preventing individual negotiation. Rangarajan added that though she doesn’t feel that neuroscience students need a union, she would have supported unions if students were allowed to unionize by department. Fourth-year chemical and biological engineering graduate student Michael Howard echoed Rangarajan, saying that he was “not opposed to unionization in general” but that he doesn’t “think that it makes sense for Princeton.” Howard added that he was worried that unionization would negatively impact working life and relationships within departments, and he noted that most problems that graduate students at the University have couldn’t be ameliorated by union negotiations. Hammel closed the presentation by reiterating that the Princeton Unionization Information Committee preferred a department-by-department approach to unionization to better account for the diversity of needs and interests among University graduate students. The meeting took place in McCosh 28 at 6:30 p.m. on April 20.
Opinion
Friday April 21, 2017
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{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } EDITORIAL
Debating the USG eating club referendum report
The Editorial Board is an independent body and decides its opinions separately from the regular staff and editors of The Daily Princetonian. The Board answers only to its CoChairs, the Opinion Editor, and the Editor-in-Chief. It can be reached at editorialboard@dailyprincetonian. com.
T
he Undergraduate Student Government recently released a report on the winter 2016 referendum regarding eating club transparency. The document contains a summary of findings and several proposals, including the formation of a permanent USG subcommittee on eating club transparency and diversity that would work to collect demographic data on club membership. As indicated on page 12 of the report, 75 percent of underclassmen voted in favor of the referendum, compared to only 63 percent of upperclassmen. This suggests that students, particularly underclassmen with less personal experience on Prospect Avenue, want more information about eating clubs. The Editorial Board agrees with the importance of examining and elucidating the role of clubs in campus life. However, we recommend against using demographic information on eating club membership. Rather, we encourage students to make their decisions about joining a club based on their personal interactions at the clubs and with members. To this end, we urge clubs to host more opportunities each fall semester for potential members to experience and get to know clubs both during the day and at night. From a practical point of view, implementing an eating club census would be difficult and unlikely. The Interclub Council has opposed the release of this information. As independent bodies, the eating clubs are not bound by USG referenda. At best, USG can make recommendations that the clubs can choose to ignore. We accordingly believe USG’s primary focus on demographic information is misguided insofar as it targets such a specific and likely futile goal. We instead propose that any USG subcommittee created in response to the winter referendum focus more broadly on eating clubs and their interactions with underclassmen, instead of emphasizing the collection of demographic information as a primary means of reaching the proposed committee’s stated goals of increasing “eating club transparency, inclusivity, and diversity.” The Board also reiterates our agreement with the ICC’s reluctance to collect and release demographic information. In our December editorial urging a “no” vote on the referendum, we argued that emphasizing demographic information could further entrench potential homogeneity in a club by perhaps making students who do not fit its statistical makeup less
likely to bicker or sign-in. We also pointed to privacy concerns members may have regarding revealing their personal characteristics. This is of particular concern because club memberships are very small, making demographic information far less anonymous than, for example, demographic information the University releases of each incoming class. Finally, we also believe that asking bickerees to share their demographics could worsen an already stressful process by making them feel diminished to these immutable characteristics of their multifaceted personalities. Additionally, after reading the USG Report and noting its particular concern with potential homogeneity among club memberships, we worry that demographic information released without context and a proper understanding of the club system could be misinterpreted. Potential disparities across clubs in demographics, such as race, gender, and academic major, would not indicate inequity, and one must assess the purpose of eating clubs to understand this phenomenon. For example, if a demographic report reveals that a club has a disproportionate number of engineers, there may be calls for that club to diversify by accepting more humanities and social science majors. And yet, it is the appropriate prerogative of that club’s members to decide that they enjoy eating and socializing primarily with engineers. Furthermore, it may be revealed that engineers are disproportionately from certain ethnic backgrounds. That imbalance of ethnic makeup within the eating club would not reveal the existence of discrimination, but would rather reflect the unique culture the club membership has cultivated. We urge any student who is amenable to this example of homogeneity in a club to apply the same standard to homogeneity that may be due to athletics or Greek life. Insofar as the USG proposal suggests a negative stigma around what is typical of students wanting to freely associate in clubs with their friends, we reject any such stigma and oppose the release of club demographic information. Despite our objections to the collection and use of demographic information for club members and bickerees, we understand students’ desires to learn more and urge the expansion of valuable alternatives to gain personal exposure to the clubs. The ICC and USG should continue partnering to host opportunities such as A Taste of Prospect through which students can learn about clubs in person. We also encourage individual clubs to expand their events for prospective members and make a particular effort to broadly advertise these events to the entire sophomore class, rather than simply among the clubs’ extracurricular, athletic,
or academic affiliations. For example, a number of clubs invited the sophomore class to one of their members’ nights last fall, and some openly advertised these opportunities on residential college listservs. Other clubs have programs that allow any sophomore to sign-up for a guest meal at the club. We encourage all clubs to consider implementing these programs, which offer a great chance for prospective members to get exposure to Prospect Avenue both during nights out and mealtimes. Finally, we call on individual students to take the initiative to attend these events and to seek out the perspective of their upperclassman friends to learn more. We believe personal interactions with club members are the best way to dispel any misconceptions or concerns about eating club membership; thus, we urge the ICC, club leadership, and individual students to create and seek out such opportunities, rather than relying on statistics that lack proper context. Gabriel Swagel ’20 and Thomas Clark ’18 abstained from the writing of this editorial. Connor Pfeiffer ’18 recused himself from the writing of this editorial.
DISSENT The majority opposes the collection and distribution of eating club membership demographics; however, we refute these claims in a three-tier defense in support of the collection and distribution of demographic information on eating club membership. The first argument in favor of our proposal is that such an act would allow prospective members the opportunity to make informed decisions before joining a club. The majority cites page 12 of the subcommittee’s report, indicating that 75 percent of underclassmen and 63 percent of upperclassmen voted in favor of the referendum. These figures indicate that the greatest support for collecting demographic information of eating club membership is among first-year and second-year students, for whom consumption of this information would be useful during the Bicker process. Similar logic is applied by the University and its peer institutions in their efforts to release annual statistics on the demographic makeup of incoming and matriculated classes. Considering that administrators recognize the value of informing prospective students of the demographic makeup of our own academic institution, eating clubs ought to afford this same opportunity to their prospective members. Moreover, the collection and distribution of eating club demographics is not solely beneficial to those individuals seeking membership within the system. This information could
also serve as an accountability mechanism for identifying discrimination within the Bicker process. In a May 2016 publication of the “Princeton Alumni Weekly,” Univerity President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 wrote that in 1958, 23 sophomores (15 of whom were of Jewish descent) were denied admission to eating clubs “in spite of a commitment by the clubs to accept all applicants.” Without the use of demographic information, protestors of these discriminatory acts would have no standing to claim that eating clubs were discriminating against Jewish bickerees. This premise is still true today, in that it is important to collect and release the demographic information of eating clubs in order to hold clubs accountable to community standards of inclusivity and diversity. Finally, the dissent refutes the majority’s concerns that the collection and distribution of eating club demographic information might be misinterpreted by those who consume the information. The majority argues that “disparities across clubs in demographics, such as race, gender, and academic major, would not indicate inequity.” The dissent agrees that demographic information alone is not substantial enough evidence to make a legal claim for discrimination in the eating club system. As in the case of the 20th-century discriminatory eating club practices against Jewish students, these statistics must be paired with qualitative accounts from bickerees in order to make a substantial legal claim of discrimination. Without both sources of analysis, latent discriminatory practices may exist without any source of controversy and cause for remedy. Moreover, the majority’s concern that bickerees with access to the demographic information of clubs might be less likely to join after considering the club’s demographic makeup is further reason for the implementation of such a collection and distribution mechanism. This potential scenario creates an incentive for club leadership to carefully examine and modify their recruitment measures to promote diversity and inclusivity. The dissent recognizes the autonomous nature of the eating club system and acknowledges the lack of a concrete enforcement mechanism for implementing this recommendation. However, we strongly encourage the ICC to take these considerations in mind when evaluating their membership recruitment practices for future Bicker periods in an effort to make our eating club system more diverse and inclusive while still maintaining the unique qualities of each respective club. Signed by,
vol. cxli
Sarah Sakha ’18
editor-in-chief
Matthew McKinlay ’18 business manager
BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Betsy L. Minkin ’77 treasurer Douglas J. Widmann ’90 Gregory L. Diskant ’70 William R. Elfers ’71 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 Joshua Katz Kathleen Kiely ’77 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Alexia Quadrani Randall Rothenberg ’78 Annalyn Swan ’73 Michael E. Seger ’71 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73
141ST MANAGING BOARD managing editors Samuel Garfinkle ’19 Grace Rehaut ’18 Christina Vosbikian ’18 Head news editor Marcia Brown ’19 news editors Abhiram Karuppur ’19 opinion editor Newby Parton ’18 sports editor David Xin ’19 street editor Jianing Zhao ’20 photography editor Rachel Spady ’18 web editor David Liu ’18 chief copy editors Isabel Hsu ’19 Omkar Shende ’18 design editors Quinn Donohue ’20 Abigail Kostolansky ’20 Rachel Brill ’19 associate opinion editors Samuel Parsons ’19 Nicholas Wu ’18 associate sports editors Miranda Hasty ’19 Claire Coughlin ’19 associate street editor Andie Ayala ’19 Catherine Wang ’19 associate chief copy editors Caroline Lippman ’19 Megan Laubach ’18 editorial board co-chairs Ashley Reed ’18 Connor Pfeiffer ’18
NIGHT STAFF 4.20.17 copy Abigail Denton ’20 Jordan Antebi ’19 Jean Cho ’20
Ashley Reed ’18 and William Pugh ’20
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The Daily Princetonian
Friday April 21, 2017
page 5
Letter to admitted students Max Grear
senior columnist
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’m very excited for you. I write this letter in the sincere hope that you enjoy the Preview weekend and that these couple days help you figure out what to do with the next four years. I was motivated to write this letter because I wanted to talk about ambivalence. Ambivalence will serve you well no matter where you go, but particularly around here. I have often found it extremely difficult at Princeton to untangle the good from the bad. I hope that an honest, direct account of my personal impressions of the institution and its community will be useful to someone with similar concerns and interests. It’s very possible that you’ve already sensed this already, merely from the carefully arranged Preview event, but it’s worth saying
anyway — Princeton is a highly paternalistic institution. Once you have become a student here, most of the spaces where you live, eat, and socialize will be directly or indirectly structured by the University. Unlike at many other schools, off-campus housing is financially inaccessible to the majority of students. With limited possibilities for opting out of University dormitories, you will have little choice but to sacrifice much of the autonomy and privacy which adulthood may entail elsewhere. This means random room inspections, Public Safety officers parked outside your window or knocking on your door, and gender-binary bathrooms. For those students who opt out of University dining halls and eating clubs, access to clean kitchens is frequently inadequate. Sometimes Princeton feels like a pre-packaged experience, which discourages students from making their own choices
about where and how to live, eat, and socialize. Meanwhile, this pre-packaged Princeton experience seems to be organized around the interests of middleclass white students at the expense of the needs of students of color and those from low-income and first-generation backgrounds. But Princeton’s rigidly paternalistic structure does not mean that change is impossible in the face of determined student organizing. This past year, advocates of gender-inclusive housing succeeded in winning needed reforms. I am truly excited that sophomores, juniors, and seniors now have the option of drawing rooms in mixed-gender groups. Unfortunately, the onus for contacting University Housing Services about housing needs still falls on first-years — a fact which should be made clear to prospective students. There are also plenty of other steps that
need to be taken for students’ welfare, such as an option for students to take a semesterlong leave of absence for mental health or other reasons. Still, I’ve been deeply inspired by those around me who resist the pressures to live the same way and pursue the same future. I’ve had truly amazing professors, many of whom have had no qualms in calling out the University on issues such as its poor treatment of workers or refusal to divest from prisons and detention centers. I’ve discovered communities like the WPRB radio station or Students for Prison Education and Reform. Despite the propensity of administrators to dismiss student activists as “disrespectful” — a charge which I have personally encountered — the reality is that even the wealthy, entitled alumni and out-of-touch administrators cannot stifle student demands for institutional accountability. The recent renam-
ing of spaces for Toni Morrison and Sir Arthur Lewis, a direct result of organizing by the Black Justice League, is only the most recent example of the power which small groups of dedicated students can have. When I visited as an admitted student, I did not anticipate the many complex feelings and relationships that I have since come to associate with this university. Perhaps I would have been better prepared for life here if I had allowed myself to appreciate my initial sense of ambivalence. I encourage you to embrace feelings of uncertainty along with the excitement, as they may turn out to serve you well. Max Grear is a Spanish and Portuguese major from Wakefield, R.I. He can be reached at mgrear@ princeton.edu.
Ban parents from campus Beni Snow
Senior columnist
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arents should be banned from campus. Not at all times, and Public Safety officers shouldn’t go around and round them up, but for the most part, parents need to stay away. Move in, parents’ weekend, move out, and graduation are enough. I mention this because I’ve noticed something odd about campus tours in the past few weeks. They’re bigger, presumably because of all the admitted students, but I don’t see that many people who look like admitted students. I see a lot of parentallooking adults, a lot of little kids, and the occasional high school senior crowded between all of those parents and little siblings.
To the parents who do this: Why? You’re not going to Princeton. That acceptance letter did not have your name on it. This is your child’s decision. Let them make it. College is about transitioning from childhood from adulthood. For parents, that means you have to let your children grow up and forge their own path in life. I’m not saying you should cut them totally loose. Do talk to them about selecting a college, which may seem like the biggest decision in the world. Spoiler: It’s not. But for the love of God, don’t hover over their shoulders. If the whole family is taking a college visit vacation, then sit in Small World, relax, and let your child take the tour on their own. I guarantee the little siblings will thank you for not getting dragged along yet again. And
maybe the admitted students will ask real questions without Mom and Dad around. Most prefrosh won’t ask about the drinking culture on campus if they are with their little siblings, but college isn’t just where you go to school — it’s where you live, and these kinds of questions are important. Prefrosh, you’re going to be living on your own in college. Yes, you’ll have a residential college adviser and so many other people looking out for you that I couldn’t possibly name them all, but you will be much more independent than when you lived with your parents. No one will stop you from staying up until 5 a.m. on a school night. You shouldn’t, as you’ll learn after the first time you do it, but you need to make that mistake and learn why it is a mistake. You
can’t make those mistakes without a bit of freedom. I’ve heard endless complaints about how ours is the spoiled generation, the children of the participation trophy. In reality, those trophies were more about the parents who needed that external validation of their parenting skills than about the kids who needed validation about their soccer skills. Parents, don’t turn four years of your child’s life into a bragging point about how your child goes to Princeton. Maybe another school would be better for them. Prefrosh, are you facing pressure to go to Princeton because it’s what your parents want? Were you even asked if you want to go to college at all? I’m not trying to scare you away. I’m very glad that I go here. But not everyone is. Don’t make this decision
for the wrong reasons. Feel free to take this article back home and give it to your parents to explain why they should chill. Helicopter parenting isn’t helpful. Now, before I get misunderstood, I have to admit that my introduction was a bit facetious. I don’t really want parents banned from campus. Of course parents should help their children navigate difficult and stressful times in their lives, both when they decide where to go to college and when they are students. But maybe if parents want their children to mature and succeed, they need to back off, make some room for mistakes, and let their children live their own lives. Beni Snow is a mechanical and aerospace engineering major from Newton Center, Mass. He can be reached at bsnow@princeton.edu.
Behind the veil: The racism of Princeton’s affirmative action Hayley Siegel
contributing columnist
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he University is suing the United States Department of Education in an attempt to keep seven years of admissions records hidden from the public. The cover-up is hardly unexpected — Princeton engages in discriminatory admissions policies under the pretext of “affirmative action” despite having lost sight of the very goals that the concept was originally intended to promote. There is no denying that Princeton, like many of its peers, uses race-based affirmative action in its admissions decisions, a process that has engendered an apparent quota on students of Asian descent. Ron Unz, writing in the New York Times, calls the evidence of an Asian quota in admissions “powerful.” Despite
the fact that the college-aged Asian-American population doubled between 1992 and 2011, Asian enrollment at Harvard still declined during this period. (It was even lower at Princeton.) By comparison, at Caltech — which has race-blind admissions — enrollment of Asian-American students has doubled with the population. The University’s lawsuit to keep admissions records hidden perpetuates this controversy. Instead, Princeton should release its admissions records, address this discrepancy head-on, and lead a movement in higher education toward progressive, economic-based, race-blind policies that fulfill the intended goals of affirmative action. We’ve lost sight of what affirmative action aims to change in our higher education system. It seeks to promote the American dream and give everyone a fair chance regardless of their
financial situation, parentage, or educational background. Princeton’s stated reason for refusing to release the admissions data — to protect a formula that counselors hired by privileged applicants can exploit — is a statement that certainly aligns with the goals of affirmative action. But it is not enough of a justification for covering up records when the University could reduce its economic bias simply by altering its admission policy. If the University truly wants to support as many qualified lower-income applicants as possible, then it should do away with quota systems. Instead, it should disentangle race from the larger inequality that affirmative action tries to address. Racial preferences or redress aside, admissions should include policies aimed at helping those applicants who, by virtue of their socioeconomic background, might not otherwise
have the opportunity to benefit from a world-class education. To counterbalance the advantages afforded to wealthy applicants, the admissions system at Princeton should adopt a need-based, race-blind system that promotes the upward movement of those on the bottom — be they black, Asian, white, or Hispanic. Opponents of a need-based, race-blind system argue that society needs to correct for racebased disadvantages in America. I can only point out the irony: When correcting for discrimination against certain racial groups, we actively discriminate against another. Others may contend that the policy should go further, that need-based admissions is not enough of an equalizer in the admissions process. For example, it doesn’t account for the fact that income and socioeconomic status do not preclude other disadvantage, as in the case of wealthy
applicants from locations with fewer resources or lower-quality schools. But although there may be a handful of such cases, it’s still fair to estimate the advantages, educational or otherwise, to which wealthy applicants have access regardless of their location. There’s no perfectly equitable admissions model. But a needbased, race-blind policy comes closer to leveling the playing fields of the disparate backgrounds of the candidate pools than the current practice. Such a policy would avoid the objectionable use of racial quotas while achieving the University’s goal of promoting socioeconomic equality among its disadvantaged applicants. Hayley Siegel is a freshman from Princeton, N.J. She can be reached at hsiegel@princeton.edu.
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Princeton Lacrosse: A Brief History Princeton lacrosse has its inaugural season
1882 1884
Lacrosse is officially established in the Ivy League with 6 teams (Brown and Columbia did not enter a team) William J Harkness and Conrad Sutherland become the first 2 Princeton players inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame
1956 1957 1961
Princeton heads to its first NCAA lacrosse tournament as the 10 seed, only to lose to 1 9 9 0 Yale in the quarterfinals. 1991
Princeton earns its 3rd undefeated Ivy league season under Tierney and wins its third national championship under coach Tierney
1994
Princeton returns to the tournament as a 3 seed and loses an epic 3 OT game to Towson in the quarterfinals
Attackman Kevin Lowe becomes Princeton’s first Ivy League player of the year as the Tigers win their second NCAA championship under coach Tierney
1996
1998 2001
Tierney is inducted to the Hall of Fame, he would remain the coach of the Tigers until 2009
Princeton wins its 9th consecutive Ivy League championship
1992
1997
Princeton wins the national championship over Maryland 15 - 5 and becomes the first team to three-peat since the 70s
Princeton goes unbeaten in conference play for 7 straight years and dominates the Ivy League conference winning the conference championship every year
1963 1965
Led by head coach Bill Tierney, Princeton wins their first Ivy League championship in 25 years and their first national championship since ‘53; attackman Justin Tortolani becomes the Tigers’ all-time leading scorer
Princeton is voted as the NCAA lacrosse national champion their first title in school history
Princeton has arguably the best season in their history; en route to another national championship under Tierney, the Tigers place 7 of their 11 starters on the First Team All-Ivy League and have 10 All Americans, they win their 5th Ivy league championship in years and win become the first team to go undefeated in the NCAA since 1991 and the first repeat champion since 1979-1980; their winning streak would become the 3rd longest in D1 history
Including the championships in the 1800s, Princeton wins its 14th national title after defeating Syracuse 10 - 9 in overtime
2002 2010
Princeton wins the inaugural Ivy League Conference Tournament; goaltender Scott Bacigalupo – three-time Ivy League goaltender of the year (1992 - 1994) and two time MVP of the NCAA Tournament (1992 and 1994) is inducted to the Hall of Fame
Lacrosse Legends of the Past MARTY EICHELBERGER
How has lacrosse impacted your life after Princeton? Well, I think the most important thing is that athletics in the game is the one place where you actually have to accept public criticism. Right now you go to an economics class, and the only criticism you get is if you write a paper and the professor gives you a B. No one else really cares. When you are out on the lacrosse field, when you make a mistake, it’s public. Your teammates know, your friends know, the other team knows and so you have to learn to take criticism in a public arena. And that’s a tough thing to learn.
Fifty years later, what stands out about the 1967 season? What do you remember most fondly about the season and the team?
JOHN DEYOUNG
I guess one thing, sort of bittersweet in the end, seeing some of the pictures as we share things, was a picture of the folks on the bus on the way back to Ithaca. And the smiles on the faces, it’s sort of like a smile of satisfaction, but you also know it’s over. This is it. This is the last game. I think that’s really neat that after 50 years and talking to people on the phone and seeing a couple people, it’s incredible in that team photograph, there is only one player that passed away. Talking to these guys, it’s like we just got back on campus after the trip to Ithaca. It’s like the time has not passed. It’s so refreshing and they are sharing stories about who whacked who in the head.
What have you done since playing lacrosse at Princeton? RANDY EVANS
I graduated in ’69. We were living in Baltimore, and my son was in the fifth grade. He was playing lacrosse in his elementary school, and we moved to Florida in 1991, where there wasn’t any lacrosse. It took me a couple of years, but in 1995, we started the first club lacrosse team at the Bolles School. The first team had 15 players on it. There were three middle schoolers and there were three girls on the team. We went from one team to two teams to four teams and then it just took off. Lighthouse came later. I retired from CSX Railroad in 2003, and I ran a nonprofit that was working on job training and housing, and I recognized there was a lot of need for after-school activities. From that came the idea to start Lighthouse Lacrosse Foundation. When we had moved to Jacksonville, I thought we could try to provide kids in some of the poorer neighborhoods the opportunity to have the same type of experiences and the same type of lifelong connections.
Sports
Friday April 21, 2017
page 8
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1967 men’s lacrosse team returns for 50th anniversary of Ivy League Championship win By Jack Graham staff writer
Fifty years after winning an Ivy League Championship, the 1967 Princeton men’s lacrosse team will return to campus this weekend to celebrate its 50th anniversary. In that season in 1967, the team rebounded from an 0-4 start to post an undefeated record through Ivy League play, ultimately earning Princeton’s first outright Ivy League Championship in four years. Team manager John DeYoung ’67 still recalls vividly the “smiles of the faces of the guys on the bus back from Ithaca,” after Princeton’s victory over an until-then-undefeated Cornell team, a matchup that sealed the Tigers’ title. A half century later, the team’s tight camaraderie has hardly waned. “Talking to these guys, it’s like we just got back on campus after the trip to Ithaca,” said DeYoung. In fact, a remarkable 28 out of 40 team members will return for the reunion to celebrate the team’s accomplishments then and since. One man who will be in the minds of all those in attendance is former men’s lacrosse head coach Ferris Thomsen, a lacrosse Hall of Famer who led the 1967 team. Thomsen, who passed away in 1994, won a remarkable 10 Ivy League titles in his 15 seasons as Princeton’s head coach, posting a record of 63-17-2. In addition to his Hall of Fame induction in 1963, he was named Coach of the Year by the U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association in 1967. In his introduction to the team’s written history, Dr. Martin Eichelberger ’67, the captain of the team, described Thomsen as a “coach with a low-key personality, the bearing of a gentleman, and a sense of humor. His philosophy was simple: ‘Have fun and win some games.’” In many ways, the game played by the members of the 1967 team would be hardly rec-
ognizable to those familiar with the modern game. Players used sticks made from wood and leather and played on dirt fields, whereas players today use high-tech sticks that allow for advanced dodging maneuvers and play on smooth artificial surfaces. Another important aspect of lacrosse’s development, said DeYoung, is that the game has “spread across the nation.” In the 1960s, most players hailed from a small handful of areas, but today lacrosse has become widely popular throughout the country. However, DeYoung noted, “the sense of camaraderie and fellowship in the sport” has remained constant throughout the years. Staying true to the sport’s Native American roots, the emphasis on respecting opponents and teammates continues to be a critical part of the sport’s culture. Naturally, the lessons and principles that the team members learned on the lacrosse field did not abandon them as they left the University to begin their careers and adult lives. DeYoung cited his experience on the team as an integral part of his education at Princeton; he noted as well that his experience motivated his decision to later begin a youth lacrosse program, as well as coach the sport for 20 years, teaching “life’s lessons” to youth in the process. Eichelberger described the team as “citizenship at its best,” arguing that the success and camaraderie of the team “reinforced the importance of the individual as a member of a community committed to a greater good.” Returning for their reunion, the members of the 1967 team will not be able to recreate the past. They will, however, have the unique opportunity to reflect on the developments in their lives and the sport of lacrosse, as well as share the numerous fond memories preserved in time.
IMAGES COURTESY OF MARTY EICHELBERGER AND JOHN DEYOUNG
The 1967 men’s lacrosse team is reuniting this weekend for the 50th anniversary of its undefeated Ivy League season. Marty Eichelberger ‘67 is pictured above.
Men’s lacrosse to face off against Harvard in last home game of season By Owen Tedford staff writer
The Tigers will take on the Crimson this Saturday at 1 p.m. on Sherrerd Field in the penultimate game of the season.
With a win last Saturday at Dartmouth (2-9 overall, 0-4 Ivy), the men’s lacrosse team will now return home for its last home game of the year against Harvard (5-6, 1-3). In addition to senior day festivities, the game will feature ceremonies honoring the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Ivy League-winning team. Princeton (8-4, 3-1) has had a good season so far, earning it a No. 16 ranking in the USILA/Nike Coaches Poll, second in the Ivy League only to Yale. This ranking represents a slight drop from last week, when the team was ranked No. 13. A strong win over Harvard, however, will help boost the Tigers to a higher ranking in the top 20. The Crimson has hit a rough patch lately, losing six of its last seven games. Prior to that, Harvard had lasted through its first four games of the season undefeated. In its last game against Penn, however, the Crimson was outscored 5-1 in the fourth quarter, after entering the
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“From Inside Lacrosse - two Tigers in the top 15 in D1 freshman rankings: No. 1 (Sowers) and No. 15 (Medghalchi)” Princeton Lacrosse (@TigerLacrosse)
quarter tied. Harvard will be looking to finish better this coming weekend, bringing with it the extra energy that comes from the HarvardPrinceton rivalry. In the last four games in the series, dating back to 2013, the home team has come away victorious each time. Princeton’s success last week was driven in large part by senior midfielder Zach Currier, who sparked a second-half turnaround with a face-off win. Currier has had a great season so far and has led the NCAA Division I in points and assists, with 47 and 27 respectively. In addition, he leads the Tigers in caused turnovers. But, Currier’s greatest strength is his ability to pick up ground balls. He has 96 ground balls in the season and 268 in his career, placing him third in Princeton’s all-time record book, resting behind only Greg Waller ’92, with 333, and James Mitchell ’97, with 284. Currier’s ability stands out most when one considers that no other Princeton player has had double-digit ground balls in a game since
6,504 points
Freshman Harry Lord won the decathlon with 6,504 points at the 2017 Princeton Outdoor Multi-Event Meet on Thursday.
2010, while Currier has done it seven times. In addition to Currier, freshman attack Michael Sowers has been vital to Princeton’s accomplishments thus far. Sowers has set a number of Princeton records so far this season, including most points and goals by a freshman. In addition, he is now closing in on Ivy League freshman records in points and goals. When asked for comment by email about what his keys to success have been this season, Sowers said that it was “above all [his] teammates, specifically the senior group, [who] really made the transition [from high school] smooth.” Having the opportunity to learn from his teammates and play for head coach Matt Madalon has also helped Sowers develop tremendously as a player while at Princeton. Come down to Sherrerd Field at the Class of 1952 Stadium at 1 p.m. on Saturday to watch Currier, Sowers, and the rest of the team in their last regular-season home game of the year.
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