VOL. CLXXVI NO. 145
RAINY HIGH 37 LOW 20
OPINION
BRING AND RAUDA: AN APOLOGY PAGE 6
KIM: ‘FREE SPEECH’ AND THE RIGHT TO PROTEST PAGE 7
ZAMAN: ELECTORALLY INCARCERATED PAGE 7
ARTS
REVIEW: ‘MISS ANTHROPOCENE’ BLENDS GRIMES’ NEW AND OLD STYLES PAGE 8
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COPYRIGHT © 2020 THE DARTMOUTH, INC.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2020
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Dartmouth Skiway Spread of coronavirus in Italy appoints new director cuts short study abroad program
B y MAUD MCCOLE The Dartmouth
On May 1, Mark Adamczyk will take over as the Dartmouth Skiway manager, becoming the fourth director since the Skiway’s opening in 1957. Doug Holler, who has served as director for 19 years, will retire in May. Adamczyk has worked in Winter Park, CO for the past 15 years. He is currently the director of outdoor adventure at Winter Park Resort, where he develops programming outside of the traditional ski experience — including snowshoeing, guided
tours and night programming. Before that, Adamczyk worked in mountain operations where he learned the safety and regulatory processes that go into operating a ski mountain. Adamczyk said this experience will serve him well when he starts at the Skiway. “[I] learned a tremendous amount about safety and regulations,” Adamczyk said. “Which sounds boring — but is really the most important thing about operating a ski area.” After working at Winter Park Resort, which serves nearly a SEE SKIWAY PAGE 3
Downtown Hanover sees business relocations B y SOLEIL GAYLORD The Dartmouth Staff
Multiple retail shops and restaurants in the town of Hanover will be changing locations in the coming year. Skinny Pancake, Hanover Haircutters and Verizon will be relocating, and FatFace, a British clothing company, will be opening on Main Street. Town manager Julia Griffin said recent developments in Hanover likely reflect a changing marketplace. According to Griffin, during a time when the
online marketplace dominates, particularly in the clothing and book retail sectors, it is difficult if not impossible for brick-andmortar stores to stay afloat in Hanover, as well as other towns. For example, Zimmermann’s The North Face recently closed its store in Hanover and decided to sell its products exclusively online. Griffin said that for many years, Hanover has seen a cycle of businesses moving in and out of various locations. SEE DOWNTOWN PAGE 5
MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Nine students currently studying abroad are self-monitoring for coronavirus after recently visiting Venice.
B y THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF The College is ending a language study program in Italy early due to concerns about the spread of novel coronavirus. While two other Dartmouth programs in France are continuing as planned, a g roup of students who traveled to norther n Italy are both not going to class and selfmonitoring for the virus over the next 14 days, according to College spokesperson Diana Lawrence. Nine students — eight of whom are on the College’s Lyon program and one on the Toulouse program — visited Venice last week, according
to Garrick Allison ’22, who is on the Lyon program. During their first day of class after the trip, Centre International d’études Françaises director Manda Green informed the students that they would need to engage a 14-day isolation period, according to Allison. The eight students in Lyon are staying in a long-stay hotel. Allison said that although they are not in a “hard quarantine,” he and the seven other Lyon LSA+ students have been advised to avoid public places such as restaurants, bars, museums, gym and public transportation as much as possible. According to Allison, the students are not allowed on University of Lyon property until the 14-day
precaution has passed. French professor Yasser Elhariry is working to help the students complete their class requirements, according to Allison. At the end of the two weeks, the students will complete their final week with final exams as planned. “While we continue to feel that the risk of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) to students studying in Lyons and Toulouse remains low, authorities and university officials in France have issued guidance that any students who traveled to northern Italy during last week’s break should not return to university classes and should self-monitor for SEE CORONAVIRUS PAGE 3
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Published medians give context on student performance in courses B y ANDREW SASSER The Dartmouth Staff
When students pick out new classes each term, one of their many considerations could be the grade medians of the available courses. At the end of every quarter, in addition to reporting individual grades, the College registrar also places the median grade of each class on a student’s transcript. These grades represent the 50th percentile of students’ grades, with half of the class earning grades below the median and the other half earning grades at or above the median. According to a report provided to The Dartmouth by College registrar Meredith Braz, the decision to add grade medians was instituted in the fall of 1994 and was first applied to members of the Class of 1998. In May 1994, the College Committee on Instruction published a report that recommended the publication of grade medians. The report said that grade medians would allow “outside users” of a transcript to get a better understanding of a student’s rank in their classes and that grade medians could potentially reduce grade inflation. “It is hoped that this system may address the problem of continued grade inflation, by reducing incentive for faculty to continue to increase their grades ...” the report stated. “It is also hoped that the effects of differential grading will be in part ameliorated, thus providing additional incentive for students to take courses in areas where the average grade is relatively low.” When it comes to the actual calculation of grade medians, the website for the Office of the Registrar that grade medians are calculated from all students — undergraduates or not — who are enrolled in a given class. In the event of the median falling between two letter grades — for example, between an A- and a B+ — the transcript will show a notation of
A-/B+. At the end of each term, most courses have their medians published publicly, along with the total enrollment for the course. The website indicated that all courses with an enrollment of less than 10 are exempted from showing median grades, and that department chairs can request that certain courses be exempted from medians. Typically, these are honors or independent study courses. Dartmouth is unique in its decision to issue grade medians. According to Student Assembly president Luke Cuomo ’20, Dartmouth is the only college in the United States that currently publishes its grade medians. Cuomo noted that while Cornell University began publishing grade medians in 1998, it discontinued this policy in 2011, with a report having found that grade medians had “little to no impact” on grade inflation. According to Cuomo, students have mixed opinions on grade medians. Cuomo said that from his conversations with students, some see the grade medians as beneficial for postgraduate opportunities, while others see medians as discouraging them from taking more challenging courses. “Some students see medians on their transcripts as a positive indicator of their performance in context,” Cuomo said. “Other students see it as kind of harmful to their academic development and an unfair burden placed on school.” Some students expressed more positive views on the issue, noting that they feel that their grades help them understand where they rank in their classes. “It feels helpful to understand how well I did,” said Sidra Goldner ’23. “It makes me feel like I’m not in a vacuum, but it gives me context as a student. I haven’t really heard arguments against it though.” Allison MacLeod ’23 concurred, saying that medians are “really helpful”
CORRECTIONS We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com.
ADRIAN RUSSIAN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Dartmouth is unique among colleges in publishing course medians at the end of each term.
in regards to contextualizing the difficulty of a class and how a student’s grade “fits into the larger narrative of the class.” “What I don’t love is when professors decide they must have a certain median for their class,” MacLeod said. Some professors have also shown doubts about the effectiveness of grade medians. Economics department chair Nina Pavcnik said that the decision to issue grade medians has driven students toward professors who have higher median grades, and that as a result grade inflation has only worsened. Pavcnik added that the economics department has resorted to standardizing its medians across courses of similar difficulty in order to ensure that students are being graded on similar expectations. “The reason why we implemented this policy was that we did not think it was fair for lucky students to get higher medians than other students in the same courses,” Pavcnik said. “We want students to choose courses in economics based on their academic interests and not medians.”
In response to these concerns by students and faculty, Cuomo said that the Student Assembly is currently in discussions with both students and faculty in order to gain a sense of the community’s broader opinion on grade medians. Cuomo added that due to the spectrum of opinions on campus, Student Assembly is currently focused on conducting more research
before determining the overall impact of grade medians on students. “We’ve had conversations with the student assembly and senate, as well as [Dean of the College] Kathryn Lively,” Cuomo said. “I think it’s a perfectly appropriate topic for the Student Assembly to investigate and see if this policy is really helping students, and if not, what changes need to be made.”
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2020
PAGE 3
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Two programs in France New director to start position in May continuing as planned FROM SKIWAY PAGE 1
FROM CORONAVIRUS PAGE 1
the next fourteen days,” Lawrence wrote. “We are working with the students who traveled in that area to make sure they are able to comply with these new guidelines in a way that will enable them to complete the program.” She added the both programs in France will continue as planned. Meanwhile, the language study abroad plus program in Rome has concluded due to concerns about the spread of the virus, according to an email sent to students on the program by Frank J. Guarini Institute for International Education executive director John Tansey. “Recognizing the uncertainty associated with the recent increase
in confirmed cases of COVID-19 in northern Italy, and out of an abundance of caution, the College has decided to conclude the Italian LSA+ early,” Tansey wrote to students. The College is paying for students to return on the earliest available flights from Rome, and preparations are being made to still have students receive full credit for the program, according to program director Tania Covertini. “As the Director of the program, I will do everything I can to ensure that students will conclude the program remotely with a sense of accomplishment for their intercultural achievements,” Covertini wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth.
million skiers and snowboarders each year, Adamczyk said he is eager for the transition to somewhere smaller and more community-focused like the Dartmouth Skiway. “I’m very interested in being at a place that has such an incredible history of skiing,” Adamczyk said. “You really get to make decisions that have a lot to do with skiing and not just business.” Adamczyk said he is interested in expanding the Skiway’s terrain park and exploring options for uphill and offseason programming. He said that his priority will be maintaining a balanced program that caters to all of the Skiway’s patrons. Holler said he plans on staying in the Upper Valley area after he retires and is eager to see what Adamczyk will do at the Skiway. Among those who participated in the selection process for the new skiway director was Dartmouth ski patrol co-director Raiden Meyer ’20. Meyer noted that Dartmouth is unique among many ski mountains in having a student-run volunteer patrol, and the directors of the Skiway patrol team
work closely with the Skiway director throughout the season. As he helped interview potential candidates, Meyer said that he was looking for someone who values student voices. “I was looking for someone who’s really able to work with students,” Meyer said. “[Someone who will] really treat the students as the valuable additions that they are.” Dartmouth is one of only two colleges in the United States that runs its own ski mountain, along with Middlebury College in Vermont. According to Dartmouth Skiway’s website, the skiway was founded in 1957 in order to continue Dartmouth’s “preeminence in skiing” both in terms of “competition at the ski team level and of recreational skiing for the student body generally.” Meyer said that he sees the Skiway as part of Dartmouth’s larger engagement with outdoor learning and education. “[The Skiway is] something that positions Dartmouth as incredibly unique among the Ivy League and other colleges,” Meyer said. “We can point to the Skiway and things like Oak Hill and other Dartmouth
outdoor facilities and say this is how the school enables that outdoor learning experience.” Adamczyk said that he is also excited to experience the combination of athletics, student leadership and community that he witnessed when he visited the Skiway in December. He said that one of the things that drew him to the Skiway was the way it encapsulates what he loves about the sport. “I think the Skiway is in a position to really focus on that core bit of the joy of skiing and riding and what’s so rich in the culture there,” Adamczyk said. “That’s kind of what I want to pursue there.” Both directors of the student ski patrol said they are grateful for Holler’s time as director and his contributions to the student program. They also said they are excited for Adamczyk’s transition. “Whenever a transition happens, it’s kind of an open door to new ideas,” said ski patrol co-director Honor Paine ’20. Raiden Meyer is a former member of The Dartmouth staff.
PAULA KUTSCHERA/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Dartmouth is one of only two colleges in the United States that operates its own ski mountain.
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DARTMOUTHEVENTS
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS
AWARDS SEASON
DOMINIQUE MOBLEY ’22
TODAY 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Exhibit: “The Ties that Bind: Slavery and Dartmouth.” Sponsored by the Library, Rauner Special Collections Library.
4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Talk: “Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For,” with Ambassador Susan Rice. Sponsored by the Dickey Center, Spaulding Auditorium.
8:00 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.
Theater: “The Sweet Science of Bruising.” Sponsored by the Hopkins Center, Moore Theater.
TOMORROW 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Film: “Fantastic Fungi.” Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts, Spaulding Auditorium.
8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Astronomy: “Public Astronomical Observing.” Sponsored by the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shattuck Observatory. FROM KIM PAGE 7
these talks by protesting. Considering the anti-intellectual, blatantly racist reputations of many speakers recently invited by the College Republicans — including David Horowitz and Dinesh D’Souza — might be a good place to start. The “agenda” of our protest was not to harm or silence College Republicans or Messner. Its purpose was to show that allies of Latinx, immigrant and undocumented people affected by the border crisis are listening, observing and reacting to xenophobia. Although the protest never happened, it seems its planning had a positive effect — during an alternative event that was held at the same time that Messner’s talk was meant to happen, several students affected by the College Republicans’ antiimmigrant statement on campus noted that they appreciated the campus left’s quick response to the
College Republicans’s blatantly racist event and announcement. I suppose Messner’s talk did, in a way, yield in some fruitful political conversations. Free speech is not threatened by liberal students lawfully protesting an event; in fact, such protest is the very definition of free speech. For its own good, the campus right must stop abusing the word “free speech” and rendering the First Amendment and generalizing arguments against s o-called “ s ens itive liberals ” meaningless. The next step would be to listen from time to time to the dissenting opinions of these “sensitive liberals,” instead of shutting them out and claiming censorship. Maybe, just maybe, there is a reason people put in so much effort to express their dissent, through protest or otherwise — political drama aside, the real fight here is for immigrants and others working to secure their families’ and communities’ safety.
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
PAGE 5
Businesses moving to Main Street benefit from more visibility FROM DOWNTOWN PAGE 1
“In the case of this most recent round of closings and vacancies, a lot of it reflects what is happening in the retail marketplace, whether it is the Dartmouth Bookstore or a smaller retailer like A Little Spot of Red or Zimmermann’s,” Griffin said. Griffin said that many stores want to relocate to Main Street locations, which are typically more successful than those located on South or Lebanon Street, because they receive higher visibility. “It is amazing how much of a difference there is in the South Main street location versus the side street location, whether it is Allen Street, South Street or Lebanon Street — or Maple Street for that matter,” Griffin said. Jeff Temple, sales manager of the Verizon retailer in Hanover said the store’s recent decision to relocate was a result of a need for more space and a desire to achieve higher visibility. “We have grown over the last five years to the point where we have basically outgrown the space,” Temple said. “We need more room, more space for inventory — and the company is expanding, so we are making use of the office space up there so we have better capability to train and develop our people.” Temple said that the new location is also a strategy to gain more customers. “Visibility and foot traffic is a huge part of it,” Temple said. “From the numbers we have run and [the new space] we are looking at, we are expecting about a 30-percent increase in foot traffic as well.” Temple added that since most customers stick to the Main Street strip, many aren’t even aware of Verizon’s location on South Street. Verizon plans to open its new location at 63 South Main, the old North Face location, sometime during the first half of spring term, slightly behind schedule due to construction delays. Ryan Romano, co-owner of Hanover Haircutters, said he will be reopening his shop in its new location on 35 South Main Street on this coming Monday. Romano expressed similar concerns, saying the move was mainly due to space and visibility issues. “One of the reasons we are moving
there is at this point we are upstairs, in the back corner of the building,” Romano said. “We’ve been there for 18 years and people still don’t know that we are here.” Romano added that a Main Street location will attract more customers and will enable the shop to accommodate more employees and more stations. While the success of retail in Hanover is subject to variation, the restaurant business, Griffin said, has always been strong. “In the case of restaurants, business is lively in Hanover,” Griffin said. “If one restaurant departs for any reason, it is typically only a matter of time before a new restaurant comes in to replace that outgoing restaurant.” But Michael Cyr, Skinny Pancake’s director of marketing and brand, said Hanover’s restaurant business has proved to be quite difficult. According to Cyr, Skinny Pancake’s decision to relocate has been partially motivated by visibility and space concerns, but also by Hanover’s high real estate costs. Cyr said with a low profit margin and rising real estate prices in Hanover, it is particularly hard for restaurants to remain competitive. “It seems to be an ongoing trend in town, just the cost of real estate is a concern, especially for restaurants,” Cyr said. “We just weren’t able to produce the necessary sales to pay for real estate.” Cyr said the restaurant will remain in its Lebanon Street location until the end of the year, and in the meantime, it will search for a new space. “We have looked at some other properties in town, and we are actively looking for another place; we’re quite optimistic we will find it,” Cyr said. Cyr added that Skinny Pancake’s Hanover location is one of the most important in terms of the company’s revenue, and the managers will work hard to ensure it can remain in town. “We will always have an Upper Valley presence, and we really want to stay in Hanover, it is very important to us,” Cyr said. FatFace, a British men’s and women’s clothing company with 15 stores in the U.S., will soon be opening in its new location on South Main. The smallscale chain store claims to sell lifestyle clothing and accessories, similar to J. McLaughlin, which opened in the fall.
JASON ROMERO/THE DARTMOUTH
FatFace, a British clothing company, is opening a store on Main Street.
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
GUEST COLUMNISTS DANIEL BRING ’21 AND ALEXANDER RAUDA ’21
An Apology
We are the former leaders of the College Republicans — and we apologize.
DEBORA HYEMIN HAN, Editor-in-Chief
AIDAN SHEINBERG, Publisher
ALEX FREDMAN, Executive Editor PETER CHARALAMBOUS, Managing Editor
PRODUCTION EDITORS TEDDY HILL-WELD & MATTHEW MAGANN, Opinion Editors KYLEE SIBILIA & NOVI ZHUKOVSKY, Mirror Editors ADDISON DICK & JUSTIN KRAMER & LILI STERN, Sports Editors LEX KANG & LUCY TURNIPSEED, Arts Editors NAINA BHALLA & LORRAINE LIU, Photo Editors SAMANTHA BURACK & BELLA JACOBY, Design Editors GRANT PINKSTON, Templating Editor JESS CAMPANILE, Multimedia Editor
ANTHONY ROBLES, Managing Editor
BUSINESS DIRECTORS JONNY FRIED, JASMINE FU, Advertising & Finance Directors HIMADRI NARASIMHAMURTHY & KAI SHERWIN, Business Development Directors ALBERT CHEN & ELEANOR NIEDERMAYER, Strategy Directors VINAY REDDY & ERIC ZHANG, Marketing, Analytics and Technology Directors
ELIZA JANE SCHAEFFER, Engagement Editor WILLIAM CHEN & AARON LEE, Data Visualization Editors
SUBMISSIONS: We welcome letters and guest columns. All submissions must include the author’s name and affiliation with Dartmouth College, and should not exceed 250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com.
We are the former leaders of the Dartmouth College Republicans, and we regret the impact of our actions and decisions on that organization and on the Dartmouth community. Let us make one thing perfectly clear: It was never our intention to hurt the organization that we worked so hard to build and grow. We recognize that recent events have brought scrutiny to the College Republicans, and we take any and all responsibility for the organization’s failures during our tenure. In today’s political climate, it’s easy to get carried away. Under our leadership, the College Republicans’ public presence became purely oppositional, combatting the “radical left” and devoted to “owning the libs.” When your only stance is to oppose that of others, you feel you have no meaningful choices but to escalate the rhetoric of political — and interpersonal — conflict. This compulsion leads to a vicious cycle of increasingly hostile and alienating provocations and interactions. We have decided to break that cycle and sincerely ask the forgiveness of our colleagues and our campus. We would like to start by clearing the air about the recent event featuring U.S. Senate candidate Bryant “Corky” Messner. For the public record, Mr. Bring met with officers from Safety and Security and the Hanover Police Department on the Monday morning before the event was scheduled to report on threats posed online and, accordingly, discuss security provisions for the event. Safety and Security filed the threats and said they would look into them. They had not concluded their investigation by the time we made the decision late on Monday evening to postpone the event. By midday on Tuesday, Mr. Bring informed Collis and Safety and Security that the event was postponed. Neither Collis nor Safety and Security had been involved in the decision to postpone the event. It certainly showed poor planning and a lack of foresight that we had not requested College funding for event security in advance. It inconvenienced both Mr. Messner and the members of the College Republicans. We are proud of much of the work we did with the College Republicans. Just this fall, we invited a diverse selection of speakers: Republican presidential candidate Gov. Bill Weld, former New Hampshire senator Judd Gregg and even an American Enterprise Institute Fellow, David Bier, who supported open borders. We welcomed political activist Mark Meckler for an attempt at a bipartisan forum on immigration. We even held social events, such as showing the movie “Vice” and hosting a Democratic debate watch party. At every turn, we attempted to foster a free and open dialogue while
occasionally courting controversy. In our most recent — and final — attempt, we unfortunately failed. This late failure stemmed from blatant lapses in communication and organizational structure. We kept some leadership members informed of our decisions on a “need-to-know” basis, which was not conducive to the responsible functioning of the organization. We were, and still are, proud of the first-years we welcomed to expand the leadership team and broaden the organization’s perspective. We recognize that the centralization of so much authority within our personal roles led to these organizational and managerial shortfalls. Due to this autocracy, our personal faults became the faults of the organization. Though our views on many issues have changed and matured through our time at Dartmouth, our traditionalist beliefs became too predominant in the organization’s public forum. Whenever we made a mistake, our monopoly of control just exacerbated the negative impacts on the College Republicans. As the recent Messner event highlighted the problems of our mismanagement, we and the rest of the leadership recognized that the present system was untenable. It became a foregone conclusion that a new generation of leadership was needed to address some of the problems we had engendered. So, we decided to resign. We hope that the College Republicans will now gain respect among the student body, maintain its independence from other organizations, hold fair and open elections each term, and wear its convictions on its sleeve. In any case, it must find new confidence by redefining itself. We can only hope that a more respectful and engaged College Republicans will now emerge. We wish the current leadership the best of luck. When a ruthless Republican operative, Lee Atwater, was dying from cancer, he wrote, “My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood.” Keeping his words in mind, we are grateful for our youth and ability to change, as well as the many opportunities ahead of us to grow as individuals and members of the Dartmouth community. Bring and Rauda are the former chair and vice chair of the Dartmouth College Republicans. They are members of the Class of 2021. The Dartmouth welcomes guest columns. We request that guest columns be the original work of the submitter. Submissions may be sent to both opinion@thedartmouth.com and editor@ thedartmouth.com. Submissions will receive a response within three business days.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2020
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST BETTY KIM ’20
STAFF COLUMNIST RANIYAN ZAMAN ’22
‘Free Speech’ and the Right to Protest The College Republicans’ appeals to free speech fall flat.
Last week, at the invitation of the Dartmouth College Republicans, U.S. Senate candidate Bryant “Corky” Messner — who is running against incumbent senator Jeanne Shaheen (D) — was scheduled to deliver a talk titled “Building a Wall Against Drugs: The Need for Border Security to End the Opioid Crisis.” I was involved in the planning of a two-pronged peaceful and educational protest against this event; that is, before the College Republicans cancelled it due to alleged “security risks.” I will speak briefly about my own political opinions and my personal motivation to protest peacefully. However, I also want to challenge the College Republicans’ cheap strategy of condemning the figure of the liberal protester rather than engaging in real political discourse with opposing ideas. In conservative media coverage of the event and its cancellation, we can see all the predictable language about so-called radical leftists laid out neatly. As The Dartmouth Editorial Board noted in Friday’s Verbum Ultimum, the event was cancelled with little-to-no evidence of a substantial security threat — but the cancellation by the College Republicans still elicited an uproar from Messner, the College Republicans and their supporters. Terms like “free speech” are thrown around to peddle the narrative that “militant” liberal students have endangered and silenced conservatives. Twitter user Gates Lucas, who identified himself as a Dartmouth alum, tweeted in solidarity with the College Republicans: “I find it disturbing that those on the left would seek to silence opposing viewpoints with threats of violence,” Lucas wrote. The right has a tendency to criticize liberals by invoking “American values” and the First Amendment. And yet, it seems quite anti free expression and un-American to claim that protestors are restricting free speech, when in fact, our right to peaceful assembly and the right to free speech are protected by that same amendment. But we shouldn’t be surprised at this point. It’s a classic move of the right to paint a picture of an immature and “oversensitive” — yet militant and physically violent — liberal student body. To them, the vaguely mentioned “threat” of left-leaning political action is the real risk; never mind the fact that Messner’s talk was an indirect threat of violence against an entire immigrant
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THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
community. Instead of publicly defending their decision to host Messner, the College Republicans relied on a cheap, last-minute strategy: Cancel the event and blame it on the “intolerant left” and its supposed animal desire to use violence against the right. This isn’t just a Dartmouth or College Republicans problem — this is a timehonored strategy of the right, and it’s used so often because it’s a false narrative that is easily paired to any ideology. It conveniently delegitimizes opponents without forcing one to defend one’s own legitimacy. What baffles me, though, is that so many people buy into the narrative. It’s not hard to see what’s really going on here: Liberal dissent is being strategically misrepresented and delegitimized. Griffin Mackey ’21, the secretary of the College Republicans, told the conservative publication NHJournal, “We don’t know if [the threats] were serious or not, but our first priority has to be an event that’s safe and where people who want to hear our speaker feel welcome.” The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech, but it in no way guarantees that all of the people listening to that speech will agree with you, “welcome” you or support you in any way. The College Republicans’ demand that their speaker be “welcomed” represents the height of hypocrisy. The College Republicans claim that the campus left doesn’t want to hear dissenting opinions, but when faced with the threat of openly expressed political disagreement, the College Republicans were the ones who reacted by shutting down the own event and blaming it on the left. The College Republicans used this cowardly move to shut down discourse — which is ironic, since that’s exactly what they claim that left is doing. When the campus right complains that the left is intolerant or unwilling to listen, they forget that protest is a form of discourse and a way of exercising one’s First Amendment rights. I did not plan to protest the event because I wanted to silence Republican voices; I wanted to contribute to the conversation by voicing my dissent. Instead of generalizing liberal protestors as “oversensitive” and condescendingly dismissing their concerns, the campus right might learn something from considering why liberal students decide to engage with SEE KIM PAGE 4
Electorally Incarcerated
All felons — including those currently behind bars — should be able to vote. It’s not an election year unless Florida has a surprise up its sleeve, and this year the surprise in question just might involve the restoration of voting rights to felons. Just last week, a federal appeals court ruled that the state cannot use unpaid fees and fines related to conviction to bar felons from voting. This decision built off a 2018 amendment passed by referendum that promised to enfranchise over a million Floridians with felony convictions who had completed their sentences. Florida — which has the highest percentage of disenfranchised citizens in the country — is late to the game; over the past couple of decades, a majority of states have revised or changed laws concerning felon voting. Several states have repealed lifetime disenfranchisement laws and simplified the often arduously complicated process for re-enfranchising felons. But with the exception of two states — our neighbors, Maine and Vermont — every state prevents felons from voting while incarcerated. While the growing restoration of voting rights to felons who have completed serving their sentences is a step in the right direction, states shouldn’t stop there. The fact is that everyone currently incarcerated in the nation should be able to vote. The right of felons to vote is grounded, first and foremost, in the simple truth that there is no justification in a democracy for disenfranchising any citizen. Attempts to rob the incarcerated of their political voice cheapens our commitment to democracy. Popular arguments that disenfranchisement is the “price” of committing a crime, besides being redundant — the price of committing a crime is already the sentence itself, and should be nothing more — also reveals a punitive vision of a criminal justice system that should instead prioritize rehabilitation. And that’s to say nothing of the troubling racial dynamics of felon disenfranchisement. The Sentencing Project estimates that as of 2016, slightly over six million Americans — or one out of every 40 adults — were disenfranchised due to a current or previous felony conviction. Among those disenfranchised, the racial disparity is glaringly evident — nationally, one in 13 votingage African Americans are disenfranchised, four times the rate of disenfranchisement among nonblack Americans. In some states, as many as one in five African Americans are disenfranchised. The numbers are outrageous; the racism, blatant. Banning felons from voting fits into a nationwide trend of voter suppression with deep historical roots — and a trend
that disproportionately hits low-income and minority communities. And before you blame this disparity on different crime rates across communities, consider who gets arrested in America. Think about marijuana. Black and white Americans use the drug at about equal rates; African Americans, however, are arrested for marijuana 3.73 times more often than white Americans. The “why” of felon disenfranchisement is just as concerning as the “who.” Polls have shown that a majority of Americans from both sides of the political aisle oppose reinstating voting rights for the incarcerated. Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, for example, has characterized losing voting rights as part of punishment, while Sen. Lindsey Graham (RSC) has described felon voting as permitting “rapists, murderers, and terrorists to vote from prison” on Twitter. This view is a major reason so many Americans feel uncomfortable allowing the incarcerated to vote; they buy into myths that everyone behind bars is a dangerous criminal convicted of murder, rape or some equally heinous crime. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Nonviolent drug offenders make up a significant percentage of the incarcerated; the Prison Policy Initiative estimates that one in five prisoners is locked up for a drug offense. Further, a report by the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center found that 40 percent of the U.S. prison population is behind bars with “no compelling public safety reason.” The tendency to label everyone within the prison system as “dangerous” speaks to the distance that so many people — in the country, but also within our little bubble at Dartmouth — have with the incarcerated, and more broadly, with issues of racial justice. It’s an immense and often unrecognized privilege to not have a loved one behind bars, or with a felony conviction. Forty-five percent of Americans have at some point had an immediate family member incarcerated. Given the unfairness inherent in the criminal justice system, the least we can do is give felons the vote and make sure that every American has the right to participate in our nation’s political system. Elections will take place on Saturday in South Carolina, where the ACLU has estimated that around 50,000 people with felony and misdemeanor convictions will be unable to participate. As results come in, remember that a significant portion of population will continue to have its vote silenced.
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
Review: ‘Miss Anthropocene’ blends Grimes’ new and old styles
B y Jack HARGROVE The Dartmouth Staff
For Claire Boucher, the last few years have marked a massive change in popularity. Between the critical and commercial success of her 2015 album “Art Angels” and her highprofile relationship with billionaire Elon Musk, Boucher, better known as Grimes, has become a genuine celebrity. Her prodigious rise to stardom probably comes as a surprise to anyone familiar with her work since the beginning — which was full of obscured vocals and avant-garde gothpunk — especially since it took four albums for her to become a household name. “Art Angels” marked an abrupt change in style for Grimes. All of a sudden, her vocals were front and center, backed by zanier and brighter production than ever before, making her music more commericially viable. In anticipation of her new album, Grimes’ celebrity grew to monumental heights, which led to personal uncertainty about whether or not she would progress further into upbeat, radio-friendly pop. However, in her new album, “Miss Anthropocene,” released Feb. 21, Grimes strikes the perfect balance between her more obscure early sound and her newer pop experimentation, albeit with a dark edge. The album’s only downsides are a couple of forgettable tracks toward the latter half of the album and its scattered concept — the album is supposed to represent the character Miss Anthropocene, the goddess of climate change, but falls short of achieving a unified concept. Grimes immediately establishes the dark yet beautiful sound that makes up this album on its first track, “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth
(Art Mix).” Over low synths and the steady strumming of a bass, Grimes wails in a high pitch, using her voice as an instrument rather than to convey meaning. The only lyrics that can easily be made out are her repetitions of the phrase “So heavy, I fell through the Earth” in the chorus. The song certainly lives up to its name; the dark synths and vocals convey a palpable sense of weight. The strong drum machine beat in the background is a taste of the EDM influence that appears throughout the work. The last minute of the track contains an ambient reprieve from the dark and heavy feeling in the rest of the song. The next few songs provide a diverse and engaging listening experience, although not as cohesive as needed for the concept of the album. The second song, “Darkseid,” picks up where the last track left off, kicking off with a bouncing drum beat and booming bass. The verses in the song are all sung in Mandarin by Taiwanese rapper 潘PAN. For listeners who do not speak Mandarin, these vocals functionally act as another instrument, much like Grimes’ singing in most of the album. While 潘 PAN’s erratic, autotuned rapping and the intense production make “Darkseid” probably the strangest track on the album, the experimentation works very well. While many artists’ experimental tracks are a chore to listen to, “Darkseid” is an enjoyably sinister piece that helps to establish the murky and depressing feel of the LP. The acoustic guitar in the third track, “Delete Forever,” provides a sudden contrast to the electronic sound of the album. While there are some minor synths in the song, the primary instruments used are guitar, trumpet and the banjo. Despite the hopelessness conveyed in both the
lyrics and music, there is something deeply beautiful about this song. Grimes’ use of a more conventional singing style, as opposed to her previously muddled vocals, more effectively allows the lyrics about drug addiction to be heard more easily, amplifying the pain and sadness in the song. Lyrics like, “Always down when I’m not up, guess it’s just my rotten luck/To fill my time with permanent blue/But I can’t see above it, guess I f—king love it/But, oh, I didn’t mean to” contribute to the desolation of the track. At the same time, Grimes’ delicate voice paired with simple and familiar instrumentation evoke a more traditional sense of beauty in music. Grimes again expands the musical diversity of the album on the next track, “Violence (Original Mix).” Even though it is a purely electronic song like most in her repertoire, the classic house music production makes it stand out on the album. The vocals are heavenly, almost completely disappearing into the sound of the track as the beat dominates. “Violence” is somewhat of a love song from the perspective of the Earth, who still cares about humanity despite the damage it has caused. Grimes sings, “Baby, it’s violence/ But you can’t see what I see/You can’t see what I see/’Cause you, ha, ha, you feed off hurting me.” This song is the first in the album that helps set up the intended lyrical concept of the character Miss Anthropocene. The centerpiece, and my favorite song on the album, is the fifth track, “4ÆM.” The track starts softly, with Grimes’ ethereal wailing over tropical drums. While it is nearly impossible to make out the lyrics in the verses, the vocals become much clearer in the chorus. However, the best part of the song is when the beat breaks down into an intense drum and bass lines. This song showcases Grimes’ skill at
all types of EDM production, further cementing her status as a savant of electronic music. Along with “4ÆM,” the seventh track, “My Name is Dark (Art Mix),” is one of the highlights of the album both musically and lyrically, espeically because the lyrics are very authentically “Grimes.” Over an ominous guitar line, Grimes sings “Imminent annihilation sounds so dope” and “Put on ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’/So that I can sing along while I break things” contain sentiments that only Grimes could come up with and that perfectly reflect her personality. The apocalyptic synths that play throughout the song compliment lyrics like “And the angel of death, she said to God/‘Un-f—k the world, un-f—k the world/You stupid girl, you stupid girl,’” which continue the climate change concept of the album. The eighth and ninth tracks, “You’ll miss me when I’m not around” and “Before the fever,” are the two most forgettable on the album. “You’ll miss me when I’m not around,” despite its intriguing concept, is a very musically simplistic and comparatively generic track. The lyrics tell the story of an angel who kills herself, but she just ends up waking up back in Heaven anyway. While this tragic story is an interesting listen, the production is not — the chord structure and guitar riff is uninteresting and the track is overall repetitive. “Before the fever” is even more forgettable — without any distinct character — and is the least enjoyable of the three slow songs on the album. However, the track does provide a dark atmosphere that sets up a satisfying transition to the final song. The album ends with the track “IDORU,” the only bright song. After the penultimate track “Before the
fever” puts the mood at its darkest, the upbeat happiness in “IDORU” provides much needed catharsis. The song begins with the sounds of birds chirping, immediately signifying the bright outlook of the song. There are fluttery melodies throughout the track that give it a sunny feeling. Lyrically, “IDORU” is a pure love song, with lines like, “We could play a beautiful game/You could chase me down in the name/Of love/I wanna play a beautiful game/Even though we’re gonna lose/But I adore you/Adore you.” After nine tracks of darkness and existential despair, “IDORU” is a beautiful ending which encourages everyone to enjoy the short time they have on Earth. While most of the tracks are an effective blend of her early, experimental style and her more recent pop direction, “IDORU” stands out as the exemplar of the marriage. With “Miss Anthropocene,” Grimes has reconciled the pop stylings of “Art Angels” with the sound of her early work. Despite her celebrity, Grimes chose to make noncommercial music while still experimenting with pop vocals and production. She continues to evolve as an artist, and, as a result, each of her albums is more compelling than the last. “Miss Anthropocene” is no different, as it provides some of the most intriguing work of Grimes’ career. That being said, the album isn’t perfect — on top of the two less compelling tracks, the concept of Miss Anthropocene did not shine through. Out of the 10 tracks, only “Violence” and “My Name is Dark” are the only songs that truly devote themselves to the concept. If Grimes’ goal was to produce a concept album, she fell short. If her aim was to produce a great album, I would say “Miss Anthropocene” is a success.