Friday, March 21, 2016

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SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2016

VOLUME CLI, ISSUE 36

WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

Anti-Semitic, homophobic vandalism found in Marcy House

DPS investigation underway as students condemn hate crime, gather in solidarity By MELISSA CRUZ AND ELENA RENKEN SENIOR STAFF WRITERS

Sam Rubinstein ’17 and Lainie Rowland ’17, a Herald opinions editor, entered their hallway in Marcy House close to 1 a.m. Friday to find antiSemitic and homophobic messages scrawled on the walls. Upon seeing the graffiti, Rowland contacted the leaders of Beta Rho Pi, a Jewish fraternity housed in Marcy, and Rubinstein contacted Department of Public Safety officials and staff members of Brown/ RISD Hillel. The vandalism in Marcy read “Gay will die” and “Holocaust 2.0” in black marker. As residents waited for the arrival of officials, members of BRP and Zeta Delta Xi, a co-ed fraternity also housed in Marcy and home to many LGBTQ students, gathered in the hallways and scrubbed the graffiti off the walls. “One message was directly across from my dorm room, apparently reacting to the Hebrew writing and

Mezuzah on my door,” wrote Rubinstein, a member of Zete, the moniker commonly used to refer to Zeta Delta Xi, in an email to The Herald. The vandalism follows Janet Mock’s cancellation on Wednesday of a campus talk scheduled for today after the circulation of a student-authored petition asking the activist to dissociate her lecture from Hillel. The petition gained 160 signatures. There is no evidence at this point that the incidence of vandalism in Marcy is related to the cancellation of Mock’s lecture. But a number of students have voiced concerns that the petition calling for Mock to dissociate her lecture from Hillel was anti-Semitic. “This was a more blatant example (of anti-Semitism) after a more subtle one,” said Jack Bernier ’19, who was at a gathering Thursday among several members of BRP in Marcy. “It reflects poorly on a lot of students here. No one here should be saying stuff like that.” Marshall Einhorn, executive director of Hillel, went to Marcy to support students early Friday morning while Michelle Dardashti, associate University chaplain, offered support by phone. Staff members from several

University departments, including the Office of Campus Life and Facilities Management, worked with residents of Marcy “to collect information, remove the graffiti and offer support to the students in the residence hall,” wrote Mary Grace Almandrez, interim assistant vice president for campus life and student services and associate dean of the College, and MaryLou McMillan, interim assistant vice president for campus life and student services, in a community-wide email sent Friday morning. The email referred to the event as a “bias incident.” BRP and Zete released a statement Saturday night saying “We are devastated and outraged that this antiSemitic and homophobic hate crime — and to be clear, this is a hate crime — occurred in our home.” President Christina Paxson P’19 also wrote to all community members Friday afternoon to condemn the “hateful instances of homophobic and anti-Semitic graffiti vandalism.” “Public Safety will work with other departments to aggressively investigate, identify the person(s) who committed this hateful act and hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Paxson wrote. “Acts of bias such as this, which attempt to demean » See VANDALISM, page 2

LAINIE ROWLAND / HERALD

Members of Beta Rho Pi and Zeta Delta Xi scrubbed the anti-Semitic and homophobic graffiti off the walls of Marcy House early Friday morning.

#BlackLivesMatter coNo. 5 Bruno takes down No. 14 Harvard founder urges activism Quick start, face-off M. LACROSSE

Opal Tometi speaks to activist experience in age of police violence, global scale of anti-black racism

advantage give Bears crucial edge in top-20 tilt against rival Crimson By NIKKO PASANEN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

By KYLE BOROWSKI SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Saturday’s contest at Harvard Stadium was certainly not for the faint of heart. After jumping out to a comfortable fivegoal lead at the half, the No. 5 men’s lacrosse team stumbled in the third quarter before outlasting No. 14 Harvard 11-8 in thrilling fashion. With the win, Bruno (6-0, 1-0 Ivy) remains perfect on the year with a critical matchup looming against No. 7 Villanova in eight days. “For two hours, we proved we were able to face a talented program and earn the victory,” said Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90. “Now we have to do it again.” While the nation’s highest-scoring offense has often carried the Bears this season, it was the midfield play of Alec Tulett ’17, Larken Kemp ’17 and Will Gural ’16 that made the difference Saturday. The trio combined for an impressive 23 ground balls, while Kemp caused five turnovers. At the face-off X, Gural proved to be dominant again, grabbing

INSIDE

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

Face-off specialist Will Gural ’16 brings the ball up the field. The senior won 14 of 21 face-offs to help lead Bruno to a victory over the Crimson. 14 of 21 opportunities. “Kemp, Tulett and Gural were outstanding,” Tiffany said. “Kemp intercepted Harvard passes repeatedly, Tulett was again strong with picking up the loose balls and guarding their top offensive threat and Gural won us possessions throughout the day, as he has done all year.” But while the defense kept the Crimson at bay, Brown needed its offense to give them an edge. When the Bears

absolutely needed a goal, it was Kylor Bellistri ’16 who saved the day. The senior captain scored two of his three goals in the last five minutes to preserve the lead and make sure the defensive efforts were not wasted. Bellistri leads the Bears with 23 goals on the year. After watching the Bears roll at the start of the game, it seemed unlikely that they would find themselves in crunch time defending a small advantage. » See M. LAX, page 2

Police shootings and brutalization of black youths have become so commonplace in the United States that it can be difficult to imagine how to remedy the structural racism that allows for such injustices to occur; but difficulty is no reason to stand at the sidelines during times of crisis, said Opal Tometi, one of the founders of the #BlackLivesMatter movement in a talk March 19. The motivating action for Tometi in starting #BlackLivesMatter was when she heard news that George Zimmerman had been acquitted for the role he played in the death of Trayvon Martin, a black 14-year-old, in 2012. “I remember feeling like the breath had been taken out of my body,” Tometi said. The Martin case was particularly poignant for Tometi, whose brother was the same age as Martin at the time. After finding the hashtag

#BlackLivesMatter on Facebook— which was a concurrent response to the verdict — Tometi reached out to Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors, the two women responsible for the hashtag’s creation, and offered them her public relations and outreach skills in the hopes of creating a larger awareness of anti-black racism. Along with Garza and Cullors, Tometi founded #BlackLivesMatter as a larger activist movement which now has over 30 physical chapters across the United States and Canada, in addition to wide-scale usage as a rallying cry against police violence. Tometi explained that for her, it was important to found a movement that existed at the intersection of race, religion, sexuality and gender expression. It is particularly important to uplift stories of violence against black women and girls because narratives typically ignore their struggle and positions in activist networks, she added. Despite the development both in the size and influence of #BlackLivesMatter, the movement has not been without its detractors. Tometi pointed to #AllLivesMatter — a frequent counter to the movement’s charge — as an example of » See ACTIVISM, page 2

WEATHER

MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2016

SPORTS Baseball struggles in first two contests against UCF, comes alive in finale to snap winless streak

SPORTS After strong start to season, softball sees tougher competition in 1-4 southern roadtrip

COMMENTARY Vann ’17: Men’s Story Project seeks to discuss, rethink rigid definition of masculinity

COMMENTARY SJP: Brown/RISD Hillel cannot be space for social justice work because of political ties

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