SINCE 1891
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019
VOLUME CLIV, ISSUE 52
BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM
SPORTS
W. soccer advances in NCAA tournament
Bears defeat Monmouth in penalty kicks 4-1 to fuel first NCAA run in 25 years BY RANDI RICHARDSON STAFF WRITER Brittany Raphino ’23 heard the whistle blow and did not move. She stared down Monmouth goalie Amanda Knaub before taking the game-deciding penalty kick during the women’s soccer team’s NCAA first round matchup Saturday afternoon. If looks could kill, Raphino’s intense gaze singlehandedly ended a best of five shootout after a double overtime fight. Slowly but surely, a focused Raphino trekked away from the ball full of nothing but composure, and mounted baby steps back into her shot. With one blink, the ball was in the net’s corner, Bruno led penalty kicks 4-1 for a final game score of 1-0, and the squad rushed onto the field to celebrate advancing to the NCAA second round. The Ivy League champions’ 121-2 record matched up against Monmouth’s 14-2-2 slate unafraid and with an appropriate level of respect under a beaming sun and Providence wind. Both teams are among the top-five
best defensive teams in the country, but only one left victorious after over 110 minutes of game action. Singer-songwriter Ciara’s “Level Up” further raised the stakes during both teams’ pregame huddles before Brown took to the patch. This game meant either level up to NCAA round two or have a season-ending loss. Within the first five minutes, Brown earned a corner kick. Monmouth put its line all the way back, leaving the space between the 18 and six open. Sydney Cummings ’21 sent in a cross to Ava Seelenfreund ’23, who was right in the middle of the opening. Seelenfreund headed it just wide, but showed that Bruno intended to score as early as possible, just as it has all season. Monmouth’s scouted defense knew who to stay close to. Abby Carchio ’20 went everywhere with defender Jill Conklin as her shadow. The Hawks’ Anna Lazur stuck to Raphino like glue, and Star White ’21 had little space to turn corners on the flank like she usually would. The Hawks intended to keep Bruno’s offense contained to
ARTS & CULTURE
StorySLAM spotlights tales from seniors Humor, vulnerability define Thursday evening event in Underground BY NICK MICHAEL STAFF WRITER Last Thursday evening, performers filled the Underground with tales of jumping out of a plane into a field of cobras, a family of witches in the neighborhood and an exploration through an abandoned tunnel under College Hill. This year’s Fall StorySLAM, hosted by the Brown University Storytellers Club, featured seven seniors who shared a myriad of personal narratives. Joel Fudge ’20, a marine veteran, recalled three times he’s fallen: “once off a cliff, once out of a plane and once in love.” Fudge thoughtfully paralleled his experiences of risk and nervousness in the marines to that
of falling in love, crafting a narrative that interwove military service and romance. After his dramatic, heartfelt recount, Fudge received an uproarious applause from the audience. In another story, Catherine Habgood ’20 offered viewers a nostalgic glance into her guileless detective work involving her family friends, the Kings. She traced her serendipitous relationship with these almost too-perfect family friends from childhood to now: “I developed this theory that the Kings, this family, were witches — subtle, domestic witches,” she expressed melodiously. After reflecting upon a series of miraculous gifts the Kings have offered her throughout her life, Habgood lightheartedly ended, “and that is why my dear friends, the Kings, are most definitely a family of witches.” Each story evoked visceral emotions that fluctuated from humorous to romantic to serious in tone, and all of the stories carried weight in the
SEE STORYSLAM PAGE 2
the middle of the field and stifled the outside-inside playmaking that the Bears had heavily relied on throughout the season. Bruno showed some relentless defensive pressure of its own. When Monmouth went to the wings during the first ten minutes, it stayed there and of-
COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS
ten involuntarily gave the ball up to Brown. The wind was a third defensive pressure. During the first half, it blew from right to left against Brown’s direction of attack, which inadvertently helped Monmouth. “The wind played a huge role,” Cummings said. “With the wind on your back, you had such an advan-
tage. The first half we really just had to bunker down, and so that’s why there were a lot of mishits or balls that would normally carry but didn’t.” Midway through the first half, Monmouth’s defense still limited meaningful touches for Brown midfielders and forwards. Bruno struggled to connect passes and execute plays. Carchio, White and Raphino got the ball to their feet but weren’t able to withstand swarming Hawk defenders that formed triangles around the scoring powerhouses. “We didn’t do a good enough job finding (Raphino) and playing underneath with attacking center and springing the ball wide,” said Head Coach Kia McNeill. “Our build-up wasn’t good enough.” The Hawks played with more confidence, as their offensive sets often sent Bruno scrambling around the goal and box in an effort to break up the play. Even on its heels, Brown communicated well, and it was enough to keep a scoreless tie thanks to Cummings, Kayla Thompson ’21, Rachyl Francisco ’23, Lauren Hinton ’22 and Cameron Brown ’21 wreaking havoc as the last mode of defense. The Bears picked up their aggression a notch during the last five minutes of the half. Claire Meyers ’22
SEE SOCCER PAGE 2
SPORTS
Football beats Columbia for first Ivy win in 3 years Bears break 20-game losing streak in blowout fashion, beating Lions 48-24 BY RYAN HANDEL SENIOR STAFF WRITER Coming into Saturday’s game against Columbia, the football team had not tasted victory in Ivy league play since Nov. 12, 2016, when it defeated Dartmouth on the road. But against the Lions, the Bears had the look of a seasoned winning squad, dominating Columbia 48-24 to end a streak of 20 consecutive conference losses. The win was the first in the tenure of new Head Coach James Perry ’00, whose team came painfully close to victories against Cornell and Penn earlier this season. Defensive Lineman Michael Hoecht ’20 was part of a senior class that had not earned an Ivy League win since their rookie seasons. “It feels incredi-
SEE FOOTBALL PAGE 3
SCIENCE & RESEARCH
Project studies Pollock through fluid mechanics Artist’s techniques avoid common difficulties of working with paint, thick fluids BY KAAN SAYIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER While Jackson Pollock is most known for his unique painting style, some people admire his work for a vastly different reason. To engineers, Pollock’s work is fascinating because fluid mechanical analysis shows that his unique technique allowed him to overcome certain common difficulties involved in manipulating or painting with viscous fluids, such as paint and honey. A research project conducted by Roberto Zenit, professor of engineering, and his team from his former university in Mexico found that through his painting technique, Pollock was able to avoid hydrodynamic instabilities in paint such as coiling or fragmenting. Pollock exhibited a style where he dipped a stick in paint and let it pour onto a canvas from a certain height
while he moved the stick. “In any (liquid) flow, if the environment changes even a little bit, those changes grow and take over the entire flow and it becomes something else. That is what an instability is,” said Neil Ribe, research director at Fluides, Automatique et Systèmes Thermiques, a research laboratory that is a part of the French National Center for Scientific Research. “Instabilities are caused by (disturbances) in the environment; a little gust of wind, a slight change in
SUMMER ZHANG / HERALD
Sports
Science & Research
Commentary
Commentary
Men’s hockey falls 4-1 to Crimson and Big Green at home this weekend Page 3
U. team leads research in Galapagos Islands on impact of biodiversity Page 4
Tunkel ’19: Students should be aware of anti-Semitism accusations against Sarsour Page 6
Bienstock ’20: Brown communtiy should learn about BDS movement Page 7
temperature,” he added. The idea to investigate Pollock’s work first came to Zenit when an art historian asked him how it was possible to create textures like those seen in Pollock’s work. “As an engineer, you want to predict what happens to fluids, and as artists you want to use these fluids to produce something,” Zenit said. The team observed Pollock’s tech-
SEE POLLOCK PAGE 2
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019
STORYSLAM FROM PAGE 1
VICTORIA YIN / HERALD
Last week, student performers shared personal stories to a room full of their peers. Hosted by the Brown University Storytellers Club, the event aimed to create a comfortable atmosphere for sharing and listening. found out the StorySLAM was happening, they encouraged us to tell it to a larger audience,” Seckendorf said. The
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vulnerability they expressed. “We were looking for stories that covered a wide range of the emotional spectrum. … We wanted things — even if they were just ridiculously fun stories — (with) something at the end that you’re left thinking about,” explained Hannah Seckendorf ’20, one of the event organizers and storytellers. In her own story, Seckendorf reflected with her co-storyteller, The Herald’s immersive team head Michael Bass ’20, on their sophomore-year excursion to a decrepit, abandoned tunnel under College Hill. The storytellers were scouting for the perfect location to set a film they were making. The story’s peculiarities, told in a back-and-forth popcorn style between Seckendorf and Bass, elicited bouts of laughter from the crowd. Learning “that there are secret underground tunnels somewhere under College Hill,” was one of George Noll ’22’s favorite takeaways from the event. “We had both been independently telling the story separately. When we both reunited in the fall, it was exciting to see how we had each been telling the story differently. … When our friends
alternating narratives she and Bass had been telling inspired the way in which they performed the story — interjecting
POLLOCK FROM PAGE 1
The Herald
SOCCER FROM PAGE 1 sent in a cross to Celia Story ’19.5, who kicked it just wide and past a diving Knaub. The play showed that Brown was not going to roll over and allow Monmouth to dictate the game. At the half, Monmouth outshot the Bears 8-4 and took four corner kicks to Brown’s two. The second half opened with the wind on Brown’s back. The difference immediately showed in Thompson’s punt that soared, unstifled, well into the back of the field. Monmouth still dominated possessions, often forcing Brown defenders to make the safe play and send it out of bounds to stop Hawk attacks. “They beat us on a lot of 50-50 balls that we should’ve competed harder for, but our team defending the entire season has been incredible,” McNeill said. “For us to take this game to overtime and PKs says a lot about our defense and goalkeeping.” The Hawks’ positioning appeared as though Monmouth had an extra player. They were in the right place before the ball even got there. Bruno would pass outside-inside or vice-versa straight into a defender who stripped them in the backfield. Meanwhile, Monmouth
and correcting one another on what really happened, she explained. “We spent the majority of this past
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easily crossed the midfield and didn’t have a Bear pick the ball up until it was near the top of the box. The next 10 minutes saw purposeless Bruno passes that Monmouth easily broke up and used to attack the other way. Raphino was unable to turn the corner on Lazur, as were the other wingers on the field. Nevertheless, Brown persisted. They worked the field and took shots when they could. “Credit to (Monmouth),” Cummings said, “they’ve only given up four goals all season. We knew our forwards were really going to have to work hard. We knew we could get opportunities, and it’s unfortunate we couldn’t put them away.” During the 89th minute, Maesyn G’Bye ’22 took a corner kick that two Bears headed, including Raphino. Entangled feet forced Knaub to dive, causing Brown to miss the prime opportunity of an open goal. G’Bye attempted to make a rebound, but Knaub took out her feet, which resulted in a no call. Monmouth sent it the other way and regulation ended on a controversial note. The second half closed with a 15-7 Monmouth shot advantage. The first overtime started and ended scoreless with the Hawks swooping into the middle of what looked like
promising Bear plays for the steal and attack. The second extra period told the same story. Brown got a corner kick during the 110th minute as its Hail Mary. Knaub got a hand on the ball to force game-deciding penalty kicks. Carchio took the first kick, reminding fans of her winning shot against Penn. She took her time after the whistle, showing all the composure of a senior, and netted it home. Monmouth’s Jess Johnson scored against Thompson’s well-guarded goal for the tie. Then, Story stepped up to the mark and shot the ball in effortlessly. Thompson blocked Monmouth’s next attempt, which gave Bruno a one-point advantage. From there, Brown sealed it home with another one of Thompson’s clutch rejections and goals from Seelenfreund and Raphino. “I love PKs,” Thompson said about her “favorite thing in the world. Yeah, I saved two, but we didn’t miss any. It was just the composure (of) our team.” Thompson’s big-time saves and the entire team’s effort qualified them for round two of the NCAA tournament. Next up, Brown will compete at No. 1 Florida State University Nov. 22 in hopes of advancing to the third round.
nique through documentaries, analyzing his style and the resulting paintings of his process. “Important aspects to observe were the speed that the hand moved and the height at which the hand stood above the canvas,” Zenit said. “To make such observations, we first take very high-resolution photographs of Pollock’s works. Then we do image processing … then do measurements on them based on the framework of fluid dynamics,” said Andrzej Herczynski, a research professor and laboratory director at Boston College who has published several papers on the fluid dynamical effects in Pollock’s paintings. The team replicated Pollock’s technique by creating a machine with a stationary syringe at a fixed height that dripped fluid onto a moving canvas. “By doing this laboratory experiment under the same conditions, we can replicate his technique. In a sense, (we) dehumanize Jackson Pollock and understand in which set of conditions he was painting,” Zenit said. When pouring a highly viscous fluid, such as honey, onto a surface, the fluid tends to accumulate and build on top of itself rather than dispersing outward like water, Zenit said. “By moving his hand, he was able to overcome this instability,” Zenit added. Evidence of this accumulation, or coil, can be seen when Pollock slows his movement while physically turning himself or his hand. “This is especially evident in his painting (‘Number 1A, 1948’),” Herczynski said. Pollock avoided droplets, or fragmentation, in his work in addition
week — probably five to ten hours a day — workshopping our storytellers’ stories,” said Mira Ortegon ’20, another one of the event’s organizers. Ortegon and Seckendorf noted that neither they nor many of the storytellers had prior performing arts experience, so the logistics of preparing for the performance was an active, intimate learning process for everyone involved. No matter one’s familiarity with performance, the Brown University Storytellers Club is an open and inclusive environment. Ortegon and Seckendorf reflected on the hearth and community they had found in the club as first-years, which motivated them to seek out leadership roles this fall. The club has been a formative part of each organizer’s Brown experience. The amicable atmosphere of the Fall StorySLAM exemplified the Storytellers Club’s value for cultivating a comfortable, community-based ambience for the sharing of individual’s stories. “We really plan on recreating that culture (we had as first-years) — making a low-pressure environment where anyone can show up and just listen, even if they don’t want to share anything,” Seckendorf said.
to the coiling. He deliberately created straight lines with thick paint, rather than droplets. “For example, the water jet coming out of a shower head fragments into droplets. … By using very viscous fluids, you can actually prevent that fragmentation from occurring. If you used paint that had little viscosity, the liquid paint would fragment and wouldn’t be able to deposit these straight lines,” Zenit said. The rheology of a material — how a fluid responds or flows when you push it or apply a force on it — is also an important property of paint, Ribe said. “Paint has a specific rheology. You want it to stick to the brush when you pull it out … of the pot. As you move the brush over the surface, you want the paint to come off, and you want the paint to stay put where you painted it.” Fluids that respond to a certain level of force, like the force applied by a paintbrush, are called yield stress fluids. While Zenit said that the research could have applications in identifying counterfeit Pollock paintings, Herczynski said the research should be understood as a contribution “to the art historical discussion about these works, how they were created, why they look the way they do and how to interpret what one sees. Our goal is to bring physics tools to a painting or a collection of paintings by an artist who … invited nature to play a role in his process.” In the future, Zenit hopes to investigate the presence of instabilities in other forms of art, such as watercolor painting. “My hope is to engage with local artists, to have them in the lab … to make the idea of collaboration within fields a tangible idea,” he added.
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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
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SPORTS
Men’s hockey opens homestand with losses to No. 13 Harvard, Dartmouth Berger ’21, Jallen ’22 score as Bears fall 4-1 Friday, Saturday nights at Meehan Auditorium BY ALEXANDRA RUSSELL SPORTS EDITOR Following a victory over Colgate University on the road last Saturday, the men’s hockey team continued conference play with a pair of losses to Ivy foes No. 13 Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend. The Bears fell to the Crimson Friday and the Big Green Saturday, each by tallies of 4-1 at Meehan Auditorium. Brown 1, Harvard 4 Friday night, Chris Berger ’21 scored to equalize the game at one in the second period, but Harvard (5-0-0, 5-0-0 ECAC) notched a trio of unanswered goals to claim the victory and extend its undefeated streak. The Crimson opened scoring midway through the first stanza when Henry Bowlby capitalized on a breakaway, mounting a backhanded shot that hit the crossbar before edging over the line and into the net. After killing off a trio of penalties early in the second period, Bruno (2-4-2, 2-4-2) leveled the tally fifteen minutes into the frame. Berger collected a pass from Tony Stillwell ’21 on the power play before sending the puck neatly through traffic in front of the net and past Crimson goaltender Mitchell Gibson. Zach Giuttari ’20 also recorded an assist on the play. Harvard responded with a power-play goal of its own to reclaim the lead four minutes later, before R.J. Murphy and Casey Dornbach each scored in the opening five minutes of the final stanza to secure a 4-1 advantage for the visitors. The Bears continued to exert offensive pressure and pepper the Crimson net with shots — outshooting Harvard 14-10 in the period — but Gibson held off the attack to seal the victory. “We were very inconsistent from
COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS
Justin Jallen ’22 handles the puck. The Bears continue their season with a pair of home games against ECAC opponents No. 7 Clarkson University and St. Lawrence University this weekend, before visiting Bentley University for a non-conference matchup Nov. 26. shift to shift,” said Head Coach Brendan Whittet ’94. “We really need more consistency from individuals, we need more consistency in terms of … our systems and how we’re executing. That inconsistency just unfortunately cost us an opportunity to actually win the game.” “We have an identity, and we didn’t stick to it, and it showed on the ice,” Berger said. “In practice and into the games on Friday and Saturday, we need to be more consistent.” Brown 1, Dartmouth 4 The following day, Justin Jallen ’22 scored his sixth goal of the season in the second period, but the Bears were unable to recover from a three-goal deficit against the Big Green (3-2-1, 3-1-1).
COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS
The Bears came close to victories against Penn and Cornell earlier this season. Brown will face Dartmouth at its Senior Day Saturday.
FOOTBALL FROM PAGE 1 ble,” Hoecht said. “We put in the work to deserve a lot of wins, and we finally put one together.” Bruno (2-7, 1-5 Ivy) was firing on all cylinders from the opening kickoff, producing a dominant first quarter on both sides of the ball. On just the second play from scrimmage, linebacker Malcolm Brunson ’23 stripped the football from Lions quarterback Ty Lenhart. Defensive back Nicholas Messina ’22 scooped up the fumble and ran 38 yards into the end zone to give the Bears an early lead. On Brown’s first offensive
possession, a 35-yard reception by Livingstone Harriott ’20 helped the Bears advance down the field, and running back Allen Smith ’22 rumbled into the end zone for a five-yard score. Later in the quarter, a two-yard rushing touchdown by quarterback EJ Perry ’22 off of a play-action fake extended Bruno’s lead to 21-0 less than eight minutes into the game. Brown maintained the shutout as the quarter drew to a close when Columbia’s Alex Felkins missed a short field goal. Columbia (3-6, 2-4 Ivy) refused to fold, and stormed back into the game in the second quarter with 17 unan-
Dartmouth claimed an early advantage with a pair of goals in a 1:24 span late in the opening stanza. Fifteen minutes into play, goaltender Gavin Nieto ’20 made the initial save on a bid from Big Green defenseman Brendan Less, but Less finished the rebound to notch the visitors’ first tally of the evening. Forward Drew O’Connor followed, doubling the lead with a power-play goal. The Big Green widened its advantage 30 seconds into the second stanza, as Will Graber found the puck at center ice and sent a shot into the Brown net top shelf from the right circle. The Bears pressured the Dartmouth net in the second period, forcing goaltender Adrian Clark to make some gritty saves to preserve the score. Jallen put
the Bears on the board with just over a minute remaining in the stanza, scoring on a one-timer from the slot after receiving a feed from Brent Beaudoin ’20. Anea Ferrario ’21 also posted an assist on the play. Two minutes later, Colin Burston ’21 nearly trimmed the deficit to one as his shot bounced off the crossbar. Bruno killed off a pair of penalties shortly thereafter to preserve the score. The Bears pulled Nieto for an extra skater with two and a half minutes remaining, but Clark fended off the attack, and O’Connor notched an empty-net goal to secure the win for Dartmouth. “We just didn’t finish on our chances and they did, so that was the difference,” Jallen said. With a pair of contests against ECAC
opponents No. 7 Clarkson University and St. Lawrence University coming up this weekend, Whittet emphasized the importance of consistency and responsibility to the team’s success. “We’ll be successful when we outwork teams, but (when) we also are very, very structured and disciplined and have good habits,” Whittet said. “That accountability has to exist each time we step on the ice in practice.” “It’s a learning process, and it’s not going to happen overnight, but we’ll get there eventually,” Berger said. “It’s going to take a lot of hard work and everyone’s got to buy in.” The Bears host Clarkson and St. Lawrence at Meehan Auditorium this weekend. Face-off is at 7 p.m. both nights.
swered points. Felkins rebounded with a 35-yard field goal to get the Lions on the scoreboard. Columbia running back Ryan Young scored the Lions’ first touchdown by sprinting away from a trio of Brown defenders for a 49yard score. With three minutes left in the half, Lenhart connected with receiver Josh Wainwright for a 34-yard touchdown strike to cut Bruno’s lead to 21-17. The Bears’ offense finally got back on track before halftime. Brown’s offensive line opened up a gaping hole for Smith, who galloped down the field nearly untouched for a 70-yard score. Bruno headed to the locker with an 11-point advantage. The Lions opened second-half scoring with a highlight-reel flea-flicker play. Lenhart handed the ball off to Wainwright, who pitched the ball to receiver Mozes Mooney, who then pitched the ball back to Lenhart. The Lions signal-caller then completed a short pass back to Wainwright, who broke a tackle and sprinted free for a 44-yard touchdown. With that play, the momentum appeared to be back on Columbia’s side. But for the first time this season, Bruno avoided a second-half collapse. Instead, the Brown offense exploded for
20 more points while the defense shut down the Lions for the remainder of the game. Perry put Brown back up by two possessions with a 49-yard bomb to receiver Jakob Prall ’20. A blocked extra point kept the score at 34-24, but the Bears quickly added to their lead again with another passing touchdown by Perry. The junior quarterback rolled out of the pocket and heaved a cross-body throw to Harriott for an improbable 10-yard score. Brown put the finishing touches on its win before the third quarter was over, as Perry found receiver Demitri Jackson ’20 for his third passing touchdown of the day. That score extended Brown’s lead to 48-24, where it would remain for the rest of the contest. “We’re getting better,” James Perry said. “We’re a much better team than we were five weeks ago (or) six weeks ago. We’ve practiced hard and worked hard to do that.” Brown put up an impressive statistical performance in its blowout win, boasting a 300-yard passer in EJ Perry, an 100-yard rusher in Smith and an 100-yard receiver in Harriott. “Every week we get more comfortable in the system,” EJ Perry said. “We’re executing at a higher level.” EJ Perry broke the school record for single-season total
offense in the contest, and remains the FCS leader in total offense. The Brown defense, which allowed its season-low in points, was led by Brunson, who finished with nine tackles. The defense “got some nice turnovers, which is a big point of emphasis for us,” James Perry said. “(Defensive back) Cooper DeVeau ’23 had another terrific game … he had a number of really nice plays.” The football team will close out its season at home with a Senior Day showdown against Dartmouth. The Big Green held an 8-0 record entering this weekend, but suffered its first loss of the season to Cornell Saturday. Bruno will look to end its season on a high note against its conference rivals from Hanover.
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019
SCIENCE & RESEARCH
Galapagos Islands illustrate power of biodiversity in changing climate
U. study examines fish, sea urchins to analyze interaction between species, environment BY RAHMA IBRAHIM STAFF WRITER
The Galapagos Islands, one of the first marine reserves in the world and Charles Darwin’s famed site of revolutionary observation, recently housed University researchers looking to better understand biodiversity. Over the last four years, a University research team found that a marine ecosystem grows and succeeds when the environment fosters high interaction among and survival of a range of creatures rather than just one species. As a result, biodiversity makes an ecosystem more likely to adapt and succeed in a changing and warming climate. The team was led by Robert Lamb PhD ’19, alongside Jon Witman, Lamb’s advisor and University professor of biology, and Franz Smith, co-author on the study. Smith is currently continuing research in the Galapagos. Undergraduates, among others, assisted the team. The study was funded by a large number of organizations, including the National Science Foundation, the American Museum of Natural History and the Galapagos Conservancy. Biodiversity is “essential to the existence and proper functioning of all ecosystems,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “Biodiversity is talked a lot about in the media — we know it’s important to maintain — but
less about why,” Lamb said. The study found that the productivity of a given ecosystem rises and falls as the result of the interaction between species diversity and environmental conditions. While diversity existed in the two locations, regardless of the water turbulence, the effect of an area’s diversity became most significant in areas that were neither extremely turbulent nor extremely calm. Other experiments that have looked at biodiversity have done so in a controlled environment, such as in a tank in a lab. These isolated conditions are limited because they are not representative of what happens in the real world. This study removed this traditional limitation by experimenting in the environment to better model natural phenomena. The team looked at two nearby areas — about 100 meters apart — in the Galapagos that differed in their extent of wave turbulence: one site with calm waters and one more turbulent. The researchers looked at the effect of wave turbulence on the frequency of foraging in fish and sea urchins. Both sea urchins and fish eat algae, but fish are mobile in highly turbulent waters and sea urchins are not very mobile in general. To understand the foraging patterns of each creature in the two different wave conditions, the researchers manipulated the presence of fish or sea urchins by putting them in underwater cages. They then measured algal growth in each situation, which varied depending on the presence of fish or sea urchins and calm or turbulent water. The researchers also used an
COURTESY OF ROBERT LAMB
Funded by a variety of organizations, including the American Museum of Natural History, the study examined how wave turbulence affects foraging patterns for fish and sea urchins. Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter, which allowed them to measure the speed of water in each condition. The fish species had the most foraging success when they fed in water with wave flow speeds at 100 centimeters per second — speeds that parallel those of a hurricane. Urchins, on the other hand, were better able to feed in the calm water environments. The researchers based their study on the “Environmental Stress Hypothesis,” an influential theoretical framework that was originally proposed in the 1970s. This hypothesis describes
trends in regions with quickly changing environments such as deserts, which are extremely hot during the day and cold during the night. While the “Environmental Stress Hypothesis” focuses on varying environmental conditions, the University researchers factored the capabilities of the ecosystem’s living creatures into their analysis. “Our addition (to the Environmental Stress Hypothesis) is this contingency on the ability of the animal to move around,” Lamb said. This research provides further evidence for the positive effects of bio-
diversity, especially as ecosystems are shaped by climate change. Witman, who has traveled to the Galapagos numerous times for research over the last 20 years, has observed that regardless of shifting climate, biodiversity remains key to the health of an ecosystem. “I’m a cautious optimist. Scientific knowledge is power and we have to use that power,” Witman said. He encourages students not to view climate change as an insurmountable problem, but rather to take small positive actions that will aggregate to create larger, beneficial impacts on the environment.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | TODAY
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Students: Coffee with Deans 10:30 A.M. 121 South Main Street
Knead Donuts & Study Abroad 3:00 P.M. Page-Robinson Hall Lobby
Theory Seminar—James Best 4:00 P.M. Robinson Hall
“The Farewell” Screening 6:30 P.M. Smith-Buonanno Hall
TOMORROW Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink 12:00 P.M. Watson Institute
First Generation Staff Networking Event 12:00 P.M. South Street Landing
Students of Color Lunch 1:00 P.M. 121 South Main Street
VR Pop-Up Open Studio 1:00 P.M. Granoff Center for the Creative Arts
Q U OTE OF TH E DAY
“My hope is to engage with local artists, to have them in the lab … to make the idea of collaboration within fields a tangible idea.”
—Roberto Zenit, professor of engineering SEE POLLOCK PAGE 1
E TC H ED I N TI ME CR O S SWO R D
VICTORIA YIN / HERALD
The Soldiers Memorial Gate, located at the edge of Ruth Simmons Quad, is dedicated to 42 students who lost their lives in WWI. Inspired by Greek architecture, the arch is decorated with sculpted oak leaves.
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019
Before her visit to campus, students should know about Linda Sarsour’s history of anti-Semitism BY EMILY TUNKEL ’19 OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Today, the Brown chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace will be hosting a panel entitled “BDS: The Palestinian Right to Resist.” They have invited, among others, Linda Sarsour, who is described on the Facebook event as “an award winning racial justice and civil rights activist” as well as “one of the national co-chairs of the largest single day protest in U.S. history, the Women’s March on Washington.” But the Facebook event fails to mention that Sarsour stepped down from her position on the Women’s March board in January 2019 over accusations of anti-Semitism and homophobia, among others. Before I make my argument against the decision to invite Linda Sarsour to speak at Brown, I would like to be clear: this op-ed is in no way a reflection of my stance regarding Israeli/Palestinian relations, the conflict or the Boycott Divest Sanction movement at Brown or anywhere else. This piece is purely my stance on SJP’s and JVP’s decision to bring Sarsour to campus: Students should be aware that these groups are giving a platform to an anti-Semitic individual. The majority of accusations of anti-Semitism surrounding Sarsour are rooted in her connection to Louis Farrakhan, the head of the Nation of Islam, which is a Black religious and political movement. Farrakhan, whom the Anti-Defamation League describes as “America’s Leading Anti-Semite,” is known for his inflammatory remarks and speeches. In March 2015, Farrakhan stated that Zionist Jews were responsible for the September 11th attacks; that October, Farrakhan compared Jews to termites in a tweet. Sarsour became embroiled in controversy when Tamika Mallory, one of the leading organizers of the D.C. Women’s March, attended one of Farrakhan’s speeches in February 2018. In that speech, Farrakhan claimed that “the powerful Jews are my enemy” and that Jews are responsible for “degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out turning men into women and women into men.” Mallory faced considerable backlash for attending Farrakhan’s rally.
Sarsour took it upon herself to defend Mallory. In March 2018, she wrote the following on Facebook: “I will not sit back while a strong, bold, unapologetic, committed Black woman who risks her life every day … is questioned, berated and abused.” She continued, writing “I stand with Tamika Mallory every day, with every fiber of my being.” In response to an accusatory comment on the post, Sarsour further
“What is being touted by these ‘progressives’ like Sarsour is the same rhetoric that has been touted by the alt-right.” wrote: “What work are we willing to do and are we willing to be open to the true idea that members of the NOI (Nation of Islam) are not all anti-semites? Are we cool with broad brushing a whole group?” Are all of the members of the NOI anti-Semitic? Maybe not. Is Sarsour effectively making excuses for a man who, six days earlier, said he “has pulled the cover off of that Satanic Jew”? Yes. Sarsour and the Women’s March later put out a statement condemning anti-Semitism: “Every member of our movement matters to us — including our incredible Jewish and LGBTQ members. We are deeply sorry for the harm we have caused.” The statement does not mention Farrakhan’s speech, Mallory’s attendance or Sarsour’s response. The statement does not say how the Women’s March is going to do better next time, or even what they did wrong that time. But how can Sarsour’s condemnation of anti-Semitism be legitimate when she refuses to acknowledge her association with Farrakhan? In December 2018, Sarsour denied ever meeting Farrakhan. This is incorrect; Sarsour herself spoke at Farrakhan’s “Justice or Else” rally in 2015.
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Since the 2018 controversy, Sarsour’s attempts to respond to charges of anti-Semitism have managed to trivialize the real harm that it causes. For example, she shared an article on Facebook, written by Jodi Jacobson for Rewire. News, that attempts to defend the Women’s March from accusations of anti-Semitism. The article states: “White anti-Semites are motivated by a hatred of Jews and a desire for power. Black anti-Semites are motivated by anger over gentrification, police brutality and slavery.” The article then says “the entire conversation has been turned from focusing on the most vulnerable, i.e. communities of color, to focusing on the angst of white Jews.” Have Jews, including white Jews, not been vulnerable? Anti-Semitic attacks worldwide have risen 13 percent from 2018 to 2019. A few months before Jacobson published the article, a man murdered 11 people at Tree of Life Synagogue in the most deadly anti-Semitic attack in United States history. Are we not a “vulnerable” enough community? The article that Sarsour proudly shared suggests that calling the leaders of the Women’s March out for their anti-Semitism is racist. Further, during the New School panel on anti-Semitism, Sarsour stated, addressing Zionist Jews: “What if you just showed up to the movement … and say, ‘You know what, this is not about me. Let me show up and work for Black lives or undocumented immigrants. Let me roll up my sleeves for folks who are being impacted right now.’” These comments trivialize anti-Semitism as not as harmful as other prejudices and ignores historical and modern evidence of Jews “rolling up (their) sleeves” and effecting major change in social movements. Only months before the New School panel, twenty Rabbis were arrested for protesting Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban. In June 2019, Never Again Action, a Jewish grassroots organization, rallied together 30,000 people to protest an ICE detention facility. Anti-Semitism should be fought without Jews having to “prove themselves” worthy of being fought for. While her anti-Semitism is the reason I was compelled to write, it is important that students also know about her association with homophobia. She wished Talbert Swan II a “Happy birthday Bishop!” this April and posed for photos with him —Swan is the editor of “Closing the Closet: Testimonies of Deliverance from Homo-
sexuality,” a book advocating religious conversion therapy. Sarsour also spoke alongside Imam Siraj Wahhaj at a Toronto conference in September 2018. Wahhaj, whom Sarsour has called her “mentor, motivator and encourager,” stated that “The prophet cursed, la’ana, cursed the feminine man and the masculine woman.” Why isn’t this bigotry a deal-breaker for Sarsour? Why, even after writing as part of the Women’s March board’s statement that she is “deeply sorry for the harm we have caused” to the Jewish and LGBTQ communities, does Sarsour continue to associate with homophobes and anti-Semites? When Sarsour is accused of anti-Semitism, she seems to perceive it as intended to undermine her views, instead of as legitimate criticism. In a letter addressing acccusations of anti-Semitism, Sarsour wrote, “They have tried every tactic at their disposal to undermine me, discredit me, vilify me but my roots are too deep and my work is too clear and they have not succeeded.’’ Instead of apologizing for her statements or even saying “oh, I see how my statements could have been misconstrued as anti-Semitic, I’ll do better,” Sarsour just repeatedly claims that she is not anti-Semitic. Instead of taking Jewish voices seriously, she sweeps us under the rug. All anti-Semitism is motivated by a hatred of Jews; anti-Semitism is not progressive. What is being touted by these “progressives” like Sarsour is the same rhetoric that has been touted by the alt-right: That Jews are only loyal to themselves and we’re to blame for larger issues like violence and economic inequality. I am a Jew. Linda Sarsour is anti-Semitic. You cannot tell me that I’m “taking her statements out of context” or “that’s not what she really meant” — what Sarsour said has hurt me. I am not expecting Sarsour to be uninvited from this event, but I am hoping to bring awareness to her problematic and anti-Semitic remarks and point out that she is not as progressive as the Monday event claims.
Emily Tunkel ’19 can be reached at emily_tunkel@alumni.brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY
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Understanding BDS beyond the headlines BY BEN BIENSTOCK ’20 OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
In recent years, the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has grown among critics of Israel and its policies. At the same time, opponents of the movement have gained media and political prominence. Pundits have gone on at length about the movement’s supposed extremism, its “one-sidedness” and especially its alleged antisemitism. Politicians have fumed about the movement, propelling dozens of states to pass legislation that attempts to outlaw BDS. Congress even briefly considered an ill-advised and certainly unconstitutional bill to criminalize supporters of the movement. As students, professors and staff on college campuses around the world have embraced BDS, university administrators, including Brown president Christina Paxson P’19, have gone out of their way to publicly condemn them and the movement they support. Yet amid this clamor, many people pay remarkably little attention to what the BDS movement actually is; in the process, they ignore the voices of the Palestinians who called for the movement and the experiences that led them to do so. Today, on Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. in Friedman Auditorium in the Metcalf Research Building, Brown Students for Justice in Palestine and Brown Jewish Voice for Peace are proud to be hosting a panel for community members to learn about the BDS movement beyond the headlines. The panel includes BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, Jewish Voice for Peace co-Executive Director Rabbi Alissa Wise and Palestinian American feminist activist and organizer Linda Sarsour. These three speakers are among the most prominent voices within the movement for justice in Palestine, offering vital perspectives representing their diverse work of building global solidarity with Palestinians through BDS and other campaigns. We want to start a genuine discussion about BDS and explain why we’re proud to support it.
The BDS movement launched in 2005 by an absolute majority of Palestinian civil society groups. Inspired by the successful movement to boycott apartheid in South Africa, BDS called for people, companies and governments around the world to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel until it stops denying the fundamental human rights of Palestinians, particularly their rights to freedom of movement and self-determination.
the movement, discussions of the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” erased Palestinians voices and misrepresented Palestinian resistance as merely one side in some kind of age-old intractable sectarian strife. BDS has begun shifting the focus of these conversations to simple questions of human rights and is generating grassroots pressure to win freedom, justice and equality. This movement’s success has prompt-
“As with these boycotts, in the case of BDS, the answer is simple: Palestinians have asked the world to boycott only Israel because Israel is the country that, enabled by international support, singularly denies their freedom. ”
In that vein, BDS has three demands, each targeting the oppression faced by different groups of Palestinians: First, Israel must end its military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, where Israeli soldiers inflict extreme violence upon Palestinians and deny them of their most basic rights. Second, Israel must end its system of racial discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel. And lastly, Israel must recognize the right of Palestinian refugees — and their descendants — to return to their homeland, from which they were violently expelled. They currently are forbidden from returning simply because they are Palestinian. These three demands really amount to one: recognition that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity. Globally, BDS has won the support of labor unions, religious organizations, student governments and academic associations. Before
ed backlash from so many people. Beyond the United States, Israel itself is spending millions — $72 million in 2017 alone — to attack BDS, pushing to outlaw it while simultaneously surveying and intimidating activists and banning them from entering the country, including the occupied territories. Canary Mission, an online blacklist that disproportionately features black, brown and Muslim students and academics critical of Israel, has sought to silence BDS activists by threatening their careers. Moreover, projects like Canary Mission perpetuate a distinctly Islamophobic narrative that presumes Muslim activists to be antisemitic until proven otherwise. In some cases, activists have been detained and interrogated by law enforcement about their profiles on the website. Apparently, nonviolent boycotts for human rights are dangerous. Critics of BDS rarely actually deny Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and the state’s vio-
lations of the Palestinians’ human rights, which the United Nations, nongovernmental organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and countless journalists and scholars have documented. Instead, defenders of Israel’s racist policies attempt to shift the conversation away from the country and toward BDS, accusing the movement and its supporters of “singling out Israel”— in other words, of holding the country to an antisemitic double standard. They ask BDS supporters, “of all the countries that violate human rights, why do you advocate only for a boycott of Israel?” This line of question is a time-honored strategy used to silence participants in social movements who seek to build or enact solidarity through boycotts. When local activists ask supporters across the country and around the world to help their campaigns through a targeted boycott of their oppressors, they do not demand a singular focus on their subjugation to the exclusion of that of all other people. For example, in the successful global anti-apartheid movement targeting South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, Black South Africans called on activists to boycott the country and its products not because they expected others to believe that all suffering elsewhere in the world was unimportant, but because they believed outside pressure would be an effective means of ending their oppression. And though eventually the movement won, many racist critics still asked why antiracist activists “singled out” the apartheid regime. Palestinian people urge everyone around the world to recognize their humanity through their calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions. We hope that the Brown community will join us tonight to learn about BDS and how our campus can support the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality.
Ben Bienstock ’20, a member of Brown Students for Justice in Palestine and Brown Jewish Voice for Peace, can be reached at benjamin_bienstock@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019
The Presidential Faculty Award Lecture
November 18, 2019 4:30 p.m. Warren Alpert Medical School Lecture Hall 170
Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology; Director, Lifespan Center for International Health Research (CIHR)
Jennifer Friedman, M.D. Treatment of Pregnant Women for Parasitic Diseases Globally: Using Evidence to Drive Policy Change