SINCE 1891
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 04, 2019
VOLUME CLIII, ISSUE 43
WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM
CNN’s Jim Acosta talks Trump, journalism’s future UCS hears proposed changes to code of conduct
Acosta and Jon Klein ’80 discuss CNN, covering the White House, modern media at Watson Institute By TYLER JACOBSON STAFF WRITER
Faced with “fake news” accusations from President Donald Trump himself, Chief White House Correspondent for CNN Jim Acosta knows a thing or two about standing tough in the heavily scrutinized “new frontier of journalism.” Acosta spoke on his experience at the White House, the impacts of modern media, the future of journalism and restoring public trust in national news sources in an event hosted by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs Wednesday titled “Journalism in the Trump Era: A Conversation with Jim Acosta.” Jonathan Klein ’80, former president of CNN/US and leader of a noncredit seminar at the Watson Institute, moderated the discussion. Klein brought Acosta to CNN in 2007 and said that Acosta was one of the greatest hires he made during his time there. Acosta has clashed with Presi-
Participating in derecognized student groups could violate proposed community standards By KAYLA GUO SENIOR STAFF WRITER
TIFFANY DING / HERALD
Acosta and Klein ’80, who hired Acosta, spoke in Stephen Robert Hall Wednesday to talk about restoring public trust in the media. dent Trump on multiple occasions. yourself and take the hits in order to You know a president isn’t supposed On Nov. 8, 2018, the White House get the news that will be penetrating,” to treat (journalists) as enemy of the revoked Acosta’s press pass after Acosta Acosta said. “We cannot let intimida- people.” questioned Trump about the Russia tion efforts bully us into silence. … I In the era of “fake news,” Acosta is investigation and the Central Ameri- have to do what I think is right.” aware that he could make a mistake. can migrant caravan. Acosta has also Asked how he developed the poise But, “there is a difference between erreceived death threats for his coverage. to deal with criticism from the Presi- roneous news and fake news.” “You have to be willing to sacrifice dent, he said: “Some of it is experience. » See ACOSTA, page 3
At their Wednesday evening general body meeting, the Undergraduate Council of Students heard a presentation from SHARE and received information about recommended changes to the Code of Student Conduct. The Code of Student Conduct was last reviewed four years ago and must undergo a review every five years. Recommended changes for the fall include incorporating a restorative justice approach to conduct-breach hearings, adding new prohibited be» See UCS, page 4
Guerrilla Girl brings bananas, GSC chooses commencement speakers intersectional feminism to U. At monthly meeting, GSC Artist-activist ‘Frida Kahlo’ of Guerrilla Girls critiques corruption, inequality in art By KATHERINE OK SENIOR STAFF WRITER
A Guerrilla Girl, known by her pseudonym “Frida Kahlo,” strolled through the aisles of the Salomon Hall auditorium while handing out bananas to various audience members Wednesday. The anonymous artist, who uses the famous Mexican artist’s name as a pseudonym, wore the Guerrilla Girls’ iconic gorilla mask, drawing laughter and applause from the large crowd. Known for masking their identities to focus on their work and activism, the Guerrilla Girls combat discrimination and inequality in the artistic and political worlds through their posters, books and other protest art. At the artist talk presented by the University’s Department of Visual Art, Frida Kahlo discussed the group’s history and quest to expose inequality, all the while donning their infamous gorilla masks. She prefaced the talk by acknowledging the University’s history of occupy-
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ing indigenous land and involvement with slavery. “In order to understand the time that we live in,” Kahlo said, “we must honor and respect those who have endured and continue to endure the horrors of this history.” Kahlo then began her presentation with a quote by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras. “There is a good principle, that created order, light and men,” she voiced dramatically. “And an evil principle, that created chaos, darkness and women.” The audience laughed as she continued to rattle off quotes that expressed the horrors of women, from ancient to modern men of the humanities, science and art worlds. Kahlo ended the list of quotes by asking the audience to collectively scream — the crowd promptly did so. A founding member of the Guerrilla Girls, Kahlo recounted her involvement with the group’s activism since 1985. She traced the intersectional feminist group’s history from its beginning attempts to expose the art world’s bias toward white male artists. One of their first protests involved wheatpasting a series of posters that asked, “How many women had one-person exhibitions at NYC museums last year?” The answer » See GUERRILLA, page 3
hears proposed changes to code of conduct, elects new Chair of Technology By KAMRAN KING SENIOR STAFF WRITER
The Graduate Student Council convened its third meeting of the semester, in which it elected a new Chair of Technology, selected commencement speakers and discussed proposed updates to the Code of Student Conduct with Yolanda Castillo-Appollonio, the senior associate dean and director of Student Conduct and Community Standards. The representatives at the meeting elected Alex Parker-Guerrero GS, who had been serving as the interim chair of technology, to the position permanently. He ran for the position unopposed. The group also heard excerpts of speeches from the commencement speaker candidates for both the master’s ceremony and the doctoral ceremony. After the speeches, the representatives elected Eunice Gonzalez-Sierra GS and Jennifer Thum GS to be the master’s and doctoral ceremony commencement speakers, respectively. Vice President for Advocacy
JASMINE RUIZ / HERALD
GSC’s third meeting included the selection of commencement speakers and the presentation of proposed updates to the code of conduct. D’Ondre Swails GS also announced and Assistant Director of Student that after two years of service in his Conduct and Community Standards position, he will be stepping down. Kirsten Wolfe discussed the proposed The elections to fill Swails’ position alterations with the Undergraduate will be held next month, GSC President Council of Students last night. Alastair Tulloch GS said. Castillo-Appollonio presented Changes to the code of conduct will potential updates to the code includbe submitted for a Corporation vote in ing amended language, disciplinary May after being finalized. In addition procedures and new offenses. Castilto Castillo-Appollonio’s presentation to lo-Appollonio said that the updated the GSC, Associate Dean of Students » See GSC, page 8
WEATHER
THURSDAY, APRIL 04, 2019
NEWS Brown Arts Initiative, RISD, UC Irvine host media performance on climate change, oceans
COMMENTARY Kramer ’20: We should not assume traveling over Spring Break is a given, but a privilege
COMMENTARY Krishnamurthy ’19: Referendum voters deserved an honest, evenhanded campaign
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
‘Your Ocean, My Ocean’ explores environmentalism Brown, UCI, RISD collaborate on multimedia performance featuring dance, music, video By EMILY TENG SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Combining dance, music, media and visual art, performances of “Your Ocean, My Ocean” on April 1 and 2 asked audience members to reflect on humans’ relationship with the ocean. The interactive media performance was presented by the Brown Arts Initiative in collaboration with Rhode Island School of Design and the University of California at Irvine’s Institute for 21st Century Creativity, which explores issues relating to environmentalism and social engagement. After debuting at UCI in February under the direction of John Crawford, associate professor of dance and media arts at UCI, the show was performed for the second time at the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts this week. During the BAI Wintersession in December 2018, students and faculty visited UCI facilities. BAI then began its partnership with UCI to present this new performance in Providence. Butch Rovan, faculty director of the BAI, said that since its launch in 2017, the BAI has aimed to reach out to and establish partnerships with other institutions outside of the University. Given BAI’s ongoing three-year theme of “Arts and Environment,” Rovan believed that the message and interactive media elements of “Your Ocean, My Ocean” was “a natural fit for the Brown campus.” The performance began with a section titled “EMERGENCE,” which was performed by student dancers from the University. A large piece of white cloth hung from the back wall of the stage. As the studio lights faded away, the dancers’ heads emerged from behind the cloth, which transformed into a large cloak that covered the rest of their bodies. As they moved across the stage, the undulations of the cloth resembled the waves of the ocean. The dancers were accompanied by live music, florescent lighting and narrated recordings of oceanic facts. Because the UCI debut featured a different set of dancers, choreographer and Professor of Dance at UCI Lisa Naugle felt the need to rechoreograph the routine to highlight the strengths and capabilities of this particular group. “I like to get to know the dancers as we’re working together, (and) … I wanted to bring out more of their own emphasis and skills, rather than putting something on that was from somebody else,” she said. Along with the new choreography, the Providence performance also incorporated a large sculptural instrument that sounded like chimes. The instrument was created by a student studying architecture at RISD and was played by percussionist Forrest Larson, a Providence local. The show also included multimedia elements such as video, text and music. In the “INTERSTITIAL” sections of the show, which served as musical interludes between the dance sections, violinist and composer Mari Kimura wore a sensor prototype that
EMILY TENG / HERALD
The Granoff Center for the Creative Arts hosted media performances on humans’ relationships with the ocean, featuring student dancers. A collaboration between the Brown Arts Initiative, Rhode Island School of Design and the University of California of Irvine, made the show possible. detected the movements of her right hand as she played. The sensor generated texts that were projected onto the three screens hung around the stage. Crawford explained that, in the dance sections, multiple cameras captured the dancers’ live movements for display on the screens as well. By overlapping footage of the ocean water movements with the live camera feed, the composite video gave the impression that the dancers were “moving in and out of the ocean,” he said. A blend of both preselected ocean clips and live dance performance, the show
was meant to “create an environment where some things are happening in predictable and unpredictable ways to amplify the liveness of the performance,” Crawford added. Many elements of the show revealed its environmentalist theme. At one point, the dancers wrapped a string of plastic bottles around their bodies. In another scene, they interacted with a net holding 3D models of sea turtles that Crawford explained were composed of recyclable filament. The dancers manipulated the net to recreate the movements of sea
turtles in nature. “We’re interested in investigating other ways that scientific engineering, technology and artistic pursuits can work together to explore environmental issues and other aspects of social engagement,” Crawford said. Speaking to the project’s connection with environmental activism, RISD Professor of Architecture Kyna Leski said, “Beauty grips you; it makes it very difficult to look away. You can have different ideas of what it is, but …it does make it difficult to look away, and that power in activism is
important.” Leski led a “Your Ocean, My Ocean” studio class at RISD in fall 2018, which created many of the design elements and props for the show. At the end of the show, Crawford explained the next iteration of the “Your Ocean, My Ocean” series. “We’re working on one project, which is the (“Your Ocean, My Ocean”) media environment — an interactive installation that doesn’t require live performance. It’s set in places like galleries and public spaces where there is live … interaction between screens and cameras and visitors,” he said.
NEWS
THURSDAY, APRIL 04, 2019 • PAGE 3
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
» ACOSTA, from page 1 “My base is people that want to hear about the truth and care about the truth. … I just tell myself before doing a live shot, ‘this is just the news … this isn’t brain surgery.’” In his years as a journalist, Acosta said has never witnessed a conspiracy to mislead the public. “We spend a lot of time and energy fact checking” at CNN, which he says “pisses off the Trump base,” as it prevents Trump from saying anything that he wants. Acosta also described his daily routine in a world dominated by technology. While he leaves his phone on silent to get at least six hours of sleep a night, he has to check it for news
periodically throughout the day. “I have to live that way. … I don’t want to be behind the curve.” Acosta also began using encrypted text-messaging under the Obama administration. “There is deep concern not only on our part … (about) who could be reading” our messages. It’s a “climate of fear we are all operating under,” he said. During the question and answer session, Acosta was asked how to restore public trust in modern media and combat its “echo chamber.” Acosta said he pushes himself to engage with alternate perspectives to find content that resonates with the public. “There’s still a nucleus of people out there that still want us to be tough.” He added that some Fox News employees send
him direct messages over social media encouraging him to keep pressing Trump for truth in the face of criticism. Consumers are also partially responsible for lack of trust in media, he said. “In all of the major news outlets, people are acting in good faith,” he said, suggesting people should approach news with an open mind and trust that news sources are not trying to intentionally mislead the public. Consumers need “to be more sophisticated readers of news … getting news from variety of sources (and) harvesting a good spectrum of information.” During his tenure at CNN, Acosta served as national political correspondent, leading the network’s coverage and traveling alongside the campaign trails of Mitt Romney in 2012 and
Donald Trump in 2016. Previously, Acosta worked as a reporter for local news stations in Chicago, Dallas and Knoxville, Tennessee, and as a correspondent for CBS News from 2003 to 2007. Acosta is writing a book titled “The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America,” which is scheduled for publication in June. Brian Kirz ’22 asked Acosta how he picks and chooses which battles he wages with Trump and Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Acosta noted an instance when he asked a pointed question to Sanders on Trump’s comment about whether ‘Democrats hate Jews,’ an answer that she sidestepped and responded to with a misleading comment on abortion. Acosta said that
he ignored her answer and now regrets letting falsehoods like that slide, as they can harm the public conscious. After the discussion, Kirz said he “really enjoyed listening to Jim Acosta on principle. During a time where illiberalism and press-averse strongmen are starting to rear their ugly heads again, Jim Acosta has one of the hardest jobs.” However, Kirz found Acosta’s answer to his question “both heartening and sad.” “If press conferences are becoming rarer and rarer, then I believe journalists need to be even more discerning when it comes to asking the questions they don’t want you to ask — about the topics they bury under hundreds of intentionally outrageous things.”
» GUERRILLA, from page 1 read, “Guggenheim - 0, Metropolitan - 0, Modern - 1, Whitney - 0.” Kahlo described the process behind the group’s first iconic posters. “We just took the streets; we didn’t ask anyone’s permission,” she stated. “But we wanted to do posters that revealed the truth about discrimination in New York City. … We were just pissed off, and we were surprised that the posters took everyone’s attention … and started public dialogue.” With a huge public response, from interviews with art magazines to commissions with various social organizations, the Guerrilla Girls continued to highlight sexism and racism, as well as tokenism, in the art scene. A common practice that they used was their “weenie counts,” in which the group compared the number of male and female nude figures in the Metropolitan Museum. They found that over 85 percent of the nudes were female even though less than five percent of the artists were women, and even fewer of those artists were women of color. “Now, we hope you don’t get the idea that we don’t love art. We love art and artists — but let’s face it — the art world kind of sucks,” Kahlo said, addressing the glaring gender, economic and racial inequalities within museums and the art market. Kahlo also discussed the Guerrilla Girls’ other work, including street art, billboards and stickers, in cities such as Bilbao, Madrid, Shanghai and more. More recently, the group has spread awareness regarding the dominance of white males in Hollywood with largescale billboards. They have also created art in support of reproductive rights in movements such as the Women’s March and criticized corruption within the American government and presidency. She ended the talk with a video featuring a soundtrack by feminist music and art ensemble “Chicks on Speed.” The video encouraged viewers to join “a world of artistic cooperation and collaboration” and communicated the Guerrilla Girls’ mission of revealing marginalized narratives in pop culture and art. In the video, various Guerrilla Girls members called upon the audience to “be crazy” and “change people’s minds, and do it in an unforgettable way.” Audience member Zachary Mothner ’22 found the Guerrilla Girls’ presentation to be both stimulating and informative. “I found it really compelling how the Guerrilla Girls have sparked so much dialogue in both the artistic and political worlds through their art,” he said. “It is really inspiring to see how they call attention to racial and gender biases in the still-problematic art world and community.”
COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY
KATHERINE OK / HERALD
A founding member of Guerrilla Girls, “Frida Kahlo,” discussed the group’s protest art and fight against inequality in the artistic and political worlds.
NEWS
PAGE 4 • THURSDAY, APRIL 04, 2019
» UCS, from page 1 haviors, revising the language of the code, adjusting procedures for student groups and adding the right to appeals for specific cases. The Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards’ core values include fairness, transparency and being socially just. “The vision was, if we have no code at all, what would it look like if we built a code up around those core values,” said Kirsten Wolfe, associate dean of students and assistant director of student conduct and community standards. “Instead of saying, ‘let’s tweak this,’ (we said) ‘let’s start from the ground up.’” An 18-person committee comprised of students, faculty and staff from the OSCCS, the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity and the Office of Residential Life drafted the new code procedures, Wolfe said. The committee plans to continue revising the draft before submitting the recommendations for a Corporation vote in May. In addition to Wolfe’s presentation to UCS, Senior Associate Dean and Director of Student Conduct and Community Standards Yolanda Castillo-Appollonio
discussed the proposed changes to the code with the Graduate Student Council last night. “The biggest recommendation that the committee is making is that we adopt a restorative approach to the work that we’re doing,” Wolfe said, though the new approach would not replace traditional methods, which tend to be punitive. “It’s going to add some growth and learning opportunities for a student that don’t happen naturally out of the traditional hearing process,” she added. The traditional approach to disciplinary hearings focuses on determining what rule or law was broken, who broke the rule and what the offender deserves as a consequence. “What a restorative approach asks instead is what harm was caused, what are those harmed parties’ needs and whose obligation is it to meet those needs,” Wolfe said. In this restorative approach, respondents would have to take responsibility “at the outset” and express “some measure of willingness to make a repair and engage in that sort of process,” Wolfe said. The process would allow respondents to work with complainants
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD to craft the outcome of the hearing and make amends, in addition to allowing harmed groups to name how they were harmed and the needs they have moving forward, she added. The committee hopes that the new process will encourage more reports of instances of harm when groups or individuals “want somebody held accountable for hurting them, but they don’t necessarily want them punished,” Wolfe said. The recommended changes also include adding seven new behaviors that should be considered a violation of community standards, including participation in derecognized organizations and the disruption of safety. Derecognized organizations refer to student groups such as athletic teams and fraternities that have been expelled or suspended from the University but are “trying to continue their presence on campus in an underground way,” Wolfe said. “Groups that lose their recognition aren’t any longer under University oversight,” leading to concerns of hazing behaviors occurring within these groups, she added. Acts such as tampering with fire or safety equipment would become
prohibited with the addition of the disruption of safety as a banned behavior. Other recommended changes include requiring the University to publish the statuses of all student groups “that are not in good conduct standing on campus” and implementing an appeals process for complainants in cases of harassment and physical or emotional harm, according to a sheet Wolfe distributed at the meeting. SHARE Advocates Alana Sacks and Elliot Ruggles also presented at the meeting. After incidents of harm relating to sexual violence, domestic violence or any interpersonal harm, “the support that someone seeks is usually from someone that they know,” Sacks said. Knowing how to respond to such incidents is important “not just for yourself, but also because you may be in a position where someone actually discloses their experience to you, and you can give people information about resources that are available.” SHARE Advocates carry out harm prevention work and offer confidential services that include helping individuals file complaints and navigate resources at the University and in the community
along with providing emotional support, such as by accompanying students to the hospital or legal appointments. “We have a philosophical frame that we take into all of our work,” Sacks said. “There is a spectrum of experience that people may have,” but what incidents of interpersonal harm have in common is “a lack of consent or that they’re unwanted.” SHARE’s advocacy-based counseling services are “based on the determination that someone has about what’s right for themselves, which is markedly different from psychotherapy, where someone might determine it for you” through diagnosis-based courses of treatment that don’t always “meet the person where they’re at,” Sacks said. In the presentation, Ruggles also mentioned the Association of American Universities’ follow-up Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct, which will open tomorrow. At the start of the meeting, Chair of Academic Affairs Sofia Jimenez ’21 announced that nominations are open for the inaugural Exceptional Peer Advising Awards, through which the Office of the Dean of the College will award $500 to three undergraduate students.
JASMINE RUIZ / HERALD
The Undergraduate Council of Students heard from SHARE Advocates and learned about proposed changes to the Code of Student Conduct at its Wednesday meeting.
TODAY
THURSDAY, APRIL 04, 2019 • PAGE 5
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
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a l e s s o n i n d e fa m i l i a r i z at i o n
SATELLITE DINING ANDREWS COMMONS
Cous Cous Entree, Chicken Parmesan Pizza, Macaroni and Cheese Bar, Make Your Own Pasta JOSIAH’S
BLUE ROOM
Taco Thursday, Quesadilla Station
Focaccia Bar, Turkey Chili, Kabob & Curry
DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH
DINNER
Cajun Pasta with Chicken, Coconut Red Curry Beef Stir Fry, Frosted Brownies
Rotisserie Style Chicken, Miso Fish of the Day, Steamed Green Beans, Chipotle Miso Tofu
VERNEY-WOOLLEY LUNCH
DINNER
Tempeh and Lentil Muffins, Gourmet Roast Turkey Sandwich, Mashed Potato Bar
Taqueria, Asian Sweet and Sour Meatballs, Chinese Style Fried Rice, Caribbean Rum Cake
sudoku
JASMINE RUIZ / HERALD
One look at Blueno transforms a Ruth Simmons Quad pedestrian into a figure on a massive grassy desk, illuminated by a bear-impaling lamp.
RELEASE DATE– Monday, February 25, 2013
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis c r o s s 33 wTouchdowns ord 46 Ultimate DOWN ACROSS
1 Apt. parts, in ads 4 Talking head 10 Big name in ATMs 13 Charged particles 15 Black-and-blue mark, e.g. 16 Suffix for pay 17 Soft hit that barely makes it over the infield 19 Cranberrygrowing area 20 Africa’s Sierra __ 21 Fed. retirement org. 22 “T” on a test, usually 23 Like dodos and dinosaurs 26 Foray 28 Archaeological agedetermination process 31 Texting units: Abbr. 34 Rowboat mover 35 Wish granter 36 “How was __ know?” 37 Abrasions 40 Sinus doc 41 Not exactly robust 43 Simpsons neighbor Flanders 44 Makes really angry 45 Completely absorbed 49 Lawyer’s customer 50 Accessory often carried with a wallet 54 Merle Haggard’s “__ From Muskogee” 55 N.J. neighbor 57 Lightened 58 Libertarian politician Paul 59 Sign in a limo that aptly concludes the sequence formed by the last words of 17-, 28and 45-Across 62 Mystery novelist Grafton 63 Houston team 64 Statistician’s input 65 NHL tiebreakers 66 Tinkers (with) 67 Figs.
1 The Good Book application require crossing 2 Pricey watch with 47 Big bomb trials them a gold crown logo 37 Leonard __: Roy 48 Binoculars user 3 Nose-in-the-air 51 Made in China, Rogers’s birth type say name 4 “Nova” airer 52 Look after 38 Mountain top 5 Ocean State sch. 39 Advantage 53 Icelandic sagas 6 Convent dwellers 42 Nastase of 54 Estimator’s words 7 Starts to eat with 56 P.O. box inserts tennis gusto 59 Printer problem 44 Security 8 Manhattan is one 60 Stooge with bangs checkpoint 9 Golf ball’s perch 61 Pack animal request 10 Choice you don’t have to think ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: about 11 Metaphorical state of elation 12 Violent anger 14 Former (and likely future) Seattle NBA team 18 ’90s Cabinet member Federico 22 Lug 24 Gator’s kin 25 Skier’s way up 27 Glad __: party clothes 29 Long-armed primate 30 Comprehends 31 Tick off 32 Went down swinging 02/25/13 xwordeditor@aol.com
Q U O T E O F T H E D AY
“Now, we hope you don’t get the idea that we don’t love art. We love art and artists — but let’s face it — the art
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world kind of sucks.
— Co-founder of Guerrilla Girls “Frida Kahlo”
See guerrilla on page 1.
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Get a Financial Life! 12:00 P.M. Kasper Multipurpose Room
Leavetaking-Out for Lunch 12:00 P.M. LGBTQ Center
Which Bones Matter? Susan Pollock 12:00 P.M. Rhode Island Hall
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Racism or Gluten: Why Do I Feel This Way? 9:00 A.M. Sarah Doyle Center
Jim Yong Kim ‘82 on Human Capital 9:00 A.M. Granoff Center
Ankhi Mukherjee on Psychoanalysis 2:00 P.M. Joukowsky Forum
BWxD 2019 Theme Launch Party 9:00 P.M. Machines With Magnets, 400 Main St., Pawtucket
COMMENTARY PAGE 6 • THURSDAY, APRIL 04, 2019
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COMMENTARY THURSDAY, APRIL 04, 2019 • PAGE 7
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
The problematic assumptions we make about spring break ANNA B. KRAMER staff columnist With the start of classes this past Monday, another spring break has come and gone as Brown students embark on the homestretch before the end of the semester. Though the time off from class was universally awaited, the stereotypical portrait of college spring break as a week for students to travel is something of a social construct that accentuates the unmistakable air of privilege on Brown’s campus. Two weeks ago, a professor of mine prompted class discussion by having us go around the room and tell the rest of the class “where we were going for spring break.” Some students were indeed going to distant places; Miami, Mexico, even Paris. But many, if not the majority of students, were going home or staying on
campus for the week. What was intended as a bonding exercise for the class instead created a divide between students. This is not the first situation I have experienced at Brown where people have misconstrued what spring break signifies for most students — merely a week away from class. Though surely not ill-intentioned, the very question “where are you going?” assumes that the ability to travel to a different city or country for a week is a given rather than a privilege. It also creates a hierarchy of exoticism; those who travel farther away are seen as having a ‘better’ break than those who do not. Brown students hail from an array of geographic regions and socioeconomic sectors. This diversity allows for a wide range of perspectives on campus and promotes a positive sense of individuality. But when the median annual family income for Brown students is $204,200, the highest in the Ivy League, some
permeation of privilege into Brown’s campus culture is inevitable. More students at Brown come from families in the top 1 percent of income earners than from the bottom sixty percent, so the apparent normalization of access and freedom to travel is understandable. Conversations about spring break merely highlight the ways we lump everyone into this statistic and are insensitive to the unique personal situations of students in which many are not able to travel or even return home for breaks. The privilege that undeniably exists on this campus is not necessarily to be demonized, but when it manifests itself in conversations that evoke exclusivity, it is demonstrative of the work that still needs to be done on campus. Specifically, we should be using our unique diversity to promote better self-awareness in our actions and conversations with others. This is not just a matter of wealth. Universities across the United States are
advising international students from target countries on which Trump has placed a no-entry ban not to return home for university breaks, for fear that these students will not be allowed to come back. Furthermore, many students may feel unsafe or unwelcome going home for breaks or perhaps not have a home to return to. Though there are no Brownspecific statistics available on housing for homeless students, the presence of homeless college students throughout some of the country’s most elite universities is a reality seldom acknowledged. We should keep these truths in mind during future group discussions. Brown tries very hard to promote inclusivity, but that attitude starts at the student body level and, more specifically, through casual conversation and class discussion. The assumptions we make in these moments have the power to marginalize individuals and make them feel invisible or less than.
This is not a difficult attitude to adjust. Even changing the way we frame our questions from “where are you going” to “what are you doing” removes the expectation of privilege and opens up the dialogue to a broader range of subjects. Applying this to a general shift toward conscientiousness will help us remove the assumptions we place on others so that together we will be able to dismantle the hegemonic notion of spring break and enjoy the time off from class for what it is.
Anna B. Kramer ’20 can be reached at anna_kramer@ brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
What the divestment vote did to campus discourse ANUJ KRISHNAMURTHY op-ed contributor Just a few days before spring break, the inevitable became reality: A referendum championed by Brown Divest won handily, with 69 percent of voters — a little over a quarter of the undergraduate student body — in favor. Make no mistake, the divestment campaign accomplished an impressive feat. Over the course of six weeks, prodivestment advocates held several events explaining their goals, mobilized scores of supporters and managed to bring significant attention to the plight of Palestinians, thousands of whom have been injured, and hundreds killed, in the past 12 months. But the legacy of the divestment campaign will not lie in concrete improvements to the lives of Palestinians or in the reform of corporate behavior. Instead, the campaign’s lasting effects on campus life will lie in its trivialization of the importance of endowment returns to financial aid and its proliferation of a vague and viral vocabulary about the mechanics of divestment. First, divestment, even in the hyperlocal form advanced by Brown Divest, could cause non-trivial harms to endowment returns and financial aid, and those harms were not adequately considered during the campaign. (Obviously, divestment will not happen for a number of administrative reasons, but I don’t think this debate about divestment’s effects on endowment performance should turn merely on the logistics.) In the original version of a March 18 op-ed, one supporter of divestment wrote that “funding financial aid is mainly comprised from donors that support The Brown Promise.” This claim was factually incorrect; The Herald had to run a correction. In the corrected op-ed, the author conjectures that, given successful fundraising under the BrownTogether and Brown Promise initiatives, “divestment from specific companies may not have a substantial effect on financial aid.” Assuming that things might work out okay is a ridiculous way to make investment decisions, especially when those decisions affect the availability of financial aid to low-income students. Let me be crystal clear: Financial aid depends on endowment returns, which divestment places at severe risk. In a 2016 letter to Congress, President Christina Paxson P’19 observed that 34 percent of the FY 2016 financial aid budget came from endowment returns. The Brown Promise, a part of the University’s BrownTogether campaign, is a pledge to eliminate loans from the University’s financial
aid packages and doesn’t fund the majority of undergraduate financial aid. In fact, BrownTogether’s organizers have placed a special premium on “endowed scholarships.” At least $100 million of BrownTogether’s $500 million fundraising target for financial aid will be allocated to the endowment, so that endowed scholarships can be sustained in the long term. Even in the event of robust fundraising, the success of the Brown Promise also depends on the University’s endowment returns. It should also be noted that the opportunity costs of divestment can be enormous. Consider the tobacco industry, from which the University divested in 2003. Between February 2004 and February 2019, the tobacco industry has massively outperformed the stock market globally, nearly doubling its net returns according to the MSCI World Tobacco Index. While it can’t be specifically determined how much profit the University forfeited, other institutions that have divested from tobacco have felt the heat of foregone tobacco returns. Calpers, the pension system for employees of the state of California, lost $3 billion over 15 years in foregone investment income and even considered reinvesting in the industry. Given these truths, the claim that divestment will not threaten Brown’s endowment returns amounts to third-rate guesswork. Furthermore, radically reformulating a multibillion-dollar portfolio isn’t easy. (People vastly more qualified than me have explained why in these very pages.) The University chooses its investment managers because it believes they use the best possible information to manage the endowment. Whenever these managers believe they’ve found a better strategy for allocating Brown’s investments, they adopt it. They have a clear incentive to do so: Higher returns mean higher fees for managers. If the Investment Office had reason to believe that a portfolio without the kinds of companies identified by Brown Divest could outperform, even marginally, the current portfolio, it would have already switched — and divestment would be a nonissue. Simply put, the Investment Office tries to allocate endowment funds optimally, and we should not treat Brown’s investments in potentially objectionable industries as just a moral oversight. These investments were made for a reason, as part of a broader portfolio strategy in which individual investments interact and hedge risks in sophisticated ways. If we do want to tamper with the University’s investment strategy, we should think extremely carefully about what the financial implications could be. I can understand the impulse to not want to be affiliated with moral wrongdoing. But we can-
not allow our commitments to principle, no matter how noble, blind us to the limits and material consequences of our actions. Divesting from profitable companies might alleviate our feelings of culpability for human suffering, but it very well could put a significant dent in endowment returns and undermine financial aid for low-income students. I do not believe that the benefits of divestment — purely symbolic opposition to corporations facilitating human rights abuses in Palestine — outweigh this risk. If they do, supporters of divestment haven’t sufficiently explained how. Second, the divestment referendum propagated rhetoric that obfuscates what exactly it means for a higher education institution to be complicit in moral wrongdoing through its investments. What constitutes complicity on the part of the University? What does “financial transparency and student oversight,” the second of Brown Divest’s two demands, look like? Champions of divestment don’t seem to have precise answers to either of those questions. In a March 14 op-ed, Luqmaan Bokhary ’21 asserts that students should not be “morally and ethically content with continuing the status quo of the University profiting from such companies.” As I’ve written before, mere ownership of a company’s shares cannot possibly constitute complicity in that company’s decision-making. For example, insofar as the University’s ownership of Boeing stock does not directly enrich Boeing, is there anything wrong with profiting from increases in Boeing share prices and using those profits to support programming like financial aid? Further, if the University sells its shares in a questionable company, another investor with no ethical concerns will snap those shares up in a heartbeat, leaving that company unaffected. If these companies won’t change their behavior after their shares change hands, then how does stock ownership lead to complicity? Bokhary goes on to argue that “the University could potentially find a way to establish financial transparency to its students without disclosing its portfolio to the general public.” The use of the term “potentially” here is immediately revealing. How exactly should the University be transparent about its portfolio? How can it distribute highly sensitive investment information to 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students and simultaneously maintain its competitive edge? The rhetorical gymnastics surrounding divestment — the failure to provide concrete, specific details and the deliberate deployment of ill-defined terminology — are politically advantageous, but civically irresponsible. My biggest fear for future classes of Brunonians is that the
endowment has now become a discursive plaything in campus activism, a rhetorical goldmine to be exploited in order to advance an ideological agenda. At the candidates’ debate a few weeks ago, Jason Carroll ’21, Undergraduate Council of Students vice president-elect, said, “We should divest from human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. I think we should divest from human rights abuses in China. We need to divest from all of them.” For the life of me, I cannot see how it’s possible for any investor to (1) identify corporations involved in “human rights abuses” in a given country and (2) build a sound portfolio excluding companies based in some of the fastest-growing economies in the world. (If any student at Brown is capable of doing so, I’d urge them to drop out and start teir own hedge fund ASAP.) Ultimately, it’s easy to get people to buy into a feel-good, amorphous vision of the future. It’s much harder to confront the feasibility and costs of our moral fantasies, and ensure that aid-receiving students aren’t cast aside as collateral damage in the pursuit of largely symbolic justice. Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of divestment is that it attracts attention to the cause of the Palestinian people. But the extent to which Brown’s divesting from companies doing business in Israeli settlements could benefit the Palestinian cause must be weighed against the material costs of divestment in the near term. In the recent referendum, voters did not have the benefit of such careful evaluation. For expressing this concern, I’ve personally been accused of nefariously tokenizing low-income students to attack the divestment campaign. In truth, I’ve tried to be less a doctrinaire critic of divestment and more a proponent of honest, even-handed judgement. The best version of the divestment campaign would have forthrightly accepted the financial risks of its proposal and justified them to students, instead of wishing them away. That’s what an honest, even-handed campaign looks like. And that’s what voters in the referendum deserved.
Anuj Krishnamurthy ’19 can be reached at anuj_krishnamurthy@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@ browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
NEWS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
» GSC, from page 1 procedures “simplify access to information,” create “a shared understanding, such as by embedding definitions in the code itself ” and feature language that is “more restorative in nature and less nihilistic.” The update also includes new offenses, which are now called “prohibited behaviors,” Castillo-Appollonio said. Participation in derecognized organizations is among the new prohibited behaviors. When presenting the changes before the council, Castillo-Appollonio emphasized the option of restorative justice. “There will be circumstances in
which we will still use the traditional approach (to discipline), but there are going to be other circumstances where we’re able to use this other approach and think about how we can build community after harm is done.” The restorative justice approach requires agreement from all involved parties and the respondent to take “responsibility at the outset of their behavior,” she said. Executive board members also announced upcoming events and initiatives. Tulloch updated the representatives on the progress of a joint initiative with the Medical Student Senate. He said the initiative, which will start in
THURSDAY, APRIL 04, 2019 the fall, currently entails “graduate students going to speak at the end of a medical school lecture” about their field of study. Tulloch also discussed an initiative documenting the quality of graduate student housing. The initiative follows the creation of a working group with the University that collects qualitative data on grad student housing conditions through interviews, as The Herald previously reported. The initiative involves grad students providing visual documentation of issues they encounter in the places they live. “We’re just trying to collect that information so we can present the horrible conditions
in which we live to the University,” Tulloch said. He urged participation “so that when we actually present this to the University, it will be more compelling.” Chair of Social Events Jeremy Lomax GS said the spring formal will be held at Skyline at Water. The event, which will feature a live D.J., food and drinks, is scheduled for April 27, Lomax said. Tickets are already on sale, but after April 20, they will only be available for cash at the door, Lomax said. During the open floor portion of the meeting, representatives also announced events to be hosted by the Undocumented, First-Generation and
Low-Income Student Center and the CareerLAB. They discussed the U-Fli Graduate Student mixer, which will be held on April 19 from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. in the U-FLi Center, according to the University’s events calendar. A representative also brought up “GradCON,” the Graduate Student Career Options Conference. This event will be held on April 6 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and feature a variety of panelists, according to a University webpage. The meeting closed with the students breaking into their Graduate Student Strategic Initiative groups to hear progress updates, collect feedback and discuss future objectives.
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19T H A NNUAL CAS EY S HE ARER M E M ORIAL LECTU RE
WHEN DEPORTATION IS A DEATH SENTENCE: COVERING IMMIGRATION IN THE TRUMP ERA Thursday, April 11, 2019, 6:30 p.m. MacMillan Hall, Room 117 167 Thayer Street Providence, Rhode Island
Sarah Stillman Staff Writer, The New Yorker Director, Global Migration Project, Columbia Journalism School Sarah Stillman is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she covers criminal justice, immigration, and other policy issues. She also directs the Global Migration Project at Columbia Journalism School, where she runs an investigative team working on immigration and refugee issues. For The New Yorker, she has written on topics ranging from
civil asset forfeiture to debtors prisons, and from Mexico’s drug cartels to Bangladesh’s garmentfactory workers. Among Stillman’s recent New Yorker stories is “No Refuge,” an investigation that documented more than sixty cases of asylum-seekers and other immigrants deported to their deaths or other harms. Stillman is a MacArthur Fellow.
The lecture will be preceded by a presentation of the 19th Annual Casey Shearer Memorial Awards for Excellence in Creative Nonfiction