Friday, October 14th, 2022

U. endowment falls to $6.5 billion

Athlete sues U. over sexual assault suspension

dent, referred to using the pseudonym Jane Roe, on Oct. 30, 2021. Smith was initially suspended before the conclu sion of a Title IX investigation, The Herald previously reported.

BY CALEB LAZAR UNIVERISTY NEWS EDITOR

The University’s endowment saw a -4.6% return on investment for fiscal year 2022, according to a Thursday news release. The endowment fell to $6.5 billion, sustaining a $315 million decline in investment assets.

In fiscal year 2021, Brown’s endow ment yielded record returns of 51.5%, The Herald previously reported. The endowment’s average annual returns for 3, 5, 10 and 20 years are 17.4%, 15.5%, 12.3% and 10.0%, respectively.

“Last year’s growth of 51.5% was anomalous,” Joshua Kennedy ’97, man aging director of the Investment Office, wrote in an email to The Herald. “That period included the recovery from the crash in financial assets due to COVID but not the crash itself. Governments and central banks went to extraordinary lengths to try to mitigate the economic damage of the pandemic and those ac

tions had significant spillover effects on the prices of stocks and other financial assets.”

In comparison, Kennedy wrote that this year’s performance reflected a “re version to the mean.”

Contributing roughly $207 million, the endowment comprises 16% of the University’s total operating budget for FY22 across more than 3,300 separate funds invested as a whole and paid out for specific purposes. The largest share funds financial aid, which is 32% of the payout.

The endowment’s annual contri bution to the operating budget ranges from 4.5 to 5.5% of the endowment’s average market value over 12 quarters and is decided by the Corporation — the University’s highest governing body. This year’s operating budget contribu tion represents a 6.7% increase over last year’s payout of $194 million.

With the investment loss, oper ating budget expenditure and a total of $133 million in endowed gifts, the

BY PETER SWOPE SPORTS EDITOR

An athlete suspended in fall 2022 for an alleged sexual assault that took place in October 2021 has sued the University, claiming that it unfairly suspended him after conducting a bi ased Title IX investigation, according to court documents. Smith v. Brown University was filed in Rhode Island District Court Sept. 9.

A previous lawsuit dealing with the same incident, also called Smith v. Brown University, was filed in Rhode Island District Court Jan. 14, The Her ald previously reported. The two par ties agreed to dismiss the suit Jan. 24.

Both cases deal with a stu dent-athlete, referred to under the pseudonym David Smith, who was accused of sexually assaulting a stu

After U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy ruled Jan. 25 that the Uni versity must reinstate a different stu dent-athlete suspended under similar circumstances, Smith was allowed to return to campus until the conclusion of his Title IX investigation, according to court filings.

After the investigation found Smith responsible for the alleged as sault, he was notified of his two-year suspension by the University Aug. 4, according to court filings. He appealed the University’s decision Aug. 11 and was notified that his appeal was de nied Sept. 7.

After Smith filed the court case Sept. 9, U.S. District Judge John Mc Connell Jr. issued an emergency in junction Sept. 19 allowing Smith to return to classes and athletic activi ties, preventing the University from taking further actions for the time

Club athletes detail lack of emergency care

SPORTS Students cite limited options, minimal U. support after athletic injuries

BY MIZUKI KAI SENIOR STAFF WRITER

In the second half of a club soccer game against Providence College earlier this semester, Kate Collier ’25 was shoved from behind and fell on top of her left leg. She felt her leg bend and pop, which “was kind of scary because usually for women, that means an ACL tear,” she said.

Some of her teammates rushed onto the field, while other players ran to get a trainer to look at her injury. According to Collier, the trainers re fused to assist, saying they were only available for varsity athletes. Instead, Brown EMS was called and Collier was taken to the emergency room at Rhode Island Hospital, where she spent five and a half hours.

“It was just very hectic and I didn’t even get to meet with a doctor,” Col lier said.

Collier needed an MRI and went to Health Services the next day for a referral, but they were unable to give her one. After three days, she finally got a consultation elsewhere. Her MRI results confirmed her fears: She had a torn ACL, meniscus and MCL, as well as two bone bruises. She eventually scheduled a surgery through University Orthopedics, an orthopedic care prac tice staffed by faculty members of the Department of Orthopaedics at Alpert Medical School.

“The doctor that I saw (through Uni versity Orthopedics) works at Brown on Mondays and only varsity athletes can use him,” Collier said. “So, I have to do all my physical therapy (off campus) and drive there because I can’t use the training room and other resources.”

According to Collier, another player on her team experienced a similar sit uation the previous weekend.

“Someone on our team broke her wrist and we ran to get the trainers,” Collier said. “We had to beg them — at first, they wouldn’t come out and help because they were like, ‘we only do varsity.’”

‘It’s so Brown’: nudity on campus

BY JACOB SMOLLEN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Each semester, a swarm of stu dents runs nude through the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Sciences Librar ies, delivering donuts to their peers in the most prominent example of nudity on Brown’s campus. The Na ked Donut Run is a tradition that has existed for decades, with The Herald first taking note of the sug ary streak in 1998.

The Naked Donut Run marks just one tradition in a long history of Brown students stripping down. Nudity-related events over the Univer sity’s history have included visits from Playboy magazine, naked yoga and a party called Sex Power God which prompted critiques of Brown’s culture from Fox News commentators.

The Herald spoke with students and community members regarding the history of nudity on campus and

what role it plays in Brown’s culture today. Students pointed to Brown’s liberal-leaning tendencies, the free dom and body positivity nudity can bring and the general prominence of stripping down in college life across the country as reasons nudity has left

an impact on College Hill. Historically, nudity on campus has sparked conser vative criticism and discomfort, but many students said it is simply part of what makes Brown, Brown.

Plaintiff previously sued U. for suspension before conclusion of investigation

Brown’s naked history, from Naked Donut Run to Playboy to Sex Power God

ASHLEY

JACK WALKER / HERALD

In

Naked Donut Run

The Naked Donut Run’s organiz ers noted that, for years, the event has represented a mixture of freedom, body positivity and spontaneity for the cam pus community.

“I feel like it is just a combination of, ‘Have fun, don’t think too much,’” said Olivia Duba ’22, organizer of last year’s Naked Donut Run. “But then also an underlying message of the less we care about the aesthetics of our body the more fully we’re able to live in them.”

The process is simple, though a little secretive, Duba explained. Prospec tive runners are recruited directly or through word of mouth. When the time comes, usually less than an hour before, organizers call everyone and tell them where to meet, said a past organizer who wished to remain anonymous to avoid professional repercussions.

“A big part of it is calling Dunkin’ Donuts and convincing them that this is not a prank call — this is a real order of over 1,000 donut holes and I will be coming in to pay for them,” Duba said.

With donuts in hand, the runners dash to the Rock and SciLi, where their peers may be studying for finals — or awaiting the sight of a throng of naked people.

“I knew it was a thing, but I didn’t know that it would actually happen,” said Vicky Chen ’24. “It seems like peo ple would be punished for it because of public indecency and things like that.”

Campus rules on bearing it all The University’s most recent Code of Student Conduct makes no men tion of nudity or public indecency in its pages. In a 2018 to 2019 review of the code, a committee recommend ed that the University come up with a campus-wide nudity policy, according to Kirsten Wolfe, associate dean and associate director of student conduct and community standards.

The recommendation came after concerns by committee members about victims of sexual assault “being con fronted with naked bodies” on campus, such as through the Naked Donut Run, Wolfe said. The committee said that a separate University group, however, should investigate what that policy should look like due to the politicized and complicated nature of nudity.

“We decided it wasn’t something that our office was going to make pol icy on, but that if the University made policy on it that we would enforce it,” Wolfe said. “To my knowledge there’s

been no movement from the University to do that.”

In the past, Naked Donut Run par ticipants have designated the fourth through sixth floors in the SciLi and the absolute quiet room and Level A in the Rock as safe spaces for those looking to avoid the event, according to another recent organizer and runner who requested anonymity to avoid pro fessional repercussions.

How naked is Brown?

It is not unusual for colleges to have rites that rely upon nudity as a central premise. Yale is home to a tradition al most identical to the Naked Donut Run in which students run naked through a library during finals and hand out candy instead of donuts.

Nicholas Fah-Sang ’22.5 said that the level of nudity and sex at at Brown is “on par” with most colleges but noted that “Brown does a lot of stuff that’s out of the norm … and it’s not just nudity.”

“I think it’s so Brown,” said Addison Kerwin ’24, who ran in the Naked Donut Run last spring. “Obviously it means not wearing clothes, but I think nudity and an openness and a vulnerability are kind of associated. I think people here tend to be really open.”

Kerwin said that she went into last year’s run with the goal of taking pres sure off her body and self-image. She also hoped that running would help her take herself less seriously. Having never seen the Naked Donut Run before, she said she was nervous but ended up having “a really good time” and “got a lot out of it.”

“I now view my own body and other people’s bodies in a different light,” Kerwin said. “There’s something real ly honest and normal about running around naked.”

The enthusiasm for being au natu rale expands beyond the Naked Donut Run. Jarrett Fernandes ’24, a member of Brown University’s Naked Society, said that he sees “overlap” between nudism and Brown’s culture, even if they ulti mately exist separately.

“Things like inclusiveness are ob viously things that are both important on campus, and it’s also a big part of nudism,” Fernandes said.

“I think it does match the liberal aurora of Brown,” said David Wilson, senior library assistant at the Rock. “We’re progressive, and we’re okay with nudity.”

Wilson said he first saw the run as a security guard in the SciLi in the late 2000s.

“They ran downstairs, and you could

hear all of the screaming and yelling,” Wilson said. “Everyone got a big laugh out of it.”

“It was a streak like they used to do in the ‘70s,” he said.

The early days of going clothes-free

“Streaking has taken American cam puses by storm, and the Ivy League cit adel of Brown University has not been excepted,” reported the photo caption of a 1974 edition of The Herald. The article included stories of 40 streak ers riding piggyback through Wriston Quadrangle on a Thursday evening, and streakers John and Rick dashed into the Sharpe Refectory while “wearing only a hat and a mask” to the shock of lunch-goers.

It was during this time period that “streaking had a moment,” according to Jack Wrenn PhD’21, former colum nist at The Herald. Wrenn is a found ing member of B.U.N.S. and the Inning Club, which is “essentially the John Hay Library for everything Brown doesn’t want put in the John Hay,” he said, as the club seeks to document un-official, controversial or risque histories.

He also enjoys scouring The Herald archives, even writing a column on the history of nudity at Brown last year.

The “highlight of nudity in this peri od was absolutely in 1983,” Wrenn said, when a police car chasing a streaker “pummelled” then-Herald Executive Editor Fred Brodie’s ’84 yellow Toyota.

“The Herald, of course, broke the news,” he added.

“All the elements of a sensation al story fell on the back steps of The Brown Daily Herald two nights ago,” when “a streaker proudly flashing his genitalia under a full moon in the cold midnight air” was chased by police, the story read.

Yet, “Brown’s first really well doc umented brush with nudity” came in 1954, when Playboy magazine arrived at Brown, at least in the form of mailed subscriptions, Wrenn said. It was then that an enterprising young undergrad uate named Gerald Levine ’58 “recog nized that there was something of a market opportunity here,” according to Wrenn.

Levine first pitched Brown’s thenDean Edward Durgin on selling the magazine in University newsstands but was promptly shut down, according to a 2018 piece he wrote in his class’s alumni newsletter.

This was the first of several Play boy “visits” to Brown, which included a Christmas party in Jameson House organized by Levine and sponsored by

Playboy only three years later, Wrenn said.

The magazine returned to College Hill in the late ’70s, announcing that it was “scanning the Ivy League for a cross section of women” for its Septem ber 1979 issue in an advertisement for The Herald. The running of the adver tisement caused controversy among women’s rights groups, as did Playboy’s later visits to Brown in 1986 and 1995.

Sex Power God

Brown-related nudity also sparked controversy in 2005, with an on-campus party inciting friction with conservative news outlets like Fox News.

In 2005, Sex Power God, a party hosted annually by Brown’s Queer Al liance in Sayles Hall, came under fire by Fox News in a segment airing on The O’Reilly Factor. Producer Jesse Watters snuck to the party and filmed the event without attendees’ consent, including scantily clad Brown students dancing.

“The first thing I saw was just pure debauchery,” Watters told O’Reilly during the segment.

O’Reilly raised concerns over stu dent activity funds being used for the party, the use of drugs and the number of students who required medical atten tion after the party, which was reported to be 24. The Herald later reported that student activity funds had not been used for the party.

In the wake of the segment, students appearing in the footage described feeling “violated” after being filmed by Watters without their consent, The Herald previously reported. The party’s popularity continued nonetheless, with some students sleeping all night in the Leung Gallery in order to buy one of the almost 600 tickets available in 2008.

In 2014, the party was discontinued after safety concerns arose from anec dotal accounts of sexual harrassment during the previous years’ gatherings.

A post from Queer Alliance leaders at the time called Sex Power God a “vio lent space” which the board could not “in good conscience continue perpet uating.”

Today, many current Brown stu dents have not heard about Sex Power God, and, for many of those that have, the event seems like a myth. Sulay Re strepo ’25 said that they had heard from friends that Sex Power God was “like an orgy, honestly.”

“Everyone would just go and dance and have fun and be naked,” Restrepo said.

Madison Lease ’23.5 had not heard of Sex Power God, but after learning

the party’s original location, she was not suprised.

“Sayles is the most sexy building, so I would expect that’s where it would take place,” she said.

Nudity in the Upspace

Fox News returned to College Hill in 2013 to cover an event known as Nudity in the Upspace, dubbed “Nudity Week” in the segment.

“Nude yoga, that sounds like a bit of a stretch,” quipped Watters, who spent much of the segment mocking the pro gram and asked a female student if her father knew she was participating in the naked events.

The week-long series began in 2012 and was founded by Becca Wolinsky ’14. The event was held annually un til recent years, featuring events such as naked theater, body paintings and lectures on nudity. The organization’s missions included fostering a deeper understanding of bodies, discussing nudity’s intersection with different identities, like race and class, and “using the naked body as a forum” to discuss “issues of body presentation and cul tivate self-acceptance,” according to a 2018 Facebook post by the organization.

“It was sort of the hub on campus in the 2010s for anything naked,” said Wrenn, who attended a nude dancing event in 2018 in which an audience of 12 to 20 people were taught a choreo graphed dance by an instructor.

The 2013 Fox News coverage also prompted a response video from the Brown Political Review, which inter viewed students about their reaction to the segment. The interviewees ex pressed frustration at the segment’s treatment of women and Nudity in the Upspace being taken out of the context of its aims.

“I see it as a lot more than an op portunity for students to just get naked. It’s pushing back on this idea that the human body is just something to satisfy someone else’s gaze,” said Radhika, one of the students interviewed.

“I had no idea that we were going to get the coverage that we did, absolutely no idea,” Camila Pacheco-Flores, an event coordinator in 2013, told The Herald in October that same year.

At the end of one interview by Watters near the SciLi, the interview ee turned things around on Watters, asking him questions about Brown’s infamous Naked Donut Run.

“Do you think Bill O’Reilly would accept a donut?” the student asked.

“Well,” Watters responded, “he does have a very strong appetite.”

endowment’s total market value fell from $6.9 billion to $6.5 million over the fiscal year.

Despite the negative return on investment, the University outper formed the market as a whole, which faced steep declines globally due to the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical con flicts, high inflation rates and monetary tightening by central banks, according to the news release.

The University’s return outper

formed a -10.6% S&P index return over the same period, as well as -6% prelim inary mean and median returns from Cambridge Associates for colleges and universities, a key benchmark among institutions of higher education.

But the University’s 2020 decision to divest from fossil fuel assets, which increased in value this year, contributed to the endowment’s performance in comparison to some peer institutions, according to Kennedy.

“Many schools have pursued a simi lar path but through a promise of future

divestment, whereas Brown is already at effectively zero in terms of dedicated oil and gas exposure,” Kennedy wrote.

“The endowment’s managers under stood the possibility of a situation like this emerging when the decision to exit fossil fuels was made, and I doubt there will ever be significant regret over mak ing a decision that is consistent with the values of the University.”

The Investment Office, which works to protect and grow the endowment to provide long-term support for students and advance the University’s mission

of research and teaching, explained in the news release that the University’s investment strategy focuses on strong returns over decades rather than in any individual year.

“While recent years have been rich with opportunities to grow the Brown endowment, fiscal year 2022 proved to be a moment when the protection of assets was our paramount goal,” Vice President and Chief Investment Officer Jane Dietze said in the news release.

“The endowment’s investment

program is designed to achieve high risk-adjusted returns over long periods of time, decades or more, so the focus is never on a single year,” Kennedy wrote. “But in order to protect the endow ment’s purchasing power from inflation, and to make the annual contribution to the University’s operating budget, the endowment has to invest in assets that have risk associated with them, so a negative year is disappointing, but it is not necessarily uncommon.”

The endowment last experienced a negative return in fiscal year 2016.

“Soccer is just a really high-contact sport, and especially since it’s a club sport and we don’t train constantly, it’s really risky,” she added. “I think it’s kind of unsafe to not have someone who we could rely on — even just somebody to get ice from or (with) some kind of med ical training.”

Women’s Lacrosse Club saw a similar injury last year when then-senior and captain Lucy Masto ’22 tore her ACL in a scrimmage.

“She kind of just fell and was clear ly in pain,” said Eleanor Masto ’24, her sister and current club lacrosse co-captain. “Because this also wasn’t an official game — we were just scrim maging ourselves — there wasn’t any one there.”

Lucy Masto’s teammates ended up walking over to another field, where a high school hosting tryouts for its field hockey team had a trainer on-site.

“We were able to get that trainer to come over, talk to my sister and wrap her knee even though she wasn’t super helpful in knowing what was going on,” Eleanor Masto said. “But other than that, we just had her sitting on the sidelines, icing her knee.”

After the game, Lucy Masto got an appointment at a clinic in Boston, where a teammate’s father worked as an orthopedic surgeon. She eventually got an MRI to confirm that she had torn her ACL.

Despite her sister’s injury last sea son, access to medical resources and

trainers remains limited, if available at all for club sports players, according to Eleanor Masto.

“As of right now, if someone were to get injured, we probably would assess the situation at hand,” she said. “If we thought it was going to be something bad, we’d maybe call EMS — I think that would be the only resource we have to go to.”

Eleanor Masto also mentioned that, in a meeting with Intramural & Club Sports Manager Susan Murphy, Murphy told club leaders that club sports do not have access to trainers, which are only for varsity athletes. Murphy did not re turn a request for comment.

“One example she gave us was that if there’s a varsity game happening next to our game, and there’s a trainer over there, we’re technically not allowed to go over and get that trainer,” Eleanor Masto said.

Though club sports do not have ac cess to trainers, recent increases in club sports’ funding could potentially help each team’s medical services, Eleanor Masto said.

In an email to The Herald, Deputy Athletic Director for Administration Jake Silverman wrote that “this funding, in conjunction with increased support from (the Undergraduate Finance Board), will provide our clubs with the resources they need to be successful.”

Additionally, Silverman added that “club practices and home games are staffed with supervisor positions which are all AED, First-Aid and CPR-Certi fied and trained on EMS procedures for

acute medical issues that may arise” and “in some cases, club sport pro grams have developed relationships to receive athletic training support at contests through their budgeted funds.”

Still, Eleanor Masto said that a train er provided by Brown for club athletes would be “really helpful.”

“Two people on the women’s club soccer team have gotten hurt already, so I think it would really be beneficial to have a trainer or someone who we can talk to,” she said.

For the running club, there’s usu ally Brown EMS, a trainer or at least a first-aid kit at meets, according to team captain Max Heller ’22.5.

If an athlete is injured during a prac tice, “we would probably send someone to Health Services because we’re not supposed to send people to the trainers,” Heller said.

The University hires and pays for the trainers at meets hosted at Brown, but according to Heller, they are not always present.

In the past, the running club made an unsuccessful attempt to get access to trainers, Heller said. In 2019, the club compiled a spreadsheet of members and reasons they would benefit from a train er. In the spreadsheet, which The Herald reviewed, athletes described long-term injuries as well as associated financial hardships — club athletes are often left to pay for their own medical costs that come with injuries. As a solution, Heller said that Brown University Athletics told the club athletes of a “partnership” with

Ortho Rhode Island that people could go to, but it was not close to campus and not free.

Silverman wrote that club athletes who experience acute injuries “follow EMS protocol to receive the emergen cy care needed, if applicable, and are supported through Student Health Ser vices for ongoing care needs for injury rehabilitation.”

According to Heller, club athletes have not had “great experiences with Health Services,” as he doesn’t think “it’s really the place to go for sports injuries.”

Instead, club athletes are left to deal with injuries on their own.

“Since we don’t have access to any trainers, people typically do some sort of combination of self management, whether that’s taking time off doing some strengthening or going to see a

IT’S TIME TO HIT THE BOOKS

(physical therapist), which can be expen sive and hard to find,” he added.

A player on Brownian Motion, Brown University men’s club ultimate frisbee team, also experienced an ACL injury at a tournament last year, according to team captain Jacques Nissen ’23.5.

“We called the ambulance and we had one of our players who is an EMT accompany him,” Nissen said. “We were pretty well equipped to deal with it in the moment.”

Still, Nissen said that “having access to a trainer is one of the biggest things (the club) is pushing for this year.”

“It’s made it hard on the team — ev eryone has to be proactive about their own injuries to get the care they need,” he said. “And, it also becomes very much a cost and inclusion issue as some play ers can’t afford the high costs of physical therapy.”

DANA RICHIE / HERALD

The men’s club ultimate frisbee team has made getting access to a trainer a primary goal this year, said captain Jacques Nissen ’23.5.

being and reinstituting the no-contact order between Smith and Roe, according to court filings.

In his ruling, McConnell wrote that Smith “demonstrated a high likelihood of success on the merits and … will suf fer immediate irreparable harm without relief” should he be suspended.

“This Court further finds that in weighing the relative hardships be tween the parties and the public in terest factors, allowing David Smith to remain a fully enrolled student in good community standing subject to a con tinuing mutual No-Contact order as set forth below is appropriate,” he added.

The suit alleges several principal violations in the investigation by the University and by a third-party investi gator hired by the University. It alleges that the University is guilty of breach of contract, discrimination under Title IX, negligent hiring and supervision, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation of the Rhode Island Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act. It also alleges that Donna Davis — the outside inves tigator hired by the University to inves tigate the case — and Davis Consulting Group, LLC are guilty of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional dis

tress and tortious interference with contractual relations against Smith.

Smith is seeking $75,000 in compen satory damages, punitive damages of a to-be-determined amount, a permanent injunction against the University allow ing Smith to return to campus, a perma nent injunction against the University to prevent any future investigations or disciplinary actions against Smith based on Roe’s complaint, an award covering the cost of the suit, attorneys’ fees and any other relief the court sees fit, according to court filings written by Smith’s legal team, which is composed of Maria Deaton, Patricia Hamill and Douglas Gansler. Smith and his attor neys are seeking a trial by jury.

In an email to The Herald, Univer sity Spokesperson Brian Clark rejected the plaintiff’s claims of wrongdoing on the part of the University. “We strongly dispute the plaintiff’s allegations,” he wrote. “We have conducted the inves tigation and disciplinary process in ac cordance with Brown’s policies, which are in place to address complaints of sexual misconduct in a prompt, im partial and unbiased manner and are grounded in fairness and support to both complainants and respondents. We will present the facts and our legal arguments in court.”

In an Oct. 13 court filing, Steven

Richard, the University’s attorney, crit icized Smith for what he characterized as unfair treatment of Roe. “The Court should not condone nor permit Plain tiff’s transparently improper agenda to use this litigation as his public platform to disparage Jane Roe, a non-party to this litigation who remains an under graduate at Brown and is not before the Court to defend herself,” he wrote.

In a separate Oct. 13 court filing, the lawyers for Donna Davis and Davis Consulting Group, LLC, Luana DiSarra Scavone and Joel Fishbein, denied many of the allegations against her.

They argued that Smith’s suspen sion did not arise due to misconduct on the part of Davis. Smith “was found responsible because the hearing panel judged his testimony and presentation to lack fundamental credibility, and nothing found in Plaintiff’s 113 page Complaint refutes that obvious conclu sion,” they wrote in the filing.

Smith “was disciplined because of his own acts, and not as a result of the alleged acts and omissions” of Davis, they added.

Smith, according to court filings, was investigated under the University’s “Sexual and Gender-based Misconduct Policies,” which his lawyers charac terized as a “watered-down” version of the Title IX policy. “This is Brown’s procedure of choice because this pro

cess makes it virtually impossible to question accusers (who are overwhelm ingly female) while eliminating any semblance of due process and fairness to the accused (who are overwhelmingly male),” Smith’s lawyers wrote.

In the University’s filing, Richard responded that “contrary to what Plain tiff wrongly pleads, Brown is entitled to and correctly applied its Sexual and Gender-Based Misconduct Policy and the related Sexual and Gender-Based Misconduct Complaint Procedure (which Plaintiff calls the ‘Non-Title IX Policies’) to address alleged stu dent-on-student sexual misconduct that occurred within Plaintiff’s off-cam pus bedroom outside of Brown’s ‘edu cation program or activity.’”

The University’s Sexual and Gen der-based Misconduct Policy addresses sexual violence and harassment that falls outside the legal purview of the Title IX and Gender Equity Office, The Herald previously reported. The poli cy adds to existing regulations under Title IX, University policy and Rhode Island state law, such as by applying Title IX rules to cases that take place off-campus between Brown-affiliated individuals or during Brown-sponsored programs.

The policy, which was implement ed in March 2021, also does not allow

direct questioning of witnesses by the opposing party’s advisor.

The University hired Davis to head the investigation, who Smith’s lawyers allege has received criticisms for her handling of university investigations in the past, pointing to a Medium article written about an investigation at the University of Texas at Austin. They also claimed that she conducted Smith’s investigation in a biased manner, noting that she only spoke to three witnesses, all of whom they claim were close to or suggested by Roe.

In a separate court filing, Davis’s lawyers denied the allegations made in the article, claiming that it was written by a “disgruntled” student who was not satisfied with the results of Davis’s investigation. Davis’s lawyers also ac knowledged that she only interviewed three witnesses but rejected the claim that this reflected bias in favor of Roe.

The filings also allege that Smith was told not to speak to any possible witnesses, claiming that Davis decid ed not to interview certain witnesses whose testimony they claim would ben efit Smith. Davis’s lawyers noted that while Smith was not allowed to speak to possible witnesses, that did not preclude him from identifying possible witnesses.

Smith’s lawyers further argued Smith identified one witness who they claim Davis subsequently took mea sures to discredit by qualifying their testimony in the written report. “In contrast, the investigator accepted statements from Jane’s two witnesses … at face value, without questioning or analyzing their blatantly inconsistent and illogical stories,” they added.

Davis’s lawyers denied these claims, acknowledging that both Davis and the University individually told Smith not to contact witnesses but noting that Smith and Roe were given the same confidentiality instructions.

Smith’s lawyers also allege that Da vis’s “misrepresentation of the evidence she did obtain, particularly of Smith’s own interview, was egregiously decep tive and malicious.”

Smith’s lawyers added that because of his dissatisfaction with the investiga tive process and distrust of Davis, Smith decided to record his interview with her. Smith’s lawyers allege in the filing that the recording revealed discrepancies between what Smith told Davis and what was included in the report.

Davis’s lawyers responded in a court filing that she “lack(s) knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief about the truth of these quotations” because she was unaware the interview

was being recorded and had not been given access to the recording by Smith.

In the filing, Richard added that Smith “never submitted the tape re cording to Brown, while having the right and every opportunity to do so throughout the investigative, hearing and appeal phases of Brown’s proce dures.”

Smith’s lawyers allege that Smith described his encounter with Roe as “unambiguously consensual,” accord ing to court filings. They allege that “the investigator decided to replace Smith’s overwhelmingly consistent and clear-headed account of what oc curred with her own alternative version of Smith’s account, one in which she changed virtually all of Smith’s words so as to have him admit he never ob tained Jane’s affirmative consent for their sexual activity.”

In the responding filing, Davis’s law yers denied that she misrepresented Smith’s statements in her report.

As part of the investigative process, Roe submitted photos of what she said were signs of physical trauma. Accord ing to the filing, two independent med ical experts hired by Smith disputed whether or not the photos showed signs of trauma, but their findings were not included in the final report. Davis’s law yers denied that she was responsible for the omission.

Smith’s lawyers additionally allege

that Roe “tampered with evidence” and was “unethically assist(ed)” by Davis. According to the filing, Roe secretly re corded a conversation with Smith but only submitted four short excerpts to Davis, who they claim did not ask for the full file. They added that Smith was able to gain access to the full recording after submitting a request to the Univer sity’s Title IX coordinator. The lawyers continued that Davis falsely claimed that she asked for the full recording and misrepresented what constituted the full recording, a process that they claim the Title IX coordinator allowed to happen.

Davis’s lawyers denied these claims in their filing.

As a result of these alleged acts of misconduct, the University allowed Smith’s “hearing to move ahead based on the false and incomplete record its investigator put forward, … (making) it impossible for (Smith) to defend himself,” Smith’s lawyers claimed in their filing.

The hearing itself, according to Smith’s lawyers, did not treat him fairly, favoring Roe’s testimony and alleging that, in presenting her report the way she did, “the investigator explicitly told the hearing panel that Jane was credible and that they should ignore (Smith’s) defense.”

In response to these allegations, Davis’s lawyers wrote that they “deny that they fabricated anything or that

they included inaccuracies to remain in the report.” They also disputed the characterizations of Davis’s statement to the panel as biased and untrue.

Richard wrote that, despite Smith’s claims, Roe described being sexually assaulted by Smith and “reiterated that she did not consent in any way” to the encounter.

Smith’s lawyers also claim that Roe’s presence on Tinder undermined her claim that she was sexually assault ed, noting the contents of her account’s bio in the filing. “The panel found Jane’s behavior following the assault to be consistent with trauma, yet Jane was actively seeking matches on Tinder, a site designed specifically to facilitate one-time hook-ups among strangers,” they wrote.

According to the filing, Smith sub mitted an appeal Aug. 11 in an effort to rectify what he and his lawyers alleged was a flawed investigative process but was ultimately denied. “His appeal, like all his objections throughout Brown’s Kafkaesque proceeding, fell on deaf ears and Brown’s appeal panel attempted to reshape the record evidence to make (Smith) look culpable and to justify the finding against him,” Smith’s lawyers wrote.

In response, Richard wrote in the fil ing that the “hearing panel considered Plaintiff’s contentions concerning the incident and post-incident events and

determined that the preponderance of the evidence justified the finding of Plaintiff’s responsibility for sexually assaulting Jane Roe.”

As part of the filing, Smith’s lawyers contend that the University’s Title IX policy and survivor-focused policies dealing with sexual violence in gender are unfair to the accused. At one point in the filing, they write that “pro-‘vic tim’ bias violates Title IX.”

“Upon information and belief, Brown’s lack of fairness in its han dling of the disciplinary proceeding in (Smith’s) case was intentional and was motivated by institutional gender bias created by a campus climate that supported student ‘survivors’ of sexual assault, who are overwhelmingly female and who are presumed to be victims based on their accusation before an investigation and adjudication even begins, and under pressure from a class action and its associated negative press in which Brown is alleged to have mis handled and failed to prevent system ic sexual assault of its female student population,” they added.

In the court filings, Richard defend ed Brown’s procedures for responding to accusations of sexual assault. “Brown addresses all allegations of sexual mis conduct (in) a gender-neutral manner in accordance with its policies and proce dures respecting the rights of both com plainants and respondents,” he wrote.

Brown students discuss barriers, plans for voting in 2022 elections

significant challenges that prevent stu dents from voting, EVC Vice President of Advocacy Fausto Rojas ’23 said.

BY YA’EL SARIG SENIOR STAFF WRITER

With midterm elections approaching rapidly, many Brown students have encountered barriers to voting as a college student.

This election day will mark the second consecutive election year that the University has given a holiday for students, staff and faculty for voting. Despite the day off, some students con tinue to face voting difficulties.

For Brown students who hail from outside of Rhode Island and must de cide whether to register in Rhode Island or vote absentee, the process can be accompanied by several deadlines.

Adam Brandt ’24, civic engagement fellow at Brown Votes, said the discrep ancy between college and home ad dresses could lead to difficulty accessing ballots if students forget to switch their registration address. This could lead to their ballot being sent to their home town address rather than College Hill. He said the issue is especially common among first-year students, who regis ter before coming to Brown when they don’t yet have a college address.

Another barrier noted by both Brandt and Irene Sung ’23, Every Vote Counts vice president of community, is specific to Rhode Island: The state doesn’t permit online voter registration without a Rhode Island ID. This can make it difficult for voters who need to make last-minute changes to their registration and can only make those changes in person — a task that can be challenging given most students’ busy schedules, they said.

“The other day, I didn’t realize that I didn’t update my address and it showed up on TurboVote that I wasn’t regis tered to vote … and I freaked out,” said Sung. TurboVote is a tool that allows students to register, check their reg istration status and receive voting re minders. “I think the deadline for Rhode Island was Oct. 9 to update something as simple as your address, but I don’t have a state ID or a driver’s license, so that means I couldn’t (make that change) online.”

Tight deadlines throughout the election process are one of the most

“It’s important to (request a ballot and check your voter registration) ear lier rather than later,” Rojas said. “As soon as you recognize you need to get something done, you do it.”

Brandt also noted that there are different deadlines for registering by mail versus in person and voting by mail, so awareness is key.

Assumptions can play a part in missed opportunities to vote, Rojas added. State policies about voting vary drastically, and students can encounter difficulties when they assume Rhode Island operates the same way their home state does.

Sung added that name or address changes, which frequently happen in college, can also lead to voter regis tration status changing, so students shouldn’t assume they’re registered to vote just because they voted in the prior election.

It’s important to be cognizant of who is actually targeted by voter out reach and by political messaging in general, Sung said. “Outreach is very widespread among people who are already planning on voting,” but “it’s not reaching people who don’t know anything about politics or voting in general.”

In addition, race and class inequities can compound issues of voter access, Sung said.

Brandt added that even if civic en gagement isn’t discouraged, it may be less facilitated in certain communities that have been historically disenfran chised.

“It’s not just that the resources ar en’t available, but that the desire and willingness to register and participate isn’t there because the voter fatigue is real,” Brandt said. “People (can get) disillusioned and dismayed with the voting system, especially if (they’re) in a community (that’s) been historically marginalized by the people in positions of power.”

Sung said voting organizations and politicians must prioritize these com munities, making clear that voting leads to better representation and to holding officials accountable in the long-term.

“On behalf of the Asian-American and the Korean-American community, I think that a lot of us are disillusioned by the political landscape in general,” Sung said. “When candidates run for office, they don’t necessarily talk about

the issues facing the Asian-American community, even though they might be talking about minorities or people of color in general.”

Brandt said that politicians should make an effort to make their platforms more accessible to marginalized com munities. He said he could find informa tion about individual candidates’ views on racial equality and LGBTQ rights this year, but that he had to take a deep dive into most candidates’ campaign pages to find that information.

Brandt said the Election Day holi day continues to be a positive change, presenting one less burden for members of the Brown community who want to vote but struggle to fit it into their day.

Anecdotally, Brandt said he believes most students choose to vote absen tee in their home state, so he doesn’t think the day off will necessarily lead to more students physically going to polling places in Rhode Island. Brandt and Sung added that they’ve seen that many Democrat-registered students who hail from majority-Republican states feel their vote will have more of an impact in their home state.

Jewel Medel ’24, for instance, said she plans to vote by mail in their home state of Texas.

“Especially as a young Latina voter, I really want my voice to be heard in the state of Texas,” Medel added. Especially with voting restrictions implemented by the current state governor, it’s im portant to vote in their home state, they said.

Anne-Emilie Rouffiac ’24 also in

tends to vote absentee in Connecticut.

“Connecticut really is my home base, so voting in that state felt more right than switching my registration to Rhode Island,” Rouffiac said.

Rouffiac also notes that particular ballot issues influenced her decision; Connecticut’s ballot includes an item about permitting or forbidding early voting, an issue Rouffiac says particu larly matters to her.

While she hasn’t faced voting bar riers due to being at Brown specifically, she did note that she’s still waiting to receive her mail-in ballot, which she requested at least a month ago.

Since she plans to vote absentee, the Election Day holiday won’t necessarily facilitate her voting process. Yet she feels the holiday is important in setting the trend towards making voting more accessible.

“My family is from France, and Elec tion Day there is always on a weekend in order to avoid issues for people who might have work during the week,” Rouffiac said. “I’m a big believer that Election Day should be a national hol iday, or at least on a weekend day … so I support the University’s decision.”

She added that the holiday rep resents the University’s commitment to critical civic engagement. “At least in principle, making that a holiday for the University shows support for people getting out and voting and taking the time to also really think about their vote,” Rouffiac said. “Having some more time and … (having) that day off really helps you make that mental space to

think critically about your vote, how important it is and how you want to use it.”

Brandt added that while the Elec tion Day holiday is a step in the right direction for Brown, he believes the University could still be doing more to increase voting awareness. He hopes to see the school introduce Election Day programming in future years and says this is a goal Brown Votes has pushed for.

“Bringing in speakers or events to underline the importance of civic en gagement … could be a really valuable use of that time,” Brandt said.

Ultimately, Brandt, Rojas and Sung stressed that the best way to ensure voting runs smoothly is to be proactive in the weeks and days leading up to the election. They recommended that students use TurboVote to double-check their voter registration or to help them register if they haven’t done so yet.

Brandt added that shipping could be difficult at Brown, so students should schedule time in advance to get election materials to the Mail Services.

“The Mail Room does actually pro vide envelopes and stamps for election mail … so they will be able to send off (a completed ballot or ballot request form) for you at no cost to you,” he said.

For those students wondering when they should start thinking about their voting plan, Sung said there is no time like the present.

“You need to give (yourself) time,” Sung said. “Once you have those dates ingrained … you’re going to get it done.”

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ASHLEY

METRO

Construction underway on East Providence offshore wind terminal

South Quay Marine

Terminal to facilitate

growth of Ocean State’s wind industry

BY EMMA GARDNER METRO EDITOR

Construction is currently underway for the South Quay Marine Terminal, a new hub for the shipping and as sembly of wind turbines in East Prov idence, just south of India Point Park. The terminal will facilitate the devel opment of wind turbine technology and the installation of wind farms across the Ocean State and coastal New England.

Gov. Dan McKee and East Providence Mayor Robert DaSilva launched construction at a Sept. 12 cer emony, according to a press release from the governor’s office. “This crit ical investment continues to ensure that our state remains at the center of this key industry,” McKee said in

the statement.

Once completed, the terminal will carry out several important functions, said Seth Grady, chief operating of ficer of R.I. Waterfront Enterprises, which owns the land designated for construction. The terminal will receive shipments of materials for wind tur bines, partially assemble components including towers and blades, then load them onto specialized vessels for in stallation at sea.

The project is expected to be opera tional in time for the start of construc tion on several offshore wind farms that are going through the process of receiving permits, Grady said. “Ulti mately, our target is to end up with a fully operational port in 2025,” he said. “That’s the year when there are multiple offshore wind developers that have the need for it and would be willing to sign a lease.”

The terminal will help address high demand for port facilities as offshore wind farms are built all along the East Coast in coming years, DaSilva told The Herald.

There is currently “a lack of port capacity to handle the amount of work that’s going to be happening at these federally permitted offshore wind in stallations,” he said. “But now we have the unique opportunity to build another port in Rhode Island that’s going to serve us and keep us as leaders in the offshore wind industry.”

The project is partially funded by money from the State of Rhode Island allocated by the legislature and the McKee administration. A “$12 million expenditure of (federal COVID-19 re lief funds) was in the Governor’s ini tial (fiscal year 2023) budget proposal,” wrote state Sen. Valarie Lawson (D-14) of East Providence in an email to The Herald. According to a General Assem bly budget document, the state will allot a total of $35 million in federal funds for the project through fiscal year 2026.

“I was excited to support this proposal as it will lead to significant investment in the green and blue economies as well as the redevelop ment of our working waterfront,” Lawson wrote. Although the project

is not yet completely funded, “signif icant additional funding sources are anticipated,” she added. The General Assembly document indicates that of ficials expect to receive an additional $68 million for the project from var ious sources.

The project is expected to boost the development of the Ocean State’s rapidly growing offshore wind industry, helping Rhode Island meet its climate action goals and creating renewable energy jobs in the process.

“Projects such as the South Quay will contribute to Rhode Island meeting the goals of the Act on Climate” and the 100% renewable energy standard, Lawson wrote. Act on Climate is a piece of landmark legislation signed into law last year that outlines the state’s approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050, The Her ald previously report ed. The renewable energy standard passed this summer requires 100% of Rhode Island’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2033, The Herald previously re ported.

“Rhode Island has been and contin ues to be a leader in renewable energy,” Lawson wrote. “Because of our geogra phy, we are also well positioned to be a renewable energy manufacturing hub for turbines not just for Rhode Island, but all along the East Coast.”

“South Quay will serve an integral role in the process by providing the wind industry with a modern port facil ity capable of handling the movement of turbine components from mainland to the project sites throughout New England,” Lawson added.

DaSilva said the port will be an eco nomic boon to his city and the state. “This will create not only short-term construction jobs, but long-term jobs associated with the offshore wind industry,” including installation and maintenance, he said.

“There’s a very compelling econom ic case” for building such a terminal in Rhode Island, according to Grady. “Rhode Island … is so well-positioned as the Ocean State, and it’s close to many of the offshore wind areas,” he said. “There’s so much that can be done.”

GRAY

HERALD

Providence Hispanic-owned eateries look at origins, hopes for future

Artesa Bakery,

BY ISHITAA GUPTA SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Taking after her grandmother, Leo narda Bermejo Aguilar comes from a family of Mexican bakers and dreamed of owning a bakery when she came to the United States. Her daughter, Andrea Aguilar, vividly remembers accompanying her mother to different locations across the country as she worked to set up her business.

In 1980, Bermejo Aguilar helped establish one of the first Mexican bakeries in Brooklyn, New York. In 2015, more than two decades later, she opened La Artesa Bakery in Prov idence, located at 216 Academy Ave. “It wasn’t until we came to Rhode Island” that Bermejo Aguilar was able to truly make her dreams a reality, Aguilar said.

Today, the mother-daughter duo runs La Artesa Bakery together, pri marily selling pan dulce, a Mexican bread “covered with sweet and crunchy toppings,” according to Aguilar.

“The first two years were very hard,” Aguilar said, citing the busi ness’s poor visibility from the street and competition from more estab lished bakeries in the area. “A lot of people didn’t know about us and we were trying to outsource to different businesses.”

“We would only sell 10 dollars a day, and sometimes we wouldn’t sell at all,” she added. But over the years La Artesa’s clientele and menu ex panded, and “now people come from Connecticut, Boston and sometimes even New York.”

Capitol Hill Taqueria’s owner,

Juan Molina, also saw his business grow over the course of many years. Molina’s restaurant is located on 353 Smith St. and features an extensive menu of specialties ranging from Mexican dishes to American break fast foods.

When Molina first opened the restaurant in 2019, he was only serv ing an American breakfast menu, but when he noticed that “people were looking for nice Mexican food” in the area, Molina decided to expand.

Molina comes from a family of chefs in Mexico City. “All my (extend ed) family is in Mexico and make Mex ican food there,” he said. “When we came to the United States, we opened our first Mexican restaurant, (Capitol Hill Taqueria), here.”

Today, Molina has expanded to three restaurants across Providence with the help of his brother, allowing him to form a strong community with

other Hispanic restaurant owners in the city. “We have many friends on Chalkstone Avenue and Academy Avenue like (La Poblanita) and Casa Mexico,” he said.

Kelly Ann and Jake Rojas, owners of Tallulah’s Taqueria in Fox Point, have been part of Providence’s His panic-owned restaurant community for years. The couple opened their first restaurant — the now closed Tallulah’s on Thames in Newport — 10 years ago. In 2014, they opened their first Tallulah’s Taqueria loca tion on 146 Ives St. and have since opened locations on Sims Avenue and in Jamestown.

“(Rojas) comes from Texas and has a strong Mexican background. All of that culture and background is infused in the food here,” said Alana Marquardt, assistant manager at the Ives Street location.

Tallulah’s Taqueria offers an

extensive menu boasting Mexican classics such as tacos, burritos, tost adas and quesadillas, complete with homemade margaritas, aguas frescas and churros.

“We like to say this is a Chica no-style restaurant, which means Mex ican-American,” Marquardt added. “It’s like a blending of cultures.”

During the pandemic, Tallulah’s Taqueria had to change its infrastruc ture to adapt to the shifting needs of its clientele, according to Marquardt.

Initially, “we had a long table, and it was community-style seat ing” inside the restaurant, Marquardt said. Once the pandemic struck, “we opened up the walls to create windows … (and) offer takeout … through the online ordering systems that we put in place.”

The restaurant also expanded its patio to provide outdoor seating. “That was the top priority,” Marquardt added.

ASHLEY CHOI / HERALD

“To find out how to serve people and how to keep ourselves safe.”

Other businesses echoed the chal lenges of navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. “The pandemic was tough,” Molina said. “But when it passed, we opened slowly … (first) one table, then two tables, and now we’re completely open.”

As eateries return to full capacity operations, all three businesses ex pressed hopes for expansion. Bermejo Aguilar would like to see her bakery open new locations across the Ocean State.

“I would love for everyone to sup port local” businesses, Marquardt said. “Support minority and Blackowned businesses and Hispanic and Latinx-owned businesses … because it’s really important to support those who have a troubled past, troubled present and possibly a troubled future in America.”

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Peng ’26: In defense of ‘pseudoscientific’ personality tests

think.

taking

I

tests myself, my real inter

comes from seeing my friends

their

Through these experiences, I see how different people perceive the world and react to difficult scenarios. For example, one question in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator asks how much the test taker agrees with the assertion, “You enjoy watching people argue.” While I watched some people scoff at the statement’s absurdity, I saw others admit they view arguments as pop corn-worthy entertainment. Sometimes, I dive into theoretical discussions with friends about what the statements mean (for instance, do light-hearted squabbles count as arguments?) and then compare the answers each one of us picks. Other times, I relish the opportunity to simply observe as a friend chews over the state ments presented.

Despite the wide array of scientific articles that denounce personality-typing as pseudo science, there’s a reason 1.5 million people take the MBTI each year. These personality tests are so compelling because they have the ability to put a name to what we already ob serve in reality. They satisfy an innate desire to learn more about ourselves and offer an easy way to describe that self to others. Through this process of introspection, we can better un derstand why we think and act the way we do, as well as what to watch out for under stressful circumstances.

At first glance, your four-letter MBTI test result may seem like gibberish. “What does it mean to be an ENFJ?” you may wonder. This 93-question test is an attempt by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katharine Cook Briggs to classify personalities into four dichoto mies: introversion-extraversion, sensing-intu ition, thinking-feeling and judging-perceiving. While numerous psychologists claim the My ers-Briggs is totally meaningless, I disagree.

While the test may not be scientifically prov en to assign a personality type, taking the test itself can be an effective form of self-reflection that helps us distinguish our own thought pat terns.

The first letter of your MBTI, E for extra version or I for introversion, stands for wheth er you draw more energy from social interac

vations as possible before finalizing a decision, they may appear to be more flexible and spon taneous. By contrast, J-type judgers operate on a “less is more” tenet. They prefer to focus on a few observations and organize them before tak ing in new information. To the outside world, this is why J-types could appear as the more structured planners.

to contribute to your job, there’s still value in taking the MBTI. Taking the test as a guided self-inspection exercise can help you better understand who you are, what is important to you and how you perceive the world. There’s also the social aspect of taking personality tests. Through reading about your personality type, you gain a better sense of how to articu late yourself to society — be it introverted or extroverted, feeler or thinker. Other more ca sual typing practices such as Buzzfeed quizzes, Pottermore’s Hogwarts Sorting Experience and even zodiac signs can similarly be great points of connection. You will find others who identify with you — and see that you are not alone.

tions or alone time. The second letter, S or N, indicates how you prefer to make observations about the world. S-type sensors prefer to form conjectures based on tangible facts, and they value a practical application to the information they receive. Intuitives, on the other hand, pre fer to look for patterns and apply higher-level concepts to future possibilities. These N-types are less tied down by current logistics and enjoy taking intelligent leaps of faith about the mean ing of things.

The third letter, F or T, is based on how you make decisions. F-type feelers tend to make de cisions based on personal values, while T-type thinkers try to remain logical, consistent and impersonal in making decisions. The fourth let ter, P or J, describes how your outer life appears. Since P-type perceivers gather as many obser

The MBTI is designed to pose questions that evaluate these cognitive functions on a percentage scale, generating your four letters based on how much you prioritize one func tion over the other. As it is with any self-as sessment, the test is only as good as what you make of it: You must be honest with yourself when picking answers. That is why it can be dangerous for companies to assign people into jobs through the MBTI, as people might lie on the test to achieve a desired result or person ality type. This use of personality tests strays from their intended purpose: self-actualization. Your results become more about company pro ductivity and workflow than learning who you are.

Even if it has no scientific basis, no abili ty to calculate your personality or no potential

Personally, reading about different MBTI types helps me relate to people who do not think in the same way I do. As a sensor, I must admit that I sometimes reject plausible choices too quickly and lose interest when more intui tive people pitch plans I do not see as practical. I have become wary of this from my reflections on my MBTI type, and I try to keep an open mind. Furthermore, I see discussing person ality types as a way to be vulnerable. Sharing test results is a chance for people to open up to someone new about their weaknesses and inse curities. I’m often surprised by the number of incredible, picture-perfect people I’ve seen who disagree with the MBTI’s assertion, “You rarely worry about whether you make a good impres sion on people you meet.” While personality tests cannot and may not ever produce com pletely accurate results, that might just be what makes them so appealing. There is no concrete answer to who we are; we can only continuous ly discover and reflect.

Christina Peng ’26 can be reached at christi na_peng@brown.edu. Please send respons es to this opinion to letters@browndaily herald.com and other op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

TODAY’S EVENTS

SciLi Maps Tour

p.m.

Library 11th floor

Safety and Situational Awareness

p.m.

Fitness Center Studio 1

TOMORROW’S EVENTS

Rare Objects from the Late Qing to the Republic of China

a.m.

Scholarship Lab

Latinz Heritage Month Salsa

p.m.

Hall

Ethical Inquiry: Sukaina Hirji 3:30 p.m. Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center Petteruti Lounge

Brown University Women’s Vol leyball vs Penn 7 p.m. Pizzitola Sports Center

International Mentoring Program Fall Social 1 p.m. Quiet Green

Brown University Orchestra Concert

p.m.

Hall

“While personality tests cannot and may not ever produce completely accurate results, that might just be what makes them so appealing.”

post-

detaching from detachment and how I learned to enjoy sweet potatoes

by joyce gao illustrated by Lucid Clairvoyant @l.u.cid

I’ve always known that if you really try to stare into space long enough, you can pry open the screen of reality and reveal a sliver of what is behind. Growing up, it was like a game, to lie awake during naptime and stare until I could see the frames of the world shifting off-kilter the slightest bit, just enough to let the detachment come through. Since reality was no longer real, I was no longer attached to anything: not the wooden bed frame, the drywall ceiling, my family’s conversation in the next room, or the body I reside in. My mind floated up like a heavy but determined helium balloon, to a distance where the world below looked like a cool Julian Voss Andreae sculpture; if you try a different angle, everything disappears into thin air. Once I was done with the game, I would break my gaze, and reality would readily unfold to occupy my entire field of vision again.

In psychology, this feeling is called depersonalization-derealization: observing oneself outside of one’s own body and perceiving things around oneself as not being real. Although classified as a disorder at the extreme, most people have experienced this feeling at some point in their lives. For me, naptime during kindergarten was when I

most often allowed myself to drift into detachment.

I distinctly remember the lines of the ceiling tiles in the nap room, since I have seen them tilt and bend so many times in my mind. The teachers would shut the doors and windows to block out the sound of traffic, but in my moments of detachment, nothing could stop me from floating out to the city streets and looking through the window at a room full of sleeping children. I saw my friends sleeping in their small wooden beds, and I saw myself breathing under a blue blanket, all the while feeling the rise and fall of my chest and that same blanket tucked snugly under my chin.

It usually took some time to fully return to my body after naptime, and even then the aftertaste of the experience tended to linger. Once, we had sweet potatoes after the nap. Still dazed from detachment, I suddenly began to think about how unreal food and taste are. I really like sweet potatoes, but during a moment of detachment, they were just a pleasant illusion—and pleasant illusions are still illusions. What is the point of enjoying something that might not even exist? As I chewed on my sweet potatoes, I felt like I was just biting down on air ...

“So, now, I take books to the pool, let them have a look at the sun, and smell the sunscreen. I hope they will absorb it all, so that when I open them again, I can read myself in the in-betweens.”

“I didn’t want to stay inside, so I laid on the dewy grass, wetness seeping through my sweatshirt, and watched the sky. It opened after a few minutes, offering clusters of stars, patterns of the Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt, the bluish hues of the Milky Way against a velvet-navy sky.”

—Grace Layer, “Far From Home”

the walls and me a love letter to hiding places

by Mack Ford

There is no greater joy than to find a new place. I collect them: places to squirrel away in, places to sit and rest for a while, places to dilly-dally. There are places to watch and places to think and, most of all, places to hide.

My hiding places are often fleeting: I lose them as quickly as I find them. I lose them to circumstance, to accident, to memory. One morning, they pulled up the fire escape ladder, and now it’s just a bit too high to haul myself to the top. Last year, I forgot which stairway brought me to the little room on the fourth floor of the public library that smelled like old books and cigarettes. Two summers ago, I realized I was too heavy to swing myself onto even the lowest branch of the sequoia tree in my childhood backyard.

To lose these beloved places causes me nearphysical pain. I miss them like I miss the jasmine perfume my mother wears now that I’m living far from her, or the scratchy fabric of my grandmother's sweater against my cheek.

This is one particular way to lose a place:

I was sixteen years old and sitting on my very favorite bench when a man drove by and yelled a horrible thing ...

living as conjunctions finding the and

by Marin Warshay

It’s roughly 5 p.m. I’m plopped down at our sixseat kitchen table and observing my roommates as they begin to trickle in from their days on campus in search of food for their rumbling bellies. A symphony commences: microwave beeps, fridge slams, the click of our gas stove that has a laggy ignition.

This is the homey cacophony I yearned for when I was in on-campus housing—knowing you are surrounded. Doing mundane tasks together. Cleaning together. Existing together. Boiling water together. That’s what I signed up for in this living arrangement.

On paper.

In theory.

Theoretically.

I love it. I do.

I really do.

Right?

Yes!

Some of us come home with fresh news from the seven hours we’ve spent apart: sometimes good, sometimes bad. No matter the chatter, the movement of the scene is what I’m enamored with. So why do I still feel unsettled in this new home I’ve fostered with some of my closest friends? Why does a part of me still long for the on-campus world I left?+

At home on the first day of classes, I was struck with an intense feeling. Not my senior year angst, not my first-day excitement, but something else entirely ...

—Julia Vaz, “Home"

long way home

understanding love with Everything Everywhere All at Once

by AJ wu

“If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.”

For a long time, I didn’t realize this story was also a love story. It goes like this:

My parents grow up in the 1980s in neighboring towns along the southeastern coast of China. My dad sits behind my mom in math class and studies the curve of her head. He chases after her all through their time in school.

My dad scribbles a poem in my mother’s yearbook at the end of high school. He sends her love letters throughout college, sleeps cold and happy after stealthily giving her his blankets on a midwinter overnight ferry.

I flip to a picture of my mother in her twenties. She is young and pretty. My dad poses next to her, squatting down on a rock and flashing double peace signs.

I flip the page and we’re by the edge of a lake on a day out. My dad skips stones with one hand while baby me in a dress swats at a butterfly as my mother holds me. She laughs at someone behind the camera.

Like any self-respecting queer ABC (Americanborn Chinese), I watched Everything Everywhere All at Once in theaters when it came out. It’s a dazzling sci-fi epic in the multiverse about a middle-aged Chinese-American woman, Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), struggling to keep her laundromat open while her marriage to her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), falls apart. Her emotionally distant father (James Hong) is visiting and she is still grappling to accept that her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), is gay.

Evelyn is filled with regret because of the unfulfilling life she has led since following Waymond to the United States, while ...

Flats

talkin' tennessee

a radical reading of broadway girls and the country canon

by evan ga rdner

Morgan Wallen hails from Tennessee—the home of the Klu Klux Klan, the former land of lynch mobs, and the deathbed of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest hero—and croons endlessly about its virtues and beauty. After he famously said the N-word, his fans made him a martyr to cancel culture, saluting him as their own Colin Kaepernick. This combination of racist origins and behavior makes country icon Morgan Wallen the antithesis of Blackness. After the N-word controversy, Wallen attempted to redeem himself, not through apology, but through song: he released “Broadway Girls,” a collab with Southside Chicago rapper Lil Durk. This move was the classic “I Have a Black Friend” Moment: with streams, sales, and autotune, Wallen attempted to return to the good graces of the Black community. On the surface, this move was an epic failure. But for me, a Black man from New York City, this placed him on my radar for the first time, and ever since I discovered this track, I

have not been able to shake my shameful infatuation with his work. Through love songs about home and a romanticization of what is leftover from the urban elite, Wallen appealed to parts of me I didn’t know were still healing and gave me poetics that–when analyzed using aesthetic cognitivism–hold Black revolutionary potential.

Living as a Black person in the legacy of slavery means trying to piece together who you are without a homeland. Wallen’s songs are collages of his homeland and its glory, built from the forgotten scraps of rural existence; titles like “Talkin’ Tennessee” and “More Than My Hometown” proudly communicate his propensity for declaring his origins. In the lyrics themselves, Wallen tells the story of his land and his people by encapsulating it in small representations of his culture–the kind overlooked by the gaze of mainstream media and “high culture” due to their apparent triviality. As he tells us in “Still Goin’

LIFESTYLE LIFESTYLE

surviving sick season by NADIA HELLER

The recommendations in this article are NOT from a professional doctor, a pre-med student, or even someone who remotely comprehends biology. The following “facts” are based on an English concentrator’s own experiences for remedying sicknesses. She is not to be held responsible for worsening conditions OR speedy recoveries. The reader is advised to “take it or leave it.”

For me, Sunday is the day that gracefully dovetails the weekend into the workweek. It’s a day for the soft smell of laundry detergent to waft through and linger in every corner of the house and for the mop to address the wooden floors. It’s my day for inky newspapers and lazy 2000s songs. The generous hours belong to me, my bed and, perhaps, a walk to an expensive latte.

On this particular Sunday, the last restful day of September, I woke up a monster. I usually wake up rejuvenated on the brink of the afternoon to the sun sifting through the cracks of my blinds—but this gloomy Sunday, every bone in my body ached and shivers snaked from my shins to my fingertips. I was freezing but also sweating. My head pounded against my pillow and my nose leaked like a broken faucet.

When I finally found the ability to move, I rolled out of bed and unfortunately caught my reflection in the mirror. My tan from summer’s kind sun had vanished from my face and left me with a ghostly complexion. My eyes were covered in a thin layer of mist and my lips were cracking all over. The bestowed image was a humbling revelation. After being mortified by my new appearance, I had no choice but to get back in bed and hide from the rest of the world.

For five days I laid in bed with a fever ...

“That’s why we can’t drink. Because we’re so fertile.”

“What if you killed a worm and it’s just somebody’s boyfriend.”

— The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown +

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine protests use of live pigs

training.

BY ASHLEY GUO METRO EDITOR

This Thursday, around 15 people stood outside Page-Robinson Hall, holding signs that read “Modernize Medical Training” and “Brown: Stop Killing Animals.” The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit health organization with more than 17,000 doctor members, organized the demonstration to protest the use of live pigs for training in the joint Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital emergency medicine residency program.

“The reason we’re here right now is because the Board of Trustees of the University is meeting here today,” said Kerry Foley, a PCRM member and retired emergency medicine physician. “The Emergency Medicine Residency Program here at Brown is one of the few in the country that still continues to use live animals to train their residents for what are called surgical airways.” A surgical airway allows a patient to breathe in cases of foreign bodies or extreme facial trauma.

According to a survey by PCRM, Brown is among the 2.8% of emergen cy medicine programs in the U.S. and Canada that use live animals in their

The demonstration was in con junction with a letter sent to President Christina Paxson P’19 and the Board of Trustees, as well as a student petition organized by members of the Brown Animal Rights Coalition. The petition has accumulated roughly 540 signatures from Brown community members, ac cording to Benny Smith ’23, a Brown Animal Rights Coalition student leader.

“This is the only program in New En gland that continues to use live animals, so we just don’t think it’s defensible,” Foley said.

“It’s very soul-sucking for student doctors to be in a situation where they are involved in the death of a living creature for their training benefit,” said Marge Peppercorn, a PCRM member and pediatric physician.

According to Foley, PCRM is fo cused on modernizing medical train ing. “There are now simulators that are human-identical that can be used repeatedly,” Foley said. “If you’re do ing this on a pig, you get one shot. If you’re doing this on a mannequin, you can do it (multiple times) until you are proficient.”

“A pig that’s anesthetized on a stretcher is nothing like a person that is rushed into emergency rooms, so we feel strongly that it’s not as good train ing,” Peppercorn added. “It would not really be an added cost to Brown, since they already have the simulators … The only (technique) they’re training on the pigs is the (surgical airway procedure).”

University spokesperson Brian Clark

wrote in an email to The Herald that “Brown EM trains resident physicians using synthetic models and high-fidelity mannequins for a variety of procedures. Yet, equally effective synthetic model alternatives simply do not exist for ev ery complex medical procedure that an emergency physician must be prepared to perform.”

In a joint statement to The Herald, the University and RIH wrote that they are “committed to the highest standards in the responsible use of animals in the limited instances they are used for train ing medical professionals.”

“The training is overseen by phy sicians and a veterinarian, and is

conducted in full compliance with all pertinent laws and regulations,” the University and RIH wrote in their joint statement. “The hospital has completed rigorous accreditation by the American Association for Accreditation of Lab oratory Animal Care” International.

“This training provides the skills to perform an essential technique for establishing a patient airway during life-threatening situations for both adult and pediatric patients, such as severe facial trauma,” the statement continued.

Clark added that “fewer than 15 pigs are included in the protocol for this an nual training.”

After PCRM initially filed a complaint

in 2019 against the Warren Alpert Medi cal School, Rhode Island State Sen. Brid get Valverde and Representative Joseph J. Solomon Jr. sponsored a bill to limit the use of live animals for medical training in the state. Foley said that she testified twice at the State House in support of this legislation.

Progress on the bill has since stalled, but “we’re hopeful that this will reinvig orate interest in it,” Foley said.

“We should try to minimize harm as much as possible,” said BARC student leader Hari Dandapani ’23. The use of live animals in medical training “is a pretty clear cut case of a way we can minimize harm.”

Group objects to use of live pigs to teach emergency medicine residents

ASHLEY GUO / HERALD

“This is the only program in New England that continues to use live animals, so we just don’t think it’s defensible,” Kerry Foley, a PCRM member and retired physician, said.