Thursday, September 5, 2019

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

VOLUME CLIV, ISSUE 2

METRO

Shiru raises specialty drink prices In-house espresso, matcha, along with other beverages, no longer free

TIFFANY DING / HERALD

Shiru Cafe adjusted its pricing model in response to the complex espresso-based coffee culture in the U.S. to keep the basic coffee and tea free, Maher said.

Shiru’s price increase also arrives as the company adjusts its broader business model in the United States.

The company first transitioned to the U.S. last February with the opening of the Providence cafe, but has since expanded to Amherst, Massachusetts and New Haven, Connecticut. With

Paul Shanley, Deputy Chief of Police at the Department of Public Safety, passed away August 19 at the age of 61 after an eight-month battle with a rare form of bone cancer. “‘Serve and protect’ — that was kind of the essence of him,” said his son Evan Shanley in an interview with The Herald. “Whether it was his family, or the City of Warwick, or Brown, that was what fulfilled him.”

A lifelong Rhode Islander, Shanley found his way into public service when the 1978 blizzard hit his community, burying the state with over two feet of snow during evening rush hour. Then only 19 years old, Shanley decided to check in at the nearby J. Arthur Trudeau Memorial Center, which provides services for adults and children with developmental and intellectual disabilities, to see if he could offer any help. At the time, Shanley worked as a custodian for the center.

Shanley planned to wait at the center until a bus came to bring its occupants home, but the bus never came, according to his son. With dangerous, icy roads, the bus couldn’t get through.

Shanley then spent three days at the Trudeau Center — handing out medication, finding places to sleep and distributing food— before the bus finally arrived.

“That’s kind of what sparked him to pursue a career in law enforcement and serve the community,” Evan Shanley said. “That instinct to serve and protect.”

Shanley went on to earn a B.S. in criminal justice in 1985 from Roger Williams University and then to work at the Warwick Police Department. He started off as a patrol officer and advanced to detective, sergeant, lieutenant and eventually captain. He retired in 2007 but soon decided to work at the University.

“Work made him very happy,” Evan Shanley said. “He had a pension in Warwick, and financially it was not a need for work, but he loved his job at Brown.”

At the University, Shanley was second-in-command to Mark Porter, executive director and chief of police.

SEE DEPUTY PAGE 4

SEE SHIRU PAGE 2

This academic year, graduate and medical students will be able to access group fitness classes for free at the Jonathan Nelson ’77 Fitness Center, said Adam Spierer GS at the Graduate Student Council’s first meeting of the semester Wednesday evening.

Spierer, who was a graduate community co-fellow for health and wellness last year, requested funding from the GSC to support the initiative in May, The Herald previously reported.

The GSC also laid out its priorities and voted on its budget for the semester at the meeting. Their priorities include helping graduate students with housing, reforming the leave of

absence policy, enhancing financial support for master’s students and increasing resources available to graduate students at centers like CareerLAB. The GSC budget for the fall semester, which the council voted to approve, totals $78,715, an amount that comes from the student activities fee paid by graduate students. GSC Treasurer Kathryn Thompson GS noted that this year’s budget is very similar to previous GSC budgets. GSC allocated $21,000 to social events, $15,000 to conference and project funding and $10,000 to orientation. The Graduate Center Bar will receive $13,365, a fee the GSC pays so that the GCB can provide subsidized drinks.

The budget also included a new allocation of $500 to support GSC initiatives that do not fall under the jurisdiction of existing working groups or committees. Such projects will be called ad hoc internal committees.

SEE GSC PAGE 2

UNIVERSITY NEWS

CS department hires Ethics TAs Newly-hired teaching assistants to integrate ethics into computer science curriculum

BY SARAH WANG SENIOR STAFF WRITER Last spring, the Department of Computer Science announced the inaugural hiring of 10 Ethics Teaching Assistants, who will develop and deliver curricula around ethics and society in five of the department’s largest courses.

The department created the ETA program to acknowledge the impact that the products and services created by computer scientists have on society, said Professor of Computer Science and Department Chair Ugur Cetintemel.

Cetintemel, who helped spearhead the program, said that it was important for concentrators to think critically about the usage and possible misuse of the solutions they build. “We want our concentrators to think about the ethical and societal implications of what they do, not as an afterthought but as another fundamental dimension they should consider as they develop their work,” he said.

Besides developing ethics modules, ETAs will organize ethics lectures with high-profile speakers, set up workshops

Metro

Commentary

Commentary

Rhode Island passes law codifying Roe v. Wade after public pressure Page 3

Simshauser ’20: Employees for companies like Uber deserve more labor rights Page 6

Flynn ’20: Laptops distract students in the classroom, should be banned Page 7

SUMMER ZHANG / HERALD

and compile readings for students to utilize. ETAs will not hold TA hours or grade material like other undergraduate CS TAs, according to Jessica Dai ’21, one of two head ETAs. Two ETAs will work on each of the five CS courses in the program this semester — CSCI 0150: “Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming and Computer Science,” CSCI 0170: “Computer Science: An Integrated Introduction,” CSCI 0111: “Computing Foundations: Data,” CSCI 0130: “User Interfaces and User Experience” and CSCI 1470: “Deep Learning.”

The CS department is already incoorporating ethics into its curriculum through multiple courses such as CSCI 1951I: “CS for Social Change,” but the department hopes ETAs will encourage

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pricing model, which supported free in-house drinks, was “based off what had worked in Japan and India,” Maher said. Prior to establishing cafes in the United States, Shiru built a presence in the two Asian countries, where they offer consumers 22 venues with free coffee, a job-recruiting service for students and an academic environment to study.

The company has no plans for further price increases and intends

Paul Shanley, DPS deputy chief of police, dies at 61

BY CELIA HACK UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR

Fitness classes now free for grad, med students

BY KAMRAN KING SENIOR STAFF WRITER

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Shanley is remembered for dedication to University, passion for community outreach

UNIVERSITY NEWS

GSC lays out priorities for semester, approves fall budget in first meeting

BY HENRY DAWSON SENIOR STAFF WRITER Free, in-house drinks used to be the norm at Shiru Cafe, but since August 12, the coffee shop has limited free options to coffee, tea and iced cold brew.

Lattes, matcha, juices, nitro coffee and other specialty drinks served by the cafe now cost between $3 and $5.50, even if consumed in-store. The price increased at all U.S. locations, including in Providence, “due to the cost of the premium ingredients” used in the beverages, wrote Keith Maher, the Shiru Cafe U.S. director of operations, in an email to The Herald.

Maher described a “more elaborate and sophisticated” espresso-based coffee culture in the U.S., which made the process of offering free specialty drinks in American cities unsustainable for the company. The initial

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students to view the topic as a more fundamental aspect of CS. “What we realized was that while it’s important to have these exclusively dedicated courses for these topics, this is not sufficient because sometimes students take these courses and think that they’re done,” Cetintemel said. “We wanted to avoid the checkbox mentality.”

Cetintemel emphasized how the curricula being developed by ETAs will seamlessly fit the specific needs and structure of a class. “What we are doing is not coming up with a standard way of covering this material,” Cetintemel said. “We want the differ-

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

GSC FROM PAGE 1

TIFFANY DING / HERALD

At its first meeting of the semester, the Graduate Student Council outlined its priorities and budget for the semester. Adam Spierer GS also shared that graduate and medical students will be able to access group fitness classes for free at the Nelson Fitness Center.

SHIRU FROM PAGE 1

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LITERARY ARTS COURSES, FALL 2019 For First Year Seminars: LITR 0100 workshops (Introduction to Fiction, Introduction to Poetry) and LITR 0510 and LITR 0710 seminars: spaces were filled by the Dean of the Collegeʼs office. No wait lists are created before the first class meeting; attend the first class to see if space has become available. These courses are open to First Year undergraduate students only.

GSC Chair of Student Life Shekinah Fashaw GS updated the GSC body on the Distinguished Speaker Series, which aims to bring speakers to Brown who cater specifically to graduate students, The Herald previously reported.

The first speaker, whose talk will take place in October, is a correspondent on the National Public Radio’s podcast, Codeswitch, Fashaw said.

GSC President Alastair Tulloch GS gauged interest in workshops about personal finance for graduate students.

Tulloch explained that these workshops might offer insight on taxes, which students in attendance noted can be complex for graduate students, especially international students, to navigate.

Executive board members also briefed GSC body members on openings in the nominations, finance, social, master’s advocacy and international advocacy internal committees. Each of these committees are overseen by a member of the executive board.

GSC members then volunteered to join these committees.

this new expansion, the business initially focused on building its national brand presence and working to establish its American cafes, said Steve Horton, vice president of client development and strategy. But Shiru now intends to grow its corporate partnerships and ramp up the networking side of its business.

“It would be fair to (expect) twenty to twenty-five (sponsorships) by the end of the year” for these cafes, Horton said. By contributing to Shiru’s funding, corporate sponsors can recruit students through the cafe.

Shiru also intends to host more networking and recruiting events in the Providence cafe over the next few months. The company also plans to

Since its opening at the beginning of 2018, the cafe has established three U.S. employment partners: Upserve, Service After Service and Wirecard, Maher wrote in a follow-up email to The Herald. Globally, the company works with about 200 partners, which include Microsoft, Accenture, Cisco and SoftBank.

Going forward, the business hopes to connect cafe patrons with startups based in the New England region, since all of the American Shiru Cafes are based there, Horton said.

connect students with their corporate partners through the cafe’s app, but as of press time, the app’s “sponsors list” page was blank.

Meanwhile, for some specialty drink aficionados on campus, Shiru’s price increase further narrows beverage accessibility. Allie Frankel ’20, a regular Shiru customer, said the price change will either “change how often I come here or change my consumption of cappuccinos and matcha.”

Frankel said she felt “a little surprised by (her) three-dollar coffee.”

For LITR 0110 workshops (Fiction I, Poetry I and Digital Language Arts I): spaces were filled during the registration period. No wait lists are created before the first class meeting; attend the first class to see if space has become available.

For LITR 0210 (Fiction II, Poetry II), LITR 1010 (Advanced Fiction, Advanced Poetry, Advanced Screenwriting) & LITR 0310 and LITR 1110 (Special Topics) workshops: writing samples are due in the front hallway of the Literary Arts Building, 68.5 Brown Street, between 10 am and 4 pm on Wednesday, 4 September. Most sections may accept samples through early afternoon, Friday, 6 September.

For LITR 1000, LITR 1150/1151/2 and LITR 2110 workshop/seminars: attend the first class session; bring a literary writing sample with you.

For LITR 1200 literature course: register through Banner during the registration period; and/or attend the first class.

LITR 0310M – Refusing Objecthood ~ LITR 1000 – The Arts Workshop ~ LITR 1110N – Potential Literature ~ LITR 1150M – Short Fiction Experiments ~ LITR 1151O – Ideas of Narration before Don Quixote ~ LITR 1151S – Fan_Fic ~ LITR 1151X – Interdiciplinary Arts: Translation as Concept ~ LITR 1151Y – Against Genre ~ LITR 1152A – Historic Avant-Garde ~ LITR 1152B – Ekphrasis in Action ~ LITR 1152D – Island of the Mind (HIST 1964S) ~ LITR 1152E – Between the Seams ~ LITR 1152H – Writing from the Archives ~ LITR 1200 – Writers on Writing ~ LITR 2110O – Dialogue, Monologue & Dialect

For details, see https://www.brown.edu/cw or visit “courses at brown”

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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

3

METRO

R.I. passes law protecting abortion rights after months of public pressure Bill passed through General Assembly, governor’s desk in a matter of hours June 19

BY OLIVIA GEORGE SENIOR STAFF WRITER Reproductive rights advocates secured a historic win on June 19 when Rhode Island lawmakers passed legislation that protects the legal right to abortion in the state. The Reproductive Privacy Act, which was passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Gina Raimondo within the span of a few hours on June 19, codifies Roe v.

Wade for Rhode Islanders in case the Supreme Court were to overturn the ruling.

Legislation to protect abortion rights in Rhode Island has been unsuccessfully introduced to the General Assembly for decades, but Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello, D-Cranston, decided to bring it to the floor for a vote for the first time this year. Mattiello is publicly pro-life, but decided to allow for a vote because he “believed this was an important issue that deserved a vote by the full House of Representatives, regardless of his political position,” wrote Larry Berman, a spokesperson for Mattiello, in an email to The Herald. “He also respects the opinions of the state’s citizens and is aware of polling data showing about 70 percent of Rhode Islanders support codifying Roe v.

Wade into state law should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn it,” Berman added.

But in a historically Catholic state, the issue of abortion rights has divided and impassioned Rhode Islanders on both sides of the issue. Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin tweeted that the day of the bill’s

ETHICS FROM PAGE 1 ent courses’ staff to own this material, and that’s the only way it’s going to succeed in the long term.”

All ETAs are CS concentrators, but most are also double concentrating in non-tech adjacent fields, such as philosophy and modern culture and media.

Cetintemel said that the department looked specifically for students from multidisciplinary backgrounds who already had expertise in ethics and social impact. Hiring ETAs from diverse academic backgrounds was a part of the CS department’s larger goal to strengthen collaboration and partnership with the humanities.

Over the summer and during TA training, ETAs worked on ethics material to integrate into courses.

Andrew Rickert ’21, an ETA for CSCI 0130, is currently developing modules on human and AI interaction. Rickert said that the curriculum stresses how designers should let users know how their information is being used so that the process is not entirely hidden from consumers.

As part of her role, Dai is creating an exercise for CSCI 1470 that addresses biases of deep learning.

“I thought that this program would be meaningful in the impact it would have on students,” Dai said. “Not ev-

passage was “a very dark day in the history of our state.” He added that the passage is a “very temporary setback,” and affirmed his commitment to “continue to oppose the prevailing culture of death in our society.” The RPA passed despite opposition from Republican and Democratic lawmakers and with the support of one Republican state representative, Rep. John Lyle Jr., R-Lincoln, Pawtucket.

Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, D-Greater Providence, Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey, D-Warwick, and Majority Whip Maryellen Goodwin, D-Providence, all voted against the bill. Mattiello joined Senate Democratic leaders in voting against the measure. The RPA ultimately passed the House 45 to 29 and scraped by the Senate 21 to 17.

Advocates for and against the RPA have populated the State House over the last few months, staging protests and lobbying representatives. State Senator Gayle Goldin, D-Providence, who sponsored the Senate version of the bill, attributed the RPA’s success to the groundswell of support from local pro-choice movements.

“The real lesson we can take away from that is that activism matters and without that large push of people from around the state paying attention to what was going on in the State House we would not have seen this bill pass,” Goldin said.

This sentiment was echoed by Maeve Wiesen ’21, president of Brown’s chapter of pro-choice advocacy group NARAL, who praised the Rhode Island Coalition for Reproductive Freedom for mobilizing people across the state to contact their representatives and voice their support for the bill.

“It’s really important to have a solid pro-choice presence so that the lawmakers can really understand what the electorate is looking for from them,” Wiesen said.

eryone is going to a random (ethics) event that a student group holds,” but students will consistently work with the material ETAs develop.

Dai expressed concern that ETAs may be perceived as forwarding a certain vision of what it means to be ethical. She emphasized that the ETAs will not act as “ethics police deciding what is ethical and unethical.”

Associate Professor of Computer Science Tom Doeppner said that ETAs will be paid an hourly wage consistent with other UTAs. The department recently announced an increase in the base hourly wage from $10.60 to $11.66 per hour and an increase from an additional $0.20 to $0.22 per hour for every semester TAed before.

Going forward, Cetintemel hopes to expand the program to more classes and to involve departments such as the Program in Science, Technology and Society and Modern Culture and Media.

Since this is the first semester of the program, Cetintemel said the department is still working on figuring out the goals and metrics to evaluate knowledge on ethical topics. “We need to figure out what it means for CS students to learn and internalize these topics.”

JACKSON TRUESDALE / HERALD

The Reproductive Privacy Act seeks to protect an individual’s legal right to an abortion and protects medical professionals who perform abortion procedures from felony assault charges.

But other local coalitions felt betrayed by some lawmakers for supporting the bill or facilitating its passage. In a statement published on their public Facebook page, the Rhode Island Right to Life Committee called the bill’s passage a product of “failures by unscrupulous and smarmy politicians, failures by dishonest media outlets and failures in our own pro-life movement and churches.” The group announced they would retract endorsements given to Mattiello, John Edwards, D-Portsmouth, Tiverton, John Lombardi, D-Providence, Daniel McKiernan, D-Providence, Joseph Shekarchi, D-Warwick and Scott Slater, D-Providence.

In the case that Roe v. Wade is overturned nationally, the bill will protect all who seek an abortion before the point of fetal viability or

after fetal viability in the case that the mother’s health or life is at risk.

The legislation also protects medical professionals from felony assault charges for performing abortive procedures and repeals measures requiring physicians to notify a married woman’s husband prior to terminating any pregnancy.

Rhode Island is one of a handful of Democratic-controlled states that have prioritized abortion protections following the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who joined the highest court in Oct. 2018 and created a strong conservative majority. New York, Vermont and Illinois have also passed bills to protect abortion rights, the Boston Globe reported.

Meanwhile, nine Republican state legislatures have successfully passed bills that restrict abortion access, ac-

cording to the New York Times.

Among many of the state’s prochoice representatives, there is consensus that there is still progress to be made with regards to reproductive rights. “The whole issue of affordability” must be tackled, said State Representative Edith Ajello, D-Providence, told The Herald. Like Goldin, Ajello has long worked to codify abortion rights at the state level.

Rhode Island currently does not allow state funds to be used for abortion procedures unless in the case of life endangerment of the mother, rape or incest. Ajello added that some states use state funds to assist low-income women in accessing abortions.

“Without abortion being affordable, it is not really available,” Ajello said.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

DEPUTY FROM PAGE 1 His responsibilities included conducting internal investigations, acting as the department’s public information officer, heading emergency planning and providing expertise in dignitary protection.

During his tenure as Deputy Chief at Brown, Shanley also received a Masters of Public Administration degree from Roger Williams in 2015.

Shanley was no stranger to late hours while he was at Brown. He and Porter were regularly in communication with each other when a crime happened near or on College Hill, sometimes at 2 or 3 a.m. Then, they would return to the office the next morning to prepare the team’s response to the incident.

Shanley had recently switched his shift from daytime to the evening — 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. — after his grandson was born, so the two could spend time together during the day.

“That’s a Chief’s dream to have their second in command switch to that,” Porter said. “Having him as my partner for 12 years — it was a great relationship. I can honestly say that we really didn’t have any disagreements in the 12 years together, which says a lot about our relationship and synergy.” Porter added that he quickly knew Shanley would excel in the campus policing environment, due to his personality

and professionalism.

Shanley was a decorated officer — he received the First Class Medal and Ribbon for professionalism in 1988 — and he loved to present awards and accolades to officers and staff at the department commendation and swearing-in ceremonies. “It was really important to him to acknowledge and honor their hard work and courage, on behalf of Brown students and faculty and staff,” Porter said.

On top of this, Shanley treasured working with the community outreach team and attended many of the events, Porter wrote in an email to The Herald.

“Cooking with cops” was a particular favorite. Shanley took pride in stationing himself at the grill and finding “special oil to keep the grill clean,” Porter wrote.

Despite his cancer diagnosis, Shanley maintained plans to return to Brown.

“As recently as July, he was talking about trying to come back, even though he had a terminal diagnosis,” said Evan Shanley. “The whole time, his motivation was, ‘I just want to get back to work, a normal life.’”

While Shanley felt devoted to his work, his family still held unparalleled importance to him.

“Being with his family and golfing were the two things that made him happiest,” Evan Shanley said.

Shanley was married to his wife Patti for 29 years. He leaves behind four children — Meaghan, Evan, Christopher and Sean — and one grandson, Maxwell Tyler, who lovingly called Shanley “Dah Pa.” He is survived by his fraternal twin brother, Rev. Brian J. Shanley, President of Providence College, his brother Michael, his brother Andrew and his sister Kathryn.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

COURTESY OF EVAN SHANLEY

Paul Shanley, Deputy Chief of Police at the Department of Public Safety and decorated officer, is remembered by both his family and Chief of Police Mark Porter for his lifelong dedication to his community.

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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | TODAY

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TIFFANY DING / HERALD

“Sign-In,” an Area C Projects art installation commissioned by the Providence Art in City Life Commission, stands in front of Providence City Hall. Who do you think “they” are?

CORRECTION RELEASE DATE– Monday, October 8, 2012

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle CRNorris O S SWO D Lewis Edited by Rich and JoyceR Nichols

ACROSS 1 Fermented honey drink 5 Put in the pantry 10 Prepare email 14 Fairly large fair 15 Symphonic wrap-ups 16 Fuel for a firepit 17 Take an ax to 18 Place for sporting events 19 Money in Milan 20 It makes sense 23 Roses-red link 24 Firepit residue 25 Seeing red 27 __ au poivre 29 Takes a downturn 32 “Little Red Book” chairman 33 Nightstand spot 36 Camping trip dampener 37 It makes cents 40 Easy pace 41 Rested on one’s laurels 42 Parking facility 43 Lines of pews 44 Painter of ballerinas 48 California’s __ Mesa 50 “Just __ thought!”

52 Wagon wheel groove 53 It makes scents 58 Boyfriend 59 Threescore 60 GI sought by MPs 61 Uneaten morsels 62 They’re blue when they’re fair 63 Inca territory 64 Hissed “Hey!” 65 Fashionably dated 66 Periods in history

DOWN 1 Popular tourist destinations 2 Caution earnestly 3 Highest point in a satellite’s orbit

Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article stated that the acronym for Advisory Committee on University Resource Management is “ACRUM.” In fact, it is “ACURM.” The Herald regrets the error.

4 Info 36 Ferris wheel, e.g. 47 Touchscreen5 Sings like Ella 37 Speed trap touching tool Fitzgerald setters 49 Expect loyalty 6 Synagogue 38 Under-the-gun from reading situations 50 In pursuit of 7 Poland-Germany 39 Company doctor 51 Last word border river 40 Comfort from 54 Georgia was a 8 Sounded the bell mom, briefly part of it: Abbr.

9 Biblical twin 43 WWII fliers 55 Emcee’s need 10 Many a junior 45 Produce 56 Leave high student producer 57 Sprinter’s goal 11 Violin-playing 46 __ borealis 58 Jazz genre comedian 12 Rogues’ gallery ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: item 13 Shogun’s capital 21 In the buff 22 English Lit. majors’ degrees 26 Over there, back when 28 Act the accessory 29 Opera headliners 30 Foreboding March day 31 Fresh-mouthed 34 Artistic style of the Empire State Building 35 Hoped-for Christmas 10/08/12 xwordeditor@aol.com weather

Q U OTE OF T H E DAY

“‘Serve and protect’ — that was kind of the essence of him.”

—Evan Shanley, on his father Paul SEE DEPUTY PAGE 1

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

Out of Silicon Valley, a political challenge to an Uberized economy

BY DEREK SIMSHAUSER OPINIONS EDITOR

When Uber was founded in 2009, its prospects for global recognition looked slim. It was a high-end cab service — on-demand black car rides for the Bay Area’s more ostentatious residents. In the ensuing years, however, as the company grew, it became not merely an innovative transportation technology, but an archetype for the many venture-funded enterprises that would follow. Its name became synonymous with an emerging field of on-demand service apps — “Uber for [blank].” As unparalleled convenience spurred consumer demand, similar companies flourished in securing venture funding — Postmates, DoorDash, Grubhub and Instacart being the most successful. A study of 105 personal-service startups by The Atlantic found that these four companies received over $4 billion combined in venture funding, as of March. Venture capital subsidies seem to insulate these startups from the ruthless logic of capitalism. DoorDash can spend years “burning cash,” while being propped up by multiple rounds of venture funding — $535 million from a Saudi-backed fund here, $400 million from the state fund of Singapore there.

Instead, it is the people who perform the actual services for these companies who endure the sacrifices of profit-maximization. Importantly, these workers are not classified as employees, but rather as independent contractors.

This distinction keeps them outside the purview of labor protection laws and denies them bene-

fits received by many employees — unemployment insurance, paid parental leave, health care subsidies, etc. Meanwhile, the companies themselves are lavishly rewarded by this arrangement — labor costs for companies like Uber and Lyft would rise 20 to 30 percent, according to industry estimates, if regulators or courts forced them to treat their drivers as employees. Such is the logic of the servant economy. These com-

These companies proffer autonomy and flexibility (Lyft’s website kindly asks if you “want to be your own boss”) while fighting legal battles to deny their workers basic rights and benefits. panies proffer autonomy and flexibility (Lyft’s website kindly asks if you “want to be your own boss”) while fighting legal battles to deny their workers basic rights and benefits. All the while, ride-app drivers and delivery-app couriers work lonely, isolating jobs for low wages, and without any benefits or direct forms of recourse. They have even been deserted by the federal government: In May, the National Labor Relations Board handed a major victory to Uber when it concluded that its drivers were contractors, not employees.

The California state legislature, however, is looking to pass landmark legislation that would

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mitigate many of the problems laborers face in a service-app economy. Assembly Bill 5 would entitle these workers to employment benefits and grant them the right to unionize. The bill, which was proposed by former labor organizer Lorena Gonzalez, would codify into law a 2018 California Supreme Court ruling known as Dynamex, which laid out a restrictive set of criteria for classifying a worker as an independent contractor. AB5 is expected to pass the state senate on September 13 and to be signed into law by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, and would pose a major challenge to service-app companies, who could be compelled to treat their supposed contractors as employees. Newsom even penned an op-ed in the Labor Day edition of the Sacramento Bee in support of the bill. “Creating new ways for workers to organize,” he writes, “is a key component of tackling the level of inequality that undermines our entire economy and threatens our children’s future.” While this bill would not be a panacea for the disenfranchised workers of the gig-service economy, it provides a model that other states may follow and helps to shelter service-app workers from inevitable legal challenges in the future.

And as AB5 garners national attention (Elizabeth Warren , Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris have all given public endorsements), it suggests an expanded conversation of labor rights for app-service workers. Certainly, the relationship between labor and management is increasingly fraught in many sectors, as union membership declines, automation looms and wages stagnate. But few industries are more wanting for strong unions than the on-demand service

industry. Labor is entirely disconnected from management; while Uber drivers and Grubhub couriers certainly aren’t their own bosses, they also have no contact with any person of authority. The atomized drivers lack a community in which to bond with co-workers. Nor do they have any line of contact with management to discuss contractual or structural changes. A union among an app’s laborers could provide many material benefits through collective bargaining: higher wages, contractual stability, secured benefits. But just as importantly, a union would create a tenuous community for these isolated workers, a respite from their inherently alienating jobs. As the gig economy continues its ascent — a 2018 Gallup survey found that 36 percent of American workers have some form of “gig work,” either as their primary or secondary job — a conversation of its workers’ rights must follow. Gonzalez’s bill is a promising start, and will hopefully catalyze further legislation and discussion around service-app labor. It is a radically dislocating form of labor, and as such, merits swift action. And the necessary moves will certainly not come from the tech companies themselves: They would much rather pour resources into automating the laborers away than on improving their conditions. The onus is instead on legislators and judges, as Assembly Bill 5 shows, to quell service-app profiteering.

Derek Simshauser ’20 can be reached at derek_simshauser@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

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Brown should ban laptops from the classroom

BY JAMES FLYNN OPINIONS EDITOR

Laptops are ubiquitous in Brown’s classrooms.

Whether in a 100-student lecture or a small seminar, many students spend most of the class staring intently at the screen a few feet in front of them, rather than at the professor or the board. Just a cursory glance from the back of the classroom will show you the range of things that are competing successfully with the professor for the students’ attention: Facebook, iMessage, games, online shopping. Indeed, everyone at Brown has had the experience of sitting in eyesight of another student’s flashy distraction, if not already preoccupied by their own. I’m calling on Brown to ban laptops from the classroom not just in attempt to generalize a pet peeve of mine, but because many studies actually suggest that students who use laptops in class — and those sitting around them — consistently retain less information and perform more poorly on tests. Brown ought to heed the implications of these studies by banning laptops from the classroom.

Laptops make it too easy and too tempting to multitask , thereby distracting students from focusing on the content of the class. Even when one is committed to taking notes on a laptop, YouTube is just one click away, and that click is often irresistible. In a seminal 2003 study at Cornell, half of a class was permitted full use of their laptops, while the other half was not. The half using laptops performed much worse on assessments of the material taught in the lecture.

A 2006 study, moreover, found the more often that students used a laptop in a class, the worse

they performed. And laptops have been found to hinder performance in an entire course, not just in individual lectures. In a 2016 study at the United States Military Academy, classrooms that allowed laptops produced lower scores on final exams than did classrooms that prohibited them. Findings such as these refute the potential argument that typed notes on a laptop leave students more prepared for final exams.

Even if one considers the enjoyment of using Facebook in class to be worth the cost of performing more poorly in that class, the surrounding students should not be forced to make that

batim. But verbatim notes, research suggests, may not be a good thing. University of California and Princeton studies from 2012 found that students who took notes on laptops tended to transcribe the professor’s words nearly precisely, yet they performed more poorly when quizzed on that material, whether the quiz was given immediately after the lecture or a week later, than did those who took notes with the old-fashioned pen and paper. The researchers surmised that a student taking notes by hand, who does not have time to write down everything, must therefore conceptualize the materi-

“Even when one is committed to taking notes on a laptop, YouTube is just one click away, and that click is often irresistible.”

trade-off. In an important 2012 study, it was not only those who were multitasking on laptops that received lower scores on tests of the lecture’s content. Those who directly viewed a laptop-using peer also received lower scores. In this way, one student on Facebook unwittingly distracts many other students as well.

Some may argue that laptops, when they are not distracting everyone with social media and games, serve a useful purpose: students can type much faster than they can write, so laptops enable them to take more thorough notes.

This is certainly true. While typing, one is able to capture the professor’s words almost ver-

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al in order to extract the most important information. When quickly typing notes, a student does not have to conceptualize the material and therefore does not learn it as thoroughly.

Another alleged benefit of laptops is that they allow students to supplement what is being taught in class with other relevant information from the internet, whether from Canvas or from Wikipedia. In theory, this sounds great.

But in practice, probably very little of the internet browsing that students do in class is actually related to the class. A 2017 study at Michigan State University sought to measure objectively the ways in which laptop users spent their time

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in classrooms. Throughout a semester, 85 students logged onto proxy servers that tracked their internet browsing history, the duration of their internet browsing and the frequency. Researchers could then see exactly which websites students visited, and for how long. They found that students spent nearly 40 minutes of every 100-minute class period on the internet for things unrelated to class, such as social media, email, videos and games. By contrast, students spent an average of less than five minutes using the internet for things related to class, such as viewing the syllabus or course-related slides.

Again, the more students used the internet, the worse they performed in the class. This correlation was upheld even after researchers accounted for the motivation, the interest and the intelligence of the students — this means it is not the case, as some might conjecture, that less interested, less motivated, or less intelligent students are more likely to use laptops; rather, the laptops themselves caused the students to perform poorly.

One exception to my proposed ban on laptops is for students whose SEAS accommodations permit the use of laptops in class. Of course, students who absolutely cannot perform without the aid of a laptop deserve access to one. But otherwise these devices are distracting, and moreover, just plain annoying. If Brown wants its students to learn more, it should do away with them from the classroom.

James Flynn ’20 can be reached at james_ flynn1@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald. com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

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