Tuesday, November 12, 2019

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2019

VOLUME CLIV, ISSUE 49

BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

UNIVERSITY NEWS

U. to make veteran admission need-blind

Paxson announces policies meant to more than double student veterans by 2024

BY WILL KUBZANSKY AND TYLER JACOBSON STAFF WRITERS

BY CLARA GUTMAN ARGEMÍ STAFF WRITER

release.

To eliminate all out-of-pocket costs toward tuition and fees for veterans and their dependents, the University will in-

Yesterday night, Pamela Ipinza, an employee of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights of Chile, stayed behind at her job in Santiago after many of her colleagues had gone home for the evening. Across Chile, people were preparing for a national strike that is expected to sweep over the country today.

“I am the only person here,” she said over video chat to the audience of an event titled “Chile Despertó:

SEE VETERAN PAGE 4

SEE CHILE PAGE 8

SARA RUNKEL / HERALD

President Christina Paxson P’19 announced policy changes that the University hopes will attract more veterans to campus during the Veterans Day Ceremony Monday afternoon. veterans gain admission to highly selective universities by assisting them collect letters of recommendation and navigating the college application process, according to its website.

“It’s essential to expand support and

create new pathways, both to honor their service and to enhance the education of every student who benefits from the unique lived experiences and perspectives that our veterans contribute to campus,” Paxson said in a Monday press

METRO

Elorza releases new Climate Justice Plan Policy goals focus on frontline communities in addressing climate change

METRO

Plant City, PVDonuts, Louis owners discuss food industry Food establishment owners describe dynamics of Providence food scene

BY ISABEL INADOMI SENIOR STAFF WRITER With the impacts of climate change disproportionately affecting low-income communities in Providence, Mayor Jorge Elorza unveiled a plan that he hopes will help mitigate the disparity.

The “Climate Justice Plan,” released Oct. 25, aims to combat climate change in Providence through a “justice lens,” offering detailed policy recommendations as well as more sweeping systemic changes that would transition the city away from fossil fuels while prioritizing community impacts, according to a city press release.

The plan includes specific benchmarks for “frontline communities,” or those most impacted by climate change, such as reducing the rate of childhood asthma by more than double by 2035. It also outlines “housing and anti-displacement” targets as well as goals for more “collaborative” governance structures.

‘Chile Woke Up’ arrives at University

Chileans reflect on last month of protests, today’s planned national strike

The University will eliminate out-ofpocket costs for all undergraduate veterans and make applications need-blind for prospective student veterans, President Christina Paxson P’19 announced at the Veterans Day Ceremony Monday afternoon.

The University also plans to eliminate the standardized test score requirement from the application process for student veterans. These changes will impact applicants starting with in the 2020-21 school year.

These policies collectively aim to more than double the population of undergraduate veterans on campus by 2024. There are currently 21 undergraduate veterans on campus.

In addition to these changes, the University will partner with Service to School’s Vetlink program, which helps

UNIVERSITY NEWS

BY HENRY DAWSON SENIOR STAFF WRITER

SUMMER ZHANG/ HERALD

Providence is one of the first cities in the country to have a plan that focuses on frontline communities, according to Ben Smith, director of marketing at Elorza’s office. This is particularly important as low-income communities are more vulnerable to the impending effects of climate change such as increased flooding and heat waves. With these anticipated events comes a greater risk of health hazards for these neighborhoods, which already report higher rates of asthma, The Herald previously reported.

The plan has been in the works for two years and grew out of a collaboration between the city’s Office of Sustainability and the Racial Envi-

ronmental Justice Committee, Smith added. The REJC formed as part of the Equity in Sustainability Providence Initiative and is composed of community members and local government officials.

“One of the things that I was really pleased to see was that one of the early goals of the plan was to have members of the Racial Environmental Justice Committee represented,” said Kurt Teichert, a senior lecturer in environment and society at the University who has been monitoring the plan through its release. He added that the presence of the REJC brought a new perspective to the proceedings.

SEE CLIMATE PAGE 2

The owners of an Instagram-darling donut shop, a plant-based food ‘city’ with four restaurants under one roof and a 5 a.m. diner once featured by Guy Fieri convened yesterday to share their stories and discuss entrepreneurship.

The Food in Providence panel, hosted by the Brown Entrepreneurship Program and moderated by Jennifer Nazareno, assistant professor of behavioral and social sciences, brought together local food establishment owners in the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship Monday evening. The foodies discussed small-business management, the utility of social media and quirks particular to Providence’s food scene.

Lori and Paul Kettelle, two panelists, are the co-owners of PVDonuts, an artisanal donut shop started in 2016. Lori Kettelle grew up in New Jersey, but Paul Kettelle is a Providence local. They cater

Metro

Arts & Culture

Commentary

Commentary

Nina Alvarez discussed immigrant experiences in a Monday lecture Page 2

Student play “Dry Swallow” explores substance use, violence, art Page 3

Secondo GS: Journalists, government sources safeguard democratic values Page 6

Meszaros GS: University-provided resource Brown Blogs should be improved Page 7

everything from weddings to divorce parties, they said at the event.

Kim Anderson, another panelist, is the owner, creator and founder of Plant City, which opened in Providence in June. She also runs a fund called Everhope Capital that invests in plant-based foods and renewable energies to hedge the climate crisis. Plant City is her first foray into the food industry, although she previously invested in Chopt Creative Salad.

Plant City has been open for five months and has since become a popular destination for many Providence locals.

Within 72 hours of opening, they had served 13,000 people. And within three weeks, their staff size had grown from 90 to 220, according to Anderson, who shared stories about managing that intense increase in scale.

The fourth panelist, John Gianfrancesco, owns Louis Family Restaurant along with his brother. He is part of the third generation of his family to work in the culinary industry and the second generation in the restaurant. He described a time when 18 members of his family worked with-

SEE FOOD PAGE 3

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CLIMATE FROM PAGE 1 Elorza, who previously set a goal for Providence to become carbon neutral by 2050, said in the plan that the REJC “raised important issues, like making sure climate action doesn’t lead to displacement, and that we prioritize reducing carbon emissions that harm Providence’s most vulnerable populations.”

The involvement of the REJC followed Elorza’s effort to center the voices of affected communities. “The primary shift is the shift of power and decision-making and accountability,” said Andrea Atkinson, executive director at One Square World, a nonprofit which helped manage the process of creating the Climate Justice Plan. Atkinson added that generally, climate policy decisions are made by people who are not from impacted communities, and thus lack first-hand knowledge of these issues.

Teichert echoed Atkinson’s sentiments. “The goal of this plan was to have the plan developed at the grassroots level, with the people in those

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS communities at the core,” he said, adding that the approach was much more “ground-up” compared to the traditional method of prioritizing the expertise of outside consultants.

The plan also includes an audio component of prerecorded scenarios entitled “Future Stories,” narrated in both English and Spanish. These stories provide nine different speculative accounts on how Providence will be transformed in accordance with climate change goals. Teichert added that these stories are particularly important in combating the idea that climate change is too big of a problem to tackle. “Helping people envision what their stake is in this and what they can do about it, I think it can be really powerful.”

The plan aims to tackle emissions from buildings and transportation, which constitute the most significant sources of climate pollution in Providence.

“The City has already begun efforts to implement key strategies of the plan, with longer-term projects to be executed as outlined,” Smith wrote in an email to The Herald.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2019

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UNIVERSITY NEWS

Nina Alvarez discusses immigration policies, experiences Columbia Journalism School professor talks myth of perfect immigrant

BY MORGAN MCCORDICK STAFF WRITER While speaking to students about her documentaries on the immigrant experience, Columbia Journalism School Professor Nina Alvarez addressed misconceptions surrounding the American dream and immigration into the United States.

Throughout the Monday evening lecture, titled “The Perfect Immigrant and Other Myths,” Alvarez showed how federal immigration policies that were first implemented years ago could still affect perceptions of immigration today.

“Past policies are kind of what got us where we are now,” she told The Herald, referencing a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States.

Later in her talk, Alvarez used clips from her 2012 documentary that aired as part of the PBS series “Latino Amer-

icanos” to critique the persistent myth that immigrants pose a “burden on our economy and our taxes.” The PBS series focused on the waves of immigration that occurred mid-20th century from Puerto Rico and Cuba to the United States.

The rise in immigration fueled a narrative that “what immigrants must receive in support has supersede(d) what immigrants end up contributing,” she said.

Alvarez also discussed her upcoming documentary “This is My Country,” which explores the lives of Salvadoran immigrants who currently face uncertainty in maintaining their Temporary Protected Status. In 2017, the Trump administration said they would suspend the program, which allows individuals from disaster-ridden countries to remain in the United States. In November, the Department of Homeland Security said these temporary protections would apply through January 2021, as courts debate the legality of the program’s suspension.

The Trump administration’s attempts to phase out the program, which affects over 400,000 people in the United States, illustrate an effort to draw a distinction between immigrants in the

country, Alvarez said. Specifically, by ending TPS status, the administration indicated the existence of an “undesirable immigrant as a burden and the per-

the current immigration debate. Andrea Vega Troncoso ’20, who attended the talk, appreciated Alvarez’s analysis of the TPS issue.

HUAYU OUYANG / HERALD

“The Perfect Immigrant and Other Myths” was hosted by the Center for Latin American Caribbean Studies in their storytelling lecture series. fect immigrant, who is a contributor” in the country, she added, further describing how this separation disregards the dire circumstances that led the migrants to look to the United States for help.

Audience members were particularly drawn to Alvarez’s discussion on

“It’s important to talk about the TPS story because I think it’s overshadowed by other immigration issues,” she said.

Chaelin Jung ’23 echoed her appreciation for Alvarez’s approach to covering TPS. “Alvarez’s resounding theme to fo-

cus on the stories of migrants was also a very necessary reminder of the need for people-centered journalism,” she said.

Further, Alvarez explored the increasingly popular sentiment that the American Dream has become a mere myth, an idea engendered by rising economic inequality and the escalation of open hostility toward immigrants.

“Americans have fully bought into the idea that there isn’t enough to go around,” Alvarez said, referencing a concerning trend that has compounded fears among immigrants that they cannot succeed in the United States.

But in light of this popular sentiment, Alvarez suggested that the fraying idea of the American Dream warrants new conceptions of immigration altogether. Alvarez said she hoped personal stories featured in her documentaries might encourage Americans to consider that immigrants in fact “expand (the country’s) possibilities.”

The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, which hosted Alvarez, will continue to sponsor similar lectures for their “Storytelling in Americas: Journalism, Gender, Fiction and Borders” series throughout the year.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2019

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

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ARTS & CULTURE

Play ‘Dry Swallow’ explores role of drugs, violence in parallel worlds Student play underscores oppressive impacts of broken drug system

Baisch nudges us to understand that the drugs passing through their hands create a sort of symbiosis among them; they are all part of the same broken system.

While sitting on his street corner, peddling his drugs, Pal professes: “Shit, I’m alleviating pain.

I’m on that Robin Hood shit, Yo, I’m fighting the megalo-empirical-man.”

To which Chula replies,

“They’ll never see you as anything more than what you is.”

And indeed, here is the tragedy revealed in the play: The system — ambiguous, omnipresent — deals the cards.

Drugs may flow laterally and longitudinally across the country, from street corners to rural pharmacies to ritzy galleries, promising health, wealth and euphoria, but the fates of individuals are predetermined. The poor will pay

the system’s cost with their bodies and their freedom, while the rich waltz past unscathed.

The play hits a climax near the very end. Nasir and Porter stand in front of a gallery audience, toasting the smashing success of Nasir’s latest exhibit. Behind them, in an illuminated shipping container, we see Pal, gagged and bound to a cinder block.

Earlier in the show, Nasir righteously

proclaimed that pharmaceutical companies “contribute to these systems of oppression — these illegal pipelines being created for distribution — and those on the ground, the people actually handling the product, they’re the ones suffering the consequences.” But although Nasir might rage against this “cycle,” the juxtaposition of Pal’s pitiful silhouette in the background with the champagne and applause in the gallery makes it clear that his art contains a deep injustice, if not its own sort of violence.

Although decidedly serious in tone, the show is remarkably funny at points.

The audience collectively bent in two as Shitstain — Charlie Stewart ’20 — strutted onto the stage, sporting red converse and a prep school blazer, demanding to know whether Pal had a chip reader through which to purchase his Xanax.

Scott and Rafter also provide us with some lighter moments; their portrayal of young parenthood is touching and sincere.

Perhaps the most striking element of the production is Baisch’s prose itself.

His characters, in their frequent monologues, do not so much speak as spew, hurling effervescent bits of language to the audience at a giddying rate. This effusion, when directed toward the audience, has the effect of making us feel implicated in the whole mess playing out on stage — which, of course, we are.

has 93,400 followers on Instagram, the app brings in a significant percentage of their business, Paul Kettelle said.

Anderson described how Plant City maintains an active online presence.

She encourages customers to “let their phone eat first,” and spread the word about the restaurant through social media. She also monitors online comments about the restaurant. “Those recommendations, when somebody writes a biting one, it hurts,” Anderson said. “It can hurt your business.”

“I know nothing about this stuff!”

Gianfrancesco chimed in to the social media discussion.

When it comes to other restaurants in Providence, the Kettelles recommended Bayberry Beer Hall in the West End. Paul Kettelle likes it for the variety of food and beer, community emphasis and friendly owners.

Anderson admires Nick’s on Broadway, and used to go to The Grange all the time. She hopes that Plant City will raise community awareness of plant-based companies and lead to a spill-over of plant-based eaters that will support other businesses.

Gianfrancesco, on the other hand, said he rarely finds time to eat out given his early and demanding schedule. “I

don’t go anywhere,” he said.

All business owners said they enjoy working in Providence.

“People are willing to try anything,” Lori said. “We’ve done the most ridiculous donuts.” PVDonuts once had a cheeto donut special, and enjoyed a line out the door during the weekend

it was offered. “I just think everyone in Providence or Rhode Island is looking for the next coolest thing to do.”

Anderson said she likes the size of the city. “If you’re on a street corner in New York, which maybe someday we will be, that’s such a transient community, there’s no chance for relationships,”

she said. “It’s about building relationships and making friends, and you get a chance to do that in a city like Providence.”

And, for Gianfrancesco, it is simply home. “It’s my town. It’s home. Everytime I go someplace I’m so happy to be back.”

BY MARIANNA SCOTT CONTRIBUTING WRITER This past weekend, Sock & Buskin produced the play “Dry Swallow,” a gritty interrogation of the relationship between drugs, class, violence and art.

The play, written by Lucas Baisch MFA ’20 and directed by Brooklyn-based Bengali director Shayok Misha Chowdhury, takes place in three separate worlds.

Pal, a young man — Marcel Mascaró MFA ’18 — and Chula, an old woman — Magnolia Pérez — sell drugs on a street corner in East Los Angeles. Sik, a CVS security guard — Sammie Scott ’21 — and Dori, her pregnant girlfriend — Siena Rafter ’21 — nip prescriptions from the pharmacy to sell for extra cash. Nasir — Aaron Alper ’23 — and Porter — Clare Boyle ’20 — both young art-types from wealthy backgrounds, bicker over Nasir’s latest conceptual project: ingesting a drug that will end — then restore — his life.

The pairs of characters in “Dry Swallow” are geographically isolated, yet

FOOD FROM PAGE 1 in the building on Benevolent Street.

Now, on days he works, Gianfrancesco wakes up at 3:57 a.m, fields a call at 4:17 a.m. from one of his waiters, Kenny, and then starts to set up for the restaurant’s 5 a.m. open time.

“We used to be very busy in the mornings. People would stay up studying,” he said. “Or partying.”

The panelists fielded questions from the room, which seated about two dozen students. They asked about profit margins, sustainable environmental business practices and benefits they give to their employees.

David Lu ’22, the director of the Special Events team for Brown EP, chose the selection of local entrepreneurs based off of perceived student interest.

“I really liked all the speakers,” Lu said. “They came from diverse backgrounds. Kim worked in funding companies before, Louis is a classic, it’s a multigenerational business … Of course, Providence Donuts has their great Instagram game.”

With the exception of Gianfrancesco and Louis, each panelist highlighted the role of social media in bolstering their customer base. For PVDonuts, which

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COURTESY OF TAPS DEPARTMENT

The play “Dry Swallow,” written by Lucas Baisch MFA’20 and directed by Brooklyn-based Bengali director Shayok Misha Chowdhury, is set in three separate worlds.

HENRY DAWSON / HERALD

The Food in Providence panel featured the owners of PVDonuts, Plant City and Louis Family Restaurant.

They discussed the use of social media, business management and the food scene in Providence.

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crease the value of Yellow Ribbon scholarship awards, wrote Vice President of Communications Cass Cliatt in an email to The Herald. The award is a provision of the Post-9/11 GI Bill that allows approved private institutions to fund the tuition of veterans. Currently, the University caps its Yellow Ribbon contribution at $10,000 per student veteran, which is matched by

non-transfer students.

The elimination of standardized testing will also help open up the University to more veteran applicants, said Maxx Cummings ’21, who served in the air force.

“There’s a lot of talented veterans, smart guys and gals out there who don’t have standardized test scores,” Cummings said. “It’s another thing they have to do before applying.”

the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The University has not yet specified the amount by which the value of this scholarship will increase, but will rely on a previous anonymous gift to begin funding the increased aid, which will cost an additional $1.5 to $2 million a year. The University is also currently assessing the possibility of implementing the increased aid this year, Cliatt wrote in a follow-up email to The Herald.

The University has already begun a campaign to fundraise the additional $25 million required to maintain need-blind student veteran admissions, Paxson said at the event.

Michael Muir ’20, a former U.S. Marines combat engineer, said that increasing the enrollment of student veterans would support the University’s commitment to forming a student body representative of the nation’s demographics.

“I think the veteran demographic is one that does represent this country. I know Brown strives to mirror the social fabric of this country,” Muir said. He described the primary current obstacle for veterans to attend the University as “financial accessibility.”

Muir called the initiative to more than double the veteran population in five years an “admirable goal,” but he hopes to see Brown “go beyond” that number.

Army veteran Conall Finn ’22 added that the University’s financial barriers and lack of need-blind admissions have previously limited the population of veterans on campus.

“The biggest challenge the University has right now in attracting the caliber of veteran who can come to Brown and succeed is the financial policies,” Finn said. Since many student veterans apply as transfer students, they cannot benefit from need-blind admission policies like

Muir added, “They’re thinking, ‘I don’t have the time or discipline to study right now, I’m deployed to Afghanistan, and there’s no way I can compete with a typical Ivy League student.’”

This is not the first time the University has expanded its efforts to increase the number of student veterans. In 2017, the University announced it would waive the application fee and guarantee phone interviews for veterans who complete an undergraduate application, The Herald previously reported. In addition, the Resumed Undergraduate Education program — which allows students who have delayed their formal education for six or more years to apply through a separate application pool — has attracted many veterans.

“It’s 100 percent the reason why (Aimee and I) are at Brown,” said Joel Fudge ’21, who learned about the RUE program while he and his wife were students at the Community College of Rhode Island. Aimee Chartier ’21, recruitment and retention coordinator at the Office of Military-Affiliated Students and a Marine veteran, led the Veterans Day Ceremony on Monday.

Kimberly Millette, program director at the Office of Military-Affiliated Students, said that student veterans crucially enrich the education of non-veteran students at the University.

“Many students at highly selective institutions such as Brown proceed to careers in public service, and some will become the members of Congress who make decisions about whether we go to war,” Millette said in the University press release. “To not interact with veterans or service members would be a disservice to any future leader — for that reason alone, the presence of veterans on every campus is essential.”

VETERANS FROM PAGE 1

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2019

SARA RUNKEL / HERALD

The University aims to more than double its student veteran population through need-blind admission and increased scholarship funding.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2019

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Q U OTE OF TH E DAY

S U D O KU

“(Providence) is my town. It’s home. Every time I go someplace I’m so happy to be back.”

—John Gianfrancesco SEE FOOD PAGE 1

C ORRECTI ON A previous version of the Nov. 11 article titled “Graduate Center Bar turns 50” misspelled the name of Jordana Siegel ’20 as Jordana Siegal. The Herald regrets the error.

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, January 22, 2013

CR O SDaily SWO RD Los Angeles Times Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Manila envelope feature 6 Baseball SS’s stats 9 Web money 14 Old Turkish bigwig 15 Dwarf with glasses 16 2009 Panasonic acquisition 17 “Something to Talk About” singer Bonnie 18 *Coffee drinker’s complaint 20 Poet’s before 22 Contest for lumberjacks 23 Nova __ 26 *Direct path 30 *Rowboat attachments 33 Key of Mozart’s Requiem Mass 34 Juneau-toKetchikan dir.

35 Some sorority women 37 D.C. baseball team 38 Frittata base 40 Convent dweller 41 Painted Desert formation 42 Controversial apple spray 43 Mexican state bordering Arizona 45 “Reading Rainbow” network 47 Country with six time zones 49 *Flaw in a fence 51 *Quarter 53 Kitchen gadget 54 Volleyball venue 56 Street shader 57 *“The Golden Girls” co-star 61 Crème de la crème 65 Big name in bars 66 “Do __ favor ...”

67 Lucky roll, usually 68 Teacher’s group 69 Like a single shoe 70 Flair DOWN 1 EMT’s skill 2 Anaheim team, on scoreboards 3 “Take me __ am”

4 “Fiddler on the Roof” village 5 Hale and Revere, notably 6 EPA-banned pesticide 7 Not up to snuff 8 Shaggy’s dog, to Shaggy 9 Regard 10 “Sweet” woman in a Neil Diamond title 11 Yucatán year 12 Thesaurus entry: Abbr.

13 Sty dweller 19 Winter transports 21 Individually 23 Urgent call at sea 24 Source of legal precedents 25 Tomato sauce herb 27 Up the creek 28 Distinguished 29 Stalling-for-time syllables 31 Numbers game with 80 balls 32 Was so not worth seeing, as a movie 36 Like many quotes: Abbr.

39 Safety rods in shower stalls

41 Without a partner 42 Comic’s routine 43 Occupied, as a desk 44 Harry Potter costume 46 Sun. delivery 48 Country music star __ Bentley 50 Speaker of the first syllables of the answers to starred clues

52 Chowderhead 55 Shaded 57 Secretly keep in the email loop, briefly 58 Pipe bend 59 Battery type 60 “Far out!”

62 Columbia, for one 63 Bus. card letters 64 Acetyl ending

VI RT UAL TOUR OF T H E G CB Scan the QR code below to take a virtual tour of the Graduate Center Bar in honor of its 50th birthday.

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By Jeff Stillman (c)2013 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

01/22/13

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MICHAEL BASS / HERALD

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2019

The quiet defenders of democratic values

BY REID SECONDO ’16 GS STAFF COLUMNIST

Around the anniversary of the extrajudicial murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger ’03 delivered a stirring speech on campus about the mounting threat to journalism at home and abroad. He warned that a free press is no longer a given in an era of disruption and disinformation fomented by the President of the United States. While Sulzberger cited examples of retaliatory actions by the Russian and Egyptian governments against journalists, perhaps what was most shocking was the United States’ retreat from protecting our own journalists, our fellow Americans, from press-hostile states. Is the current administration declining to protect American journalists abroad because their profession does not align with the president’s cynical worldview? Top Trumpists like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo might adhere to that maxim. But what saved a Times reporter from unlawful imprisonment was an unauthorized warning from a lower ranking foreign service official.

Historically, the relationship between such officials and the press is far from rosy; the values of discretion and sensitivity often conflict with disclosure and transparency. But as former war correspondent and United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power mentioned during the Krieger Memorial lecture last month, the reporters tasked with bringing stories to life to affect change and the officials charged with bringing policy to fruition to protect interests share a noble purpose: speaking truth to power.

The fourth estate and the foreign service-na-

tional security apparatus are essential checks on the politicians, institutions and individuals responsible for serving the nation.

In an era when top cabinet members depart from democratic ideals at the behest of an illiberal president, it has fallen on the press and lower ranking diplomats to defend these ideas.

Together, these two groups are among the vital organs of our democracy, guardians of our

sure of accountability, Trump found the perfect boogeymen to frame for his self-victimization and to justify his chaotic presidency as under assault from outside and within. Tragically, the president’s strategy has worked to some extent.

Public confidence in the press remains low and worldwide threats to journalists are at the highest levels in the last ten years. The systematic gutting of the State Department and relegation

“The journalists and government officials who put themselves at risk for their steadfast commitment to the truth and the Constitution are the heroes we need to heal the soul of America.”

way of life by exercising integrity, expertise and commitment to the cause of a free and just world.

Since the beginning of the Trump era, journalists, career diplomats and foreign policy officials have been decried as “the enemy of the people” and the “deep state.” Born out of distrust of elite structures, Trumpists have indicted the press and career government officials as fundamentally anti-American. The cabal of “fake news” pushers and “treasonous” culprits are cast as stewards of a shadow system of collusion; they are the ultimate guardians of the swamp. Fueled by paranoia and displea-

of the National Security Council by Pompeo and other Trump loyalists has diminished the stature and ability of these bodies to effectively carry out their missions. However, the president has failed elsewhere in his quest to undermine the press and beat foreign policy officials into submission. Slightly battered and bruised, these institutions, their occupants and their pursuit of truth and diplomacy are robust.

This brings us to the impeachment investigation into the president and his self-dealing shadow foreign policy in Ukraine. The willingness of lower-tier officials to testify against the president shows how they — not the high-

er-ranking members of the cabinet — are the true guardians of democratic ideals. Despite the White House’s position of non-compliance, a steady stream of diplomats and foreign policy officials have flocked to Capitol Hill to testify on the president’s abuse of power.

Per former national security official Fiona Hill, the ploy to withhold congressionally sanctioned military aid in exchange for launching investigations into the Biden family was derailed as a “drug deal” by former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified that she felt threatened by the president who stated on the now infamous July 25 phone call that she was “going to go through some things.” National Security Council member Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman stressed there was no ambiguity of the White House’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.

The mounting evidence of potential high crimes and misdemeanors is staggering, and the press dutifully keeps the public abreast. In defiance of the president’s continued onslaught to discredit witnesses and news reports, the journalists and government officials who put themselves at risk for their steadfast commitment to the truth and the Constitution are the heroes we need to heal the soul of America. Their principled courage and power again impart on us another lesson from scripture: “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”

Reid Secondo ’16 GS can be reached at reid_secondo@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2019

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

7

Make Brown Blogs better

BY E.L. MESZAROS GS STAFF COLUMNIST The University provides students with a number of digital tools to supplement their academic work. But these tools are only useful if they are effectively implemented. For instance, the technological limitations of Brown Blogs, which allows students to publish their own digital journals, has prevented it from becoming a helpful resource for community members.

Brown Blogs is a Wordpress platform managed by the University that provides an outlet for students or groups on campus. Each student can create one personal blog, which is then hosted by a University Wordpress service.

But the University does more than provide and host this platform: it also mandates how much control students are allowed to have over their blog — including how users are displayed and added, and what additional features can be installed. By limiting student control, the University has effectively limited the usability and functionality of the entire Brown Blogs endeavor.

For example, the display names of writers auto-populate from the University’s records and cannot be changed directly on the Brown Blogs interface. This means that the names of blog authors and administrators have to match the names used within Brown systems. This effec-

tively prevents writing under pen names — a useful tool for those who are trying to separate personal and professional profiles. But this is even more problematic for people whose legal names do not match their chosen names. For some, this might be a minor inconvenience.

For example, I write under the name “E.L.”, but am registered with Brown under my true legal name. But for others, particularly transgender individuals who have not yet legally changed their names, the ramifications are much more significant. Brown Blogs effectively facilitates deadnaming.

While Brown Blogs does offer a workaround, it is not a scalable solution. When I created an author account with Brown Blogs, I was automatically added with my full legal name and could not modify my account name or display name. The Web Services team helped me by manually updating the database.

This is a fine enough work around for one author, but it should be possible to credit work to multiple authors who have different chosen names than their legal ones. Requiring students to individually work with Web Services would not be sustainable. I also would not want to invite authors to a blog only to deadname them with the account creation process — this wouldn’t reflect well on me as a blog manager, but mostly it would be just cruel to potential authors.

Brown Blogs’ lack of flexibility goes beyond display names: only certain add-ons are supported on the site, presumably a conscious

choice of the Brown Blogs administration team.

But some Wordpress widgets and plug-ins that are not supported by Brown Blogs provide additional utility that is necessary for certain projects. In the blogging project I am working on,

“By limiting student control, the University has effectively limited the usability and functionality of the entire Brown Blogs endeavor.”

I wanted to provide contributing authors with their own author pages that would collect links to any posts they have written and also provide a centralized location for their bios. There are Wordpress plug-ins that easily do this, but they are not supported by the Brown Blogs platform.

Without the ability to add such plug-ins, some of the central functionality of the blog project would be lost.

There are other issues that plague the Brown Blogs platform. Individual blogs are only available as long as the blog owner is a student,

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so upon graduation the blog will disappear.

This means that students who create individual blogs are responsible for the preservation of their own work. While there is an option to download one’s blog and re-upload it onto another platform, this relies on students knowing that they need to take this step to preserve their work. Additionally, this requirement diminishes one of the functions of providing a platform in the first place.

Brown Blogs could be a powerful and useful tool for students. Providing us with easy access to an online publishing platform can encourage public scholarship and writing and editing practice — all crucial components of a modern education. The hosting and tech support provided by the University can make these activities easier for students, and certainly the platform’s association with the name “Brown” can give credibility to its users.

But this association with the University comes at a cost. The University should continue to offer Brown Blogs as a service, but only if it makes changes to give students more flexibility. With the ability to access our own display names and add-ons, Brown Blogs can be a powerful digital tool for students.

E.L. Meszaros GS can be reached at e.l.meszaros@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

8

CHILE FROM PAGE 1 Understanding the Social Crisis in the Latin American ‘Oasis,’” hosted Nov. 11 by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Today’s strike follows weeks of countrywide protests that spread from Santiago across Chile beginning Oct. 18, the largest protests since Chile’s transition to democracy in 1990. The strikes were triggered by a student protest over the government’s increase of metro fares on Oct. 6. Out of the million protesting in Santiago, hundreds have been injured by President Sebastián Piñera’s military crackdown. This is the first time since Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship that the government has deployed the military to quell protests.

Panelists at yesterday’s event discussed the historical, social and economic buildup that led to this month’s unrest, drawing particular attention to recent social movements that have helped Chileans develop strategies of mass mobilization. They mentioned as examples the 2006 Penguin Revolution, the student protests of 2011 and the feminist strikes of 2017 and 2018, among others.

The event soon turned into a conversation in which attendees, many of them from Chile, reflected on their own experiences engaging with activism back home and discussed how they perceived their country’s unrest from abroad.

“When we were starting to think about this event, we were trying to go

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS against this idea that no one could have predicted this moment,” said Paula Pacheco Soto ’20, the event’s organizer.

But in her opinion, “maybe (people) haven’t been paying enough attention.”

Although the Gini index, which measures wealth inequality, shows that Chile’s inequality score has decreased in recent years, many Chileans feel frustrated because even living above the poverty line presents economic struggles, said José Belmar GS, a graduate of the University of Chile. “Things that are supposed to be social rights,” such as access to water or education, are unevenly distributed, he added. People are thinking: “If I’m working honestly, why don’t I have access to the most basic things?”

Daniel Rodriguez, assistant professor of History, said that, “The terms of the (historical) memory debate continue to revolve around accountability for human rights violations (committed during Pinochet’s regime), sidestepping the fact that one of the effects of these human rights violations was the continued disavowal of social rights in Chile.”

During the panel, Pacheco Soto talked about her own experience with the 2011 student movement, where protesters learned to organize marches, tomas — which are school sit-ins — performative protests and extra-institutional assemblies known as cabildos. “You understand how people were able to organize so quickly (this month) because these methods have existed for several years. People know how to organize.”

Though the event was intended

to inform any interested attendees, it quickly evolved into a space where Chileans could share their mutual frustrations and hopes about the last month of protests. “Organizing the event came from a place of frustration. Other people don’t know and don’t understand what’s going on,” Pacheco Soto told The Herald. “I was hoping it would work out, but wasn’t expecting so much interaction, which was amazing.”

“We are all here from abroad trying to understand what’s going on,” Belmar said.

“We’re all in this together,” agreed Ipinza over the screen. When one of the audience members asked her about how protesters have been showing care for each other on the ground, Ipinza explained that they keep one another informed about how to interact with law enforcement. She searched for an English phrase to describe “levantar los brazos when the police te apunta with a gun.”

“Raising your arms,” various audience members suggested.

María de la Luz, a Chilean native who lives in Boston, came to Providence just to attend the event. “I feel really frustrated being away. I’m trying to engage with as many opportunities as I can. I think it’s important so people outside of Chile can engage with this,” she told The Herald.

“I can’t imagine not being here,” said Yara Doumani ’22. “The movement extends beyond Chile.” Doumani, who is not Chilean, is considering studying abroad in Chile next semester. “I came

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2019

TIFFANY DING / HERALD

Assistant Professor of History Daniel Rodriguez spoke about Chilean historical memory at the “Chile Woke Up” panel Monday evening. here to be informed and to learn. It was really a collective experience. That was really the point.”

“There are so many things happening. The people are in the street every day. It’s very hard for us, so thank you

for listening,” Ipinza told the audience.

At the end of the event, the lights were turned out. In the dark, audience members listened to the ambient sounds of the protests in the streets.