Wednesday, April 11, 2018

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD VOLUME CLII, ISSUE 46

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018

U. wait list size draws mixed responses

Conservative economist talks polarization

Number of applicants admitted off wait list in recent years varies from two to 300 students

By JACOB LOCKWOOD SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Regular decision college applicants spend months anxiously awaiting their admission decisions. Come decision day, many applicants are met not only with letters of acceptance or rejection,but also with a third option — a wait list offer.

Cristiana Quinn, an independent college admission advisor, said she thinks the practice of placing college applicants on wait lists has “gotten out of hand.”

While the University admitted a total of 2,566 students to the class of 2022, it also extended wait list offers to 2,724 applicants this year, Inside Higher Ed reported. Many colleges have recently drawn criticism for offering spots on their wait lists to thousands of applicants, but Dean of Admission Logan Powell said these figures are “misunderstood … (and) taken out of context.”

Powell emphasized that only around

60 percent of students who are offered a spot on the University’s wait list end up accepting the offer.Because of this, the true size of the active wait list typically averages around 1,500 students, Powell said.

The University uses its wait list to fill spots in the incoming class that are still available after the May 1 enrollment deadline. Since the number of available space in the class isn’t finalized until this date, the University doesn’t begin accepting students off the wait list until the first week of May, Powell explained.

Students on the wait list aren’t ranked in any way. Instead, “we look first at the composition of the enrolled class, and then we try to round things out based on the students that are still active on our wait list,” Powell said. The size of the wait list gives the admission office enough flexibility to admit students “who fit those categories that (we’re) looking to fill out in the first-year class,” Powell added. When finalizing the class, the office may look to promote “gender balance,” admission of first-generation students and diversity of academic interests.

For the past two admission cycles, the » See WAIT LIST, page 4

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SAM BERUBE / HERALD

President of the American Enterprise Institute and New York Times columnist Arthur Brooks emphasized the importance of “warmheartedness” to reduce political polarization in the United States.

American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks addresses dignity of work, political tolerance

By JACK ROSS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

President of prominent right-wing thinktank the American Enterprise Institute and New York Times colum-

nist Arthur Brooks spoke about uniting Americans in polarized times before a group of students, faculty and members of the Providence community Tuesday evening in Pembroke Hall.

His talk, entitled “Bringing Americans Together,” was part of the Reaffirming University Values lecture series designed to foster dialogue and highlight diverse viewpoints on campus.

Brooks, a conservative economist, is the author of several influential

UCS aims to increase filtered water access Proposal would add 10 water bottle filling stations across campus to address student concerns SENIOR STAFF WRITER

INSIDE

Local hotline provides legal support to immigrants

Comprised of six local groups, Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance offers legal, mental health resources

By MELANIE PINCUS

To address student concern about a lack of water bottle filling stations on campus, the Undergraduate Council of Students’ committee on campus life has submitted a proposal to the Department of Facilities Management to add 10 new stations around the University.

Brown has been working to eliminate single-use plastic water bottles on campus since 2008, when it promised to decrease disposable water bottle use by 80 percent on campus over the following four years, according to the Brown is Green initiative’s website. Today, Brown Dining Services “does not sell single-use plastic bottles of still water,” wrote Ann Hoffman, director of administration at Dining Services, in an email to The Herald. The University also provides every first-year with a reusable bottle on move-in day, according to the website.

But several parts of campus suffer from a lack of water filling stations, making it difficult for community members to refill reusable bottles, said several

books, including “The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America.” In a tight-fitting suit, he strode energetically as he spoke.

His lecture was specifically designed to challenge political and cultural polarization, he said. Citing his extensive work with the Dalai Lama, Brooks repeatedly emphasized the importance of listening to new ideas with » See BROOKS, page 4

By SOPHIE CULPEPPER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

PHOEBE AYRES / HERALD

students interviewed by The Herald.

Claire Heiden ’21, a member of the UCS campus life committee, referred to these areas as “water deserts” — places where “literally, there’s no access” to filtered water.

In Keeney Quadrangle, for example, there are no water bottle filling stations anywhere in the residence’s three firstyear dorms. The quad serves as the “largest self-contained residential unit on campus” and houses about 600 students, according to the Office of Residential

Life’s website.

Heiden and Harold Truong ’21, another member of the committee, are coordinating the UCS initiative to put water stations in these areas, including the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, the Center for Information Technology and the Arnold Lounge in Keeney Quadrangle, Heiden said.

“The fact that people have to plan way ahead in order to fill up their water bottle is a big impediment,” she said,

adding that it “undermines the University’s environmentally sustainable values.”

Though there is not currently a timeline for the implementation of this initiative, Heiden and Truong submitted a draft of the proposal earlier in the semester to Erin Donnellan, academic and student engagement coordinator at the Office of Energy and Environmental Initiatives in Facilities Management.

Truong said they anticipate meeting with Facilities Management after the proposal » See WATER, page 2

Nearly two months after establishing a hotline that provides support to immigrants and minorities in Rhode Island, the Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance is focused on making small-scale community change by offering immediate support to its callers.

Galvanized to collaborate by the election of President Trump, six local advocacy groups formed AMOR after a year’s worth of planning — Direct Action for Rights and Equality, the Providence Youth Student Movement, Fighting Against Natural Gas, Call Off Your Tired Old Ethics, Colectivo Sin Fronteras and Refugee Dream Center.

Some of these organizations had previously collaborated to advocate for the rights of people of color, which » See AMOR, page 3

WEATHER

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018

NEWS Film screening aims to provoke discussion, educate public on conflicts in Middle East

METRO Community members voice opinions on reproductive rights at State House hearings

COMMENTARY Buchsbaum ’19: More research needed for prevention, punishment of sexual assault

COMMENTARY Israel ’21, Rock ’19: R.I. should allow in-person early voting to ensure broader ballot access

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Film screening details attacks on hospitals as part of humanitarian crisis “The New Barbarianism” depicts ongoing conflicts in Syria, Yemen, lack of public awareness in U.S.

By ANNA KRAMER UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR

“The New Barbarianism” opens with panning shots of shelled rubble, all that remains of the once-thriving city of Aleppo, Syria. The camera moves from overhead pictures to zoom in on destroyed medical facilities and dispirited doctors. The scenes in this documentary belie the lesson its creators and supporters hope to pass on: even war has rules.

A screening of the documentary, followed by a discussion with the film’s executive producer as well as its writer and director, was hosted by the Humanitarian Innovation Initiative and The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at The Warren Alpert Medical School yesterday.

The documentary’s makers hope that showing their creation to students will begin to address “a real knowledge deficit among the American public,” said Justin Kenny, the

director and writer of the film and former senior foreign affairs and defense producer and editor for PBS NewsHour, to The Herald.

The film depicts the recent and rising disregard for international humanitarian law throughout ongoing conflicts in countries such as Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan. Specifically, the film aims to document an increase in the deliberate targeting of hospitals, doctors and humanitarian workers in conflicts across the globe.

In Syria, more than 800 medical professionals have been killed since the beginning of civil war in 2011, the documentary’s narrator explained.

“Many claim that the collapse of medical infrastructure in Syria propelled the mass exodus” of refugees to surrounding countries and the European continent, he said, his voice narrating clips of shelling, dust-covered bodies and frantic medical operations.

Experts such as David Miliband, former foreign secretary for the United Kingdom, Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, and Joanne Liu, president of Medecins Sans Frontieres, affirmed the film’s central theme — attacks on doctors and medical facilities represent a dramatic increase in the

hostility toward non-combatants.

“It is very striking that we’re living in an age of bombing U.N. convoys… (and) hospitals,” Miliband said in the documentary.

A health crisis has also struck Yemen, where another civil war backed by two warring nations, Iran and Saudi Arabia, is ravaging the country. Many of the country’s children are malnourished, more than half of the population has lost access to health care and a cholera outbreak has expanded to more than one million cases — one of the largest and fastest growing epidemics in modern history, according to the documentary.

In spite of this reality, the Western public is largely ignorant of the details of the war and crises in Yemen, said J. Stephen Morrison, executive producer and director of the film and senior vice president and director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“We are one of the few organizations to show what’s going on in Sana’a (Yemen’s capital city) … because it’s virtually impossible to get in and virtually impossible to get out,” Kenny said. The documentarians partnered

BROWN UNIVERSITY AND THE GOLDWAY-SHEARER FAMILY CORDIALLY INVITE YOU TO THE

18TH ANNUAL CASEY SHEARER MEMORIAL LECTURE

Social Impact and Storytelling Through Documentary RORY KENNEDY DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER Wednesday, April 18, 2018, 6:30 p.m.

Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 001 79 Waterman Street Providence, Rhode Island

The lecture will be preceded by a presentation of the 18th Annual Casey Shearer Memorial Awards For Excellence in Creative Nonfiction.

THIS COULD BE YOU. To advertise your: business student group event in The Herald, visit bdhsales.com.

with underemployed filmmakers in Yemen to visualize the situation in the country for an audience with little to no knowledge of the conflict or the nation.

In Syria, the team partnered with the Aleppo Media Group, which shot much of the drone footage seen in the film. In addition, the team bought some of the group’s previously archived footage to show the devastation in Syrian hospitals, Kenny said.

Much of the discussion following the film centered on the role of the United States in both causing and resolving humanitarian crises.

“The United States has the capacity to be a force for good,” Kenny said.

However, the U.S. government funds the weapons used by Saudi Arabia in indiscriminate bombing of Yemen’s land, and “we really should not have our hands involved in that,” he added.

Rashmi Sharma, the University’s disaster medicine and emergency preparedness fellow, reminded the audience to always reflect on the U.S. role in a conflict. “All of us have to be aware of international humanitarian law, and we need to stick to those rules,” she told The Herald.

Melissa Godfrey GS and Anna

Makaretz GS, both students at The School of Public Health, are enrolled in PHP 1802S: “Human Security and Humanitarian Response: Increasing Effectiveness and Accountability” and were motivated to attend the screening by their professor.

“We don’t talk a ton about the realities in the field” in the class, “and so seeing this depiction is horrifying.

But it’s also such a stark comparison to what we learn in class,” Godfrey said.

“In class, we’re learning that if you do A and C and D,… you are going to provide great humanitarian care.

But it doesn’t work like that in reality,” she added.

Makaretz agreed, adding: “It’s very formulaic. And it doesn’t work like that.”

Kenny hopes that educating students at the medical school will increase awareness of situations faced by doctors in these global conflicts.

“The American medical community has been pretty silent on the issue,” he said.

The documentary will be screened at The Hague in May and the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland in June, Morrison said.

» WATER, from page 1

However, because of the potential health risks associated with any level of exposure, EPA guidelines state that drinking water should not contain any lead.

Multiple students interviewed by The Herald expressed concern about drinking tap water.

Zuhal Saljooki ’21, who lives in Keeney Quad, said she she worries water from the sink might contain lead. As a result, Saljooki goes outside her dorm to find filtered water.

“The closest place is the (Sharpe Refectory), … but then I have to use a meal swipe,” Saljooki said.

Emma Dennis-Knieriem ’21, who also lives in the quad, said she fills her water bottle from the sink but does not feel entirely comfortable doing so. “I was just told by (Residential Peer Leaders as) a warning … there is some worry about the water (and) there may be some kind of lead,” Dennis-Knieriem said. “I would definitely prefer to know that the water I’m drinking doesn’t have lead in it.”

Truong and Heiden said they will both continue to work on the project until the new water bottle filling stations are installed.

“I feel like this is something that shouldn’t even be negotiable,” Truong said. “We should have access to water in every building.”

is finalized.

“The first step is to assess the students’ proposal and bring other Facilities staff members into the conversation,” Donnellan wrote in an email to The Herald.

The initiative builds on a project started last year by Yutong Liu ’20, a former member of the committee, Truong said. Liu is still involved with the initiative, Heiden added.

Heiden and Truong’s proposal points to a UCS survey sent to undergraduate students earlier this year, in which about 89 percent of over 250 respondents ranked the importance of increasing access to water bottle filling stations as “four or more on a scale of one to five,” Truong said.

Because many students can only get water from bathroom sinks, “they are either buying bottled water (or) getting filters,” said Camila Pelsinger ’20, chair of campus life and vice president-elect of UCS. The University has tested a representative sample of the water in every residence hall and determined that none contain lead levels above the Environmental Protection Agency’s action level of 15 parts per billion, according to the Environmental Health and Safety office.

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018 • PAGE 3

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COURTESY OF CARLOS ROMERO

The six local advocacy groups that compose AMOR convened Feb. 14 to celebrate the coalition’s launch of a hotline that offers legal and mental support for immigrants and minorities.

» AMOR, from page 1 made working together to conceptualize AMOR easier, said Catarina Lorenzo, the overseeing organizer of AMOR. AMOR offers support in English and Spanish and includes a two-part legal support team, with one specializing in immigration services and another in police violence. In addition, AMOR provides mental health care.

The organization relies on two staff members and a network of around 60 volunteers to provide these resources to Rhode Island residents.

As of mid-March, the AMOR hotline had received approximately 10 calls, Lorenzo said, from people primarily seeking legal support for immigration issues. AMOR was created as a hotline with the priority of “stopping deportations and preventing deportations,” said Sophia Wright, a community organizer for DARE and organizer for AMOR, adding that it was intended to “be as a first line of defense, so we could have rapid response happening.” The hotline allows organizers to “come to the scene of the hurt as soon as possible, so that healing can happen,” she said.

Rhode Island has seen an increase in the detention of immigrants, Wright said. Her work with

immigration organizing in Rhode Island — which extends beyond AMOR — and discussions with lawyers who collaborate with AMOR have shown her that “the shift has been happening since January towards detaining people in Rhode Island at a quicker rate for very minor things” that would not have faced the same consequences under the Obama administration. Examples include “courthouse pickups,” she said, pointing out that under the previous administration, immigrants would be picked up if they had committed a crime or had a pending order of deportation. “And now, what they’re doing is they’re picking up anybody who they find,” she added.

“Basically, they’re picking up the low-hanging fruit: people who are not a threat to society, so that they can up their statistics to demonstrate that they are ‘taking out the riffraff.’

But essentially, what they are doing is taking out the most vulnerable: people going to routine immigration meetings, hearings, things to update their status,” she said.

Even before the establishment of the hotline, AMOR circulated a petition in support of Lilian Calderon, an immigrant who was detained despite her lack of a criminal record, according to Uprise RI. “We did great; our community raised $10,000 in six

days,” said Bella Robinson, executive director of Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics. Calderon and her husband were present for AMOR’s launch Feb. 14, she added.

Mayor Jorge Elorza issued a statement while Calderon was under threat of deportation, according to Uprise RI. “The case of Lilian Calderon, who has been here since she was three years old, who grew up in our city and who graduated from our public schools is a sad reminder of how wrongheaded our immigration policy is,” the statement read.

In addition to immediate and direct legal support, mental health services are crucial components, Wright said.

“Because they’re experiencing that trauma, (people who need legal support) will also be needing mental health support — especially if somebody has been detained already,” she added.

“Having a mental health provider provide an assessment for the family is an extremely important element in a court case to prove that somebody shouldn’t be separated from their citizen children,” Wright said.

“That’s been a huge reason for us to have a seriously well-equipped mental health network to actually support the legal process” at AMOR. This vein of resources has “definitely been effective; we have been able to link

people up to counselors that can write those assessments” and submit them to court, she added.

Wright envisions that the scope of AMOR will eventually transcend immigration issues. “Hate crimes, criminalization of immigrants and criminalization of people of color” should all be discussed in the same category, Wright said. “Those things get pigeonholed in different categories,” she explained. “What AMOR has really done is unify all of those things” under an “umbrella,” which she described as issues of “white supremacy or capitalism.” “Colonialism” constitutes another unifying root of entrenched issues in this vein, she added.

While rhetoric on capitalism and colonialism might come across as too academic, “when you fight against them in this way, it makes them very real, because you watch (the systems) play out on people’s real bodies,” Wright added.

“Last year, I had a serious problem at the court,” said Eva Davila, a Providence resident who was referred to AMOR by her psychologist. Lorenzo and AMOR put her in contact with an immigration lawyer as well as transportation to her court date, she added. Though Davila preferred not to elaborate on the specifics of

her case, she said it was successfully resolved with AMOR’s support.

As a nascent organization, AMOR is currently focused on increasing outreach and community awareness of the resources provided through the hotline. “The more outreach we’ll do in the community, the more types of calls we’ll see,” Wright said.

AMOR is pacing its expansion in order to ensure it provides effective service on a smaller scale. “Right now, AMOR is focusing on just doing our job well. We’re building systems that can be sustainable, so we don’t have a timeline for growth and expansion,” Wright said. “We want to make sure that we’re working with people.” For the time being, AMOR is planning trainings to increase the number of hotline operators and focusing on publicizing their initiatives throughout Rhode Island.

“If 50 percent of Providence knew that we existed, could we handle the influx of calls? This is what I’m most concerned about and most interested in seeing AMOR be able to handle it realistically and sustainably,” Wright said. “We’re never going to stop needing to support each other in this community, when we’re experiencing the abuse of the systems that are broken, so I think AMOR is something that can support us long-term.”

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

ALEX SKIDMORE / HERALD

» WAIT LIST, from page 1 admittance rate off of the wait list was 5.5 percent, “approximately the same as the acceptance rate for regular decision applicants,” Powell wrote in a follow-up email.

Quinn said many colleges offer a similar explanation for their large wait lists. “I think it’s absurd,” she added. “Colleges run numbers all the time — they’ve gotten very good at this — to figure out their yields.” With precise estimates of yield, Quinn said colleges should be able to maintain smaller wait lists that are “maybe five or even six times as large as the number of students that they’re going to take” off the wait list.

But Powell stressed that it is difficult to estimate how many students they will be able to accept off the wait list.

“Predicting our yield is largely scientific, but it’s not perfect,” he said. “We make a number of (admission) offers that we think will get us close to our target (class size). But in any given year, you may be really close, (or) you may not be.”

“In the past five years, we’ve admitted as few as two students from the wait list and as many as 300,” Powell added.

“With that as our high-water mark, we have to be in a position to be able to have choices if we need to admit as many as a couple hundred students from the wait list.”

Still, Quinn expressed a sense that wait listing is becoming more common.

“Although all my students were accepted to college, all of my regular decision kids were also wait listed at (three to six) colleges,” Quinn wrote in a follow-up email to The Herald. “And at two very competitive Catholic colleges, I did not have a

» BROOKS, from page 1 openness. He offered a path toward prosperity in the United States that involves meeting anger in politics with warmheartedness.

“No one in the history of humanity has ever been insulted into agreement,” he said. “If politics is the politics of persuasion, we are failing.”

Brooks also outlined a conservative political program that he said emphasized dignity. The poor and marginalized, he said, must feel not just helped, but also needed.

Brooks opened his talk by focusing on white men from the ages of 45 to 54 — the only group in the United States with decreasing life expectancies, as a result of suicide, alcoholism and opioid addiction, he said.

“These, my friends, are deaths of despair,” he said.

How to remedy this despair? His solution is work — of all kinds. “Work works,” he said. “All work has dignity,

single student rejected. All were either accepted or wait listed.”

Rahul Mani ’21 and Mike O’Connell ’21 were both wait listed by five schools, including the University. “It felt kind of weird because I was wait listed at so many,” Mani said. “I was thinking stuff along the lines of, ‘Why me? Why couldn’t I have gotten into one or two of these, or at least have been accepted or rejected, so I knew where I stood?’”

After O’Connell received a string of wait list offers from his top-choice schools, he said he took a few days to come to terms with his situation. “You just have to wait it out. They’ll tell you eventually.”

Quinn said she thinks schools that maintain large wait lists “do a disservice to students” by giving them a false sense of hope for their acceptance. “I think that the average student — when they get a wait list offer — thinks, ‘I’m almost in.’ And I think that in their mind, they don’t understand how large the waiting list is,” Quinn explained. “Students … don’t make as thoughtful decisions on where they’re going to attend among the colleges where they are accepted because they’re still holding out that hope for the waiting list.”

Powell stressed that the University instructs all wait listed applicants to enroll at another institution. “One of the fallacies of how this process works is students forego all other opportunities and remain on our wait list. That’s absolutely not the case,” Powell said. He also pushed back on the notion that the odds of acceptance off the wait list are exceedingly slim. “It’s a very real opportunity. For those 75 to 100 students

a year who are admitted from the wait list, I think they’re pretty happy that they accepted the offer of the wait list and (that) they were a little patient. …

So there is hope, there absolutely is.”

Mani said he had some cautious hope “that I could get off a wait list because there were a number of schools that I was wait listed at.” But his position on several wait lists made him uncertain where he would end up. “A lot of my friends already knew where they were going — they were all set — whereas I still wasn’t entirely sure where I was going to go to school,” he added.

O’Connell said he was glad to be wait listed, given his eventual acceptance.

“But I can understand where a lot of students would be kind of upset with the system because you’re just leading a lot of people on,” he added. “If I hadn’t been admitted here, I definitely would’ve had a much different view of the wait list.”

Powell said the University finishes admitting students off the wait list by June 30 at the latest “so students have some clarity on where they’re going to go.” Both Mani and O’Connell were admitted in May, well before the June 30 deadline. Though Powell said he thinks this is a reasonable timeframe for wait list admission, Quinn said she believes wait lists draw out an already lengthy admission process.

“It’s definitely frustrating,” O’Connell agreed. “You just have to wait another month to find out something that probably won’t happen, but there’s just enough likelihood that it does happen that you still have to pay attention. It’s not full-on torture, but it’s a little bit painful to sit through that process again.”

and all work has value.” In order for the United States to become “truly great again,” it needs to ensure employment for more of its constituency, he said.

When the lecture opened to the crowd for questions, several students inquired about his ideas: Did all employment dignify workers? What about menial, “Kafka-esque” tasks?

In response, Brooks cited a study that found 89 percent of Americans to be satisfied with their jobs. The man who makes your sandwich is as likely to enjoy his job as your professor, he said, adding that “your Kafka-esque experience depends a lot on your heart.”

President Christina Paxson P’19 billed Brooks as representative of “reform conservatism” and highlighted the importance of hearing opinions considered controversial on campus in her introduction.

Like Paxson, Brooks highlighted the importance of listening to others

and dismantling what he calls a culture of “contempt” that plagues U.S. politics. Contempt is the complete belief in the worthlessness of another person and is most often signified by the eye roll, he said.

Following some of the Dalai Lama’s personal advice, Brooks challenged the audience to meet contempt with warmheartedness.

“Warmheartedness is for strong people. Contempt is for weak people.

Which are you going to be?” he asked.

In spite of this call to action, some students remained skeptical.

“I would be hard-pressed to pick a topic on which he is less qualified to speak than ‘bringing America together,’” said Isaac Bierer ’18.

Others approved of his talk.

Maksymilian Dabkowski ’19 felt unconvinced that all labor could be dignified, but he enjoyed the lecture.

“I think it was very inspiring and enlightening,” he said.

TODAY

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018 • PAGE 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

menu

wat s o n i n t h e w o r k s

SATELLITE DINING ANDREWS COMMONS

Pizza: Cheese, Pepperoni, Spicy Sausage and Garlic, Assorted Roasted Mushroom, Roasted Brussel Sprouts and Ham JOSIAH’S

BLUE ROOM

Chicken Wings Bar BBQ Pulled Pork Burger

Beef Chili with Beans Bread Bowl

DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH

DINNER

Chicken Gumbo Soup, Meatloaf with Mushroom Sauce, Chana Masala, Grilled Italian Chicken

Cajun Baked Pollock, Braised Red Cabbage, Chocolate Cupcake, Rigatoni

VERNEY-WOOLLEY LUNCH

DINNER

BBQ Beef Sandwich, Fried Flounder, Liz’s Tomato and Saffron Rice, Herb Chicken

Three Bean Casserole, Hot Roast Beef Sandwich, Honey Bran Flax Seed Bread, Cavetelli

sudoku

ELI WHITE / HERALD

Four new buildings and an outdoor plaza are being added to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, adding 31,000 square feet to the Institute’s existing 78,000 square feet.

Q U O T E O F T H E D AY

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Los Angeles Times Puzzle c r o sDaily s w oCrossword rd Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Black-tie affairs 6 Suffragist Carrie 10 Antelopeʼs playmate, in song 14 “Show your cards” 15 Waikiki wingding 16 Concerning 17 Titillating passages 19 Mouselike critter 20 Beantown hockey great 21 Missay, say 22 Courtroom figure 24 Opposite of 60Down 26 Postal service 28 “Youʼre the Top” musical 33 “A plague oʼ both your houses” speaker 36 Pianist Gilels 37 Mt. Hood locale 38 Arles approval 39 Graffiti signature 42 Wrath 43 Brest friend 45 Fixed firmly 47 Indulgent desserts 51 __ cheese 52 Friend 56 Words from a Latin lover 59 “Batman” sound effect 61 Mil. address 62 “... a Loaf of Bread ...” poet 63 October tourist attraction 66 Make oneself heard 67 Most fit for duty 68 All too public spat 69 Just 70 “Ratatouille” rat who aspires to be a chef 71 Is inclined DOWN 1 Fatigued action figure?

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6 Bayer allergy relief brand 7 Gold: Pref.

8 Teahouse floor mat 9 Native of Florence, e.g.

10 Disclose 11 Grandson of Eve 12 First name in whodunits 13 Stalk by the swamp 18 Seek divine guidance from 23 Oft-mooched item, briefly 25 Center X, in a game 27 Sorority letter 29 Well-used pencil 30 Forget to put in 31 Where the Shannon flows 32 “Call of the Wild” vehicle 33 Ancient kingdom bordering Judah 34 Witty Bombeck 35 Check 39 Work for the small screen 40 Photo developing compound 41 Understand

44 With gusto 45 Lowest-ranking NCO 46 Defense advisory gp.

48 Org. that publishes Americaʼs 1st Freedom 49 Target 50 Everett of “Citizen Kane” 53 Safe harbor

54 Flip over 55 Three-time NBA MVP Malone 56 It can walk the dog 57 Comet, to some 58 Starbucks size 60 Opposite of 24Across 64 Apollo vehicle, briefly 65 Kiss guitarist Frehley

“No one in the history of humanity has ever been insulted into agreement.”

— American Enterprise Institute Chair Arthur Brooks

See brooks on page 1.

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

CORRECTION An earlier version of the article “Shia LaBeouf opens 17th Ivy Film Festival” stated that Shia LaBeouf played Steven in “Even Stevens.” In fact, he played Louis in “Even Stevens.” The Herald regrets the error.

xwordeditor@aol.com

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LingLangLunch Seminar 1:00 P.M. Metcalf Research Building, 305

2018 Biology Poster Day 1:00 P.M. Alumnae Hall Auditorium

Virtual Reality in Japan 4:00 P.M. MacMillan Hall, 117

Brown Religious Literacy Project 7:30 P.M. J. Walter Wilson, 411

TOMORROW Probability Seminar: Susan Friedlander 10:00 A.M. 182 George Street, 110

Necessary Conversations II: United Histories 12:00 P.M. RISD Museum

CLPS Honors Presentations 4:00 P.M. Metcalf Research Building, 305

Math Slam 4:00 P.M. 170 Hope Street, 108

COMMENTARY PAGE 6 • WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Question Jeb Bush’s politics, not his character To the Editor: In his April 6 op-ed “Inviting Jeb Bush to speak is irresponsible,” Michael Froid ’21 argues that Jeb Bush should be uninvited because his views are those of a person with low moral character.

While I disagree with his premise, why can’t people of low moral character speak at Brown?

If this becomes a prerequisite, I suspect Brown will be forced to hire a team of philosophers to determine who is morally worthy to address us.

While many of us, myself included, disagree with Bush’s political philosophy, questioning his character says more about our own than it does his.

Andrew Reed ’21

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Jeb Bush should speak, respect concerns misguided To the Editor: I am writing in response to Brendan Sweeney’s ’19.5 April 10 op-ed “Why we must respect Jeb Bush’s right to speak.” I agree with both Mark Liang ’19 and Sweeney that Jeb Bush should be allowed to speak at Brown. However, Jeb Bush has no right to my respect — to argue that “PLEASE CLAP” signs are significant contributors to political polarization and tribalism is incorrect and seriously misguided.

My outrage over the opinions expressed in Sweeney’s article (and make no mistake, I am outraged) comes from the absurd amount of attention Bush’s feelings are being given proportional to the tangible harm effected by Bush. It is absurd to argue that it is morally abhorrent to hold “PLEASE CLAP” signs in light of the moral abhorrence of the

suffering inflicted by Bush’s opposition to a 2014 Florida initiative that would have legalized marijuana for medical use. It is absurd to maintain that the “health of our liberal democracy depends on the quality of our discourse” when Bush only called for “respect” for same-sex marriages after they were made legal in Florida.

It is absurd to denounce viewing political debate as a “struggle between two factions” when Bush supported perpetuating the war in Iraq, which has killed 500,000 people since the start of the U.S. invasion.

Liberal democracy may well be premised on mutual respect. But I was raised to believe that respect is earned, not demanded. What is demanded are answers, and Bush had better come prepared.

ST E P HA N I E W U

Adam Mercier ’19

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COMMENTARY WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018 • PAGE 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Disrupting the path to sexual assault perpetration SHIRA BUCHSBAUM op-ed contributor In 2015, Kevin Swartout, an associate professor of psychology at Georgia State University, seemingly confirmed long-held doubts about the demographics of perpetrators of sexual assault when he published his article, “The company they keep: How men’s social networks influence their sexually aggressive attitudes and behaviors.” Swartout dismantled clinical psychologist David Lisak’s 2002 study — “Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists” — which described assaulters as serial predators, “monsters” lurking among us. Lisak’s study, the results of which further research failed to reproduce, stirred up a storm and influenced sexual assault prevention education for the better part of a decade.

In opposition to previous thought, Swartout’s study indicated that college-aged men who perpetrate assault tend to do so only once or twice, and often unknowingly.

Moreover, he found that there was a temporally-linked switch: men who had assaulted prior to college often did not continue, and men who had not assaulted prior to college only began after they entered a new social sphere. Swartout sees a crucial environment shift: if men exit an environment tolerant of abuse of women and enter one that repudiates this

behavior, they become less likely to offend. Unfortunately, the reverse holds true as well.

So, which is it? Are offenders serial perpetrators? Or are they oblivious individuals who don’t consider the harm they are doing to others?

The answer is likely somewhere along a spectrum. Research has established that perpetrators justify their actions through assumptions about entitlement, power and privilege. What we need now is research on how to unlearn those assumptions and how

in the good of people.

Nonetheless, the Harvey Weinsteins, Matt Lauers and President Donald Trumps of the world clearly exist — men in roles of immense power abusing that power to coerce and hurt women, in a sick exercise of social and physical force over another’s body. But so too exist the Aziz Ansaris of the world — men who publicly commit to navigating the pitfalls of relationship dynamics and advocating for feminist causes, who nonetheless exercise their power co-

something darker. Someone who doesn’t know how to satisfy that desire any other way, someone who even thrives off that exercise of power over another person’s body. But where does that shift occur? On a drunken night after a rager in a basement, upon entering a cutthroat corporate hierarchy or after amassing enough power to silence any whistleblowers?

Or is the entitlement to others’ bodies internalized from an early age and simply awakened through too many “I got away with it”s?

I’m inclined to believe there may be a breaking point — a point of no return, so to speak — where after a given number of weird nights, uncomfortable extrications of bodies from beds, “C’mon, it’ll be fun”s, the Azizes of the world can morph into something darker. those assumptions create the “monsters” of Lisak’s research.

Before New York Times reporters Meghan Twohey and Jodi Kantor broke their investigative story on Harvey Weinstein’s years of systematic abuse and assault of women in the film industry, I was inclined to believe that most assaults — in college, at least — fell into the category Swartout delineated: men who did not understand the totality of consent and who, often unknowingly, violated their partners. I was inclined to believe that serial perpetration was a myth. Perhaps that was my own naivety at hand, perhaps it was my own blinding desire to trust

ercively over another person’s body.

A difference exists — many men, including Weinstein, consciously benefit from office cultures that silence conversations around sexual assault — but where does that lead? Is Ansari’s obtuseness and dismissal of Grace’s needs a solemn harbinger of what may ensue should no one illuminate to him how he caused harm?

I’m inclined to believe there may be a breaking point — a point of no return, so to speak — where after a given number of weird nights, uncomfortable extrications of bodies from beds, “C’mon, it’ll be fun”s, the Azizes of the world can morph into

More research must be conducted — not just on college-aged men, though that demographic is an excellent locale in which to implement sexual assault prevention education.

We need to think more expansively around the trajectory and hierarchy of these crimes. Weinstein and Lauer did not act in a vacuum — they lived and worked in environments that enabled their gross abuse of others. We need to think beyond college campuses as the source of the “assault issue,” adopt a multi-pronged approach to root out this point of no return and integrate a culture of consent into our daily lives. We need to teach from a

young age how consent is not an abnormal entity that appears only at the door to a sexual encounter, but a routine component of regular interactions. And on the other end of the equation, restorative justice can be a mechanism by which colleges and workplaces intervene in problematic and violatory behavior so that perpetrators don’t reach that point of no return. Simultaneously, we need to identify the threshold where unlearning entitled, harmful behavior proves impossible.

Swartout’s research forwards that one’s environment factors into these transition points, indicating that fostering a culture of consent in all of our institutions — schools, businesses, governments — is crucial to reducing sexual assault. At Brown, we have begun the steps toward this comprehensive approach — the Undergraduate Council of Students requires that categorized student groups have a trained sexual assault peer educator in their group, and we overhauled our sexual assault prevention orientation.

But this type of research can provide a framework as we as a society grapple with how we rehabilitate or castigate perpetrators of sexual assault.

Shira Buchsbaum ’19 can be reached at shira_buchsbaum@brown.edu.

Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

Rhode Island needs in-person early voting JULIA ROCK & JENNA ISRAEL op-ed contributors In 37 states and Washington D.C., voters may cast a ballot in person at some point before election day; in Rhode Island, you cannot. This poses a barrier to accessing the ballot for people with inflexible work schedules, childcare responsibilities, lack of access to transportation and other reasons that might prevent a person from showing up to vote on election day. Hopefully, that will soon change: R.I. Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea introduced a bill in this legislative session to allow Rhode Islanders to vote early, in person, as many as 20 days in advance of a primary or general election. The response to this bill has been neatly split along party lines: State GOP Chairman Brandon Bell told the Providence Journal that he opposed the legislation because it would force voters to make decisions without “important information” which “usually comes to light later in the campaign.” Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo wrote in her testimony in support of the bill: “Our current system needlessly excludes many working Americans who are unable to cast ballots on election day due to inflexible schedules or other conflicts.”

Between 2006 and 2012, in-person early voting programs were expanded across the country, which allowed researchers to study the impacts of the legislation. The percentage of voters who cast their ballots in person grew

in each election throughout that time frame.

Some of the best-studied outcomes of the legislation were that in-person early voting reduced the stress on election officials on election day, which allowed them to carry out their jobs more effectively and led to shorter lines at the polls on election day, according to a report published by the Brennan Center for Justice.

But perhaps most importantly, early voting legislation has proven to enfranchise the populations of voters that have historically been

cast early, either in person or by mail. In 2008 and 2012, 70 percent of black voters in North Carolina voted early. In 2012, black voters in Ohio voted early at twice the rate of white voters.

In 2008 in Florida, a group of black church congregations organized a “Souls to the Polls” initiative in which they transported their congregations from church the Sunday before election day to vote early at polling sites. That year, black voters made up 13 percent of registered

Early voting legislation has proven to enfranchise the populations of voters that have historically been prevented from voting through practices such as poll taxes, voter ID laws, racial gerrymandering and purges to voter rolls.

prevented from voting through practices such as poll taxes, voter ID laws, racial gerrymandering and purges to voter rolls. These practices have impeded black and Latino Americans in particular from voting throughout history.

Early voting has been proven to increase voter turnout between 2 and 4 percent, with a higher increase among minority voters, according to an article published by ProPublica in 2016. According to a fact sheet produced by the American Civil Liberties Union, 32 percent of ballots cast in the 2012 election were

voters, but cast 22 percent of early ballots. In 2012, the Florida legislature passed a law to roll back early voting, but the law was struck down by the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., because the judges found that the law violated the Voting Rights Act by disproportionately preventing black voters from voting.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, ruling that the racial discrimination against voters that the Act was passed to prohibit no longer exists. In the wake of that

decision, state legislatures across the country, especially those dominated by Republicans, passed laws that reduced access to the ballot in ways that particularly affected these historically disenfranchised voters. The ACLU reported in 2016 that following the Shelby decision, at least 17 states passed laws that restricted voting. In Florida, North Carolina and Ohio, the early voting periods were cut short, and in Wisconsin early voting on nights and weekends was eliminated, posing an obvious barrier to people with strict work schedules. We hope to reverse that trend here in Rhode Island.

Today, Brown students will be meeting under Faunce Arch to leave at 3 p.m. to join groups including Common Cause of R.I., the Working Families Party and the NAACP of Providence to participate in a lobby day in support of the early voting bill. Please join the Brown Progressive Action Committee, your peers and activists in Rhode Island to ask legislators to expand voting access in the state. We only live in a democracy so long as people are able to vote.

Jenna Israel ’21 and Julia Rock ’19 are the the student engagement director and community engagement director, respectively, of the Brown Progressive Action Committee.

Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

NEWS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018

Community members voice opinions on proposed reproductive health bills R.I. Judiciary Committee hears feedback on five pro-life bills, one prochoice bill

By SOPHIE CULPEPPER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The State Judiciary Committee’s hearing on reproductive rights yesterday covered legislation that drew hundreds of community members to the State House, from high school students to baby boomers.

After beginning over an hour late, six bills related to reproductive rights were introduced for simultaneous consideration and commentary. The first five measures proposed limitations on women’s rights — “Recognizing the fetus as a human life upon the existence of a heartbeat,” “The Rhode Island unborn child protection from dismemberment abortion act,” two “Acts relating to criminal offenses - children” and “An act relating to health and safety - Bornalive infant protection act.” The sixth bill, the Reproductive Health Care Act, would replace outdated existing laws and safeguard the right to abortion at the state level.

Advocates demonstrating about reproductive rights represented diametrically opposed perspectives, which they defended with respectful conviction.

“I’m here to support the bill for reproductive rights, and I’m here because I believe the right to abortion is a fundamental part of women’s health care, a basic right that women all over America need to have, and all over the world need to have,” said Rebecca Atwood of Providence. “I want Rhode Island state law to reflect what the federal law is,” she added.

Joshua Santos, a sophomore at Providence College from Pawtucket, came to support his “pro-life” stance.

He described his position as a matter of “human dignity,” explaining that “everyone should have the right to life.” He was also “hoping” to have some conversations with people from across the political aisle.

“Women’s health care is about having women decide for themselves, not someone else decide for them, because it’s been too long (that) people keep telling us what to do. And our body is our body,” said Aneice Germain of Cranston. She described threats to reproductive rights as hitting “minorities” especially hard.

Jocelyn Foye, co-creator of The

SOPHIE CULPEPPER / HERALD

Rhode Islanders from both sides of the debate on reproductive rights voiced their opinions at the R.I. State House Tuesday night. The State Judiciary Committee held hearings on six bills, including one measure that would require that minors obtain parental consent before getting an abortion.

Woman Project, a nonprofit that supports feminist art activism, said socioeconomic considerations factor into the abortion debate. When abortion is not allowed, women can be locked into a state of “extreme poverty,” she added.

“We’re not looking to change people’s opinions of what is right; we’re not doing anything like that,” she said. Rather than thinking of abortion as the termination of a human life, “we’re actually very interested in making sure that women

have bodily freedom,” she added.

On the other hand, Loren Duhamel attended the rally because she “believe(s) in life; God created each one of us, and he’s the only one who has the right to take it, not each one of us, she said.”

After the bills were introduced, the Committee opened the floor to community members who were for or against the bill. These community members debated whether the Reproductive Health

Care Act was redundant in the context of Roe v. Wade, and the likelihood of the federal decision’s appeal.

“The proposed bill shares the ‘fetuscounts-for-nothing’ view of the abortion industry. It institutes a laissez-faire policy with respect to the termination of human life,” said Dwight Duncan, professor at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

“Access to reproductive health care is under attack in this country like never

before,” said Sulina Mohanty of the North Kingstown Democrats. “There are laws on the books right now that don’t respect women’s essential rights, and that don’t respect the values that the vast majority of Rhode Islanders want to be protected,” she added.

After several hours of continued testaments in favor and against the legislation in question, the bills were not held to a vote and are instead being “held for further study,” according to WPRI.