The Claremont Independent - November 2013 by Claremont Independent

CLAREMONT INDEPENDENT VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 1, NOV. 2013

CLUB INITIATIONS: Positive or Problem? Martin Sartorius • Marina Giloi

CLAREMONT INDEPENDENT table of contents Editor-in-Chief Brad Richardson

EDITORIAL: BENEFITS OF AN INDEPENDENT FORUM AT CMC

Publisher Martin Sartorius

LEADERSHIP OUTSIDE OF THE BOARDROOM

Managing Editor Amelia Evrigenis

CAMPUS SPOTLIGHT: YOUNG AMERICANS FOR LIBERTY

Editor-in-Chief Emerita Marina Giloi

DEFINING LIBERTARIANISM: A REBUTTAL TO THE PORT SIDE

Technology Officer Chris Gaarder

THE PROBLEM WITH INITIATION

Layout Editors Lindsey Betts Lynsey Chediak

INITIATION IN MODERATION

CONSERVATIVE TELEVISION ICONS

MAD WOMEN

DIVESTMENT: AN EXPENSIVE POLITICAL STATEMENT

ON LANGUAGE: REFLECTIONS FROM ABROAD

IN THE BUBBLE

Photographer Lindsey Betts Staff Writers Harry Arnold, Ambika Bist, Brian Eckhardt, Nadeem Farooqi, Kevin Garske, Alexandra Holterman, Eugene Nandwa, Hannah Oh, Joel Porter, Becky Shin, Clay Spence, Kyle Tanguay

Brad Richardson, CMC ‘15 Hannah Oh, CMC ‘16

Kevin Garske, CMC ‘16 Clay Spence, CMC ‘16 Marina Giloi, CMC ‘14

Martin Sartorius, CMC’15

Harry Arnold, CMC ‘17

Eugene Nandwa, CMC ‘17 Joel Porter, CMC ‘16

Amelia Evrigenis, CMC ‘15

editorial

Benefits of an Independent Forum at CMC Brad Richardson | Editor-in-Chief We at the Claremont Independent take the “independent” part of our name very seriously. Our publication operates under the principle that, in order to cover the administrations and student organizations of the Claremont Colleges objectively and effectively, complete detachment from those institutions is essential. As a result, the Independent is unique among campus publications in that it purposefully receives zero funding from any of the 5Cs. It is because of our commitment to journalistic autonomy that the Independent fully endorses the proposal to separate partially the Forum and CMC’s student government, the Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College (ASCMC), which will be voted on Nov. 4 at CMC’s student senate. While the proposal does not completely sever the (particularly financial) ties that bind the Forum to the very student government that it purports to cover, the reform measure marks substantial progress and improvement toward the kind of independent and probing journalism of which we need to see more in Claremont. The prospective amendment was announced Sept. 15 at an ASCMC Executive Board meeting by Forum Chief Operating Officer Nathan Falk ‘14, Forum Editor-in-Chief Ana Kakkar ’14, and ASCMC President Gavin Landgraf ’14, and is supported by both Forum and ASCMC representatives. The reform measure consists of two main points: “The [Forum] Editor-in-Chief will no longer be an employee of ASCMC” and “The [Forum] Editor-in-Chief will no longer be chosen by the election committee of ASCMC.” Under the current system, the Forum editor-in-chief is placed in an untenable position, fraught with potential conflicts of interest. Most acutely, the editor-in-chief is both charged with determining journalistic content directly relat-

ed to the practices and policies of ASCMC while also being a paid employee of that very organization. The editor-in-chief is similarly hindered by having access to ASCMC’s closed-minute discussions and confidential email dialogues, which effectively inhibits him or her from coordinating content and prompting investigative journalism related to ASCMC. Finally, the format for selecting the Forum editor-inchief, via the ASCMC Elections Committee, allows ASCMC to select a candidate beholden to their will. A more autonomous Forum would provide a crucial check on ASCMC – an organization that has not exactly been without controversy in recent years. It would help ensure a student government that is more accountable to those it exists to serve – the students. While this amendment would not grant the Forum complete autonomy – because, among other things, the publication would still receive funding from ASCMC – these proposals to improve the independence of the Forum’s editorial leadership are a very positive first step and should be approved by CMC’s senate. Few had a better take on the matter of an independent, courageous and vigilant press – and its proximate nexus to human liberty – than Thomas Jefferson, who famously inspired James Madison to propose the Bill of Rights in 1789, including the guarantee of a free press found in what would become the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Jefferson offered the following, enduring wisdom: “The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” CI

The Claremont Independent is an independent journal of campus affairs and political thought serving the colleges of the Claremont Consortium. The magazine receives no funding from any of the colleges and is distributed free of charge on campus. All costs of production are covered by the generous support of private foundations and individuals. The Claremont Independent is dedicated to using journalism and reasoned discourse to advance its ongoing mission of Upholding Truth and Excellence at the Claremont Colleges.

campus news

Leadership Outside of the Boardroom Hannah Oh | Staff Writer “What today’s college is teaching most successfully is competence – competence in meeting schedules, in gathering information, in responding well on tests…but technical skill, of whatever kind, leaves open essential questions: Education for what purpose? Competence to what end?” – Ernest Boyer Claremont McKenna College prides itself on the tremendous leadership development it provides for its students. CMC’s mission is to inspire the next generation of leaders in “business, government, and the professions” by providing the knowledge and pragmatic skillsets necessary to succeed in these fields. Recent graduates and alumni have exemplified CMC’s effectiveness in preparing students to exercise leadership in professional settings and academic institutions. However, the question remains: Has CMC educated its students to be moral and socially engaged leaders as well? The Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum hosted a Sept. 30 talk by Jackson Katz, a prominent anti-sexism activist, as part of an ongoing series on social responsibility. Katz touched upon a number of issues in his talk, from the linguistic constructions used to describe victims of sexual assault to the portrayal of “manhood” in the media that perpetuates male violence in today’s society. Yet, what set his talk apart from other gender violence awareness speeches was his innovative “bystander approach.” Instead of treating men as potential perpetrators and women as potential victims, Katz spoke to the idea of seeing everyone as potential bystanders. “If you’re at a party and you see a young woman stumbling up the stairs visibly intoxicated, and a young man is trying to get her up to his room, what do you do?” he asked. Most people in these situations believe they only have two options: intervene physically and risk possible harm, or

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do nothing. Most people tend to choose the latter. Common excuses like “I don’t want to get involved” or “this isn’t my problem” demonstrate the fear people have of implicating themselves in uncomfortable situations. Moreover, it reveals a lack of human compassion. Katz contends that when students have to contemplate whether or not they want to be involved in these situations, it is indicative of a failure on the part of our educational institutions to promote social leadership and moral education. Furthermore, current sexual assault prevention programs on college campuses are portrayed as a way to provide students a safe environment where they can pursue their education. This model is narrowly conceived. “Stopping men’s violence against women is more than just a public safety issue,” Katz said. “It is a fundamental pre-requisite for the advancement of our society.” Critical notions of equality, social justice and human rights are at stake, yet we continue to ignore these larger implications. What we need from our next generation of leaders is genuine compassion and the personal integrity it takes to act with courage in difficult social situations. “There is a shameful lack of leadership in the educational system against sexual violence,” Katz concluded. “It needs to be an organic, yet mandatory part of our education.” If CMC wants to inspire leaders of the 21st century, it must empower its students to exercise leadership in all facets of life. It is essential for CMC to instill a stronger sense of social responsibility among its students and to value acts of moral integrity. Emphasis on personal, as opposed to purely professional, development will not only push students to become better leaders, but more important, to be better human beings. CI

Yet, what set his talk apart from other gender violence awareness speeches was his innovative “bystander approach.”

campus news

Campus Spotlight: Young Americans for Liberty Kevin Garske | Staff Writer Since its inception in 2008, Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) has grown explosively as one of the premier conservative and Libertarian organizations on America’s college campuses. We at the Claremont Independent had the chance to speak with Louis-Victor Jadavji, Co-President of the Claremont Colleges Chapter, about the newest political club to hit the scene at the 5Cs. A junior at Claremont McKenna College and Vancouver, British Columbia, native, Jadavji had a lot to say about the exciting prospects for his club and its contributions to political discourse on the campuses. “I believe that the Claremont Colleges are gifted with political dynamics that are uniquely open to discourse and collaboration between different groups,” Jadavji said. “In many ways, [5C students] are continually inviting other students to challenge our predispositions so that we may be better trained to defend our values and political preferences, or discover new ones and grow to be more involved, responsible, and tolerant members of society.” YAL emphasizes the values of social and economic freedom and lives by the phrase “Winning on Principle,” or bringing these principles to the forefront of their policymaking. “For me, [liberty] is to have agency over my own actions, to take credit should they prove fruitful, and to assume responsibility should they prove harmful,” Jadavji said. “But I am sure of this: Liberty has never come from the government - it comes from the limitation of its power.”

With such a strong liberal/progressive base characterizing the 5C political climate, the entrance of an organiztion concerned with small government and liberty certainly has engaging implications for political discourse on the campuses. Building a debate culture on campus is easier said than done, but is a worthwhile aim to expand the critical thinking and individual education of the student body on both sides of the aisle. YAL Claremont Chapter is optimistic about this possibility and sees a great opportunity, as well as its greatest challenge, in finding “effective leaders who genuinely believe in the cause of liberty.” This is not to say that that members of YAL are required to have a specific ideology. As Jadavji puts it, “We are a non-partisan group, so everyone should, and most do, feel comfortable being a part of YAL. At UC Irvine, the YAL campus organization was so successful at inviting political discourse and making all feel welcome, that it virtually assimilated the Republican and Democrat campus organizations. That could happen here.” Thus far, YAL has hosted a talk about the Neighborhood Legislature Act and a seminar on the NSA controversy. YAL meets at 7:30PM every Tuesday in Kravis 168. They can be found on Facebook at http://facebook.com/ claremontyal/, and at their website http://claremontyal. com. Concerns and questions can be sent to claremontyal@ gmail.com. CI

opinion

Defining Libertarianism: A Rebuttal to the Claremont Port Side Clay Spence | Staff Writer In his May 2 article, “An Ideology at Odds with Itself,” David Leathers of the Claremont Port Side argues that people who claim to be “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” – namely, Libertarians – hold an inconsistent set of beliefs. On Leathers’ account, socially liberal causes like free birth control and higher education student loan subsidies cut against the grain of fiscal conservatism and require higher taxes; however, Leathers’ account rests on a misunderstanding of what Libertarians mean when they identify as “socially liberal” and fails to recognize how a fiscal conservative might consistently claim to be socially liberal. The traditional distinction between fiscal conservatives and liberals rests on the distinction between negative and positive rights. Where fiscal conservatives typically favor negative rights of noninterference, liberals generally favor a more expanded role of taxation and government in redistributing wealth so as to ensure substantive equality of opportunity. The fiscal conservative stance has its philosophical roots in the libertarianism of Robert Nozick, who famously argues, “Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor…taking the earnings of n hours labor is like taking n hours from the person; it is like forcing the person to work n hours for another’s purpose.” On this view, redistributive taxation is unjust because it is tantamount to coercion. In an obvious sense, Libertarians would be committed to negative liberties like marijuana legalization, gay marriage, and freedom to choose, but not policies which require taxation, for instance the Affordable Care Act. Yet, as Leathers notes in a recent email interview with the Claremont Independent, “Sure, you can be ‘socially liberal and fiscally conservative’ if you only endorse a narrow swath of negative rights, but in 2013, socially progressive causes encompass much more than just ‘negative liberties’ like the right of

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gay couples to marry.” To a certain extent, Leathers is right. Even self-styled Libertarians typically recognize the necessity of redistributive initiatives such as the public school system and some level of state-sponsored medical insurance. Fiscal conservatives typically justify their commitment to these sorts of policies with reference to equality of opportunity. However, liberals can just as easily justify a commitment to a more expansive set of redistributive policies by appealing to the same principles. As Leathers explains, his commitment to liberal initiatives like the ACA and government-sponsored higher education is founded in a belief “that we should elect a government that helps to create equality of opportunity for each citizen.” Who’s right? Most reasonable people think that a system of total redistribution is unjust. If I work, I ought to be entitled to keep my wages. But yet, as Leathers correctly points out, “a rich person who gets sick is more likely to recover than a poor person without health insurance. This rich person can return to work and support their family. The poor person cannot…the cycle continues.” On both my Libertarian view and Leathers’ liberal perspective, the need for fair equality of opportunity overrides the Nozickian principle that taxes are unjust. The question now becomes, “To what degree does a concern for equality of opportunity dictate a policy of redistributive taxation?” This question is a thorny philosophical problem. Leathers agrees that “it is impossible to tell when there really is ‘equality of opportunity,’” but suggests that “this is the direction our country needs to head.” I disagree. Leathers’ account blurs the distinction between equality of opportunity and substantive equality. Leathers suggests that “giving each kid a free college education would be a major component” of ensuring equality of opportunity. But this kind of substantive educational

Most reasonable people think that a system of total redistribution is unjust. If I work, I ought to be able to keep my wages.”

opinion equality is conceptually distinct from the kind of equality of opportunity I, as a Libertarian, espouse. A policy of government-funded free college education for every child seems, superficially, to ensure an equal level of economic opportunity to college graduates entering the workforce. But there’s a conflation of terms at play here: the economic opportunity Leathers appeals to is, in fact, a masquerading form of substantive equality of outcome. Equal opportunity in the Libertarian sense of the term is grounded in exactly the kind of negative rights that delineate Libertarian views from liberal perspectives. A person’s opportunity is equal to another’s if that person is not deliberately coerced in a manner that restricts her capacity to freely act upon her ends. Provided a person is not deliberately excluded, in spite of her merits, from attending college, that person’s opportunity to attend college is exactly equal to any other person’s. Of course there are exceptions to this rule: Libertarians could defend a publicly funded education system through high school since children aren’t fully developed moral agents and ought not to be held responsible for their parents’ financial situation. Somewhat differently, Libertarians could defend a system of baseline health insurance as a policy that accords with the general will of the people: most people intuitively think that everyone ought to have access to a decent minimum of healthcare even if, like me, they aren’t aware of a compelling moral argument for why this is the case. But it is clear Leathers’ argument in favor of equalizing economic opportunity does not fit into this Libertarian conception. Perhaps if everyone attends college, the leastwell-off will learn enough to earn higher wages and make their lives substantively better. But compressing the range of economic outcomes is only just if one is committed to substantive equality. “Substantive equality of opportunity” sounds appealing, but isn’t conceptually distinct from “substantive equality of outcome.’”

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Libertarians, conservatives, and liberals alike must reconcile themselves to a hard truth: although human persons are worthy of equal moral concern, with respect to their natural capacity to lead healthy, prosperous lives, human beings are radically unequal. By virtue of the birth lottery, some people wind up with high IQs and are born to wealthy families. Economic outcomes are generally much better for Claremont College students than high school dropouts. But what’s the alternative? Liberal guilt over the fact that one is well-off in life is philosophically bankrupt: a commitment to justice only requires a commitment to negative rights of non-interference. Life isn’t fair. Where does this leave us? Libertarians are committed to negative liberties like marijuana legalization, gay marriage, and the freedom to choose, which are grounded in the principle of non-interference, but not broadly redistributive policies like the Affordable Care Act. This is the sense in which Libertarians mean they are “socially liberal.” After all, as Leathers points out in his article, the key issue for fiscal conservatives who claim to be socially liberal is gay marriage. Leathers might be right in suggesting that “social liberalism moved far beyond traditional ‘negative rights’ a long time ago,” but that merely means that “socially liberal” is a misnomer for Libertarians like myself, not that our ideologies are internally inconsistent. I would suggest, then, that the real debate David Leathers and I should be having is a philosophical one. Liberals like Leathers are committed to the idea that a respect for human dignity requires more than a commitment not to infringe upon the rights of others, whereas Libertarians like me disagree. It may be the case that we as human beings are morally obliged to minimize the suffering of others through redistributive policies, and so ought to be liberals. But that’s an open question. For now, it suffices to say that it’s perfectly consistent to deny the primacy of that obligation. CI

Liberal guilt over the fact that one is well-off in life is philosophically bankrupt: a commitment to justice only requires a commitment to negative rights of non-interference. Life isn’t fair.”

opinion

The Problem with Initiation Marina Giloi | Editor-in-Chief Emerita As clubs, teams, and all kinds of other extracurricular organizations at the Claremont McKenna College wrap up recruiting season, many have started holding “initiations”: bonding activities, often centered on welcoming new members and building team camaraderie. Both objectives are laudable, but the means to accomplishing these objectives lately have run contrary to the best interest of the CMC community. It goes without saying that hazing and forced drinking are outright wrong and prohibited. And we’d like to believe that the majority of club “initiations” are in no way hazing, but merely voluntary, social events that celebrate new members and the year ahead. In fact, with CMC’s vibrant social culture and general enthusiasm for extracurricular activities, we should hope that many clubs would plan bonding events outside of their normal meeting time. My concern is that we’ve lost sight of the true objectives and greater context when we partake in “initiation.” The problem with initiations is that they mimic aspects of hazing even when they are innocuous. For example, club members wearing face paint for club initiations is a nod to hazing behavior and is analogous to activities we commonly condemn – activities detrimental to campus culture. Encouraging new members to act or drink in a specific manner at certain times of an event is an acknowledgment, though subtle, of ritual and indoctrination. Why is this a problem? Simply put, the fundamentally inclusive environment of CMC that we all value is unintentionally eroded by organization initiations. Initiations run counter to campus pillars of critical, constructive engagement among the student body. At the heart of hazing and initiation activities is the idea that “true,” exclusive membership to an organization can only be earned by undergoing them. Under almost no other circumstances would a student succumb to such logic. Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College’s

(ASCMC) Campus Organization Chair Will Su believes that the majority of initiations are conducted by highly selective campus organizations. “I would say actually most of the initiations are from our highest per capita [funded] clubs,” Su said. “So that means the really exclusive and high-funded clubs – like Mock Trial, Model UN – those clubs are typically the campus organizations we would hear that there is some type of initiation simply because they go through an extensive application process, and I guess there’s some sentiment that they need to be initiated into that small group setting.” What’s more, initiations create problems for leadership. In hopes of creating the best organization possible, leaders look for healthy, positive interaction. Many of the undesirable activities that accompany initiations undercut these purposes. Indoctrination, ritual, and alcohol divide and limit our ability to connect with our new members – people who we know very little about. Perhaps these concerns have been muted by overt social pressure (e.g. “#initiation” tags on Facebook newsfeeds), but they are real and deserve reconsideration. The reason I’m writing this piece is because I don’t think CMC club and team leaders are consciously preventing an inclusive social culture. I truly believe that most clubs conduct initiations in the spirit of the admirable objectives of team bonding and fun. But I would encourage them to reexamine their initiations and reframe their treatment of new members in a way that doesn’t echo destructive social phenomena – phenomena that students would reject at face-value.

Writer’s Note: The Claremont Independent requested an interview with CMC Dean of Students Mary Spellman on the issue of club initiation/hazing culture at CMC. Dean Spellman declined to comment on an opinion piece. Dean Spellman also declined to meet off the record with a writer to informally discuss the subject. CI

opinion

Initiation in Moderation

Martin Sartorius | Publisher

Nowadays, everyone in the nation knows about varsity sports and their reported propensity for activities that fall under the banner of “hazing.” News stories, movies, and TV shows portray American varsity sport teams as quasifraternities, where rookies die from alcohol poisoning and are forced to perform disturbing acts under threat of physical violence. The Claremont Colleges, thankfully, have not seen any such horror story occur in the recent years. This does not mean, though, that many initiation rituals cannot end in emotional, physical, or mental harm. With that end in mind, CMS Athletics has taken a very strong stance against any action that could be termed as “hazing.” I recently attended a team meeting where Athletics Director Mike Sutton explained the CMS policy regarding initiation and hazing. He explained that any activity, no matter how seemingly mundane or harmless, that singled out one group of athletes from the rest of the team could be defined as hazing. Furthermore, Sutton said that it did not matter if freshmen (or any group/individual) agreed from their own volition to participate in these activities, because they were being, effectively, coerced into participating through strong social pressures. Under this framework, any activity that could fit under the definition of initiation is forbidden. Even a simple party where freshman were “welcomed” to the team and participated in voluntary drinking with the rest of their teammates could be defined as hazing. Under-age drinking rules aside, CMS would argue that the freshmen involved had been coerced into drinking with their teammates (even if they were not “coerced” into participating in any activity that singled them out as a group). These rules, therefore, place huge limitations on any sort of team-bonding activity, not just initiations. Essentially, the only acceptable alternative of a team-bonding activity would be an activity like watching a movie together (without alcohol, of course). This seems to go contrary to CMS’ belief in promoting a strong team culture because it so strongly limits the types of activities they can participate in together. This is not to say athletes can only socialize in an alcohol-fuelled setting; it just means that, for example, even if an entire team is going to a registered party together on Saturday, they cannot drink together beforehand. Let’s not kid ourselves that this

sort of rule will stop under-age athletes from drinking on their own, or be “coerced” into drinking with non-athlete friends. What it will result in, though, is the degradation of the team’s spirit, since every athlete will be forced to socialize only with their non-athlete friends every night that they go out. It’s interesting to note that CMS’ definition of hazing goes above and beyond the actual legal definition of hazing. According to USLegal.com, the legal definition of hazing is “an abusive, often humiliating form of initiation into or affiliation with a group.” This includes “any willful action taken or situation created which recklessly or intentionally endangers the mental or physical health of another” or “any action by any person alone or acting with others in striking, beating, bruising, or maiming… or attempt to do physical violence to another made for the purpose of committing any of the acts.” The term hazing, however, does not “include customary athletic events or similar contests… and is limited to those actions taken and situations created in connection with initiation into or affiliation with any organization.” This definition is much smaller in scope than CMS’, as it only covers activities that were performed under physical threat, instead of the threat of “not fitting in”. It is interesting that CMS has taken such an extreme stance on this issue, especially since the legal definition is so much more limited than their own. While I certainly did not experience any sort of hazing, even under CMS’ definition, as a freshman, I do understand that each team has a different tradition with regards to welcoming their rookies to the group. Therefore, I hope that the increased dialogue and focus on discouraging harmful activities by the Athletic Department prevents any future Stagthena from experiencing any mental, emotional, or physical pain. However, I do not believe that CMS should so harshly shackle the wonderful team spirit that pervades each sport in pursuit of this goal. Consequently, going forward, it would be helpful if CMS reworded their policy to allow athletes to socialize together as friends without fear of punitive action. This would allow athletes to maintain that great CMS spirit while working to prevent hazing from occurring within each team. CI

opinion 27

Co nservative 52

Te levision Icons Harry Arnold | Staff Writer If Walter White of AMC’s acclaimed show “Breaking Bad” were to campaign for mayor of Albuquerque, would he run as a Republican or Democrat? Syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg has an opinion that might be unsettling for loyal fans. In the Aug. 19 issue of the National Review, he asserts that, as someone who makes his own choices, Walter embodies the ideal of personal freedom. Goldberg points, for example, to Walter choosing his own course of cancer treatment against the advice of others. Furthermore, Walter exemplifies a remarkable sense of self-reliance by using his skills as a chemist to pay for his treatments and refusing charity from a former colleague. Freedom of choice is central to conservative thought and serves as the pillar of conservative proposals on issues ranging from healthcare to education reform. Expanding the scope of Goldberg’s argument, it becomes evident that Breaking Bad is not the only contemporary show with conservative tendencies. It would be easy to label “Mad Men” a liberal show since it chronicles the social change of the 1960s. However, the show’s main character, Don Draper, is the antithesis of a liberal. Draper ascends from the poverty of the Dust Bowl Midwest to the executive ranks of Sterling Cooper due to his creative prowess and not

as a result of any entitlements from the New Deal. During the 1960 election, Draper scolds JFK for his “silver spoon” and for “buying his way into Harvard,” a stark contrast to his characterization of Nixon as the “Abe Lincoln of California” and “A self-made man from nothing.” A reserved Korean War veteran, he often exhibits contempt for the apathetic laziness of his younger, liberal counterparts. At this point one could make the case that the rightleaning Draper is simply meant to serve as a stark contrast to the 1960s political mainstream, with his numerous hardships representing the incompatibility of conservatism with the changing world. However, as the show now prepares for its seventh season, it is evident that “Mad Men” has routinely shown the darker side of liberalism, with Draper instead representing the nostalgia for the Golden Age. A major theme in season six was the violence and chaos associated with the nationwide protests of 1968, which paved the way for Richard Nixon’s “Silent Majority” speech and subsequent victory. For example, Peggy, Sterling Cooper’s first and only female copywriter, finally concedes to her liberal boyfriend’s demand to live in a more “diverse” area of Manhattan only to move out months later following routine vandalism and burglaries. Likewise, Betty (Draper’s first wife) is horrified

opinion by the vagabond culture she witnesses as she searches for a friend of Sally’s (Sally is Draper’s daughter) in an inner-city crack house. Most important, rather than glorify the antiwar movement, “Mad Men” essentially mocks the protests against the Vietnam War as misguided and pointless. Don has to use a personal connection to help a neighbor’s young and naïve son avoid being sent to the front lines after mailing in his draft card in protest. Conservatism is also a recurring theme in HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.” The show’s protagonist, Nucky Thompson, develops a nationwide bootlegging empire through hard walk and self-reliance. As the Republican treasurer of Atlantic City, New Jersey, he uses his entrepreneurial skills to create a booming city filled with vast opportunity. Although the show certainly touches upon the various progressive themes of the 1920s, “Boardwalk Empire” seems to illustrate the negative consequences of this social change more often than not. Throughout the first season, Jimmy Darmody’s wife has an extensive extramarital affair with a female companion she met while Jimmy was abroad during WWI. Rather than glorify her pursuit of sexual freedom and the overall promiscuity of the flapper generation, the show reflects upon the detrimental impact this relationship has on her husband and young son. Likewise, Nucky’s wife seeks to enlighten the women of Atlantic City regarding contraception, but her effort is portrayed as futile. “The Sopranos,” often heralded as the best show in television history, is perhaps the most conservative of all.

The unequivocal protagonist, Tony Soprano, is a socially conservative Catholic, who admits to voting for George W. Bush and has an obvious disdain for the government. His nephew, Christopher Moltisanti, battles a horrific drug addiction over the course of six seasons, which affects both his professional and personal relationships. This is certainly a far cry from any endorsement of drug legalization (a point Goldberg makes on behalf of “Breaking Bad”). Perhaps the strongest indicator of conservatism in “The Sopranos” is the importance the show places upon a traditional family structure. For instance, a key member of Tony’s inner circle, Vito, seeks refuge in New Hampshire once he is discovered to be homosexual. Rather than glorify his new sense of sexual freedom, the show emphasizes the detrimental impact Vito’s absence has on his family. What do the conservative overtones embedded in these popular shows indicate about the current state of society? Given the results of the past couple presidential elections, they certainly do not suggest that the country is becoming more conservative. On the other hand, maybe the United States is still at its core a center-right country, which has been perversely misguided by a liberal media. Perhaps these shows appeal to the inherent conservatism of a majority of Americans. “Breaking Bad,” “Mad Men,” “Boardwalk Empire,” and “The Sopranos” could very well be the pioneering shows of a conservative revolution directed at television screens across America. CI

Mad Women Eugene Nandwa | Staff Writer Women’s employment opportunities have certainly increased since the “Mad Men” 60s, when a powerful glass ceiling precluded their advancement to leadership in virtually every major American enterprise, both public and private. Now, long removed from the days of Don Draper and Co., women have come a long way: they are equal, if not superior, to men in many sectors of the economy and many fields of knowledge. Wage-wise, women are increasingly dominating the American workplace. According to a recent Forbes article, women control 60 percent of all wealth in the United States, which amounts to roughly $12 trillion. This statistic is only expected to increase, with some analysts having women increasing their control of aggregate wealth to $22 trillion by

the year 2020, although this is admittedly a partial function of the demographic demise of male baby boomers. Although women have not consistently arrived at the highest rungs of the economic ladder – just 15 Fortune 500 companies have women CEOs, and only 73 percent of such companies have female executives of any kind – those numbers are quickly changing as women continue to dominate the halls of colleges and universities across the nation. Indeed, because more and more graduates of higher education are women, the day is fast approaching when men will be a distinct minority in most board rooms and government agency front offices. For every 100 men, 140 women will graduate with a college degree at some level – while in 1960, there were 160 men for every 100 women who graduated.

opinion

This presents a problem for those who continue to assert pervasive gender inequality: feminists. Is the decline of one gender in one societal institution (in this case, men in education) something worthy of celebration if it leads to greater gender balance in other areas (more women in corporate leadership positions)? “Many industries will see a shift in the male-female ratio in the coming decades simply because women are now more likely than men to get a bachelor’s degree,” a recent Scripps Voice column reads. “This trend extends to graduate programs, where 62.6 percent of Master’s degrees and 53.3 percent of Doctoral degrees are conferred to women according to the National Center for Educational statistics.” “Hopefully over time, this trend in education will transfer to a more gender equitable workplace,” the column concludes. While the author does appear to see this trend as a means for overall gender equality, she also shows very little concern for the growing imbalance among men and women within the ranks of education. University of Michigan Economics and Finance Professor Mark Perry writes in his American Enterprise Institute blog that if women had been the opposite end of this educational imbalance, it would be deemed a “national crisis.” “Just as a thought experiment – imagine the public reaction if the educational degree imbalances of 4.35 million

bachelor’s degrees and 9.7 million college degrees overall favored men, and not women?” Perry writes. “I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that a college degree imbalance that large in favor of men would be considered a ‘national crisis.’ College degree disparities, when women are over-represented, never seem to be much of a concern. And with those enormous gender imbalances in higher education favoring women, do we really need hundreds of women’s centers on college campuses all over the country, women’s only study lounges, and female-only campus housing for STEM degrees?” It is often said that demography is destiny. As more and more advanced degrees are conferred upon women by the American higher education system – which remains the central arbiter of life-long income and wealth prospects for most people – the rise of women into positions of public and private leadership will be exponential, leaving men behind. Few would disagree that feminism was instrumental in getting rid of the Pete Campbells of the “Mad Men” world. But we are now in a very different place. Instead of promoting gender equality, the modern movement now roots for women to do better than men at every turn and celebrates women’s achievements at the expense of male failure. The movement would have more credibility if it would call out gender bias against both men and women and if it would champion the day, paraphrasing Dr. King, when children grow up in an America where they are not judged by their gender, but by the content of their character. CI

Divestment: An Expensive Political Statement Joel Porter | Staff Writer

Students may remember ducking under, stepping over, or tripping on black strings stretching across the 5C campuses on Sept. 21 – one of the many elaborate rouses conducted during the Claremont Colleges Fossil Fuel Divestment Team’s “Day of Protest.” The symbolic protest aimed to draw attention to the Keystone XL Pipeline, a proposed pipeline that would transport crude oil from Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries – construction of which has been delayed for five years by the Obama administration.

This protest was just one facet of the CCFFDT’s recent activism against the fossil fuel industry. The Divestment Team made a proposal to the Pitzer Board of Trustees on Oct. 11 requesting that all new investments in fossil fuels be frozen and the college withdraw all existing investments in fossil fuels within five years. Recognizing the environmental unsustainability of the fossil fuel industry, the divestment initiative acknowledges the need for drastic change, according to Jess Grady-Benson, strategy coordinator of the Claremont Colleges Fossil Fuel Divestment Team.

opinion “Increasing recycling, turning off the lights, increasing fuel efficiency, are all things that are very important,” GradyBenson said. “But at this point where political deadlock is occurring and we are not really getting far enough fast enough with those localized actions, we need to get political. And the best way to change a paradigm is to educate the public and to have major institutions that are respected make political statements. And that is what we are doing through divestment. We are elevating the discourse on climate change to a level of national, economic and political importance.” Indeed, divestment movements at various colleges, universities, and city governments both in the U.S. and internationally have made major headlines. There are over 500 campaigns internationally dedicated to divesting their funds from fossil fuels. That said, only six schools, San Fransisco State, Hampshire, Unity, Sterling, College of the Atlantic and Green Mountain College, have committed so far to even partial divestment. Whether or not divestment campaigns continue to expand, the direct monetary impact of divestment would be miniscule compared to the size of the oil industry. The direct effect of divestment in another famous campus movement, from apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, was negligible, according to a recent study on divestment by the Stranded Assets Program of Oxford University. The true power of divestment was the stigmatization that followed, as “global public awareness deeply undermined the diplomatic standing of the apartheid regime,” according to the study. This growing awareness resulted in Congress passing the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, which limited exports and loans to South Africa. The goal of divestment is not to directly devastate the targeted industry’s bottom line, but rather to make a political and symbolic statement that stigmatizes the target industry. As the Oxford Study on divestment claims, “In almost every divestment campaign we reviewed from adult services to Darfur, from tobacco to South Africa, divestment campaigns

were successful in lobbying for restrictive legislation.” While the idea of divestment may sound agreeable at first glance, especially to those concerned with the potential implications of climate change, it gets messy quickly. Pomona College recently decided not to divest in foreign oil due to the fact that over 90 percent of their endowments are held in “commingled vehicles” – meaning that Pomona’s assets are bundled along with hundreds of other investors’ assets, and invested by a third party in a variety of stocks. To divest from the stocks that are invested in fossil fuels, Pomona would have to divest completely from its current commingled vehicles – which feature a high returns rate. Pomona could extract all of its investments in these fields, but the Cambridge Associates report to Pomona College projects losses of $419 million over the next 10 years in such a scenario – the difference between the current, high returns and a more passive returns rate. The bottom line is that Pomona made the right decision by favoring $419 million over the political statement they would make by divesting. “We don’t want to pursue this effort to enormous cost to the students and this community. This is about finding a balance between that,” Grady-Benson acknowledged. Discussion on divestment will not end with a college’s decision to not divest: the next challenge is to find a reasonable balance that would make a similar statement without costing a college hundreds of millions of dollars. Alternatively, students and colleges could get lucky: If the divestment movement is successful in its attempt to stigmatize the fossil fuel industry, then the resulting devaluation of fossil fuel stocks would encourage college endowment managers to divest from fossil fuels to protect their investments. But this eventuality is unlikely to occur: Out of hundreds of campaigns, only six colleges have decided to divestment – likely for the same reasons as Pomona. Consequently, the impact of divestment is likely to be severely limited, for better or for worse. CI

On Language: Reflections from Abroad

Amelia Evrigenis | Managing Editor

For the previous six years, I’ve studied Spanish under the impression that I was learning an easy language. I believed the commonly held notion that learning English as a Spanish-speaker is far and away more difficult than learning Spanish as a English-speaker. But this notion extends beyond Spanish. It seems a common belief – in the United States, at least – that English stands out in difficulty relative to other closely related languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese, and French. I held this

belief too as I began my current semester studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where los porteños (inhabitants of the city) speak the Rioplatense Spanish dialect. I was shocked the first time a native Argentine told me he was impressed by how well my yanqui (yes, that’s Spanish for yankee) friends and I spoke Spanish – after all, he said, it’s more difficult to learn than English. “We Argentines are very sophisticated,” he joked, implying the complexities of his native language.

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I never thought I’d hear someone say it – Spanish, harder than English? How? But as my days in Buenos Aires became weeks, and as my weeks became months, I came to hear several porteños repeat the same thing – that English, which they’ve studied as a second language, seems easier than their native tongue. Granted, that’s not the only testimony I’ve heard here. I’ve also spoken to Argentines who think English is the more difficult of the two. Even so, the notion that English is, without a doubt, the most challenging of the languages at least partially rooted in Latin is not universal. I get why English has the reputation of being so difficult. The language is full of irregularities and complexities, especially with regard to its non-phonetic spelling and pronunciation. Consider words such as “through,” “rough,” “cough,” and “dough.” If that’s not a linguistic nightmare, I don’t know what is. But even so, I’ve come to second-guess the assumption that English holds some sort of monopoly over language difficulty. I’ve found that many aspects of Spanish make us English speakers, by comparison, look like a linguistically simple people. Take gender, for example. In Spanish, every noun is gendered, and modifying adjectives must be appropriately gendered as well. Although words ending in -o are generally masculine, and in -a generally feminine, there are several exceptions to that rule, not to mention a plethora of nouns that end in neither of the two letters and must simply be memorized. Beyond that, Spanish has a system of verb tenses and conjugations more complex than that of English. Consider the word “play.” Present: I play, you play, she plays, we play, they play. Past: I played, you played, etc. Future: I will play, you will play, etc. Imperative: Play the game. Don’t play the game. Perfect: I have played the game. Gerund: He is playing the game. Past Participle: The game was played. In English, we generally only inflect the third person singular present tense, past tense, gerund and participles. In total, there are just four verb variations: play, plays, played, and playing.

Some irregular English verbs present greater challenges (consider the conjugations for “to be” or “to go”). And in English, the inflections aren’t the same for every verb (“to drink” and “to buy”). Still, the simplicity of English verbs is notable when compared to Spanish. Spanish verbs require inflections for each grammatical person in each of nine verb tenses – which excludes the infinitive form, perfect tenses, participle variations, and gerund. The inflection rules are generally reliable, although there are of course irregularities and exceptions to memorize. Unlike English, one cannot alter Spanish verb tenses by merely appending modifying words. Spanish also has two forms of past tense – the preterit and imperfect – whose conjugations must be memorized and applied in distinct contexts. The imperfect refers to continuing or repeated events, resembling English phrases such as “I was playing” or “I used to play.” Spanish’s subjunctive tense, more accurately called the subjunctive mood, is exceptionally challenging for native English speakers. Although the subjunctive mood exists in English, the verb form is rarely distinguishable from the indicative mood and is not a salient grammatical feature of the language. In Spanish, the subjunctive forms (there are two, a present subjunctive and an imperfect subjunctive) require verb inflection when a sentence expresses uncertainty or reflects the speaker’s feelings about an action (among other uses). The subjunctive verb form, thus, is always distinguishable from the indicative, and is used very frequently. In Spanish, one must inflect the verb for sentences like “I doubt that they play” and “I wanted them to play.” Memorizing the multitude of Spanish inflections and implementing them is taxing, especially for native English speakers who are not accustomed to such grammatical intricacies. Every extra verb subject and tense provides another opportunity to mess up. It appears that my porteño friend was right: Spanish speakers really are pretty sophisticated. I write this piece in response to all who have told me that my second language, whose complexities seem only to multiply the more I speak it, is fácil compared to English. I certainly don’t believe that English is easy, but closely related languages pose serious challenges of their own. Other languages are hard, too, albeit in different ways. As a native English speaker, I have been humbled by studying abroad. If three months immersed in the Spanish language has taught me anything, it’s that we angloparlantes aren’t quite as complex as we think. CI

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In the Bubble It’s impossible to keep up with everything that’s happening around the 5Cs – even for those of us in the journalism business; however, we diligently read through each of the other publications on campus and featured some highlights to keep you up-to-date on the campus dialogue. Here’s what’s happening in the bubble.

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