INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 133, No. 60
THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2017
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ITHACA, NEW YORK
16 Pages – Free
News
Arts
Sports
Weather
Don’t Do It
Stressful Quiet
Do-or-Die
Snow Showers HIGH: 36º LOW: 20º
COLA organized a call-in to administrators to urge Cornell to cut its licensing agreement with Nike. | Page 3
Don’t Call Me Son explores privacy and gender through extended tension and does it well, said Albert Chu ’18. | Page 10
Women’s hockey swept Colgate, but have another tough task at hand against St. Lawrence in playoff play. | Page 16
Student Trustee Candidates Debate C.U.Future By LINDSAY CAYNE Sun Staff Writer
Candidates running for Student Trustee debated possible University responses to President Donald Trump’s immigration ban, whether Trustee meetings should be open and faculty diversity among other topics in Klarman Hall on Wednesday. One undergraduate student will be elected, although graduate students and professional students can also vote in the election. The elected Student Trustee will become a full participant on the Board of Trustees, according to an email from the Trustee Nominating Committee. The five candidates running for this position are Olivia Corn ’19, Lauren Goldstein ’20, Dustin Liu ’19, Jimmy Putko ’19 and Caleb Sturman ’19. See DEBATE page 5
Sofia Hu ’17, editor-in-chief of The Cornell Daily Sun, moderated the debate. She began the debate with a pop quiz testing their knowledge of Cornell. Each candidate then gave an opening statement and proceeded to answer Hu’s questions. Hu first asked the students their stance on Trump’s immigration plan and what the University’s role should be in protecting undocumented students. Sturman answered that Cornell councils should provide legal services, without risking federal funding, to protect undocumented citizens and defend anyone charged with an immigration crime. Goldstein said that she would work to ensure that Cornell becomes a sanctuary campus and would enforce the Cornell administration’s already-present commitment to
diversity and international students. She added that she wants to be responsive to the political environment and make sure that students feel safe. Putko noted the “tremendous risk” international students take when choosing to study at a university in a foreign country. He said this risk creates “an extremely vulnerable position” for the international students who therefore need more attention than domestic students. Liu emphasized that students should not have to feel worried about possibly being deported. He said that the role of the student trustee is to bring their voices to the table. “I want to affirm every student’s ability to study at this University,” Liu said. “I want every student to reach their fullest potential and with that, we need support from this University.” CAMERON POLLACK / SUN PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Trust in me | Student Trustee candidates answer questions and clarify their platforms as they try to win the election.
OCR Open Forum Reveals Concerns Schwartz Plaza Set Regarding University’s Title IX Office For a New Fall Look Focus group calls investigators‘unresponsive’to campus sexual violence By DREW MUSTO Sun Staff Writer
A Cornellian’s Oscar bumble on Sunday was not the only bad omen for Cornell this week. On Tuesday and Wednesday, four attorneys from the Department of Education’s New York Office for Civil Rights held open focus groups during
which members of the public could discuss the campus climate surrounding sexual assault and harassment. The Sun attended one of these three meetings. All participants in the focus groups whose personal stories are cited in this article gave The Sun clear permission to publish their stories and any other potentially identifying information. The Sun is omitting all information
that could identify participants who did not give their express consent to The Sun to be included in this story. However, The Sun will include nonidentifying information that pertains to Title IX compliance — a similar standard to the one OCR investigators said they use in deciding which disclosures See TITLE IX page 5
C.U. Alumnus Responsible for Oscar Award Flub By NICHOLAS BOGEL-BURROUGHS Sun Staff Writer
PHOTO COURTESY OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY
At Cornell, Brian Cullinan ’82 was a masterful javelin thrower whose 250-foot heave is still the longest toss in University history. At the Academy Awards on Sunday night, it was a simple envelope handoff that tripped him up, leading to the biggest bungle in the Oscars’ 89 years, followed by apologies, befuddlement and sympathy. The accounting firm tasked with handling top-secret Oscars envelopes since 1935 said the former National Junior Olympic champion had relayed the wrong
By NICHOLAS BOGELBURROUGHS
Sun Staff Writer
Cornell plans to vastly redesign Schwartz Plaza in Collegetown — complete with benches, tables and chairs — in time for the fall semester, when open seats at Collegetown Bagels across the street are a hard find. “We’ve been talking about this project for probably close to five or six years,” David Cutter ’85, campus landscape architect, told The Sun. Construction on the plaza will begin in June, pending Planning Board approval, and Cornell expects the new gathering space to be completed in mid-August. Schwartz Plaza, in front of The Schwartz
Center and diagonally across from CTB, is currently surrounded by walls and rarely filled with students — or anyone. “That space has been sitting essentially unused, behind a wall,” Cutter said. “The only way you can get in is [through] a little slot ... and when you go in there, there really isn’t anything to do.” Collegetown is the most dense area in Ithaca, Cutter said, adding to his desire to create a space where students and Ithacans can relax and study outside. A frequent criticism of Collegetown is that there is no park or other sizable space for students to congregate outdoors. See PLAZA page 3
envelope to presenters, commencing a social media firestorm and less-than-desirable publicity for the firm, PwC. “PwC Partner Brian Cullinan mistakenly handed the backup envelope for Actress in a Leading Role instead of the envelope for Best Picture to presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway,” PwC, formerly known as PriceWaterhouseCoopers, said in a statement. “Once the error occurred, protocols for correcting it were not followed through quickly enough by Mr. Cullinan or his partner.” To read the rest of this story, please visit cornellsun.com.
COURTESY OF TROWBRIDGE WOLF MICHAELS LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS
Makeover | A rendering of the Schwartz Plaza redesign shows a new hangout spot for residents.