3-19-2014

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Special Housing Issue

The Daily Free Press Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Year xliv. Volume lxxxvi. Issue XXX

www.dailyfreepress.com

For gender-neutral housing, years of effort bring reward By Drew Schwartz Daily Free Press Staff

For years, the Boston University student body has been collaborating with Student Government, the Center for Gender, Sexuality and Activism and other groups to advocate for gender-neutral housing on campus. The process had its ups and downs, its charges forward and its surprising snags, but now, for the first time during a spring housing selection, students have that option they have been requesting for so long. In August, BU President Robert Brown approved the gender-neutral housing proposal after the administration abruptly halted it in December 2012. Since then, students have taken advantage through direct room swaps, allowing them to live with any fellow student of any gender identification. “When I came onto the initiative freshman year, in pushing it, I received comments from students saying they wanted gender-neutral housing because they didn’t feel safe on campus, they had to hide their identities and they didn’t feel comfortable within BU’s residence halls,” said former Chair of the BUSG Advocacy Committee D.A. Whatley. Whatley, a junior in the School of Management, said SG had been “given a mandate” by the student body to bring gender-neutral housing to BU. “I felt as though as a member of the BU Student Government at the time and as a student in general that none of my fellow Terriers should feel that way at all,” he said. While students were only able to achieve

Inside This Issue: PAGE 3: Full-year, on-campus housing to be offered to BU students starting this summer ***

KIERA BLESSING/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences sophomore, Maya Inozemtseva (left) and Colleges of Arts and Sciences sophomore Daniel Smith (right) are the first two Boston University students to live in gender-neutral housing on campus.

gender-neutral housing in the 2013-14 academic year through a process of directly switching rooms, the option will be available as a choice in almost all residence halls for the 2014-15 school year. Warren Towers, Claflin, Rich and Sleeper Halls, The Towers and the Myles Annex will not offer gender-neutral housing. “For some students who moved off campus, it was because they wanted to live with someone of the opposite sex, and this certainly

makes that available [on campus],” said BU spokesman Colin Riley. “Ideally, you’re going to be in a living environment that is suitable to the way you live, suitable to your getting the most supportive academic and learning environment.” Whatley said the movement initially faced opposition from students and parents.

PAGE 4: Living off campus and want to know which neighborhood is best for you? An areaby-area look at rent and other expenses *** PAGE 5: How to shop for groceries on a budget and properly stock your kitchen

GNH, see page 2

Prosecutors file motion to restrict Tsarnaev BU to host women’s liberation conference By Kelsey Newell Daily Free Press Staff

Federal prosecutors working on the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing case filed a protective order Monday in hopes of preventing alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from being able to see autopsy photos of the bombing victims. By law, the defense team has the right to view all the evidence that is found by either the prosecutors or the defense lawyers during the discovery phase of the trial, but prosecutors want to keep Tsarnaev from unnecessarily seeing autopsy photos other than the ones that will be presented in court. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, the prosecutor who filed the motion, is arguing that Tsarnaev viewing the photos would be further hurting the families of the deceased. “Tsarnaev has no need to review personally the many photos that will not be used against him, and that allowing him to do so would vio-

late the victims’ rights to dignity and privacy and subject them to needless harm and suffering,” states the prosecutors’ motion. U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole has set a trial date of Nov. 3 where it will be decided if the alleged Boston Marathon bomber will receive the death penalty or a lifetime prison sentence, as the bombings resulted in three deaths and over 260 injuries. The prosecutors said allowing the alleged bomber to view the photos of those who tragically died would be putting the families of the victims through more pain. “Allowing photos of the mutilated bodies of the victims to be viewed by the man accused of mutilating them would needlessly revictimize the family members in the same way that innocent children who are photographed pornographically are revictimized whenever those photos are seen by others,” said the prosecu-

Tsarnaev, see page 2

By Andrew Keuler Daily Free Press Staff

Boston University will host a three-day series of exhibitions to commemorate the women’s liberation movement of the mid20th century. The symposium, titled A Revolutionary Moment: Women’s Liberation in the Late 1960s and Early 1970s will run from March 27 to March 29 and will bring together scholars and artists in various disciplines, said Deborah Belle, the director of the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program at BU. “We really hope that the conversations we have at the conference, the information that’s exchanged, as well as simply being with each other and that energy, may allow us to do better work moving forward,” she said. The conference will feature various presentations of artistic and scholarly nature,

Belle said “We have two-and-a-half jam-packed days, over 50 panels, three full evenings of film of and about the era, one staged play, songs, poetry, photography, scholars and activists,” Belle said. Among the many events scheduled for the symposium are a staged interpretation of the play For Colored Girls, a showing of the feminist documentary Left on a Pearl and presentations from a variety of speakers, including distinguished women’s historian Linda Gordon, journalist Susan Faludi feminist writer Kathie Sarachild. Award-winning novelist Marge Piercy will give the convocation address, “The War on Women is Part of a Larger War,” in which she will read some of her poetry and give a talk. “I’m attending the conference because I was involved in the second wave of the

Symposium, see page 2

BU students march in Students for Justice in Palestine protest at Northeastern By Jaime Bennis Daily Free Press Staff

About 200 protesters, including several Boston University students, gathered on the Krentzman Quadrangle at Northeastern University on Tuesday to protest Northeastern’s suspension of a pro-Palestine student group. Northeastern shut down the NU Students for Justice in Palestine, which advocates on behalf of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, last week for allegedly violating the university’s Student Organization Resource Guide, according to several news outlets. Tuesday’s protest coincided with university hearings of two NUSJP members who are facing sanctions for distributing mock eviction notices around the university, a campaign designed to simulate how Palestinians

were allegedly removed from their homes by Israeli forces. “I know a lot of the supporters here [at the protest] do not particularly support our issue, but I think it is an issue of free speech,” said Manuela Uribe, a member of BU’s chapter of SJP who attended the protest. “These issues could happen anywhere. It’s very scary.” Uribe, a College of Arts and Sciences senior, said BUSJP has not conflicted with BU administration. Protesters picketed, chanted and marched from the Krentzman Quadrangle to the office of Northeastern President Joseph Aoun with a petition signed by more than 6,000 individuals. The petition demanded that the NUSJP be reinstated and that the administration’s charges against the two NUSJP members be dropped.

The protest was planned by a coalition of 30 organizations, including faith groups, feminist and LGBTQ groups and SJP chapters from other universities. Madeline Burrows, who spoke at the protest and is traveling with the PalestinianAmerican Ali Abunimah Book Tour, said the number of protesters who attended impressed her. “It’s Tuesday morning, it’s difficult for people to come by,” she said. “The fact that there are still so many people here speaks to the support for SJP at Northeastern.” Rabbi Joseph Berman, a member of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, also spoke at the protest. “JVP for Boston demands that Northeastern reinstate SJP, drop any disciplinary action against its members and become an institu-

tion of higher learning that supports freedom of speech for all of its students,” he said during his speech. Liza Behrendt, a JVP Boston organizer, said she was “disheartened” by Northwestern’s decision to suspend NUSJP. “Our hope is to put enough pressure on the Northeastern administration that they reinstate NUSJP and drop all charges against individual members,” she said. “We also want to send a message to administrations all over the nation that it is not acceptable to censor the speech of students, especially students who are simply calling for human rights.” Martin Federman, former Hillel Director at Northeastern, said he was upset by the re-

SJP, see page 2


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3-19-2014 by The Daily Free Press - Issuu