The Daily Princetonian: October 18, 2019

Friday October 18, 2019 vol. CXLIII no. 92

Twitter: @princetonian Facebook: The Daily Princetonian YouTube: The Daily Princetonian Instagram: @dailyprincetonian

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

ON CAMPUS

EMILY SPALDING / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

James Peebles *62 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on Oct. 8 “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology.”

Q&A with Professor Emeritus James Peebles GS ’62, 2019 Nobel Laureate in Physics Senior Writer

James Peebles GS ’62 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on Oct. 8 “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology.”

Peebles’s innovative and original work on cosmology has fundamentally changed how people understand the history of the universe. In addition to being a leader in his field, Peebles is the Albert Einstein Professor of Science, Emeritus.

His profound contributions to his field have previously been recognized with prestigious honors, including the Crafoord Prize in 2005 and the Shaw Prize in 2004, among many other accolades. His

new book, “Cosmology’s Century, An Inside History of Our Modern Understanding of the Universe,” will be released next year.

Peebles sat down with The Daily Princetonian to discuss his career, teaching philosophy, and the next great mystery he is excited to investigate.

The Daily Princetonian: First of all, congratulations on your welldeserved Nobel Prize in Physics.

Now that you have had some time to process the events of last week, how are you feeling? What is the significance of this award to you and your field of study?

Professor James Peebles: I am still a little numb. You know, I’ve been retired since the year 2000.

I’ve kept working but at an ever-

IN TOWN

slower rate — more relaxed. I’ve enjoyed a quiet life until that phone call a week ago, last Tuesday. The time since then has been wonderful, but just crazy. So, the first feeling is, well, as I say, slight disorganization. I’m, of course, deeply proud.

I have been working in this field, cosmology, since 1964 — 55 years. I’ve seen it grow from a very small field. It was a real natural science then. There were observations, there were theories, there was work to try to bring the two together, but at the level of activity it was miniscule. It has grown, at first very slowly since the mid-1960s, grown with increasing speed over the last 20 years, and now has reached the status

of a well established natural science. You pause to consider that that’s a remarkable extension of well established physical theory, from the smallest scales probed

by CER-N [European Organization for Nuclear Research], to the immense scales of our observable universe, quite a triumph. So I’ve been working on this field for all that time. I’ve made many contributions through the years.

I hate self-promotion, and it’s quite uncharacteristic of me to say this, but I think the Nobel Committee made a good choice.

DP: Going back to the beginning of your career, was there a moment when you knew you wanted to become a physicist?

What attracted you to the field,

STUDENT LIFE

ON CAMPUS

Fields Fellows: Advocates for Equity and Diversity on Campus

Judge Barrett speaks at the University about the U.S. Constitution

By Rachel Sturley Contributor

COURTESY OF ARCHANGE ANTOINE

A group of seminarians stand behind a reparations protest banner.

Activists demonstrate as Seminary trustees discuss reparations

By Omar Farah Contributor

On Wednesday, amid a backdrop of pronounced student activism, the trustees of Princeton Theological Seminary convened to discuss the possibility of establishing a reparations fund, in reflection of the Seminary’s historical participation in the institutions of American slavery. The

In Opinion

meeting, the first of its kind, was preceded by years of student activism and represents a climactic moment in a years-long conversation.

Nicholas Young, President of the Seminary’s Association of Black Seminarians (ABS) and a central figure in the campaign in favor of reparations, expects the outcome of Wednesday’s meeting to be announced on Oct. 17.

See ACTIVISM page 2

Columnist Sebastian Quiroz argues against the educational use of lectures, and contributing columnist Anna McGee criticizes the trivialization of mental health statistics in emails from student organizations.

PAGE 6

Twenty undergraduates are working with the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding (CAF) to engage the University’s student body in critical conversations about equity and inclusion on campus.

Diversity and Inclusion Peer Educators, called “Fields Fellows,” were selected by CAF to promote dialogue surrounding issues of identity as they relate to the University community.

The Fellows work year-round, coordinating events that involve students in creative conversations about issues of diversity — and their role is almost entirely student-mediated.

Jes Norman, Education and Outreach Program Coordinator for CAF, is responsible for the selection of new Fields Fellows each year, as well as the program itself, which Norman described as still in its “infancy.”

“I look for someone who is willing to learn and who can understand that ... the process of engaging in social justice See FIELDS page 3

By Sandeep Mangat Contributor

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Professor at the Notre Dame Law School, opened her Oct. 17 talk on campus by arguing, “The story of the United States can’t be told without the Constitution.”

Barrett, who delivered the annual Walter F. Murphy

See PEEBLES page 2

Lecture in American Constitutionalism, went on to allege the U.S. Constitution’s superiority derives from its concision and continuity, as opposed to the constitutions of the United Kingdom and France.

“The average constitution is replaced every 19 years.

Ours [has been] the same for 250 years,” she said.

Barrett explained that the significance of the ConstiSee BARRETT page 4

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

Q&A with Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post columnist

By Oliver Effron Assistant News Editor

On Thursday, Oct. 17, The Daily Princetonian sat down with Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin for an interview. Rubin, a Republican, is one of the foremost advocates of the Never Trump movement and has repeatedly denounced her former party in her columns

Today on Campus 2:00p.m.: PNKHR Pie Day! Come pie us to raise money to help rescue refugees from North Korea!

Frist Patio / Outdoor Spaces

and what has kept your focus specifically on cosmology over the years?

JP: I learned that there is the profession of a physicist, and that you could be paid to do it, at the University of Manitoba as an undergraduate. I owe a lot to that place. The faculty in the department of physics there — my fellow students — taught me what physics is really about. They showed me a lot about how to do it — that’s the faculty and also the students. We learn a lot from our fellow students. My fellow students introduced me to my wife; they saw us marry and shipped off to Princeton.

My most important teacher in

and on MSNBC, where she is a frequent commentator.

Rubin visited the Woodrow Wilson School through the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Leadership through Mentorship Program.

The Daily Princetonian: I want to start off with a question that’s not really politicsrelated: what is the last book See RUBIN page 5

WEATHER

By Emily Spalding

HIGH

57˚

LOW

36˚

Partly Cloudy chance of rain:

57 percent

The Daily Princetonian

page 2

Friday October 18, 2019

Peebles: We are satisfying the hunger to know where we are PEEBLES Continued from page 1

............. the faculty, Kenneth Standing, in my junior year, started talking about how I would go to Princeton to do graduate work. It was never a feeling of suggestion about it, but rather simply a statement. I had no reason to resist, so off I went to Princeton, knowing that I wanted to do physics.

When I got here, I soon ran across Bob Dickie’s research group and I soon after that saw the kind of physics I wanted to do is what he had started doing. It just fit my style, my instincts, and it was wonderful. I started working in cosmology a few years after I joined the group; that was at the suggestion of Bob Dickie. He gathered three of us into the attic of the old physics building, now the student center [Frist Campus Center]. He brought together David Wilkinson, Peter Roll, and me — three young members of his gravity research group. He explained that it had occurred to him that maybe the universe started hot and dense and expanded. His reasons for thinking that are kind of confused, but the guy had spectacular instinct.

He said to Wilkinson and Roll, “Why don’t you build a radiometer to look for this radiation, if it’s there?” And, he said to me, “Why don’t you look into the theoretical implications?” That set my career; I’ve been working on it ever since.

It set David Wilkinson’s career.

We, alas, lost him to cancer far too soon. He was on the faculty here, too. That was his career. Peter Roll escaped — he went into education and [put] computers into classrooms. But, nonetheless, you pause to consider how important a simple remark can be; [it] can change the world — at least a little fraction of it.

DP: You have previously noted that you have a “preference for under-appreciated issues” in terms of selecting your work with cosmology. What did you mean by this, and what is it about these kinds of issues that draws you to them?

JP: Certainly when I started working in cosmology it was an under-appreciated field. A lot was going on in physics then in other branches — particle physics, condensed matter physics, even biophysics. Cosmology was, well, I should say the word, dismissed as “empty” or, close to it, “speculative.” “Why don’t you do something more meaningful?” I’d never had that said to me, but I had the distinct feeling that, well, better I should look into cosmology than them. It’s just so speculative.

I was very fortunate that, in fact, the field was under-appreciated, so I, as a junior person, could first get to know the handful of people doing meaningful research in this field — try that now — and I could embark on projects without much thought of competition. I guess that helped me develop the habit of working in fields in which there was not much competition, but it also goes along with my instinctive feeling that I would rather not join the crowd. If you join the crowd you can do very meaningful research, but it will be part of a group. That’s great; it’s very important that people do this.

But you tend to be stuck along a given direction. Often that direction was chosen because it was

obviously the good one, and it then often works out that, yes, it was good. But you do, in operating that way, miss the chance that you have taken the wrong direction. Maybe not totally wrong, but maybe there are things to be thought about that haven’t yet been much discussed. And that has been the direction of my thinking since the early ’80s. As the theory I was introducing became popular, I became uneasy because it didn’t seem to me all that obvious that my ideas were right — they were just thrown out there.

Cosmology is now big science, and that’s great. Very meaningful research is being done by lots of people, most half my age — great. I’m not about to get into that. I couldn’t add much. For one thing, I don’t like computers … I am happy as a heckler these days.

Let’s start in the early ’80s, and my habit in that direction has continued ever since. I have nothing to prove, and I have [a] deep fascination with the world around us, with cosmology, so good, it all fits. I have a happy life.

DP: Can you elaborate on those feelings of uneasiness you mentioned you had when you first started working on cosmology?

As a leader and pioneer of your field, have you had to deal with any challenges in paving the way for others?

JP: The uneasiness is simple to explain. The theory of the evolving universe was then very little supported by hard evidence. It’s to my taste to look at the interface between theory and practice.

That’s what made me uneasy. The challenge — there was not a challenge, really. I don’t remember ever being criticized for working in cosmology. I did notice undertones of wonder why I’m going in that direction, but no one ever said to me — including ... the senior faculty in this department — maybe you should do something more useful. No one ever said that, isn’t that remarkable?

So no, I did not find challenges at all. I felt uneasy only because of my instinctive desire to see that interaction of theory and observation, which is so magical, to think that you can make up ideas and then design experiments and see that the idea agrees with the measurement. And of course you know that practice is at the heart of physics and gave us these devices which are such a magnificent demonstration of how scientists and engineers can make nature operate according to its bidding, push around those little electrons, shape them in these little fluid molecules — it’s magnificent. That’s science. I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to do a little of that.

DP: As for your work that was awarded the Nobel Prize, how would you explain to someone unfamiliar with the field of cosmology why this topic matters?

JP: Princeton University’s mission has two parts: the communication of information and the accumulation of information.

The first is easy to justify. We teach you, you go out and do good things. That’s good, that’s firm, explicit, and obviously useful.

The second can be questioned.

Why are you spending time and resources on curiosity-driven research? There is the very obvious answer. Some of that curiositydriven research is going to pay off big.

Consider the Nobel Prize for

lithium-ion batteries. You’ve seen the students roll around campus on those little scooters powered by a small battery underneath, it’s incredible. I’m not saying it’s a good thing always, and I think those scooters are — well, I think they are lovely, but I do fear that someone is going to run into something someday.

The other argument for curiosity-driven research is that we are satisfying the hunger to know where we are. I feel that that same hunger is satisfied by literature and poetry. Am I wrong that we all want to know what is our place in the world, in society, in connection with our friends in neighbors? And we discover that in part through beautiful poetry, literature, and, I insist, curiositydriven research. We find that we are not alone in this solar system; there are others.

You pause to consider that the other part of the physics prize goes to the discovery of planets around other stars. Those planets are so far away that it’s a good bet that we, the human race, will never go visit them. It’s a good bet that fascinating things are happening on those planets and we’ll never know about it. Does that please you? It does me. We are never going to see what the universe actually does as it continues expanding. Never, I guarantee it.

Does that interest you or distress you?

A member of our faculty, now alas passed, Rubby Sherr, used to on occasion talk to me about his research in nuclear physics and he would say, “isn’t that neat?,” and that phrase is just right to me.

The evidence that the universe is evolving is at the same time profound, and isn’t that neat that we know such things even though that knowledge is never going to pay off in any material way, like putting food on the table?

DP: In addition to contributing to scientists’ understanding of the history of the universe, you have always kept teaching as part of your career. What is it about teaching that grips you?

JP: I think this is simply a result of my love of physics. Since I was an undergraduate, physics is, for me, neat, and I like to tell students about it. I think my enthusiasm is reasonably contagious. I certainly have profited from a technique that I didn’t consciously develop, but just somehow naturally evolved. I am in the habit of making wisecracks during lectures, and it has a miraculous effect: the students giggle, and they wake up!

I also, well, I guess I feel a little responsibility, I want to be prepared when I go into a classroom, so I do take care to remind myself what I think. Also, I hate the prospect of being asked a question that I don’t know how to answer, so I try to avoid that. The product seemed to work. And of course there is reinforcement there, isn’t it? My style grew in response to the students’ reactions to it, that’s part of the way we evolve, of course.

DP: Are there any wisecracks that went over especially well in lecture?

JP: Well, I do remember one that students always loved. I was teaching, on occasion, hour-anda-half long classes. That’s a long time, and my habit used to be to break halfway through. And because — you’ve noticed I’m kind of skinny — I tend to get hungry so I go down to get an ice cream

bar … This was particularly when I was teaching quantum mechanics, and you’ve got to pay attention there, so I would say, “Now I’m going to do something really difficult, I’m going to continue to lecture while eating this ice cream cone.” They always laughed.

DP: You have built a career and reputation based on generosity and a willingness to share and collaborate with others. What advice would you give to students as they navigate college and begin to take steps into the professional world?

JP: I can only make the most general of comments. Each of us finds our way, and each of us being a different, truly unique individual we will have a unique road to travel. So travel it well, with care and an open mind. Another comment I always make at this point is don’t judge your career by the count of prizes and awards received. Because, although I think this Nobel Prize is wonderful, awards and prizes are capricious.

It’s wonderful to receive them, it’s not an insult not to receive them, it’s not a demerit in any way.

DP: What do you mean when you say to travel with an open mind?

JP: It’s easy to get locked into a line of thinking. It’s important to do that when you are doing research, you’ve got to focus. But a tight focus means you have blinders on, and so it certainly helps and is important, at least it has been important for me, to stand back and on occasion ask yourself, “Why am I doing this, why don’t I look around?” Most of the time, in my experience, you will receive the answer “Because there’s nothing much else to do in this line of research, nothing that looks promising.” But on occasion, you might find yourself answering yourself: “Well, there is something to do, so why not try it?”

DP: Your career has spanned several decades and your work has directly led to some of the most exciting developments in our knowledge about how the universe works. After such an impressive career, what is next for you? Are you working on anything now that particularly excites you?

JP: I have just completed a book on how we got to where we are in cosmology in the past century. It’s a scholarly book; it’ll have equations. It’s now at Princeton University Press, I get the copy-edited proofs tomorrow. That book is, at the same time, an attempt at a history — I’m not a historian — but my attempt in that direction, and my personal journal, my autobiography. They are mixed up, so I switch often from the impersonal historian to the personal … It should be published in the spring … This is not a book that is going to make any money for anyone, but it will please my colleagues. And it is aimed for students who are interested in physics, and I hope that will work well.

After that, well, I look forward to getting back to a peaceful life.

I intend to keep doing research always these days and for sometime, on the fringes, where I feel most comfortable.

DP: Is there anything specific you are hoping to explore?

JP: Galaxies are, to me, enigmatic. They have properties that are surprising within our current thinking about how galaxies form. We have a theory based on the theory of the expanding uni-

verse. That theory can be used to set up conditions to study how galaxies form. These studies are able to model objects that look a lot like galaxies, it’s impressive.

They’re certainly on the right track, more or less.

But there are properties of the simulations that are just quite out of whack with the observations, as I see them, of real galaxies. That may be, simply, a result of the complexity of how galaxies form, or just possibly, it’s a result of the fact that the standard theory of the expanding universe is incomplete. We have that hypothetical dark matter. In the standard theory that dark matter is as simple as it could possibly be, an ideal gas, collision-less. It’s natural to try that first because it’s simple. So far it has worked quite well.

But you always are looking for discrepancies that might be pointing to the need for a still better theory or example of the dark sector. You’ve maybe run across the so-called Hubble constant tension. It is a discrepancy between some sets of measurements and others, the discrepancy arises through the application of the standard theory. Maybe that’s telling us that the standard theory is not quite right.

I’m sure it’s not quite right, it’s got to be more interesting than it is now, it’s got to be more complete. Maybe there too there is a hint to a deeper theory. That’s fascinating, but to me the properties of galaxies are so much more rich that they must have a lot to teach us about the way they formed.

And that may have some hints to how we can find a better theory.

So, on my desk is a debris, undisturbed since Tuesday before last, of plowing around through the literature for properties of galaxies that seem to me to be fascinating.

I will enjoy plowing through the literature, and the little “a-ha” moments where it’s not quite “gotcha,” but it is, well, you know you didn’t really build a good theory for this property of galaxies. I’ve been doing that for some time and I enjoy it. I started doing this in the early ’80s when popular estimates of the mass density of the universe seemed to me to be wrong. We needn’t get into the details, but I can just say I enjoyed going to conferences and lecturing people on why they had the mass density too high. Turns out I was right. But at the time, it was fun to go to conferences and make unpopular arguments that I felt could be defended — you don’t make an unpopular argument that’s silly. It annoyed some of my younger colleagues. I remember one saying to me, “You’re just doing that to annoy us.”

And I have to admit, I did have a little pleasure in annoying them.

It’s the same game now with the properties of galaxies. I don’t go to nearly as many conferences, but when I do I point to these curiosities. Well now, as then, there was a tendency for them to say, “Well, there goes Peebles again,“ and then forget about it. That made my comments always seem kind of fresh, because they had forgotten that I was complaining about this, which is fine, that’s the way it should be. But when I made the remark much earlier about not wearing blinders all the time I had in mind just this sort of activity.

Question authority.

ABS petition for reparations garnered more than 650 signatures ACTIVISM Continued from page 1

.............

The designation of a reparations fund would be sourced from the Seminary’s $986 million dollar endowment.

Student activists staged a coordinated demonstration to make a final appeal to trustees and faculty before they reached a decision.

On Thursday morning, during a service in Miller Chapel, around 80 seminarians remained standing during worship, calling for the Seminary’s trustees to deliver “substance, not symbols.” The demonstrators, donning black outfits and determined stares, formed a human wall inside the chapel.

According to a seminarian present at the protest, this demonstration prompted promising responses from trustees and faculty. The seminarian requested to remain anonymous.

Traction on the issue, however, has not traditionally been so strong. Shalom Stewart and Al Curley, Chaplain and Vice President of the ABS, respectively, were hesitant to claim victory too soon.

“I feel it could go either way. I have a small sense of hope, but I also sense it could continue with business as usual,” Stewart said.

The proposed reparations come after the publication of “Princeton Seminary and Slavery: A Report of the Historical Audit Committee,” a 2018 report commissioned

by Princeton Theological Seminary President Craig Barnes and carried out by the Seminary’s Historical Audit Task Force. The report sought to investigate the Seminary’s specific ties to institutions of slavery.

After the report’s publication, the ABS released a petition, which calls, among other steps, for the Seminary to allocate “no less than 15% of the current endowment” to rectify the historical injustices enumerated within the report.

Since its posting online, the petition has garnered more than 650 signatures.

In particular, the ABS has proposed that the Seminary divert some $5.3 million — roughly 15 percent of the total amount it drew

from its endowment during the 2017-2018 academic year — to fund scholarships for all future AfricanAmerican students, as well as students of West-African nations from which slaves were historically taken, and for students from Liberia.

Many of the Seminary’s early leaders were affiliated with the American Colonization Society, a political group that advocated for the migration of free African Americans to Africa. The Society played an instrumental role in the founding of Liberia in 1847.

Furthermore, the ABS has called for the Seminary to create a Black Church Studies Program, as well as establish a number of faculty positions that advance the institution’s commitment to racial justice.

Within the context of a theological seminary, this debate represents unique iteration of the national conversation about reparations. For Young, the fight for reparations is not simply a social justice issue, but also an issue of faith. According to him, the resort to faith sometimes provides additional inspiration, and, at others, heightened disillusionment.

In reference to the possibility of disappointment, Young remarked, “I have to have hope. You just have to have hope.”

As an announcement from the Seminary’s trustees nears, seminarians, activists, and the community await their decision.

Friday October 18, 2019

The Daily Princetonian

page 3

“Fields Fellows,” were selected by the CAF to promote dialogue surrounding issues of identity and diversity at U. FIELDS

Continued from page 1

.............

isn’t static; it’s a lifelong process. Someone who is open to continually learning, as well as engaging and knowing there are going to be mistakes made,” Norman said.

Fields Fellow Mahishan Gnanaseharan ’20, a politics concentrator involved in the Princeton Asylum Project and a Peer Academic Advisor, emphasized how he values his role in CAF. “I am first and foremost a Carl A. Fields Center Fellow,” said Gnanaseharan. “A Fields Fellow is a dynamic agent ... whose role is defined by our connection to the Carl A. Fields Center. Our primary task is to be a source of discussion and dialogue around issues of identity,” he said.

Gnanaseharan, who is pursuing a certificate in South Asian Studies, is currently working on a semester-long project related to South Asian experiences on campus, likely focusing on the intersection of gender, sexual-

The best place to Write Edit Opine Design Produce Illustrate Photograph Create

on campus.

join@dailyprincetonian.com

ity, and religion. He plans to hold, along with other Fellows, a town hall, as well as respond to the community’s desires in order to plan events in the near future.

Brooke Johnson ’22, another Fields Fellow, is an expected African American Studies concentrator from Phoenix, Ariz. She is putting together a series of workshops on concepts of ancestry and lineage, unpacking how they intersect with different social identities. At the end, participants are given the option to take a DNA test and engage with their results in light of the discourse presented in the workshops.

In addition to organizing large-scale discussions such as those spearheaded by Gnanaseharan and Johnson, Fields Fellows respond to requests from organizations, both on campus and in the surrounding area, for facilitated conversations to confront specific concerns within that group.

“A lot of the work we do is work we are approached to do,” Johnson said. “It’s really amazing that certain communities

can look at themselves, realize they have an issue, and take tangible steps to address that.”

Engaging in these conversations can be as difficult for the facilitators as it may be for participants.

“There is not just a physical labor to it but also very much so an emotional labor — in sharing your own personal experiences, in navigating being someone who is continually learning about self and the world, while also being an educator,” Norman said.

Their most recent facilitated event was held at the beginning of the semester. The Fellows organized a narrative-based workshop in conjunction with the First Year Residential Experience program, where, through personal storytelling, members of the Class of 2023 reflected on their pathways to Princeton and experiences as they related to those of their classmates.

Johnson stressed the Fellows’ unique proximity to issues on campus in their position as liaisons; they have the ability to respond immediately and substantially to problems as they

JON ORT / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

The Carl A. Fields Center.

arise. The Fellows are completely self-guided, setting their own goals and timelines. Although this presents a challenge of prioritization, both Fellows interviewed noted that this level of agency promotes personal growth and the development of leadership skills.

Norman expressed concern about the visibility of the achievements of the Fellows. In a college environment teeming with student groups, events, organizations, and workshops, issues frequently get lost in the shuffle. Part of the job of a Fellow is to make potentially

fraught topics accessible to an audience with a variety of experience levels and to expand the reach of their influence to all areas of campus. All three of the interviewees emphasized that the creation of spaces that allow for productive facilitated dialogue is important in any capacity.

The majority of Fellows pursue some sort of service-oriented career after graduation, Norman said. Every graduate of the program, she contended, has applied the skills they developed from their time as Fellows.

The Daily Princetonian

page 4

Friday October 18, 2019

Barrett: the average constitution is replaced every nineteen years BARRETT Continued from page 1

.............

tution lies in the very geography of the United States.

She recalled that the creation of West Virginia revolved around a disputed interpretation of Article IV of the Constitution, which stipulates that a new state cannot be established without the consent of the surrounding states.

Virginia did not express explicit consent for the formation of West Virginia, which split from its parent state during the Civil War. Barrett said that Abraham Lincoln grappled with this constitutional dilemma, but justified the lack of consent since secession would be considered unconstitutional to begin with.

Barrett further related the Constitution to congressional power, citing the example of Alexander Hamilton’s establishment of the First Bank of the United States.

Hamilton served as the first Secretary of the Treasury.

According to Barrett, Congress was concerned that such a national institution would infringe on the powers of individual states.

Hamilton, however, justified the institution by using the Constitution, since having such a bank would allow the country to hold up the ideals of citizens’ success and happiness, values that the Constitution enshrines.

Barrett observed that this rationalization has since been validated, given that the Bank of the United States eventually allowed for the creation of a minimum wage and the establishment of Social Security.

This relationship between

the Constitution and Congress is, according to Barrett, mirrored in the relationship of the document to individual people, as illuminated by the issue of slavery. Barrett argued that the debate over abolition had both constitutional and moral sides, since the Constitution had to be amended for slavery to become unconstitutional.

She then extended this view of a debate between morality and constitutionality to contemporary issues, alluding to her view that abortion and same-sex marriage present similar contested understandings of what is constitutionally and morally correct. She did not specify where the conf lict lay within these two particular cases.

Barrett has previously faced criticism from politically liberal organizations over her views on abortion and gay marriage. In 2017, 27 LGBT advocacy groups and 17 women’s rights groups wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee, calling on its members to oppose Barrett’s nomination for the Seventh Circuit. In 2003, she published an article calling Roe v. Wade “an erroneous decision.”

In 2017, Barrett, then an appeals court nominee, drew national attention during her Senate confirmation hearing, when some senators questioned whether her religious convictions would unduly inform Barrett’s judicial philosophy, particularly in light of her previous writings on the matter. During the hearing, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.) controversially claimed, “the dogma lives loudly within you.”

Despite those concerns, the Committee voted to confirm Barrett.

In the talk, Barrett then shifted her focus to the active role the Constitution serves today.

“We need more than political agreement to get things done,” she said, adding that the Constitution speaks to this effect, given that it supersedes politics with welldefined guiding principles, which must be followed.

She deemed the Constitution a “supermajority checker,” serving to keep even the President accountable.

Still, Barrett pondered whether “it would be better if Congress were free to pursue the best policy” without this constitutional restraint.

She argued that doing so would most likely have allowed slavery to be abolished sooner.

Barrett praised the diverse population of the United States, saying that “we are all under one roof” and in that way unified. She argued, however, that the Constitution divides us through federalism. She claimed that the United States is, “after all, one country and not fifty states,” and that the Constitution distinguishes between state and national law.

Barrett also discussed her role as a judge and ref lected on the act of deciding on cases and laws.

She compared these processes to a scene from Homer’s Odyssey, in which Odysseus confronts the Sirens.

Barrett noted that “democracy is dangerous” insofar that it might be attractive for a democratic majority to, for instance, “trample civil rights in [a] time of a national crisis.” As agents of the Constitution, the courts, as however, bar that from happening.

She added that this fact

PHOTO CREDIT: SANDEEP MANGAT / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Judge Amy Coney Barrett and Professor Robert George discuss the U.S. Constitution.

provides consolation in what she described as a “polarizing time.” She finished her lecture by quoting Benjamin Franklin, saying that the constitution is dynamic and not static, because “in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.”

Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, moderated the event.

George currently occupies the professorship that Walter Murphy, for whom the annual lecture is named, once held.

After Barrett’s remarks, George joined Barret in an open conversation. He spoke about what he views as “American exceptionalism.”

George postulated that unlike the constitutions of other countries, that of the United States is unique in that it “constitutes the American people” — namely, that the people are defined in and by the Constitution.

He said, “the French will continue to be the French if they throw out their constitution,” but claimed this as-

sertion does not hold true for Americans, for whom the Constitution begins with the assertive phrase, “We the People.”

Barrett agreed, arguing that Americans frequent museums to observe and learn more about the Constitution, and that this is not the case in other countries, tempering her assertion by adding that “she hasn’t seen surveys” proving this fact.

George added that Germany has a “good constitution that we [the United States], in effect, imposed,” a remark followed by laughter.

The f loor was then opened for questions, among which included a student asking the Judge for her thoughts on how the likely appeal in the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case will conclude. Barrett refused to answer on the grounds of judicial impartiality.

The lecture took place at 4:30 p.m. in the Friend Center, room 101, on Thursday, Oct. 17.

Like sports? Write for the sports section!

Email: join@dailyprincetonian.com

Write for ‘Prince’ Opinion.

News - Sports - Street - Opinion - Business - Copy - Design Web - Blogs - Multimedia - Photo

Friday October 18, 2019

The Daily Princetonian

page 5

Rubin: Democracy can’t function properly with alienated groups RUBIN

Continued from page 1

.............

you read, and would you recommend it?

Jennifer Rubin: Right now, I’m reading a tremendous amount on women, gender, and politics. I’m writing a book, and I’m doing what all journalists do, which is looking at what smart people have said and discovered before me. I’m going back to some old classics in the compendium of gender studies and some new work as well.

It is incredibly helpful and informative in terms of the thesis that I’m trying to propel, which is that in the age of Trump, American women are hyper-engaged, highly active, and, in fact, responsible for a lot of the shift away from Trump. So we’ll see how that research goes.

DP: I want to focus on politics a little bit. You consider yourself a conservative, though you famously asked for a purge of the Republican Party at the polls. Can you talk a little bit more about that, and where you currently stand politically?

JR: I think the current Republican Party is in no way shape or form “conservative,” at least in my understanding. It’s not temperamentally conservative — and by that I mean that conservatives are supposed to have an appreciation for unintended consequences, a respect for existing institutions, a preference for incrementalism.

That does not describe the Republican party, which is reactionary and radical at this point.

Also, on a range of policy issues which I put high on my priority list — trade, immigration, foreign policy — they are completely out of step with conservative values. They don’t reflect any coherent marketplace theory that I’m aware of. We’ve just learned that [Trump’s] trade advisor has apparently made up characters to use as references because no credible economists will say

the things that he says. So I think my abandonment of the Republican Party is out of necessity, because they no longer reflect my views or my values.

I think I have been more consistent than not over time, and that the things I believed in since the Reagan years — whether it was a strong U.S. military or whether it was free trade — I still believe. But we all live with experience, and are shaped by that experience. I think in some ways I’ve become much more attuned to the political implications of income inequality, for example. And therefore, I’m somewhat more disposed to look at government intervention in order to ameliorate that gap.

DP: And has this change in your perspective affected relationships with other Republicans, maybe on the Hill or in the political commentary world?

JR: I think, in the commentary world, we’ve had a very public schism between the so-called “Never Trumpers,” of which I am a proud, cardcarrying member, and people who have essentially become apologists for Trump — and there are some people do a little bit of both. I think it’s, as the phrase goes, “a time for choosing”: whether we’re engaged in some sort of policy and philosophical introspection and investigation, or whether we’re just a bunch of political hacks that are coming up with excuses for whatever the administration does.

I’m dismayed that there are many more who have done [the latter] than have joined us. We’re sitting in a very small office, and the entire Never Trump population could probably fit in here.

DP: Moving away from politics for a little bit, this is a question near and dear to my heart as a writer for a somewhat local newspaper: the trend has been pretty well documented that most local newspapers have been going out of business and shutting

CAITLIN LIMESTAHL / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Jennifer Rubin speaks in the Friend Center.

down. I’m curious what you think this means for democracy, and whether the trend can be reversed.

JR: I think it’s a tremendous loss. We have state capitals that have not a single newspaper that are now covering them. An awful lot goes on at the state and local level — most issues that affect regular people’s lives are decided in state and local [governments]. That is really an impediment to an informed citizenry and to a good and responsive government. So I think that is one of the most disconcerting trends in journalism today.

Conversely, I think, frankly, the role of university newspapers, especially ones that are well-funded and professionally run, becomes that much more important.

If you can’t find what’s going on in Princeton in a college town [newspaper], or a nearby college town [newspaper], or in a state [newspaper], you can look to The Daily Princetonian to figure it out. I think college newspapers are the savior of local coverage, and sometimes

state coverage.

So I think the better ones — and I actually do read you guys — are covering not just what goes on around campus, but what goes on in their immediate surroundings. I think factual reporting and smart analysis are some of the contributions that college papers can make.

DP: I don’t want to take up too much more of your time, but I do have one more, broader question: what is an issue you think is unfairly neglected in American life?

Or, in other words, what is an issue that not a lot of Americans know about that they should know about?

JR: I mean, there are several of them. I think the American electorate is becoming more informed on issues of race, but there is still an experience gap, empathy gap, and information gap. To understand the deep racial divide in this country, you now have polls showing that a significant segment of white America thinks whites are the victims of discrimination in this country, which is factually absurd. So I think

in terms of news media coverage, the more we can do to factually inform the entire country, the more able we are — without rhetoric, without bias, and without antagonism — to resolve some of these problems.

And, I would look to criminal justice reform, which only recently has become a main topic for mainstream news organizations, to be quite frank. I think the subject of poverty, the subject of homelessness, all of these issues, fundamentally affect what kind of country we have, and what kind of democracy we have.

And, as I said at the beginning of the interview, one of the things I’m now particularly attuned to is that a democracy can’t function properly with alienated groups that are hopeless, that have no opportunity, and have nothing to look forward to.

They’re easy prey for demagogues — and if we want to prevent the next Trump from rising, that’s one bit of democratic hygiene we can all engage in.

Work for the most respected news source on campus.

join@dailyprincetonian.com

Opinion

Friday October 18, 2019

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

On lectures and tutorials Sebastian Quiroz Columnist

B

ack in 2018, a fellow columnist of mine argued that the lecture system that dominates the Princeton educational experience was not working — and, more importantly, could not work. While the author suggested that there are ways to at least make them better, these improvements were, at best, remedial measures.

When I first read the article, I was skeptical. Certainly, I thought, the best university in the country must know what it’s doing. While there were statistics that showed otherwise, perhaps those statistics simply did not apply to Princeton. Having spent time at another university, I now recognize that I was wrong.

The lecture system is certainly not the best way of learning and, striking to many who believe in the doctrine of Princetonian Exceptionalism, the lecture system does not work here either.

Even still, getting rid of lec-

tures altogether would take the argument too far, as going in the complete opposite direction without careful consideration presents multiple dangers.

I spent the spring of my junior year at the University of Oxford, where the method of instruction is significantly different from the method employed at most American universities. The most important salient feature: lectures are essentially non-mandatory.

This is because the main form of instruction is the tutorial: a small group, usually a tutor with one student, but occasionally two or three, convenes periodically to discuss the paper that had been written for that week’s tutorial. This meant that rather than spending my time in lectures, as many of us do now, I was spending most of my time reading and writing papers (one to two every week) for the tutorials.

The largest benefit that this system provided me was the ability to process significant amounts of information effectively and efficiently. I also

learned to think quickly. As we went over my paper in tutorial, my tutor would bring up objections that I had not considered and asked me questions that had not occurred to me. I had to respond on the spot. I did not get the chance to sit with a nice cup of coffee and ponder the issue at length.

The tutorial system made me a more effective critical thinker — which I believe to be the purpose of an education, as I have argued previously. The University ought to move towards this system, or something similar.

That being said, tutorials place a tremendous amount of stress on students. Let’s assume that we do not move to the Oxford system completely, since total adoption would mean that the majority or entirety of our GPAs would be determined by senior-year departmental comprehensive exams. With a partial adoption, we would not have as much stress at the end of our undergraduate careers as do our peers across the pond.

A tutorial system — to be effective, I think — still re-

vol. cxliii

quires students to meet with and discuss their essays with a faculty member approximately once a week. This would end up coming to something like eight to 10 papers per class.

This in itself would require significant restructuring of how the University organizes its academic life, so that students would not be completely overwhelmed by the requisite amount of writing.

None of this is to say that the University shouldn’t rethink how it teaches students. The University prides itself on having a strong undergraduate focus, and part of that has to be striving to provide the best education for its students. Smaller class sizes, more direct engagement with students, and — perhaps controversially — more writing would all go a long way in making us an even better university than we already are.

But all of this should be done cautiously. Overcorrecting might prove to create more harm than good.

Sebastian Quiroz is a senior from Deltona, Fla. He can be reached at squiroz@princeton.edu.

editor-in-chief

Chris Murphy ’20 business manager

Taylor Jean-Jacques’20 BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Betsy L. Minkin ’77 treasurer Douglas J. Widmann ’90 trustees Francesca Barber David Baumgarten ’06 Kathleen Crown Gabriel Debenedetti ’12 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 Michael Grabell ’03 John Horan ’74 Joshua Katz Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Alexia Quadrani Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 Kavita Saini ’09 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 Abigail Williams ’14 trustees emeriti Gregory L. Diskant ’70 William R. Elfers ’71 Kathleen Kiely ’77 Jerry Raymond ’73 Michael E. Seger ’71 Annalyn Swan ’73 trustees ex officio Chris Murphy ’20 Taylor Jean-Jacques’20

143RD MANAGING BOARD managing editors Samuel Aftel ’20 Ariel Chen ’20 Jon Ort ’21 head news editors Benjamin Ball ’21 Ivy Truong ’21 associate news editors Linh Nguyen ’21 Claire Silberman ’22 Katja Stroke-Adolphe ’20 head opinion editor Cy Watsky ’21 associate opinion editors Rachel Kennedy ’21 Ethan Li ’22

PHOTO CREDIT: LAZARENA LAZAROVA ’21

McCosh 50 Lecture Hall.

T HE DA ILY

head sports editor Jack Graham ’20 associate sports editors Tom Salotti ’21 Alissa Selover ’21 features editors Samantha Shapiro ’21 Jo de la Bruyere ’22 head prospect editor Dora Zhao ’21 associate prospect editor Noa Wollstein ’21 chief copy editors Lydia Choi ’21 Elizabeth Parker ’21 associate copy editors Anna McGee ’22 Sydney Peng ’22

Enjoy drawing pretty pictures?

Like to work with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign?

Join the ‘Prince’ design team! join@dailyprincetonian.com

head design editor Charlotte Adamo ’21 associate design editor Harsimran Makkad ’22 head video editor Sarah Warman Hirschfield ’20 associate video editor Mark Dodici ’22 digital operations manager Sarah Bowen ’20

NIGHT STAFF copy Isabel Rodrigues ’23 Annabelle Duval ’23 Catie Parker ’23 Auhjanae McGee ’23 Daniel Rim ’21 Jeremy Nelson ’20 Jordan Allen ’20 design Eric Lin ’23 Ashley Chung ’23 Chelsea Ding ’22

Opinion

Friday October 18, 2019

page 7

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

Sadfishing and moral responsibility in the Orange Bubble Anna McGee

Contributing Columnist

A

recent bout of listserv emails from the Princeton undergraduate chapter of Letters to Strangers (L2S) left me unsettled. When my friends questioned why I was so jarred, it took me awhile to be able to pinpoint exactly why. L2S is a cute and often harmless group. Its main shtick is organizing biannual, anonymous letter exchanges as a form of friendly support, often during important testing periods.

The letter I received from them around Dean’s Date last spring fit the general perceptions I had of the group: it was cute, wholesome, and appropriately endearing.

What, then, compelled its organizers to begin their recruitment emails with a solitary, clickbait line about youth suicide statistics — and to forgo any sort of content or trigger warning?

This sort of behavior may not strike many people as inappropriate on its surface.

Globally, L2S advocates for awareness of various mentalhealth conditions, particularly those affecting youth populations. And there’s important work to do in both making invisible illnesses visible and giving voice to those who no longer have a voice to bear witness to their struggles.

Despite the group’s noble cause, their all-too-casual way citation of mental-health statistics aesthetically capitalizes upon a marginalized group’s collective pain and grief. The power dynamics involved when neurotypical persons add and drop such lines with no costs to themselves are inherently problematic and, in certain cases, jarringly injudicious.

Incautious treatment of triggering subject manner surrounding mental health for personal gain can be a less talked about form of sadfishing, or using emotional subject manner to garner attention, rather than strictly in order to seek help or raise awareness. Here, intention is morally important. A great deal of passionate, empowering nonprofit

organizations utilize social media posts, short blurbs, and advertisements with the direct intention of raising awareness about suicide and its prevalence. The best of these organizations link their posts and blurbs to longer information sources on how to receive help if someone is in need.

Often, due to the purpose of raising awareness, it ends up being most effective to design these outreaches in the least triggering way possible and to leave out a trigger or content warning that could hinder their spread. In essence, certain nonprofits simply want to help people, and they try to do so in a way that does the least harm.

But when our inboxes and feeds are flooded with triggering material by both altruistic outreaches and self-interested campaigns, even basic tasks such as checking emails can turn into unsafe spaces — both for those who may be triggered and for an average onlooker.

Sloppy outreach navigates a precarious balance between reducing the stigma surrounding mental health issues and

Have opinions?

Join the opinion section!

Email: join@dailyprincetonian.com

Want pizza?

Join the news section!

Email: join@dailyprincetonian.com

inadvertently normalizing emergency situations. The more commonplace a situation may seem, the slower we may react to it.

Constantly viewing the trivialization of mental health statistics — and perhaps falsely believing that sending an anonymous letter to a stranger once a semester is an effective mode of suicide prevention — runs the risk of habituating the onlooker into not only thinking that the problems are so large that individuals cannot be of much help, but also that they are already being taken care of. Distancing individuals from taking immediate responsibility of preventing suicide is one of the absolute worst things that can occur right now in the American mental health landscape.

The simplest way to prevent this distancing, and to ensure our ethical usage of triggering content, is to think. There are some basic questions we can ask ourselves before putting information out there for the public: Is what I am putting out there sensitive? If so, what is my purpose in using

this content? Who is directly benefiting from my usage of this information? If the content is especially visceral, have I included a content or trigger warning? Finally, have I followed up on this content in a sensitive manner, and not simply dropped a statistic?

Anna McGee is a sophomore from Paducah, Ky. She can be reached at amcgee@princeton.edu.

If you need to talk to someone, please refer to: - Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS): Call 609-258-3141; for emergencies: 609-258-3333. An on-call counselor is available every day after hours.

- CONTACT of Mercer County: Call 609-896-2120 or 609-5852244.

- Princeton Peer Nightline: Call 609-258-0279 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.; visit http://princetonpeernightline.com, open Tuesdays and Fridays 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.

- Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Call 1-800-273-8255.

Sports

Friday October 18, 2019

page 8

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

Once a Tiger: Ginny and Rob Beams ’90

By Elise Hogan Contributor

When I called Ginny Beams ’90 for our first interview, I thanked her for taking the time to talk.

“I hope you aren’t disappointed,” she said. “I’m not one of those superstar athletes.”

Rob Beams ’90 might disagree.

Former Princeton rowers Ginny Callery and Rob Beams met in 1985 during the fall athlete-orientation session in their first year — “yeah,” Rob recalls, “that’s when I saw her.”

They shared a sport then and share a name now; the Beams have spent the last 34 years as best friends, teammates, competitors, and a couple. They’ve collected three collegiate gold medals between them (no thanks to Rob), raised three children, and come dangerously close to buying a baby tiger. No big deal.

Ginny arrived on campus for her first year without ever having met her coach. Her recruitment, she says, came as a total surprise — she’d begun rowing only to train for cross-country skiing, her main sport. She explains her irregular recruitment process with a chuckle.

“I heard I was being recruited, and then I got the letter saying I was accepted, and I said ‘thank you.’”

When she finally met her coach, she remembers — here’s another laugh — the look of “disappointment” on his face. Ginny stands at fivefoot-nine, traditionally short for an openweight rower. Her coach informed her that no matter the boat she made, she wouldn’t leave the stern or bow.

He was right that she’d never be part of the engine room.

He was wrong, though, that she’d disappoint.

Ginny rowed for the women’s openweight team for three years (a back injury cut her senior season short). She sat sometimes in stern, sometimes in bow — but whatever

boat she was in found success. She rowed to victory at the Eastern Sprints Regatta time after time, earning three separate gold medals over the course of her career.

For Ginny, that 1985 athlete-orientation event was the beginning of what would become an illustrious career in the Orange and Black. The next four years would prove less glorious for Rob. The men’s heavyweight team boasted 12 talented firstyear recruits. Rob, who’d just graduated from Delaware’s St. Andrew’s School, a rowing powerhouse, remembers that there seemed no doubt in his mind that the team would do “extremely well.”

He was right, at first. The heavies’ first two races resulted in two victories. Then came a matchup against Rutgers — what was supposed to be an easy win. The Tigers lost, and the shock proved too much for them. No one knew it at the time, but the team was headed towards a long dry spell.

The contrast between the flailing men’s squad and the successful women’s team — who practiced, lived, and raced with what Rob remembers as “tremendous intensity” — couldn’t have been starker.

The two teams’ members were great friends on and off the water. But their lives were so intertwined, and the difference in results so dramatic, that relationships as teammates, peers, and significant others started to morph into relationships as competitors.

Ginny chalks the men’s resentment up to pure ego: “They all came in thinking they were hot stuff.”

Rob doesn’t disagree.

“As we started to have problems with our program,” he said, “we couldn’t be happy for the women’s program doing well. It’s just a maturity thing.”

The heavyweight men continued to lose. By the end of Rob’s sophomore year, eight of his fellow recruits — and the coach himself — had bowed

out. Beams found himself forced to question what his Princeton experience would look like without rowing.

The answer? A lot freer.

He joined the flood of other disheartened recruits leaving the team’s “silly competition” behind — and used his newfound leisure time to switch his from his liberal arts major to civil engineering.

For the next two years, Ginny racked up medals, Rob did equations, and they remained close friends. No one batted an eye when they started dating senior year; both of them can rattle off the names of other athletes — like every one of Ginny’s former roommates — who found their spouses at Princeton.

After graduation, the two married and moved to Florida.

Ginny attended law school, while Rob worked at a citrus grove (he’s now the chief operating officer of the Island Institute, an organization that seeks to safeguard the communities of coastal Maine).

After three daughters — Hannah, Mia, and Ellie — entered the scene, the couple moved to Mattapoisett, Mass., to settle down with their family.

And by settle down, they mean they waited until their daughters had hit the double digits to pack their bags and live on a sailboat for nine months — as if they hadn’t already spent enough time on the water.

In 2012, Ginny recalls Rob asking their daughters a very important question: Would they rather have a “pet tiger, another baby sibling, or go sailing for nine months?”

Their response?

“Two wanted another baby, one wanted a tiger, and none wanted to go sailing.”

Naturally, the family set sail — going from Massachusetts to Granada and everywhere in between, stopping in places like Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Totula of the British Virgin Islands.

Ginny and Rob homeschooled their children; Ginny

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOB AND GINNY BEAMS

Bob and Ginny Beams ’90, sporting their Reunions jackets.

served as “principal and head teacher,” and Rob was relegated to being the “assistantteacher-in-training.” Rising early in the morning, the girls were almost always done with school work before noon. That left them ample time to see what each new place had in store for them — the family docked in a series of beautiful seaside towns to snorkel, hike, and explore.

What Rob loved most about the adventure — aside from the fact that combining sea, sun and snorkeling is foolproof — was how his daughters came to relate with him and Ginny.

“What was great about the year of sailing was that our kids could see both Ginny and [me] in different ways — really putting ourselves out there, scared and panicked, but still bring everything back and ultimately making it work.”

It might have been those nine months of sailing. It might have been encouragement from their parents. Or maybe it was just in their blood: Ginny and Rob’s two eldest daughters themselves

both enjoy successful rowing careers today.

Hannah, a junior, rows for Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and holds gold medals from two-time wins at both Nationals and the Head of the Charles Regatta. Mia, a Bridge Year member of the Class of 2024, followed Rob to a successful stint on St. Andrews’ first boat. Time will tell if, come September, Mia will choose to row on Lake Carnegie, like her parents.

Given their own successful careers, do Rob and Ginny coach their superstar athletes of daughters?

Short answer: No. “I find that they’re wiser than I am at this point,” says Ginny.

But were she to say one thing — about rowing, about marriage, about life — she would say this: “Do it because you love it for yourself and not for anybody else. But you only get through the hard, unpleasant, cold times because you love the people who’re sitting in front of you and behind you in the boat.”

Princeton football looks to continue defensive dominance against Brown

FOOTBALL

By Jack Graham Head Sports Editor

Princeton football’s last two wins have been characterized not by flashy offensive numbers, but by stifling defensive play.

Two weeks ago, against Columbia, Princeton held the Lions to 206 yards of total offense and 10 points, and last week against Lafayette, the Tigers allowed 162 yards of offense and three points. As the Tigers (4–0, 1–0 Ivy) begin a stretch of six consecutive Ivy League games at Brown (1–3, 0–1) this Saturday, they’ll need to continue that trend.

“This isn’t a team that might just roll over everybody,” said men’s football head coach Robert “Bob” Surace ’90. “This is a team that’s going to have to grind a little more.”

Princeton’s most dominant defensive player over that stretch has been junior linebacker Jeremiah Tyler. In the past

two games, he’s recorded 16 total tackles, six tackles for a loss, and 1.5 sacks. He’s wreaked havoc in opponents’ backfields and arguably made the play of the game against Lafayette with a tackle for no-gain on a fourth-and-one play on the Lafayette 29-yard line to get the Princeton defense off the field.

“I was happy to see we were flying to the ball,” Tyler said after the Lafayette win. “I’m just trying to lead my guys to a victory each and every week ... There’s a lot of great competition that we’re going to go against [in the Ivy League], so we’ve just got to band together and stay strong.”

And, according to his head coach, Tyler has become a spark plug for the defense. “[Tyler] makes you tick,” Surace said after the Lafayette game. “I thought our energy was so good, and [the team] feeds off him … He has that personality that makes the team respond.”

Tyler and the rest of the Princeton defense will be challenged this Saturday by Brown quarterback EJ Perry. A transfer from Boston College, Perry has averaged 250.5 yards passing and 93.5 rushing in his first four games as the Brown starter, although

he’s thrown five interceptions in the past two games.

Perry also happens to be the nephew of first-year Brown’s men’s football head coach James Perry, who worked under Surace as Princeton’s offensive coordinator for seven years. While at

PHOTO CREDIT: JACK GRAHAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Jeremiah Tyler and the Princeton defense will face Brown this weekend.

Princeton, James Perry helped lead the Tigers to two Ivy League Championships, including a 2013 season in which Princeton averaged 43.7 points per game and 511.6 yards per game.

The Bears haven’t had much trouble scoring in James Perry’s first year at the helm, but they’ve been less successful at keeping their opponents off the scoreboard. Brown has given up 37.5 points per game this season, and it hasn’t once held an opponent under 30 points. Princeton’s offense — including senior quarterback Kevin Davidson, who’s completed 72.6 percent of his passes and has thrown 10 touchdowns to just one interception — will undoubtedly be looking to capitalize on that weakness.

The game against Brown will begin at 12:30 p.m. in Providence, R.I., and can be streamed via ESPN+ or listened to via WPRB 103.3 FM.

Tweet of the Day

Stat of the Day

Follow us

“Congrats to Madison Curry and Grace Sherman, ranked among the nation’s top 100 freshman by @ TopDrawerSoccer”

16 championships

Check us out on Twitter @princesports for live news and reports, and on Instagram @princetoniansports for photos!

Princeton Soccer (@PrincetonWSoc), Women’s Soccer

The women’s volleyball team has won 16 total Ivy League championships, the most out of any Ivy League team!