October 4, 2017

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Wednesday October 4, 2017 vol. CXLI no. 79

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } U . A F FA I R S

U. to expand portrait collection

By Benjamin Ball contributor

The Campus Iconography Committee (CIC) is painting a new picture for University culture as it seeks recommendations to expand the campus portrait collection. The Portraiture Nominations Committee, a newly formed working group within the CIC, was announced last week to be soliciting up to ten portraits to add to the University’s portrait collection.

According to the University press release, the last time the University expanded the collection was in the late 19th-century, when then-University president John Maclean commissioned portraits of earlier University presidents.

Ever since, they have only added portraits of presidents and deans.

Taking a step in a new direction, the Committee will be collecting suggestions and recommending

certain onesto Vice President Treby Williams and Provost Deborah A. Prentice, who will review them in turn and endorse certain pieces for approval from President Christopher Eisgruber ’83.

“We’re looking for excellence in a field, excellence in the nation’s service ... or a notable contribution to Princeton [as] the three overarching possibilities for someone to be eligible for a portrait,” said Amina Simon ’18, a student committee member.

Simon noted that while the committee is mostly looking for alumni and faculty, it is still an open question as to whether staff members other than faculty might be able to be included as possible nominees.

The Campus Iconography Committee itself is new to the Princeton community.

In November 2015, the University Board of Trustees

ON CAMPUS

Student activist discusses LGBTQ+ identity in Chinese universities

By Marcia Brown and Anna Vinitsky head news editor & contributor

When Caroline Kitchener ’14 met activist Summer Xia while teaching abroad in China, she had no idea what she would be encountering.

To introduce Xia at a lecture on Oct. 3, Kitchener told the story of when Xia first revealed to her the details of her work as an activist. After taking a bus for an hour and a half together one Sunday afternoon, Xia took Kitchener to a “hole-in-the-wall café,” Kitchener said. At the café, Xia told Kitchener that she was president of an under-

ground LGBTQ+ activist group at her university.

Xia explained how she felt almost entirely alone in her identity growing up in Southern China. She said that in her region, people either move to bigger cities, never to return, or stick to one job in a single town for their entire lives. She noted that she spent 17 years of her life in this kind of homogenous and heteronormative environment.

“I constantly saw straight couples living a life completely different from the one I wanted for myself,” Xia said. “It felt like being gay wasn’t a real thing.”

She spoke about having her

first crush on a girl in high school, but that there was no one she felt comfortable talking with because there was nobody like her.

“I knew nothing about the Chinese LGBT community,” Xia said. But after she graduated, Xia headed off to a bigger city for college.

“On campus, I learned there was an underground LGBT society called Rainbow Aliens,” she said.

“With the help of Rainbow Aliens, I felt more comfortable being myself.”

Xia wanted to help facilitate the same experience for others. Approached by an LGBTQ+ activist, Xia beSee LGBTQ+ page 3

See PORTRAITS page 2

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

Q&A: Terrell McSweeny, FTC commissioner senior writer

Terrell McSweeny is an attorney and a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. McSweeny is visiting the Wilson School for two days as part of the Leadership Through Mentorship Program. The ‘Prince’ sat down with her for an interview about her work and the issues she tackles as an FTC Commissioner.

The Daily Princetonian: Tell us a little bit about yourself – your background, your education, your career path, and how you came to be an FTC Commissioner.

Terrell McSweeny: I’m an attorney by training. I went to law school after college and have always been very interested in public policy and government work and politics.

I was fortunate enough after law school to land a job working for Joe Biden, who was then a senator, in his senate office and on the Judiciary Committee of the Senate. From there, I went on to join him in the Obama administration where I worked during the first four years as a deputy assistant to the president and the vice president’s domestic policy adviser for domestic policy issues.

Then, I decided to stay in government for the last four years of the Obama administration, but I moved over to the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, and from there got the appointment to be an FTC Commissioner. The Federal Trade Commission, where I currently work, focuses

In Opinion

on antitrust and consumer protection, so my background was very connected to those two areas.

DP: What are some of the specific issues that you focused on under President Obama and also as a commissioner for the FTC? TM: I’ve worked on a wide range of different policy areas, from criminal justice reform and violence against women to healthcare, civil rights, and higher education policy, but I think all of those policy areas are very connected and are fundamentally policies that are about making sure we protect opportunity in the marketplace. The mission we have at the Federal Trade Commission is very connected to that. We protect consumers from unfair, deceptive acts and practices and protect competition in the markets, both of which are vitally important to make sure that people are able to freely pursue their own pathway.

DP: So when there’s a business merger, that’s something the FTC approves?

TM: It is. In the United States the way our merger review is structured is [that] both the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, where I used to work, and the Federal Trade Commission have jurisdiction to review mergers. We don’t both look at the same mergers all the time; either they’re divided by industry and expertise or we just go back and forth between which agency is looking at the merger. At any given See MCSWEENY page 2

Senior columnists Jared Shulkin and Max Grear investigate Princeton’s latest no.1 college ranking.

Columnist Jessica Nyquist writes in support of athletes’ right to protest. PAGE 4

ON CAMPUS

Seuls-en-Scène festival brings French theater to U.

By Nikoloz Shashkini contributor

On a dimly lit stage, almost drowned out by loud electronic music, two women recount interview fragments from Rwandan rape victims in Dorothée Munyaneza’s critically-acclaimed “Unwanted.”

A play depicting the horrific experiences of Rwandan women with abuse and rape, “Unwanted” is a blend of interview fragments, dance pieces, and unorthodox musical performances which are set to unnerve and challenge audiences.

Making its way straight from New York City’s Baryshnikov Arts Center to Princeton, “Unwanted” joined a handful of other French productions such as “Le Début de l’A” and “Letzlove” at this year’s Seuls en Scène theater festival in Princeton.

Senior lecturer in the department of French and Italian and director of l’Avant Scène Florent Masse organized this year’s sixth edition of the annual French theater festival, which ran Sept.15-30, as part of the University’s French theater workshop. This year, the festival brought both well-established actors and directors such as Nicolas Bouchaud as well as rising stars like Dorothée Munyaneza to the University to showcase their work.

Masse said he was happy overall with how the festival turned out.

“I am delighted with the festival and its offerings,” Masse said. “The audience response was great, and the actors themselves appreciated coming to Princeton. It was a great festival.”

Masse said that he was especially happy about the audience reception. “When you bring seven to eight shows, as a producer you hope for the best and that they will be enjoyed, so this year was great because every show was appreciated.”

He has been organizing Seuls en Scène since 2012, when it emerged as a continuation of the exchanges that L’Avant Scène had been organizing with the Paris National Conservatory. He said that in 2011, he was impressed by one of their showcases and decided to invite them to perform at the University.

The featured plays ranged from modern adaptations of Greek tragedies to innovative productions from the latest Festival d’Avignon. The majority were staged at the Marie and Edward Matthews ’53 Acting Studio at the Lewis Center for the Arts, though a few performances were held at the Butler Amphitheater and the Whitman Theater. The former provided an especially original

Today on Campus 6:00 p.m.: Roxane Gay discusses intersectionality as a black queer female writer, and how she incorporates elements of social justice into her work, at the Carl A. Fields Center.

open-air venue for “Prometheus Bound” and “The Suppliants.”

Most pieces in the showcase involved only a couple of actors and minimal set design.

The primary draw of the performances themselves as well as individual plays’ stagings attracted a mixed audience of students and members of the local Francophone community from central New Jersey. Indeed, audiences included both expats and native French speakers.

Jivahn Moradian ’20 attended the festival and said he was impressed by “Interview,” which starred renowned French actors Judith Henry and Nicolas Bouchaud.

“There were only two actors on the scene at all times, and they conducted an impressive performance,” he said.

“The show intermixed some thought-provoking scenarios that questioned what an interview is, how one should be carried out, how it differs from regular conversation [...], with well-timed audience participation and numerous hilarious moments!”

According to Masse, organization is already underway for next year’s edition of the festival, with plans to invite recent Paris National Conservatory graduates as well as a number of new and innovative plays.

WEATHER

By Norman Xiong

MARCIA BROWN :: THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Summer Xia spoke about LGBT culture and activism in China in a lecture on October 3.

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The Daily Princetonian

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Wednesday October 4, 2017

New U. artwork to reflect diverse community PORTRAITS Continued from page 1

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appointed a special committee to reconsider the legacy of Woodrow Wilson on the school. This effort proved to be highly controversial, inspiring student protests and sit-ins as the University attempted to balance honoring Wilson’s contributions to the University with the reality of his racism.

The Campus Iconography Committee ultimately came out of these activist efforts in April 2016. The committee remains dedicated to diversification efforts in residential college spaces as well as public and non-public places.

Working closely with the Campus Art Steering Committee and the Office of the University Architect, the CIC’s charter outlines their hope to “[commission] artwork that honors those who helped to make Princeton a more diverse and inclusive place or that expresses the University’s aspiration to be more diverse, inclusive, and welcoming to all members of its community.” The expansion of the portrait collection is a continuation of that same effort.

“The University has committed some financial resources to this, and that’s really important,” said Martha Sandweiss, leader of the Portraiture Working Group, the Nominations Committee’s predecessor in the effort to expand and diversify campus portraiture.

“You can come up with these ideas, but unless you have the resources to

acquire and commission these works of art, your good ideas can’t go anywhere,” Sandweiss emphasized. “I’m very, very happy that the University looked at our report and decided to commit those resources.

Change really can happen.”

Along with the Portraiture Nominations Committee, the CIC has two other working groups: one devoted to Princeton history and the other to Princeton’s public spaces.

The group devoted to history has focused on creating new walking tours and establishing historical markers, and the Public Spaces group has focused on places like the EQuad Café, Frist Campus Center, and Firestone Library to see how they could be further adorned to celebrate the diversity of the University’s community.

Simon said the committee hopes to include community involvement in the project so it is not just a top-down initiative.

“During the whole selection process, we will have a very intentional eye for various kinds of diversity, so it’s definitely going to be a factor in the selection whether or not a person represents the kind of person we’ve already had portraits of, or whether they represent the kind of diversity Princeton’s had more of in the last 50 years,” Simon added. “We’re really hoping to make the selection of these people responsive to how the University community, especially students, want it to look.”

McSweeny: It’s an important time to be engaged in politics MCSWEENY Continued from page 1

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point, both agencies are reviewing mergers.

DP: How does either agency decide whether or not a merger should be approved?

TM: We have a very nice set of laws on this point, and we also have our own guidelines that we follow.

Suffice it to say, the basic idea is if a market is already relatively concentrated, we try to look at if there is harm to competition that will occur from the merger going forward. We consider whether there are corresponding justifications and efficiencies that might offset that harm. If there really aren’t, then under our law and guidelines, we can move forward with trying to block the merger. Typically, the way this looks is we might look for if prices of products are going to go up afterwards because the firms, which are competitors, are getting together, or whether there’s going to be a harm because innovative products won’t be entering the marketplace, or whether quality of services might go down.

DP: Recently, there was a deal between Rite Aid and Walgreens where Walgreens wanted to buy about 2,000 of Rite Aid’s regional locations, and you issued a statement advising against it. A modified version of the deal ultimately went through; why do you think that deal was approved?

TM: What I was concerned about there was the fact that prior to this transaction going through, we had three major pharmacy retail chains in the United States: CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid. Because of this transaction, Rite Aid’s size is substantially reduced,

so it’ll no longer be a nationwide retail pharmacy chain. It will be more of a regional player. My concern was over the competition that’s lost by having just two remaining nationwide retail pharmacy chains. The transaction was allowed to go through because the way our agency works and the way the structure is, having one commissioner disagree is not enough to carry the day.

DP: So the other commissioners who were involved in this approval process thought that the deal was okay to proceed?

TM: Right now, the other confusing thing about our agency is [that] there are supposed to be five commissioners, but there’s only two of us. So the other commissioner, who put out her own statement, felt comfortable after the staff had reviewed the transaction that the situation in the market was sufficient to make sure the consumers wouldn’t be hurt. I disagreed, but in absence of our agreement, the transaction was allowed to go forward.

DP: Moving on to the topic of pyramid schemes and multi-level marketing (MLMs), you contributed an opinion to The Hill a couple months ago saying Congress should crack down more on pyramid schemes.

What are some of the ways you think Congress can tackle these issues? How can regulators differentiate between a pyramid scheme and a legitimate business where recruiting does play an important role in their business model?

TM: That’s a pretty interesting challenge. Under U.S. law, a straight-up pyramid scheme is illegal. A pyramid scheme is when there really is no retail opportunity for the

people at the bottom. The entire amount of money is made by recruiting in your downline, and that makes the pyramid. We’ve had at the Federal Trade Commission some pretty straightforward cases of this. One that comes to mind that was on college campuses was selling shake drinks.

You only were rewarded in this scheme for recruiting more salespeople. You had to buy a certain amount of supply in order to be in the pyramid to begin with, but you didn’t get any discount on it, so you were buying something for $20 and selling it for $20, so you’re not making any money off of whatever you bought. The only way you would make money is by recruiting other people, so we said ‘look, that’s a pyramid scheme, you can’t do that,’ so we brought a case against that, and that’s a very straightforward thing. What gets more confusing is when you get into MLMs where the issue can be that there are a variety of different ways people can make money, and the question then centers on if there’s a legitimate retail opportunity for people who are entering into the scheme. That’s where it becomes a more complicated question. One of my concerns, and what Congress is considering, is that they would like us to not investigate any companies unless they’re pyramid schemes. The problem with the way they want to limit our authority is unless you investigate, you can’t tell if something’s a pyramid scheme. If you don’t have the authority to spend money to investigate something, then you can’t figure out if it’s actually over that line or not. One of the real issues with the MLM business is that many are legitimate, with a le-

gitimate business opportunity and compensation based on how you recruit in your downline. But some of them have compensation schemes that are byzantine, very hard to figure out, pretty exploitive of people who can’t figure them out, and cause people to buy a lot of stuff that they think they’re going to be able to resell, but they’re stuck with and can’t resell.

DP: Do you think education and awareness could play any role in preventing people from being sucked into these schemes?

TM: I do think education and awareness can be very helpful. Again, there are legitimate opportunities, and we’re not trying to foreclose any of those or judge people for participating in multi-level marketing businesses that are legitimate. But I think people need to be really mindful, if they’re getting into that kind of structure, of what they’re getting into, and if they understand how it can be profitable for them. Very often, if it’s too confusing to figure out, then it’s probably pretty hard to be profitable in it.

DP: On a different topic, a couple months ago you gave a talk at a conference called Black Hat in Vegas, about marketing information security products, and this has become a huge topic since the Equifax hack and their mismanagement afterwards. What are some ways that the FTC or Congress can work to prevent issues like these from occurring in the future or mitigate their risk?

TM: I’m very concerned about our general data and identity insecurity in the United States. We have one set of tools at the Federal Trade Commission that we do use, which is our ability to bring cases when com-

panies are not taking reasonable measures to secure the sensitive customer and consumer information that they know. We do bring those cases, I think that’s important. But I think it would be better if Congress passed stronger laws that provided consumers with more rights, and frankly provided the regulators like the FTC with more authority to penalize companies if they aren’t adequately securing very sensitive information that they have. I firmly believe we need stronger data security protections, stronger privacy protections, stronger rights around our own data as consumers in the digital age.

DP: Before we wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to say or any advice you’d like to give students interested in politics or regulation?

TM: I would encourage students that are interested in government or public policy to take some time in their career to actually work in the government.

It is an incredibly rewarding experience. There are a variety of ways to serve in government, from local government to state government to federal government. It [government work] is incredibly enriching, especially if you’re interested in public policy. I think this is a fascinating time because there’s some really important questions that we are debating in the country. It’s an important time to be engaged in the political process and in the policy conversation. I’m incredibly heartened by all of the energy and enthusiasm around these topics here on campus. It’s great to meet so many talented and engaged students that are doing fantastic work already in their career.

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Wednesday October 4, 2017

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Xia seeks reform for LGBTQ+ youth in China LGBTQ+

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came aware of a major issue inherent in Chinese textbooks. While the Chinese government has not referred to LGBTQ+ people as mentally ill since Chinese law was amended in 2001, many textbooks used in colleges around the country are outdated and thus still include homophobic texts.

Xia and her friend decided that it was time for the passive government to approach this issue headon, so they filed a case and went to court. Although the court case was ultimately unsuccessful, Xia realized that she could address the textbook’s authors themselves. Forty percent of the professors contacted by Xia and her team responded positively to Xia’s remark and promised to revise their passages on LGBT people in the next edition of the textbooks.

With this success under her belt, Xia hopes that even though she cannot necessarily change the government’s stance on LGBT rights, she can slowly in-

form the Chinese public that LGBT people are not diseased.

Xia explained that LGBTQ+ advocacy in China is especially difficult, not just because of the homophobic reception it receives, but because the government won’t even recognize such NGOs. “It’s harder to get together and work on the issues that they care about,” Xia said.

According to Margot Canaday, associate professor of history, who helped organize the event, Xia met some University students in class. Xia will be on campus for the rest of the week before returning to her activist work in China. Canaday was also Kitchener’s thesis adviser.

The lecture was co-sponsored by the East Asian Studies Program, the LGBT Center, the University Center for Human Values, and the Women*s Center.

The lecture, entitled “The Struggle for LGBT Rights in Mainland China: The Voice of a Student Activist,” took place at 4:30 p.m. in McCormick 101.

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postseason. Unsurprisingly, the answer is yes — star players try to carry the load too often, detrimentally impacting the team.

While this analytical framework might be new for a lot of sports fans, Li and Zhan have been working on many similar problems for their blog, Data Buckets.

“We started it when we were students at Princeton, learning the theory of data science,” Li recount-

ed. “We wanted to spend more time applying analytics to the problems we were interested in. The big distinction between our blog and our coursework was that we had to formulate the problems and scrape the data ourselves.”

A recent post tackled the question of which player was the most “clutch” in the 2014-15 NBA season.

Their answer, by the way, was Houston Rockets player James Harden.

While basketball certainly lends itself to statistical analysis, the two have not restricted themselves to just that sport,

tackling similarly interesting question in tennis, soccer, and other games.

In fact, the two are huge tennis fans and Nadal supporters.

As part of the top prize, the team will have lunch with NBA commissioner Adam Silver and an allexpenses-paid trip to the NBA 2018 All-Star Game in Los Angeles. In addition, the duo will also receive tickets for a game in an arena of their choosing.

For these two alumni, it seems that applying data analytics to the court is nothing but net.

Opinion

Wednesday October 4, 2017

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Max Grear

#1 National Rich Kid University

senior columnist

L

ast month we rehearsed a familiar ritual — we won, again. None of us were surprised to see Princeton top the U.S. News & World Report college rankings for the seventh straight year, whether the headline prompted a gleeful Facebook post or merely a disinterested shrug. We already knew this was the Best Damn Place of All. Only a true Scrooge would belittle students for celebrating this small, ostensibly harmless holiday. What else do what we have — soul-crushing, late-night study sessions?

Exams after winter break? The lingering specter of grade deflation?

Perhaps it’s sacrilegious, then, to say that nothing would make me happier next year than to see Princeton drop far down the list. But this contrarian sentiment isn’t directed against the individual attitudes of students, no matter how smug. I don’t begrudge my peers their jabs at Harvard.

The real issue at stake here is that Princeton plays a leading role in fueling inequality, a fact which is directly connected to its place on the U.S. News podium.

In September, a comprehensive POLITICO review (released only a couple days before the

Jared Shulkin

2018 US News list) corroborated what higher education advocates have been saying for years now: rankings encourage universities to favor wealthy students.

The article lists a number of factors in the U.S. formula that incentivize schools to pursue students from high-income families. One category, for example, rewards universities for spending heavily on students and faculty, not including financial aid. High numbers of full-tuition students free up money to spend on, say, gratuitous food platters or washedup celebrity profs who never respond to their advisees’ emails.

(This isn’t to say that the University doesn’t invest in valuable teaching and research, but our culture of excess can be dizzying nonetheless.)

It all piles up quickly: to boost student selectivity (12.5 percent of the rankings, to be precise), schools seek applicants with high standardized test scores, which in comparison to high school grades correlate more highly with family income and less highly with college academic performance.

The credit rankings give for alumni giving rates encourages schools to admit children of alumni (at astounding rates — legacies make up over 30 percent of the Harvard Class of 2021). Universities are rewarded for receiving positive evaluations from guidance counsel-

ors at highly ranked (that is, affluent) high schools, while underfunded schools have few if any counselors who can make these evaluations.

To sum things up: If you’ve ever wondered why Princeton drops $700 a piece on lawn chairs, while still mandating that certain students work campus jobs and not others, the U.S. News rankings may offer some explanation.

Lately, however, the University has been trying to ameliorate its country club reputation. Apparently, socioeconomic diversity is what gets President Eisgruber up in the morning. Even the bougie New York Times couldn’t conceal its incredulity as it declared: “Princeton — yes, Princeton — takes on the class divide.”

To the University’s credit, it’s certainly meaningful that Pell grant recipients represent 21 percent of the first-year class, up from 6.5 percent in the Class of 2007. Still, let’s not tokenize these individuals — who come from the bottom half (not fifth) of the U.S. socioeconomic spectrum — by omitting a holistic view of the Princeton student body’s class makeup.

Another study released in 2017 revealed that students from the top 1 percent of wealth also accounted for nearly a fifth of the student body. Over 40 percent of the student body came from the top 5 percent. Around one in fifty students come from the

bottom 20 percent of wealth.

It almost seems as if the University swaps out a few middleclass kids for a few lower-middle-class kids each year and then pats itself on the back.

Meanwhile, Princeton’s status as a bastion of upper-class privilege remains undeniably intact.

If this system of inequality were to change, at least one of two things would have to happen: either U.S. News fundamentally changes its ridiculous rankings system, or Princeton overcomes its vice grip on the winner’s trophy. Given the perverse incentives built into the rankings formula, it’s hard to see how the University can begin to act “in the nation’s service and in the service of humanity” while striving for no.1. As long as the University vies for a high spot, it can only serve the rich first, everybody else second (or, more likely, not at all).

The University would inevitably slide in the rankings if it were to work towards equity rather than prestige — for example, by accepting qualified low-income students and discontinuing special treatment for legacies, or by eliminating a work requirement that puts an unfair burden on some students and not others. By prioritizing these kinds of measures, Princeton would act as a true leader rather than merely a winner.

Behind the college rankings

senior columnist

O

n Sept. 12, 2017, U.S. News & World Report released its annual “Best College” ranking lists for 2018. For the seventh straight year, Princeton has topped these rankings. But what, if anything, should we as an institution be proud of?

For Adam Conover — host and executive producer of the show Adam Ruins Everything on truTV — these rankings aren’t to be trusted. In a segment posted to the show’s YouTube channel this August, Adam claims that these flawed rankings have “rewarded schools that lie, cheat, and manipulate the system” citing its inception as a “popularity contest” in 1983 and its current use of a complex formula with subjectively weighted categories.

Has Princeton cheated its way to the top of the rankings?

With the emphasis of integrity

by Princeton’s faculty and students through the Honor Code, I personally believe it’s unlikely; however, there is certainly incentive to do so.

To better understand the significance of U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings, we must explore its methodology. From the organization’s

website, U.S. News collects data from each school “in up to 15 areas related to academic excellence.” The Best College rankings assess academic quality using statistical indicators from seven general categories: “first-year student retention and graduation of students; peer assessment; faculty resources; admissions selectivity; financial resources; alumni giving; and graduation rate performance, which is the difference between the proportion of students expected to graduate and the proportion who do.” Because U.S. News only evaluates academic quality, nonacademic considerations – like campus safety, athletics, and access to housing – are not factored, according to their website.

These data are entered into a formula with weighted categories, based on U.S. News’s own judgments about the significance of each measure of quality. Colleges are then ranked using the overall numerical output from this formula.

Change to a school’s rankings each year happens for one of two reasons – either the school has “improved” in one of the seven categories mentioned above or a slight change in the formula works in favor of that school. Per U.S. News, refinements in the methodology are

made for one reason: improvement. Following the ongoing debate on education quality metrics closely, U.S. News considers and implements better ideas as they arise. For example, the rankings have recently “put far less emphasis on input measures of quality – which look at characteristics of the students, faculty and other resources going into the educational process – and more emphasis on output measures, which look at the results of the educational process, such as six-year graduation and first-year student retention rates.” This change has followed in line with a shift in the emphasis of results by educators, researchers, and policymakers when evaluating the quality of educational programs.

But where exactly does the information on each school come from? According to U.S. News, an extensive questionnaire is sent each year to all accredited four-year colleges and universities. The self-assessment questionnaire undoubtedly creates space for unmonitored dishonesty. In the submission of these questionnaires, schools looking to benefit undeservedly could fabricate their responses for a boost in the rankings.

Are the contents of this questionnaire in mind as the Office of Admissions carefully selects

students to admit? As the Office of Alumni Affairs plans events and solicits donations?

As the Undergraduate Financial Aid Office decides how to allocate its financial resources?

If we understand the methodology behind these rankings, what’s stopping us from tweaking our practices to output the greatest results?

It’s clear how schools that cheat or manipulate the system can easily benefit in the rankings, but what’s incentivizing these behaviors? Returning to the video segment mentioned earlier, Adam Conover mentions that schools are under intense pressure to keep their ranking up because if they fail to do so, the number of applications received, research funding, and alumni donations may all decrease considerably.

Generally, the U.S. News Best College rankings carry as much weight as we give them; nonetheless, until we all collectively see through the subjective methodology and ease of manipulation, the rankings will — for better or for worse — retain some level of significance for universities across the country.

Rightfully or not, Princeton sits at the top and we’re certainly reaping the benefits.

vol. cxli

Sarah Sakha ’18

editor-in-chief

Matthew McKinlay ’18 business manager

BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Betsy L. Minkin ’77 treasurer Douglas J. Widmann ’90 Kathleen Crown William R. Elfers ’71 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 John Horan ’74 Joshua Katz Kathleen Kiely ’77 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Alexia Quadrani Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 Randall Rothenberg ’78 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 trustees emeriti Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Jerry Raymond ’73 Michael E. Seger ’71 Annalyn Swan ’73

141ST MANAGING BOARD managing editors Samuel Garfinkle ’19 Grace Rehaut ’18 Christina Vosbikian ’18 head news editor Marcia Brown ’19 associate news editors Kristin Qian ’18 Claire Lee ‘19 head opinion editor Nicholas Wu ’18 associate opinion editors Samuel Parsons ’19 Emily Erdos ’19 head sports editor David Xin ’19 associate sports editors Christopher Murphy ’20 Claire Coughlin ’19 head street editor Jianing Zhao ’20 associate street editors Lyric Perot ’20 Danielle Hoffman ’20 web editor Sarah Bowen ’20 head copy editors Isabel Hsu ’19 Omkar Shende ’18 associate copy editors Caroline Lippman ’19 Megan Laubach ’18 design editor Rachel Brill ’19 cartoons editor Tashi Treadway ’19

NIGHT STAFF copy Catherine Benedict ’20 Ally Dalman ’20 Elizabeth Bailey ’21 Christian Flores ’21

Letter to the Editor: In response to PGSU Dear PGSU, Thanks very much for your open letter to the ‘Prince’ on Sept. 27 (“Open Letter: PGSU on divergent perspectives”). We heard from other graduate and undergraduate students about that particular sentence in our year’s opening email to the student body.

Although we work hard in these occasional letters to be very clear about our

meanings, with the sentence you quoted we opened room for interpretations counter to what we intended. For that, we apologize.

As you call on the University to do, we condemn violence and hatred of all kinds. The three of us and the offices we represent work daily to protect the rights and safety of immigrants, transgender people, and people of color (and

those whose identities intersect all of these categories and others).

We agree that our University should be a place where “the rights of all students are upheld without question, and where any ideology that threatens their security is courageously confronted,” as you suggest.

We’re not insisting on “neutrality”; we’re urging

clear and effective engagement. We meant our email to advocate for what Princeton does best: teaching, learning, creating scholarship, and staging conversations about complex social issues, in ways that indeed respect the “full dignity and humanity of all persons” and lift up intellectual as well as political and other forms of difference.

That is the concrete ac-

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tion we look forward to supporting and engaging throughout the coming year and beyond.

We look forward to working with you.

Jill Dolan, Dean of the College Cole M. Crittenden, Interim Dean of the Graduate School W. Rochelle Calhoun, Vice President for Campus Life

Wednesday October 4, 2017

The Daily Princetonian

page 5

Promoting free speech over patriotism on college campuses Jessica Nyquist columnist

L

ast weekend, President Trump unleashed a flood of tweets criticizing the protests of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem, even suggesting that kneeling players should be fired. The tweets reignited the debate that has boiled since Colin Kaepernick first knelt during the pregame national anthem last season.

Americans are divided on whether to regard the protest as a productive call to action or a disrespectful break from an important ritual. People perceive the protest in a variety of ways, but at its core the action is a form of protected free speech, and free speech must be encouraged and respected in itself. And while the debate may be national in scale, revolving around the NFL and other professional sports leagues, it is also relevant to college campuses and athletes. In the 2017 spring season, members of the Princeton University’s women’s basketball team regularly knelt on the court during the playing of the national anthem.

These protests aim to draw attention to the fact that, despite the great freedom and

progress in our country, changes must still be made.

Rather than passively participating in the national anthem, the protest disrupts routine and calmly brings to light the dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs.

In a speech in Alabama, Trump called the protests “a total disrespect of our heritage” and of “everything we stand for.” Many critics of the movement emphasize the disrespect toward veterans. Yet Veterans and current members of the armed forces, like the general public, express reactions along a spectrum of diverse responses. A photo of a 97-year-old WWII veteran went viral, showing him kneeling with the caption, “those kids have every right to protest.” On the other hand, veteran Leonard Rusher expressed mixed emotions, explaining that he was “saddened but not disgusted” by the protests. Rusher claimed to not like the protest, but he understands that their right to protest is what he fought for, saying, “they are expressing what that flag stands for, equal opportunity, equal justices, equal liberty, that’s what they are fighting for.” Veteran and current Spurs coach Gregg Popovich expressed support for his kneeling players and explained that “there

has to be an uncomfortable element in the discourse for anything to change.”

Regardless of the protest’s reception amongst veterans, the flag is not an absolute symbol of the armed forces, and the protestors do not target the armed forces when protesting. The flag represents the government, our history, our politics, our culture, and so many aspects of life in America. The flag and the anthem are symbols with multiple meanings, and it is intellectually and politically cowardly to deliberately disregard the protestors’ intentions when criticizing it.

In our academics, Princeton trains us to interpret a scholar’s argument in its most generous form before critiquing it; therefore, the intention of the protestors must be considered as or more heavily than all possible perceptions.

Beyond the details of the actual political point of the protests, many critics including fans and season ticket holders question the choice of venue, considering the athletic field and inappropriate arena for protest. While Attorney General Jeff Sessions adamantly defends free speech rights – especially on college campuses - he expressed, “There are many ways the players have, assets they have, that

they can express their views without in effect denigrating the symbols of our nation.” In defense of his protest, Kaepernick explained, “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.” The protest points to an issue that is not confided to political or academic spheres, but a problem that permeates every aspect of life, and thus it should be called out in every aspect of life. Considering a game an inappropriate platform suggests that social inequality is not important enough an issue to breach the football stadium as a sacred arena of tradition.

Like their professional counterparts, college athletes hold a unique power and voice in guiding or promoting movements. As they compete, they hold the eyes of students, administrators, and often even the national spotlight. In this way, the athletes are given a platform that guarantees their actions are seen, because the University consistently promotes and advertises athletics. Though their complaints may not be addressed, their voices will be heard. For example, former Wisconsin basketball star Bronson Koenig protested the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock,

stalling for time annie zou ’20

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and Georgetown rowers protested sweatshop labor practices by covering Nike logos.

Granted, college football teams are in the locker room during the national anthem which evades the opportunity to participate in this particular protest.

Athletes on our campus should be encouraged to embrace their free speech rights to protest, rather than to separate their athletic career from their beliefs. While Trump encouraged NFL owners to fire protestors, the administration should commit to protect studentathlete protesters and make these commitments clear. As athletes dedicate hours and physical efforts to the playing field, they should be allowed to voice concerns in this same arena. Not only should student-athletes feel able to protest without threats from the administration, they should feel encouraged to do so.

While a protest of this type, as we have seen on the national stage, can easily be misconstrued as anti-American, the controversy does not diminish students’ right to University support in their peaceful protest. Our administration should prioritize protections of free speech, not forced practices of patriotism.

Wednesday October 4, 2017

Sports

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{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } BEYOND THE BUBBLE

Princeton alumni win in second annual NBA-hosted hackathon

By David Xin sports editor

Despite the rise of big data and data analysis in sports, few people think of the NBA as a treasure trove for analytics. Perhaps in response to this preconception, the NBA hosted its second annual hackathon from Sept. 2324 in New York City.

This year’s winners were a pair of former Princeton students, Harold Li ’15 and Barbara Zhan ’16. Competing as “Team Data Buckets,” named after a blog

the pair had started while still at Princeton, the duo created a winning submission that featured a decision-making tool for scoring basketball games according to entertainment value.

Perhaps the most difficult part of the project came with defining broad, abstract terms, such as “entertainment value” and understanding how to translate that ineffable quality into something tangible, such as value for the league.

“We were forecasting

TV and web popularity, and attendance of actual games to inform a popularity metric and how much that meant in dollars,” explained Zhan.

“For example, if a game is more watched by people, then it’s going to rake in more revenue.”

The two found several leading indicators that forecasted a game’s success. Early ticket sales were often a good sign for games, while the prevalence of players with high jersey sales also factored into a match’s ultimate

entertainment value. In addition, certain teams seemed to bring high ratings, such as the Golden State Warriors, Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Oklahoma City Thunder. Even less successful teams, like the New York Knicks, often managed to benefit from their geographical associations.

Li and Zhan competed against undergraduate and graduate students from across the United States and Canada. Teams had 24 hours to complete

their projects before presenting to a panel of judges, NBA executives, and members of the media.

This year’s competitors had the option to choose between two competitive categories: basketball analytics and business analytics. Li and Zhan won first prize in the business analytics track.

Last year’s winning submission featured an analysis of “Hero Ball,” exploring whether star players attempt to carry too much of the offensive load in the See HACKATHON page 3

WOMEN’S TENNIS

Tigers stand strong at Princeton Invitational

By Alissa Selover staff writer

The women’s tennis team hosted the Princeton Invitational this past weekend, Sept. 29-Oct. 1, at Lenz Tennis Center.

Princeton was one of the four teams that competed in this invitational, hosting Cornell, Penn, and Temple in both singles and doubles matches. Lead by head coach Laura Granville, who has coached the Tigers for six seasons, the women’s tennis team went into the Princeton Invitational with confidence in themselves and their abilities. The Tigers came out on top, winning 10 of their 11 matches in doubles and 15 out of 20 matches in singles throughout the weekend.

As the three days progressed, Tiger sophomores Clare McKee and Tiffany Chen lead the team as they

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The women’s tennis team hosted the Princeton Invitational this past weekend and came out on top.

each went undefeated (30) in singles. McKee came out on top against two Cornell athletes and one from Temple while Chen defeated athletes from Penn, Cornell, and Temple. Junior Nicole Kalhorn also went undefeated in her two singles matches this weekend which were both against Cornell athlete Molly Sandberg. Tiger players seniors Katrine Steffensen and Sara Goodwin, junior Catalina Vives, sophomore Gaby Pollner, and freshman Nathalie Rodilosso also competed in singles matches this weekend combining to 7-5 overall.

Doubles matches were only played on Friday and Sunday. Each doubles team competed very well, ending with only one loss throughout the two days of play. Rodilosso and Vives were one of two pairs to compete in

two matches where they went undefeated against two different Cornell teams. Kalhorn and Steffensen were the other pair to compete in two doubles matches where they finished 1-1 together, defeating a pair from Temple and losing to a team from Penn. The Tigers had seven other doubles pairs that each played and won one match.

So far, the Tigers have had a very successful season. With three more invitationals coming up, they are hoping to keep improving their individual and team stats. Overall, the team is currently 30-22 in singles matches and 13-7 in doubles and is optimistic as it finishes out the season in the next few weeks.

FIELD HOCKEY

Field hockey gets shutout by Syracuse Orange

By Claire Coughlin associate sports editor

This Sunday was a battle of the orange schools in women’s field hockey, as the Princeton Tigers (5-5 overall, 2-0 Ivy) faced off against the Syracuse Orange (9-3, 1-3 ACC).

Unfortunately the Orange and Black from New Jersey was not able to overcome a strong performance by the players of Syracuse. The ‘Cuse women’s field hockey team has been playing extremely well this year, with this game marking its ninth shutout of the year. Not only has the Syracuse team itself accomplished a lot of shutouts this year, but Syracuse goalie Borg van der Velde picked up her eighth shutout in cage as well, which moves her to fourth on the program’s single-season record list.

Syracuse came out strong on the offensive side, taking a shot on goal just 12 minutes into the game. The away team’s first attempt didn’t come until the 15th minute as freshman midfielder Ju-

lianna Tornetta’s shot was blocked and senior striker Ryan McCarthy was unable to turnover off the rebound.

In one stretch of the game, the Syracuse Orange had three corner shots in just 78 seconds. Sophomore goalie Grace Baylis blocked two of them, but the one she let slide ended up being the only goal scored by both teams at the game’s finish.

Despite the loss, the Tigers still have a chance for a winning season, with a 5-5 record going into next weekend and no losses in the Ivy League.

Princeton will host Columbia on Friday at 6:30 p.m. before a matchup against No. 1 University of Connecticut on Sunday at 12 p.m. In program history, Princeton has only won three games against the No. 1 team in the country, the last coming against North Carolina in the 2012 National Championship game. Both games next week will be streamed on the Ivy League Digital Network.

Tweet of the Day “WSOC: @PrincetonWSoc climbs to No. 11 behind four Top 10 statistical rankings. Ivies boast .610 winning %.”

The Ivy League (@ IvyLeague)

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Despite the loss against Syracuse, the field hockey team still has a chance for a winning season.

Stat of the Day

No. 14

Princeton Women’s Field Hockey have climbed to No. 14 in the most recent Penn Montco/NFHCA Division I Coaches’ Poll.

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