Founded 1876 daily since 1892 online since 1998
Monday march 30, 2015 vol. cxxxix no. 35
WEATHER
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } HIGH
LOW
56˚ 33˚
SUPERHERO TALKS
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Former Triangle accountant pleads guilty
Rain or wet snow possible early. chance of rain:
10 percent
In Opinion The Faculty-Student Committee on Sexual Misconduct explains why it is important to have data on campus sexual misconduct, and columnist Ryan Dukeman advocates using endowment money to eliminate tuition. PAGE 4
By Shriya Sekhsaria staff writer
Today on Campus
Writers from DC Comics and Marvel Comics sat on a panel on Friday afternoon in Dodds Auditorium to discuss the comic genre and where the art form is headed next.
Thomas Muza, former Triangle Club accountant and McCarter Theatre general manager, pleaded guilty on Friday to embezzling more than $240,000 from the club between January 2008 and February 2013. The specific charge was second-degree theft by unlawful taking. Muza declined to comment. Triangle’s Board of Trustees was originally unhappy with Muza because he was not doing
U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
In hopes of high response rate, U. advertises WeSpeak survey heavily to students
Pao ’91 loses 3-year venture capital discrimination suit
4:30 p.m.: José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of the American States, will present a public lecture titled, “Collective Challenges in the Americas.” Robertson Hall. JACK MAZZULO ::CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The Archives
March 30, 1953 Albert Einstein published an addition to his theory of relativity. The Princeton University Press issued the 74-year-old scientist’s “Generalization of Gravitation Theory” as Appendix II of his book, “The Meaning of Relativity.”
Follow us on Twitter @princetonian
got a tip? Email it to: tips@dailyprincetonian.com
News & Notes Yale Spanish and Portuguese department faces anonymous allegations of discrimination
Yale’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese is under administrative review following anonymous allegations about the department’s academic and social environment, the Yale Daily News reported. An anonymous letter was distributed to members of the department and university administrators on March 6. The letter, purportedly written by a group of graduate students, contained a number of complaints about the “highly negative atmosphere” in the department, including issues with curriculum, inconsistent tenure policy, communication problems and accusations of discrimination and sexual harassment. The letter specifically alleged Spanish professor Roberto González Echevarría as the “main assailant,” accusing him of discriminatory and harassing behavior and remarks toward secretaries and female graduate students. The letter also accuses the department of not granting tenure. The letter does not actually specify who or how many people wrote it, although a number of students interviewed shared the concerns in the letter.
responsible financial reporting, Marc Segan ’77, chairman of the board, said. “We found it not easy to deal with him because we wanted to get clear financial information, and I guess that was because he had things to hide,” he said. Muza was Triangle’s accountant between 1993 and 2013, and received an annual salary from Triangle of $4,000. In September 2012, Muza was named Esquire magazine’s employee of the month, which is part of a feature the magazine See MUZA page 2
By Christina Vosbikian staff writer
The University has been advertising heavily for students to take its survey about the climate for sexual misconduct on campus because it wants to conduct the survey in future years, Daniel Day, the University’s acting director of communications, said. A high response rate this year would give the University a good baseline for later comparison, he
explained. “We’ve had a good initial response,” he said. “What we’re really hoping for is that we can get as close to 100 percent as possible.” A number of emails, including from University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 and Undergraduate Student Government president Ella Cheng ’16, have been sent to the student body asking students to take the survey. The emails emphasized the importance of the survey to the University, the little
STUDENT LIFE
USG senate addresses accessibility of campus recreation, new referenda By Katherine Oh staff writer
The Undergraduate Student Government senate discussed making campus recreation more accessible and the Bicker referendum during its weekly meeting on March 29. USG has been working with Senior Associate Director of Athletics/Campus Recreation David Leach ’88 to provide more convenient access to the fitness center by adding a side door, chief designer William Aung ’18 said. “We broached the subject of having other entries to Stephens Fitness Center, and after talking to him, he didn’t really seem to be in support of it now, because of the way that it’s constructed,” Aung explained. “Right now, we’ll probably table
that for next spring.” Aung noted that there will be a construction on the A floor in the future, when accessibility to the fitness center could potentially change. According to Aung, Leach also suggested creating an outdoor recreational space and providing funding for students on financial aid for fitness activities. “I think we need to keep student priorities in mind,” Ucouncilor Dallas Nan ’16 said. “I know the desire was to look into more access to the Stephens Center. I know these are projects [Leach] wants to work on, but I think we should be cognizant of whether students would want this.” The major budgetary concern related to adding an enSee USG page 2
amount of time needed to complete it and that students do not have to have had direct experience with sexual misconduct to share their thoughts. “I think President Eisgruber sending out the email was the main reason I took the kind of long-ish survey,” Michael Kim ’16 said. He said that the advertising of the survey made it seem like the University cared about getting a complete picture of sexual See SURVEY page 2
By Cassidy Tucker contributor
Ellen Pao ’91 lost her threeyear discrimination lawsuit against venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers on Friday. A jury found that Kleiner Perkins did not discriminate against Pao on the basis of gender and did not retaliate against her for reports of gender discrimination that she had filed with senior staff at the firm. Attorneys for Kleiner Perkins
had argued that Pao, now the interim CEO of Reddit, was fired for poor performance and being difficult to work with. Neither Pao nor Kleiner Perkins responded to requests for comment. In 2005, Pao joined Kleiner Perkins as the chief of staff to a general partner at the firm and took on the role of a junior investing partner in 2010. Pao was fired on Oct. 1, 2012. Throughout the trial, See PAO page 3
COLOR CRAZE
ROCHELLE FORNI :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Students cover themselves in pigments and sweat in a Team U fundraiser for Shoe4Africa.
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
FERC commissioner discusses duty to supply electricity to general public By Kristin Qian staff writer
Utilities employees who operate an electrical grid and the regulators who oversee the grid have a duty to the public to make sure that the electricity comes on if the light switch is flipped, Tony Clark, Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said at a lecture on Saturday.
“Job number one, almost invariably, is reliability,” he said of the FERC’s priorities. Energy reliability has evolved a lot in the last decade, Clark noted. Up until 2005, all reliability standards in the country were voluntary standards. They were the industry’s best practices and were neither mandatory nor enforceable by the federal government. Flaws in the transmission
system were exposed through the Northeast blackout of 2003, which changed how the public perceived utility regulation and opened up legal questions about energy, Clark said. Coming out of that event, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 emerged and granted the FERC new authority over market manipulation and improved reliability standards. The standards
are now mandatory and include penalties that regulatory agencies like the FERC can enforce through its relationship with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. After this policy change, the FERC worked on improving the grid visibility from the operator standpoint, training the people running the grid, trimming trees around the grid and creating pro-
tocols to prevent any widespread outages in the future. Through making such core changes, the FERC discovered other threats to the grid. The issue of cybersecurity has become more prominent in recent years and the FERC has been “working aggressively” on these issues, Clark said. The FERC, through its relationship See LECTURE page 3