March 6, 2015

Page 1

Founded 1876 daily since 1892 online since 1998

Friday march 6, 2015 vol. cxxxix no. 26

WEATHER

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } HIGH

28˚

LOW

Mostly sunny with some clouds at night. chance of rain: none

Follow us on Twitter @princetonian

In Opinion The Editorial Board suggests improvements to midterms week, and Newby Parton questions the excessive dining hall prices. PAGE 4

Today on Campus 8:00 p.m.: Belly dance troupe Raks Odalisque will present its spring show, “Arzu.” The title means desire, wish or want. Frist Film and Performance Theater.

The Archives

March 6, 1986 The Department of Politics limited the number of concentrators, in part because of difficulties attracting new faculty.

got a tip? Email it to: tips@dailyprincetonian.com

News & Notes Dozens protest against UChicago over trauma care center

Dozens of protesters chained themselves together on Thursday to pressure the University of Chicago to open a trauma care center, NBC Chicago reported The demonstration occurred on Michigan Avenue and Pearson Street near a University of Chicago alumni fundraising event at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, according to the Chicago Tribune. A spokesperson for the group said that the activists intended to rally and picket outside the hotel to call on alumni donors not to support the University of Chicago until it commits to opening a trauma center. Protesters released a statement saying they were willing to risk arrest to send the message that “business as usual cannot continue while black lives are being lost due to a lack of adult trauma care on the South Side and the University of Chicago’s refusal to expand trauma care.” The University of Chicago does not offer trauma care for patients 16 or older. Trauma centers offer more extensive care than do typical emergency rooms. The protesters gathered outside the hotel around 5:30 p.m. to block rush hour traffic outside of the Ritz-Carlton hotel. By 6:45 p.m., nine activists blocking traffic on Michigan Avenue were arrested and traffic resumed, The Chicago Maroon said.

OVERLINE

2 U. faculty members receive Dan David Prize

GETTING TO CLASS

By Jessica Li staff writer

Two Princeton faculty members were named recipients of the 2015 Dan David Prize last month. Both history professor emeritus Peter Brown and sociology lecturer Alessandro Portelli were awarded in the “Retrieving the Past” category of the prize. They will be honored at a May 17 ceremony at Tel Aviv University in Israel. According to its website, the Dan David Prize is an international enterprise that awards grants in three categories for outstanding interdisciplinary research in the sciences and humanities. Award recipients receive a monetary prize of $1 million. Dan David Prize laureates must donate 10 percent of their reward to support the studies of their graduate or doctoral students. Brown and Portelli did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and representatives from the Dan David Prize declined to comment beyond a press release. Brown earned recognition for having written a series of works on late Greco-Roman and early Medieval history throughout his career. Although these topics are ancient, there are lessons to be drawn for modern day’s numerous sociopolitical controversies, he wrote in a prologue to his book, “The World of Late Antiquity.” “Only the ancient world in its fateful last centuries could explain the world in which I myself lived — a Protestant in an Ireland dominated by a Roman Catholicism which claimed direct continuity with the post-Roman, medieval past, and a boy who looked always to the Middle East where his father worked and where the ancient monuments of Egypt and the ruined cities of Hellenistic and Roman times stood in the midst of what are now Muslim societies,” Brown wrote. According to a press release issued by the Dan David Prize, Brown’s work is made exceptional by his incorporation of a variety of sources written in a variety of languages, including English, French, Italian, German, Syriac, ancient Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Old Norse. Brown is currently writing a book examining attitudes towards wealth See DAN DAVID page 2

YICHENG SUN :: PHOTO EDITOR

The University was closed for non-essential staff on Thursday due to a winter storm. Classes were held as scheduled. OVERLINE

Martinez ’15, Miller ’15 receive Labouisse Prize By Zaynab Zaman staff writer

Yessica Martinez ’15 and Damaris Miller ’15 were awarded this year’s Henry Richardson Labouisse ’26 Prize, a $30,000 grant to support a year-long international civic engagement project. The prize was formed in 1984 by Labouisse’s daughter and son-in-law, Anne and Martin Peretz. Martinez intends to work with a community organization in Medellín, Colombia, which has been creating theater programs for almost 25 years. She will mostly be working with youth and younger children to develop creative poetry workshops focused around the urban environment, she explained. “My dad is actually from that area, so that’s where my interest in that community comes from,” she said. She noted that one of the requirements of the fellowship was that the project should be based on the applicant’s background and on his or her experiences, both intellectually and personally speaking. She noted that her proposal was very driven by what

OVERLINE

Journalism professor talks human trafficking By Paul Phillips senior writer

Human trafficking is not merely about forced prostitution and sex slavery, but instead encompasses a much wider variety of issues related to coerced labor, independent journalist and visiting professor Noy Thrupkaew argued at a talk Thursday. Thrupkaew will deliver the same presentation as a Technology, Entertainment, Design talk at the TED national conference in March. The talk began with Thrupkaew’s account of her discovery that until the age of three she had been raised not by her parents but by her “auntie.” Her “auntie” was stripped and beaten for offenses as minor as being late to pick her up and eventually ran away. Thrupkaew later learned that her “auntie” had been a trafficked worker doing domestic work in hopes of obtaining a visa. Thrupkaew defined human trafficking as the “the use of force, fraud or coercion to compel another person’s labor.” She said that although most people think of human trafficking as a way of forcing helpless young women into prostitution, sex trafficking is not representative

of the crime of trafficking as a whole. Prostitution accounts for only 22 percent of human trafficking offenses worldwide, she noted, while extortion of ordinary goods and services that we rely on every day accounts for 68 percent. “When most of you think about human trafficking, you don’t think about people like my auntie,” she said. She added that most victims of human trafficking are people of color, and that the criminal justice system is not effective in resolving human trafficking crimes. Out of the possible 21 million trafficked workers in the world, about 50,000 have been identified for certain, she said. Law enforcement rarely investigates trafficking situations unrelated to sex or open violence, and most instances of labor trafficking are settled in civil courts, not criminal courts, she said. Thrupkaew explained that trafficking occurs in environments where workers are excluded from protection and denied the right to organize. “Trafficking does not happen in a vacuum,” she said. “It hapSee TED page 2

she believes she has learned at the University, as well as by her own personal experiences and her background. That focus is something that likely stood out to the committee who reviewed her application, she said. Martinez added that, after her year of service, she is considering pursuing a doctorate in Spanish literature or urban studies, and potentially a career in academia. Martinez was also the co-recipient of the University’s 2015 Moses Taylor Pyne Honor Prize, the highest undergraduate award. Miller’s project centers around working with Tibetan Buddhist monks in their Himalayan monasteries to help improve their sustainability. She will travel to two clusters of monasteries, one in India, which she has previously visited, and another in Nepal, she explained. Part of her proposal includes working with residents to identify and locate projects that are important to them and helping find ways to make them successful. Miller said she considers this project to be the natural culmination of all her

projects and experiences over the past five years, she explained. Her Bridge Year experience in India, through which she began learning Hindi, and her time spent abroad in India since then have been formative. “All my independent work has been on religion and the environment, and my thesis is on religion and the environment,” Miller said. “If there is anything I am prepared to do, it is this.” She said her extensive thought process and passion likely came across to the committee, which is why she may have been selected. Though the grant is only for one year, she can see herself working on her project for more time, she said. The woman who started the initiative and with whom Miller is partnering has a strategic plan that far exceeds one year, which is why Miller’s plans may be longer-term, she explained. “I know the things that I’m passionate about and that I’m interested in, and this project is the intersection of so many of those passions and interests, which is really exciting,” Miller said.

SNOW

TIFFANY CHEN :: ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR

Snow fell throughout the day on Thursday, covering the University in several inches of snow.


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.