September 30, 2015

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Wednesday september 30, 2015 vol. cxxxix no. 78

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U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S

ART

Report finds high frequency of sexual assault

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By Christina Vosbikian

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staff writer

In Opinion Columnist Lavinia Liang argues about the important role of mentors, and guest contributor Tad LaFountain advises freshmen to reach out to previous generations. PAGE 4

Today on Campus 5:30p.m.: Artistic Director and Resident Playwright Emily Mann will be available for a pre-show discussion and Q&A immediately before the McCarter Theatre Center’s production of “Baby Doll” by Tennessee Williams. McCarter Theatre.

The Archives

Sept. 30, 1985 The Whig-Cliosophic Society decided to ban X-rated films from its film series, becoming the first campus organization to take an antipornography stance.

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News & Notes

Michelle Obama ’85, Gross ’75 appear on The Late Show

first lady Michelle Obama ’85 and Julie Raynor Gross ’75 appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Monday night. In addition to commenting on the challenges of being the first lady, Colbert read a letter written by former first lady Laura Bush that asked for advice for the first gentleman if a female president were elected. Obama said that the first gentleman should just follow his passion and be himself. Colbert joked that her answer was in reference to Bill Clinton, but Obama said that was not her intention. Obama had been promoting her Let Girls Learn campaign prior to making an appearance on The Late Show. The campaign is a government-wide effort that encourages adolescent girls to complete their education. Gross is the Founder and President of Collegiate Gateway LLC and a Master Practitioner of the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator. She appeared on The Late Show to administer the Myers Briggs Test, which Colbert said he does not take seriously.

VINCENT PO :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The new stained glass sculpture in front of the University Art Museum lit up on Tuesday evening. LOCAL NEWS

Former student sentenced to 5 years on drug charges By Do-Hyeong Myeong associate news editor

A former member of the Class of 2016 was sentenced to five years in jail for multiple drug possession and distribution charges, according to NJ.com. Julian Edgren, 21, will begin serving his sentence on Nov. 13. The delay is due to a medical issue, NJ.com reported. Edgren, who is free on $25,000 bail, is currently not enrolled in the University as a student, according to University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua. Mbugua declined to comment on whether Edgren voluntarily

withdrew from the University or was expelled. Edgren and the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office did not respond to requests for comment. Edgren was arrested in January after attempting to retrieve a package from the Frist Campus Center mailroom that contained seven grams of ecstasy. At the time of his arrest, he was carrying a duffle bag containing five grams of hashish, 55 grams of marijuana, 60 Adderall pills and approximately half an ounce of liquid LSD. The arrest was the result of an operation that started in mid-December, when federal agents from U.S. Customs

LECTURE

and Border Protection intercepted a package addressed to Edgren and contacted the University’s Department of Public Safety and the Mercer County Narcotics Task Force. On the day of Edgren’s arrest, the police had been surveilling the building waiting for someone to retrieve the package. The Narcotics Task Force also found psilocybin, drug paraphernalia and marijuana cookies in Edgren’s dormitory room and an additional amount of psilocybin in one of the other packages Edgren attempted to retrieve that See SENTENCE page 2

Undergraduate women experience the highest instance of inappropriate sexual behavior among students at the University, according to the summary report for the 2015 survey “We Speak: Attitudes on Sexual Misconduct at Princeton,” released by the University on Tuesday. According to the results, approximately one in three undergraduate women have experienced inappropriate sexual behavior in comparison with an estimated one in five graduate women, one in seven undergraduate men and one in 18 graduate men. Fifty-five percent of undergraduate women and 62 percent of undergraduate men indicated that they told someone about the incident of inappropriate sexual behavior, while 43 percent of graduate students told someone, according to the report. The report explained that students not thinking what happened to them was “serious enough to talk about” was among the most frequently cited reasons that students did not tell anybody about their experiences of inappropriate sexual behavior. Other reasons included students’ viewing their experiences as a “private matter that they wanted to deal with it on their own” and students expressing that “they had other things they needed to focus on and were concerned about classes or work.” The survey also found that nearly 80 percent of undergraduate students at the University know where to get help on

campus should they experience non-consensual sexual contact. Fewer graduate students reported having knowledge of the process. Vice Provost for Institutional Equity & Diversity Michele Minter said that though the results of the survey are not markedly different than those being reported nationally, the numbers are still very concerning for the University. “We would like this campus to be as safe as possible,” Minter said. “We would like, over time, to see the prevalence numbers drop and the number of reports and awareness of the campus community in terms of how they [students] can access resources to go up.” According to the recent American Association of Universities sexual assault survey, the results of which were released last week, 11.7 percent of student respondents across 27 universities reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact by physical force, threats of physical force, or incapacitation since they enrolled at their university. The rate among women was 23.1 percent. Rates of reporting to campus officials varied from five to 28 percent depending on the type of behavior. Vice Provost for Institutional Research Jed Marsh said that he thinks of the survey in itself as a learning moment for the University, and noted that the survey data provides extensive insight to help move along the dialogue concerning issues of sexual misconduct at the University. The confidential Web-based survey was administered over 28 See REPORT page 2

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

Hedges lectures on fall of capitalism, corporate state By Charles Min senior writer

The world is spiraling into a inverted totalitarian political system in which the anonymity and the assault by the corporate state will bring about the fall of capitalism, Chris Hedges, prominent socialist, best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize journalist, said at a lecture on Tuesday. Inverted totalitarianism, Hedges explained, describes a form of social organization in which corporations have purported to pay fidelity to the common people but silently possess agendas that are against them. The fundamental pillars that make capitalism possible are pillaged by the wealthiest one percent of the world, who would own more than half of the world’s wealth by next year, he said. He added that revolutionary socialist Karl Marx had foreseen this in his works, claiming that late stages of capitalism would involve corporate monopoly over the global market and the obliteration of free market competition. Hedges referenced a May 22 New York Times editorial, titled “Banks as Felons, or Criminality Lite” to suggest that the two stock market crashes in the 21st century are living fulfillment of what socialist philosophers warned against years ago. The 2008 economic crisis was the enactment of a welfare state for the rich, Hedges said, and

the volatile cycle of boom and bust will result in “fictitious capital” and the “vaporization of money.” “The banks occupying the commanding heights of the U.S. financial industry, with almost $9 trillion in assets and more than half the size of the U.S. economy, would just about break even in the absence of corporate welfare,” he said. “The idea of capitalism, free trade, free markets, individualism, innovation, self-development works only in the utopian mind of a true believer like Alan Greenspan, never in reality.” He maintained that the poor and middle classes in the United States are subjected to destruction by corporate whim, as jobs are outsourced to countries like Bangladesh and China, where people or “serfs” earn 22 cents an hour. Hedges drew several comparisons between Herman Melville’s masterwork “Moby Dick” and the U.S. capitalist state. The novel, which involves a crew’s self-destructive quest to capture a white whale, highlights murderous obsessions, violent impulses and moral weakness, which Hedges said are features of the corporate state. “Those on the ship on some level knew they were doomed, just as many of us know that a consumer culture based on corporate profit, limitless exploitation and continued extraction of fossil fuels is doomed,” he said. See LECTURE page 2

COURTESY OF THE MACARTHUR FOUNDATION

Marina Rustow is the first University affiliate to receive the MacArthur Fellowship since 2013.

Rustow one of 24 people to receive MacArthur Fellowship this year By Jessica Li staff writer

Marina Rustow, the Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East at the University, is among the 24 scientists, artists, scholars and activists who received this year’s MacArthur Fellowship. The distinction, sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, comes with $625,000 grants distributed in quarterly installments over a five-year period. The three criteria for selection include creativity,

potential for making future advances and potential to facilitate creative work, and the selection process places emphasis on nominees for whom the grant would help to relieve limitations that might prevent them from pursuing their work. The Selection Committee consists of 12 people who serve confidentially and rotate in and out after each review cycle. There are no limits on age or area of activity, and individuals are anonymously nominated from a pool of external sources invited by the Foundation to nominate candidates.

Applications are not permitted, nor are nominations from an unsolicited source. The Foundation receives approximately 2,000 nominations per year. Representatives from the MacArthur Foundation did not respond to a request for comment. Rustow said that she is still considering plans for using the grant, but added that she wants to mentor other scholars. Rustow joined the University faculty this past July and specializes in Jewish studies See MACARTHUR page 2


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