April 17, 2018

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Tuesday March 17, 2018 vol. CXLII no. 44

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Tuition increases to $49,330, financial aid up 7.7% for 2018–19

By Benjamin Ball Staff Writer

The cost of attendance for the 2018–19 school year has risen 3.9 percent from the previous year, alongside a rise in financial aid of 7.7 percent according to a budget announcement on Monday from the Office of Communications.

The announcement stated that the fee package for full tuition-paying families has increased from $62,750 to $65,810. The Office of Communications added that, for the 19th year in a row, the University’s fee package will be the lowest in the Ivy League.

The cost of attendance increased by 4.4 percent for the 2017–18 school year and 4.3 percent for the 2016–17 school year.

The average national cost of attendance for an undergraduate at a four-year private university was $44,820 for the 2017–18 school year, according to the College Board. The College Board

COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Roughly 60 percent of undergraduate students receive financial aid.

priced average in-state cost of attendance at a four-year public university at $18,390.

However, despite the increase in cost of attendance, overall financial aid has also increased by 7.7 percent to $174.2 million.

Like the cost of attendance, the increase in financial aid is part of a larger upward trend over the past few years, having increased by

STUDENT LIFE

8.7 percent for the 2017–18 school year and 6.6 percent for the 2016–17 year.

According to the announcement, roughly 60 percent of undergraduates receive aid, and for families earning up to $65,000, the financial aid package typically covers the full cost of tuition plus room and board.

“Access and affordability

remain key principles guiding decisions on Princeton’s fee package and financial aid,” Provost Deborah Prentice said in a statement.

Prentice is the University’s chief budget officer and chair of the student-facultystaff Priorities Committee, which makes budget recommendations to the trustees.

“The committee is pleased to endorse an increase in

IN TOWN

the financial aid budget that maintains Princeton’s commitment to meeting full financial need for all students who are admitted,” Prentice said.

Last year, the University was ranked 10th in a study conducted by the company Student Loan Hero in a list of the most affordable colleges, and was the only Ivy League school on that list.

The announcement emphasized that the University is dedicated to meeting students’ financial need.

“The University’s ‘stay even’ policy insulates students on aid from increasing costs of attendance,” according to the statement.

“Aid packages are recalculated each year to offset increases to tuition, room, board and other expenses and to take into account changes in the family’s financial circumstances.”

President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 presented the budget proposal to the trustees during a meeting on April 14.

ON CAMPUS

Princeton budget surplus Campus visitor hit will prevent tax hike Staff Writer

ISABEL TING :: THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Speakers at the SPEAR conference discussed incarceration.

SPEAR conference shines light on prison conditions

By Isabel Ting Staff Writer

Activists, authors, and individuals with histories of incarceration discussed the racism and inequality surrounding the criminal “(in) justice” system in Students for Prison Education and Reform’s fifth annual conference, “Shadows of the Prison.”

SPEAR defined “shadows of the prison” as the “lesser-seen, underdiscussed features of the criminal (in)justice system which impact human lives through the pervasion of carceral logics — punishment, supervision, violence, and control — beyond the prison’s walls and deep into ‘free’ society.”

Social activist Susan Burton shared her experiences with grief, incarceration, and recovery in the keynote address on April 13 at 4:30 p.m. Although Burton was named a CNN Hero in 2010 and is now the successful founder of the nonprofit A New Way of Life, through which she works with ex-convicts fight-

ing problems of re-entry, in the past she struggled with experiences of abuse as a child, six incidents of incarceration, and the tragic loss of her five-year-old son.

After her son was accidentally run over by an Los Angeles Police Department car, Burton said, “My body would no longer contain the grief of everything.”

Shortly after, she began to take drugs in order to “smother [her] pain with smoke” and for the next 20 years she would be under the control of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

“I remember how degraded, how unnecessary I felt, how rejected and dejected and how hopeless I felt,” Burton said. “I remember laying in bed, trying to figure out if anything would ever change for me.”

In addition, Burton cited the story of a woman, Ingrid, to illustrate the consequences of pervasive racism within the criminal justice system. Ingrid had left her toddler asleep in the car with the See SPEAR page 2

In Opinion

Student and alumni guest contributors criticize the proposed dining plan and guest contributor Peter Schmidt calls for action against Compressor Station 206.

SEE PAGE 5 FOR A CROSSWORD PUZZLE

Princeton residents won’t be seeing any tax increases this year, as a sufficient surplus in the $65-million town budget will allow town officials to fully finance a projected tax hike. Without any changes, municipal-purpose taxes were supposed to increase by $41.86 on average. The spending plan including this measure was passed at a public hearing on April 9.

“Every year our ultimate goal is to deliver quality services for as low cost as possible,” Mayor Liz Lem-

pert said. “One of the things about New Jersey is that our property taxes are some of the highest in the country.”

“We’re not always able to deliver a budget without a tax increase, but when we’re able to do this, it’s a good thing,” she added.

The Citizens Finance Advisory Committee was responsible for these calculations. According to Mayor Lempert, the committee consists of people with professional finance backgrounds who work together with elected officials on the budget and help with See BUDGET page 3

ON CAMPUS

Levitsky, Ziblatt discuss death of democracies

By Katja Stroke-Adolphe Contributor

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, professors of government at Harvard University and co-authors of the book “How Democracies Die,” spoke to the University community on Monday about the current threats to U.S. democracy, in the context of historical democracies’ disintegration.

Levitsky and Ziblatt have spent most of their lives studying other countries, with the former focusing on Latin America and the latter on Europe. But in the 2016 election, they were both “shocked at the tenor of our politics” and President Donald Trump’s rhetorical tactics, which included attacking the media, challenging the elec-

tion’s legitimacy, and threatening to lock up his opponent, Ziblatt said.

In applying their knowledge to the United States’ situation, Ziblatt and Levitsky concluded that “Trump is not only the cause of political problems plaguing our democracy; he is also the symptom.”

According to Levitsky and Ziblatt, the United States has previously failed to prevent authoritarians or demagogues from gaining power.

“We have a tendency to whitewash our own history,” Ziblatt said, adding that we forget the demagogues who previously obtained popularity in the United States, such as Henry Ford, George Wallace, or Joseph McCarthy. “There is See DEMOCRACY page 2

Today on Campus

4:30 p.m.: Srinath Raghavan presents “The Most Dangerous Place? The United States and South Asia in the Long 20th Century.”

Louis A. Simpson International Building / Room A71

by falling branch

By Katie Tam Contributor

A man was struck by a falling tree branch between the University Chapel and Firestone Library at approximately 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 15. The eight-foot branch fell from a height of about 25 feet, knocking the man to the ground and tearing a gash in his right calf.

Passersby tried to assist before medical personnel arrived. The man was taken to the hospital alert and conscious, with injuries to his face and right leg.

Visiting journalism professor Jim Dwyer was walking from Washington Road when he witnessed the incident.

“I heard the snap of the tree, which was quite a loud sound. I saw it tumbling,” said Dwyer. “At first I thought it didn’t get anybody.”

He later saw the man bleeding profusely from the face and leg.

“Public Safety officers responding to a 911 call about the incident found the man, who is not affiliated with the University, conscious and able to respond to questions,” acting University spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss wrote in a statement. “He was transported to a local hospital by the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad.”

According to Dwyer, the injured man was walking with four other individuals, one of whom is a junior at See BRANCH page 2

WEATHER

By Nick Shashkini

HIGH

48˚

LOW

33˚

Cloudy chance of rain:

0 percent

The Daily Princetonian

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Tuesday March 17, 2018

Levitsky: Constitutions must be enforced by democratic norms DEMOCRACY Continued from page 1

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a nearly continuous latent subcurrent of authoritarianism.”

However, Ziblatt said, none of those demagogue figures became president, so the question Ziblatt and Levitsky asked was: what has changed when it comes to Trump?

In answer, Ziblatt explained that Americans elect candidates differently now. Candidates were formerly selected by party leaders. This method had disadvantages: it was exclusive, not very democratic, and did not always lead to the best candidates, but it did keep the extreme out.

With the introduction of primaries, the path for demagogues was opened, especially with the Republican Party, as they did not introduce superdelegates.

“This is exactly what happened in 2016,” Ziblatt said.

“Trump, a modern demagogue, gained the nomination of the Republican Party.”

According to Ziblatt, the rise of Trump was made possible by allies within the Republican Party.

“Authoritarians come to office with the enabling aid of the political establishment,” Ziblatt said, providing examples such as the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, the rise of Mussolini in 1920s Italy, and the decline of Venezuelan democracy in the 1990s. In every instance, Ziblatt explained, mainstream politicians essentially let extremists in the door. “[Mainstream politicians] form a Faustian bargain; they hope they can draw on the popularity of these extremists,” Ziblatt said.

The result was a loss of democracy. Republican party of-

ficials could have endorsed Hillary Clinton, Ziblatt noted — just as conservatives endorsed President Emmanuel Macron rather than the extremist Marine Le Pen — but they chose not to.

Levitsky then shifted towards a discussion of the issues within the current American system. He said that Americans tend to have faith in the system of checks and balances.

“But even brilliantly constructed constitutions by themselves are not enough to protect democracy: they need to be enforced by democratic norms,” Levitsky explained.

According to Levitsky, these norms are “mutual toleration,” meaning a recognition that the opposing party also loves the country and has an equally legitimate right to govern, and “institutional forbearance,” which means exercising restraint rather than playing “Constitutional hardball.”

“Politicians can use the letter of the Constitution in ways which totally eviscerate its spirit,” Levitsky said, citing the example of Argentina, where the constitution was modelled after the United States’ but did not prevent court-packing nor check Juan Perón when he came to power in 1946.

According to Levitsky, these norms have been unravelling for decades, as shown in the statements of Republican leaders about former President Barack Obama when they questioned his love of the United States and even whether he was an American.

“When we view our partisan rivals as enemies, as antiAmerican, as a threat to our way of life, we become tempted to use any means necessary to stop them,” Levitsky said, using the example of Republican Sen.

KATJA STROKE-ADOLPHE :: THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Panelists discussed the future of U.S. democracy.

Mitch McConnell’s blocking of Obama’s attempts to fill the vacant Supreme Court position.

According to Levitsky, polarization is what is ultimately driving the decline of American democratic systems. The parties hate each other at levels not seen since the Reconstruction era in the post-Civil War decade, and this hate is not about health care or taxes: it has to do with ethnic and cultural divides, Levitsky claimed. These cultural differences come from changes in the originally predominantly white Christian make-up of the parties, and were complicated by the shift of African-Americans to the Democratic Party, the shift of Southern whites to the Republican Party, the influx of immigrants supporting the Democratic Party, and the white evangelical movement

to the Republican Party. According to Levitsky, the white Christian-majority Republican Party is threatened by the loss of its dominant status. Levitsky noted that polarization can lead to violence or coups, “when an opposition victory becomes intolerable.”

To combat the decline of U.S. democracy, Levitsky argued that the Republican Party has to change and become more diverse, explaining that as long as the party remains predominantly white and Christian it will remain susceptible to white nationalists and demagogues.

He also claimed that “constitutional hardball played by Democrats will inevitable erode the norms,” and that Democrats learning to act as Republicans did under Obama could be dangerous.

“What we are suggesting is that during periods of crisis politicians have to factor in the effect of their behavior on political institutions,” Levitsky said.

“We cannot take American democracy for granted.”

Levitsky recognized that a democracy with the age and wealth of the United States has never broken down, but argued that we have also reached extreme circumstances.

“We have begun a transition which no democracy has successfully undergone,” he said.

The event, the 2018 Donald S. Bernstein ’75 Lecture, was held on Monday, April 16 at 4:30 pm in Robertson Hall. The Bernstein Lecture is sponsored by the Program in Law and Public Affairs and began in 2005, endowed by Donald S. Bernstein ’75.

Visitor from England was 5 minutes Burton: You don’t get into a campus tour when struck your freedom back BRANCH when you leave prison Continued from page 1

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the University. The man was visiting from England and was five minutes into a tour of the campus when he was struck by the branch.

Dwyer sees this incident as a warning of the dangers of unpruned trees.

“The deceptive thing about tree branches, even dead ones, is that they have enormous weight,” Dwyer said.

“We live among all these mature trees, and they have to be tended to.”

This past winter has seen dozens of fallen trees and hundreds of scattered branches and debris. A quick succession of four winter storms in March prompted the University’s maintenance teams to prepare for and assess damages done to campus trees. Crews have spent hours clearing debris and removing hazardous

SPEAR

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MARCIA BROWN :: THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

A man was struck by a falling branch near the chapel on Sunday.

branches.

Dwyer believes that constant monitoring and a commitment to tree pruning are required to prevent such incidents in the future.

“We all have seen the branches that came down this winter,” Dwyer said.

“Anyone could see that there are a lot of hazards over our heads here.”

windows rolled down for air, and she was subsequently arrested for child endangerment, although the child was unharmed. Ingrid was found guilty in front of all juries and lost custody of all three of her daughters.

“Had [Ingrid] not been black, would she have been sentenced to three years in prison, or given help?” Burton asked.

Moreover, once released, persons with histories of incarceration face discriminatory practices for the rest of their lives, Burton explained.

“It’s a lie that you get your freedom back once you leave prison gates,” she said.

Burton pointed out that not once did anyone think that Ingrid or herself needed help, or that rehabilitation might have been the answer instead of incarceration.

According to Burton, although the annual cost to offer rehabilitation services to one woman is $16,000, the cost of annual incarceration is $60,000. The decision for the justice system to continuously incriminate individuals instead of pursuing rehabilitation demonstrates ingrained racism, she explained.

The lack of help she received during her own struggles inspired Burton’s mission for A New Way of Life. Through a series of 12-step programs and peer support, the nonprofit has helped over 1,000 women reintegrate into their communities, retrieve custody of their children, and return to school and the workplace.

After Burton’s address, at 8 p.m., poetry ambassadors from Free Minds Book Club performed a selection of poetry on incarceration and achieving educational and career aspirations.

On April 14, lectures, panels, workshops, and performance talkbacks were held, with topics ranging from a lecture on the families of the incarcerated to a panel on punishment beyond the prison to workshops on the detention of im-

migrants.

One panel, “Agents of the Shadows: Police, Violence, and Control,” discussed the impacts of policing and the most effective alternatives to police. The panelists were Alex Vitale, sociology professor at Brooklyn College; Cobe Williams, deputy director of U.S. programs for the nonprofit Cure Violence; and journalist Eugene Puryear.

Vitale explained that a quarter of people killed by the police have mental health crises and that reforms for police training are ineffective. Complicit bias training, a popular training practice that aims to target inherent prejudices and proclaims success in laboratory settings, does not reproduce realworld results within police forces or employers’ hiring decisions, according to Vitale. “[The training] is the perfect literal procedural reform [because] it fundamentally avoids the nature of the problem,” Vitale explained.

“The problems with race and policing are not unconscious or unintentional.”

Vitale also pointed to the destructive effects of police presence within schools. He explained that in New York City, there are more NYPD personnel in schools than counselors.

“We don’t need police to be mentors to our students,” Vitale said.

“We need no police.”

Rev. Teresa Smallwood presented the closing plenary, “Priests, Prophets, and Panthers: Hope for the Shadows.” Her repeated, impassioned cries to organize and work together to reform the criminal justice system echoed throughout the auditorium.

“Help those brothers and sisters who have been incarcerated and let them know that they are important to us,” Smallwood said, “because unlike what it looks like now, we are all in this together, so the day we say that we are family, we have nothing to lose but our chains.”

“Shadows of the Prison” was sponsored in collaboration with the Office of Religious Life and the University’s Campus Conversations on Identity and held on April 13–14 in McCosh Hall and East Pyne Hall.

Tuesday March 17, 2018

$1M surplus precludes Princeton tax increase BUDGET

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forecasting. They predicted $1,000,000 more for the fiscal year than the current budget requires, so some of that money is being used to offset the projected tax increase.

“We have a huge surplus, and the budget is really conservative, so there’s fairly low risk of using up

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a lot of money on this,” Scott Sillars, the head of the Citizens Finance Advisory Committee, said. “The amount to ensure a $0 increase in taxes was always $36,000, less than 1 percent of the budget. So it was a pretty easy recommendation.”

Marc Dashield, the town administrator, was not available for comment at the time of publication.

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Tuesday March 17, 2018

Opinion

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Station 206: Challenging Greatness

Peter Schmidt

Guest Contributor

H

ere at the University, “changing the world” is a glamorous affair. From the opening exercises of our first year, we undergraduates are praised as future world leaders, or, in the words of President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, “pilots of the rafts on which we travel.” Everyone is a member of the Great Class of Twentysomething, and we’re all presumably in The Service of Humanity. The implication is understood. In order to make the world a better place, one must be intelligent, successful, and powerful — in short, one must necessarily be Great.

The proposed construction of Compressor Station 206 in the nearby Franklin Township is an unsolicited but necessary reminder that changing the world is rarely so sexy.

Grassroots efforts from nearby townships and the newly formed student group, Princeton Against Station 206, a subgroup of the Princeton Student Climate Initiative, are pushing back against the development, which endangers our respiratory health on campus and the safety of the nearby communi-

ty. The success of their efforts will reveal whether we, Princeton students and aspiring leaders, are capable of changing the world, particularly when it has nothing to do with our own Greatness.

According to FERC Docket No. CP17-101, Station 206, a project conceived by natural gas provider Williams, would be a 32,000 horsepower gas compressor station emitting over 200,000 cubic feet of carcinogenic exhaust per minute.

This would be just 4.5 miles from campus and a half mile from an active dynamite blasting site. The Station will send highly pressurized gas through an outdated pipeline, across the ecologically vulnerable Raritan Bay and all the way to Brooklyn and Staten Island. Princeton would enjoy none of the benefits, besides the toxic fumes emitted by the Station’s twin smoke stacks and the possibility of a catastrophic explosion.

Preventing this project might be a piece of cake if we were already powerful — if one of our student activists was already the governor of New Jersey, or the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or even the CEO of Williams. This, however, is not the case.

Nor is it the case that the Station will be prevented by the sort of spectacular activism with which our generation of campus dwellers has become so familiar. At this point in the process, the most direct way to resist the project is to register as an intervenor on the Federal Energy Reserve Commission website and to do so before May 15th. This will send a message to the regulatory commissions that either approve or reject the project. Resistance is purely bureaucratic. No walkouts or sit-ins will sway the federal government, at least for now.

Finally, students hoping to prevent the construction of Station 206 must forfeit the role of activist-protagonist.

The citizens of the Franklin Township have been fighting the project since 2016, and their efforts only spread to the campus community in the past few months. If this were a movie, we would be extras, at best.

So what are we, as University students, left with? Very little, in terms of personal gratification. We will not be written about in the New York Times, nor offered a postgraduate fellowship for our fearless leadership. We are deprived the opportunity to demonstrate our Greatness.

What we are left with is the opportunity to make change in small and quiet ways. This, after all, is what most people without a prestigious diploma or multi-billion dollar endowment have to work with: minor acts of resistance, unacknowledged sacrifice, strength in anonymity.

The threat of Station 206 could very well be a moment of reckoning for the future leaders among us. In his recent visit to the University, activist Deray McKesson observed that many people our age relish the idea of activism, but not necessarily its reality. By forcing us to resist in ways that challenge our popular ideas of changemaking, the threat of Station 206 has decoupled these distinct concepts: sexy activism and concrete results, ideas and reality, process and product.

If resistance to the Station succeeds, life will proceed as normal. Finding a summer internship will still be stressful.

You will still have that 8:30 a.m. precept. Little will change. But we will know the answer to the question posed by Station 206, a question that we would do well to ask ourselves more often. What do you strive for: a good world, or your own Greatness?

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

The hidden costs of proposed dining plans

T

he Board Plan Review Committee’s draft of proposed changes to the University’s dining plan claims they will create “more flexibility, affordability, and efficiency for an increasingly diverse community.”

In reality, these changes would restrict social life, reduce affordability, and burden diverse communities. In particular, the “Community Plan” would disproportionately impact firstgeneration and low-income (FLI) students.

Despite the “Community Plan’s” intention to foster an upperclassman community within the residential dining halls, it will ultimately hurt FLI students by forcing them to spend $2500 of their $8870 stipend on a mandatory meal program.

Purchasing the “Community Plan” would require upperclassmen to budget 105 meals per semester at $10.71 each, the plan’s price per meal, which dwarfs other affordable options on Nassau Street. For students who eat twice per day, the “Community Plan” would constitute about 50 percent of their semester meals (assuming 15 weeks which includes breaks, reading period, and final exams), and eating three times per day would amount to about 33 percent.

To FLI students, every dollar matters. Unfortunately, the “Community Plan” would increase flexible food budgets that would otherwise decrease if the plan were optional. For example,

spending an average of $8 per meal over a semester amounts to $1,680 for two meals per day and $2,520 for three meals per day.

Under the same budget with the “Community Plan,” these upperclassmen would spend a total of $1,965 for two meals per day and $2,805 for three meals per day each semester.

While the addition of 250 dining points grants more value per food dollar if used outside dining halls, this value does not necessarily translate into actual money. Instead of enforcing a mandatory meal plan, the proposal should simply increase the annual stipend and allow upperclassmen to manage their own food budgets. With more control over their finances, FLI upperclassmen can allocate funds otherwise spent on overpriced dining hall meals on textbooks, dorm supplies, storage fees, winter clothing, and other necessary expenses.

Implementing the “Community Plan” would also further worsen disparities between social groups. While some upperclassmen can simply purchase their meals elsewhere, FLI students do not share this same privilege. Their already tight budgets will be constrained further if they do not use every single “Community Plan” meal swipe, instigating guilt over having wasted money if leftover swipes remain.

The looming need to use all of one’s “Community Plan” swipes may cause some FLI upperclass-

men to forgo events, activities, and opportunities to socialize outside of the dining halls to ensure they use every swipe.

Adhering to the “Community Plan” would create less flexible and diverse dining options.

Enabling upperclassmen from differing backgrounds to congregate in spaces otherwise not afforded by the rigid dining hall system fosters community is a crucial element to FLI students’ personal and academic success.

But the “Community Plan” breaks up tight-knit communities in favor of filling up the dining halls. The supposedly “independent” students will become dependent on the University’s dining system, which will lead to fewer social spaces emerging to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population.

Furthermore, FLI upperclassmen cannot afford to waste time accommodating their independent research and career searches around dining hall hours. The proposed plan touts extended dining hall hours as a replacement for late meal, but this overlooks the importance of late meal’s flexibility to students whose schedules do not center around their residential colleges. Plus, it may lead to more overcrowded dining halls, a detriment to both upperclassmen and underclassmen.

While bridging the gap between upperclassmen and underclassmen communities should remain a goal, it should

vol. cxlii

not be achieved by hindering upperclassmen from completing their graduation duties. The University should be granting students more choices and liberties with their academic and social lives, not restricting them.

Other proposed changes in the dining plan would also negatively affect underclassmen.

For example, unless the University ensures all students receive financial aid packages which cover full board, the proposal to force all underclassmen to purchase the unlimited meal plan would harm those who do not qualify for a complete financial aid package.

If the Board Plan Review Committee is truly concerned about flexibility, they should not make any meal plan mandatory. Affordability can be addressed by simply increasing the annual stipend or granting more free meal swipes. Quality of life should not be sacrificed for supposed efficiency, which keeps costs down for the University while negatively impacting the most vulnerable student populations.

Signed, Alumni co-founders of the Princeton Hidden Minority Council Kujegi Camara ’16 Thomas Ray Garcia ’16 Julie Kwong ’16 Kevin Lopez ’16 Dallas Nan ’16 Tula Strong ’15 Lea Trusty ’16 Brittney Watkins ’16

editor-in-chief

Marcia Brown ’19 business manager

Ryan Gizzie ’19

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 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 Lisa Belkin ‘82 Francesca Barber trustees emeriti Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Jerry Raymond ’73 Michael E. Seger ’71 Annalyn Swan ’73

142ND MANAGING BOARD managing editors Isabel Hsu ’19 Claire Lee ’19 head news editors Claire Thornton ’19 Jeff Zymeri ’20 associate news editors Allie Spensley ’20 Audrey Spensley ’20 Ariel Chen ’20 associate news and film editor Sarah Warman Hirschfield ’20 head opinion editor Emily Erdos ’19 associate opinion editors Samuel Parsons ’19 Jon Ort ’21 head sports editors David Xin ’19 Chris Murphy ’20 associate sports editors Miranda Hasty ’19 Jack Graham ’20 head street editor Jianing Zhao ’20 associate street editors Danielle Hoffman ’20 Lyric Perot ’20 digital operations manager Sarah Bowen ’20 associate chief copy editors Marina Latif ’19 Arthur Mateos ’19 head design editor Rachel Brill ’19 cartoons editor Tashi Treadway ’19 head photo editor Risa Gelles-Watnick ’21

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Opinion

Tuesday March 17, 2018

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Zoe Zeitler

Discriminatory meal plan changes under the guise of ‘community engagement’

Guest Contributor

T

he University administration circulated a survey to collect feedback on the Proposed Meal Plan Changes for 2019–20. The Princeton University Board Plan Review Committee’s plan includes compulsory meal plans for upperclass students, but only independents and co-op members. This proposal apparently came from the “first comprehensive review of board plans since 2005.” My phone-typed response soon had the length of an essay, and I’m sharing part of that here.

As an engineering major focused on sustainable design, and a health-focused individual who treasures the interpersonal warmth of a great meal, I’ve long taken issue with the required meal plans at this university. The forced predetermination of one’s food and eating place is incomprehensible to my friends and family, in Germany and across the globe.

Aside from sustainability, health, and personal preferences, though, the proposed changes are discriminatory.

They do not effectively address the Committee’s wide range of stated goals: increasing flexibility, fostering community, easing social transitions, and actually promoting health,

wellness, and sustainability, too. I suggest a simple set of alternative modifications in my last response that do promote these priorities.

You can attend discussion sessions with PUBPR representatives on Tuesday at 9 a.m. in the Forbes Private Dining Room, Thursday at 6 p.m. in the Rockefeller Private Dining Room, and Friday at 12 p.m. in the Whitman Private Dining Room. The survey at hand was sent out by Undergraduate Student Government and is still open for written feedback.

Which aspects of the plan do you support?

Home College Meals for Club Members and Dining Points.

Which aspects of the plan don’t you support?

Forcing underclass students to be on an unlimited plan. If any change is made to the current system, it should be to take away the meal plan requirement altogether. It is absurdly restrictive to force a self-sufficient adult to eat certain foods, spend time in a particular physical and social space, and eat their meals in a specific atmosphere.

In case it has been forgotten, eating is one of our most basic needs as humans. We must fulfill it, and every human is bound to that need.

I also do not support the required meal plan for upperclass students who are independent

or in a co-op. Those of lesser economic means cannot afford to pay for a meal plan and then disregard it. They cannot afford to buy all their own groceries or eat out for every meal when they are already paying for a meal plan. This is different for the students of greater economic means, making this policy highly discriminatory. Only those people of lesser economic means are forced to eat in the dining halls. The Committee’s goal of having more upperclass students eating in the dining halls will have a disproportionate effect on students of lesser economic means. Additionally, the independent and co-op communities already represent a greater portion of the campus community of lesser socioeconomic status than the eating club members. So, the fact that the proposed strategy to increase feelings of community in the dining hall targets only non-eating club members is already a discriminatory act.

The plan of five home college meals per term for club members is a much more effective means for strengthening community, as the majority of upperclass students are in eating clubs. A larger number of people are brought into the dining halls, and this policy is far less restrictive than a full meal plan.

The dining hall swipes for club members could even be imple-

mented in an extended form of what is currently proposed for even greater community engagement.

Removing the shared meal plans is also a discriminatory act, as that is the single scheme in place that allows students of lesser economic means to participate in eating clubs. Eating clubs already represent a highly elitist and discriminatory system, seeing as their membership prices are so high, ignoring the additional fact of Bicker. The financial aid available to students is not always sufficient to cover the costs, and some end up taking loans to be a part of the eating clubs. Can you imagine that? Somebody from an underprivileged background has come to this institution for education and an opportunity to participate in the shaping of our future world and society, and in order to participate, they find that they are forced to endure pains to cater to the preferences of the elite. In order to participate in the intellectual discourse that is meant to be the heart of this community, they are forced to take out loans to pay for poorly budgeted social events and the excessive alcohol consumption of their peers.

The dining hall is also a loud and stressful environment. This makes it unconducive to personal connections and health and wellness. Stress is possibly

temperature Rachel brill ’19

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the biggest issue among undergraduates on this campus, so students should absolutely not be forced to eat in a stressful environment. There is an absurd amount of food waste in the dining halls, so forcing independents and co-op members to eat in the dining halls has an injurious effect on sustainability.

Most independents and co-op members eat far more sustainably on their own.

Do you have any recommendations to improve the plan?

Extend the two extra meals scheme to four meals per week for upperclass students without forcing them to buy a full meal plan.

Open more co-ops and make them available to underclass students.

Take away all meal plan requirements, giving students full flexibility in their dining choices.

Implement the home college meals for club members scheme. Keep the shared meal plans.

For my full discussion of all of the Committee’s proposals, my full response is available on The Daily Princetonian website.

Zoe Zeitler is a sophomore in civil and environmental engineering from Munich, Germany. She can be reached at zzeitler@princeton. edu.

Sports

Tuesday March 17, 2018

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } MEN’S LACROSSE

Lacrosse team beats Dartmouth in Tigers’ highest-scoring game

By Owen Tedford Staff Writer

This past weekend, the men’s lacrosse team (6–5, 1–3 Ivy League) hosted Dartmouth (2–9, 0–4) in its secondto-last home Ivy League game of the season. Princeton took an early lead on a goal from sophomore midfield Connor McCarthy about five minutes in to the game. From then on, the Tigers never looked back as they built a 13–3 lead

by halftime, similar to their game last week against Stony Brook. Princeton would go on to win 24–13 behind big days from sophomore attack Phillip Robertson, sophomore attack Michael Sowers, senior midfield Austin Sims, and senior midfield Riley Thompson. Sowers had 10 points on the day (three goals, seven assists), Thompson and Sims each had seven points, and Robertson tallied six goals.

Sowers and Brown both con-

tinued their career streaks of two points per game and a goal per game respectively. Both are also the only two current players to have started every game of their careers at Princeton. Lastly, both Sims and Thompson reached the 100-point career mark and now sit at 103 and 101 respectively.

Earlier in the week, the Tigers traveled to Loudonville, N.Y., to take on Siena were there were able to leave with

their first road win, 17–11.

Robertson and Sowers were again key contributors for Princeton. Robertson tallied seven goals, a career high, and Sowers had eight points (three goals and five assists).

Senior goalie Tyler Blaisdell was also a key contributor for the Tigers on Tuesday, as he was vital in keeping Princeton in the game after it was outshot 50–35. Blaisdell had 16 saves and allowed only eight goals, the other three

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Sowers (pictured above), Sims, and Thompson all reached new milestones after their remarkable performances against Dartmouth.

allowed by sophomore goalie Jon Levine in the last eight minutes that he played.

Coming in to the game, the Tigers needed a win to have a chance at the Ivy League tournament. While they will definitely need some help, Princeton has a chance to boost their record as they prepare for their upcoming games against Harvard and Cornell, two of the current top-four teams. Princeton must win these two games and hope that Penn loses its last game against Dartmouth in order to have a good shot at the tournament. In addition, the Tigers need for Brown to lose its last two games against Cornell and Dartmouth or for Harvard to lose Yale as well as Princeton.

This weekend, the Tigers will travel to Cambridge, Mass., to take on Harvard in their last road game of the season. The game will certainly be a prime opportunity to gauge what Princeton has been able to learn over the past few weeks against Stony Brook, Siena, and Dartmouth.

Harvard, which received votes to get ranked in Inside Lacrosse Top 20 Rankings on April 16, will be great competition. The game will be available to watch online on the Ivy League Network, and it will be available to listen to live on TuneIn.com digital radio.

WOMEN’S LACROSSE

Tigers defeat Bulldogs by record margin

By David Xin Head Sports Editor

The women’s lacrosse team (7–5, 3–1 Ivy) dominated Yale (7–6 overall, 2–3 Ivy) to pick up their third conference win of the season. The Tigers defeated the Bulldogs 18–4, tying a record for margin of victory that was first set in 1989. It also marks the 11th straight time the Orange and Black have beaten the Bulldogs in their head-to-head matchups. The win puts Princeton third in the Ivy League standings behind Penn (10–2, 4–0 Ivy) and Dartmouth (8–3, 4–1 Ivy).

The Princeton squad started the game on the right foot, running out to an 8–1 lead by halftime. The Tigers never looked back in the second half with a dominant 10–3 performance that ultimately sealed the game.

Princeton took control of the game statistically, leading the Bulldogs in caused turnover, ground balls, and draw control. The extra possession translated to more shots for the Tigers who held a dominant edge in shots throughout the game.

The game highlighted the offensive prowess and depth of the Princeton squad. Four Tigers scored hat tricks on that day. First-year midfielder Kyla Sears led the Princeton offense with four goals and one assist. Junior attack Allie Rogers and sophomore

midfielder Tess D’Orsi each had four points, consisting of three goals and one assist apiece. Senior midfielder Ellie McNulty also registered three goals in the Princeton victory.

The win was certainly encouraging, especially for a team that narrowly lost a tough match to Maryland (14–1, 4–0 conference) the week before. The Tigers

Tweet of the Day “Sowers named @IvyLeague Player of the Week …

Sowers had a good month last week...”

Princeton Lacrosse (@TigerLacrosse)

will undoubtedly be looking to carry this momentum forward as they continue their four-game home stand. Princeton will face off against Ivy League rivals Cornell (6–6, 2–3 Ivy), Penn, and Columbia (5–8, 2–3 Ivy).

The game could prove crucial to the Tigers, who are half a game back against Dartmouth. A win this weekend could see Prince-

ton move to second place in the Ancient Eight and within striking distance of Penn.

The Quakers currently sit at the top of the Ivy League with a perfect record.

This match will also be a repeat of the 2017 championship match. Last year, the Tigers swept the series against Big Red defeating them once in conference play, a second time in the Ivy League tour-

nament, and a third time in the NCAA. Each of these matchups between the two rivals proved to be a thriller, and Princeton’s upcoming game against Cornell promises the same excitement.

Fans of Princeton lacrosse will not want to miss their rematch against Big Red this season as the Tigers host their rivals at home on Saturday.

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Four Tigers recorded hat tricks on Princeton’s dominant victory over the Bulldogs.

Stat of the Day

10 points

Sowers scored seven goals and had 10 points in men’s lacrosse win over Big Green. The performance made him the eighth player in program history to have a 10-point game.

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