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Friday December 6, 2019 vol. CXLIII no. 117
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ON CAMPUS
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Presidential Rachel Zietz ’22 named to a candidates Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ list debate before crowd of 11 By Albert Jiang Staff Writer
By Evelyn Doskoch Contributor
In a debate held Thursday night, University Student Government (USG) presidential candidates David Esterlit ’21 and Chitra Parikh ’21 strongly disagreed on the role they each believe USG should play on campus. Esterlit and Parikh debated before an audience of eleven students at the USG Presidential Candidate Forum on Dec. 5. The presidential candidates presented their campaign platforms and answered questions sent in ahead of time, which pertained to the candidates’ visions for the role of USG President and issues of inclusivity, advocacy, cooperation with University administration, and mental health. There was also a significant conversation on the subject of student apathy, reinforced by the attendance at the event. The 11 students present constituted a slight decrease from last winter’s attendance of 15. “Look how many people are here,” Esterlit said, gesturing to the empty chairs in front of him. “People have to care.” Parikh discussed her efforts to reach out to a wide range of students as a way to inspire and provoke meaningful change. She explained that she aimed to seek out students from diverse communities on campus, including
those to which she does not belong. Esterlit stated that he campaigned door-to-door, and found students generally “receptive” to his policy ideas. He described his plan for effective change as the start of a new conversation, and a “fight” against the status quo. Esterlit pointed out that: “‘Last year, the ‘Prince’ Editorial Board wrote that the USG elections were “without consequence.”’ “The candidates’ positions on the issues were largely the same, and students were cynical and apathetic. I hope that this year I was able to infuse some consequence into the elections.” One area for conflict between the candidates came through the topic of experience and the candidates’ differing perceptions of the purview of the USG president. Parikh cited her past experience as USG Executive Secretary and Senate Vice President. Esterlit has no current affiliation with USG. While Parikh demonstrated familiarity with the four USG support committees, and shared her plans for each of them, Esterlit stated that they were “not [his] priority.” When questioned by an audience member, Esterlit admitted that he “[has] not been to a senate meeting” before. “I found it concerning and a little bit insulting that David is running for president while admitSee FORUM page 2
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Rachel Zietz ’22 said she fondly remembers being inspired by her father, entrepreneur and Touchsuite CEO Sam Zietz, from a young age. “I saw the passion in his eyes,” she explained. “And I knew that’s what I wanted for myself in the future.” At the age of 13, Zietz followed in her father’s footsteps and started her own business. Six years later, on Tuesday, Dec. 3, the 19-year-old entrepreneur was named as part of the 2020 class of the Forbes 30 Under 30 List in the Retail and eCommerce category. She was the youngest honoree in that category. The annual list honors “revolutionaries in 20 industries changing the course — and the face — of business and society.” Zietz is joined on the list by multiple other University alumni, including Croom Beatty ’12, recognized for his early-stage fintech investing for the firm Menlo Ventures, Luke Armour ’13, the founder of Chaac Ventures, Tommy Gibbons ’13 , cofounder of hemp-based building material company Hempitecture, and Ash Egan ’14, was recognized in the Venture Capital category as well for his work in cryptocurrency and blockchain. Zietz was interviewed a few months ago by Forbes Magazine, after being nominated for their 30 Under 30 List. “I actually forgot about it after a while,” she admitted. When the list was finally published this past Tuesday, Zietz said she was fast asleep. “My roommate texted, ‘I’m so happy for you. By the way, you’re asleep
COURTESY OF RACHEL ZIETZ ‘22
Zietz was the youngest person named to the 2020 Forbes 30-Under-30 in the Retail & E-Commerce category.
next to me now, and don’t know yet, but when you wake up the next morning, you’re going to be excited,’” she explained. When she finally found out, Zietz was absolutely thrilled. “It’s a huge honor. It’s something you tell people years down the line, and it’s still a very, very great accomplishment.” “I’m just happy to see my company where it is today and that people noticed that and be excited about it just want to be a part of the journey. That’s the biggest thing.” Zietz is the founder and CEO
of Gladiator Lacrosse, LLC, a lacrosse training equipment line, set to generate $7 million in revenue in 2020. She was previously recognized by Time Magazine in “Most Influential Teens of 2016,” Fortune Magazine’s “List of Entrepreneurs Under 18,” and Forbes Magazine’s “Shark Tank 7 of the Brightest and Youngest List.” Her journey began in 2012 as a seventh grader when she completed the Young Entrepreneur’s Academy, a 33-week-long program designed to help middle and high school students generSee ZEITZ page 2
ON CAMPUS
Potential USG referenda focus on P/D/F policy, campus sustainability Contributor
COURTESY OF BENJAMIN BALL / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Chris Eisgruber ‘83, Maria De La Cruz Perales Sanchez ‘18, and Brad Smith ‘81 speak to reporters outside of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Looking back at the U.’s ongoing DACA lawsuit By Omar Farah Contributor
After almost two decades of changing policy and political back and forth, America’s DREAMers now await a Supreme Court decision with the power to cement their futures. This upcoming decision was sparked in part by a case filed in November of 2017 by the University, a lawsuit that Microsoft later joined.
Initially heard in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the federal lawsuit argues that the decision to rescind DACA was out of step with the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) and violated DACA recipients’ due process rights under the Fifth Amendment. The University’s lawsuit has prompted a flood of corporate and educational institutions to mount similar See DACA page 3
Two Undergraduate Student Government (USG) referenda have been announced, one regarding a change to the current pass/D/fail (PDF) policy, and another calling for the implementation of a standing Sustainability Committee. Students will be able to vote for them from Dec. 9 to 11 before they can be presented to the appropriate administrations. The referenda will appear on the ballots with the USG winter election voting. USG does allow for a single opposition party to campaign against one of the proposed referenda during the campaign cycle, an option students had until Dec. 2 to apply to do, according to an email from the USG. The PDF referendum, sponsored by Chukwuagoziem Uzoegwu ’21, calls “on the Faculty and the Committee on the Course of Study to reform the current PDF policy by allowing students to remove a PDF that they have placed on a class within a week of the end of the same semester that they chose to PDF.” The current PDF policy
states that after electing to PDF a course, “No further changes in grading options will be permitted after 11:59 p.m. on the last day of the ninth week of classes.” The proposed change will allow students to remove the PDF from the course within the last day of the semester, as defined as the last day of the finals period. “As the policy currently stands, while students are being encouraged to take classes whose concepts they are not familiar with, they are not being encouraged to continue trying in such classes (or any given class) after PDF-ing which defeats of the existence of the policy in the first place,” wrote Uzoegwu in an email to The Daily Princetonian. “I hope it provides further encouragement to students to venture into courses in which they are not familiar with the topic as well as to continue trying in any course that they PDF,” Uzoegwu wrote. “I hope that students and faculty find that the change has positively impacted both groups’ academic experiences particularly with regards to how students use PDFs and how they interact with classes that they have PDF-ed.”
In Opinion
Today on Campus
Columnist Braden Flax comments on USG presidential candidate David Esterlit’s recent letter to the editor, while contributing columnist Richard Ma calls for an end to the violence in Hong Kong. PAGE 4
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The referendum to create a standing Sustainability Committee would ensure that the committee outlasts changing administrations, since USG’s semester-long task forces are subject to change with the election of new Senate members who may have different agendas from their predecessors. According to the USG website, a current semester-long Sustainability Task Force “aim[s] to increase environmental sustainability at Princeton both by implementing more sustainable campus practices in partnership with the university administration and by cultivating a spirit of environmental stewardship among the student body.” The task force has recently worked with University Facilities to promote a new app, “Recycling on Campus,” and, according to a USG announcement on Dec. 4, they have been “investigating ways to institutionalize sustainability within USG, including for the events USG hosts and in the way USG provides funding and support to student groups.” “I realized USG could, and should, do a lot more for sustainability. Every member of See REFERENDA page 3
WEATHER
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Turnout at debate fell from 15 attendees last year FORUM Continued from page 1
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ting to knowing very little about the job,” former USG presidential candidate Nate Lambert ’20 noted after the debate. “Not knowing what the chair committees are, like Social Committee and Academics Committee, which I would argue most Princeton students have at least heard about before — and not knowing that it’s his constitutional responsibility to meet with these people each week.” However, both candidates claimed that they would work over 30 hours per week as USG President; in fact, Esterlit claimed he would dedicate “75 percent” of his time on campus to the position, even at the expense of his academic performance. When asked about his prior experience, Esterlit cited his threeyear tour as a squad commander and light machine gunner with the Israel Defence Forces. “I learned that no matter how big a challenge might seem, no matter how far you need to run, how much you need to do … you don’t know how strong you can actually be, you don’t know how much you can actually do, unless you try it,” Esterlit said. Esterlit, a politics concentrator, has based his campaign on the issue of economic reform for low-income students. In his opening statement, Esterlit described an instance of criticism that he received online in response to his campaign, and asserted that such
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criticisms are a catalyst for the robust change that he believes USG needs. “He said ... my platform was fundamentally flawed, that I had misjudged the issues and policy descriptions, and that I am disingenuous at best,” Esterlit said. “Obviously I disagree, but at the same time this is exactly what we need. This is just the sort of debate we need on campus. This is just the sort of debate that will get people to care about USG.” Esterlit went on to explain that he disagrees with the “top-down, sight-unseen” style of financial decisions within the university, instead advocating for a campaign that focuses on “bread-and-butter issues” and a USG that “would no longer stay silent.” Parikh, an architecture concentrator, used her opening statement to propose a series of priorities for USG that included mental health, Title IX and sexual misconduct, housing, dining and transportation, sustainability, and information accessibility. “I’m running for president because I think that USG can be a lot more ambitious, and with that a lot more active,” Parikh said. “I personally think it’s super important to be mindful of making sure that we’re bringing all of the voices at this campus to the table.” Both candidates described what they perceive as the most pressing issue on campus. Parikh stated that she sees issues of mental health and an accessible campus culture as major priorities, citing the limited num-
Friday December 6, 2019
EVELYN DOSKOCH / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Candidates David Esterlit ’21 and Chitra Parikh ’21 pose following the debate.
ber of prescribers available to students. Esterlit said that his biggest priority is delivering Pell Grant money to low-income students. On the issue of student advocacy groups, the candidates disagreed strongly. While Parikh explained that she would hold meetings with “all activism groups” and “engage with their ideas,” Esterlit stated that he sees USG as “a force for unity” that should not “insert itself” into the affairs of activists. Similarly, the pair differed on the topic of upper- and under-class inclusivity. Parikh suggested a collaborative calendar of student events and a meal exchange for independent students, while Esterlit doubted the feasibility of any potential efforts to unite older and younger students without entirely removing the eating club system, a move he does not advocate for and believes is infeasible. One of Esterlit’s main policy ideas is a proposal to “release” the
monetary sum of all Pell Grants awarded to University students, given that these grants are currently deducted from students’ financial aid packages. “These students are big boys and girls and they can decide how to spend that money,” he said. “These platitudes are fantastic, but where is the movement on these issues?” Esterlit then asked audience members to imagine a policy in the style of Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. He described his leadership style as collaborative, with a “take-noprisoners approach” and a focus on deliverables. Candidates also addressed the topic of marijuana legalization in New Jersey. Parikh said that the University should “follow suit” with any new marijuana policies chosen by the state of New Jersey, and utilize resources like the McCosh Health
Center to continue to treat students with health problems. Esterlit described such a scenario as a “Sophie’s choice between indulging inside or outside of campus,” and called for a “laissez-faire” approach to marijuana policing. He stated that Public Safety should not deal with marijuana-related issues unless a specific complaint has been made. Finally, both candidates were asked what they would do upon losing the election. Parikh promised to join the Student Life Committee through USG and continue to fight for mental health initiatives on campus. “Regardless of outcome, I will continue to engage with these issues because they truly do matter,” Parikh said. Esterlit claimed that he will join the Princeton Peer Nightline team if he loses the election. Voting will open at noon on Thursday, Dec. 9.
Zeitz: I’m just happy to see my company where it is today ZEITZ
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ate business ideas, propose craft business plans, conduct market research, and launch their own companies. “Throughout the program, we had access to many business mentors, and students in local universities to design logos and craft a business plan,” she said. Her first sale, however, did not occur until a year later, in January 2014. Gladiator Lacrosse started off with only a lacrosse goal and rebounder, which Zietz described to be the two products “essential for any lacrosse player to improve their game.” Her inspiration, Zietz said, came from a frustrating experience in the yard of her own home. A lacrosse player herself, Zietz recounted playing wall-ball to improve her game. “But when you are in middle school ... and you’re not so good, you can miss and hit a window.” Instead, lacrosse players use a rebounder, a trampoline-like surface, to practice. One day, after lacrosse practice, she went into her backyard to continue shooting. That session left yet another gaping hole in the net of her rebounder — a holiday gift from her parents — much to her dismay. To Zietz, it felt as though she was constantly punished for executing yet another really good shot. “The harder I get my shot out, the worse my net is going to be treated. It just didn’t make any sense,” she said. “That’s where I got that ‘a-ha’ moment that a lot
of entrepreneurs will often talk about.” Zietz said she knew she couldn’t just ask her parents for a new one, as units cost upwards of $300. Instead, she sought to create a more durable version, products that can withstand the constant punishment that these players were delivering. And with that, Gladiator Lacrosse was born. There was a niche that no one was filling, Zietz explained. Specifically, it didn’t seem as though companies offered highquality goals and rebounders at an affordable price point. With her extensive experience in the sport, Zietz said she knew exactly what lacrosse players needed and wanted in their gear, unlike many other brands. She attributed the high cost of equipment due to the sheer number of middlemen involved — from wholesalers, to distributors, to manufacturers, to the factories themselves. She sought to strengthen her own goals and rebounders by increasing the thickness of both the net and the steel bars. Then she went directly to a factory to manufacture it herself in order to cut down on costs and pass the savings on to consumers. Zietz explained that they initially invested no money in advertising, which was highly unusual for a company growing as fast as hers. She said, “the growth was purely organic,” relying instead on word-of-mouth and social media. One of the different opportunities she took advantage of was setting up a booth around local
lacrosse games. “Imagine you’re a kid; your team gets completely demolished,” she said. “What do you want to do? You want to practice, you want to get better. You never want that to happen again.” “You’re walking out of the field and you see the two pieces of equipment you need to take your game to the next level. And so that was a no-brainer for us.” Gladiator Lacrosse made $10,000 in sales over the weekend at their first lacrosse tournament. The majority of it, she explained, was just regular people “taking a chance on a brand and a story that they really liked.” As consumer trust and loyalty in her brand grew, Gladiator Lacrosse received their first PR story from the South Florida Business Journal. From that article came Entrepreneurial Magazine. Then Time Magazine, followed by The New York Times and USA Today. “[This gave] us PR that other companies would kill for,” Zietz said. Eventually, all these stories led the executive producers of Shark Tank to reach out to her, and Zietz appeared on Season 7, Episode 28 of ABC’s “Shark Tank.” From that appearance, Zietz estimated that she received $9 million in free advertising, allowing her to “[reach] consumers we couldn’t even have dreamed of initially.” Following that appearance, Zietz was flown to Pittsburgh to pitch her products to the manager of Dick’s Sporting Goods and struck a contract with the company to carry their entire lineup in time for the 2016 holi-
day season. The company then made a deal with Casey Powell — a professional lacrosse player who was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame — who became their brand ambassador. Gladiator Lacrosse was the official goal sponsor of the 2018 World Lacrosse Cup, which was televised on ESPN. Zietz credits her father, who is also an entrepreneur, as having a profound guiding role in her life, and whom she often turns to for advice. “I see him a lot as a mentor. We have a father-daughter relationship, but we also have that mentor-mentee relationship as well.” “We’re definitely unconventional that way,” she said, adding, “our primary form of communication is via email. But I wouldn’t want it any other way.” In college, Zietz said managing a business is a lot easier than it was in high school. Despite scheduling midnight calls with their overseas factory and doing catch-up calls on her walks to class, she said the freedom in her schedule allows her to manage her time how she wants to. “I learned to make lists of things for myself,” Zietz said. “It’s definitely made more of this stuff more palpable, and allow me to continue all of these passions I have while being a fulltime student.” However, she noted, missing class here is “kind of stressful” and “kind of a big deal” when compared to skipping days of high school for business. Prior to arriving at Princeton, Zietz
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hired a chief operations officer. Despite this, the Boca Raton, Fla., native said the distance away from home where her company is headquartered did not influence her decision to come here at all. She hopes to expand her business into lacrosse sticks, increasing distribution channels globally, especially Canada, Europe. Additionally, following Gladiator Lacrosse’s acquisition of All Ball Pro™, which sells commercial rebounders and also supplies to the University, Zietz hopes to expand into other sports. Despite her expertise being concentrated in lacrosse, rebounders made by All Ball Pro are used in countless sports including baseball, softball, soccer, football, tennis, and volleyball. Zietz hopes to inspire a new generation of young entrepreneurs, encouraging them to pursue things they are passionate about. “At least for our generation … a lot of people are very active in the things that they care about. In that case, it’s the passion that drives you through the challenges and the hardships,” she said. “For me, I was just really trying to improve the options available to me at the time and the lacrosse community.” “If I can instill a drive and passion in other entrepreneurs in the endeavors they do choose to pursue, it just leads to more success,” Zietz explained. “And you do better in that particular field because you’re enjoying it. It seems like common sense, but lots of people don’t truly recognize that.
Friday December 6, 2019
USG referenda require turnout of at least 1/3 of student body to pass REFERENDA Continued from page 1
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the task force had great intentions, but by nature task forces are only efficient for small, specific policy changes, not for long term goals,” the referendum’s sponsor, Andres Larrieu ’22, who is part of the task force, wrote in an email to the ‘Prince’. “This referendum would create a permanent committee that would bring a lot more people into USG to only work on sustainability, lead [sic] by a chair that will prioritize sustainability on campus as their main goal,” he added. According to Larrieu’s referendum, Senate task force members are currently affiliated with different task forces and have separate responsibilities, which limits
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the amount of time and energy that can be invested in sustainability. Establishing this chair will provide the Senate with a Sustainability Committee, which students can join to work exclusively on sustainability on campus. The referendum seeks to have a sustainability representative on the Senate’s Executive Committee (ExComm), which would allow the chair to “use their position on ExComm to report on USG activities to the Princeton Sustainability Committee,” according to the referendum proposal. “This chair and committee will change campus culture to make sustainability more salient in every student’s life,” Larrieu hopes. For a referendum to pass, at least one-third of the student body must turn out to vote.
Eisgruber optimistic based on soundness of U.’s legal argument DACA
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challenges. This wave of private sector forays into legal activism, given the historical role of organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Association for the Advancement Of Colored People (NAACP), represents a new force in the American legal landscape. The University’s impetus to file this suit was explained by University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 in a statement to The Daily Princetonian. “We filed this suit because we thought that, together with Microsoft and our courageous alumna Maria Perales Sanchez ’18, we could provide a distinctive perspective that might influence the ultimate outcome of the litigation about DACA,” Eisgruber wrote. Despite a lack of political traction over the years, exemplified in former President Barack Obama’s inability to pass the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act and his subsequent resort to executive orders, research has found that public support of protections for undocumented childhood arrivals is substantial across the nation. In 2018, Pew Research found that 73 percent of Americans favor legal status for childhood arrivals, including a majority of GOP voters. In providing justification for their decision, the Trump Administration has primarily sold the move as an act to limit overreach by future executives. “If the Supreme Court upholds DACA, it gives the President extraordinary powers, far greater than ever thought,” President Donald Trump tweeted on Oct. 9. A broad consensus indicates that this case, regardless of the outcome, will have a massive impact on the futures of America’s almost 700,000 recipients of the 2012 DACA protections and estimated million more who never joined the program in the first place. The three primary outcomes, according to Vox reporter Ian Millhiser, would create vastly different immigration policy ecosystems and may have long-standing implications on future presidents’ use of the executive order.
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In the first scenario, the Court would render a decision much in line with the previous two rulings by the District Courts — essentially rejecting the Administration’s justifications for ending the program, claiming a lack of sound policy justification. As a result, the program would by default reopen to those eligible, but in this scenario the Administration is able to reinstate its policy after providing some policy justification. This outcome would thus only represent a technical and temporary win for DACA activists. The second scenario is likewise a technical and narrow ruling, but one which would keep the current policy directive in place. Either by affirming the Administration’s legal and policy justifications or by finding the question outside of the purview of the Court, this verdict would allow the Administration to rescind DACA. The final scenario is an addition to the second. The court could also deliberate on the fundamental legality of DACA. Here, as the court finds the issue within its purview, it could affirm the legal arguments of the Administration and determine DACA to be legally void. Given this, future executive action on this issue would be deemed dead on arrival. Eisgruber, when asked his prediction of the outcome based on the oral arguments he attended early this November, presented a reserved yet optimistic opinion. “My year as a Supreme Court law clerk taught me that oral argument is often an unreliable indicator of the Court’s eventual judgment. I am optimistic because I believe that our legal argument, which twice prevailed in the district court, is sound,” he wrote. Missing from the list of Millhiser’s possible outcomes is a sweeping judicial endorsement of the DACA program. That power lies with a different governmental branch altogether. “The DREAMers need a path to citizenship, and only Congress can provide that. We will accordingly continue to urge Congress to enact a permanent legislative solution, regardless of what the Court decides in this case,” Eisgruber wrote. The National Immigration Law Center, based on its experience with the Supreme Court, expects a decision by June 2020 at the latest.
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A response to Esterlit: A greater injustice Braden Flax Columnist
Recently, USG presidential candidate David Esterlit wrote a letter, to the editor of this paper, to be shared with the Princeton community. In this piece, he suggested that he would be especially equipped to pressure the administration to rectify injustices perpetrated constantly against the most disadvantaged among us. While correct about the University’s indifference to his prospective position and the need for sweeping change, Esterlit inadvertently demonstrated why he is precisely the wrong messenger for this less than instructive newsf lash. More to the point, he is as poor a choice as one can possibly conceive, given his front-and-center background as a member of the Israeli Defense Forces. It is unclear what his role in the organization was, or whether his ser-
vice was compelled or undertaken according to his own volition. But the fact that he proclaimed his service at the beginning of his letter, and with no caveat or reservation, calls into question both his ability to represent the student body and his moral standing. In his letter, Esterlit details some of the financial difficulties faced by our student body. He also acknowledges that financial problems are not the only ones that remain largely unaddressed by the University. But while previous student governments have failed to adequately enhance CPS - as Esterlit highlights - he was part of an organization known for the torment and abuse of an entire population of human beings. None of these people, in all probability, will ever have the chance to go to any version of CPS, though they have much more in the way of PTSD than
most people reading this can possibly fathom. Has Esterlit reckoned with this larger disparity? Where Princeton students face the inconvenience of - as Esterlit explains - “get[ting] to the grocery store” (and some of us, to be frank, are worse off even than that) the items that will eventually arrive on campus upon their return are not sanctioned by Princeton’s administration. To get to the point here, go through what you’ve eaten in the past week. Then, consider life in Gaza, where blockades have starved out a largely defenseless population. Look up whether or not a food item you regularly consume is permitted into, or has ever been prohibited from, the occupied territories – even imports of chocolate have been choked off. Once you’ve completed this cursory investigation, practice the critical thinking skills Princeton has taught
so well. Why might certain items not be allowed into a region containing millions of people? One can scarcely imagine that a chocolate bar poses a great security risk, but maybe the conflict is just oh-so-complicated. Anyone who has represented a government whose policy is abject terror of a chocolate bar is not fit to hold the office of president. Anyone considering Esterlit’s competence to bring about justice should examine his professed qualifications. He unabashedly advertises his participation in the Israel Defense Forces, which continuously inf licts injustice that dwarfs proportions of anything most of us have ever encountered. It would be reasonable for our campus community to expect an explanation from Esterlit. Braden Flax is a junior from Merrick, N.Y. He can be reached at bf lax@princeton.edu.
Hong Kong: The cyclical nature of violence and why it must stop Richard Ma Columnist
Last month in Hong Kong, a policeman fired a close-range shot into a protestor’s gut. That same day, protestors set a 57-year-old man on fire after an altercation. Another police officer was suspended from the force after driving a motorbike through a crowd of protestors. In early October, Apple CEO Tim Cook pulled HKmap.live from the App Store after it was reported by mostly staterun media in China that the app was being used by protestors to target individual police. The protests that captured the world began in September 2019 in response to a controversial extradition bill that would have
allowed those arrested in Hong Kong to be sent to other countries that did not have formal extradition agreements with Hong Kong. The bill, which would have included China on the list of countries, exacerbated fears that the Chinese government would be able to exercise greater control over the semi-autonomous region, which is supposed to remain largely independent from their rule until 2047 under the “one country, two systems” policy. After three months of protests, that bill was withdrawn in September. Yet the protests continue, arguably putting Hong Kong in an even greater state of unrest than ever before. Protestors are demanding further reforms, largely as a result of actions
taken against them. By responding to the initial protests with suppression and violence, the government has only fueled further chaos that has all but obscured the original issue. Since their inception, the Hong Kong protests have only escalated in violence and intensity as the region becomes a focal point of global conversation that has not left Princeton untouched. A pro-China post on the hugely popular Facebook page Tiger Confessions (now defunct) garnered a long comment thread of conflicting views in which students debated the merits of the protests and the government’s involvement. Support for the Hong Kong protestors can be found in posters at Frist Student Center, and at least
one large sign saying FREE HONG KONG can be seen in a dorm room window. Regardless of one’s personal views on the ongoing crisis in Hong Kong, it is imperative that the situation in Hong Kong serves as a warning for future conf lict. Violence and vengeance are cyclical. They muddy the central issues at hand and prevent progress from being made. The Hong Kong government should never have responded to initially peaceful protests with police violence, as it only prompted a backlash from the protestors that included similarly unacceptable violence. Richard Ma is a sophomore from Kirksville, Miss. He can be reached at richardma@ princeton.edu.
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Defensive struggles continue as men’s basketball falls to Drexel
JACK GRAHAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Jaelin Llewellyn scored 28 points in Princeton’s loss to Drexel.
By Jack Graham Head Sports Editor
Princeton men’s basketball (1–6) entered Wednesday night’s game at Drexel (5–4) looking to build off the momentum generated over its past two games, a near-upset over Arizona State and a win over Bucknell. Instead, the Tigers suffered another frustrating defeat in a non-conference schedule full of them, fall-
ing 82–76 despite a careerhigh 28 points on eight of 18 shooting from sophomore guard Jaelin Llewellyn. Drexel was powered by 31 points on 13 of 16 shooting from guard Camren Wynter, and the Dragons shot 60 percent from the field, representing another subpar outing for a Princeton defense allowing nearly 80 points per game. “We’re trying to hang our hat on the defensive end. You wouldn’t know it,” head
coach Mitch Henderson ’98 said. “I never, ever make excuses, [but] we’re putting two freshmen and two sophomores out there on the perimeter, we’ve played a hard schedule, [and] I’m asking these guys to come on the road and win a game against a really good offensive team. We failed tonight, but the one thing we’re not allowed to do is hang our heads.” Despite their defensive struggles, the Tigers rallied late to turn what was starting to look like a blowout into a one-possession game with less than a minute remaining. With Princeton trailing 73–59 with under four minutes remaining, Henderson put his team in a full-court press, looking for a sudden spark. The maneuver worked, as Princeton forced a handful of turnovers to cut Drexel’s lead to single digits, and a slew of Drexel missed free throws and four quick points by Llewellyn allowed Princeton to regain possession with 33 seconds left, trailing by three. That was as close as it would get. Llewellyn passed
the ball off, and a chaotic possession ended with first-year forward Tosan Evbuomwan attempting a dunk. There appeared to be contact, but no whistle was blown, and Drexel gathered the rebound and sank a free throw to effectively guarantee the win. “The press gave us some energy, but we had to do it because we were down by so much, because we were struggling defensively,” Llewellyn said. “I’d prefer to not be in that situation.” The first half was a back and forth affair, with Drexel ultimately taking a 40– 39 lead into halftime. The Dragons opened the second half on an extended 21–9 run before seven straight points from Llewellyn and junior guard Ryan Schwieger made the score 61–55. After that, five straight points by Wynter put the Dragons back up by 11. It wasn’t until Princeton went to the full-court press that it found an answer for Wynter — whose 31 points were a career-best — and the Drexel offense, but that ended up coming too late for a successful comeback.
“We’re searching for a primary guy to stop the other team’s best player, and we need somebody to step up for us,” Henderson said. In addition to its porous defense, Princeton shot just 40.6 percent from the field and 27.6 percent from three. One of the few bright spots offensively was Llewellyn, who scored 18 of his careerbest 28 points in the second half and made all eight of his free throw attempts. “I thought [Llewellyn] played really well when we needed him to be super aggressive,” Henderson said. “I think we can be a very good team, and Jaelin is going to have to lead us there.” Princeton will have nearly a week off before returning to Jadwin to face Monmouth on Tuesday, Dec. 10. With the Ivy League opener at the Palestra looming less than a month away, the Tigers will have to hope things will begin falling into place soon. “We have to play tougher,” Llewellyn said. “We took a little bit of a step back defensively, but we’ve just got to get back to it.”
SWIMMING & DIVING
Swimming & Diving look forward to hosting Big Al Invitational By Sreesha Ghosh Contributor
This year’s Big Al Invitational for men’s and women’s swim and dive, one of the biggest early-season collegiate tournaments, is set to take place beginning Friday, Dec. 6. Following a series of successful scrimmages and dual meets against Penn and Cornell, Big Al is the first championship meet of the season — or, in the words of head coach for the men’s team, Matt Crispino, “the first big test to see where we’re at and how we’re responding to our training.” “Big Al has always been a focus meet for us. My expectations are for everybody to swim season bests and hopefully, lifetime bests as well. We’re not overly concerned with the team standings — obviously we would like to win, but winning the meet is secondary to making sure everybody gets the swims they need to get and makes good adjustments from session to session,” he added. Bret Lundgaard, the head coach for the women’s team, shared similar sentiments. “I always try to keep my expectations relatively consistent and just stay focused on what we can control, which is identifying ways to get better and incremental progress. With every meet, we identify particular issues, we address them, and
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then we go back to practice to correct them. With championship meets, I don’t want to change that focus too much.” However, the road ahead is not necessarily a smooth one. According to Crispino, perhaps the biggest area for potential improvement amongst his athletes “is the maintaining of high energy and engagement levels throughout longer meets.” Big Al is six sessions in duration, which makes it all the more important that they keep their energy consistent, “as opposed to [the] meets against Penn and Cornell where we kind of had a lull in the middle.” “I think our ability to come up with and execute a race plan had been lacking in our first couple of meets. A lot of [athletes] tend to depend on their talent to just get up there and race. It’s not anybody’s fault, it’s just something that hasn’t been at the forefront of their minds in the past. That’s what we’ve been doing at practice every day, creating and honing specific plans to keep in mind, so that they go up to the block with a specific goal or tactic,” he added. Lundgaard, on the other hand, is looking for more general improvement. “Our fundamentals are solid, but there’s also a lot we need to work on, in terms of small things that will al-
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COURTESY OF BEVERLY SCHAFER / GOPRINCETONTIGERS
Members of the men’s and women’s swim team.
ways be there for a swimmer to improve — things like turns, starts, underwater transitions into surface swimming. Those are all things we will continue to need to work on, but that’s not really a new surprise for us.” Training for the winter season “has been brutally rigorous,” said Crispino, praising his team. “I’ve asked the guys to push themselves beyond the brink of exhaustion and they have; they’ve trained really, really hard in anticipation of this meet.” Both teams spent fall break in Florida for an annual training session, a muchneeded break in scenery, as per Lundgaard. “That trip is always wonderful for our women be-
cause we get to get away, and we’re in the sun, and we’re swimming outside — and that always has a way of making everybody happy. We did this thing in Florida where we organized our team into a black and an orange group; we had a week of random competitions, and that really brought in a lot of enthusiasm into our practices.” With the departure of the Class of 2019, both teams are looking to their first-year class to step up to the challenge. Their coaches have no reason to believe they will not; Lundgaard said of his first-years, “They’ve brought some energy, enthusiasm and good competitiveness, and I think that’s really helped us. Simultaneously, I think our veterans have accepted them into the fold
really quickly, and that’s allowed us to have a good competitive identity early so far this year.” Meanwhile, Crispino called his first-year swimmers and divers ‘fantastic’. “They’ve adjusted really well, and I’m excited about the class. There’s a few standouts in the group that I think are going to be major contributors this year, both at the Ivy League and the national level.” With successful scrimmages and exhaustive training behind them, the Tigers are ready to come out on top. “Big Al will give us a lot of information,” said Lundgaard, “and honestly, that’s important because it’s the last bit of information we’re going to get before we take on HYP and the Ivies.”
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Senior women’s basketball player Bella Alarie has made 5 national watch lists this year with the most recent being the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award Watch List!