ARTS Page 18
SPORTS Baseball goes 1-2 on the week 16 FORUM Condemn ethnic data collection 12
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The Independent Student Newspaper
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Volume LXX, Number 21
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Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Students elect Union leaders
■ New members of the
Student Union’s Executive Board discussed their goals with the Justice. By Emily Blumenthal Justice Production assistant
Hannah Brown ’19 took home the Student Union presidency in the Union Executive Board elections last week, which saw 13 candidates facing off for seven open positions. The elections for the Executive Board positions of president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, junior representative to the Board of Trustees, representative to the Brandeis Sustainability Fund and junior representative to the Under-
graduate Curriculum Committee took place on Tuesday, with the results announced Wednesday. In interviews with the Justice, the winners detailed their ideas for tackling the University’s most pressing issues and goals for their terms, as well as how they plan to further connect students and administrators. Union President-elect Brown stated in an interview with the Justice that affordability is an urgent issue. “People have focused on … affordability, and I think that’s kind of where the people have spoken,” she said. Brown elaborated, saying that affordability’s effects are far-reaching and it is “an intersectional issue; it has to do with so many parts of stu-
See RESULTS, 7 ☛
community
Barry Shrage joins faculty and will lead new Jewish initiative ■ After leading the Combined
Jewish Philanthropies, Shrage will head the Initiative for Jewish Identity. By ABBY PATKIN Justice EDITOR
Former Combined Jewish Philanthropies president Barry Shrage H’17 will join the University’s Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program as a faculty member, University President Ron Liebowitz announced in a March 21 email to the Brandeis community. “No one has more knowledge of and respect within the Jewish community — both in the Boston area and around the world — than Barry, who led CJP for three incredibly successful decades,” Liebowitz wrote in the email. “He will bring the full measure of his engage-
ment, acumen, and creativity to his new role. We could not be happier to welcome him to Brandeis.” Shrage announced last spring that he would step down from his position at CJP, a charitable nonprofit umbrella organization for institutions in the Greater Boston Jewish community. In his time as the organization’s president, Shrage raised more than $1 billion for the local Jewish community, according to a March 23, 2017 Boston Globe article. He had held the position since 1987, and under his leadership CJP made efforts to include previously marginalized groups within the Jewish community, including intermarried couples, LGBT individuals, people with disabilities and the poor, according to the Globe article. Shrage also dedicated time and resources to improving Jewish
See faculty, 7 ☛
Waltham, Mass.
Schusterman Center’s 10th anniversary
Student union
YURAN SHI/the Justice
deviating interests: Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro ’91 compared Israeli and American national interests.
Former ambassador talks of Israeli-American relationship ■ Former U.S. Ambassador
to Israel Daniel Shapiro ’91 looked to the future of Middle Eastern politics in his keynote. By Maurice Windley Justice staff writer
Kicking off the two-day event for the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies’ 10th anniversary, keynote speaker and former United States Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro ’91 discussed the impact that a developing Middle East has and will continue to have on both the United States and Israel. Rabbi David Ellenson, director of the Schusterman Center, set the tone for the event as he discussed the necessity of understanding the University's history in his opening remarks. He explained history is not “something that is simply in the past” but rather, it defines “who we are at the present, and who we aspire to become.” He added that it is important to understand the historical ties that the University has to Israel, and use it to gain “an understanding of the heritage of Judaism.” Understanding the University’s history and ties with Israel is the
first step to approaching current challenges and discussions, Ellenson asserted. Shapiro explained this further in his keynote speech titled “The United States and Israel Face a Changing Middle East.” Shapiro was appointed in 2011 by President Barack Obama as the United States ambassador to Israel. He managed United States-Israel relations during Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, including the Iran Nuclear Deal. He explained that Israel is moving to the forefront of development, as it has “strengthened its relationship in Asia, Africa and Latin America,” but still faces challenges with regards to how Israeli and American interests “can be more closely aligned.” With this in mind, his discussion focused on how Israel and the United states can “continue to cooperate, while managing differences, so as to limit risk and advance opportunities.” He observed that, while American and Israeli interests remain closely aligned, such as in the area of confronting the threat of terrorism, the countries’ interests can differ with regards to “strategic interests, including prioritizing questions of democracy in the Arab world.” With these questions, he
explained, it is important to focus on areas of convergence for the countries’ shared interests, while acknowledging what is different. “Confronting these types of questions honestly,” he explained, “can strengthen our relationship.” Referencing the Iran nuclear deal, Shapiro highlighted the difference in strategy that the countries will undertake to enforce the deal. He added that the U.S. and Israel both agree on confronting potential threatening activities, but “may disagree on the use of certain tools to use” as well as “when to use them.” Shapiro’s discussion took an analytical approach toward conflicts in the Middle East, and with each country’s strategies in mind, he weighed the benefits and consequences of extending or ending the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal, an agreement between the U.S., UK, Germany, Iran, France and China, which restricts Iran’s ability to enrich Uranium for nuclear processes. However, there is also a time component to the countries' responses, he explained, as there is a “potential stability tradeoff in the short term versus long term strategies,” because each country’s response
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Global Warming Art
Still Hot
Active Shooter Drill
Chantal Bilodeau makes art to combat climate change.
The Brandeis tennis team was dominant this past weekend.
The University assessed its emergency response capabilities on Wednesday.
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TUESDAY, March 27, 2018
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NEWS SENATE LOG
POLICE LOG
Senate debates intersectionality and duality of purpose for clubs
Medical Emergency
The Senate convened for its weekly meeting on Sunday night, discussing intersectional clubs; the Senate’s role in determining which clubs are granted probationary status and chartering; and the obligation of senators to reflect on the diversity of their constituents. Student Union Vice President and President-elect Hannah Brown ’19 reminded the Senate of an upcoming open forum concerning student life, which will be held Wednesday. Services and Outreach Committee Chair Aaron Finkel ’20 reported that the Bunny Shuttles to Logan Airport and South Station are not selling well, and implored senators to tell their friends about the shuttles. Dining Committee Chair Jonathan Chen ’20 announced that, following meetings with Vice President for Campus Operations Jim Gray concerning mandatory meal plans, he had received word from Gray that there would be no changes to meal plans in the upcoming academic year. According to Chen, Gray stated that meal plans needed to be mandatory for financial reasons. Chen stated that he would reach out to University financial officers about potential solutions. Campus Operations Working Group Chair Shaquan McDowell ’18 reported that he had been speaking with Gray about the committee’s initiative to put grip tape on the Rabb Steps, and stated that Gray had worries about potential damage to the steps. McDowell countered that the committee had done research on the tape and had concluded that it would not be damaging to the steps. Club Support Committee Chair Tal Richtman ’20 announced that he had created a document detailing 10 common misperceptions about the new club support system and elaborated on the document’s contents. He started by stating that every system has its imperfections, then attempted to clear up any confusion about the system and advocated in its favor. Referencing past Senate discussions about potentially denying clubs probationary status or chartering on the basis of funding, Rosenthal Quad Senator Elizabeth Dabanka ’20 questioned the Senate’s role in deciding club chartering based on funding, stating that this is the role of the Allocations Board. Non-Senate Club Support Committee Chair Geraldine Bogard ’20 came to the Senate to ask permission for the Minority Association of Pre-Health Students to present to the Senate for probationary status. The committee had voted not to allow the club to present to the Senate, and Richtman recommended that MAPS present not as a club, but as a coalition concerned about existing institutional injustices against minority pre-health students. Bogard discussed the balance between intersectionality and individual cultural identities needing a space on campus. McDowell questioned why the Senate would not allow the club to present, stating that it was not the job of the Senate to determine which intersectionalities are “valid.” McDowell added that the club’s demographics were not represented on the Club Support Committee, and declared that if the Senate were to turn away a club addressing an injustice on campus, senators should question their ability to represent all of their constituents. The Senate decided to discuss MAPS at its next meeting. The Senate had a lengthy conversation about whether to reconsider its vote on the Jewish Feminist Association of Brandeis’ status. North Quad Senator Josh Hoffman ’21 told the Senate that many female senators — who may have better understood the club and may have voted in favor of granting the club probationary status — were absent and that this vote would have the same problems of the previous one. Hoffman added that should the Senate not grant JFAB probationary status, he would propose dechartering other established intersectional clubs with the same issues that led to JFAB not being granted probationary status with the previous vote. Richtman addressed the members of JFAB, telling them that it was their choice whether or not to present to the Senate. The Senate conducted a straw poll, and the majority of Senators felt ready to hear the group’s presentation. However, the club opted to present at the next Senate meeting. Village Quad Senator Richard Kisack ’19 mentioned that missing in the Senate’s conversation was a universally agreed-upon definition of intersectionality. Kisack stated that no one had explained the meaning of intersectionality, and desired that all senators concur on the term’s definition. —Emily Blumenthal
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March 19—A party in the Linsey Pool area requested BEMCo assistance for an ankle injury. University Police transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. March 19—A staff member called and reported that they had cut themselves with a needle containing two chemical substances. The staff member reported that the room was not hazardous. The science safety officer spoke with the staff member, who stated that they did not want BEMCo assistance or an ambulance. University Police transported the party to the hospital for
further care. March 19—BEMCo staff treated a party in Rosenthal Quad who was complaining of abdominal pain. The party gave a signed refusal for further care. March 21—University Police and BEMCo responded to a report of a party in the Charles River Apartments who was experiencing chest pain. Cataldo Ambulance staff transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. March 21—A party in the Science Complex fell and hurt their arm. BEMCo staff treated the party with a signed refusal for further care. March 23—Three parties in
East Quad requested BEMCo assistance. BEMCo staff requested an ambulance for one party, who was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. March 24—University police were on standby for a Section 12 emergency psychiatric hospitalization. University Police assisted Cataldo Ambulance staff in transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care.
March 22—A party reported an attempted computer fraud. University Police compiled a report on the incident. March 23—A staff member in the Shapiro Admissions Center reported a concerning online chat question from an individual who wanted to become a student at the University. University Police compiled a report on the incident, performing a Board of Probation and Interstate Identification Index background check. There was negative activity for both files in the background check.
Other
March 20—A staff member was followed to the University after a driving dispute. University Police compiled a report on the incident.
a moment of loudness
—Compiled by Abby Patkin
BRIEF Waltham residents indicted for violating U.S. export laws
yvette sei/the Justice
Students gathered in the Shapiro Campus Center atrium on Wednesday night for a Moment of Loudness as part of the Never Again movement.
Two Waltham residents were indicted on Wednesday for selling electronic equipment to a Syria-based company in connection with explosives used against American forces in the Middle East, according to a March 22 Wicked Local article. Also indicted were the residents’ Waltham-based business, Top Tech US Inc. and Amir Katranji, the Syrian national who manages EKT Electronics, the company that bought the electronics. Waltham residents Anni Beurklian and Antoine Ajaka are both from Lebanon; Beurklian is a naturalized U.S. citizen, while Ajaka, her husband, is a lawful permanent resident, according to the same article. Together, they ran Top Tech US Inc. from their Waltham home, in which they “procured” electronic and computer equipment in the U.S. and then sold them overseas in Lebanon and Syria. However, when the pair sold electronics to EKT, they violated the U.S. Department of Commerce’s policy that no U.S. citizen or resident is “permitted to export U.S. goods to EKT without first obtaining an export license,” the Wicked Local article explained. The U.S. government has linked EKT to “acquisition and/or development of improvised explosive devices … used against U.S. and Coalition troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,” it added. According to the indictment, the couple falsified and deleted paperwork and records and “undervalued goods being shipped overseas” to conceal their business with EKT, the article explained. The charges in the indictment include “conspiracy to violate U.S. export laws and regulations, conspiracy to defraud the United States, smuggling U.S. goods out of the United States, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and obstruction of justice.” Beurklian and Ajaka have not been in Waltham since January, when they fled the country during plea negotiations with the U.S. government. —Jocelyn Gould
ANNOUNCEMENTS Open Film Class
Yari and Cary Wolinsky’s beautifully photographed “Raise the Roof” (2015, 85 minutes) tells the story of the 10-year project by artists Rick and Laura Brown to construct a replica of the stunning mural-covered Gwozdziec synagogue in Poland, which was destroyed by the Nazis. Discussion with director Cary Wolinsky will follow. Facilitated by Lora Brody, WSRC Scholar. Today from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall, Epstein.
Teatro Milagro’s “Bi-”
The UTC and BLSO are excited to be hosting Teatro Milagro, a bilingual Latinx theatre group, for a performance of ‘Bi-’, their world premiere touring production. This new bilingual play explores space and perspective, drawing inspiration from Edwin Abbot’s book “Flatland.” Today from 8 to 9 p.m. in the International Lounge, Usdan Student Center.
“Just in Time” Job Fair
The Just In Time Job & Internship Fair is an opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students of all class years to meet with recruiters from over 60 employers who are
actively recruiting for immediate full-time positions and summer internships. Attending employers will represent diverse fields in the for-profit, non-profit and government sectors. Tomorrow from 10 am to 1 p.m. in Sherman Function Hall, Hassenfeld Conference Center.
The Justice will resume printing on April 17.
Edible Books Festival
Drop off: 9 a.m.-noon (Research Help Consultation room, behind the Research Help Desk). Viewing, photos, and voting: noon-1:45 p.m. Awards: 1:45-2 p.m. Eating: 2-5 p.m.! All food is encouraged, but the food will be sitting out for several hours (non-refrigerated), so ice cream may not be the best idea. Please label all dishes and serving utensils you bring. The library will provide utensils. Thursday from noon to 5 p.m. in the Research Help Consultation Room, Goldfarb Library.
Forum on Women’s Political Engagement
Come hear from Massachusetts State Senator Cindy Friedman and former New Hampshire Speaker of the House Terie Norelli as they discuss their careers in politics and political advocacy. Monday April 9 from 2 to 3:15 p.m. in the Multipurpose Room, Shapiro Campus Center
CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS n The Justice has no corrections or clarifications to to report for this week. The Justice welcomes submissions for errors that warrant correction or clarification. Email editor@thejustice.org.
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‘Si bondye vle, Yuli’
BRIEF University holds active shooter drill testing its ability to work with other agencies while responding to emergency situations Brandeis Police and the Brandeis Emergency Medical Corps, as well as other local first responders, conducted an active shooter drill on Wednesday morning in the Goldfarb and Farber libraries. A law enforcement officer posed as the active shooter inside the library while student volunteers acted as victims, according to University President Ron Liebowitz in a March 21 email to the Brandeis community. The drill involved emergency vehicles with sirens on, as well as the sound of simulated ammunition. “It’s very important in today’s climate that first responders get a chance to practice such scenarios,” Vice President of Operations Jim Gray wrote in an email to the Justice. Along with BEMCo and Brandeis Police, Cataldo Ambulance, the Waltham police and fire departments and the Bentley campus police also participated in the exercise, according to a campus-wide March 20 email from Gray. In his email to the Justice, Gray said, “Today’s drill was very helpful in terms of practicing our protocols and interactions with Waltham Police and other agencies in an emergency.” The next step in the process is to review the drill in order to see where and how
the University can improve its response in the future. He also thanked those involved, especially the student volunteers and University Librarian Matthew Sheehy and his staff. Those signed up for the Brandeis Emergency Notification Service (BENS) received emails, texts and phone calls with updates about the drill’s progression. At 9:04 a.m., BENS announced that the drill had begun, and at 11:44 a.m., BENS announced that the drill had completed; the libraries reopened at noon. Brandeis Counseling Center counselors were available in the Department of Community Living office during the drill. Despite the fact that the drill took place during a week of protests sparked by the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Gray made it clear in his March 20 email that the exercise was not organized in response to any specific incident, but had been in the works for months. Liebowitz added in his March 21 email that “events across the country unfortunately underscore the need for all institutions to prepare to encounter an active shooter scenario.” —Jocelyn Gould
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dignity: Jean Jean’s film highlights the difficulty of maintaining one’s dignity in a life dictated by changing immigration policies.
Film explores effect of immigration on identity ■ Director Jean Jean
discussed and screened his film about a Haitian woman’s life in the Dominican Republic. By Emily Blumenthal Justice production assistant
On the screen, students watched a Haitian woman sell her clothes at an open market on the streets of the Dominican Republic. The woman, named Yuli, emigrated from Haiti and is now a pillar of her community, having lived in the Dominican Republic for 35 years and raised her children there. However, in recent years, her place in her community has been jeopardized by the fact that she is an immigrant. Yuli’s son, filmmaker Jean Jean, tells the story of his mother navigating the regularization requirements in the film “Si Bondye Vle, Yuli,” which in Haitian Creole translates to “God Willing, Yuli”; it is interspersed with the family’s history in the Dominican Republic and Haiti from both Jean and Yuli’s perspectives. The Brandeis Caribbean Club screened the film on Thursday night and discussed humanitarian issues related to immigration in the two countries during a Q&A with Jean. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share an island in the Caribbean, with a long border dividing the island approximately in half. During the Q&A after the screening, Jean stated that he created the film to help Haitians learn about the struggles of their brethren in the Dominican Republic, and to have Dominicans learn about their peers of Haitian descent and engage with them. According to its production company Soup Joumou Films, the film questions what it means to belong, in addition to examining the bonds between a country and its people by telling the history of Haitian immigration to the Dominican Republic. In prior decades, Haitians came in large numbers to the Dominican Republic in search of labor on
sugarcane plantations and quickly established roots in their new communities. These immigrants had children who were born Dominican citizens, and many of the first-generation immigrants became citizens as well. In 2013, the Dominican Republic passed a law revoking the citizenship of any Dominicans born in the country to undocumented parents since 1929. An international outcry ensued, and in 2014, the Dominican government created a regularization plan for these now-illegal residents. The law put the status of millions of people like Yuli in limbo, who faced deportation if they did not meet the plan’s stringent requirements. This law is not the first immigration contention between Dominicans and Haitians. In 1991, then-president of the Dominican Republic Joaquín Balaguer deported thousands of Haitian immigrants, including Jean and his family. Because Haiti had recently held its first democratic elections, Yuli did not fight her deportation, wanting to raise her children under democracy, according to the film. When revolutionaries overthrew the new Haitian government, Jean said, his family went back to the Dominican Republic to flee the chaos. The Dominican government’s regularization plan divides immigrants into two groups: Dominicans whose citizenships were revoked and undocumented immigrants. The plan, Jean stated, was meant to divide people, as the first group contains two subsets: those who have two Haitian parents and those who have one Haitian and one Dominican parent. Though the government has created a regularization plan, the requirements for regaining citizenship are stringent and hard to meet. For example, one is required to obtain nine witness signatures to get some of the necessary documents. For Yuli, Jean stated, this was not a problem, since she was well-connected in her community. For others, however, finding these
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signatures was more difficult, and they could not get the documents. Other requirements included having a bank account open for at least 18 months, proof of education and no criminal record. Haitians would often have to travel long distances to get the documents, which would sometimes contain mistakes — something that happened to Yuli three times on the same document. In the film, Jean went through the process of getting these documents because, he stated, he wanted “to take his mother’s struggle as his own struggle.” Jean added that he was privileged in understanding this process and knowing which questions to ask, but he still could not fulfill many of the requirements. Jean explained that though the film focused on his mother’s struggle to complete the regularization process, he also included his story “to have two different perspectives.” The regularization process also carried stigma; in the past, when many Haitians tried to register, they would be arrested and deported. Being regularized now, Jean said, protects him from deportation, but also gives him the status of “not a resident,” which does not allow him to work, study or apply for medical insurance. At the end of the film, Jean spoke of the impact of the regularization process and provided statistics to support his claims. According to Jean, before the 2013 law, there were 288,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic, and 200,000 of them completed after the 2013 law the regularization process. Of those going through the process, 98 percent were of Haitian descent. Jean asked his mother during the film if she would ever move back to Haiti. She replied that she would not, saying, “I’m not afraid to live in Haiti. But here, I am free. I go to the market and whether I sell or not, I always bring food to the table. But in Haiti … I would be starting from scratch.”
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Physicist speaks of his struggle to understand how students learn Technology professor David Pritchard shared his analysis of how students learn. By SAM STOCKBRIDGE Justice EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
After 38 years of teaching the freshman physics class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, professor David Pritchard has reached some profound revelations about education and learning. Pritchard detailed his findings and what those findings have inspired in a talk hosted by the Physics department last Tuesday. These discoveries about learning pushed him to create MasteringPhysics, an online website designed to help students work through homework problems without a teacher. Pritchard first investigated study habits, examining those of “6,000 students from all over the world,” according to his talk. They found that in the beginning of the semester, students regularly tried to read the textbook, but after the first midterm the number of pages they read plummeted. Interestingly, when midterms were imminent, that figure would explode for about a week, then drop back down again. Pritchard said, “I showed this graph to a friend of mine who had written a textbook, and he said, ‘Damn it, Dave, I spent seven years perfecting my textbook. I should have just written a handbook!’” To resolve this problem in his own physics classroom, Pritchard decided to create a model that would predict a student’s performance in the class based on a variety of factors: whether they worked alone, whether they read the textbook regularly, when they started to work on the homework, and other variables. According to Pritchard, the team was surprised to find that the most important
success factor was not study habits or office hours attendance, but whether or not students were cheating on the homework. The team also investigated conceptual questions designed to test qualitative understanding. Qualitative understanding is often tested with word problems like, “If a truck and a motorcycle crash into each other, is the force the motorcycle exerts on the car greater than, equal to, or less than the force the car exerts on the motorcycle?” They concluded that within the group of 6,000 students, the number of conceptual questions answered had virtually no impact on the final exam score — a result that shook Pritchard. Proficiency with analytical, math-based questions tended to lead to better test scores, but thinking about the physical implications of a problem did not. “There are some wide disparities in what we want to teach and what they want to learn,” Pritchard said. “They want to know about the relationships of this mechanics stuff to their real-world life. And we want to tell them that this is a beautiful subject which all comes from Newton’s laws.” Reflecting on this disparity between students and teachers, he added, “What we don’t teach them, which we should, is that [physics] is the beginning of modern science, of making mathematical models of the world. We don’t ever tell them that.” Pritchard concluded by expressing his support for the “flipped classroom” teaching model, where students read the textbook and watch lectures outside of class, then work through problems during class time while professors provide assistance when necessary. After implementing the model in his own classroom, he found great advances in test scores and comprehension. Even after 38 years, he said, he’s still learning.
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Yale University’s Richard Aslin discussed the importance of using psychological research as predictive and diagnostic tools when assessing the mental development of infants.
CAMPUS SPEAKER
Schusterman Center will gain new director ■ Prof. Jonathan Sarna’s
(NEJS) promotion to director was announced along with other leadership changes on Monday. By ABBY PATKIN Justice EDITOR
Prof. Jonathan Sarna ’75, MA ’75 (NEJS) will succeed Rabbi David Ellenson as director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies on Aug. 1, according to a March 26 BrandeisNOW article. Sarna, the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun professor of American Jewish History and a former chair of the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department, also serves as the chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History. He has written or edited more than 30 books and hundreds of articles in the field of American Jewish history, modern Judaism and Israel studies, according to the BrandeisNOW article. He was named University professor, the University’s highest academic title, in 2017. Sarna will be replacing Ellenson, a scholar of modern Jewish history and theory, who was appointed director of the Schusterman Center in 2015.
Sarna’s appointment coincides with both Schusterman’s 10th anniversary and several other promotions within the center; Rachel Fish, Ph.D. ’13, will be promoted to executive director, while Ohio State University professor Alexander Kaye has been appointed the Stoll Family Chair in Israel Studies, succeeding founding Schusterman Director Ilan Troen ’63. Additionally, the center is now home to a newly endowed Marash and Ocuin Chair in Ottoman, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish Studies, according to the same article. It will be awarded to a future tenuretrack or tenured faculty member with expertise in the history and experience of Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews in Israel. A search to fill the chair will begin later this year. “These appointments suggest a bright future of Israel studies at Brandeis. We are confident we will grow from strength to strength and hope that all of you are proud of what has been and will yet be accomplished,” University President Ron Liebowitz said at an event celebrating the center’s 10th anniversary, according to a second March 26 BrandeisNOW article. The Schusterman Center was established in 2007 through gifts from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and other donors. The center promotes scholar-
ship in Israeli history, politics and culture and society, according to its website. “As my mother said at the Center’s dedication, ‘Israel’s past, present and future deserves a place in the academic world and Brandeis will be its standard bearer,’” Schusterman Family Foundation representative Stacy Schusterman said at the anniversary celebration, according to the second article. “The Schusterman Center is a hallmark of Brandeis and a key voice for scholarly research on Israel studies that is recognized and respected around the world,” Liebowitz said in the first article. “As we celebrate the Schusterman Center’s 10th anniversary, we look to its future and the unique role it will play in advancing fields of study, unlocking new frontiers and making Brandeis a premier academic global leader.” The Schusterman Center announced the three appointments at the anniversary celebration on Sunday, which featured keynote addresses from former United States Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro ’91 and Ben-Gurion University President Rivka Carmi. Waltham Mayor Jeannette McCarthy was also in attendance on Sunday, delivering a city proclamation congratulating the Schusterman Center and the University.
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Lecture: Shapiro advocates focusing on shared USIsraeli interests
CONTINUED FROM 1
has a potential to sustain mutual benefits. He asserted that differences in the costs of each country’s strategies are “a point of divergence in how situations in the Middle East are handled.” He closed by explaining that “what ensures the durability of the partnership is not that we never disagree, but when we disagree and find ourselves in less identi-
learning programs. According to the same Globe article, Shrage created Me’ah, an adult study program that has drawn over 5,000 students to studying Jewish texts and tradition. Additionally, he supported the creation of new Jewish day schools and special education for religious schools, the article noted. “Barry is a transformational leader. What he achieved at CJP over 30 years is stunning. … We are delighted that he will bring that same energy, idealism and drive to Brandeis, where we are committed to reaffirming and strengthening our distinguished Jewish academic and research programs,” Liebowitz said in the University’s official statement on Shrage’s appointment. At Hornstein, Shrage will train and mentor students, and “help further Hornstein’s role as the premier training ground for future Jewish professional leaders,” according to the University’s statement. Hornstein offers graduate programs that train professionals to use skills rooted in Jewish values. According to the program’s website, its graduates have gone
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MAKING THEIR VOICES HEARD
cal terms, we have to acknowledge those differences where we are not fully aligned.” He added, “Whenever possible, we must avoid acrominy and partisanship, and find the common path.” Only after observing these differences and maintaining open communication between the United States and Israel, he explained, can the “divergence of strategies ... be managed,” serving “both our countries’ interests.”
faculty: University unveils Initiative for Jewish Identity by hiring new faculty CONTINUED FROM 1
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on to gain employment at Jewish federations, Hillel chapters, Jewish community centers, advocacy organizations, camps, schools and start-ups. In addition to serving as a Hornstein faculty member, Shrage will also lead a new effort, the Initiative for Jewish Identity, through the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies/Steinhardt Social Research Institute. The Initiative for Jewish Identity will develop programming for teaching and engaging the Jewish community, per the statement. The initiative and Shrage’s appointment were made possible through “generous” donations, the statement read. Both Shrage and Liebowitz touched on the University’s ties to the Jewish community in the statement, with Liebowitz calling Brandeis a “pre-eminent center for Jewish thought and learning.” “Brandeis is a unique and very special institution,” Shrage agreed. “As President Liebowitz reasserts Brandeis’ role as a global center of scholarship on Judaism, it is an honor to accept this faculty appointment and to join with others in advancing Brandeis as a preeminent intellectual center for the Jewish people and the world.”
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Do you have a nose for news? Contact Jocelyn Gould at news@thejustice.org
YVETTE SEI/the Justice
Among other students and clubs, a cappella group Too Cheap for Instruments performed at the Moment of Loudness in the Shapiro Campus Center on Wednesday.
RESULTS: New students join Union Exec. Board CONTINUED FROM 1 dent life.” On her platform, Brown also mentioned the practice of “nickeling and diming,” or charging fees as punishment for things like forgetting a room key. However, Brown acknowledged that on the larger scale, the University generally “make[s] pretty good decisions on … [where] the money [should] go,” — such as constructing the new Skyline housing — but stated that it could still do better. Though the University would no longer take in the same amount of revenue with her proposed changes, Brown emphasized that the changes would not raise tuition, but rather would force the University to “use its finances more wisely,” as she thinks the University has “a lot of pockets of money that maybe just aren’t being spent in the best ways.” Student Union Vice Presidentelect Benedikt Reynolds ’19 also discussed finances in his interview, but focused on compensation for student labor. He said that student workers for secured clubs like the Brandeis Emergency Medical Corps and Student Sexuality Information Service are not compensated, even though they provide essential services for the University. Reynolds emphasized that this is a big problem for work-study students who would otherwise join these organizations but cannot because they need to seek paid employment elsewhere. Reynolds stated that he has been meeting with Assistant Dean of Students Stephanie Grimes about considering making these positions included in work-study, saying, “It opens up a lot more opportunities for students to prioritize doing something they are passionate about, rather than working for Sodexo.” However, Reynolds added, non-workstudy students could also take these positions and be compensated. Zosia Busé ’20, the elected Junior Representative to the Board of Trustees, centered her platform on health care. In an interview with the Justice, she stated that “vital resources to students on campus, such as the Brandeis Counseling Center, are in such a position that needs intervention on an institutional level.” Speaking as the director of the Office of Student Rights and Advocacy, she added that she has heard student testimonies about the lack of adequate health care, saying, “It’s just disheartening.” Busé stressed that “since the Board of Trustees hold [sic] a lot of the power, they can delegate some of
that power to resources such as the Brandeis Counseling Center.” The newly-elected officers also told the Justice some other initiatives they would like to undertake. Busé stated she wants to create “a platform for student voices” and to give students the opportunity to speak out on issues relevant to them. She elaborated that she wants to work with the Board of Trustees to allow students to testify in front of the Board. Reynolds discussed building on his work with the Union Senate’s Sustainability Committee, stating that he wanted to focus on strengthening the culture of sustainability at Brandeis. He added that as vice president, his goal is to “push the envelope” of the Student Union’s approach to sustainability. Reynolds explained that he would like to continue and expand the newly-revived Brandeis Sustainability Ambassadors program, which went through a test run during this year’s Midyear Orientation. In the same interview, Reynolds emphasized the success of the program’s trial run, stating that it “got a really great response. … We got a message from the Village area coordinator saying that recycling rates and the cleanup has never been that high.” He added that community advisors have reported lights being turned off consistently and that “some of the students [said], ‘Hey, I never really thought about sustainability, but I guess Brandeis is a good time to make it happen and give it a shot.’” Like Reynolds, Qingtian Mei ’21, the secretary-elect, also stated in an interview with the Justice that he would like to focus on sustainability. Outside of his position, Mei said, he would like to continue his work on the Sustainability Committee and work on a project to revitalize the Massell Pond. Finally, the officers addressed the common student complaint of a disconnect between the student body and administrators. Reynolds talked about the importance of conversations between students and administrators concerning relevant issues, bringing up the work done by current Student Union President Jacob Edelman ’18 to improve the services of the Brandeis Counseling Center and the Health Center. Reynolds stated that the BCC is “open 9 to 5,” and that “now they have extended hours, but before they didn’t necessarily consider that students are in class from 9 to 5.” The student perspective is important, Reynolds said, because it is “something that wouldn’t be
very apparent to [administrators] if they’re sitting in their office from 9 to 5.” Brown also raised the open community forums Edelman began recently as a good way to bridge the student-administrator gap, explaining that at these meetings learning happens “on both sides, for all the participants that are there, both admins and students, and I think that’s a good start.” She also proposed informal events like “coffee with Brandeis Police” and “brown-bag breakfasts, which are basically just bringing your own breakfast and talking to administrators.” She added, “I’ve often heard complaints that students just don’t see some of the administrators out in the open or attending events,” praising University President Ron Liebowitz for attending Hoops for Help, a students vs. faculty and staff basketball game which fundraised for the Hiatt Career Center’s World of Work Internship Funding Program. However, Brown acknowledged that though bridging the gap is important, she “understand[s] that that can be difficult for administrators to just kind of insert themselves.” She suggested that “maybe the Union can try to make that easier.” Busé also emphasized the importance of connecting students and the Board of Trustees, stating that she hopes that “through this role, I can create a more humble connection between the trustees and the students” to reduce the distance between the two groups. Mei and Carrie Sheng ’20, the newly-elected junior representatives to the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, added that they would make efforts to conduct outreach to the student body both to relay their opinions to administrators and to make students aware of campus activities organized by fellow students. Mei said that as secretary, he would transition from using emails and Facebook to communicate with students to Instagram and, for Chinese students, the Chinese social media app WeChat, stating that these media are more efficient and widely-read. Sheng responded that she would hold office hours and create Facebook polls to reach out to students about the new General Education Requirements. Brandeis Sustainability Fund Representative-elect Tamara Botteri ’21 and Treasurer-elect Jerry Miller ’19 did not return the Justice's request for an interview.
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features
TUESDAY, march 27, 2018 ● Features ● The Justice
just
VERBATIM | ARTHUR MILLER Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.
ON THIS DAY…
FUN FACT
In 1866, U.S. President Andrew Johnson vetoed a civil rights bill that later became the 14th Amendment.
During an average person’s lifetime, they will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools.
Reading Dead People’s Mail Susan Riverby uncovered a shocking syphilis study while digging through archives of old mail
Image Courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS
GOING VIRAL: Professor Susan Riverby’s exposure of medical malpractice by U.S. doctors in Guatemala led to an apology from President Barack Obama.
By michelle saylor JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
When Wellesley College Professor Susan Riverby was digging through the archives at University of Pittsburgh, she discovered an account of a twisted study that took place in Guatemala. John Cutler, a professor at University of Pittsburgh, conducted the study at age 31, just four years out of medical school. Using taxpayer dollars, he and his team went to Guatemala to inoculate prisoners, sex workers, orphans and mental patients with syphilis and gonorrhea. They picked Guatemala because prostitution was legal there, allowing the disease to propagate throughout communities all around the country. Their given reason was to see if penicillin could act as a prophylaxis against this category of sexually transmitted infections. It did not work. STIs were spreading rapidly throughout the nation and Guatemalans had no access to treatment. As Riverby kept digging, she found that Cutler was given a grant from the head of the Syphilis division at the National Institute of Health to keep this study up and running, in addition to the previously mentioned taxpayer dollars going to sex workers and alcohol meant to encourage local people to cultivate and spread these diseases. Overall, there were 1,308 people intentionally exposed and over 5,000 diagnosed. Riverby is an award -win-
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FALSE HEALTHCARE: From 1932 to 1972, doctors for the U.S. Public Health Service infected Black men in Alabama with syphilis for a government study on the disease.
ning historian and professor at Wellesley College. She came to Brandeis to give a speech titled “Escaping Melodrama: How to think about the U.S. Public Health Service Studies in Tuskegee and Guatemala” this past Wednesday. In her presentation, she discussion two separate but connected instances in which the U.S. government had doctors
inject Black men with syphilis without their knowledge. Throughout her Ph.D. work, she extensively studied the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study, in which hundreds of Black men suffered from untreated syphilis and were studied at Tuskegee University. While this was a multidimensional human rights violation, one major failing was
that nearly 15 years into the study, penicillin was discovered as a treatment for syphilis and the researchers involved decided not to tell their patients this was an option. Instead, they left patients’ bodies to deteriorate due to their disease. Not only did this disease affect the men directly enrolled in the study, but additionally their wives, family
members, and children. The study was shut down after forty years of operation (1932-72). Riverby’s story starts there. Her talk focused mainly on her research of the tragedies that occurred in Guatemala between the years of 1946-48. When Riverby found these papers, she was shocked. Before spreading the information, she did her due diligence and all of the necessary research before sharing it with the former Center for Disease Control and Prevention director, who was a close friend of hers. As word spread through the government, people got scared and started to cover their tracks. This action only made matters worse and heightened the profile of the issue. In Riverby’s talk, she asked “If a historian finds something in the archives and shouts, will anybody listen?” This culminated into a yes, as this study provoked a public presidential apology from President Barack Obama to Guatemala, one that was long overdue. Riverby said that there is a difference between drama and melodrama. Drama, she said, is because of the people, melodrama is because of the story. This story is classified as a melodrama because of the absolute abhorrent nature of the story, in addition to the cover up. Riverby said that melodrama “Makes for great horror but a poor basis for which to understand and obtain justice.” Riverby sought to empower students to take action against injustices they discover.
the justice ● Features ● TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 2018
Art to Save the Arctic Chantal Bilodeau discussed how to tackle climate change through art
NATALIA WIATER/the Justice
SOUNDING THE ALARM: Among her many pursuits, Chantal Bilodeau is a playwright and translator. Her passion is promoting climate change activism.
By leigh salomon JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
It’s not easy to fit a playwright, translator, director, founder, co-founder, two-time recipient of the First Prize in the Earth Matters on Stage Ecodrama Festival, curator and writer on a single podium in the Merrick Theater, until you realize they are all one person. Chantal Bilodeau was invited to Brandeis on March 24 to discuss the strategies artists use to engage with climate change. Her work focuses on the intersection of science, policy, art and climate change. Bilodeau is the artistic director of the Arctic Cycle, which uses theater to foster dialogue about the global climate crisis and create an empowering vision of the future and inspire people to take action. The Arctic Cycle is also an umbrella organization serving as a bridge for three main initiatives: The Plays (a cycle of eight plays written by Bilodeau that examine the massive social and environmental changes taking place in the eight Arctic states), Artists & Climate Change (an international network and online platform that features essays, interviews and editorials by artists who engage with climate change issues) and Climate Change Theatre Action (a series of readings and performances of short climate change plays presented internationally
to coincide with the United Nations Conference of the Parties). Through this line of work, Bilodeau has come to view climate change as “a set of unsustainable systems — economic, political, environmental and cultural — that harm all creatures and undermine our ability to survive as a species.” Bilodeau does not want to disregard the scientific definition of climate change. Rather, she wants to dispel the stereotype that climate activism revolves around tree hugging or some idealistic idea of pristine nature. She sees the climate as “all the systems that form the life we have.” Bilodeau used an “ego” versus “eco” model to visually convey her definition. Both sides of the model contain a group of symbols representing the various creatures that inhabit the earth, but while the ego side organizes them in a pyramid with the human at the top, the eco side organizes them in a circle with no clear top. She explained that the ego structure represents the current system, where creatures at the bottom support the power and wealth relationships above them, while the eco arrangement represents the system we need, where power and wealth relationships organize laterally in multiple directions at the same time. Bilodeau believes this is where the artists get drawn in, using their stories to promote climate activism and shift culture from the ego system to the ecosystem.
“And by stories, I don’t necessarily mean narrative,” she clarified. “I mean a set of values and beliefs that then goes out into the world and that serves to organize how we live, and the people who control the story are the people who control the outcome.” In the ten years that Bilodeau has engaged in this line of work, she has observed five strategies to promote climate activism: sounding the alarm, celebrating the natural world, making the science visible, envisioning a positive future and giving agency to communities. Sounding the alarm emphasizes making people aware of the problems and danger they pose to everyone’s well-being. Since the mainstream media relies heavily on this strategy, Bilodeau says artists must use it carefully to avoid oversaturation. Examples she gave of art projects that use this strategy included a circular arrangement of several chunks of a Greenland iceberg in a Paris plaza that attendees to the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference could see on their way into the conference building. Another example was a collaboration with a French fragrance company to create a line of scents that could disappear due to climate change: honey, the coastlines, coffee, peanuts, ice, hardwood trees, wine and eucalyptus. Celebrating the natural world shifts the emphasis from the negatives to the positives, or as
Bilodeau put it, “a powerful reminder that there’s still something left to fight for.” It involves looking at what humans want to protect and persuading them to actively protect it. She said it also emphasizes promoting interconnectedness and time as cyclical rather than linear — “what goes around comes around.” Examples she gave of art projects using this strategy included meticulously formed sculptures from objects found in nature, such as rocks or leaves, and an album of people photographed with animals in different positions, such as a person swimming with whales or another staring down at the camera while leaning against an elephant’s trunk. Bilodeau differentiates making the science visible from merely illustrating the science by explaining how this strategy requires viewing science through the lens of art — an artist should attempt to portray the science in a way that relates to a wider audience, not unlike citizen science. Examples she gave of art projects using this strategy included a documentary called “Chasing Ice” that deploys time-lapse cameras to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers and a website called “What Is Missing?” that functions as an interactive map to highlight the loss of biodiversity from climate change. Envisioning a positive future focuses on solutions. “These are artists who really are tell-
ing the stories of tomorrow,” explained Bilodeau. “Instead of saying ‘we’re here, and this is how we got there,’ they’re saying, ‘We’re here. Where can we go next?’” Examples she gave of art projects using this strategy included those from a biennial worldwide contest sponsored by the “Land Art Generator Initiative” to create a piece of public art that doubles as a potential renewable energy innovation, such as a piezoelectric generator in New York, a solar hourglass in Copenhagen and a solar bike path in the Netherlands. Giving agency to communities focuses on the process more than the final product. Bilodeau described it as “engaging community and creating something that will then empower them to move forward.” Examples she gave of art projects with this strategy included drawing chalk lines in cities around the world to show where the flood line would be if sea levels rose and an “eco stage” designed for “echosonography,” which she defined as “ecological design for performance that combines horticulture, theatrical design and community engagement to create recyclable, biodegradable, biodiverse and edible performance spaces.” To conclude, Bilodeau clarified that the strategies are not meant to be set-in-stone guidelines, but rather, to help artists developing projects consider what they want to do, where they want to be and how they can best get there.
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10 TUESDAY, march 27, 2018 ● forum ● THE JUSTICE
the
Justice Established 1949
Abby Patkin, Editor in Chief Amber Miles, Managing Editor Carmi Rothberg, Senior Editor Kirby Kochanowski, Avraham Penso and Sabrina Sung,
Brandeis University
Deputy Editors
Michelle Banayan, Abby Grinberg, Lizzie Grossman, Noah Hessdorf, Ben Katcher, Mihir Khanna, Pamela Klahr, Robbie lurie and Natalia Wiater, Associate Editors Jocelyn Gould, Acting News Editor Victor Feldman, Features Editor Nia Lyn, Forum Editor, Zach Kaufman, Sports Editor Hannah Kressel, Arts Editor Yvette Sei and Andrew Baxter, Photography Editors Morgan Mayback, Layout Editor, Liat Fischer and Devo Meyers, Acting Ads Editors Eliana Padwa and Lily Swartz, Copy Editors Jen Geller, Online Editor
EDITORIALS Call on Student Union to release budget information Last year, Student Union President Jacob Edelman ’18 ran on a platform that included a proposition that the Union release its budget at the start of the academic year. Now, in late March and with only a few weeks left in Edelman’s term, the student body is still awaiting the budget’s release. This board calls on Edelman and the Student Union to fulfill this initiative, a powerful show of transparency and accountability. “Let us restore the idea of the Undergraduate Student Union as a force for community good,” Edelman wrote in his official platform, expressing his plans to release the Union’s budget in an accessible manner. This would be followed by open meetings with the student body to discuss spending priorities, as well as online polling of the student body to reflect shifting opinion on budget allocation, per the platform. Edelman reaffirmed this sentiment in a recent interview with the Justice, asserting that it is important to release the budget for Union transparency. Yet despite emphasizing both transparency and accessibility in his platform and in his presidency, Edelman and his cabinet have failed to follow through on this crucial promise. A transparent and accessible Union is necessary for an informed and participatory student body, something that Brandeis has lacked in recent years with voter turnout and contested Union elections in short supply. By releasing its budget, the Union can better engage with the students it advocates on behalf of, allowing them an inside look into how their representatives use resources to address their needs. “I hope,” Edelman said when asked whether the Union still
Establish accountability plans to release its budget. The time for hope has passed; it is now time for action. Edelman added that it is still something that he is “carrying around” with him as an unfulfilled campaign promise, as students “deserve a clear understanding of what the Student Union’s budget typically goes to.” He cited issues with cleaning up the budget spreadsheet and keeping it updated. This past year, the Allocations Board made public secured clubs’ allocations and spending, an important step in the direction of transparency. This arms students with information about where their student activities fee is going and what it is being used for. With this in mind, it is even more important that the Union release its own budget. To be clear, this board does not blame Edelman alone. A leader is only as strong as his team, and this burden falls on the entirety of the Union’s Executive Board and branches. Throughout his tenure on the Student Union, Edelman has demonstrated a dedication to transparency and accessibility; as the Union’s director of communications last year, he began the practice of releasing weekly media updates to the general public, a practice he intended to continue this year. However, like the plans to release the budget, these weekly updates have fallen by the wayside. Transparency and accessibility cannot be taken lightly, especially in the organization intended to act as a voice for the student body. This board urges Edelman to uphold his campaign promise to release the budget, and it also asks the rest of the Union to support him in this endeavor.
Clarify schedules and stop locations for shuttle routes This weekend, the Student Union arranged for additional Saturday transportation services to Boston for students interested in participating in the “March for Our Lives” demonstration at Boston Common. This board commends the Union and other responsible parties for organizing these much-needed extra shuttles, and we encourage the University to take similar action with events and demonstrations in the future. Such careful planning and attentiveness to students’ needs should be applauded. However, not all transportation-related affairs ran smoothly this weekend due to oversights on the part of the University and carelessness on the part of students. On March 9, the Boston shuttle stop moved temporarily to Massachusetts Avenue and Newbury Street due to ongoing construction. Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan informed students of this change in an email the day before the move took place. However, despite this brief notice to the student body, some confusion about the stop location remained even two weeks after the change. Students have continued to gather at the old stop location near Marlborough Street, and on Saturday night, many opted to run after the shuttle when it passed them, leading to a crowd of students running into traffic — in front of cars and against traffic signals — in order to avoid missing transportation back to campus. This board finds this occurrence
Notify students of changes concerning and urges the University to better publicize the temporary location change to avoid situations like Saturday night, which are not only inconvenient but also, in some cases, dangerous. None of the published Boston/ Cambridge Shuttle schedules have been updated to reflect the stop location change to Newbury Street, and this board urges the University to correct this oversight as soon as possible. A single email two weeks ago is not sufficient to inform the student body of the stop location, especially if the University’s own website gives conflicting information. At the same time, the University does not deserve all of the blame. Students should be more conscientious about reading their emails, especially those from Public Safety. Beyond that, it should go without saying, but students should not run in front of cars or otherwise cross the street unsafely. Waiting another 30 minutes for the next shuttle may be inconvenient, but safety must be everyone’s top priority. Moving forward, this board recommends that the University publish maps of the stop locations for all shuttle routes — campus, Waltham and Boston/Cambridge — in order to avoid future confusion and to help new students or those unfamiliar with Brandeis transportation services find the correct spots.
PERI MEYERS/the Justice
Views the News on
President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are preparing to impose $60 billion in annual tariffs against Chinese products, according to a March 19 Washington Post article. Supporters say that imposing tariffs will benefit American producers and curtail China’s growing economic influence, while detractors warn that tariffs could set off a trade war with China and destabilize global trade. Do you think the U.S. should impose these tariffs, and what effects could they have on the economy if implemented?
Prof. Daniel Bergstresser (IBS) President Trump’s executive memorandum calling for tariffs on Chinese imports is bad policy. The new tilt toward thoughtless and ad hoc protectionism is at odds with the administration’s own Economic Report, which Trump signed just weeks ago. The president appears susceptible to sudden policy shifts. He also seems partial to country-specific and product-specific interventions instead of consistent policies motivated by sensible underlying principles. In any context an ad hoc approach like this could be destructive. But combined with the president’s failure to separate himself from his opaque and sprawling international business commitments, the results here are potentially catastrophic. We simply cannot be confident that Trump’s rapidly oscillating and conflict-prone trade policy is free of contamination from his family’s business interests. What is happening now will damage our standing and influence in the world for a long time. Prof. Daniel Bergstresser (IBS) is an associate professor of finance at the International Business School, specializing in municipal finance and household financial behavior.
Prof. Michael Coiner (ECON) In almost all circumstances tariffs result in net losses for both the nation imposing them and the targeted nation. If the U.S. imposes tariffs on China, U.S. consumers of Chinese goods will lose more than U.S. producers who compete with Chinese products will gain. (The recent tariffs on steel and aluminum stand to hurt U.S. firms that use those metals more than U.S. steel & aluminum producers gain.) If China retaliates, our losses will become larger as U.S. firms will see their sales to China drop. The only possible good outcome here is if the “threat” of U.S. tariffs leads to negotiation with China toward ending practices in that nation that “steal” technology created in other nations. But if we actually impose the tariffs, we lose. Prof. Michael Coiner (ECON) is a professor of Economics, specializing in the economics of public education and the public sector.
Prof. George Hall (ECON) The president has a responsibility to protect U.S. intellectual property, and U.S. manufacturers have legitimate concerns about China’s trade practices. But the imposition of tariffs on China is a clumsy strategy for dealing with these issues. Given the complexity of multinational supply chains, it is hard to tell precisely who will bear the cost of these new tariffs; and if China chooses, it would not be hard for them to retaliate, leaving producers and consumers in both countries worse off. Hopefully leaders from both nations will pull back from this dangerous game of chicken and come to an agreement on intellectual property and other areas of disagreement, but I can’t help but think that the president would be negotiating from a stronger position had he not pulled the U.S. out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership last year. Prof. George Hall (ECON) is a professor at the International Business School and the Department of Economics, specializing in fiscal policy and industrial organization.
Sam Cohen ’20 This decision by the Trump Administration has the potential to have both negative economic and diplomatic repercussions. The resident’s decisions to increase duties on Chinese imports has the potential to hurt the very people he claims to be trying to help, such blue-collar workers in the automotive industry. By increasing tariffs on steel and aluminium (metals important for the production of cars) for example, Trump is essentially taking money out of the pockets of auto- workers by making cars more expensive. In addition, by increasing tariffs on Chinese goods, Trump is increasing the likelihood of a trade war. A trade war with China, our largest trading partner behind the EU and the second largest economy in the world, would mean almost certain negative economic impacts for both China and the U.S. In this age of economic interdependence, such actions should be considered an anachronism. Sam Cohen ’20 is vice president of Brandeis Quiz Bowl.
Photos: Daniel Bergstresser; George Hall; the Justice
THE JUSTICE ● fORUM ● TUESDAY, march 27, 2018
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Consider market ramifications of US-North Korea tension By Jay EOM Special To the Justice
Since Kim Jong-un took leadership of North Korea after his father, Kim Jong-il, died in 2011, North Korea has been conducting heavy research on nuclear tests and missiles. Some analysts argue that their fierce rhetoric on nuclear power is just to strengthen their international standing, but their motives remain in question. Whatever the purpose is, the ramp-up is creating anxieties. The tension between North Korea and the United States — or the Trump administration to be specific — peaked last August. In August 2017, President Donald Trump stated, “As I said, they will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before,” as reported in an Aug. 9, 2017 Washington Post article. Shortly after, North Korea responded by threatening Guam with Wassong-12s, the intermediate-range missiles unveiled by North Korea last May. Guam is the Pacific island that is home to a massive U.S. Air Force base and U.S. nuclear strategic assets. Although Guam posseses a sophisticated missile-interceptor system that could protect against medium-range missiles, the tension between two countries still remained a global concern. In September 2017, North Korea announced that they conducted their sixth nuclear test on their hydrogen bomb, as reported in a Sept. 2, 2017 New York Times article, and the tension between the two countries flared up again. Due to the conflict, European bourses decreased when equities faced shocks across Asia, the price of the gold experienced a 10-month high, and gasoline futures slid while crude prices remained mixed, as reported by a Sept. 4, 2017 Financial Times article . According to a Sept. 12, 2017 analysis by Oxford Economics, there are several expected impacts on the global economy from the tensions, especially in Asian countries. First, if the truce between North and South Korea collapses and the two countries enter a direct conflict, business and consumer confidence in South Korea will be unstable and equities and bond markets will be sold out due to the increase in the risk premium on assets. The wealth effect and deterioration in credit condition will likely cause South Korea’s aggregate demand to decrease. Japan would also be greatly affected by such a conflict, and its economy would suffer shocks in both internal and external demands. Due to its location right next to North and South Korea, Japan cannot escape economic instability during and after such a conflict. As in the previous scenario of a possible South Korean slump, business and consumer confidence in Japan would falter in the face of a Korean conflict and Japanese equities would be sold off at a staggering rate. Furthermore, yen, the Japanese
JULIANNA SCIONTI/the Justice
currency, would work as an alternative to won, the Korean currency, and become stronger than before. The fall of asset prices would decrease the domestic demand and appreciation of the yen, and lower growth rate compared to other Asian countries would decrease Japan’s external demand. China is also included in the list of countries that would have the largest influence on the conflict. China publicly acts as if they are the sole stabilizing force on North Korea. When the nuclear threat became a worldwide concern, the Chinese leadership banned North Korea from exporting coal to China and warned North Korea to not raise any other tensions with the U.S. or their allies. However, according to a speech given by Kim Jong-un on April 28, 2017, China increased trade with North Korea by 37 percent during the first quarter of 2017, which is contrary to their tough public facade. In a Sept. 7, 2017 interview with CNN, Stephen Innes, the head of Asian trading at online broker OANDA, stated, “The key now is how the international community will respond, given
how ineffective the tightened United Nations sanctions have been at discouraging North Korea’s ambitions,” during the UN Security Council meeting that was held right after the conflict occurred. International trade with North Korea is overwhelmingly China-centric: About 90 percent of non-domestic North Korean trade involves China in some way, according to a Sept. 27 2017 Washington Post article. Thus, China is the key to putting pressure on the North Korean economy. However, we can safely conclude that China does not have any intention of damaging North Korea’s economy. After the U.N. movement, China announced that they will not agree to any restriction that undermines their interests, according to the same Sept. 2, 2017 New York Times article. Because China has a great deal of influence on the global economy, North Korea indirectly has the power to affect the global economy and world financial market. If tensions between the U.S. and China were to arise — which is a possible scenario if the U.S. and North Korea remain belligerent and China
keeps supporting North Korea — the prices of Chinese equities would be expected to drop, but the U.S. financial markets would likely remain unaffected. Like the other Asian countries analyzed above, Chinese business and consumer confidence would be diminished in the event of Korean conflict. Due to the instability of the market, especially in Asian markets, emerging market risk premiums will appreciate and result in shortterm low domestic demand in China. However, considering the fact that China, Japan and South Korea have huge influence over the global economy, in the long-term, destabilized markets in those countries will lead to an unstable global market. Compared to the issues that the U.S. has had with countries like Cuba and Venezuela, the conflict with North Korea is more pressing since it is closely related to countries that have large influences in the global marketplace. While the issue in the short-term can seem minor and inconsequential in the U.S., it should be solved as soon as possible before it can create a global economic disaster.
End legal restrictions on comprehensive gun violence research By ARnav Ghosh Justice Contributing Writer
It has not been lost on the American public that gIt has not been lost on the American public that gun violence has become a cycle in our country. This phenomena could be roughly summarized as follows: the final data on the shooting is released to the public, some call for solace and quiet to let the families mourn, while others immediately jump to a call for action. This action can have a wide range of meanings from background checks, bans on bumper stocks, limits on silencers and bans on assault rifles, to more background checks. These tend to occupy the national spotlight and then, over the course of several weeks, fade quietly, only to be brought up again after the next shooting that captures the national attention. Thoughts and prayers are sent to the families of the victims and after some time, the event recedes to the back of the public consciousness. The existence of this cycle, and its seemingly unbreakable nature, has left some Americans weary of the debate entirely. Worse, the longer it continues, the more the public becomes apathetic and desensitized. Although solutions are put forth, they never seem to materialize in any tangible way — because another mass shooting will occur on average two months later according to a Feb. 16 article in The Telegraph. This leaves us waiting, seemingly helplessly, to be struck by tragedy over and over, until it becomes just a facet of our lives. It may be time to accept that this cycle of gun violence, one uniquely American, is neither an inevitability to be prayed away nor a simple problem with a simple solution. America is
perhaps the only fully developed First World nation that suffers from gun violence to this extent, according to an article published by NPR last October. In fact, compared with other countries that enjoy high average education levels and high average incomes — two trusted indicators of socioeconomic success, the United States should have an expected gun death rate of 0.79 per 100,000 people. Unfortunately, the actual rate is 3.85 deaths per 100,000 people — almost five times higher. Compared to its peers, the United States’ gun violence problem becomes even more concerning. Although there is a partisan divide over this uniquely American issue, both sides agree on one thing — there is, in fact, a problem in our nation. As with most problems of this scale, one cannot properly understand the current problem, nor formulate a viable way to solve it, without knowing all the facts. Perhaps now might be a time to take a dispassionate, clinical approach to this problem and derive a solution based not on passionate, pseudo-improvised rants, but on impersonal data. Unfortunately, this data is, in comparison with other problems of this scale, few and far between. This lack of data is itself a great barrier, but here, we find a cause that both sides of this bitter argument can dedicate their efforts to. All Americans, no matter their political affiliation or personal stance on gun control, can demand better data without shame. This national lack of data on gun deaths, deaths by firearm and gun violence in general, can be traced back to Congress in 1996. The National Rifle Association pushed heavily for an amendment to a spending bill for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, so that the latter could
not use federal money to promote or advocate gun control. The rationale put forth for Arkansas Representative Jay Dickey’s amendment was that this research and subsequent results were politically motivated and therefore non-partisan, and thus not appropriate for federal funding. This amendment did not in and of itself prevent the CDC from researching gun violence, as explained in an Feb. 15 article from The Atlantic. However, the CDC’s budget was lowered by the amount that was set aside for researching gun-related deaths. Because of this, a lack of gun-related death research has permeated the entire field. Many pro-gun advocates are quick to point out that there are a comparable number of annual car deaths, but no one would propose something as ludicrous as actually banning all cars. Inadvertently, this argument actually leads into two very helpful solutions — while there are more auto deaths than gun deaths in the United States every year, there would be considerably more if not for the decades of research that have been conducted. Motor vehicle deaths have been scrutinized intensely, with a vast database of knowledge, thanks to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, as detailed in the same Atlantic article. Furthermore, cars have been subject to many different regulations and policies to mitigate preventable deaths: Examples of these policies and regulations in action include the requirement of seatbelts, the presence of airbags in all vehicles, the law that headlights are required after sunset and before sunrise, etc. Meanwhile, there is not enough data to even formulate any safety regulations at all when it comes to firearms. Just as significant as the bottleneck on gun-death statistics is the
pressure to stop cataloging weapons at all. Most notably, the Tiahrt Amendment was created in 2003 to protect the Second Amendment and prevent the formation of a searchable database of gun-owners. Unfortunately, its real-world effect has been less of a constitutional shield and more of an albatross around the neck of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The Tiahrt Amendment specifically forbade the ATF from “releasing firearm trace data for use by cities, states, researchers, litigants and members of the public, required the FBI to destroy all approved gun purchaser records within 24 hours, and prohibited the ATF from requiring gun dealers to submit their inventories to law enforcement,” as reported by the Gifford’s Law Center. According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, one of the many nonprofit groups centered around gun control, this means that a database exists could be used to track guns and identify the 5 percent of gun dealers that supplied 90 percent of guns used in crimes. In the wake of yet another mass shooting, it may seem like all facets of the gun violence debate have been worn out, and there is nothing left to discuss. Indeed, it may seem like all the American public can do is argue fruitlessly and move on. This state of perpetual powerlessness and inaction may feel like the dark underbelly of American existence, but it does not need to be this way. This problem may seem insurmountable, but demanding both more and better data on this issue can and should be our first step. With the wave of activism and renewed passion that is the silver lining of the Parkland school shooting, it is very much within the power of the American constituency.
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TUESDAY, March 27, 2018 ● forum ● THE JUSTICE
FORUM
Criticize harmful national origin data collection bill By YE POGUE JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The Connecticut legislature held a March 8 hearing on Senate Bill 359, an act that called for banning ethnic subgroup data disaggregation in the Connecticut education system. As a Ph.D. candidate in Social Policy who studies mental health and trauma, I was invited by the bill’s supporters to testify on the damage a potential data collection program would impose on students, parents and teachers. This March, three bills were introduced into the Connecticut Legislature on the ethnic origin data collection issue. The hearing for the first bill was scheduled the second day of a snow storm; I drafted my husband for this hundred-mile ride. I was able to join the 500 allies of the bill who were mostly Chinese parents with their American children. The children distributed small scarves to supporters that resembled American flags. Their cheerful, yet serious young faces made them appear more mature than their age. In the past six months, the Chinese immigrant community has been actively engaged in opposing national origin data collection. One day after the hearing, another bill was introduced in the Public Health Committee, calling for detailed ethnic subgroup data collection in order to address health disparities. The bill was considered racist by many because whites were exempted from this ethnic subgroup data collection. Chinese immigrants in Connecticut quickly organized a group of physicians, statisticians and other concerned individuals to testify against the bill. I submitted a letter as well. From what I learned from social media, due to the large number of bills scheduled for hearings that day, people coming to advocate on behalf of this particular bill waited until midnight. One of the major arguments supporting ethnic data disaggregation is that immigrants from Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia came to United States as refugees because of war and political persecution. As a result, they endured traumas and hardships that affect their overall well-being. Advocates sincerely believe that ethnic and national origin disaggregation can address the health disparity. I feel very personally connected with these refugees who fled their homes because what they went through was very similar to what my family experienced. During the Cultural Revolution in China, my grandparents were sent to a labor camp for 10 years, leaving their three sons to grow up without their parents. My grandmother spent the rest of her life criticizing the communist government, and I was her captive audience. Even though I was born 10 years after the Cultural Revolution, these horrific images and stories were carved into my heart. I came to the U.S. as an international student; however, in my heart I am still that child whose family so desperately wanted to flee the country but failed to do so. When I passed the security check at U.S. customs, I felt like a burden had been lifted because the people who had perished could
finally rest in peace. Trauma can carry over for generations, and it leads to adverse health outcomes; I see these traumas manifested in my family. I have loved ones who have died by suicide or are disabled because of their mental illnesses. The claws of intergenerational trauma have a hold on my generation as well. However, ethnic data disaggregation is not the solution. National origin cannot and should not be used as a tool to identify any specific health need. For example, not every Cambodian immigrant is a refugee, and not every refugee develops trauma-related illnesses. This same logic applies to Chinese, Syrians, Cubans, Jews and other immigrants who were exposed to tremendous stress and hardship before they immigrated. Linking a specific ethnicity to a certain illness is very dangerous to that community. It attaches a label of “medical burden” to whole communities, and “healthy” people can begin shaming and avoiding people who are sick for weighing down the whole community. For people with mental health needs, health care providers conduct background screenings, and always ask for a detailed family history and personal history. If someone is a refugee or child of a refugee either from mainland China, Cambodia, or Rwanda, health care providers will know. People tell their needs and personal stories to their healthcare providers because there is always a basic level of trust between doctor and patient. Many advocates may overlook the fact that immigrants do not trust the government as much as native-born citizens. A national origin data collection program can cause a psychological burden. Government data collection is abusive and coercive because of the huge power the state wields over individuals. Many refugees fled home because of government oppression. Communities that have experienced brutality at the hands of their own country can feel betrayed if doctors are asking for private information on the government’s behalf. When feeling threatened, patients either skip the question if they can, or opt to skip the treatment appointment entirely. More importantly, dividing disease burden by national origin can cause grave long-term consequences, such as immigration restriction. When talking about public health, people tend to think it from a domestic policy perspective and overlook immigration policy. The mission of departments of public health on both the federal and state level is to reduce the medical burden on U.S. soil. Scholars and advocates focus on treatment for the sick and epidemic prevention by monitoring international travelers. The Department of Homeland Security also has an obligation to protect public health, which they have the sole right to enforce. They could determine “if a foreign national meets the health-related standards for admissibility.” Every immigrant who wants to obtain the status of permanent resident will have to go through a complex immigration physical exam,
MARA KHAYTER/the Justice
and many health conditions are render one “inadmissible.” For people with mental illnesses and trauma experience, their immigration physical exam can be very tough. Histories of self-harm or suicide attempts are considered a red flag for immigration. Additionally, having a history of substance use disorders is a deal breaker. If a person is taking any antidepressants or mood stabilizers, the doctor will immediately start to grill the person. I know this first-handed because I am a peer counselor for immigrants. I advised many people about their exams and visa interviews. During my own exam, I barely managed to defend myself. The assistants asked loaded questions about my health history and I summoned all my nerve to demand to know the legal ground of asking me, “Did you ever hurt anybody?” Even though I am a human rights activist, this question scared me. If I failed to convince them that I had no intention to hurt myself despite having a mood disorder, then I would have been rejected for a legal residency application. Immigration systems have the ability to strike down many people with various illnesses. I understand that the American immigration system prefers healthy individuals. However, this government-mandated data collection was not designed as a representative sample, and will not be carried out by professionals or community members. Therefore, the program will produce poor quality data that will not yield
reliable results about disease burden. With these flawed “disease burden by national origin” data, immigrants can be easily “ranked,” and some immigrants are bound to fall into the bottom category. The federal government can implement a stricter screening targeted at applicants from certain countries for public health concerns. It is entirely legal and not considered anti-immigration. Currently, the U.S. is having an immigration crisis, with President Donald Trump saying he welcomes immigrants from certain countries, like Norway, but not from some others. He made a hugely offensive statement about Haitians, that they “all have AIDS,” according to a Dec. 23, 2017 New York Times article. The President’s comments are especially risky because people with certain illnesses, such as AIDS, are indeed inadmissible to U.S. soil. The third Connecticut bill was introduced in the Judiciary Committee on March 20 to restrict ethnic data collection. The bill’s sponsor advocated on our behalf; however, the final legislative language was considered to legitimize the practice of dividing immigrants by place of birth. Hearing our concerns, the bill was withdrawn a day later. Most likely, none of the three bills will be made into law, and Chinese immigrants are considering this a victory. Finally, our voices were heard. Instead of being treated as data points to be studied, all we want is to be respected.
Condemn Facebook’s lax attitude toward user information theft Judah
weinerman chatterbox
With the exception of the extremely lucky or reclusive, most of us have ended up being tied up in the giant human tapestry known as Facebook at some point. The California-based tech company and the namesake social media platform it operates have become an almost indispensable component of our lives. From its humble origins in a Harvard dorm room, Facebook has grown into a bona-fide colossus in both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Previous generations may have exchanged phone numbers or mailing addresses in order to stay in touch, but ask anyone under the age of 25, and they’ll tell you to friend them on Facebook. According to a Feb. 5 Pew Research Center survey, over 68 percent of Americans use Facebook at least occasionally. That means nearly 214 million Americans have willingly surrendered their personal information to Facebook, whether they realize it or not. Every single morsel of information you provide or content you interact with is collected and analyzed by Facebook’s sophisticated algorithms and held onto indefinitely. Using this jumble of information, Facebook is able to piece together a sophisticated portrait of its users’ demographics, interests and opinions. Advertisers value Facebook so highly compared to other social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube, not only for its reach but for its incredible ability to
know exactly who its users are, making its users ripe for perfectly targeted advertisements. As harmless as this can sound at first brush, the optics of allowing a giant secretive corporation to know more about yourself than you do carries dangerous consequences, especially if that data is not carefully managed. If you want an example of how Facebook has failed its users, look no further than Cambridge Analytica. Founded in part by Steve Bannon, this conservative political consulting firm has found itself at the center of a recent debacle for Facebook. A March 17 New York Times article revealed that Cambridge Analytica had accessed the personal information of millions of American Facebook users without their permission. Using an academic personality quiz written by Cambridge professor Aleksandr Kogan as an entry point into Facebook users’ profiles, the firm violated Facebook’s terms of services by holding on to and selling off the data it gleaned. The stolen data was used to create political ads supporting the Donald Trump campaign targeted at users believed to be conservatives. Furthermore, Britain’s Channel Four obtained footage of Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix admitting that his company was fully willing to engage in illegal tactics like creating trumped-up bribery charges and sex-based sting operations to swing elections. Nix bragged to a potential client that his company was singlehandedly responsible for the Trump campaign’s digital operations and strategy, according to a March 19 Washington Post article. Facebook employees were aware of the data breach yet took no actions to stop it, as Cambridge Analytica was a trusted advertising partner, according to the same March 17 New York Times article. Billionaire conservative donor Robert Mercer had sponsored more than $15 million of advertisements for Cambridge Analytica, according to a March 20 Washington
Post article, and the social media titan would have been remiss to lose out on that revenue. This is far from the first time Facebook has put the bottom line over concern for its users’ safety and integrity, but this instance has proven far more troubling than previous failings. Fully aware that a company with a reputation for illegal and immoral behavior had hijacked the information of millions of people with a political goal in mind, Facebook stood idly by until a media firestorm forced its hand. Facebook quietly dropped Cambridge Analytica and other Mercer-backed political action committees as approved partners, and Mark Zuckerberg used his personal Facebook to offer a personal mea culpa for the company’s actions. Announcing immediate changes to how Facebook interacted with third-party tracking services and advertisers, Zuckerberg proudly proclaimed that “we have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you” and claimed that there “was a breach of trust between Kogan, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. But it was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it. We need to fix that.” However, Zuckerberg’s post and later damagecontrol comments by COO Sheryl Sandberg failed to address the root issue. Facebook’s business model cannot function without the company convincing its users to hand over as much of their personal information as they possibly can, then reaping a handsome profit by selling that information to the highest bidder. When questioned about the inherently questionable ethics of this model by the New York Times’ Kevin Roose in a March 21 interview, Zuckerberg’s responses were hollow and disingenuous. “The thing about the ad model that is really important, that aligns with our mission is that — our mission is to build a
The opinions expressed on this page are those of each article’s respective author and do not reflect the viewpoint of the Justice.
community for everyone in the world and to bring the world closer together,” Zuckerberg explained. How, exactly, is mindlessly selling off the information of private citizens remotely beneficial toward the cause of bringing the world closer together? One could argue that Facebook got off easy with Cambridge Analytica, as the firm’s limited reach and internal incompetence prevented it from utilizing the data it had collected to its fullest extent. If a more competent and malicious actor managed to access that same trove of data, the results could be catastrophic. Given the recent prevalence of Russian election interference, the idea of the Kremlin using Facebook to swing elections toward authoritarian and pro-Putin candidates is a real and frightening possibility. Facebook’s lax attitude toward user security and accountability goes far past the U.S. and arguably presents a much bigger issue internationally. If an authoritarian regime like Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey or Rodrigo Duterte’s Philippines goes looking for political opponents or “enemies of the state” to hunt down, Facebook could serve as an unwitting ally. If a two-bit firm like Cambridge Analytica could surmise the political leanings of millions of people from questionably obtained personal opinions, what’s to stop Russia or Iran from doing the same? As long as Zuckerberg and his board of directors fail to understand the risks that their unchecked data collection and storage poses to Facebook’s users and everyone around them, events like the Cambridge Analytica breach will keep happening. Realistically, counseling every single user to delete their account simply isn’t possible. However, until Zuckerberg and his company get their act together, we should treat every single interaction with Facebook with a great degree of caution. Be careful with your information, because Facebook won’t be.
THE JUSTICE ● Sports ● Tuesday, March 27, 2018
BASEBALL: Team loses its only game of the week
13
JUSTICE IS SERVED
CONTINUED FROM 16 Judges to five runs. Trinity attempted a comeback, with Koperniak and designated hitter Eric Thronson each batting singles, but the Judges prevented the Bantams from making it home. The Judges finished the game with a winning score of 5-1. After a weekend filled with upsand-downs, the Judges have a record of two wins and eight losses for the season. Seven games have been postponed so far, so the Baseball team
have ample time to make a comeback. With a team of strong underclassmen ready to prove themselves, the Judges might redeem themselves in the second half of the season. The Judges will next play at Amherst this afternoon. Following that, they will play at Wentworth Institute of Technology on April 2 and at Bowdoin College the following day. All remaining games after that will be against fellow UAA schools.
PRO SPORTS: Goff, Gurley and Donald hope to create a PRO SPORTS: Finals should dynasty in LA not be a Cavs-Warriors repeat
ANDREW BAXTER/the Justice
PLAYING WITH JACKS(ON): Brandeis athlete Jackson Kogan ’19 serves the ball against Colby Sawyer College on March 23.
CONTINUED FROM 16
of resigning of star Cornerback Trumaine Johnson, the Rams decided to avoid the problem and let Johnson walk. To fill the holes, the Rams authored stunning trades for stud Cornerbacks Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib from the Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos, respectively. Peters only adds to the youth revolution in the City of Angels as he led the NFL in interceptions in his rookie season, and has two Pro-Bowl and an AllPro selection by age 25. Finishing off the secondary, the Rams were able to retain starting Safety Lamarcus Joyner, who at only 27 years old, is one of the better Safeties in the NFL, and signed Cornerback Sam Shields.
Shields had been one of the NFL’s premier playmakers while with the Green Bay Packers yet suffered from significant concussions leading to his release. The Rams saw tremendous value in Shields and were able to sign him to an inexpensive deal. Other players such as wrecking ball, and superstar Ndamukong Suh, who now gives the Rams a defensive line to rival the fabled Fearsome Foursome of Rams teams past. Lastly, at the time of print, rumored talks could put Giants megastar Odell Beckham Jr. in Los Angeles, solidifying the Rams as a super team for the ages. Even with the acquisition of Beckham far from concrete, the Rams stand a chance to bring the Vince Lombardi trophy back to the hopeful city of angels.
CONTINUED FROM 16 postseason glory if his 8 seed Heat can upset the Raptors in round one. West: It is no secret that a lot of top talent of the NBA plays in the west, making the western conference playoffs arguably more exciting and meaningful. This year should be no exception. The Warriors have been a shoe in for the conference for the past couple of years, but this year things could be different. James Harden and the Rockets have been absolutely dominant all year long and have surely earned the 1 seed. They will face the Utah Jazz in
the first round. Golden State has not slouched though, they should still win at least 60 games and the second seed in the west. They will host a first round matchup against the Timberwolves. The middle four teams in the west are separated by only two games, so the last couple of weeks could change the order drastically, but here’s how it stands today. Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers are set to take on the Spurs in the first round. Even without the talents of Kawhi Leonard, the Greg Popovich and the spurs are still a dangerous team. Oklahoma City leads New Orleans by only half a game, so their seeding could change, but as it stands today,
they will square off in round one. Predictions: This season will end differently than the last three in that the Cavs and Warriors will not meet in the finals. James Harden and the Rockets will outlast the Warriors in seven games to make it to their first finals since 1995. On the eastern front, the Cavs will fall earlier than expected and the Blazers and Celtics will battle it out in the eastern conference finals, with the Celtics eventually gaining the upper hand. James Harden, Chris Paul and the Rockets will end the season victorious and will fly the championship banner in Houston.
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THE JUSTICE
● Sports ●
Tuesday, MARCH 27, 2018
15
TENNIS
jUDGES BY THE NUMBERS BASEBALL TEAM STATS
UAA STANDINGS
Runs Batted In
UAA Conference W L W NYU 0 0 13 Case 0 0 13 WashU 0 0 11 Emory 0 0 8 JUDGES 0 0 2
Overall L Pct. 1 .929 2 .867 7 .611 10 .444 8 .200
Dan Frey ’21 leads the team with six runs batted in. Player RBI Dan Frey 9 Issac Fossas 7 Mike Khoury 6 Victor Oppenheimer 6
Strikeouts Greg Tobin ’20 leads all pitchers with 24 strikeouts. Player Ks Greg Tobin 24 Bradley Bousquet 9 Kyle Shedden 8 Mason Newman 7
UPCOMING GAMES: Monday vs. Wentworth Institute of Tech. April 3 at Bowdoin College April 6 vs. Case Western
SOFTBALL UAA STANDINGS
TEAM STATS Runs Batted In
UAA Conference W L W Case 0 0 12 NYU 0 0 8 Emory 0 0 9 JUDGES 0 0 3 WashU 0 0 5
Keri Lehtonen ’19 has a teamhigh 10 runs batted in. Player RBI Keri Lehtonen 10 Jolie Fujita 7 Marissa DeLaurentis 5 Melissa Rothenberg 5
Overall L Pct. 2 .857 6 .571 7 .563 3 .500 5 .500
Strikeouts Scottie Todd ’20 has a teamhigh nine strikeouts on the hill. Player Ks UPCOMING GAMES: Scottie Todd 9 April 3rd vs. Suffolk College (double-header) Callie MacDonald 6 April 6th at Case Western (double-header) Sadie-Rose Apfel 4 April 7th at Case Western (double-header)
TRACK AND FIELD Results from the NCAA championships on March 9.
TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)
TOP FINISHERS (Men’s) 200-meter dash
RUNNER Irie Gourde
TIME 22.09
3000-meter run
RUNNER TIME Emily Bryson 9:39.99
ANDREW BAXTER/the Justice
DOWN IN TENNISEE: Lauren Bertsch ’21 has her eye on the ball during a match against Trinity College on March 24.
Judges nearly sweep all three weekend matches ■ The men’s and women’s tennis teams only lost one game against Colby Sawyer College and Trinity College. By Zach Kaufman JUSTICE EDITOR
The Brandeis men’s and women’s tennis teams had an absolutely dominant weekend, going a combined 23-1 in games against Trinity College and Colby Sawyer College.
UPCOMING MEETS: March 31 at Tufts Snowflake Invitational
TENNIS Updated season results.
TOP PERFORMERS (Men’s)
TOP PERFORMERS (Women’s)
MEN’S SINGLES David Aizenberg
RECORD 9-5
WOMEN’S SINGLES RECORD Lauren Bertsch 6-4
MEN’S DOUBLES RECORD Coramutla/Aizenberg 16-2
WOMEN’S DOUBLES RECORD Lehat/Zubrinsky 5-1
UPCOMING MEETS:
Men: Thursday at Babson College Women: Saturday vs. Tufts University
Men’s Team Judges 9, Colby Sawyer College 0 On Friday, the men’s team hosted Colby Sawyer College and made quick work of them, winning 9-0. Jackson Kogan ’19 and Tyler Ng ’19 opened with an 8-1 doubles victory over Matt Burke and Ross Kenney of Colby Sawyer. This win was followed by Nikhil Das ’21 and Rajan Vohra ’21 taking an 8-3 decision of their own over Andrew Peloquin and Alex Wright of Colby Sawyer. In the last doubles match of the afternoon, David Aizenberg ’20 and Anupreeth Coramutla ’21 fell behind 7-2 to Gustav Jigrup and Nick Mathieu of Colby Sawyer, but the teammates rallied to win the last six games of the match, winning 8-7. Kogan, Ng
and Aizenberg, along with Ben Wolfe ’20, Ethan Saal ’19 and Zach Cihlar ’19 all had singles wins, completing the sweep. Judges 6, Trinity College 0 On Saturday, the Judges hosted Trinity College, where they continued their dominant ways. The day opened with the same doubles teams. Aizenberg and Coramutla took the first match 8-4 over Rex Glickman and Courtland Boyle of Trinity. Das and Vohra followed them up by winning 8-5 against the Trinity doubles team of Chris Bilicic and Granville Kaynor. The last men’s doubles match of the day saw Kogan and Ng win 8-6 over Kyle Scheffers and Chris Caskin. There was only enough time for three of the usual six singles games, and the judges made each one count. Vohra had no problem with Caskin of Trinity College, winning every point of both sets en route to a combined 12-0 dominant win. Aizenberg was similarly successful against Scheffers, winning with ease. Kogan’s single game was the only blemish in an otherwise perfect weekend for the Brandeis men’s team. Kogan and Glickman exchanged 6-3 wins in the first two sets, leading to a third superset. It took a marathon super tiebreaker for Kogan to finally win the third set 13-11.
Women’s Team Judges 8, Trinity College 1 The women’s team continued the domination displayed by Brandeis tennis this weekend, defeating Trinity College 8-1 in their home opener. Lauren Bertsch ’21 and Keren Khromchenko ’19 opened up the scoring, defeating Krista Jiranek and Jillian Winer of Trinity 8-3. Michele Lehat ’19 and Rachel Zubrinsky ’21 followed this up with an 8-5 win of their own against Emily Curtis and Jane Weber. Haley Cohen ’18 and Olivia Leavitt ’19 capped the doubles domination off with an 8-6 win against Vanja Babunski and Julia Brogan of Trinity. In singles action, Trinity got its only point of the weekend when Babunki defeated Cohen 6-2, 6-4, but she was avenged by her other five singles teammates. Bertsch, Khromchenko, Lehat, Zubrinksy and Leavitt all won their respective singles matches. Both the men’s and women’s teams continue to be nationally recognized for their success, with both teams ranked nationally against other Division III schools — 19th and 20th respectfully. The men’s team will continue their season on Thursday when they take on Babson College. The women will have to wait until Saturday to try their hand against crosstown rival Tufts University.
PRO SPORTS BRIEF March Madness: Kansas, Michigan, Villanova and Loyola-Chicago have made it to the final four This past weekend, Final Four tickets were punched by college basketball’s best. Next week in San Antonio, Texas, the University of Michigan, Loyola University Chicago, Villanova University and the University of Kansas will face off with a chance at the national title. In what has been a chaotic and surprising tournament, three national powerhouses have reached the tourney’s final weekend. However, the presence of Loyola is a huge shock to the college basketball landscape. The team entered the postseason as the No. 11 seed in the South Region. They got off to a quick start pulling off an upset over the University of Miami, 64-62. Senior guard Donte Ingram hit a threepointer at the buzzer which capped the victory over the Hurricanes.
Ingram scored 13 points overall, to go along with seven rebounds. The last-second magic would continue for the Ramblers in the round of 32. In a battle with the No. 3 seeded University of Tennessee Volunteers, Loyola found itself in a similar contest to the one against Miami. Down by one point with a few seconds to play, junior guard Clayton Custer converted on a shot against difficult defense. With his man draped all over him, Custer lifted a jumper with 3.6 seconds left. The ball took an extremely friendly bounce off the rim, and then backboard, and somehow fell through to give Loyola a one-point lead that it would hold on to. By the time of Loyola’s upset, the top four seeds in the South Region had been eliminated, giving Loyola optimism going into the Sweet 16.
The squad was faced with another hot team, the University of Nevada. Nevada had been one of the most exciting teams in the tournament thanks to its twin junior forwards Caleb and Cody Martin. In a fastpaced contest, the Martins combined for 37 points in a game they almost won. Loyola battled back all night against an explosive opponent. Custer performed impressively again, scoring 15 points along with four assists and three steals. Once again, Loyola found itself in another tightly contested matchup. Junior guard Marques Townes was the hero this time, as he was the one with the ball in his hands in the game’s closing seconds. Holding on to a mere onepoint lead, Townes launched a threepointer that fell to the bottom of the net as the shot clock expired. Nevada
then hit a three, and Loyola walked away with the one-point victory. After the win against Nevada, Loyola rolled into the Elite Eight against Kansas State University. This was a unique moment in March Madness history, as it was the first Elite Eight that ever pitted a No. 11 seed against a No. 9 seed. However, unlike in previous games, Loyola did not allow its opponent to stay close, blowing the gates open as they won a decisive victory 78-62. Every game in the tournament thus far has featured a different star for the Ramblers, and senior guard Ben Richardson had his moment against Kansas State. Richardson exploded for a career-high 23 points and also recorded six rebounds and four assists in a game-high 36 minutes of action. Townes and Ingram
had 13 and 12 points, respectively. Loyola has become an internet sensation, obviously due its run in the tournament but also thanks to its team chaplain, 98-year-old Sister Jean. As the cameras have constantly shown, Sister Jean sits in a wheelchair next to Loyola’s bench cheering and applauding the team on. Pictures and videos of her have gone viral as the team has continued to succeed. Next up, Loyola will face off against Michigan in the Final Four. Michigan has been on its own impressive run, winning four games in the Big Dance after claiming the Big Ten Tournament title. The winner will play whoever wins the matchup between Villanova and Kansas. —Noah Hessdorf
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TENNIS DOMINATES COMPETITION The men’s and women’s tennis teams lost only one game in three matches this past weekend, p. 15.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Pro Sports Column
STANCED UP
NBA playoffs are on the horizon ■ The Houston Rockets
and the Toronto Raptors are in control of their respective conferences. By ZACH KAUFMAN Justice Editor
While the ground outside and the forecast over the coming weeks may not show it, we are officially in spring and with that comes the seasonal transition that sports fans everywhere are ready for. March Madness has left us with four battle hardened teams ready for their chance at glory. Baseball spring training is well on its way, with opening day right around the corner. The NBA regular season has been raging all winter long and teams have eight short games to make their final pushes before the playoffs. Here’s how the playoff picture has been shaping up for the NBA. East: For the past few seasons the Raptors have been a young, eager team looking to put the pieces together. This season, Kyle Lowry,
Waltham, Mass.
Demar Derozan and the rest of the squad have quietly been dominating the east. Lebron and the Cavaliers have been facing their own internal turmoil and drama. The Celtics have dealt with their fare share of injuries to newly acquired top players Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving. The Raptors quickly filled the void and have captured home field advantage for the eastern conference playoffs. The Celtics and Cavaliers follow them with the two and three seed, respectively, and are still dangerous teams with sincere finals aspirations. In the middle of the pack, the upstart 76ers and Pacers are set to face off in the first round as the fourth and fifth seeds respectively. The Wizards follow them at seed number 6 and will have the tumultuous task of facing the Cavaliers in round one. John Wall has returned to practice, so if he and Bradley Beal play well, it won’t be an easy win for the Cavs. Giannis Antetokounmpo has taken the NBA by storm, but his Bucks will face a tough test against a more complete Celtics team in round one. Dwyane Wade, likely in his last season, will have one more shot at
See PRO SPORTS, 13 ☛
Pro Sports Column
The Rams could be the NFL’s next powerhouse ■ The signing of
Ndamukong Suh adds to an already young and motivated core. By CAHLER FRUCHTMAN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
One must go all the way back to 1983 to find the last time a team from Los Angeles won the Super Bowl. Back to 1979 for the last time that team was the Rams. That might change, quickly. In the span of just a few short months, the Rams have gone from the basement to Super Bowl contenders, maybe even favorites. Arguably the most important step on this whirlwind revitalization came on Jan 12, 2017 as the Rams hired Sean McVay, a little known, yet incredibly promising Offensive Coordinator to be their Head Coach. For reference, McVay was 30 years old at the time of his hiring, making him the youngest Head Coach in NFL history. McVay entered a situation where the team had spent years at the bottom of the standings, they made a controversial relocation to Los Angeles, and they had a former number one pick at Quarterback who was playing like anything but the number one draft choice. That’s not to say the roster was devoid of talent, they just needed the right commander to bring the best out of them. Any discussion of the Rams roster has to start, and end with two of the best players on their respective sides of the ball on any team in the league, Todd Gurley and Aaron Donald. Gurley, the former Georgia standout and 10th overall pick, blossomed into one of the best ball carriers in the entire league under McVay, but that’s not to say his entire rise is due to the offensive guru. Gurley won Offensive Rookie of the year in 2015, as well as a Pro Bowl invitation in his first season, but this past season Gurley
reached new heights, culminating in the Offensive Player of the Year award. The season prior to Gurley being drafted, the Rams took a defensive tackle who rocketed up draft boards from the University of Pittsburgh with the 13th pick. Enter: Aaron Donald. Donald won Defensive Rookie of the year his first season, while also receiving an invitation to the Pro Bowl. Sensationally, Donald only improved on his successes, resulting in three consecutive first team All-Pro selections, and Defensive Player of the Year this past season. Those stars only offer part of the many layers this Rams team has. Jared Goff started just seven games his rookie season, showing only small glimpses as to why the Rams selected him first overall. During his time in Washington, McVay earned a reputation as a sort of Offensive savant, working wonders with Kirk Cousins, Washington’s Quarterback. By the end of his first season as Head Coach, McVay made his reputation seem conservative, taking an offense that finished last the previous season and turning it into the highest scoring unit in the NFL, the only time that has ever happened. McVay’s offense was led by none other than Goff, who turned in a sophomore effort to the tune of over 3,800 yards and 28 touchdowns to only seven interceptions, that put to rest any doubts about his ability or draft spot. He helped the Rams win their division, reach the wild card round, and helped his coach win Coach of the Year. The Rams incredible season came to a screeching halt at the hands of the Atlanta Falcons in the wild card round, making the offseason start a few weeks earlier than hoped. So far, the Rams have made the absolute best of those few weeks, turning in one of the more remarkable offseason performances. Faced with the task
See PRO SPORTS, 13 ☛
MICHELLE BANAYAN/Justice File Photo
CONNECTION: Max Hart ’16 connects on a Rhode Island College pitch and puts the ball in play during a game on March 31, 2016.
Brandeis beats Trinity, but loses two to ECSU ■ The Brandeis Baseball team had multiple games postponed due to the heavy snow. By ELIANA PADWA JUSTICE Editor
After a 1-6 start to the season, the Brandeis baseball team looked to turn things around this past week. They won one game, but lost two more, leaving their record at 2-8 Judges 0, ECSU 2 Unfortunately for the Baseball team, the Judges’ doubleheader against Eastern Connecticut State University on Saturday did not go as smoothly. The games were the Judges’ first trial against ECSU since 2003. The first of the two games was a classic pitchers’ duel, with pitcher Albert Gutierrez ’20 allowing only two runs on six hits. The ESCU Warriors were even more effective, however, with the Judges hitting only four singles over seven innings. The Judges’ rookies again dominated the team, with first-years hitting two of the four singles: Alex
Parrott ’21 and Luke Hall ’21 both hit, with O’ Leary managing the other two. Judges 5, ECSU 10 In the second game, Oppenheimer and Frey brought the Judges to two runs in the first inning, with Frey hitting a homerun. The promising start turned out to be a false promise, with the Judges losing their lead by the bottom of the second inning. The Warriors had three walks and a three-run homer by Alex Parkos which put ECSU in the lead, 6-2. The Judges attempted a comeback in the third inning, scoring three runs. Third-baseman Mike Khoury ’18 scored, as did Oppenheimer and Frey; Frey’s was a one-out double. However, the Judges could not get past five runs, with the Warriors allowing only two more hits over the next four innings. The Judges were unable to employ the same tactic, instead letting ECSU score four more times over the ensuing innings. The Warriors scored three times in the fourth inning and once more in the fifth, bringing the game to its final score of 10-5, Warriors. Judges 5, Trinity 1 After a rough start to the season, the
Brandeis Baseball team scored a win on Friday in the first of their three games this weekend, defeating the Trinity College Bantams with a score of 5-1. Greg Tobin ’20, the Judges’ lefthanded pitcher, carried the game, striking out nine Bantams and allowing only one run. First baseman Isaac Fossas ’21 helped the Judges in their first run of the game; Fossas scored shortstop Victor Oppenheimer ’20. Underclassmen continued to carry the game into the sixth inning, with Dan O’ Leary ’20 scoring center-fielder Dan Frey ’21 in a two-out single. In the second half of the inning, Bantams sophomore Matt Koperniak managed to get in a base hit, but Tobin limited the damage to the one run. The Judges truly shone in the seventh inning, putting up a twospot. Scott Ziegler ’21 scored an RBI single, and Frey’s fielder’s-choice RBI brought the game to 4-1 in favor of the Judges. The Bantams did not hit once in the seventh or eighth innings, letting the Judges carry their three-run lead into the ninth inning. Frey scored in the top of the ninth, bringing the
See BASEBALL, 13 ☛
Vol. LXX #21 Vol. LXX #2
Beauty and the
March 27, 2018
September 12, 2017
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Artwork: Aislyn Fair. Images: Yuran Shi/the Justice. Design: Andrew Baxter/the Justice.
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TUESDAY, THE JUSTICE March | Arts 27, |2018 TUESDAY, i Arts January i THE JUSTICE 31, 2017
Culture
Back in time with Southeast Asia Club By shoshi finkel
justice contributing writer
The Southeast Asia Club’s annual multicultural showcase was a wonderful celebration of exceptional talent and Brandeis idiosyncrasy. Beginning with a video sketch about the SEAC executive board traveling through time with a magical stuffed otter, the emcees (Jonah Nguyen ’21 and Abby Berkower ’20) and AYALA coordinators (Carmen Huang ’20, Alice Gong ’20, and Kathy Wong ’20) had the audience laughing and clapping at their antics, which were interspersed between the acts. A wellcurated mix of on-campus and guest performers showed the audience just how diverse and talented the nations of Southeast Asia are. Among the student performers were two dances coordinated by SEAC: a traditional Indonesian style of dance called Tari Punjari (choreographed by Jennifer Taufan ’20, and performed by Chris Calimlim ’19, Crystal Hariga ’21, Gianghi LeNguyen ’20, Allison Tien ’20 and Laura Wei ’20), and a modern dance group nicknamed N’SEAC (choreographed by Dong-Min Sung ’19, performed by Marcus Lee ’19, Charles Lee ’18, Elese Chen ’18, Mira Pomerantz ’18, Darrow Palast ’19, Calimlim, Tien, Jamie Soohoo ’18, Jennifer Sun ’18 and Cindy Ma ’18), who got the audience to start cheering and bopping along to familiar songs from the early 2000s, fitting the theme of the night, “Masa Lalu,” which means “the past” in Malay. Other student performances included: Flashback Filipino, a singing group comprised of Calimlim, Maia Reyes ’19 and Julie Ruiz ’19, who sang songs by Bruno Mars and Moira Dela Torre in English and Tagalog, and a traditional Indian Bhangra dance, which incorporated elements of modern dance and music (performed by Mrudula Gadgil ’18, Rebecca Shi ’18, Sravya Shankara ’20, Priya Koundinya ’20, Priya Iyengar ’21, Janaki Nair ’20, Pramoda Bapatla ’20, Pranav Varanasi ’18 and Micah Breiger ’18). Non-Brandeis performances included dances from Boston College’s Southeast Asian Student Association and UMass Lowell’s ProtoHype Dance Crew, as well as local New England dance-comedy troupe Rice Paddy Heroes. Perhaps the most exciting guest group was jrodtwins, a famous YouTube sibling duo that posts song covers and lifestyle videos. The brothers, Jason and Justin, played songs with guitar accompaniment in English, Korean, Vietnamese and Spanish (their “Despacito” cover was a big hit with the audience) and shared anecdotes about their experiences growing up
in an Asian-American family and their rise to internet stardom. AYALA is more than just a variety show. Since its beginning seven years ago, it has at its core been a charity event, originally raising money for the Ayala Foundation, which funds community engagement for Filipino youth among other causes. This year, SEAC chose to donate the proceeds of the night to Project HOPE, a healthcare organization that empowers communities around the world to learn and teach lasting beneficial health practices, with a focus on training health providers and protecting at-risk women and children. Many Southeast Asian countries have established lasting healthcare solutions with the help of Project HOPE. SEAC raised their funds by selling tickets to nonBrandeis audience members and selling raffle tickets for an Amazon Fire tablet. After the performances, there was a buffet of Vietnamese and Thai food, which was enjoyed by all. Part of what made AYALA so enjoyable was that all of the groups — both student and non-student — struck a perfect balance of showcasing their talent and having a blast with their friends onstage. The particular kinds of performances were also great conversation starters for everyone sitting around the cabaretstyle seating in Levin Ballroom that night, which shows that events of this nature are certainly suited to SEAC’s mission of raising awareness about Southeast Asian cultures and traditions.
Photos by HEATHER SCHILLER/the Justice
CULTURE CREATIVITY: Performers in Brandeis Bhangra explore their roots through an energetic dance routine.
FLASHBACK FILIPINO: Julie Ruiz ’19 sang songs by Bruno Mars and Moira Dela Torre along with fellow students Chris Calimlim ’19 and Maia Reyes ’19.
MASA LALU FUN: Students at AYALA raise awareness of Southeast Asian cultures and traditions.
film review
‘Homo Sapiens Agenda’ infiltrates theaters By Brianna cummings justice Staff writer
If you want a movie that makes you feel “all the feels,” go see “Love, Simon.” Based on the book “Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda” by Becky Albertalli, “Love, Simon” introduces the audience to Simon Spier (Nick Robinson), a high school senior with a great family and loyal friends. The only conflict in his life is that he is reluctant to come out of the closet — he has not found the right time, and he thinks it is unfair that members of the LGBTQ community have to come out at all simply because heterosexuality is seen as the default. The beginning of the movie shows viewers how being in the closet can affect one’s life. When other men make sexually suggestive comments about women
to Simon, the audience sees Simon’s discomfort and reluctance to respond. For LGBTQ+ viewers, scenes like this are all too familiar. For straight viewers, we wonder how many times we have made someone uncomfortable by making assumptions about their sexual preference. Simon finds a post on his school’s Tumblr page from an anonymous student who goes by the name Blue. Like Simon, Blue is gay and not ready to come out. The two begin emailing each other anonymously, and eventually develop romantic feelings for each other. Unfortunately, the emails fall into the wrong hands and Simon is blackmailed into helping someone mysterious date one of his friends. This film was exceptionally well-cast. Prior to this movie, I only knew Nick Robinson in his roles as a one-dimensional
teenage boy, such as Ryder in “Melissa and Joey” and Zach in “Jurassic World.” These characters are generic and devoid of personality; however, after seeing Robinson in “Love, Simon,” I see him as a bona fide actor. His portrayal of Simon was phenomenal. Robinson managed to make Simon charismatic, sociable and funny, but not too perfect. He has flaws and he does stupid things, like setting up his friend with the blackmailer, but Robinson portrays Simon in a very sympathetic way. Other standout performances included Natasha Rothwell as the cynical but hilarious drama teacher, Tony Hale as the quirky vice principal and Josh Duhamel as Simon’s father. Each of these characters provided comic relief, but Josh Duhamel gave the strongest and most complex performance. In the beginning
of the film, Simon’s dad casually makes homophobic jokes, and when he finds out about Simon’s sexuality, he seems shocked and almost disappointed. However, toward the end of the film, he reminds Simon that he will love him no matter what and even offers to join the dating app Grindr with him. There are many red herrings in this film. If you like mysteries and does not mind having the rug pulled out from under you, you’ll enjoy those red herrings. If you want the film to focus more on character development and the trials of being a closeted teenager, they will annoy you after a while. I am a part of the latter group because, in the end, all the red herrings did were make me focus on details and individuals who was not important. I would have loved to see more interactions between Simon and
his friend group. The movie does a good job developing Simon’s friend Abby (Alexandra Shipp) ,while his other friends, Leah (Katherine Langford) and Nick (Jorge Lendeborg), do not seem as well-rounded. Leah’s character, for example, may be disappointing to fans of the books, since Leah is a breakout character in print but dull in the film. The dialogue in this movie is well done. It does not undermine the intelligence of its audience, but because the dialogue marketed to teens is quick-witted and unpretentious. Overall, “Love, Simon” is a teen comedy that will resonate with many. Some will be able to relate to Simon’s struggle, while others will try to be more open minded when they discuss sexuality. With its well-crafted script and powerful performances, everyone will love “Love, Simon.”
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THE JUSTICE i TUESDAY, January 31, 2017 THE JUSTICE i artsi arts i Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Theater review
The UTC presents a Disney hairy tale By kent dinlenc justice Staff writer
This weekend, Brandeis’ Undergraduate Theater Collective presented the classic Disney musical “Beauty and the Beast,” directed by Maia Cataldo ’20. The show was a faithful production of the Alan Menken musical adapted from the 1991 animated film of the same name. The fantasy romance is based on the French fairy tale by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont and tells the story of Belle, a girl who is ostracized for her academic inclinations. She runs off into the woods to look for her father, who is imprisoned in a cursed castle. All of the castle’s inhabitants have been turned into household objects, unable to assume their human forms until their master, who has been transformed into a beast, finds true love. If I were to summarize the production in a word, it would be “unbalanced.” Despite the fact that the show was a fun time for all, there were uneven moments that were noticeably jarring. The actors performed dances wonderfully choreographed by Liora Lilienthal ’20 and Sophie Brill Weitz ’21, but with very light instrumentals that didn’t serve as a hearty backbone for the scene. The performers danced their hearts out, but the music was disturbed by the cacophonic stomping of at least 10 people onstage. Actors had either stunning singing
voices or engaging stage presences — rarely both. One standout who accomplished both in stride was Mendel Weintraub ’21, who played Lumiere, the passionate candlestick. Weintraub’s command of almost every scene was met with laughter and applause. Another was Ben Greene ’21 as Lefou. His animated antics and physical performance added a cartoonish humor that worked well within the show. His fairly good rendition of “Gaston,” as well as his chemistry with Liam Gladding ’21 as Gaston, was a definite bonus. Despite the musical being called “Beauty and the Beast,” I was not as interested in either titular character as I was in the supporting cast. Both Kait Polgar ’21 and Benjamin Steinberg ’18, who played the respective roles, sang tremendously, but did not command the stage like their fellow cast members. Their performances often felt wooden and dispassionate, though they usually improved when they could slightly lean on the supporting cast members. For example, Polgar’s duet with her “crazy” onstage mother, Kat Lawrence ’20, was very good — with ample support from Lawrence, the two showed great chemistry. Then there was Gladding as Gaston, which was purely fantastic casting. He could not have fit the role more perfectly; he had a booming voice and strength to spare, easily lifting up other actors to add dimension
BICEPS TO SPARE: Lefou sings Gaston’s praises and earns a ride on his shoulders.
music review
Photos by YURAN SHI/the Justice
PROVINCIAL LIFE: Belle (Kait Polgar ’21) desperately wishes to escape her dull town.
BE OUR GUEST: The furniture and other inanimate objects welcome Belle to the Beast’s enchanted castle. to the choreography and expand Greene’s range within set pieces. While Gladding excelled through dialogue, his singing fell a bit flat. Oddly enough, the household objects were more animated on stage than the human characters. Kudos to Weintraub’s furniture friends Anderson Stinson III ’21, Jess Cocomazi ’21, Julia Vinyard ’21, Vanessa Mark ’21 and Sophia Massidda ’20 as Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, Chip, Babette and Madame de la Grande Bouche, respectively. However, I understand that this production was open-cast, meaning their performers did not have to be directly involved with the Theater Arts department or the UTC. It’s admirable to produce a show like that, so I won’t hold the cast to any absurd standard. All of these performances were orchestrated under the influence of Cataldo, who did a pretty good job recreating the
animated film as director. A faithful recreation is always hard to pull off, but creative storytelling is required for your production to maintain its individuality. Cataldo used the space well and arranged a simple yet effective set with designer Aislyn Fair ’19. The costumes were also surprisingly faithful to the film and were appropriate to the story’s setting, thanks to costume designer Gabriela Stahl ’21. However, Cataldo could have made some scenes flow more naturally; the ending in particular was quite underwhelming. Was Gaston’s plummet from the castle roof really prompted by his surprise at seeing Belle? This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment leaves you no time to process how ridiculous it actually was; I felt this part was handled quite poorly. What proceeded was an awkward transformation of the Beast back into his human form. Rather than having the audience watch Steinberg
loudly remove his prosthetics with his back turned, there could have been a more theatrical transition — a flashing of lights or a mob, maybe the ensemble cast, ripping them off of him. Instead, the audience stared in a looming silence barely interrupted by faint instrumental music. I do have to note that there were several technical difficulties that may have altered my experience. At some points, actors’ mics were too soft; at others, too loud. I tend not to focus on them, but the technical difficulties were prevalent. These things are inevitable, so I don’t hold them against the cast and crew. Overall, I would say “Beauty and the Beast” was a fun time. The cast clearly enjoyed putting on the production, and audiences were not far behind with their support. —Editor’s note: Mendel Weintraub ’21 is a staff writer for the Justice.
This is ‘Why Amy Beach Matters’
By Josh rubenstein justice CONTRIBUTING writer
“You think the glass ceiling is shattered only to realize it’s just been cracked,” said musicologist Liane Curtis in her presentation “Why Amy Beach Matters” last Thursday, in the Women’s Studies Research Center. Amy Beach (18671947) was an American composer and pianist. Curtis, who earned her doctorate in musicology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is a resident scholar at the WSRC. What I come away with from Beach’s music and Curtis’ presentation about the woman herself is that Beach was defined by chapters. Curtis’ presentation was bookended by performances of Beach’s works by violinist Carol Cubberley and pianist Sandy Lin. Listening to Beach’s compositions “Romance” (1893, Op. 230) and “The Second Movement of the Violin Sonata” (1896, Op. 34) was a truly sublime experience. I identified and was struck by melodic and harmonic moments in her compositions that I rarely hear in more popular and widely known pieces written by the male musical masters who were, and still are, given more attention because of their gender. In both “Romance” and the second movement, a musical resolution did not mean peace and finality. As the
melody of the violin reached resolution, the piano would continue on, unsatisfied with the newfound tranquility. The resolution of one section built upon and evolved the melody, tonicizing to a new key to begin a new musical idea. While
As Curtis took us on a fascinating journey through the life of Amy Beach, I was struck by how she was treated as “less-than” by her family and the musical scholars she came in contact with despite the fact that she was clearly one
her live performances and asked her to focus instead on composition. Curtis pointed out that this could be viewed as his attempt, as her husband, to keep her out of the performative spotlight and, by extension, away from the leerCLEMENTS PARK/the Justice
MUSICAL RE-EDUCATION: Resident scholar Dr. Liane Curtis gave a fascinating presentation about the late composer Amy Beach.
listening, I got the sense over and over again that, for Beach, chapters in life do not mean the end; they morph and transition to be a part of a new moment.
of the most naturally, or “freakishly,” as Curtis put it, talented and musically inclined human beings of her day. She was married to Dr. H.A. Beach, who restricted
ing eyes of other men. This was a double-edged sword for Beach. She loved performing but knew that as a composer her husband’s connections with the sheet music
publishers would be an invaluable asset. By the time her husband died, Beach and her compositions were an international sensation. It was because of this that she kept her husband’s last name, but in a proto-feminist move changed the creditson her sheet music from “Mrs. H.A. Beach” to simply “Amy Beach.” The crux of Curtis’ presentation was that even though Amy Beach was one of the most famous and influential composers of her day, her gender stopped her from reaching the level of influence and fame of many of her male contemporaries and predecessors. 2017 marked the 150th anniversary of Beach’s birth. Now, in 2018, we here at Brandeis celebrate the 100th anniversary of composer Leonard Bernstein’s birth. Without discounting the talent and influence of Bernstein, one has to question how gender plays into history and who is remembered and celebrated. The good news is that our modern sensibility when it comes to art, politics and the professional world in general is beginning to reach beyond historically typical boundaries. We still have a long way to go in making sure that everyone’s voice is heard. However, Beach taught us that you should not let how society views you, whether it be because of your race, gender or social class, stop you from pursuing your passions.
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TUESDAY, march 27, 2018 | Arts | THE JUSTIce
INTERVIEW
Brandeis TALKS
wf
Which popular trend or fad do you not understand?
Maia Cataldo ’20 Photo Courtesy of Maia Cataldo ’20
This week, justArts interviewed Maia Cataldo ’20, who directed this season’s open-cast musical,“Beauty and the Beast.”
Alexander Behr ’21 “People just keeping up Snapchat streaks, but all they do is just send a picture that says ‘streaks’ on it and they keep up like 500 of those.”
justArts: What past experience do you have directing?
TOVA WEINBERGER/the Justice
CROSSWORD
Alissa Fagin ’20 “I don’t really get flipping water bottles.”
Avi Hirshbein ’19 “Mumble rappers, the new wave of rappers that just mumble. Like Migos, but Migos is actually good, but that style.”
Mo Lloyd ’20 “Dabbing. I think it’s the most ridiculous thing and I don’t fully understand like when it’s used or why its used.” —Compiled and photographed by Yvette Sei/the Justice
STAFF’S Top Ten
YVETTE SEI/the Justice
Top 10 Procrastination Techniques By AMBER MILES justice EDITOR
Anyone can procrastinate with Netflix, but it’s fun to be creative with it. Here are some of my favorites: 1. Cleaning the oven
2. Looking up spoilers for TV shows you don’t even watch 3. Arranging all of your writing utensils by color 4. Teaching yourself HTML 5. Envisioning dramatic music videos in your head 6. Baking cookies with only half the ingredients (who needs flour, anyway?) 7. Experimenting with resume formats 8. Cafe hopping 9. Laundry 10. Reading tweets you disagree with and shaking your head in righteous indignation
ACROSS 1 M.B.T.A. locales 5 Golf hazard 9 Corp. money manager 12 Genre for many episodes of “The Simpsons” 14 Modern-day “Carpe Diem” 15 Sarcastic laugh syllable 16 #1 song 18 W.W.E. wrestler Flair 19 Agcy. issuance 20 Like many a wool sweater 21 ____ monster 22 God of war 24 Words at the altar 25 French ladies, for short 27 Happen, slangily 29 “That was no joke!” 33 “Gotcha”, to a hippie 34 Yellow road sign ... or an apt warning for solving this puzzle 35 Hockey great Bobby 37 New Deal org. 39 “Mayor of Simpleton” Britpop band 40 Nickname for a young Darth Vader 41 Question often asked while hungover 44 Author Auel 46 Style of speech 47 Neil Young hit 50 Jerk 51 Scrooge’s cry 53 Actress Kunis of “Black Swan” 54 Sci-fi classic by Philip K. Dick 56 Division of Islam 58 “Just kidding!” 59 “The Matrix” hero 60 “Thinking back on it now...” 63 Result of getting hot in a bed? 64 Commuter _____ 65 Start-up costs 66 Has too much, for short 67 Let off some steam 68 Fencing sword DOWN 1 Enter and exit, perhaps 2 Archery (Fr.) 3 Introductory drawing class 4 Heading out to sea 5 _____ Mary 6 Like some muscles 7 Tavern order 8 ____ favor 9 Dating site where every profile has a mission statement? 10 Too big to _____ 11 Black and white killer 12 One who’s all skin and bones 13 “Don’t be _____!” 17 Condition for TV’s Monk 21 Group preceding the Millennials 23 Turf
Maia Catalado: When I was a senior in high school, I directed a black box show, “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds,” and I work at a ... summer school for the performing arts. I’ve directed a couple of straight plays through that. So this is my fourth play that I’ve directed, but my first musical. JA: How is that different for you as a director? MC: It feels as though I’m directing three shows at once because there’s the music component, there’s the choreography component and then there’s the blocking and acting component. So, it’s a bit of a challenge to balance those. JA: How did you get involved in “Beauty and the Beast”? MC: I just decided to do it on a whim, but it turned out to be a good thing! JA: What was different about directing an open-cast musical?
CROSSWORD COURTESY OF EVAN MAHNKEN
25 1941 Frank Capra film 26 Novelist Proust 28 Aware of 30 Tex-____ 31 Quaint lodging 32 _____ Friday’s 35 Test at Hogwarts 36 Greek letter used as a symbol for density 38 Spanish or Latin 101 word 42 Texted words of concern 43 Congenital 45 Nav. rank 48 Hilo hello 49 Bumppo of the Leatherstocking Tales 52 Cape ____ 54 “Render _____ Caesar...” 55 Necklace part 56 Something guarded in soccer 57 “The jig _____!” 60 Hip-hop producer Gotti 61 Scottish refusal 62 Common mineral suffix
MC: Open-cast is really special because it is a place for anybody and everybody to come and be a part of something and work toward one unified goal together that they may not have ever done before. ... It’s not so much about directing the best possible musical you absolutely can but more about making sure that everybody is having fun and everybody is included. JA: How did that change how you felt about directing? MC: It’s definitely very different. Instead of focusing on the relationships between actors and making sure that the play itself is reading to the audience, it’s more about, “How can I get as many people … as possible onstage at the same time?” So it’s different in that regard but it’s not better or worse—it’s just a different kind of approach to directing.
SOLUTION COURTESY OF EVAN MAHNKEN
JA: What was the most rewarding part of the production process? MC: The most rewarding part of the process would be … at the end when [the actors] take their bows and they’re so proud of what they’ve done, and they’re so excited by the product that they have created together out of thin air. And because it’s open cast, they’re really involved in every single aspect of it ... so they feel really tied to the project. ... It feels really good knowing that I helped create that.
SUDOKU INSTRUCTIONS: Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each small 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.
Solution to last issue’s sudoku
Puzzle courtesy of www.sudokuoftheday.com
JA: Is there anything you personally did with the show of which you’re especially proud? MC: I think the best thing I did was create a concept that was: We’re telling a story. Everyone knows the story of “Beauty and the Beast,” it’s the “tale as old as time.” We put a little story book on stage and in the beginning there’s a horde of children coming to listen to the narrator tell this story. They put on their costumes and embody the piece, so it allows for the costumes to be a little more eclectic, it allows for the set to be more [imaginative], and that way it’s a little bit easier to do technically and it’s also more fun and a little bit different than your generic “Beauty and the Beast.”
—Maya Zanger-Nadis
Published on Mar 27, 2018
Published on Mar 27, 2018
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