SEPT. 22, 2020
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NEWS: UO NAMES NEW TITLE IX COORDINATOR P. 3
A&C: ‘THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME’ MOVIE REVIEW P. 6
OPINION: SPORTS OPTOUTS ARE NECESSARY P. 8 T U E S D AY, S E P T E M B E R 2 2 , 2 0 2 0
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NEWS
New Title XI coordinator and chief civil rights officer to start Oct. 1
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VOL. 122, ISSUE NO. 8
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ON THE COVER
Cows stand in a field filled with smoke in Mabel, Ore. on Sep. 16, 2020. The Holiday Farm Fire, one of the largest current wildfires in Oregon, began on Sep. 7, 2020 and has burned through multiple Oregon cities in over one week. The fire is still burning through Lane County, Ore. on Sep. 16, 2020. (Maddie Knight/Emerald)
A University of Oregon hiring committee selected Nicole Commissiong as the university’s next associate vice president, chief civil rights officer and Title IX Coordinator. According to UO’s Title IX website, “Title IX is a federal statute guaranteeing equal access and opportunity in all higher education programs and activities.” Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, which most often appears in the form of harassment. Chief Human Resources Officer Mark Schmelz chaired the 13-person hiring committee, according to an Around the O article. The committee included faculty, staff, students and union representatives, Schmelz said. UO organized the large committee due to the position’s key role on campus, he said. Members had access to recorded candidate presentations and had opportunities to provide input. The committee members also identified qualifications for the new position, chose candidates for virtual campus visits and provided final feedback to UO President Michael Schill after the interview sessions, Schmelz said. He also said that during the selection process Commissiong demonstrated an understanding of the technical and policy-related aspects of the job. “She also recognizes the power of partnership with other campus units involved in the work and the human element that is central to the work and its impact on those who are involved in its
(Maisie Plew/Emerald) processes, both complainants and respondents,” he said. “I’m confident she will ensure the office’s processes are accessible, understandable and approachable to those in need.” Commissiong first came to UO as an undergrad in 1993, and she has worked as an assistant dean at UO’s Law School since 2009. Comissiong has served as a deputy Title IX coordinator and appeals officer, according to an email from Schill, where she worked closely with the Office of Investigations and Civil Rights Compliance. Soon, she’ll be leading the office. In preparation, Commissiong has been wrapping up work in the law school while organizing virtual meetings with people she will soon be working with. Commissiong does not have specific plans for when she assumes the position on Oct. 1. She wants to consult others and better understand the role first. “I don’t think that it would be fair for me to say, ‘I want to change this now,’” Commissiong said. “I want to be in the role and live it with people and talk with people and get input before suggesting where we should be making changes.” Commissiong said she will work with partners across campus to continue assessing resources and ensure all students have a good experience at the university. “It’s going to be important for us to continue to provide resources specifically to students who are filing complaints and equally as important for us to provide resources for students who are responding to complaints,”
she said. “Complainants and respondents: they’re all of our students and we need to support all students.” ASUO Communications Director Sierra Goerlich hopes to see Commissiong consider all students’ thoughts and opinions on university-wide decisions. “I hope to see more open communication with their position and the student body so that there is complete transparency and that students’ voices are being considered,” Goerlich said. Commissiong has noticed fewer people around the law school lately, she said, and she is concerned about student isolation during the pandemic. Mental health resources will be important for student success this year, she said. “Even if it’s not Title IX specific, supporting students and making sure those resources are in place is going to be important,” she said. Goerlich thinks UO needs to be more vocal about its Title IX-related resources. “The Office of Student Advocacy has been doing a great job promoting resources for students recently,” Goerlich said, “and I hope to see more of this from UO to ensure that students are fully aware of all resources available to them.” Commissiong said she is excited to assume the position and work alongside various groups of people at UO. “There’s a really great group of people on our campus who do this work and care deeply,” Commissiong said, “and so I’m excited to have the opportunity to work with them on making our campus more welcoming and inclusive.”
GOV. BROWN HONORS RBG: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown ordered Aug. 18 that flags at state public institutions fly at half-staff, following Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg created a landscape and set the legal framework for women’s equality in this country,” Brown wrote on Aug. 19, “case by case, brick by brick.” Flags will remain at half-staff until Ginsburg’s internment at the Arlington National Cemetery. –DUNCAN BAUMGARTEN 6TH ANNUAL SAVE THE BEE 5K GOES VIRTUAL: The Save the Bee 5K run will go virtual this year. From Sept. 18-21, participants can run a 5K, 10K, or half marathon wherever they choose. People can also elect to skip, walk, or even jump the route. This event is held annually in Veneta, Oregon to bring awareness to the rise of honey bee colony death rates over the last 10 years. –MOJO HILL
(Emerald Archives)
DANCING THROUGH COVID-19: Dancers around Oregon continue their art despite the pandemic. Katherine Disenhof of Portland’s Northwest Dance Project created Dancing Alone Together, an online hub for virtual classes. Oregon Ballet Theater is performing in the streets of Portland and other public spaces rather than traditional theaters. And a group of Pacific Northwest dancers formed the Fermata Ballet Collective, based in Eugene and Portland, to support dancers through layoffs and cancellations caused by COVID-19. – SARAH-MAE MCCULLOUGH
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COVER
‘NOT OUT OF THE WOODS YET’
OREGON’S WILDFIRES BY JOANNA MANN
Tents are set up in the Masonic Lodge parking lot in Eugene, Ore., covering various items for community members who were displaced from their homes due to the wildfires. The Holiday Farm Fire, one of the largest current wildfires in Oregon, began on Sep. 7, 2020 and has burned through multiple Oregon cities in over one week. The fire is still burning through Lane County, Ore. on Sep. 15, 2020. (Kevin Wang/Emerald)
Recent University of Oregon graduate Sophia Santana and her aunt were cruising through Phoenix, Oregon, on a motorcycle, oblivious that this would be the last time they’d see the town as they’d always known it. The next day, as the Alameda Fire consumed the southern Oregon town, her aunt decided to evacuate early, leaving behind her home that would soon be consumed by the fire. “The next thing we knew, the whole town was on fire,” Santana said. “I can’t even imagine it, and I saw it.” Over 30 fires have burned in Oregon since Monday, Sept. 7, a number that’s fallen to 11 active fires as of
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press time. The fires displaced tens of thousands of people and destroyed approximately one million acres of land, according to a report from the Oregon Office of Emergency Management. Some of the largest fires include the Holiday Farm Fire in Lane County, the Riverside and Beachie Creek fires in Salem, the Archie Creek Fire in Roseburg and the Alameda and South Obenchain fires in Medford. While some of the fires are under control, the Holiday Farm Fire is still only 14% contained, about two weeks after it ignited. A fire is contained once a control line has been completed around a fire, dividing the black that is burning and the green that
could potentially burn. Wildfires are not uncommon in Oregon, but this is the first time in several generations that the state has seen so many rip through with such devastating effects, said Alan Dickman, an associate biology professor at UO who studies forest ecology. He attributes the fires to low humidity, a hot, dry summer and extreme east winds — the perfect conditions for wildfires of this magnitude to spread. “It just blew up Monday night,” Dickman said of the Holiday Farm Fire. “It just blew up.” Santana believes fires in the Ashland area have become increasingly common and more extreme in
COVER the last few years due to rising temperatures, but she and her family still did not expect the fire to consume her aunt’s home until it had already happened. “We were hearing all these rumors about what was burning, but we really just had no idea,” Santana said. “There was so much misinformation going on.”
“WE WERE HEARING ALL THESE RUMORS ABOUT WHAT WAS BURNING, BUT WE REALLY JUST HAD NO IDEA.” SOPHIA SANTANA Recent University of Oregon graduate who lost her home to the Alameda Fire
Luckily, her aunt was able to save her trailer home, so the family is living there while taking care of Santana’s 86-year-old great uncle, who is blind and nearly deaf. It’s a difficult situation for all of them, Santana said, but her family is in a much better position than some of the other victims. Over half of the families in the Phoenix-Talent school district have been displaced or lost their homes, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting, and many of them are Spanish-speaking and lack a strong grip on English. In effect, they are having a hard time getting connected with resources, so Santana has been volunteering to help translate for those disproportionately affected by the fires. “It’s a very conservative area, so even under the circumstances, there’s a lot of people who are like, ‘Well, you should’ve learned English before you came here,’” Santana said. “Even under the weight of such an unbelievable disaster, it’s still such a toxic, angry environment in a lot of ways, and it’s very frustrating.” Lucy Brossard, the bilingual executive assistant of academics in the Phoenix-Talent school district, said that it has been an all-out effort to make Latinx families feel safe enough to seek help if they need it. “We’ve just been out there dispelling rumors and making people feel comfortable that if they access one of our donation centers from our school district, it’s an absolutely, completely safe environment,” Brossard said. “I would rather them be at the Expo than
living in their cars in the south Walmart parking lot right now.” Brossard said that when she first visited the Expo, an evacuation center for those fleeing the Alameda Fire, she noticed that there were few, if any, Spanish speakers. After putting the word out that the Expo needed a bilingual, bicultural staff, she saw a drastic increase in the number of Latinx families that stayed there. “We now have bilingual staff in every shift at the Expo so they at least can see someone who can speak their language and not have that barrier anymore,” Brossard said. “We’ve made leaps and bounds as a Latino community to step in and fill the gaps that are needed for services.” On Sept. 16, Lane County Fairgrounds became a resource center for those fleeing the Holiday Farm Fire. The center offered services such as property information, trauma-informed counseling, medical supplies, relief from smoke and overnight shelter for both people and livestock. “It’s kind of a one-stop shop for all those things,” District 5 Commissioner Heather Buch said. She also said most people coming in for help were evacuees from the McKenzie Farm and Blue River areas. “They need their immediate needs met, which is housing,” Buch said. “And then a lot of them just want to know if their place is still there. So we’re trying to provide that information as fast as possible.” What sets these wildfires apart from others is the effect they have had on people, Dickman, the forest ecologist, said. Because there are more people living and doing things out in the forest, they are not only causing more fires but are also present to suffer the consequences. “We did have warnings for high winds and fire, so it wasn’t like we didn’t know it could happen. It’s hard to point fingers and blame,” Dickman said. “In hindsight, maybe if we had shut down power lines in those areas it might’ve helped. But when the conditions are like that, the fire just gets wild.” Many people, including U.S. President Donald Trump, blame these out-of-control fires on poor forest management and fire suppression. But Dickman said that while fire suppression may have been a factor on the east side of the Cascades, it probably did not play a big role in the Holiday Farm Fire in Lane County. Fire suppression is when fires are snuffed out immediately, causing forests and grasslands to become overgrown. As a result, when fires escape fire suppression, they burn up all that overgrown vegetation and become more destructive. “The question always is: Is it climate change? And of course it could well be,” Dickman said. “It’s consistent with what climatologists say about more extreme weather. The forest on the west side typically burns infrequently, but not like this.” Oregon firefighters have been working each day, fighting the fires that have burned down their own homes and the homes of their friends and families, according to Clementine Johnson, a firefighter who grew up in the McKenzie Bridge area. Her first fire season has been more personal than she ever expected it to be. “I haven’t fought fires in Oregon yet, and since it’s a little bit closer
to home, it might be harder to do,” Johnson said. “It’s hard keeping an objective with it and not getting too caught up in emotions.” Johnson fought her first fire in California earlier this summer and just returned from a month-long firefighting project in Colorado. Now, she is in Salem helping contain the Riverside Fire by digging lines and mopping up, which means digging through ash and putting out flames in hot roots. Dickman said there could be new ignitions, as conditions are still very dry and lightning is expected to strike. This fire will likely burn and smolder into the winter, he said, but when the rainy season starts up again, things will die down. “We’re hoping that west winds make it a little better, but it’s probably going to be slow,” Dickman said. “We’re not out of the woods yet, so to speak.”
A volunteer helps direct a donor to other volunteers who will help unload the items needed for those displaced by the wildfires in Oregon. The Holiday Farm Fire, one of the largest current wildfires in Oregon, began on Sep. 7, 2020 and has burned through multiple Oregon cities in over one week. The fire is still burning through Lane County, Ore. on Sep. 15, 2020. (Kevin Wang/Emerald)
NUMBER OF WILDFIRES: 28 HIGHEST RECORDED AQI: 501 NUMBER OF ACRES BURNED: ABOUT 1 MILLION NUMBER OF OREGONIANS EVACUATED: ABOUT 40,000
A sign marks Oregon’s fire danger level as “Extreme.” The Holiday Farm Fire, one of the largest current wildfires in Oregon, began on Sep. 7, 2020 and has burned through multiple Oregon cities in over one week. The fire is still burning through Lane County, Ore. on Sep. 16, 2020. (Maddie Knight/Emerald)
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A&C
A gruesome, whitewashed tale:
‘The Devil All the Time’ BY AUDREY KALMAN If what the world needs right now is an intensely brutal, violent and disturbing film, then director Antonio Campos just hit the nail on the head. It is genuinely difficult to even begin processing the devastating plotlines of “The Devil All the Time,” a new Netflix film that premiered Sept. 16. Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland and Bill Skarsgard star in this turbulent tale of tragedy, and they and their co-stars all deliver noteworthy performances. It is a fine film in many ways, but the whitewashed depiction of intergenerational trauma is both inaccurate and severely tonedeaf. Campos’ film is oriented around teenager Arvin Russell (Holland). He lives in Coal Creek, West Virginia with his grandmother, uncle and adopted sister Lenora. He and Lenora share not only a house and a strong bond but also the trauma of being orphaned because of especially tragic deaths. Violence is the first throughline in this movie. Religion is the second. Arvin’s late father, Willard Russel (Skarsgard), constructed a “prayer log” where he prayed regularly and vehemently, encouraging Arvin to do the same. The movie comes back to the location of this prayer log multiple times as the site of several deaths. In the characters’ lives, religion is not a saving grace, but instead a catalyst for the unholy. Another instance of this is Lenora’s life. She is devout and visits her mother’s grave daily after school. While this sacred routine seems to have a stabilizing effect on her, it subtly becomes cataclysmic. The plotline of religion serves as a harrowing reminder of how something meant to bring people together can instead tear them apart. There is a parallel storyline
about a murderous couple in Ohio, which also aligns with the violence theme. The couple ends up picking up Arvin from the side of the road and briefly giving him a ride, but then the three part ways. While the storylines are supposed to be intertwined, the connections among characters are not quite significant enough, and there is little to no meaning attached to them. At best, the movie is an interesting story, albeit a dark and gruesome one. It would not be surprising for “The Devil All the Time” to be nominated for an Oscar or two. It is well shot and well acted, and, if you can stomach the violence, you can get lost in the suspense. However, there is an overarching disjointedness to the movie. It begins in 1957. This is just two years after both the murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi and the protest of Rosa Parks in Alabama. These events were both central to the early years of the Civil Rights Movement, and were followed by a succession of other seminal developments in the years to come — the Little Rock Nine in 1957, the Greensboro Sit-In in 1960, the Freedom Rides in 1961, the March on Washington in 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to name a few. After mentioning none of these events, the movie cuts to the summer of 1965. This would be only months after the assassination of Malcolm X. It is shocking that, here in 2020, a movie was made about life in the South in the 1950s and 1960s that does not mention or portray a single Black person. The portrayal of intergenerational trauma is told with White men at the center. This is not necessarily invalid, but it does beg the question: Is this really a story that needs to be told right now?
The lobby of the theater is decorated with old movie posters and antique furniture. Bijou Art Cinemas, a former church from 1925, is now a movie theater in showing mostly indie dramas and documentaries in Eugene, Ore. on Feb. 22, 2020. (Maddie Knight/Emerald) PA G E 6
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OPINION
OPT-OUTS ARE A NECESSARY PART OF PAC12 ATHLETES’ PROTECTION BY BAZIL STERLING In an unsurprising turn of events, postponing the Pac-12 football season has led notable University of Oregon athletes to opt out of playing this year. Gridiron stars like Penei Sewell, Thomas Graham Jr. and Deommodore Lenoir have chosen to forgo their amateur eligibility and have declared for the 2021 NFL Draft. A return to Pac-12 conference play is not currently guaranteed, and at best its future is riddled with imposing obstacles. In the midst of this uncertainty, drafteligible players with a chance of a professional career have several factors to consider when deciding whether to continue at the collegiate level or go pro. If a player, like Penei Sewell, is likely to be a high selection in the upcoming draft, risking a careeraltering injury and future income for an abnormal season is likely less than favorable. The choice is also completely understandable for veteran players such as Graham Jr. and Lenoir, as the pair has 66 consecutive starts between them. As a passionate Oregon football fan, it truly saddens me to see these UO icons leave the nest, but I would likely make the same decision in their position. Granted, I never quite had a chance to make a D-1 roster, but it should be easy for observers to understand the reasoning behind their decisions. Playing a contact sport during a global pandemic alone is a deterrent. Risking one’s career prospects without financial compensation on top of that is not particularly appealing, especially if the player is a veteran that may
Ducks cornerback Thomas Graham Jr. (4) warms up. Oregon Ducks football takes on the Montana Grizzlies at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore. on Sept. 14, 2019. (Emerald Archives)
not have anything more to prove to scouts and fans at the collegiate level. The longer the Pac-12 delays setting a start date for the 2020-21 season, the more players throughout the league will opt-out of the season. Nonetheless, the conference should not attempt to kick off the season until the proper protocols are in place. Draft eligible players have been given an opportunity to choose their path, and no one should be shamed for choosing to prioritize a
potential professional career. On a different note, the lack of returning veteran players on Pac-12 rosters provides underclassmen players with an opportunity for playing time that they may not have otherwise received with upperclassmen ahead on the depth chart. If all Pac-12 players chose to stay and take advantage of their delayed year of eligibility, talented young players on the roster would likely transfer for the opportunity to play at another university, leaving
major holes in Pac-12 programs in years to come. It is challenging to ascertain the ripple effect of a postponed season. But it is not challenging to support all current and former Ducks and their choices. It is important to look for benefits within a horrible situation, but it is a horrible situation that could be made worse by risking lives. Opt-outs are an unfortunate part of this necessary postponement, but it is the price the Pac-12 must pay to protect its community members.
Ducks offensive lineman Penei Sewell (58) holds up his championship shirt as confetti goes off. Oregon Ducks football takes on Wisconsin for the 106th Rose Bowl Game at Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, Calif. on Jan. 1, 2020. (Maddie Knight/Emerald)
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College students: hey!
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