GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD SINCE 1920 thehoya.com
Georgetown University • Washington, D.C. Vol. 96, No. 6, © 2014
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2014
TAC GROUNDBREAKING
Donors, former stars, current team and recruits honor John Thompson Jr.
COMMENTARY Efforts to pacify noisy students with lollipops at night is misguided.
SPORTS, A10
OPINION, A3
DIS-O SNAG Under-21 seniors were shut out of an event billed as 18-plus.
ELECT HER Women gathered for a conference on seeking campus leadership roles.
NEWS, A4
NEWS, A5
13 Professors Boycott Milzman Pleads Guilty Israeli Universities Suzanne Monyak Hoya Staff Writer
Katherine Richardson Hoya Staff Writer
After receiving 13 professors’ signatures, Georgetown has become the most-represented university involved in the American Studies Association’s boycott of Israeli academic institutions since the petition’s creation last month. Georgetown professors who signed the boycott petition include Center for Contemporary Arab Studies Director Osama Abi-Mershed, Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for MuslimChristian Understanding John Esposito, Yvonne Haddad and Judith Tucker, among other signatories. The boycott is a part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, which aims to aid Palestinian civil society by increasing economic and political pressure on Israel. The academic petition came as a response to recent turmoil regarding the Israeli military occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Columbia University, New York University and the University of California at Berkeley follow Georgetown in representation, with 11, nine and nine signatures, respectively. “Israeli academic institutions function as a central part of a system that has denied Palestinians their basic rights. Palestinian students face ongoing discrimination, including the suppression of Palestinian cultural events, and there is sanctioning and ongoing surveillance of Palestinian students and faculty who protest Israeli policies,” ASA’s website states. The petition’s signatories pledge that they will not publish in Israeli academic journals, teach at Israeli institutions, attend conferences at Israeli universities or work on any projects with Israeli academic institutions. Haddad said she signed the petition in order to expand universal academic freedom and push for peace in the region. “I signed it because the war was promoted as Israel defending itself when in fact it was defending the longest occupation and degradation of the Palestinian population. I signed it in the hope that it would bring pressure on Israeli institutions in order to provide space for academ-
COURTESY GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
SFS professor Yvonne Haddad, who signed the Israel boycott. ic freedom for Israeli and Palestinian academics who are not allowed to deviate from the hasbara [public diplomacy] of the state,” Haddad wrote in an email. “[The petition] aimed to endorse the few Israelis and the growing number of Jewish American voices that have called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict and the respect for the human rights of Palestinians whose academic institutions are raided by the Israeli military and whose classes are suspended at the whim of the occupation authorities.” Esposito said he believed the boycott could help prevent violations of Palestinian rights. “[I hope] to put pressure on and to boycott institutions that violate international law and as a result violate the rights of Palestinians,” Esposito wrote in an email. “There can be no excuse for the cycle of violence that has taken so many lives in Palestine/Israel over the years, and terrorized both Palestinians and Israelis, and most recently in Gaza, the slaughter of so many innocent civilians, especially women and children must be stopped.” Tucker, who has visited the area many times since the 1980s, said she has seen the problems that Palestinian students and professors face firsthand. See BOYCOTT, A5
Former Georgetown student Daniel Milzman, 19, pled guilty to one count of possession of an unregistered toxin in federal court Monday. Appearing before Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the defense issued a plea agreement, which, pending the court’s approval, would entail one year and a day to two years in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, in addition to financial penalties. The sentencing hearing has been set for Nov. 10. Milzman has been held in D.C. Jail since he was arrested and charged with possession of a biological toxin March 18, after police discovered ricin in his dorm room on the sixth floor of McCarthy Hall earlier that week. He was found to possess 123 milligrams of ricin, with a toxic concentration of 7.7 micrograms per
milligram. After hearing Milzman’s defense attorney Danny Onorato’s claim that Milzman made the ricin with suicidal intentions, Magistrate Judge John Facciola ruled on March 25 that Milzman would be sent to a
“Milzman put himself and others in danger by cooking up deadly poision.” ronald machen jr. U.S. Attorney
two-week in-patient psychiatric program at Sibley Memorial Hospital and then sent to remain at his parents’ house in Bethesda, Md., where he would be required to be under constant supervision in the house. In a hearing March 31, a U.S. District Court judge overturned Facciola’s
Hoya Staff Writer
The National Cancer Institute renewed the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center’s status as Washington, D.C.’s only comprehensive cancer center — a title the center has held for 20 years — and awarded the center with a five-year $11.25 million
Cancer Center Support Grant on Wednesday. “This grant and prestigious designation validates what we’ve long known — that Georgetown Lombardi conducts excellent and high-impact work,” Executive Vice President for Health Sciences Howard Federoff said via a communications representative. Georgetown is one of 41 NCI-
Kshithij Shrinath Hoya Staff Writer
Additionally, the center must provide patient treatment that offers a variety of clinical trials for unapproved and innovative medicines, as well as training programs for future health care providers and scientists interested in pursuing a specialization in cancer treatment. Finally, a comprehensive cancer center must engage in community outreach to promote education and spread awareness. Lombardi Center Director Louis Weiner said that community outreach is especially important to the Lombardi Center, in light of the District’s high cancer rates. Between 2001 and 2005, D.C. ranked first in the nation for deaths caused by prostate, cervical and breast cancers, third-highest for deaths caused by colorectal cancer, and sixth-highest for deaths caused by cancer in general. “This is a tremendous focus for centers like Georgetown Lombardi because the city we call home is disproportionately impacted by cancer,” Weiner wrote in an email. Weiner said that the grant is meant to fund clinical management and data collection for clinical trials, the early stages during which the treatment is first tested on humans, expensive equipment and personnel expertise that can become necessary during research and infrastructure maintenance. “While this grant is awarded after demonstrating strength and breadth of research capacity, pa-
In a bias-related incident involving sexual orientation, an unknown attacker assaulted an unidentified Georgetown University student on the 3300 block of M Street at 1:31 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 13. The student was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. “The GU student along with two other students were walking in the area when an unidentified male subject approached from the opposite direction, made a derogatory comment regarding sexual orientation, and subsequently assaulted the GU student before fleeing in an unknown direction,” a public safety alert sent to students from the Georgetown University Police Department read. The email described the Metropolitan Police Department as arriving first on the scene and responding to the victim, after which GUPD officers were contacted. According to the student, whose status was described as “receiving medical treatment,” the suspect was Middle Eastern, male and approximately 30 years old. The incident is currently under investigation by GUPD and MPD. Georgetown Director of Media Relations Rachel Pugh directed questions on the investigation to MPD, who could not be reached for comment. The public safety alert labeled the incident as a “bias-related assault.” GUPD Chief of Police Jay Gruber explained the term as a subcategory of hate crimes. “It is just a more specific way of describing the assault rather than just using the term ‘hate crime,’ which is a broader category encompassing a number of bias-related crimes, while ‘bias-related assault’ is more defining of the particular incident,” Gruber wrote in an email. “The purpose of a public safety alert is to alert the campus community to a potential threat, not to legally categorize the incident.” GU Pride President Thomas Lloyd (SFS ’15) expressed shock and dismay at the assault. “As someone who works to make any person feel safe regardless of their identity or expression or anyone’s possible interpretation of that identity, it’s disappointing, and it’s scary,” Lloyd said. GU Pride will hold an event, titled “Creating a Safer Space,” in response to the assault. During the event, participants will examine documents recently brought to light by the LGBTQ Histories Project and will share and reflect on their own experiences. Lloyd pointed to Georgetown’s history with hate crimes, which includes assaults on the basis of sexual orientation in the fall of 2007, prompting a wide campus response and the establishment of Georgetown’s LGBTQ Resource Center, and in the fall of 2009. He noted
See LOMBARDI, A6
See ASSAULT, A6
DANIEL SMITH/THE HOYA
Students popped paint-filled balloons in Red Square on Monday at the start of Thrive 2014, a week devoted to mental health.
designated comprehensive cancer centers in the United States. In order to earn the designation of comprehensive cancer center, the hospital must both conduct research and treat patients. The center is also required to use a laboratory for basic science research, a clinic for clinical trials and a focus on the center’s surrounding population.
NATASHA THOMSON/THE HOYA
Georgetown’s Lombardi Cancer Center was renewed as the District’s only comprehensive cancer center, also winning a $11.25 million grant for clinical trials, equipment and personnel over five years. Newsroom: (202) 687-3415 Business: (202) 687-3947
See MILZMAN, A6
Student Injured in Hate Crime
AIR YOUR GRIEVANCES
Lombardi Renewed as Top DC Cancer Center Suzanne Monyak
ruling, ordering that he be detained and placed under “rigorous suicide watch.” The possession charge could bring with it up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Milzman’s plea deal, however, would include time already spent in jail, which is approaching six months this week. If the court approves the deal and sentences him to the shorter end of the sentence’s time range, with good behavior he could be released in November or December, according to The Washington Post. Milzman’s attorneys have said that he planned to use the ricin to commit suicide, rather than to harm anyone else, and Milzman has been under suicide watch in D.C. Jail. “Daniel Milzman put himself and others in danger by cooking up deadly poison in his Georgetown dorm room,” U.S. Attorney Ronald
Published Tuesdays and Fridays
Send Story Ideas and Tips to news@thehoya.com