October 2018

T H E U N D E RG R A D UAT E M AG A Z I N E O F C O LU M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y, E S T. 1 8 9 0

THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. XXIV No. V

October 2018

Understanding Betsy DeVos's Vision What potential changes to Title IX guidance could mean for Columbia

An Orientation to the Occult A step-by-step guide to reading tarot this Halloween Also Inside:

A Conversation with Christopher Riano

CAROLINE HURLEY, CC '19, Editor-in-Chief ESMÉ ABLAZA, BC '20, Managing Editor ISAIAH BENNETT, CC '20, Publisher UFON UMANAH, CC '20, Investigations Editor SHULIE WEINBERG, BC '20, Online Editor JENNIFER BI, CC '19, Senior Illustrator VIRGINIA AMBELIOTIS, BC '19, Senior Editor JASMINE PARK, CC '20, Senior Editor RYAN MOHEN, CC '21, Senior Editor HUGH CECIL, CC '19, Senior Editor Staff Writers AMAD ROSS, CC '22 ANNIE ZAVITZ, BC '22 BANNON BEALL, BC '22 BILLIE FORESTER, CC '22 GABRIELLA FERRIGINE, CC '20 GABY EDWARDS, BC '21 GRACE ADEE, CC '22 HANNAH LIBERMAN, CC '20 IONA TAN, CC '22 JACOB SNYDER, CC '20 MARY ELIZABETH DAWSON, BC '21 MICHAEL GAO, CC '22 SANTIAGO COSTA PEUSER, CC '21 SARAH DESOUZA, CC '22 TAMAR VIDRA, CC '22 TILLIE LIGHTE, BC '20 TRACY CHEN, CC '21 URSULA MURRAY-BOZEMAN, CC '22 Staff Illustrators KASSIA KARRAS, BC '22 KATE STEINER, CC '22 REA RUSTAGI, SEAS '22 ROSE KUAN, CC '22 SAHRA DENNER, CC '21 SUSAN STEINFELD, BC '22 YOTAM DEREE, GS '19

Technology EMILY WANG, CC '22 ZOE METCALFE, CC '21 Copy Editors CASSIDY SATTLER, CC '20 GIGI LEE, CC '22 MALIA SIMON, CC '20 SOPHIA LIU, SEAS '22 Photography GABRIELLA PRIVITELLI, BC '20 Contributors CLAIRE WOOTON, BC '21 FRANK BARING, CC '21 JOHN TANGUAY, CC '21 REBECCA YAO, CC '22 SOPHIE LEVY, BC '21 ZOE DANSDILL, BC '21

THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. XXIV

FAMAM EXTENDIMUS FACTIS

No. V

Columns

4 Blue Book 6 Blue Notes 8 Campus Characters 12 Verily Veritas 14 Centerfold 18 M easure for Measure 26 Campus G ossip

Malia Simon & Santiago Costa Peuser Mary Elizabeth Dawson

Ufon Umanah

Kate Steiner

Ufon Umanah

Features 10 At Two Swords Length: A re You G onna Finish That?

Our monthly prose and cons 13 A n Orientation to the Occult

A step-by-step guide to reading tarot this Halloween 16 Understanding Betsy DeVos's Vision

What potential changes to Title IX guidance could mean for Columbia 20 The Holy and the Stylish

The intersection of art, fashion, religion, and politics 21 Columbia and the Constitution

A conversation with Christopher Riano

theblueandwhite.org

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Cover by Kassia Karras

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR I think that there’s something to be said for confusion; that feeling of untethered loss; that state of cognitive limbo. Or, at least I’d like to think so as I write this in the midst of my third, very confusing year in Morningside Heights.

Doesn’t confusion have its place in reasoned pursuits? As a necessary step in cognitive development, or as an implicit psychological precondition for inductive reasoning? There’s some undeniable catharsis in the reconciliation of one’s confusion, a satisfying triumph in the face of adversity.

Armed with the superficial understanding of Plato which any student of the Core Curriculum can claim, one might suggest that confusion is a symptom of the respectable life of contemplation. I’d hesitate, however, to reserve confusion for the ‘deep-thinkers’ living the contemplative life to which Plato refers. I have friends as shallow as dinner plates who I would describe as often confused. People labor through confusion independent of any claim to intellectual competence or enterprise.

So, perhaps there’s something essentially human about the push through confusion… How ‘bout it? I can feel myself a hair's-breadth from regurgitating some platitude about “virtue in struggle.” Maybe, I should surrender the point outright and acknowledge my abject failure as a writer. After all, perhaps this half-musing of mine is nothing more than the optimistic manifestation of a very confused student’s anxiety, these words a misguided attempt to sooth a self-conscious knot in my gut.

In any case, there’s typically an obligation with these sort of letters—from named editor to faceless reader—to reach some poignant (if empty) conclusion to the problem (which I’ve never fully analyzed). I’d like to hold back, however, from doing so, and relish in the murky, unsatisfying confusion of all these words. It only seems appropriate.

—Isaiah Bennett

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TRANSACTIONS ARRIVALS Voting/Pumpkin Spice/Sweater/Cuffing/ Football-Loss SZN E’s Bar (OK, but Actually This Time) Collapse of the Adderall Market A Nobel Prize in Physics for CC ‘47 Alum, Arthur Ashkin Grapes in Ferris (As of Parent’s Weekend) DEPARTURES Grapes in Ferris (Immediately After Parent’s Weekend) Columbia University Marching Band’s Funding NSOP Friends Actual Effort from Your Tenured Professors Actual Effort on Your Part To Do Reading General Sanity on Campus

Come Again?!

“Lol I can pay my taxes online but we are not smart enough to figure out voting online, it's called blockchain then QC” — Twitter user, “Dr. Ass Chips” (@Embraceape), in response to an op ed co-authored by Columbia University President Bollinger asserting the importance of paper ballots to the integrity of US Democracy

The Blue and White

BLUE BOOK

A Columbia Fall Recipe Be you a sour, cynical senior, or a naïve, over-enthusiastic first-year, everyone can enjoy, or is at least academically obligated to experience, fall at Columbia University! So try out this recipe, straight from the pages of Grandma Bollinger’s Audi-brand recipe book.

In a large bowl combine motivated students, high expectations, top-tier faculty, intellectual spirit, and a dash of legacy admits. Add youthful faces after crushing between two towels with crippling workload. Stir to combine.

Add a potentially life threatening amount of coffee, a few midterms (preferably as close together as possible), and an existentially confused walk through Riverside Park or two. If mixture becomes mopey, apply a homecoming darty concoction of denim jackets, state-school spirit, a very temporary interest in athletics, grain alcohol, and fruit juice.

In a separate bowl, take endowment and leave at room temperature, allowing to increase in size.

After a brief period, pour into Upper Harlem and stir. Rub hands together and chuckle as development mixture further rises. Add students to mixture until color becomes pale. If students stick to the sides or protest, apply oil and avoid for multiple months until problem is solved.

For the subtle, more ingenious notes, sprinkle in some sunny days on Low Beach, a breeze across Amsterdam, and a 3 a.m. chat in Butler. Occasional calls to parents optional.

Finally, coat in entirety with pumpkin spice and Pantone 242 food coloring. Place in a catering tray, allowing 48 hours to sit and obtain spongy, inedible texture. Reheat, and serve in John Jay.

POSTCARD FROM MORNINGSIDE

Halloween in EC: "...so I just threw this together. Anyways, what are you?" "I'm... the mold."

October 2018

Postcard by Jennifer Bi

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BLUE NOTES

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he feature most immediately striking about Flor de Mayo is its utterly confusing decor. Visiting the restaurant, I walked into what first appeared to be a sports bar—brick walls, baseball posters and mildly inebriated forty-somethings—before looking to my left to find an ornate fish tank and canvases covered with Chinese calligraphy. When I arrived at my table to find a menu featuring Peruvian fare on one side and Chinese on the other, things started to click.

Located on 101st and Broadway, Flor de Mayo offers Chinese and Peruvian cuisine (ChinoLatino, as they affectionately call it) at a studentfriendly price. Their Pollo a La Brasa, a signature Peruvian rotisserie chicken dish, will cost you eleven dollars, and comes with your choice of rice, fries, or plantains. I recommend lavishing the chicken in vinegar and, for a few more dollars, pouring beans over the fries. And if you aren’t in the mood for Peruvian food, you can order classic Chinese dishes at a similar price.

The cuisines of China and Peru work surprisingly well alongside each other. Any concerns about culinary dissonance are misplaced, as the restaurant deftly handles the demands of both cuisines, respecting their different appeals and making no misguided effort to shoehorn one into the other. The

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restaurant feels distinctly New York, with its hodgepodge menu of diverse offerings; and melting pots make for delicious meals.

The service was also excellent. At one point, my meal-mate, lost in a long winded story, began absentmindedly picking his teeth with a straw.

In a flash, our waiter, Susan, darted over and gave each of us toothpicks. We thanked her before leaving, and she replied with a smile, “Next time I’ll be a little mean, just to spice it up.”

Flor de Mayo may not knock your socks off. It’s not fine dining, or ‘restaurant week’ material, but it provides a variety of tasty indulgences in an unusual environment, making it well worth your time. And with two dollar delivery, next time you’re on the seventh floor of John Jay, take a whiff; odds are, that smell emanating down the hall—spicy, vinegary, toothsome—will be some Chino-Latino feast, and I’ll probably have enough to share.

— Amad Ross

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ot many Columbia undergrads find their way up to the new Manhattanville campus, but those who do visit the Jerome L. Greene Science Center may be surprised to find people scaling a large wall of colored rocks.

Steep Rock West, a rock climbing gym, and the Manhattanville campus’s first retail tenant, opened in June 2017. They specialize in bouldering, a form of rock climbing that does not require ropes or harnesses.

In bouldering, climbers rely on their strength alone to get to the top of the wall. A smattering of chalk dust improves grip, and a foot of padding softens falls. Maneuvering up the rocks is a tough physical and mental workout.

Illustration by Sahra Denner

The Blue and White

BLUE NOTES However, the staff is more than happy to help newcomers get started.

Leo O’Brian, CC '18, emphasized the supportive atmosphere of Steep Rock.

“There’s a large community,” O’Brian said. “I think that’s the appeal of this gym for a lot of people because everyone’s prett y friendly.”

Steep Rock West tends to attract more beginners than their Upper East Side location. “It’s a lot of people who are trying it out or need a new hobby,” O’Brian said.

First-timers aren’t the only ones who make use of the climbing wall. The Columbia Climbing Club practices at Steep Rock West three times a week. Avery Park, SEAS '20, the club's president, described the convenience of having a climbing facility on-campus.

“I think it being there has strengthened the CU climbing community because we are all concentrated to this one gym, instead of before when we were spread out amongst other gyms,” Park said.

“People interested in climbing with some club members and getting stronger are welcome to come to as many practices as they can,” Park adds.

Members of the club range from experienced climbers to complete beginners.

Steep Rock’s prices are $22 for a day pass, $18 for college students, and $15 outside of peak hours; memberships are also available. The gym also hosts free climbing days throughout the year.

— Grace Adee

E

mily Wilson, the first woman to do a full-length English translation of The Odyssey, has made her way into Columbia classrooms as the second woman to translate a Literature Humanities text. The decision to make the switch from the translation by Richard Lattimore arose from the LitHum syllabus review that happens every three years.

Professor Stalnaker, the new chair of Literature Humanities, cites one of the primary reasons for the change as the scarcity of female epic translators. The

October 2018

committee was also drawn to Wilson because of her translation techniques. She uses simplistic language and is dedicated to preserving Homer’s original length. Her introduction, translator’s note, maps, and pronunciation guide all work to create a more accessible version of the epic.

Professor Stalnaker acknowledges that this edition opens itself up to critical debate in ways the Lattimore edition did not. It engages students in a broader conversation of what is valued in translation.

This is a recurring conversation in Professor Nancy Workman’s class, who deems the use of the Wilson translation “inappropriate” for LitHum. She finds that Wilson “radically compresses what the poem says about Odysseus,” through mistranslation and omission.

Professor Workman argues that Wilson overdirects the modern reader’s interpretation. While, for example, the simple addition of chapter titles may ease things for students, it may also prevent them from analyzing the text in the way it was originally written.

Wilson’s edition begs the question of whether or not there is value in simplifying classical texts for modern readers. Granting that there is value for a reader who is intimidated by archaic language and wants to read the text recreationally, Professor Workman believes the translation makes it harder for students to identify patterns and craft.

She concedes, however, that Wilson’s clarity brings out elements that might otherwise be lost in complex language. Wilson tells Homer’s story in a unique way, choosing not to include gendered terms like “slut” and “whore,” that pepper Lattimore’s translation. In doing so, she frames a narrative more empathetic to female characters. Though moving to the new translation has been controversial, one hope is that it will further questions and develope perspectives on gender so often missing from LitHum classrooms.

— Sarah DeSouza

Illustrations by Susie Steinfeld

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Campus Characters You might not know the following figures—but you should. In Campus Characters, The Blue & White introduces you to a handful of Columbians who are up to interesting and extraordinary things and whose stories beg to be shared. This issue, we bring you two people with interests in their Columbia class pages. If you’d like to suggest a Campus Character, send us an email at bweditors@columbia.edu..

Mia Ciallella

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o one loves Barnard more than Mia Ciallella, BC ’19. Or at least, no one uses “Barnard” and “love” more in the same sentence. For Ciallella, her time at Barnard has been all about spreading love and building community, community being the common thread that runs through everything she does on campus.

“My time at Barnard has really been marked by me trying to bridge communities … I have my hands in a lot of different things around campus, and that is ideal to me because I want to build so many different networks and allow [for] so much collaboration,” Ciallella says.

Ciallella is a co-head of the Barnard Zine Club, as well as the Fashion Director of Hoot Magazine. But finding these communities and fitting in on campus was no easy matter.

“I thought that Barnard was not the right place for me, and that I picked the wrong school. That was really hard and things took a while to fall into place for me. I realized that I needed to stop changing myself to fit into the communities that I thought should be a part of, or that I thought I should want to

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be a part of, and instead just being more genuine to what I wanted to do,” she says.

Once Ciallella began pursuing her own interests at Barnard, she found a campus community that simultaneously loves Barnard and wants to change the institution for the better.

“There are just so many people on this campus who care so much about so many different things. So many people who actively fight to make things better.

I think a lot of times it comes from an intense place of love,” she says.

“It’s interesting to think about critiquing something because you love it. And I think that I am around people who love each other so much, and love the place that they’re at, that they want to actively make it better, and they’re just so willing to put everything into that.”

Ciallella hopes that through her work at the Barnard Zine Club, and as an intern at the Met Library, she can entice people to think critically about the way information and culture are persevered and disseminated. She is considering pursuing a career as a “super cool radical librarian,” a passion she discovered at Barnard.

“I just really care about what we deem as important knowledge to get saved and what communities we are focusing on and celebrating when we are archiving,” she says.

Ciallella competes in roller derby during her free time, as a member of the Gotham skating team. She grew up going to roller derby bouts in Philadelphia with her parents but never considered herself athletic. Once she began pursuing her own interests in college, she joined a derby team and never looked back.

“I get to skate with thirty-five-year-olds who are moms and teachers, and it’s just a totally different demographic than I interact with here. It really reminds me that school is not the end all be all, even

Illustration by Kate Steiner

The Blue and White

if that’s what it seems like. It’s allowed me to be more confident in a different way, and take up space in a different way,” she says.

Even though Ciallella will graduate in a few months, Barnard will go on without her, which she says is something that is strange to think about.

Finding her community defined her time at Barnard, though, and Ciallella’s biggest advice is to encourage others to do the same: find communities they love, and fall in love with Barnard in the process.

— Caroline Hurley

Ari Boosalis

W

hen Ari Boosalis, CC ‘19, arrived at Columbia, he was struck by how much the campus environment differed from that of his Jesuit high school in San Francisco. “[Columbia] is a very high stress environment where you have to be very careful about what you do,” Boosalis says. “You don’t really see people vulnerable. People put themselves on this pedestal that they want to be, and some people succeed in that and some people fail.”

An economics and history double major and former professional ballet dancer at American Ballet Theatre and The New York City School of Ballet, Boosalis is also known on campus as the former president of Columbia University College Republicans, which, last year, garnered particular attention for inviting controversial speakers such as Tommy Robinson and Mike Cernovich to campus in the hopes of confronting Columbia students with more conservative perspectives. These events sparked protests attended by hundreds of Columbia students and community members; the disciplining of Columbia students who interrupted CUCR’s Tommy Robinson lecture and Q&A session; the harassment of Boosalis and his fellow board members by self-declared anti-fascists; and Boosalis being interviewed by Fox News. The events of last year and their effects on the campus-wide discussion about free speech have defined Boosalis’ time at Columbia and made him reflect on the community’s political polarization.

“These ideas are going to be here no matter what, so why don’t you confront them?” he says. “If you don’t confront Trump and show why he’s wrong, and why his vision for America is wrong, and put forth a compelling case for why your vision is better, and people believe it, then you’re not going to change America or change perception.”

Boosalis points to Mike Cernovich, who gets 100 million views on Facebook per month. “You have

October 2018

to understand why this is happening, why people are believing him, and is it wrong or is it right? Is there something he’s missing? Is he not getting the complexity of the conversation?”

Boosalis is loath to differentiate hate speech from free speech. “Being challenged and having your identity challenged is okay,” he says. “It’s perfectly fine. I think it’s important… by people challenging our ideas it’s a way for us to have better ideas and think things out. If you believe that’s an injustice, fight it. Show people why that’s wrong… I think that’s the best way to fight it. It’s not restricting people, forcing people not to come because you feel oppressed. Personally I like being challenged on my views because at the end of the day I don’t want to have lazy views. I think at Columbia a lot of people are sheep and they don’t really form their own identity, and they’re never ever really challenged so they never really know what they believe in, and I don’t know if their ideas are actually right.”

Although he acknowledges that he would now do some things differently, Boosalis has no regrets about organizing the CUCR speaker series. “Columbia’s a bubble… I didn’t always agree with the speakers...but just hosting those conversations was important,” he says. “For a student who wants to do what I did, just realize that your popularity is going to diminish, but that’s not what’s important to me. It takes a certain type of person in order to do what I did.”

At the end of the day, Boosalis believes that although he cannot claim to feel very welcomed by the Columbia community as a whole, he has learned that “you just need to realize the expectations you have and be okay to find your own route and not go with what everyone else does.”

— Esme Ablaza

Illustration by Rea Rustagi

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AT T W O S W O R D S ’ L E N G T H

Are you gonna A

ll is going supremely well for me in college, thank and never accidental? What kind of sadistic insult, you for asking, except for that my roommate wrapped inside the packaging of an innocent quesSarah is a state-of-the-art bitch. tion? It’s true, the Columbia Bitch attacks by implantWe actually hit it off pretty well during NSOP, ing the idea of failure in her enemy’s mind. fiercely bonding over Boba Tea outings and conversaYes, I intended to finish the beeferoni, because tions about “BDE” and other hilarious phraseologies I love beeferoni, and I got three plates of it for a reawe both swear we made up. son.

However, last weekend I caught a horrific I’m going to finish The Iliad even though I’m glimpse of another side of Sarah. As it turns out, you only on book sixteen and keep forgetting who Ajax is. can’t trust everyone who shares your interest in Boba I’m going to finish my degree at Columbia, fin(I know). ish law school, finish my Goldman Sachs internship, It all started in Ferris, finish around three healthy as most things do. I arrived romantic relationships, finish at the table with three plates the teleplay I’m working on of beeferoni salad and, obviabout three quirky friends who ously, a hefty puddle of ketchmove to New York City, finish up. I sat down next to Sarah scoring my dream body, all and began forking mouthin no particular order except fuls of ‘roni into my mouth in for the Goldman Sachs one between insightful remarks, should be somewhere toward having an altogether pleasurthe beginning. able experience. About twen I didn’t tell ty-five minutes into our meal Sarah all that. Of course not. and perfectly stimulating conAll I did was simply gather my versation, something strange beeferoni plates and quietly happened: move to a table at the south Me: “Yeah, I mean, end of the dining hall. Just I just think the Balkan Peninsula before I walked away, however, ffirmative takes up too much space in hisI slowly turned my head over my tory books. Sometimes I even get shoulder and called back:

By Malia Simon the feeling that other peninsulas

“Yes, I’m going to finish are experiencing a sort of historical this. You can read about why later silencing.” this month, you sneaky girl.”

Failing to acknowledge my great conversaAt that, I sauntered across the room, reveltional point, Sarah instead paused to look down and ing in my eloquence. From my new table, I peeked scan my two remaining beeferoni plates. back at her a couple times, and caught her looking Sarah: “Hey, are you gonna finish that?” dumbfounded and struck by my lasting wisdom.

Now, the primordial bitch would have intended Because I am not a sociopath and therefore possess this as some sort of fat joke. But the modern one is some amount of empathy, I did feel a little bad for how even craftier—she skips the easy punches and goes hard she was taking my win. She even changed rooms straight for the jugular. shortly after that because of how hard it was for her Am I going to finish that? What kind of ques- to cope. However, I don’t feel bad for her anymore, tion is that to ask someone who is always intentional because I finished my empathy too.w

A

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Illustration by Jennifer Bi

The Blue and White

AT T W O S W O R D S ’ L E N G T H

finish that?

S

eriously? Take a second look at the ridiculous that I place next to my food as if were actually going amount of food I’ve collected and ask yourself to finish the reading for tomorrow? I mean, I guess honestly: “is there any possible way that he could I could finish it; I’ve heard good things about this finish all of this?” Three slices of meat lover’s pizza, Homer guy. But, then again, in a world with Shmoop, one and a half chicken pesto paninis, two chickens- what’s the point? Honestly, like the calculator did worth of BBQ wings, a chocolate fudge brownie, cel- for learning arithmetic, I think Shmoop has made ery, a vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles, and the actual reading of books an obsolete practice. I the obligatory doctor-appeasing apple. How could mean, I’m no expert on politics, but I think using anyone but the “Man v. Food” guy stuff this caloric Shmoop is what our forefathers would have wanted. blockbuster down their throat in one sitting? Also The Declaration of Independence was about evolvat this point, it should be apparent that I have zero ing and advancing beyond the onerous confines of self control and just grabbed every single item that British rule; if we want to live with the same spirit of remotely tempted me. hope, we must cast off this oppressive yoke of intelBut you know what? It’s lectual bondage, and do away not even my fault. I’m merely a with reading whole books. product, no, a victim, of the glutYou don’t think Honest tonous society that we live in.

Abe would’ve Spark-noted the In today’s America, one doesn’t U.S. Constitution if he could simply watch just ‘an episode’ of have? Think again, buddy!

Narcos–you watch for hours ‘til That thing had like a bunch of you’ve wasted far more time than fuckin’ amendments, get real. you can afford, ‘til your bloodThe Gettysburg Address was shot eyes cry for sleep, until your 271 words. My guy, Abe, was headphones can no longer drown all about brevity. In two minout the sound of concerned suitutes he delivered what is widely emates banging at your door. renowned as one of the best Similarly, it’s never just one speeches ever delivered. By shot of tequila–you down those extension, you’d think my 13 things ‘til you’re screaming every word reading responses would be egative word you can remember from your hailed as analytical masterworks;

By Santiago Costa Peuser beginner Spanish vocab book with but no, all I get is an F and a leta bunch of people you’ve never seen ter from the Dean of the English in your life. Society is to blame for the total shit-show department asking me to “Please, never register for of a weekend I just had. I’ll spare you the details, one of the department’s classes again.” Philistines! but just know that I found myself at the one 24 hour I’m getting off track, but think about how many bodega in Flatbush which sells chicken lo-mein fla- more vampires President Lincoln could have slain if vored Hot Pockets at 4 am three nights in a row, and he didn’t have to actually read all that politico-legal that I now have a grand total of $3.46 in my bank mumbo-jumbo that comes with being president. In account. Clearly, ‘The Man’ doesn’t want you to con- 2018, Shmoop empowers us to cut through loads trol yourself. Also, back to the food, I thought that we of bullshit and slay our own metaphorical vampires, were supposed to purposely throw away as much food don’t you think? as possible. Isn’t that the deal with these dining halls?

Wait, where are you going? I’m not done Oh, you were talking about this book? The one explaining myself! Come back and let me finish!w

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October 2018

Illustration by Rea Rustagi

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V E R I LY V E R I TA S

TOLD BETWEEN PUFFS

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In which our hero takes a break

erily sat down to begin writing. Microsoft Word™ labored to start up, giving Verily a moment to consider his argument. His mind darted from premises to conclusions; he measured example against counter-example; he designed a baroque conceptual superstructure. But Word had been open tabula rasa for minutes now, and the words would not come. There stood impregnable walls between spirit and hand, with no faux-horse in sight.

Verily sighed, reaching for his phone. Two texts: one from Mom (“call me tonite. need to talk w u about [unintelligible]. love u!”), and one from Pera Perfida. Verily and Pera had been on and off for about a year now. Even the frustrations of analytical stalemate could barely drive Verily to respond to her message. He’d had it with her. The last time they hung out, Verily remembered, she’d pointed out a white dog enjoying the adoration of several inappropriately ecstatic students.

“Oh my God. I love that dog. What kind of dog is that?”

Pera had asked.

“Samoyed,” Verily answered.

“You can tell by looking?”

“Is there another way?”

Verily knew it was time to end things with Pera. But he needed a break from the confounding revelations of Derrida and Heidegger, from the labor involved in turning an argument—the suffering that is accomplice to all Great Writing. So he began typing out a response to Pera: “sorry I’ve been so M.I.A. lately. classes have been crazy and i just have a lot on my plate.” Lies can clear air swifter than truth, he thought. “wanna get some Oren’s rn and chill?”

Pera’s reply came quickly and with manifest desperation: “hi! no worries! [monkey emoji] I’d love to, it’s been all day since I’ve been in a pubic space haha. let’s meet at broadway gates in five!”

Everything about Pera’s text awakened a profound exasperation in Verily. The excessive, overly

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sincere employment of the exclamation point, the probably purposeful typo suggestive of sexual aspirations, the manic timing of the thing. And who uses monkey emojis?

A couple seconds later: “oops lmao !!!” e Now, on Low Steps, their conversation had taken a turn toward the serious. They sat side by side—Dirty Chai and Americano in hand. The autumn wind swept over the plaza, carrying their tense exchange toward bysitters.

“I just don’t get why you’re being so shady,” Pera was saying. Her face had turned a reddish shade that Verily found unpleasant. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say. I barely hear from you for weeks, and now you’re saying you’ve only got fifteen minutes to hang out.”

“It hasn’t been weeks. Don’t be dramatic.”

“Three weeks is weeks, Verily!”

“I’ve had work to do. I told you. I have a paper to write now, I just needed a break. You’re upset that I thought of you?”

Pera looked into the distance, toward the lurid sunset. It was clear to Verily now that she was upset. “I’m not some folder you can file away for as long as you want. That’s not how a relationship works. It can take effort and sacrifice and…”

Verily stopped listening and allowed his mind to wander momentarily. Heidegger would say her mode of discourse is permanently limited to Idle Talk, he thought. There is never mineness in her voice.

That’s the perfect example for my third paragraph— “Verily?” Pera had finished talking seconds ago, noticing Verily’s absence. “Are you even listening to me? God, you’re actually such an asshole, you know that?” Pushing himself onto his feet, Verily gathered his things and began to walk down the steps. “Where are you going?” asked Pera.

Verily responded flatly, “I need to get back to writing.”w

The Blue and White

P O RT E N T O U S P L AY I N G C A R D S

An Orientation to the Occult A step-by-step guide to reading tarot this Halloween

By Mary Elizabeth Dawson

L

ast year, a friend of mine gave me a tarot reading and predicted that my next great love was right around the corner. When that turned out to be wholly—and maybe inevitably—incorrect, I had to take matters into my own hands. I bought my own set of tarot cards, because I figured if anyone had the right to give me bad life advice, it was myself.

And that’s how I became a tarot master! Or at least, became good enough to show you how to scare your friends with warnings and bad omens.

Let’s start with the basics. The Rider-Waite tarot deck, a staple for amateur and expert diviners alike, is comprised of two types of cards: 22 Major Arcana cards are generally thought to represent specific lessons we learn or people we meet in our lives, while 56 Minor Arcana cards relate more to our everyday experiences and encounters. The Minor Arcana are split into four suits—swords, wands, cups, and pentacles. Swords are associated with intellect; wands, with energy and creativity; cups, with emotion; pentacles with the physical and material.

My number one piece of advice for any beginner is to not try to memorize all the cards’ meanings. This may seem counterintuitive, but because of the tarot’s strong connection to our emotion and intuition, I’ve found it’s often easier to recall a card’s significance based on how it makes me feel. A good way to familiarize yourself with the deck is to draw a single card each day and ask yourself, “What do I need to keep in mind today?” Think about how the card you draw might influence your day. If the meaning you derive from a card differs from its defined significance, ignore the definition! Interpretation is integral to a successful reading.

There are two four-card spreads I recommend starting out with. As you can see, the position of each card has its own significance. The cross spread is useful for giving advice or evaluating a specific situation, while the standard spread can be helpful in understanding the querent (whomever you are reading for) or evaluating a certain aspect of their life.

October 2018

For any reading, begin by asking the querent if there is something specific they want to focus on.

The querent should touch the deck before you shuffle the cards. Once the deck is shuffled, have the querent split it into three sections and then put the sections back together. It doesn’t matter how many cards are in each section or in what order the sections are restacked.

You may draw cards off the top of the deck or have the querent choose them at random. Lay the full spread before turning all the cards over. At this point, you will want to make some contemplative sounds or say, “Interesting,” to build suspense and make the querent a little nervous.

Keep in mind that tarot reading is more about uncovering the subconscious than predicting a concrete future. This is not fortune-telling, so avoid bringing up specific events. Intuition is the key to a productive reading. If you get stuck, it always helps to ask a broad and somewhat leading question, like, “I see I’ve drawn the Death card. Are you afraid of change?” If the querent leaves thinking you’ve seen deep into their mind, you’ve done something right.

Tarot readings can seem like merely smoke and mirrors, but they may also hold a surprising amount of truth, as long as you focus on giving interpretations rather than predictions. This Halloween, I urge you to dabble in the occult, if only to scare your roommate into leaving your shit alone.

Cross spread 1. Represents the topic being dealt with 2. Don’t do this / Avoid this 3. Do this 4. It leads to this Standard four-card spread 1. Represents the topic being dealt with 2. Don’t do this / Avoid this 3. Do this 4. It leads to thisw

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No doors were threatened or blackmailed for the benefit of this study.

The Doors We

By Frank Baring and John Tanguay

4. Avery Door Automatic/manual mixup: 0/10 Push/pull mixup: 7/10 Heaviness: 10/10 Creak: 0/10 (silent killer) Sex appeal: 2-8/10 (depending on whether or not you like your doors thicc).

“For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.” - Isaiah 26:21 Yeah, there’s no easy way to say this. This door is a real lard-ass. There’s a reason you never see the more scrawny campus dwellers in Avery; the risk is just too high. If you’re not carrying at least a solid 170 pounds of bodyweight, this door is a THREAT TO YOUR LIFE, especially on the more drafty days of the year. If you don’t bring your A-Game to wrestle with this door it will crush you like the Avery occupying, insect-poseur you probably are. The best you can hope for is a closed casket.

3. The Wien Double Doors Automatic/manual mixup: 10/10 Push pull/mixup: 3/10 Heaviness: 5/10 Creak: 7/10 Sex appeal: 7/10 “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” - 1 Peter 5:8 On approach, you have ten meters, roughly 12-13 paces, to notice that here lies not one, but two doors. Look upon them, ye mighty, and despair. No matter how fast or agile you think you are, there is no guarantee you’ll evade their mighty swings. No one is safe—we are dealing with a system grounded in chaos here, a system which grinds up those poor oblivious fools who know not what they’re dealing with. See, if you live in this building, you know not to walk right up to the door and simply pull on the handle; no, there is a process. You know to push the button on the right, wait for these Luciferian death panels to creak open, and ONLY THEN do you make your way through. And as you walk, you pray, pray that no one attempts to exit the building as you enter, and in doing so, throw your attempt at entrance into limbo, and render you a prisoner between these two mighty doors. The opening and closing mechanism seems to run on a timer, and the mechanism yields for no one. If you are not familiar with this door and would consider visiting Wien for fun—protect your neck. Only some of us deserve to pass into the valley beyond and this door promises to separate the worthy from the worthless.

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The Blue and White

Love to Hate The Blue and White presents a non-comprehensive, and almost entirely subjective look at Columbia’s four worst entryways 2. Carman Doors Automatic/manual mixup: 2/10 Push pull/mixup: 3/10 Heaviness: 6/10 Creak: 0/10 Sex appeal: -4/10 “But suppose now that industrial society does survive the next several decades and that the bugs do eventually get worked out of the system, so that it functions smoothly. What kind of system will it be?” –Theodore J. Kaczynski One can only hope that such a system will correct the consumerist excess of the Carman doors’ design. Who would think to alter the hinge of the door as to place it not on the jamb, but instead about a foot away from its widely accepted position?

It is hard to even imagine the thought process behind this deviation from the heretofore successful rubric of door design. Perhaps the goal in moving the hinge outward, and thus shrinking the passageway, was to force entrants to awkwardly shuffle side by side into the building, symbolic of the even more awkward Carman pregame which they hoped to attend.

1. That One Automatic John Jay Door Automatic/manual mixup: 10/10 Push/pull mixup: 5/10 Heaviness: 9/10 Creak: 8/10 Sex appeal: 7/10 (this door will break your heart and not even flinch) “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth in the form of a door.” – Revelation 12:9 As we investigators watched this monstrosity for days on end with red, sleep-deprived eyes and coffee stained mugs-in-hand, we saw carnage of an unspeakable scale. The worst were the freshmen. So young. So unsuspecting. They would walk up to that godforsaken deathtrap, spritely and full of life. I remember their faces, every single one—A man doesn’t just move on from something like that. With each victim I’d swear: no more. Just when I thought this door had taken its last soul, another would bite the dust.

And now… Well, now my nights remain sleepless and lonesome. This past week has been the worst. I dare not sleep. When I sleep, I dream, and if I dream, I might see them again. My kids look at me like they don’t even recognize me—oh God, there’s no going back this time.

The worst part is it’s still out there, and who knows when it will strike again. This door is the closest I will ever have to a nemesis; and it’s more than that: an archenemy, a demon. By God, I will bring down this door if it’s the last thing I do, so that maybe someday those carrying hot beverages or bowls of bisque from John Jay might finally be able to pass by, peaceful and undisturbed.

October 2018

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MANAGING MISCONDUCT

Understanding Betsy DeVos's Vision What potential changes to Title IX guidance could mean for Columbia

By Ufon Umanah

S

ince US Secretary of Education Betsy Devos’s tenure began, concern has grown over the fate of former President Barack Obama’s Title IX guidance, which set protocols for colleges and universities when investigating and adjudicating cases of sexual misconduct. Secretary Devos had remained mostly silent on the leaked draft of proposed Title IX regulations that have circulated through the media and the public since late August, until October 16, when she wrote in response to criticism from Senator Patty Murray, D-WA, that her “efforts will restore [due process] and support all students, including survivors.”

However, the extent to which Secretary Devos’s drafted Title IX regulations would be a welcome development for people organizing for universities to handle sexual misconduct better is unclear. This is in part because the regulations haven’t been submitted for the notice and comment period of executive branch rulemaking. But the regulations as written appear to show limited mandates on how universities can investigate cases of sexual misconduct. They also contain significant rollbacks of the terms and conditions under which an university can be held liable for sexual misconduct cases.

Columbia administrator and legal scholar, Suzanne Goldberg, suggested that Secretary DeVos’s proposals could go in different directions: “The new regulations may set a floor, meaning that schools cannot do less than what the regulations prescribe.

Or they might set a ceiling, meaning schools must do what the regulations prescribe, and no more or less.”

If anything, Secretary DeVos seems to love setting floors. Various media outlets have reported that her proposed regulations reduce the burden placed on universities by the Obama administration to take Title IX cases more seriously. In her draft regulation, DeVos offers a definition of sexual harassment as either sexual assault, like the quid pro quo harassment that former Dean of General Studies Tom Harford was accused of, or “unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it denies a person access to the school’s education program or activity.”

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Coverage of the new regulations is right to have has focused on the narrower definition of sexual harassment, which is closer to the standard embedded in Supreme Court case law. As far as Columbia is concerned, the University’s current gender-based misconduct procedures are based on a definition of sexual harassment that isn’t too different from the Supreme Court’s. Columbia’s misconduct procedures also align with Secretary DeVos’s limited definition of conduct that “is intentional, serves no legitimate purpose, and involves contact with parts of another individual’s body that may cause that person to feel degraded or abused” or conduct that “is for the purpose of gratifying the actor’s sexual desire.”

The same applies to Secretary DeVos’s handling of burden of proof for misconduct procedures.

The draft regulations thus leave it up to Columbia to decide whether or not to use the preponderance of the evidence standard required by President Obama’s Title IX guidelines, or the clear and convincing standard preferred by some due process advocates.

With floor regulations, Columbia could meet DeVos’ narrower standards, and nothing would prevent the University from going above and beyond them. When asked, Columbia Law Professor Katherine Franke’s “guess is EVP Goldberg and Bollinger remain committed” to maintaining Columbia’s Gender Based Misconduct policy as is.

However, while giving universities a choice, the regulations also stipulate that Columbia “must also apply the same standard of evidence for complaints against students as it does for complaints against employees, including faculty.” It’s unclear whether Section 75 of the University Statutes, in which in cases involving losing tenure or a termed appointment, a professor can opt to report to a process using clear and convincing evidence. But, it’s clauses like these that create a ceiling for what Columbia can do. Here the University can make a decision as to how to proceed.

They don’t always have this choice.

The biggest question for Columbia, in light of these draft regulations, is how the University will

The Blue and White

MANAGING MISCONDUCT continue to inform respondents about ongoing investigations. If the language from Secretary Devos’s draft remains, Columbia would have to provide respondents with descriptions of the conduct that constitutes sexual harassment under the University’s Gender-Based Misconduct Policy. Specifically, the complaint would have to list the date and location of the incident, if known and, critically, the “identities of the parties involved in the incident, if known.”

That last part, about known identities, really concerned some survivors, who would prefer to keep “the accuser's identity as protected as possible.”

Anonymity has always been a tricky part of Title IX regulations. In 2011, the Obama Administration wrote that “if the complainant requests confidentiality or asks that the complaint not be pursued, the school should take all reasonable steps to investigate and respond to the complaint consistent with the request for confidentiality or request not to pursue an investigation.” The administration did permit Columbia to, for example, “redact the complainant’s name and other identifying information before allowing the alleged harasser to inspect and review the sections of the complaint that relate to him or her,” preserving anonymity. This limited the extent to which a perpetrator could retaliate against a charge brought against them, as Professor Geert Bekaert did when he learned former Columbia Professor Enrichetta Ravina reported on his alleged harassment. However, as demonstrated in the Amelia Roskin-Frazee v.

Columbia University case, frustration ensues when anonymity comes at the cost of investigating sexual assault.

The draft also mandates cross-examination of parties or witnesses in a hearing setting, which Columbia uses for the Gender-Based Misconduct proceedings. In justifying the decision, the draft describes cross-examination as “the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.”

However, the Obama administration discouraged “schools from allowing the parties personally to question or cross-examine each other,” because “allowing an alleged perpetrator to question an alleged victim directly may be traumatic or intimidating, thereby possibly escalating or perpetuating a hostile environment.” Columbia allows complaints and respondents to submit questions to the hearing panel, but the hearing panel asks the questions at their discretion. According to Goldberg, “Nearly

October 2018

every court to address this issue has found that it is a permissible approach for schools to have students submit questions if they choose to the panelists” as Columbia does.

However, the lack of cross-examination has become an aminating issue for the Sixth Circuit of Appeals as well, in which a number of cases, Doe v Baum and Doe v. University of Cincinnati among them. In Doe v. Baum, Trump appointee Amul Thapar ruled that “if a public university has to choose between competing narratives to resolve a case,” it must allow the respondent or their agent to cross-examine, though giving preference in this case to allowing an agent to do the cross-examination. In this, Goldberg notes that “the Sixth Circuit stands alone in its position that schools must allow students or their representatives to cross examination eachother.” In standing alone, however, the Sixth Circuit risks creating a circuit split in a case law of over 100 cases, which increases the chances of a Supreme Court intervention.

While the draft regulations themselves are useful in getting an idea of where the Department of Education wants to go on Title IX, they are still a draft. To that end, the University plans to “review the proposed rules carefully when they come out.” In the meantime, Columbia has to navigate an environment in which students are not prone to trusting its administration or processes.

Or as one student put it, “when has Columbia administration ever done anything more than the bare minimum?”

For Goldberg’s part, universities like Columbia have to point to their “Supportive resources and a investigation and adjudication process that is fair to all students and sensitive to the issues involved” to move past the negative headlines generated by multiple lawsuits in the past year. Goldberg also pointed to “alternative forms of dispute resolution” for situations in which “a student who has experienced gender-based misconduct may prefer to have a mediation process or enter a restorative justice process and that is available for most types of gender-based misconduct complaints” that don’t involve sexual assault.

We won’t achieve clarity on the issue, however, until DeVos releases the final regulations for review.w Gaby Edwards, Billie Forester, and Hannah Liberman contributed reporting.

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M easure

for

M easure

Home, Inspired by László Krasznahorkai “I would leave everything here:” stillness, mayhem, silence like a shroud, torn first by the dawn stirring of magpies, I would leave here daybreak, raw and arid, dim and deep, uninhabited, windows bare and cavernous, I would leave here the moon, watched through the mesh until eyelids slip into slumber, the morning, sun dissolving warm on mouth and nose, thawing into the crumpled sheets stained and reeking of the lavender oil spilled in the dresser’s top drawer years ago, here, Mom will already be making coffee, Papa reading the newspaper, Brother snoring or on his way to school, here, I would leave them each, I would leave here the neighbor’s sputtering truck and his daughter’s wailing, breathlessness, the shuddering silhouette of the pines printed on the colorless walls, bare save for these forest shadows, I would leave here dusk, hushed and quick and golden, muddled, the unknown, the expectation, the disillusionment, a wind that blows from one gaping window through the other, abandoning the perfume of mud and sap somewhere in between, desolation, wonder, coiled asphalt roads crawling to dirt, lacing through light-soaked mountains and tired streams, here there is smoke among ashen trees, ablaze, tumbling, I would leave here time, the seasons and years, ravines, rage, tender reverie, flaxen leaves and a naked sky, terror, an un-slept in bed and loosely lended intimacy, here, I would leave change, naivety, nostalgia, young and rushing limbs, longing, lunacy, the whiff of garlic on the stove, the shades of grass under the clouds, Mom, humming emptily as she lugs grocery bags in from the car, Brother, eyes sunken, lungs heaving at an otherworldly pace, words he does not understand trickling off his tongue, Papa, forehead propped in his long fingers, glasses slipping down a tired face, lenses hazy, hope, Mom’s restless nights, Brother’s aching, Papa’s sorrow, our elation, desperation, defeat, I would leave here a man I do not know, a man I love, a voice that falters, breaks, then disappears, a voice that carries, I would leave here infatuation, lust fallen astray, flailing arms and thunderous smiles, I would leave here remorse, lost dignity, and grief, I would leave here joy, despair, regret, inevitability, love, pain, and perpetuity—stillness—“for here I would leave this earth and these stars, because I would take nothing with me from here, because I’ve looked into what’s coming, and I don’t need anything from here.”

— Hannah Liberman

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The Blue and White

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October 2018

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H E AV E N LY

The Holy and the Stylish The intersection of art, fashion, religion, and politics

By Kate Steiner

A

rt has long served as a tool for translating the human experience. Artists will take the perspectives, feelings, and beliefs of one culture and time and redefine them in the terms of another. Art converses with itself, responding to the ideas of similar works, reframing them, and starting new dialogues. For an art exhibition, curators take art from different genres, locations, time periods, and mediums and place them together in an inventive way. Recently, The Metropolitan Museum of Art did just this with its exhibition of “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” The show juxtaposed fashion and medieval art to highlight how the opulence and artistry of the Catholic Church has inspired fashion designers and their engagement with Catholicism, creating a conversation, not just between the artist and Church, but with the viewer as well.

Consisting of a wide variety of gorgeously designed gowns and costumes, the exhibit featured mostly Catholic designers from the 20th and 21st centuries, interspersing garments amongst objects from The Met’s medieval and Byzantine collections, as well as some artifacts from the Sistine Chapel Sacristy, which had never before been seen outside of the Vatican. Walking into the exhibit, the viewer was confronted by a long-sleeved evening dress from Dolce & Gabbana’s 2013/14 autumn/winter collection, whose jeweled embroidery depicts a mosaic of an icon from Sicily's Cathedral of Monreale, created in the late 1100s. Placed alongside a Byzantine mosaic from the early 500s depicting a similarly styled figure, these works set the stage for the exhibit as a whole, illustrating the progression and grand arc of visual and cultural influence contained within.

The designers featured in the show helped create a meaningful narrative about faith and identity. Many of the featured designers, like Yves Saint Laurent, Gianni Versace, and John Galliano, grew up queer in Roman Catholic environments. Tension between their religious upbringing and internal identities often made them feel isolated from their communities, and so they saw in design an opportunity for

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creativity and expression.

Featured pieces included an “angel” made of machine-cut, hand-punched strips of plywood and leather by Alexander McQueen. McQueen drew inspiration from the late 14th century oak altar frontal depicting the Coronation of the Virgin and the Adoration of the Magi surrounded by angels, and used this piece to examine the distance between the preindustrial, the era of the altarpiece, and the industrial age. John Galliano’s “Madonna” is an airy wedding dress, inspired by the Cuzco School, a Roman Catholic artistic tradition based in Cuzco, Peru, which lasted from the 16th to 18th centuries.

Its angelic wings draw inspiration from a seraphic wedding ensemble designed by Yves Saint Laurent, also featured in the gallery. Though a number of these creators treaded territory beyond the penumbra of their own personal experience, designing garb for wedding ceremonies they would never experience as part of a tradition that rejected them, the joint source of inspiration in Catholic mythology and custom proved a valuable outlet for expressing both themselves and their existence in the fashion world.

The Catholic imagination has created opulent and recognizable imagery throughout the centuries, inspiring artists across oceans and identities, especially through fashion. The curators of this exhibit, the loans from the Vatican, and the fashions from featured designers, created a narrative of timelessness, personal faith, and creativity. In the end, the greatest part of this conversation was the viewer, who made the connections that have created the dialogue and will bring greater diversity to the table. In a broad sense, “Heavenly Bodies” proved that the past is never lost but simply translated again and again by newer artists, works, and audiences.w

Illustration by Kate Steiner

The Blue and White

T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N

Columbia and the Constitution A conversation with Christopher Riano

By Ufon Umanah A former student at the School of General Studies, a former Columbia University Senator, and a current lecturer in Constitutional Law and Government at the Columbia School of Professional Studies, Christopher Riano is about as ‘Columbia’ on paper, as one could possibly be. His experiences beyond these (and other) accolades, however, defy such straightforward categorization. The Blue and White’s Investigations Editor, Ufon Umanah, CC ‘20, talked with him over the summer about the University Senate, higher education in case law, and how he found himself at GS. The Blue and White: I remember when I was first convocated at Columbia that they introduced all of the new School of General Studies students by saying “everyone at GS has their own story.” So let’s start with that, what’s your GS story, how did you get here?

Christopher Riano: [Laughs] You know, that’s funny.

I think one of the great parts about the School of General Studies is that everybody does come in with this unique background: what we call the “GS Story.” To have one of the four undergraduate schools with such a rich history in the student population adds to the student body as a whole, it adds to the classroom, and it adds really to the university experience. And in some ways I think I was fortunate in that my own GS story led me from a traditional college background, where I was an electrical and computer engineering student at Carnegie Mellon in

Pittsburgh, and after some time there I realized that might not be what I wanted to do. I seem to remember an advanced theory math class in my second year where the professor came in on the first day and said, “We should all start by knowing that math is really a theory,” and I remember feeling pretty strongly that after all of these years of thinking that math is such a formal construct, to turn it into something so different really put into perspective that engineering might not be what I wanted to complete my life doing.

And so I was lucky in that I was able to take a summer off, and move to New York, and start working in the modeling industry and make enough money to put a roof over my head… barely! After a little bit of time doing that I realized that it was important to be in school, and I didn’t want to not be in school during that process. So I was fortunate, I fell into General Studies in many ways, I think a lot of other people have done the same. That summer after I moved here, I took a class or two at GS, and then transferred in that fall part-time, working in order to pay for school at the same time that I started to, you know, change career paths and think of a different way to finish my undergraduate career. [...]

B&W: The University Senate recently passed a couple of resolutions that essentially said “While we don’t exactly follow the First Amendment principles dot to dot, we want to follow First Amendment principles in as very close approximation as possible.” As a constitutional scholar, what do you think that should look like for the University? What should the University do or not do that the Constitution compels the government to do or not do?

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Illustration by Rea Rustagi

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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N CR: That’s a very interesting question. I think that academic freedom, which is a little bit different than free speech and free expression, it’s a little bit of a different concept, I think that academic freedom is crucial, I think it’s crucial to the health and the welfare of a university system and a university body. I think that one of the beauties of academic freedom is the fact that everybody gets to enjoy something a little bit different and I know that the way that the American Association of University Professors has approached this, which is kind of the place where this all started in part, is by looking at the academic freedom that a student has to learn, and looking at the academic freedom that a faculty member has to teach and to research, and then by looking at the academic freedom that a university has to set a university-wide mission, I think it’s great that the University wants to put forward a strong stance to protect students, faculty, and the university at large. Obviously, the University Senate is the place to do that. It’s the one body where students have a voice, where faculty have a voice, where staff have a voice, where alumni have a voice, it’s the one spot where everybody gets to elect somebody to represent them. And I think that’s great that the University Senate is looking at ways to continue the discussion debate around really crucial principles which absolutely includes Academic Freedom.

B&W: That’s funny, because when I was interviewing some Senate candidates during the last election, one of the comments that she brought up was that the University is not a democracy. She described the University Senate as some kind of semi-democratic body, but where does the University Senate lie on the spectrum between full-on direct democracy and a, I dunno, it can't be a monarchy…

CR: [laughs] That’s a great question. Well obviously it’s a representative body, right? It’s a representative, republic-type body. And I think one thing that probably hasn’t changed too much, I remember this from my time as a student, is it’s actually very rare to see a University Senate at a university. Most universities, and I think NYU might be the other primary exception, have a faculty senate and some sort of student senate. While they may interact, they often follow completely different policies and have different guidelines and look at things in very different ways. One of the things that came out of 1968 was a University Senate where students were represented,

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where faculty were represented, where staff, research staff, were represented, where alumni were represented, where the administration was represented.

While there are always going to be imperfections in any elected body, that’s almost the definition of the discussion that comes around the way in which elected bodies are constituted, and we can always debate and dialogue how those elected bodies should look differently, I think we actually do a pretty good job compared to most of the universities of assuring that different parts of the university are represented in a particular body that has the power to make policy decisions and recommendations to the trustees. In most other situations, students have no similar comparative voice at most other institutions. If anything, I think the student affairs group here at Columbia is incredibly influential compared to the way in which students have influence at other universities.

B&W: How so?

CR: One thing that I recall from my time as student affairs chair, and I’ve seen even since then, is that students come in with an enthusiasm and a drive that frequently will magnify what their numbers alone might be able to do. So while you might have a little bit more than maybe 20 student senators and you’ve got 70 faculty senators and you’ve got all these administration, and staff, and researchers…. Those students drive the conversation. Not every year, but most years. The students come in with different goals and different aspirations, and one thing that maybe takes a little bit of time from the student perspective is to realize that the senate’s responsibility is to Columbia, not to GS, not to SEAS [the School of Engineering and Applied Science], it is to Columbia as a whole, to all of the schools. The Senate also represents the faculty. You are responsible to try to do what you can to advance policies that the faculty are trying to advance. It is one of the most incredibly democratic bodies that you can have at a university, and universities don’t have to have that kind of governance. Students sit on the executive committee of the university. That’s incredible. It is truly unique and unusual to see that an undergraduate, a graduate, and another student have, by tradition, sat on the executive committee for decades. That, I think, is one of the things that makes the Senate pretty special.

I think it’s pretty special that the students drive the conversation often times. I think that the relation-

The Blue and White

T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N ship that exists between the faculty senators and the student senators traditionally has actually been quite good. Same with the administration, actually. Not always; there are always going to be debates and dialogues. But, at least in my experience, whether it was in my time as a student senator or in my time heading up the rules committee, there are far more points of agreement and far more places where people can find consensus than places where they don’t. [...]

B&W: Ok, so tell me more about your path from student to constitutional scholar.

CR: Well, it’s so fortuitous in part because it was my time as a student senator that made me realize that my real interest lied in governance and governance structure. Let me zoom out a little bit, as much as I think politics and political science, which was my undergraduate degree, plays a role in the way in which we interact as people, I always found structure to be incredibly interesting. Maybe there’s a little engineering in there somewhere, but I always found legal structure to be really interesting. And as I finished my senior year here as the head of student affairs I began to realize, “Wow, I want to study this in law school. I want to spend time focused under somebody who is a scholar in constitutional law and constitutional theory.” So I very specifically targeted places where I knew I could work with faculty members that focused on constitutional law. And I was fortunate to find the dean of my law school was a First Amendment scholar and is somebody who is well known within their realm, and to have a pretty flexible curriculum that the law school offered where I believe that I did almost half of my credits, maybe a little less, on some type of constitutional law or constitutional practice.

To have that experience was extraordinary. I realized as I continued to study constitutional law I wanted to learn and do more constitutional law [laughs] which is kind of funny thinking back on that. But it really turned into something when, after my clerkship, I knew moving back to New York and starting up my former practice, that I wanted to work in the constitutional field still. Fortunately, Columbia reached out and we had a discussion about beginning to teach here and to teach constitutional law here at Columbia.

It was very important to me that my classes be open.

I think constitutional law is an area that people who

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are high schoolers and undergraduates and graduate students can understand. It doesn’t really matter what your background is as long as you’re interested in doing reading, and research, and writing in the way in which constitutional structures work and constitutional government works, whether it’s the American system or other legal systems, in the comparative context. And with that I have, in some ways, set out on this trajectory where I am fortunate to be here, to work with the federal courts as their constitutional scholar in residence with the specific education work that they do here in the Second Circuit. Um, it’s kind of expanded where I didn’t even expect it. And I was fortunate to take an area of law that really people don’t focus on [laughs] and turn it into a passion.

B&W: Could you describe your work in the Second Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. What were you focusing on as scholar in residence?

CR: So, one of the things that I think is great that the current chief judge of the Second Circuit has been focused on is this civic education initiative.

And for the last, I believe, four years, he has really been pushing to combine the bench and the bar and scholars from Columbia, Fordham, and Cardozo, and Brooklyn, and other law schools in the area, to come together to find ways to bring civics into the community. So whether that's through courthouse visits, whether it's through our education programs that we’ve been working on, whereby we bring teachers into the courthouse and teach advanced constitutional law topics and advanced constitutional theory, so that then teachers can go back into their classrooms and teach. And the initiative has grown and become a national model in some ways to which I think other courts have started to really look at the work we’re doing and are in this process of also creating their own similar initiatives. The federal courts across the second circuit have been all participating, and it’s been truly incredible to bring together scholars from academia, judges from the bench, and find ways to give them context to bring their experience to people that come into the courthouse everyday.

B&W: So, can I ask, if you were appointed as a judge to, let’s say, the Second Court of Appeals, how would you describe your judicial preference? Do you think of yourself as an originalist? Are you a textualist? Do you think your interpretations tend to be more liberal

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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N or more conservative?

CR: You know, it’s an incredible question and, I think, shockingly, if you really look at how judges operate, as much as there’s a legal realism that judges bring into what they do—meaning, that their own life experiences are going to influence, in part, how they look at cases—every judge is going to approach every case in front of them, and the vast majority are actually probably not that difficult. There’s a case that’s happened before, you can apply precedent, you may be able to draw a few distinctions, but most likely your decision will follow what’s happened previously. I’ve always found it more interesting—the cases—where they don’t follow precedent, or maybe something very novel has come up, and they have to make decisions based on what they have. I think the best judges, and most judges, frankly, actually aren’t necessarily conservative, or necessarily liberal, or necessarily a textualist, or necessarily somebody who, for lack of a better term, thinks of the Constitution as a document that “lives.” I think most judges look at what they’ve got in front of them: the facts of a case, which are often not in dispute. Often the facts are the facts, it’s just the law that’s in dispute. They look at what statues they have available, what constitutional theory they may know; they look at what opportunities have existed previously, where people have ruled on something similar. They do the best they can given the circumstances. I think you would probably find that more judges attach to particular areas of law, as opposed to making broad strokes on political questions. Does that make sense? So if you are a First Amendment scholar, and you become a judge, you’re probably going to look at First Amendment cases differently than other people, not as a conservative or a liberal, but instead, you’re a First Amendment guy.

You’re of course going to have a different background on it. One of the things about being a judge is that you’re a generalist, and a lawyer is a doctor, you come in with a specialty, but most things will be outside that specialty, most federal judges aren’t sitting on constitutional law cases all day. [Laughs] I think most would want to have more, because they find them interesting. Does that help?

B&W: Yeah, that makes sense. But I did have a question related to a class you teach on constitutional issues facing higher education. In that class,

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I presume one of the big things that people wonder is, “Oh, are you going to teach about affirmative action?” Because affirmative action [per the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case] is matter currently being challenged at the level of the district court, but one that I imagine will, like, Grutter v.

Bollinger or Fisher v. University of Texas, come up to the Supreme Court level. Could you talk more about what the constitutional rationale for our current holistic review process is, and where you might imagine, the Supreme Court is—with or without Brett Kavanaugh—on the issue. What’s the future of affirmative action if it comes to the Supreme Court?

CR: That’s a really good question, and it’s definitely a hard one. Why? I think that you can see cases like Fisher, especially Fisher I and Fisher II, you can see cases at the district court level: there’s the Harvard case right now, and there’s a couple others that are always bubbling around. You can look at what the Court’s previously said in Grutter, Gratz v. Bollinger, and you can try to glean—“Alright, how does the Court approach this topic over time?” And the Court, as it often has to deal with hard topics, approaches it doing the best the Court can often try to do with hard topics, and, I think one thing that is pretty unique about this, and you said it well, is that universities have an interest in ensuring that they do the best they can to give a holistic review to the people that apply, for admission to the university. I think that the admissions process has changed over time—especially at the high-pressure admissions offices, where you have thousands of applicants for only a couple seats—you have to find some way in order to adjudicate when everybody has test scores that are pretty good, everybody’s got extracurriculars, everybody’s got grades, where do you begin to draw those differentiating lines when your seats are limited? I think one thing I would definitely say, I think GS has come up with a really unique model over time, when it comes to admissions. They’ve almost had to—how do you differentiate between somebody who’s been out of school two years, somebody who’s been out of school ten years, somebody who’s been out of school forty years, somebody who failed out over here, somebody who excelled at community college over here, how in the world do you begin to figure out who’s going to be ready for an undergraduate education at a place like Columbia? That’s hard. That’s a really hard ques-

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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N tion, and I think that as much as they tweaked the way GS does it, I think GS is a model that many other schools have come to study, and have come to try to find ways that they can incorporate those questions and those answers into their own admissions models, and I think you’re always going to be continually in part revisiting this debate and question, because the importance of higher education is not going to go away and the importance of quality higher education is not going to go away, and I think you’re going to always have people that are striving to access that education, and the way in which admissions offices are gonna grapple with the different backgrounds is gonna look different at different schools. I have no doubt that it looks different at CC than it would look at Harvard, than it’s gonna look at Stanford. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Every university should have, you know, an ability to control their admissions process, in part. But, I also think that there are still unanswered questions as to how we do that as best as we can. We don’t want to just plug everything into a computer, with numbers and arithmetic, there has to be a human element, an understanding, an application pool, and I think that that’s gonna continually be a debate, and the courts are gonna obviously be playing a role in that debate, no different than legislatures play a role, and many state legislatures have said no to the way in which their state universities approach questions as to the admissions policies of their state universities, like Michigan, I believe the same in California. So it’s actually not just courts that play a role in that; it’s all the branches.

B&W: Right, that’s affirmative action. Could you talk about an area of constitutional law that people don’t think of as affecting higher education, but could have a similar level of impact on higher education as an affirmative action or a free speech case?

CR: The First Amendment probably is the most prominent that you’d see, when it’s debated on campuses, and it should be a part. Campuses should be a laboratory where we have these discussions, and if it’s not safe to have these talks on campus, it’s even… you know, where can we have some of the more difficult debates in our society? I think one of the things that I’ve always found quite interesting when it comes to

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campuses and the way in which campuses interact with the larger world are campus systems when it comes to the campus judicial systems, whether it’s student judicial systems, faculty judicial systems, I think it’s quite interesting to see the way in which different schools approach administrative judicial processes, you know, essentially all on a campus you have an administrative judicial process with administrative—quote-on-quote quasi-administrative—sort of law judges that are adjudicating things. I’ve always found that fascinating, especially because you see such unique differences between universities, different student, faculty and other judicial processes, quasi-judicial processes, look vastly different at different schools. I’ve always found that to be quite fascinating.

Questions about representation, and those particular proceedings, or a lack of representation, if you don’t have that right under the administrative system. I think that’s always going to be a discussion point, and a debate point, especially more common now, than maybe other times. But I think that there are other areas of constitutional law people don’t even think about that interact with the universities. For example, I think about a week or two ago, we spent a class talking about bioethics, and with bioethics, which also interacts with the university—because universities are the research hubs of the United States—you have all sorts of unique constitutional liberty questions that come up, and constitutional questions surrounding individual liberties, individual freedoms, family opportunities to interfere with individual liberties or freedoms, questions around life, and end-of-life decisions, end-of-life caretaking, that happen at universities, because universities often, like ours, are attached to incredible health care facilities, and these constitutional questions come up, you would never think of that. Ever! And yet, oftentimes the case law is based on cases that come from universities and university hospitals. So, thinking about that spectrum, I think it’s incredibly interesting to see all of the areas you would never think of that are actually constitutional areas, that come up in the university system, even where you wouldn’t think that they would, and it’s part of actually what I think is so special about con law. Con-law really does interact with us, as people, as citizens, in ways that we never even necessarily realize on a day-to-day basis.w

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CAMPUS GOSSIP Joel Davis, the former GS student indicted this summer on four pedophilia-related charges, has plead not guilty to all four counts. The next conference on the case will occur over winter break. e The Metropolitan Republican Club of New York invited Gavin McInnes, leader of the white supremacist Proud Boys group, to speak recently, drawing the ire of enough people to warrant protest flyers throughout Hamilton (an admittedly low bar). The event was followed by violence between self-identified Proud Boys and anti-fascist protesters. Those suspected of initiating violence are in the process of being apprehended by the NYPD. e As a result of deductions placed on first-year candidates, effective turnout for the Fall 2018 CCSC elections was reduced from 39 percent to 37 percent.

Some of the reductions were for such abhorrent and democracy undermining acts as violating Housing policy and liking the posts of other candidates. e The student-run investment group, Lion Fund, which made appeals to the University Senate for support two years ago, received over 200 applications this Fall. They only accepted 10 people. e A Barnard student made her “finsta” Instagram handle @sianbeilock following Barnard president Sian Beilock’s decision to change hers to @presbeilock.

Barnard College reportedly offered the student dining points in exchange for the misappropriated handle. The student declined the offer. e In case you were wondering, the Columbia Directory does not remove the UNIs of dropouts from its rolls.

Timothée Chalamet still probably doesn’t check his LionMail, though. e

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In an unusual turn, the Columbia Daily Spectator managed to scoop Bwog on one of the worst stories for the Marching Band in recent history, an area of coverage in which Bwog has historically led. e The annual spring concert, Bacchanal, is funded with $200K from the student body’s Student Activities Fee. The past year’s budget shows only $80K is reserved for booking musicians for the concert, while over $100K goes to the apparent true artists of the evening: Columbia Public Safety and Facilities staff. e The Senate Commission on Diversity and Inclusion was unable to arrange a meeting with either of the feuding Columbia University College Republicans or the Black Students’ Organization last year during the ‘Free Speech Month’ controversy. Rest assured, Heather Mac Donald, a speaker invited by CUCR to talk about “The Diversity Delusion,” will provide another point of conflict between the clubs for the Commission to work on. e The new Manhattanville campus has everything a University could ask for: housing, auditoriums, exhibit spaces. One thing the architects didn’t plan for? Classrooms, apparently. e Over the summer, the Columbia University Libraries sponsored a graduate student class called “Foundations for Research Computing.” In four minutes, the 80 seat class was completely booked. Over 400 hopeless souls found themselves stuck in the waitlist. And who said librarians were boring? e Columbia Facilities discovered a large beehive behind a set of trash cans outside of Lerner. Although the hive was reportedly removed, little has come in on the ensuing bee housing crisis.w

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