11/14

The

Davidsonian November 14, 2018

“We feel beleaguered.” inside

Davidson reels after tweets allege neo-Nazism on campus Twitter accounts accuse Davidson students of neo-Nazi statements

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Campus questions reveal discussion points and concerns on campus

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Davidson Men’s Soccer endures dramatic loss to Dayton

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Evan Yi ‘18 and Dr. Chris Marsicano ‘10 share alumni thoughts on recent events

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Photo by Christopher Record

News

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Neo-Nazi Tweets Roil Campus Students and administrators grieve and seek answers

by Emma Pettit ‘20 and AJ Naddaff ‘19

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n Wednesday, November 7th, the Carolina Workers Collective’s Twitter account doxxed two Davidson students with allegations of spreading neo-Nazi rhetoric online. This doxxing, defined as a search for and publication of private information about an individual through the internet, spread quickly throughout the Davidson community and gathered significant attention online. These allegations of neo-Nazi presence on campus came on the heels of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting on October 27th and the discovery of “Hitler did nothing wrong” written on a whiteboard in Watson on October 30th.

Photos by Christopher Record

also raised concerns about personal experiences with and previous safety reports about the accused students. Students told Campus Police that one student involved was removed from a Patterson Court Organization in November 2017 on the grounds that the student held racist ideologies that were unwelcome within that organization. Throughout that evening, students, alumni, and community members disseminated what they knew to others on campus, spoke over social media, and posted information and reactions to the Davidson College 2018-2019 Facebook page.

Following the attention that the doxxing received online and on campus, Davidson Col-

The Union’s second floor, staircase, and café level balconies were full of students, faculty, and staff by the beginning of the protest.

The first tweet of the dox was posted at 4:40 PM, linking a Davidson student to an anonymous neo-Nazi Twitter account. The tweet compared photos and references from the student’s personal social media accounts and the anonymous Twitter account. At 4:44 PM, a second post claimed that another student, and partner of the first, was linked to a separate anonymous, neo-Nazi Twitter account. On this second account, the author confessed to attending the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, a white supremacist march in August 2017, shared white supremacist images and epithets, and retweeted content from the initial doxxed account.

In the immediate wake of the doxxing on Wednesday evening, students spoke extensively with Campus Police to address the information being shared on Twitter. Students

lege responded in a tweet at 9:15 PM saying, “Davidson College condemns bigotry and racism as antithetical to our values and our mission. We are aware of the information that has understandably raised concern, and the college is on it.” At 9:22 PM, President Carol Quillen tweeted “@DavidsonCollege students, we are on it”; this tweet has since been deleted.

Later that evening, the Twitter account U.S. Army WTF! Moments retweeted the Carolina Workers Collective’s original dox, condemning images and content from the first doxxed account. The official Army ROTC Twitter account responded to the U.S. Army WTF! Moment post at 4:08 AM with the message, “Thank you for bringing the tweets attributed to [the student] to our attention. We are currently looking into this and will take action as appropriate. These messages conveyed in the

tweets doesn’t represent the values of Army ROTC or the US Army.”

Between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, as students, alumni, and the broader community followed the online conversations, Campus Police gathered information, located the students, and monitored their exit from campus.

Terry Zervos ‘19 is the Resident Advisor (RA) on one of the accused students’ halls.

Zervos was notified about the tweets between 8:30 PM and 9:00 PM from one of his residents. According to residents, the students were believed to be on the hall at the time.

Zervos told residents that he notified his supervisors in the Residence Life Office (RLO), and they were coordinating with Campus Police to address the situation. Later that night, the students named in the doxxing spoke with Campus Police, returned to the hall to collect their belongings, and left campus.

The first email update to students came from the Student Government Association (SGA) at 12:24 AM and reported that “the responsible parties are not on campus.”

Quillen offered her first update via email at 9:19 AM, writing: “Our community is understandably upset over social media postings that gained attention last evening. I want you to know that our campus is safe. There are no threats to campus, and our staff are addressing this situation. We have no greater priority than the safety and well-being of our community.

Clearly racism, bigotry and anti-Semitism are antithetical to everything Davidson stands for and to the community we strive to be. Since we became aware of this, we (Campus Police, all of our student life and RLO staff, our communications staff, and many others) have been working on it. We will update you as we

can. For now, please know that we are a strong community and stand firm behind our values of dignity toward all.”

Soon national news outlets began to pick up the story. The Hill ran an article at 10:05 AM with the headline “Army ROTC and Davidson College investigating after student’s alleged pro-Nazi social media posts surface” in which the publication reprinted the tweets and named the students involved.

On campus, Dean of Students Byron McCrae and the SGA worked on compiling campus resources and disseminating pertinent information for the student body. In an 11:05 AM email, McCrae listed six links and gave eight contacts with hours of availability for students who desired to have conversations with them in the following days.

Later, in a 2:29 PM email a coalition of student leaders, including from SGA, Honor Council, Union Board, and PCC, wrote, “Davidson College is not always a bastion of the ideals it seeks to uphold. As student leaders, we feel the need to reiterate the importance of respect, integrity, and dignity towards all. But, that is not enough. Hiding under the veneer of acceptance and tolerance, there are people driven by hate and fear that seek to divide this community. Hate speech and bigotry have absolutely no place here, and they never will.

Ever.”

In the meantime, Major General John R. Evans, US Army Cadet Command, tweeted from a verified account at 3:54 PM: “In close coordination with local law enforcement @ ArmyROTC investigated the tweets attributed to [the named student]. We determined these tweets are NOT from [the student] and the Twitter account WAS NOT [the student’s].”

This response confused students and ad-

What we know: President Carol Quillen tweets, “@DavidsonCollege students, we are on it.” The tweet has since been deleted.

Carolina Workers Collective (CWC) tweets accusing a Davidson student of owning and operating a neo-Nazi Twitter account. Screenshots from said account are included. CWC prefaces their thread with “DOX ALERT,” referring to the practice of discovering and sharing personal information via the internet.

4:40 PM

8:30-9:00 PM

Wednesday Terry Zervos ‘19, a Residential Advisor, learns of CWC’s tweets: one of the students named by CWC is a resident of Zervos’ hall.

Zervos soon alerts his supervisors; later that night, Zervos will stand outside the room—completely unaccompanied—while the two students collect their belongings.

9:22 PM

12:24 AM Thursday

“My friend who is an RA was alone there for half an hour and I feel like his life could have been at risk.”

— Jose Olvera ‘19 “They were there for 30 to 45 minutes. Finally, they walked out carrying bags.”

— Sawyer Levy ‘19 “That was a mistake and that should not have happened; the Honor Council asked me that too. I didn’t know that happened; that’s not an excuse. . . . We have apologized to the RA.” — Dean Byron McCrae

SGA President Itziri Gonzalez-Barcena ‘19 and Vice President Osama Syed ‘19 email the student body expressing concern and consolation. They stress that the students named in CWC’s tweets “are not on campus.”

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November 14, 2018 ministrators alike. When asked about Evans’s tweet, a spokesperson for ROTC shared that the investigation was ongoing and had not reached a conclusion. Evans’s Twitter account biography includes the clause, “These are my opinions and no one else’s.”

Quillen continued to update students on Thursday in a 4:39 PM email dispelling rumors “about firearms, external demonstrations and other threats to campus.” In text messages between students, a previous report of notes found on a library whiteboard including details regarding a school shooting was circulated. The Davidsonian spoke with multiple administrators and faculty members who reviewed the whiteboard and concluded that the notes appeared to be an academic outline, not a credible safety threat.

story.

inquired into plans for future action to mitigate the possibility of white nationalism on campus.

Jose Olvera ‘19 asked McCrae, “Why were the students allowed to go to one of their rooms together and leave their stuff alone unsupervised for half an hour? My friend who is an RA was alone there for half an hour and I feel like his life could have been at risk.”

McCrae responded: “That was a mistake and that should not have happened; the Honor Council asked me that too. I didn’t know that happened; that’s not an excuse. Our job is never to put students in harm’s way, so it will never happen again. The next time an incident like this happens, it would be a residence professional who is trained and Campus Police would be in the vicinity. We have apologized

Soon national news outlets began to pick up the

The Charlotte Observer published an article that afternoon at 4:54 PM. The piece quoted emails from Quillen, reprinted Davidson College’s tweets, and discussed plans for the open student meeting scheduled for 8:00 PM that evening. The Chronicle of Higher Education published a similar story on the same day, reprinting the doxxing tweets and quoting students.

Media outlets contacted students in an AT class taught by one of the students accused in the doxxing. Until Thursday, Davidson’s website had publicly listed students in the AT taught by the student in question, as well as the time and place of the session. According to FERPA, a federal law that protects the privacy of students, students must “provide a signed and dated written consent before an educational agency or institution discloses personally identifiable information from the student’s education records.”

On Thursday evening in the Lilly Family Gallery, SGA President Itziri Gonzalez-Barcenas ‘19 and Vice President Osama Syed ‘19 provided a forum for students and community members to ask questions directly to Quillen and McCrae, who were both in attendance.

Students called for transparency, shared concerns that the college was prioritizing public relations over student wellbeing, and

to the RA.”

By Friday morning, the alumni community had an official petition addressed to the administration authored by Evan Yi ‘18 and Vita Dadoo ’18. Entitled “Demands for Clarity and Healing by Davidson Alumni,” the petition called for more information about the situation and was later updated with a message explaining that the authors understood this would be limited by FERPA restrictions.

Nonetheless, the petition still requests that the administration “acknowledge generations of marginalized students’ fears and concerns about institutional safety that predate this particular incident.”

Between Thursday and Friday, student leaders from Hillel, the Black Student Coalition (BSC), Muslim Student Association (MSA), the Organization of Latin American Students (OLAS) and others publicized a demonstration in the Union.

Quillen shared the details of the protest in an email to students on Friday at 11:06 AM. In this email, she also addressed the tweet from Major General John R. Evans, stating, “The national command of ROTC issued a tweet last night regarding one of our students, stating that the social media postings that prompted these events were not made by that student.

Davidson College is conducting its own inqui-

Major General John R. Evans tweets on behalf of ROTC announcing that the account first mentioned by CWC does not belong to the Davidson student alleged in that original tweet. His Twitter bio bears the caveat, “These are my opinions and no one else’s,” but he tags @ArmyROTC and claims they have investigated the tweets in question.

3:54 PM

ry, which is not complete.”

The Union’s second floor, staircase, and café level balconies were full of students, faculty, and staff by the beginning of the protest.

The protest intended to adopt a “black radical framework,” and students representing multiple organizations spoke from the Union stairs to an audience covering the Atrium floor and crowding the surrounding balconies.

Dahlia Krutkovich ‘21 was the first student to speak at the microphone from the platform: “Today, Hillel, the BSC, MSA, OLAS and other groups stand against Nazism and more broadly, white terror … This semester, the Jewish community at Davidson has weathered hit after hit, starting with the shooting at Pittsburg and leading us here. We feel beleaguered.

We feel existentially threatened, but we also recognize that anti-Semitism acts as an existential threat to every person of color, every queer person, every non-normative person on this campus. We look to our peers, to our professors, to our community now to stand with us.”

Student representatives from the BSC raised awareness about the historical Project 87: a series of demands, written in 1984–85, to improve representation, equality, and inclusivity on Davidson’s campus for students, faculty, and academics. Fellow students spoke and shared feelings of fear, discomfort, anger, exhaustion and solidarity in the face of white supremacist rhetoric. The demonstration was followed by a meeting at the BSC in which updates to Project 87 were discussed.

On Monday, November 12th, Quillen emailed students to state that she would be accessible in the Union Café from 11:00 AM until 1:00 PM on Tuesday, November 13th, to speak with students about “thoughts or ideas or concerns.”

Davidsonian Investigates

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o supplement the information available to students and the Davidson community, The Davidsonian conducted interviews with students, faculty, staff, and Campus Police.

One key concern that many students expressed was the way in which the students

Masses of students gather in the Union atrium for a rally, which has been advertised on social media as a “protest” against “white terror,” and which President Quillen has referred to, in an email Friday morning, as a “gathering.” Representatives from Hillel, the BSC, Muslim Student Association (MSA), Organization of Latin American Students (OLAS), Davidson Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), and other groups express solidarity with the groups targeted in the tweets exposed on Wednesday afternoon.

“I think Judaism in the United States doesn’t do enough to support people of color. I want to change that. jusdaism should be a push against inequality across the board. jews while often targeted with hateful and violent epithets do benefit from white supremacy so its our responsibility to be able to leverage that white privilege and unite behind our commonalty”

“We feel existentially threatened, but we also recognize that anti-Semitism acts as an existential threat to every person of color, every queer person, every non-normative person on this campus. We look to our peers, to our professors, to our community now to stand with us.”

—Dahlia Krutkovich ‘21 “We are not just mad about some tweets. We are not just mad about a single isolated incident of white nationalism. We are mad that we’ve been erased, and we have been silenced, and we’ve been shouting in our communities, in our microcommunites, in our black and brown spaces, and haven’t been heard.”

— Bry Reed ‘20

Friday

8:00-10:00 PM

SGA holds a forum in the Lilly Gallery for students to address comments, questions and concerns to the Gonzalez-Barcena and Syed, President Quillen, and Dean McCrae.

Members of the Black Student Coalition (BSC) read a provisional list of demands for institutional change based on a document from the mid-80’s called “Project 87.”

named in the doxxing left campus, particularly regarding the involvement of a single student RA. Olvera’s question to McCrae (see above) at the Thursday meeting in the Lilly Gallery specifically addressed this issue.

Olvera said that he did not feel like it ever be an RA’s job to oversee the removal of students from campus. “Most people I talked to had the consensus that it shouldn’t have just been [Zervos] or any other RA.” Sawyer Levy ‘19 said he knew the students in question were in the room because he heard them through the door. “They were there for 30 to 45 minutes. Finally, they walked out carrying bags,” he said. “Yes, I was concerned for my safety, because I didn’t know what they would come out with, but at the same time, I couldn’t resist my temptation. I looked them in the eyes and told them, ‘this campus is going to be an immediately better place as soon as you leave.’ They didn’t respond.”

Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Residence Life Jason Shaffer was not able to comment on any specific situation. Procedurally, however, he explained that “in emergency situations, RLO looks to Campus Police for guidance.”

Students had also expressed serious concerns about what justifies Campus Police’s use of the term “non-credible threat.” The Davidsonian met with Campus Police Chief Todd Sigler to discuss Davidson’s Threat Assessment Policy.

According to Sigler, the Threat Assessment Policy evaluates “whether an individual is on a pathway to violence. Are they engaged in certain behaviors that would lend us to think that some sort of violence is imminent? What’s their history of violence? Do they have history of being a substance abuser? Do they have access to weapons? Do they have a history of speaking about them? This is a relatively evolving [process] and it has been evolving for the last several years.”

At Davidson, the Threat Assessment process is closely connected to the Student of Concern reports that are evaluated on a weekly basis, and Campus Police are able to contact local law enforcement should they deem that necessary during the process.

12:15 PM

A call is raised for further action. After the rally, scores of students move to the BSC to share their feelings, address common needs, and discuss solutions to problems on campus.

1:00PM

Perspectives

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Student Responses: Unanswered Questions

The Davidsonian encouraged students to submit their questions, both personal and theoretical, for this week’s issue. The questions published below were selected to demonstrate the breadth and depth of issues currently being discussed on campus. Student names are published below by request.

Why is everybody acting surprised?

To what extent should free speech be part of the conversation around this topic? Is hate an idea? If not, can we limit that form of speech?

How can our community heal after this hurt?

How do we continue to live without dismissing or forgetting what has happened?

Haley ‘19 Is racism the product of external factors in one’s environment?

Alex ‘20 Does Davidson’s administration legitimately not understand that Friday’s event was a critique of Davidson culture, or are they purpose-

fully calling it a “show of solidarity” in order to avoid bad press?

In a community where an overwhelming majority of people in power are white Americans, what is Davidson’s plan to be more representative of all Americans? It should be the college’s initiative to tear down stigmas that feed into the oppressive representations of minorities that empower racism and promote hate.

Richard Guerrero ‘21 Why were there almost no white men at the BSC post-rally meeting?

Sheila Nunez ‘19 Does the administration have legitimate methods to improve communication between themselves and the student body?

Sabid Hossain ‘21 Is there a place for people who are disabled to process recent events?

Ellie ‘22 Leaking of personal information online (doxxing) should not be condoned whether the

victim is a respectable student who values diversity and differences or a neo-Nazi. Is the university going to take legal action against people who obtained and used personal information of Davidson students with malicious intents?

Why is “applicability to subject area” the basis for whether or not this stuff gets discussed in class? Isn’t the fact that the students in the community/classroom are hurting/angry/ scared enough to warrant attention? [This is] mostly [for] STEM faculty.

Emma Tayloe ‘19 How will the college accommodate and support student leaders who are doing the necessary work of combating minority exclusion and inequality?

What do the recent events suggest about the supposed culture of honor, community, and principles here at Davidson?

These events have called into question the validity of considering students on campus a “community.” How are we building commu-

nity and ensuring everyone participates? Who falls through the cracks, and why?

At what point do we stop including people on the grounds of “free speech” and have a clear, firm commitment against certain ideologies or patterns of behavior?

Should class, practice, and extracurricular commitments be canceled, or is it beneficial to provide a sense of normalcy and structure despite the chaos and emotions sparked by these events?

Why is there an assumption that Davidson’s administration can ensure students’ safety or eradicate hate speech on campus when we live in a country where those things can never be certain? Are we actually suggesting that our $60,000 tuition should protect us? Are we willing to have a conversation about what that implies in a broader national context?

Is safety a luxury? Are we okay with our answer to that question?

Hours before the Carolina Workers Collective exposed the anti-Semitic tweets allegedly posted by a Davidson student, I was paying a visit to the Great Synagogue of Florence. The synagogue, one of the largest left in Europe, still has a set of doors scarred by Nazi bayonets.

Studying abroad obviously makes one feel distant from campus, but that is a frame of mind I have felt even more intensely since the events of last week.

I have followed social media posts and reached out to friends to try to get a sense of what Davidson feels like right now, but I am largely left with my own anger at the beliefs that were brought forth. I also find myself grappling with the reality that neo-Nazis seem to have become an accepted norm of 21st-century life.

Both sides of the Atlantic have witnessed this hate grow. In 2015, the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn came in third in Greece’s general election with 7 percent of ballots cast in its favor. In

blasé attitude, students did not feel like their fears were being acknowledged and acted upon. These feelings of abandonment were amplified by the continuation of class; while administration wanted business to continue as usual, for many students, the demands of standing assignment deadlines were impossible given their distressed emotional states.

The teachers were also frustrated by the lack of communication, which left them uncertain about which actions would be appropriate. Thus, while some teachers did cancel class, none had enough information to make such a decision confidently.

The fact that the administration believed that students could continue life as normal, without reprieve, after learning that white supremacists had lived on campus only serves to illustrate the disparities in Davidson’s understanding of the real threat that such a presence– whether previous or ongoing—poses to its students of color, Jewish students, Muslim students, and LGBT students.

early 2018, Poland’s right wing government made it a criminal offense to blame its government for complicity in the Holocaust (Poland has since downgraded it to a civil offense). The US itself saw a 57 percent increase in anti-Semitic episodes in 2017, according the Anti-Defamation League.

It beyond horrifies me that over 70 years later, the same rhetoric and ideology that led to the deaths of over 6 million Jews is found in our countries and classrooms. But that is the reality we must deal with. My grandfather escaped Austria in 1938 and eventually made his way to the U.S. Some of his relatives were not so lucky and fell victim to the Final Solution. I owe it to them to help call out what we are witnessing for what it is and try to stop it. There are not “very fine people” on the side carrying swastikas; there is only evil.

Luis Toledo ‘20

As my peers and I gathered to discuss the presence of alleged neo-Nazis at Davidson in the forty-eight hours immediately following the discovery, many different concerns and reactions arose. Among them, however, was a common pattern: outrage at Davidson’s inaction with regard to the safety of its students.

Following the discovery, there was no direct communication from the administration, there were no SSAFER texts, and, even in the emails that were eventually sent, there was no way to access the Twitter thread so that students could investigate the source of the vaguely-mentioned danger for themselves.

I acknowledge that, by withholding information, the college was trying to avoid inciting mass panic; however, it could be argued that the lack of communication fostered a different, and potentially more dangerous breed of panic.

Rumors spread quickly, especially since it seemed that the only way to receive information was from fellow students.

More importantly, due to the college’s

Simon Lowen ‘19

Ethan Ehrenhaft ‘20

Raven Hudson ‘21

Reconsidering Life at Davidson: Reflections Post-Dox This time last year, it would have been easy for me to say that Nazis were a common enemy for all Davidson students. In light of recent events, I was wrong. However, bigotry is nothing new for minorities across this campus. Whether you are Jewish, a person of color, or queer; at some point during your life, or even your Davidson career, you have been belittled for being who you are.

Minorities have had to face the task of verbalizing these instances.

Having to do this is, needless to say, emotionally taxing. If these events have been productive to our community in any way, it is that our fears are now justified. This is an instance that the members of the dominant discourse cannot ignore. This time, we are able to confirm what we have

known all along, that there are people in our spaces that threaten our existence.

A community that allows these heinous views to fester is a community that needs to reevaluate itself.

This needs to happen, regardless of how “progressive” that community might consider itself to be. I would also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge how devastating it is that things have come to this. It is sad that the image of six million corpses had to pop up into our minds in order for some to realize that the monster of racism still walks among us. It is tragic that it had to come to this for white people to finally believe us.

Recently, Davidson Hillel and Hillel internationally have been characterized, at Davidson, as, historically and currently, “extremely anti-Black and anti-Palestinian”.

I would like to personally address this statement with the following: 1) Davidson Hillel is unaffiliated with Hillel International and NC Hillel, with the exception that we attend a statewide leadership retreat annually, and use their name.

2) This statement neglects the existence of non-white Jews.

3) Davidson Hillel has partnered with the BSC in the past, and many of Davidson Hillel members have consistently participated in the biggest events planned by BSC leadership, such as the Black Lives Matter march and the Die-in. However, Hillel definitely could have done more to support the BSC in the past, and is actively working to increase our support for the BSC in the present.

4) Davidson Hillel has not taken any political stance on Israel, nor on Palestine.

This statement does bring up some interesting ideas, which should be discussed at a later date. However, given the context of both Hillel’s

direct involvement in organizing on campus responses to anti-Semitic, Nazi twitter posts , and the fact that the two weeks before the exposed posts were awful for Jews on campus, many Jews felt attacked and silenced, precisely at the time when we were most vulnerable.

I have been brought to my knees – literally—multiple times this semester thanks to events both on this campus and in the world at large, with regards to my Judaism. I implore you, reader, to only say things in public settings that you would be comfortable saying to your subject in person, as that will enable more empathetic interactions.

While these feelings of disempowerment, fear, anger, sadness, etc. are new to me (and to others on this campus), for many, they are decades-old.

Black, brown, queer, disabled, migrant, international, undocumented, and so many other students have felt this way for years, with too little action taken (both by fellow students, and by the administration) to support them. Now is the time to come together and support each other. Let’s rise above hatred and unite under the banner of our shared humanity.

Sports

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NCAA Scholarship Rule Puts Davidson at Disadvantage

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SAM THOMAS ‘20 SPORTS EDITOR

s an institution, Davidson will always have to balance the cost that Division I athletics incur on the college’s reputation for competitive academics and vice-versa.

Though President Carol Quillen and Athletic Director Chris Clunie ‘06 have repeatedly voiced that the two can co-exist, there are undeniable pressures placed on student athletes especially. Davidson College may commit to prioritizing academics over athletics. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), on the other hand, institutionally favors schools unlike Davidson through its scholarship rules.

In terms of affordability, Davidson positions itself alongside fellow academically-competitive, private, small liberal arts colleges across the country. The cost to attend Davidson per year currently sits at $65,819. That number presents Davidson as financially comparable to the likes of Williams ($71,450), Amherst ($70,260), and Middlebury ($70,890). Though many students take out student loans, Davidson guarantees that it will

match 100% of what it calculates as need provided by students after admitting them on a need-blind basis.

Athletically, the NCAA limits the number of scholarships that teams can provide through the roster size by sport. For example, the NCAA restricts the number of field hockey scholarships that every member school can provide to twelve per team. Davidson Field Hockey’s roster had 21 players listed at the end of the season.

The NCAA views scholarships provided by the team and need-based financial aid provided by institutional financial aid offices as one in the same. So, if a college calculates that a student has fully demonstrated need and provides a non-athletic scholarship to an athlete, then the NCAA will recognize that scholarship as one of the team’s allotted scholarships.

For most schools, providing both need-blind admission and guaranteeing need-based scholarship for 100% of calculated need does not inhibit athletic success. The schools that have comparable financial aid policies to Davidson, which take form as those similarly profiled academically-competitive, private,

small liberal arts colleges, do not have competitive Division I athletics.

There are multiple perspectives through which we can view the impact of this rule. For one, the NCAA has proven repeatedly that it is more important for them to regulate a loop-hole than the valuation of academic institutions upholding their standards. Another may be that it would seem that coaches are incentivized to recruit athletes from more affluent upbringings to avoid running into violations of the NCAA regulation.

However, the most impressionable lens by which we can see our situation is as thriving in the perpetual abyss between being both academically and athletically competitive. Davidson continues to climb through the ranks of the Atlantic 10 (A-10) Conference merely five years after our admittance. Two years ago, The Davidsonian ran an article asking the question of whether moving from the Southern Conference in 2013 was the right decision for our institution. That conversation on-campus has been replaced with how long will we stay in the A-10 before we look to move to bigger conferences like the ACC.

Sixteen Seconds Between Men’s Soccer and A-10 Semi-Final MAX PEARSON ‘22 MEN’S SOCCER CORRESPONDENT

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Weekly Sports Update

avidson entered the Atlantic 10 Tournament as the second seed. After a strong regular season, the team finished just 3 points behind top-seeded VCU. The Wildcats had an unbeaten start to the season, losing for the first time against Fordham in a closely contested game at Alumni Stadium. George Mason was the only other team to beat the Wildcats in the A-10, when they edged out a 1-0 win, also at Alumni Stadium.

The key to Davidson’s success this season was their away form, which saw them go 3-0-1 on the road in the A-10.

Tournament play is known for cagey affairs and low scoring nail-biters. The A-10 quarter final between the Davidson Wildcats and the Dayton Flyers was no different. It took just two minutes for the first yellow card to be shown, when ‘Cats keeper Sawyer Gaffney ’20 was penalized for throwing the ball away.

Jordan Hill ’19 failed to take the first real scoring chance of the game, when he leapt above the Flyers defense to meet a Henry Howell ’22 corner but could not direct the ball toward the goal. A succession of three bookings followed, two for the Flyers and one for Davidson, to even out the yellow cards at two each. Quinn Dudek ’21 and Jackson Bracy ’22 were each presented with half chances but failed to convert. Before the end of the first period, Gaffney was called into action for the first time, when he reacted brilliantly to deny the Flyers. A low shot from close range forced the ‘Cats keeper down to his left side, where he managed to palm it away to safety.

Davidson continued to dominate the match throughout the second half, and the best opportunities all fell to a Wildcat cleat in front of the Flyers goal. Jaylen Thompson ’20 and Lucas Hauth ’22 had two chances each, a series of low hard shots that all narrowly missed the upright. The Flyers gave up a foul just

outside their own 18-yard box, much to the disappointment of their coach, who received a yellow card for dissent. The resulting freekick deflected out for a corner. Howell took the corner, and placed it onto the forehead of Hill, who directed it back across the face of the goal for Hauth to finish into the bottom left corner. The celebrations from both the crowd and the players would have lead you to believe it was a winning goal, and until the 89th minute it looked like it would be.

With only sixteen seconds left to play, the Wildcats gifted the Flyers a free-kick central to the goal, around 20 yards out. The free-kick was fired through the ‘Cats wall and cannoned off the left post, breaking Davidson hearts as the ball flew past Gaffney’s outstretched hand and into the back of the net.

“Finishing second in the A-10 really was a manifestation of the work we put in the entire season and the hours we spent off the field.”

Lucas Hauth ‘22 During the ensuing madness and celebrations, a bizarre red card was issued to the Flyers’ Jonas Fjeldberg. In winning the free-kick that would turn out to equal the match, Fjeldberg had been treated by the team’s trainer and had to leave the field as a result. In these circumstances, the player can only return once instructed to by the referee. Fjeldberg entered play on his own accord, and received a second, disqualifying yellow card as a result.

Entering golden goal overtime, the game looked to be anyone’s. Davidson had been severely winded by the late equalizing goal, and although momentum was with the Flyers they were down to ten men after the red card. The first half of overtime saw very few opportuni-

Lucas Hauth ‘22 made a critical goal for the Wildcats that had conference semi-finals written all over it. Photo courtesy of Tim Cowie/DavidsonPhotos.com. ties for either team, both unwilling to give the other team a chance to score. More chances came in the second half. Heading into the last minute, penalties looked likely. Unfortunately, with 49 seconds left to play, the Flyers won another free kick, this time out on the right side of the field. The ball was delivered into the six-yard box, and Davidson failed to deal with it, allowing a Flyers attacker to place the ball high into Davidson’s goal to win the game.

The Wildcats can take consolation from the post-game stats, which showed that for the large majority of the game they were the better team, and arguably deserved to progress to the semi-finals. Goalscorer Lucas Hauth ‘22 commented on the ‘Cats performance, saying, “The game was tight, but in the second half, I believe we hit a rhythm and momentum swung our way. Putting the loss aside, we looked very dangerous in the attack and had some very sharp moments in the final third. Overall, I thought we deserved more.”

Words of Wisdom

Can you comment on the importance of having a team meeting in the wake of major challenges to our community?

“The purpose of the meeting was to listen to each other and come away with a better understanding of how we can support each other and be better friends and teammates.

Displays of bigotry affect all of us, but in different ways; getting outside of ourselves and having empathy for how a fellow teammate, friend or classmate may be impacted is an important step toward making our community stronger.”

Renny Waldron Head Coach, Men’s Cross Country and Track and Field

The team can consider the season a great success with a very young team. Hauth also reflected on the season after the game. “I see this season as a huge success personally and as a team. Finishing second in the A-10 really was a manifestation of the work we put in this entire season and the hours we spent off the field recovering and prepping as well. Personally, being able to contribute as a first-year was exciting.”

This year, Davidson exceeded their greatest points total since joining the A-10 and finished higher in the table than ever before. The hopes for next season are high, and although they graduate an experienced senior class, the returners paired with incoming first-years will make a formidable team. Hauth said, “I think this was a great season for us, and I think we have a promising future. I’m lucky to be part of a special class of guys, and I believe next season will hold even more success for the team.”

Wildcat Standings: Basketball (W) Team Davidson George Mason VCU Saint Louis Dayton Fordham GW St. Bonaventure UMass

W 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

L 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1

GB Pct. ---.5 1 1 1 1 1

1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 .5 .5 .5 .5 .5

Arts and Culture

6

From the Archives

JALIN JACKSON ‘19 AND LUCAS WEALS ‘19 CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

I

f you would believe the common narrative, overt acts of racism are on the wane: no longer are confessed Klansmen marching white-robed down the street, and gone are the days of cross-burnings and Church massacres. While true and false in some regards, we should interrogate the perspective more deeply.

What constitutes racism, especially the unseen kind, varies depending on who one talks to. For example, one might conclude that a dark-skinned man walking by a white woman at night can be scary for her because he is a man. Another might attribute her fear to his skin color. The same goes for discrimination against people based on sexuality, gender, religion and so on. Regardless, the absence of overt discrimination does not mean discrimination is absent in other forms.

Glaring or subtle, Davidson College has experienced it all.

In light of the exposing of alleged neo-Nazi supporters on campus, a number of students have communicated feelings of exclusion from Davidson communities and experiences of frequent discrimination since long before Wednesday.

Members of Davidson’s administration and student body alike have not only perpetuated acts of discrimination in various ways, but so too have they been intentionally discriminatory for much of Davidson’s history. Ku Klux Klan cartoons have graced the pages of Davidson yearbooks (members of the Klan felt comfortable enough to hold a demonstration down Main Street over sixty years after those cartoons were published). Leaders of Davidson’s administration argued against the admission of black students in the late 1950’s for reasons that may appear unbelievable in contemporary times.

Davidson students publicly fought against including their fellow community members based on racial and sexual identity throughout the 1980’s.

Perhaps this campus thought it would be on the path to learning from its history of exclusion and discrimination following a 1995 institutional reflection, mostly consisting of student interviews conducted by administration and faculty.

Yet, in this past Thursday’s countless flashes of the exhaustion, eloquently voiced by a handful of marginalized students, the language of that document was plainly and traumatically recognizable.

Students are frankly communicating Davidson’s historical inadequacy at making them feel like actual members of the college community.

After the protest in the Union on Friday, Davidson’s administration, as it usually does after student-led events, affirmed that it stands “together against anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry” and posted a photo of the demonstration. This is the same language that the institution has relied on for decades, even as the most overtly racist acts on its campus appear to be fading.

Combating people who relish in images of the lynching of minorities is easier for white people to handle. Abstract threats like hate, racism, homophobia, and bigotry are low-hanging fruit for universal disavowal: they seem so distant, in space and in time.

At Thursday’s community meeting in the Lilly Gallery, our administration erred by stating Davidson is not the Davidson of old. This college may superficially look and act differently, but the place that nurtured the intellectual enrichment of white racists and homophobes in the past is the same one that allowed it to ferment in these last three years.

This is because year after year, a majority of the Davidson community has developed a culture of complacency—what one Davidsonian writer, arguing against a counter-protest to a Klan rally in town in 1986, glowingly called “a policy of apathy”—and extreme toleration, one that merely takes a casual trek through our archives to understand.

1928 — Quips and Cranks Artwork from Quips and Cranks, 1928: a Klansman announces the section on Fraternaties [sic]; on the cover, the traditional sword and snake of Davidson’s seal are replaced with the hat, gloves and saber of a Confederate uniform.

We debated the wisdom of including such explicitly racist materials, which can risk alienating students from the more subtle realities of racism on campus—see, we’ve made progress: no more Loyal White Knights in the yearbook! But the relevance of these images, especially given the Klan nostalgia pervading last week’s Twitter revelations, is difficult to ignore.

The front cover is important for similar reasons: the seal of Davidson, dressed up—perhaps not for the first time—in the regalia of a slave-holding rebel army, is not an image from which minority students can freely and willfully dissociate. These are images that require our attention, exposition, and forceful rejection. White students may feel content with this explicit bigotry exiled to the humble shelves of the Davidsoniana room, but for many minority students, artifacts like 1928’s Quips merely give a louder voice to that which always lingers in institutional silences: a distinct and well-illustrated history of racism at Davidson.

1986 — The Davidsonian From The Davidsonian, April 25, 1986: an op-ed writer argues vociferously that Davidson should “not support Gay movement”; editors advise that students treat an impending Klan rally with “a policy of apathy.”

Searching for the Davidsonian’s coverage of a 1986 Klan march in town, we found a slew of objectionable op-eds and editorial notes. It’s difficult to explain the homophobic op-ed—which equates homosexual sex and rape, and which invokes the college’s Christian roots to demand that gay students “look for [their] support elsewhere”—as merely a function of its time. This piece was penned in 1986 and, it should be noted, as an explicit response to a call from faculty who hoped to form a Gay Support Group on campus. We were also struck by the editors’ suggestion that “a policy of apathy” is sufficient to address violent racism and hatred in town. Critiquing this policy of apathy begins in understanding and investigating its place in Davidson’s own publications.

1995 — Self-Study

Selections from a 1995 Self-Study on Student Experience, conducted by a faculty committee to present to administration: black students express feelings of “intense alienation” and a desire “to escape” Davidson due to lack of social activity and pervasive acts of subtle racism; the study’s authors report intense homophobia at Davidson in the early 90’s, including death threats and public humiliation.

These quotations may provide context for remarks made at Friday’s rally in the Union, especially the sentiment that members of minority communities at Davidson are “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” This report, presented by faculty over twenty years ago, describes a minority experience on campus that sounds tragically similar to the one presented by some of Friday’s speakers.

Et Cetera

7

Alumni Outlook: Grads Weigh In

The Davidson Community more than ever has shown itself to be beyond the scope of the 1,800+ students currently enrolled in classes at the college. The outpouring of support, concern, and activism from the college’s alumni body has

made these voices of Davidson students “past” very much part of the present dialogue regarding white nationalism on campus and the administration’s resulting response. In this week’s edition of Et Cetera, we have included two personal

essays from alumni Evan Yi 18’ and Dr. Christopher Marsicano ‘10 in print. However, more personal essays will be featured online later this week, and we encourage giving them equal attention.

Evan Yi ‘18

“The Davidson You Re-member”

I

n the alumni association’s statement to all alumni, they described the student protest Friday by saying, “You would have recognized the Davidson you remember in that moment, an unflinching dedication to our values as a community that rejects anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry and respects the dignity of every person.” I am haunted by the use of “you remember.” It reads, both grammatically and contextually, as a command. It is more chilling than the already disturbing reality that the administration operates within its own separate and self-fulfilling institutional memory.

“You remember” reveals the ways the admin-

istration, knowingly or not, engineers alumnis’ own remembering.

For instance, the administration has publicly understood the Commission on Race and Slavery as a way of reckoning with the college’s history. While it is that in some ways, it is also, at least unconsciously, a monopolizing of which sufferings will be remembered.

When I engaged in similar archival work with Davidson Disorientation, a campus tour of the college and town’s history of white supremacy, I failed to include living Black townspeople, whose memories constitute a greater, decentralized archive. This was part-

“Flag raising 1860.” Copied from the 1928 edition of Quips and Cranks.

ly because the project by nature excluded them from the very beginning: at the end of the day, I would be the one curating and declaring their memories. Remembering is contingent on power because power decides whose memory is believed. Some cannot afford to remember — to take the time, energy, and resources to reconstruct the past when they will only be discredited in the end. Similarly, even were the Commission to make itself accountable to students, alumni, and townspeople (i.e. through regular updates and mass community inclusion in the work itself) it would still be, at heart, a top-down approach that tells the living and the dead what they themselves remember, inevitably altering their own remembering in the process.

In my archival research for Davidson Disorientation, I remember seeing the entirety of the college’s official memory of white supremacy laid out on a table in front of me. At the time, I was worried about who or what was missing from that table: which secret traumas and victories had been or would be taken to the grave. I was worried about whether my own betrayals by the administration would ever be remembered.

But this summer after graduating, I became aware of the more terrifying reality that my memories are decaying and becoming subject to revision. I am scared that in the process of trying to heal from my Davidson experience, I have altered my own memories towards that end. Distanced from current students on campus re-encountering the same betrayals and traumas I did, I no longer believe I went through such things in the first place.

Since graduating, there is so much institutional hurt that I’ve dismissed as an error in memory, so many times I’ve accused myself of harboring a persecution complex. But most of all, I am haunted by the possibility that the reason so many things were absent from that table in the archives was because those alumni did not believe their own traumas enough to document them.

It’s in the wake of this unstable alumni relationship to memory that “you remember” insidiously operates. How do you re-member, when you are no longer a member? How does the college’s public archiving (official college tweets, alumni newsletters, the Commission on Race and Slavery) seek to re-member for you and in place of you? In what ways is graduation a dis-membering of both the individual from the community and the community itself? How do you recover your body when a better one has been created in its place?W To current students: I haven’t spoken of the neo-Nazi students or even the administration’s misguided attempts at resolution because there is more power mobilizing among you now than I ever saw in my time, and I believe that will see itself to healing, regardless of the administration. I am writing this because I believe there is a more difficult battle beyond that of archiving to yourselves and each other everything you have felt and will feel. Every time you externalize your memories - be it speaking out in public or confiding to your closest supports or writing them down privately - you build your own counter-archives. They ensure that years from now, you remember and believe the person you are now.

That will be the most radical victory of all.

Dr. Christopher Marsicano ‘10 When I was asked to write a reflection for the Davidsonian from the perspective an alumnus, I thought long and hard about how to approach the topic. I knew that I needed to express to the student body the extent to which alumni all over the world stand with you. In the hours following last Wednesday’s events, I received phone calls and messages from scores of people all wanting to know how they could help current students.

They reminded me of another point I think it is important for an alumnus to make - Davidson has been through this before, and become stronger and more resilient as a result. In the wake of previous crises, students challenged Davidson to become a better place - and they succeeded.

The events of the past week are not the first time Davidson students have faced racial and anti-Semitic hatred. In 1986, the KKK announced a decision to march down Main Street in downtown Davidson during the Admission Office’s annual minority student recruitment event. Davidson students, understandably appalled at the prospect of a parade of white hoods in their community initially planned to hold a counter protest. However, student leadership quickly recognized that to do so would only embolden the KKK further. So, they did what Davidson students do - they creatively

Lessons from the Past Inform the Future and critically came up with a way to address the evils of racism while also taking away all the power they could from the Klan. The SGA and Union Board organized a community celebration on Patterson Court. They convinced local restaurants and store fronts on Main Street to close down for the day and join in the celebration. When the KKK marched down Main Street, there were more police officers than spectators; the whole town was down on Patterson Court. The power of hate groups is the spectacle they create and fear that they instill in the people they hate. That day, no one watched the parade, no one was afraid. That day Davidson students spoke up in one loud voice, saying “hatred has no place on this campus; not today, not ever.”

When I was a student in the middle 2000s, two events in quick succession again challenged the students’ conception of what it means to be a member of the Davidson community. A very small group of students paraded around Patterson Court carrying a Confederate flag. Shortly thereafter, African-American students from another university who were on campus for a step competition were asked to leave a court party because they made a small number of white students “feel

uncomfortable.” Davidson students again rose up to reject hatred and bigotry. Student leaders printed t-shirts that said “Do I make you feel uncomfortable?” Students of all backgrounds purchased the shirts in an act of solidarity. Student leaders held a rally outside of the Union, refusing to bow down in the face of pressure.

Again students told the world, “hatred has no place on this campus; not today, not ever.”

The events of this past week yet again show the indefatigable nature of Davidson students’ commitment to the rejection of fear.

Again students organized. Again student leaders did what Davidson students do best - they thoughtfully and critically addressed difficult issues. When I asked students in my class to reflect on this experience, one senior said, “I’m just trying to finish up here, so that I can go help people.” Davidson students help people.

What makes Davidson unique is not the fact that racism and hatred occasionally rear their ugly heads on this campus, but that whenever they do, Davidson students uniformly push back in pursuit of justice.

That Wildcat focus on doing good in the world doesn’t end at graduation. One of the students who was on campus in the year of the KKK rally, Frank Lord ‘89, is now an attorney in New York. He specializes in recovering works of art stolen by the Nazis for the fami-

lies of Holocaust survivors. The champion of the “do I make you feel uncomfortable” movement, David Dennis ‘08, is now a journalist and lecturer at Morehouse College who has written for The Atlantic and The Guardianon topics related to Black culture and restorative and social justice. John Davis ‘81 is an Assistant U.S. Attorney who oversaw the US office in support of the Iraq War Crimes Tribunal in Baghdad, investigated the Atlanta Olympic Park Bombing, and led the prosecution of four Al-Qaeda members for the 9/11 terror attacks.

Over 160 Davidson alums lost their lives in service to their country while fighting against the Nazis in World War II. These alums have all declared, “hatred has no place in the world we want to build; not today, not ever.”

So often after crises die down, students want to know how to continue the fight against discrimination. The answer is simple - keep moving forward and uphold the values of Davidson College. If the alumni I’ve mentioned can keep fighting the good fight after graduation, so can you. I am exceptionally proud to be a Davidson alum because Davidson students never give up and never shy away from a just fight. Never forget: It is your leadership and resiliency that inspires all of us.

For the good of this place, go change the world. Not just today, but forever.

Letter from the Editors A

8

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

fter what many have acknowledged as an exceptional week at Davidson College, our publication understood our responsibility to report on the events of last Wednesday night and their aftermath with care, integrity, and inclusivity. The Davidsonian’s Code of Ethics binds us as journalists to “seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable.” We understand that our choices in reporting this story and community reactions may appear unclear or unjustified to some; we seek in the following paragraphs to explain decisions we have made for this issue as a whole and for individual sections.

We, along with many of our peers, witnessed the rapid spread of information beyond our small community on Wednesday evening; the narrative was externalized beyond student, faculty, and administrative control. Students were accused of neo-Nazi statements, and we feel an ethical obligation to emphasize that while evidence may appear compelling, the concept of presumed innocence remains integral to fact-based reporting. That is not to say that we deny any existence of white nationalism on campus—we recognize that, independent of Wednesday’s events, messages of hatred and violence were present at Davidson and must be addressed.

Recognizing our duty to “minimize harm,” we decided not to print the names of the accused students in this week’s issue. We came to this decision through many substantive discussions amongst ourselves and with members of the campus community. Our goal is to protect the safety of our campus and all students connected to this matter, while fulfilling our obligation to provide information to the Davidson community.

This week’s News section seeks to uni-

fy various threads, verify facts, and relay the many facets of the story accurately for the public record. Due to mass concerns about a lack of transparency and convoluted chain of events since Wednesday night, we condensed the information to augment reader understanding of the situation from multiple viewpoints: those of students, college officials, and online forums. The investigation into the ownership of the anonymous accounts is ongoing; FERPA, the primary education privacy law, restricts the information pertaining to students that faculty, staff, administrators and campus police are at liberty to disclose. We will continue to report on updates to the story as they are judged safe to be made public.

In addition to submitted student responses, this week’s Perspectives section includes a list of intentionally unanswered, theoretical questions submitted by current Davidson students related to the events of this past week. In the vain of fostering “unfettered inquiry,” the questions are intended to demonstrate both the issues currently being discussed on campus and issues that have not yet been publicly considered.

After careful deliberation, we voted to proceed with our original, pre-Wednesday evening plan for the Sports section. Athletics, for so many people on this campus and beyond, serve as an escape from politics, sensitive topics, and fear. In this sense, we hope that the Sports page can provide a sense of normalcy in the face of the last few days. We emphasize that this was not a light or simple decision.

This week’s Sports section is symbolic of the fact that life has to go on for students (especially those student-athletes who have competed over the last few days), staff, faculty, and all other people affected, despite the emotional reactions that they may have.

In the Arts and Culture section, we have chosen to print selected materials from Davidson’s archives—including student publications, administrative reports, and trustee documents—related to minority students’ historical experiences at Davidson. While the artifacts presented are by no means comprehensive, we print them with a twofold intention. First: many students who have not had the chance to investigate our archives may rightly wonder what their peers mean by phrases like “Davidson’s history of white supremacy.” While most students are familiar with more lurid examples—like the 1920 Quips and Cranks, in which the Georgia club stages a mock lynching—we wanted to show a more insidious side to this history. Administrative reports and campus publications reflect much more recent and disturbing attitudes regarding race, sexuality, religion, and other affiliations. We also hope to interrogate the idea that these attitudes are “antithetical” to Davidson, either in the terms of institutional norms or of the college’s rich and documented history of anti-black racism, homophobia, and religious intolerance, to name just a choice few sins. Our own records—which, we stress again, are just barely indicative of the available evidence—provide a more troubling narrative: that these prejudices (and, occasionally, acts of overt violence) are deeply bound in the college’s history and in the language of its codes, the structure of its departments, and the decisions of its trustees. They cannot be disavowed until they are brought to light.

The Et Cetera section includes reflections submitted by Davidson alumni. Forgoing our usual Style and Personal Essay features, we wanted to focus on recognizing those beyond the geographic limits of campus affected by the recent events. Activism is not limited to phys-

ical presence, and we are grateful for alumni voices, for their care for and commitment to the Davidson community over the past few days.

Writing in non-satirical voice for the first time ever in this newspaper, The Yowl was more than happy to forego its usual page in order to allow more voices—including those of the editorial board—to be featured in this week’s issue. We recognize that there is a time and place for comedy, and our typical satirical tone would jar against the serious subject matter which constitutes the content of this edition. We will be back at the jokes and irony come November 28th.

The Davidsonian Editorial Board