1-8-18 Part 3

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Sexual Assault, pg. 17 cleared of any wrongdoing and allowed to play for the Seminoles.

This incident is not isolated. Last summer, Stanford swimmer Brock Turner was discovered brutally raping an unconscious woman in a back alley. He was found guilty, but was only sentenced to jail for a mere six months. The judge felt that giving the young scholarship athlete a longer sentence would have a “severe impact” on Turner, and his life would suffer severe “collateral consequences.”

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Of course, these examples of abuse toward women are not exclusive to the collegiate level. According to data compiled by USA Today, about 12 percent of arrests of NFL players since 2000 have been for domestic violence.

The NFL has been taking steps to punish players who are accused of violence against women.

If an athlete is accused of or charged with violence against women, the player will be penalized without pay. According to the NFL personal conduct policy, put into place in 2014, “violations involv-

ing assault, battery, domestic violence or sexual assault will result in a baseline six-game suspension without pay, with more if aggravating factors are present, such as the use of a weapon or a crime against a child.”

“Domestic violence and sexual assault are wrong. They are illegal,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote in a letter to team owners that announced the new policy. “They have no place in the NFL and are unacceptable in any way, under any circumstances.”

But in college sports, no such policy

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exists. And on a collegiate level — athlete or not — the numbers aren’t good to begin with. A little more than 23 percent of female undergraduate college students are sexually assaulted. Of those, only 12 percent will report, according to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association released a new sexual assault policy in 2017, but it was hardly comprehensive. The policy iterated multiple times that student athletes and coaches must attend yearly training on sexual violence prevention and that administrators must be held accountable for these sessions.

There was no mention of punishment in the press release, and there is no previous policy that contains it, either.

As students held to a higher standard on campus, student athletes should be treated with more scrutiny when it comes to sexual violence, not less. As more women say #MeToo to being victims of sexual assault, collegiate athletic departments should consider adjusting their policies accordingly.

After Winston was accused of sexual assault, he went on to win the 2013 Heisman Trophy, an award that honors a player “whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity.”

Meanwhile, his victim was still receiving death threats from peers and football fans who claimed she was attempting to ruin his career. Kinsman was forced to drop out of FSU — a school the Tallahassee native had dreamt of attending since she was a child.

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Men’s, pg. 12 After Luther, first-year guard Marcus Carr has emerged as the Panthers’ best all-around player, averaging the second most minutes per game with 28.6. Carr leads the team in assists with 64, more than twice the amount of the next player, Luther, who has 28.

Carr has also become an efficient scorer. His 3-point shooting average of 46 percent ranks second on the team behind fellow first-year guard Khameron Davis. Carr’s game was on full display in

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the Nov. 28 game against High Point, in which Carr shot a perfect 5-for-5 from the field, 3-for-3 from beyond the arc, and 6-for-6 from the free throw line.

Against Louisville Jan. 2, head coach Kevin Stallings started the all-first-year lineup of Carr, Davis, Parker Stewart, Shamiel Stevenson and Terrell Brown, marking the first time in program history that five first years started a game.

The move signaled where the program is currently at — full rebuilding mode. These five players represent the young core of the team moving forward.

Pitt’s main weakness — lack of experience — will in time become its strength, with so many first-year players playing significant time in the nation’s premier basketball conference.

With 15 games left on the schedule, all versus ACC opponents, the Panthers find themselves in an unusual position — they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The team most likely won’t be favored to win any individual game for the remainder of the schedule, meaning every victory from here on out will be cause for celebration.

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Women’s, pg. 12 Pitt has otherwise struggled offensively this year. They rank 254th in the nation in scoring offense, averaging only 62.2 points per game. And despite Walters’ efficiency, the Panthers have the ACC’s second-worst field goal percentage of 39.8.

As lackluster as the Panthers’ offense has been this year, they have shown strength on the defensive end, which has kept them close in most of their losses this season. Pitt ranks 18th in the nation in points allowed per game with 55.3 points per game, third in the ACC behind only Duke and Clemson.

The Panthers have also played the passing lanes aggressively, forcing frequent turnovers, averaging 9.6 steals per game.

Junior forward Kauai Bradley earned a spot in Pitt’s starting lineup thanks to her defensive presence. She leads the team with 1.9 steals per game.

As the season continues, the Panthers will likely give some of the dominant ACC programs scares. Sophomore guard Jasmine Whitney has embraced her role as the team’s primary ball-handler, posting an impressive assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.24 this season and showing her scoring capabilities with a career high 21 points in the loss to North Carolina.

If a hit-or-miss Panther offense can step up to the standard of their defense, Pitt can compete with any team on any given night.

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Best of, pg. 7 Jordan Mondell, Assistant Sports Editor Relief of Pitt wrestling coach Jason Peters came after incident in Evanston by Steve Rotstein The story of Jason Peters’ firing, with all its twists and turns, is one of the best stories of 2017. Peters was dismissed from his position as head wrestling coach mid-January of 2017 after an incident that occured in Evanston, Illinois, while the team was staying there for a match. This story has everything, from police involvement to a crew of girls from backpage.com, and reads more like an episode of “Law and Order: SVU” than a story about a wrestling coach getting fired. Jokes aside, the reporting on this story was phenomenal. Our sports editor at the time, Steve, got very little—if any— sleep while working on the ever-developing scoop in this dramatic saga.

tion, we also put out a magazine for the first time. One of my favorites from this year’s installment was about the jovial Holland Hall security guard who spends his shifts trying to crack a smile from the underclassmen residents who pass by his booth. While most who talk to him might only know of his humorous wit, after delving into his life stories, you discover he has all the heart found in a top-selling memoir or blockbuster movie. Janine did a tremendous job telling his tale, but it also goes to show that the people you pass in Oakland everyday might have a story worth knowing.

Rachel Glasser, News Editor Alumni reflect on Cathedral’s youth by Bailey Frisco We all adore the Cathedral as Pitt students, but writing about her has the potential to be as dry and stiff as her stone construction. “Alumni reflect on Cathedral’s youth,” however, took a fresh approach to the subject, examining Cathy’s early days through the eyes of two 99-year-old former students, Edward Murphy and McDonald Williams. Murphy and Williams, both Pittsburgh natives, witnessed the Cathedral of Learning’s construction as children and walked its halls as young Pitt students after it opened in 1937. Williams, one of seven African-American students in his graduating class at Pitt, and Murphy, who earned his undergraduate and business degrees at the University, gave readers a glimpse into the life of our beloved academic building.

With the new year, I hope we have a chance to revisit Murphy and Williams and learn a bit more about their own lives.

Ashwini Sivaganesh, Editor-in-Chief Ricky Smith: Welcome Home by Janine Faust One of the biggest projects The Pitt News takes on each year is our Silhouettes edition, consisting of 25 profiles on some of Oakland’s most interesting community members. This year was no exception— in addition to putting out our newspaper edi-

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Vignettes, pg. 14 Caucasian father from a Christian one — a healthy amount of influence on both sides, an unspoken contest to gain a religious monopoly on my siblings and me.

My parents’ methods were never overt — nobody plastered our homes with Hindu imagery or forced us to memorize Bible verses. Instead, they moved subtly, nudging us bit by bit, one holiday tradition at a time. A visit to my Hindu family’s home in Mississippi became synonymous with prayers to the household

shrine of the three main Hindu gods and the presence of small elephant figurines everywhere.

Christmas with my dad’s family meant being reluctantly dragged to church, where I would fail to keep myself from nodding off and earn disapproving scowls from my more devout relatives.

Over the years, they reluctantly accepted that my siblings and I would be better left at home.

Despite my family’s hopes, their efforts ultimately backfired. Being brought up in the diverse city of Philadelphia, I discovered the value of reconciling cul-

tural differences early on. The tension between the two sides of my family only served to distance me from both, and caused me to dread the inevitable contentiousness of the holiday season. When I finally realized religion itself was creating the rift, I concluded the only way to mend it was to celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday. And my family has celebrated Christmas as a secular holiday for a long time now, complete with the Christmas tree, wintery decorations and family spirit — a simple get-together with my dad’s family in Erie. It’s a compromise of sorts that is much more in

keeping with deflecting social conflict.

As for the “true meaning of Christmas,” I think my relatives and I, regardless of how religious, all agree that a warm night of singing off-key carols and exchanging laughter with family beats a dry sermon and a plastic nativity scene any day.

Maggie Koontz, Columnist As a young Catholic living in a small town outside of Louisville, Kentucky, I always looked forward to the Christmas season, particularly midnight Mass.

When we were old enough, my parents would bundle my brothers and me in layers of clothes, load us into the car and drive us to church for the service.

I was excited to be able to stay up past my bedtime, but I found it difficult to stay awake. The church was packed with people, creating a warm environment that made me sleepy. Accustomed to the routine of standing, sitting and kneeling, my eyes would wander as I mumbled the words to various prayers and hymns. A giant Advent wreath hung above the altar with three purple candles and one pink candle, but my favorite decoration was the wooden nativity set in the corner.

Before the service began, I would excuse myself to go kneel in front of the nativity scene while my parents and grandmother made conversation with the families around them. Every year, I prayed for God to keep my family safe, for one more year of happiness. After the service concluded, my family would shuffle to the car and head home. Yawning, I would tumble into bed, eager to see what Santa Claus would bring me in the morning and comforted by the idea that God would watch over my family for another year.

Mariam Shalaby, Senior Columnist When I was a little girl, my fellow Muslim neighbors had a Christmas tree — I was sure of it. It was an evergreen, decked out in sparkling ornaments, covered in strings of tinsel, and had piles of presents loaded beneath it. But they called it a “New Year’s Tree,” and the presents were exchanged on New Year’s Eve. As a kid, I thought having the tree was a total betrayal of our identity. But in retrospect, I realize that it was their immigrant parents’ well-intentioned attempt to prevent their kids from feeling See Vignettes on page 42

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Vignettes, pg. 40 isolated in an overwhelmingly Christmas-centric culture.

My mom, who grew up Catholic, consoled me by saying she never had a Christmas tree anyway, growing up in the Philippines, where palm trees line the streets.

I love our Islamic holidays — Eid-alFitr and Eid-al-Adha — which, this year, fell in the summer. My family spent them sprawled on picnic blankets at the park and posing for pictures in the sunshine.

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As Muslims, my family and I revere Jesus as a prophet, but since Christmas isn’t our holiday, we’ve never celebrated it. Instead, we’ve spent Christmases at the movies or just like any other day.

At our house this year on Christmas Day, my family gathered in the kitchen to choose a paint color, passionately voting for dark gray, light gray or white walls.

Then, we went to Salem’s Market and Grille in the Strip District. The Middle Eastern butcher, grocer and restaurant was open until 6 p.m. on Christmas Day. The restaurant was packed with other Muslims happily chatting over family

dinners. We certainly didn’t have Christmas roast pig, but we did have spicy chai, good kebabs and loved ones. Without meaning to, we created a holiday-like atmosphere. “It’s kind of like we’re having Christmas dinner,” my sister-in-law said.

“It usually gets lonely around Christmastime.”

While it didn’t beat Eid as “the most wonderful time of the year” this year, we did get time off from work to gather together. And that is something I’m thankful for.

Sarah Shearer, Assistant Opinions Editor

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The smell of spaghetti pizza wafting from its box on my lap on the way home from church in Lancaster is perhaps the strongest, most Christmas-defining element of the holiday.

The Christmas Eve service at my home church, Lancaster Church of the Brethren, lets out around 6 p.m., which was the perfect time to stop at Rosa Rosa Pizzeria on the way home. We got in the door just before the restaurant closed for the night and were almost always the only customers inside. We’d get out the door 20 minutes later with bags and boxes in hand, ready to get home and feast. Part of me had always felt insecure about eating fast food on a sacred holiday, but my best friend’s family has subs and punch after re-enacting the nativity story, so I guess it’s all right.

Christmas Eve was actually the only day of the year we ever had food from Rosa Rosa. Even though I remember thinking the food was fantastic, according to my mother, “It was the only place open on Christmas Eve.” Perhaps it was the combination of hot cheese and the knowledge that Santa Claus would be descending onto our roof in a few short hours that did me in.

My parents ate cheesesteaks and fries across the table from me, watching as I devoured my slice in my Christmas Eve night gown. One year — I think it was fourth grade — I went big and ordered a piece with actual spaghetti on top. It’s true what they say about kids being fearless.

After the pizza was gone, I’d go to the pantry and mix raw oats with Christmas sprinkles and throw them along with some baby carrots — all over the porch.

Reindeer get hungry flying around the entire world in one night, too, obviously.

That pizzeria tradition carried on year after year. I was especially looking forward to having my annual piece of Rosa Rosa pizza during my first year at Pitt – a firm anchor in the midst of my radically changed life.

Unfortunately for me, the pizzeria burned to the ground just one month prior to Christmas Eve. Now, we’re forced to visit another pizzeria — and although the bread is perfectly textured and crispy in its own way, there is and forever will be a Rosa Rosa pizza-shaped hole in my heart.

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Music Women, pg. 23 sift through what I had gone through, because she went through something similar.

A complex album about heartbreak, a house party and the aftermath of both, “Melodrama” helped show that it’s cool to care and communicate openly.

Cardi B- “Bodak Yellow” Not an entire album, but considering Cardi B is the third artist and first rapper in history to place her first three Billboard Hot 100 entries in the chart’s Top 10, and the breakout hit beat Lauryn Hill for the longest running number one song by a solo female rapper in October, it feels wrong to leave her off this list. Arguably the most-quoted line of 2017, “I don’t dance now/I make money moves,” represents Cardi B’s ascension from stripper to reality TV star to rap maven, an aspirational statement that women everywhere can beat the boys at their own game and do a better job of it.

Demi Lovato- “Tell Me You Love Me” An unlikely member on this list, “Tell Me You Love Me” is a scintillating album that exudes confidence, sassiness and the strength behind letting a lover know what you want emotionally and physically. From the loud “Sorry Not Sorry” to the tender “You Don’t Do It For Me Anymore,” Lovato’s album couples emotional range with outspokenness. Hearing Lovato be vulnerable yet unapologetic echoes the #MeToo movement, where women courageously came forward with their experiences with sexual assault.

Lovato herself is open about her struggles with recovery from an eating disorder, substance abuse and her bipolar disorder, using her fame as a platform to spread awareness.

SZA- “Ctrl” In her sensual, vulnerable debut album, SZA — born Solana Rowe — tackles anxiety, self-esteem and love. The album’s largest theme, however, is having control in life and losing it. Every song on the album is an exploration of feelings, with SZA turning the kaleidoscope to explore a new side of what it’s like to love, lose, exist and grow up. In a society where women are constantly put into boxes and binders, SZA’s own self-contradictions normalize the idea that women can be — and should be — multifaceted and autonomous, free to live and express themselves however they choose. In a year filled with social and political turmoil, “Ctrl” is the self-care we need to come back louder and stronger in 2018.

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