2-26-18

The Pitt News

Pitt Admissions supports HS protesters pittnews.com

The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | February 26, 2018 | Volume 108 | Issue 119

DISTRICT 8 CANDIDATES PROMOTE PLATFORMS

BOARD OF TRUSTEES ENDORSES TRAINING HUB PITTNEWS.COM

Madeline Gavatorta Staff Writer

For Erika Strassburger, an independent Democratic candidate for District 8, her decision to run is directly tied to the current federal government — she said she saw democracy at risk when President Donald Trump was elected.

“I also vowed to myself if I got the opportunity, which I thought would be years from now, if anytime, that I would run office and I would take it,” Strassburger said. “When the opportunity came in December, I had to keep that promise to myself.”

About 40 or 50 people gathered in the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh Sunday morning to listen to Strassburger and the three other candidates running for the District 8 City Council seat make their case for why they should be elected.

The winner — either independent Democrat Marty Healey, Democratic nominee Sonja Finn, Republican nominee Rennick Remley or Strassburger — will be decided in a March 6 election.

Each candidate shared with the crowd what they would focus on if elected. Finn said she wants to examine the City budget, Remley is concerned with accountability and paying attention to new ideas, Strassburger stressed that listening to minority voices is key and Healey wants to unite people from different backgrounds. All four candidates agreed to focus on hearing the public’s voice.

Finn expanded on making the budget reflect the people’s values, which she said includes putting money in infrastructure and affordable housing instead of giving it to developers.

“This is what I’m worried is not happening in Pittsburgh, and I want to make sure that the money our City has to spend, the public funds, See District 8 on page 2

Chancellor Patrick Gallagher discusses the proposed changes to the Pitt-Titusville campus the Board of Trustees meeting Friday morning. Christian Snyder | CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Politicians discuss environment for women Briana Canady Staff Writer Aryanna Berringer grew up the youngest of 10 children in a family that had to rely on food stamps and free school lunches to get by. She remembers how her mother would wash the three different uniforms for her jobs at three different restaurants in their kitchen sink.

All of this motivated Berringer to run for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, because she wanted to be a voice for minorities and people who grew up in poverty.

“I was able to get to a point in my life where I was comfortable and not being scared that I won’t have food on the table or won’t be able to pay a bill,” Berringer said. “I came to recognize that people like me don’t run and don’t get elected. That perspective is missing, which is why I decided to

run.”

Berringer was one of six panelists at an event hosted by Students United for Policy Change in room 2017 of the Cathedral of Learning Sunday night. Olivia Benson, Michelle Boyle, Marita Garrett, Sara Innamorato and Megan Winters joined her in discussing their experiences as women involved in politics in front of 27 attendees.

Garrett, the current mayor of Wilkinsburg, mentioned that Pennsylvania is ranked 49th in female representation in elected offices — just one spot above Mississippi. This ranking is confirmed

by Represent Women’s gender parity index, which also notes that there are no Pennsylvania women in the U.S. Congress and no woman has ever served the state’s governor.

“You see decisions being made at higher offices — especially those affecting women’s rights —

yet women aren’t in these decisions,” Garrett said.

“That’s when you realize that something’s wrong, and it’s important to know how you are going to change the representation.”

Benson, the community engagement director at the Women and Girls Foundations — a group that raises awareness of social inequality in the media and in politics — said she is passionate about supporting women’s and girls’ efforts to become more politically involved.

“I get really frustrated by the fact that there is a lack of women, specifically a lack of women of color being elected in office,” she said.

Berringer said it is important to have women in office because that inspires other women to run and create change in their communities. She described how not seeing people who look like See Women on page 2

you in leadership positions can affect your confidence to affect change yourself.

“The lack of representation ... makes you wonder if you could actually do it yourself, and I feel fortunate that there are a number at the national level who have run for office,” she said.

After 24 years of experience as a nurse, Boyle said she became more involved in politics ever since she witnessed inequities in the health care system. Now, she is running for Pennsylvania Senate in District 38 with the goal of addressing issues for people who do not have health insurance.

Innamorato, who is currently running for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives seat in District 21, said she always wanted to stay out of elected office and work in community development, but was encouraged to run.

“I recognized there was such a dearth of women in elected office, because these women who have run and won still face misogyny and pushback,” Innamorato said.

The event ended with an invitation for the audience to ask any questions they had for the panelists. One audience member expressed a concern with the state government, citing it as pursuing policies that limit a women’s abortion access, and wanted to know about the panelists’ positions regarding the issue.

Berringer replied, saying that having someone in office who can better relate to the issues about women’s health care is important.

“I think you need someone who has got the real life experience of why this is important and has the guts to say it,” she said.

Winters, who is the data and Western region director of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party

District 8, pg. 1 are only used for things that promote the public good,” Finn said.

Remley said he’ll bring a new perspective to City Council because of his more conservative ideology, which he said sets him apart from the others. According to him, there hasn’t been a Republican in Pittsburgh office since the 1930s.

“I speak Republican. I can work with Harrisburg. I can work with the leadership, which is something that hasn’t been done in a very long time. There’s a lot of money that comes out of Harrisburg, and we certainly don’t get our fair share,” Remley said.

After Remley, Strassburger returned to the idea of assuring the people that everyone will

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and a board member of Emerge Pennsylvania, said she wants to empower progressive women at the local and state level of government to run. She also spoke about getting more people, especially women, to vote during elections in order to better their communities.

“We’re in a room full of students, and I’m only a few years out of being a student, but I always felt that my peers weren’t voting at the rate we should be, and we should make sure that our votes count by voting for people who agree with your position on certain issues,” she said.

Senior political science major Aarti Chandan said she enjoyed hearing about the panelists’ experiences as female politicians in person.

“I think it’s really cool that we get to see [women in politics] in person and hear their firsthand accounts and their stories about the struggle for women to break through in politics,” Chandan said.

JoAnna Clark, a senior studying media and professional communications, also enjoyed the panel discussion because it related to what she is learning in her classes.

“I like that they talked about the importance of female candidates for role-model purposes and just how difficult it is for women to run,” she said. “This really enforces everything I have learned in my women and politics class.”

The panelists concluded by giving advice to women who plan to pursue a career in politics and encouraging more women to pursue careers in politics and improve their communities. Berringer said women should get involved in ways that makes them “feel good.”

“Whether it is running for office or in any way, shape or form, you feel like you might be able to help, participate — because you won’t regret it,” she said. “It will make you feel good each and every day.”

The Pitt news crossword 2/26/18

Women, pg. 1

have a voice. She said this includes vulnerable populations, such as racial and LGBTQ+ minorities.

“How are we going to make sure the City is equitable for everybody unless we figure out ways to make sure people have their voices heard?” Strassburger asked.

Healey said he would focus on uniting different groups in the district to push for change.

“I’m not always the smartest guy in the room — in fact, most of the time, I’m not. I think my strength is the ability to bring other folks in the room for certain, specific issues — actually, most issues — and we can come in and we can work together for the right solution,” Healey said.

Find the full story online at

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Opinions

Editorial: Trudeau’s troublesome trip to India pittnews.com

column

Progressives: Stick to debating issues, not insults

Neena Hagen Staff Writer Across the country, from college campuses to TV stations to Washington, D.C., political tension has reached a fever pitch. Wednesday’s “Redistribution of Wealth” debate at the William Pitt Union aptly reflected the growing ideological divide in the United States today — in this case, economic disagreements between classical liberals and democratic socialists.

Becca Tasker and Paul Cox of the Pitt Progressives debated Katherine Ranck and Kyle Guinness, who represented Pitt Students for Liberty, a Libertarian group. Aiming to pinpoint the causes of income inequality in America and ultimately to offer solutions, the event proved to be an intense back-and-forth throughout the evening.

But while the Libertarians performed strongly and presented viable policy prescriptions to address America’s lopsided wealth distribution, the Pitt Progressives often failed to measure up, falling back on arguments based in emotion and personal attacks — as many in the political arena do nowadays.

They dramatically emphasized the expansion of government programs for the poor and middle class, such as health care and food stamps. Yet they never explained how large these expansions would be, nor did they detail how they would pay for these programs or their effects on the economy.

By contrast, the Libertarians offered specific solutions. They called out the federal government for its inefficiency and instead favored private charities — which on average have 50 percent lower overhead costs than government programs — as a more moral and economical source for voluntary wealth redistribution.

“Any private charity that was as ineffective as the government would soon be out of business,” Ranck said.

This inefficiency has terrible implications for economic growth as well. As Guinness

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Paul Cox (left) and Becca Tasker (right), members of Pitt Progressives, respond to an argument made by the Pitt Libertarians at a debate hosted by “The Bully PulPitt” Wednesday. Issi Glatts | ASSISTANT VISUAL EDITOR pointed out, heavy regulation and taxation — proposed by the Pitt Progressives — harms small businesses most of all. Since small businesses have created close to two-thirds of our nation’s new jobs in the last decade, a focus on taxing those businesses might actually put vulnerable members of the economy more at risk of losing their jobs.

Yet the Pitt Progressives failed to respond to these points and instead doubled down on making vague statements that never amounted to any policy prescription.

“Unless you can literally eat the rich, tax them until the average citizen can survive,” Tasker said.

During the Q&A session afterward, Rex Lundstrom, a 20-year-old from Shadyside, asked Pitt Progressives how much wealth redistribution was too much — a fair question, since they never went into much detail regarding their policies.

But Tasker didn’t give him an answer. In-

stead, she seemed to insinuate that if he didn’t agree with her solutions, then he wanted poor people to die on the streets. After the debate, Lundstrom said he thought her response was “accusatory.”

Admittedly, the debate’s cross-examination format may have provoked some of the verbal aggression — allowing debaters to go toe-totoe with their opponents and audience members. But the truth is, the entirety of left-wing politics in the United States has taken on a much nastier, more aggressive approach in recent months.

CNN’s town hall last Wednesday, which hosted the Florida shooting survivors in verbal combat with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and an NRA representative on gun control, is a prime example. CNN advertised the event as a serious conversation about gun policy in America today, but it quickly devolved into a fingerpointing exercise for pro-gun control students to paint the conservatives who disagree with

February 26, 2018

them on gun policy as evil.

Throughout the discussion, audience members shouted down Dana Loesch — the event’s lone NRA representative — when she spoke out against gun control, calling her a “murderer” and impeding her from being able to respond to questions. Outrage is one thing, but it shouldn’t be allowed to shut down debate entirely.

While this is an extreme example of leftwing bullying, this kind of tension has become commonplace in the United States’ political arena. And Wednesday’s debate at Pitt was a perfect example of the unconstructive atmosphere those on the left have created. While the Pitt Progressives obviously understand how serious a problem increasing inequality is, their approach didn’t seem to account for maintaining constructive debate.

“Politics is real life,” Tasker said over text message Sunday night. “When we talk about policies that can and will kill folks, whether this is the deportation of undocumented immigrants or reduction of the SNAP budget, we are past the time for niceties.”

But if Progressives continue to push accusatory talking points instead of presenting real solutions, they won’t have the ability to address the problems they’re so emotionally invested in. Rather than merely shouting down the opposition, liberals should channel their outrage into constructing actual policy and working with Republicans to actually make a difference.

Similarly, if Pitt Progressives wants to grow its member base and persuade people to join its cause, the group should emulate the Libertarians’ approach to the debate — using facts, logic and a level temper to dictate their arguments.

If liberals can’t improve, they’re sure to come up short everywhere, from the William Pitt Union to the White House.

Neena primarily writes about politics and local issues for The Pitt News. Write to Neena at nnh7@pitt.edu

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Sports

MENʼS BASKETBALL

WOMENʼS BASKETBALL

No. 1 Virginia 66 Pitt 37

No. 4 Louisville 81 Pitt 49

ACC indoor track and men’s swimming championships pittnews.com

Weekend Sports

FEW BRIGHT SPOTS IN CLOUDY SPORTS WEEKEND Stephen Cuddy Staff Writer As winter sports athletes are attempting to close out their seasons, the spring sports are just getting started.

And while some members of the track and field team set personal bests and both baseball and softball hit the diamond with winning weekends, both Panthers basketball squads and the tennis team experienced major losses.

Softball Pitt softball travelled to Conway, South Carolina, this weekend to partake in the Chanticleer Showdown. The team split two games each with Georgetown and Saint Joseph’s but bested Coastal Carolina in its single matchup.

In the first outing against Georgetown, the Panthers claimed a 2-0 victory. Senior Kayla Harris pitched a complete game, featuring four perfect innings. Sophomore Kaitlyn Kruger had a home run in the opening frame and the team’s first RBI, senior Giorgiana Zeremenko grabbed the other RBI in the final inning.

In its first game against Saint Joseph’s, Pitt claimed a hearty 7-1 victory. Junior Sarah Dawson and sophomore Brittany Knight allowed only one run from the circle, while junior Marissa DeMatteo led the team with two RBIs. Against Georgetown, the team met defeat, losing 5-3. Zeremenko had all three RBIs and a home run, with Kruger assisting offensively, registering two hits.

Taking on Coastal Carolina later in the day Saturday, the Panthers won 4-3. Kruger and senior Erin Hershman both had home runs as Dawson threw a complete game, tallying a careerhigh seven strikeouts.

Despite scoring five runs in the top of the first inning, the Panthers fell 8-6 against Saint Joseph’s in their last game on Sunday. The team had its best offensive outing of the season, but it was not enough to make up for Saint Joseph’s offensive strength.

Zeremenko went 3-4 with a home run, and junior Gabrielle Fredericks, junior Alexis Solak and first year Hunter Levesque all registered two hits. Sophomore Alexee Haynes had two RBIs.

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Senior Desiree Garland earned Pitt’s first ACC women’s indoor track and field gold medal in the 400m dash at the ACC Indoor Track and Field Championships Saturday. Courtesy of Pitt Athletics After the weekend, the team’s record sits at 8-5-1 overall. Pitt opens ACC play this weekend with three games in Raleigh, North Carolina, against NC State.

Baseball Pitt baseball was in Spartanburg, South Carolina, this weekend for the Wofford-USC Upstate tournament. The team squared off against Presbyterian, USC Upstate and Seton Hall, winning two of the three matchups.

Facing Presbyterian, the Panthers took their first win, 4-3. Redshirt sophomore David Yanni’s two-run shot in the fifth inning gave Pitt a lead the team kept for the remainder of the game.

Sophomore Dan Hammer got the start at pitcher, giving up two runs and six hits and striking out four batters during his five innings on the mound. After stepping in to finish the game for Hammer, junior Yaya Chentouf struck out three and allowed one run.

Redshirt junior Liam Sabino powered the squad to a 3-1 win over USC-Upstate Saturday.

Sabino went 3-5 with two homers and all three

RBIs — his two-run home run in the top of the ninth proving to be the difference-maker.

Redshirt senior Matt Pidich went 5.2 innings, allowing six hits and one run and striking out eight. Chentouf tallied another save, throwing 2.1 scoreless innings.

The Panthers ended the weekend with a shutout 1-0 loss to Seton Hall. A Pitt throwing error gave the Pirates the only run of the game.

Junior Blair Calvo started on the mound for the Panthers, throwing six scoreless innings. He gave up four hits and two walks and struck out eight.

Calvo has yet to allow a run this season.

After going 2-1 this weekend, the Panthers improved to 5-2 overall. Next weekend they will be in Florida, playing in the Sunshine State Classic against Massachusetts, Butler and Saint Peter’s.

Tennis This weekend in South Bend, Indiana, Pitt tennis fell 4-0 to ACC opponent Notre Dame, moving the team to 5-3 on the year and 0-2 in ACC play. After Notre Dame won the doubles point and the opening singles matches, the win

February 26, 2018

was unattainable for the Panthers.

Panthers duo junior Luisa Varon and first year Claudia Bartolome turned in the first doubles win of the day, but the Fighting Irish ultimately clinched the point.

Junior Natsumi Okamoto then fell at No. 6 singles, 6-3, 6-1, to give the Irish a 2-0 lead.

Varon dropped a 6-3, 6-1 decision at singles, and junior Gabriela Rezende also fell, 6-0, 6-3.

Action concluded after Notre Dame won the match.

The tennis team will also be heading to Florida this weekend as they take on ACC opponents Miami and No. 19 Florida State.

Gymnastics Pitt lost to No. 14 Nebraska by 2.825 points Saturday night in a road meet in Lincoln. Pitt recorded five top-five scores, but they were not enough.

First year Haley Brechwald and sophomore Deven Herbine both placed top five in vault.

Brechwald tied her season-high score with a 9.850, and Herbine registered a career high of 9.825.

Sophomore Lucy Jones tied for fourth on bars with a 9.800. Senior Catie Conrad had the same score on beam, tying for second in the event.

Sophomore Alecia Petrikis took fourth on floor with a 9.825.

Brechwald was the only all-around competitor for the Panthers, placing last out of three with a 39.150.

The Panthers will return to the Fitzgerald Field House next Sunday at 2 p.m. as they take on rivals West Virginia and Penn State.

Track and Field Though some Pitt runners brought home personal bests from the ACC Indoor Track and Field Championships this weekend in Clemson, South Carolina, the men’s and women’s teams both struggled overall.

Senior Desiree Garland made program history Saturday, earning Pitt’s first-ever ACC women’s indoor track and field gold medal.

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The Pitt News SuDoku 2/26/18 courtesy of dailysudoku.com

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February 26, 2018

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