Tisch Civic Studies attracts interest from humanities and STEM scholars alike see FEATURES / PAGE 4
TUFTS WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Jumbos fend off Lions’ attack, indict Judges
In new EP, Tennis matures with nostalgic sounds
SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE
THE
see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 10 INDEPENDENT
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T HE T UFTS DAILY
VOLUME LXXIV, ISSUE 54
tuftsdaily.com
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.
Scaramucci resigns from Fletcher School Board of Advisors
by Natasha Mayor News Editor
James Stavridis, dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and David Harris, provost and senior vice president, informed The Fletcher School community on Tuesday morning that Anthony Scaramucci (LA ’86) had resigned from his position on the Board of Advisors. “We thank Mr. Scaramucci for his past service to Tufts and wish him well,” they wrote in an email. This news was the culmination of several few weeks’ of back-and-forth between Scaramucci and members of the Fletcher community, which all started when Carter Banker, a second-year Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) student, started a petition to have him removed from the Fletcher Board of Advisors. Scaramucci had been on the Fletcher Board of Advisors since June 2016. Scaramucci’s resignation followed the publication of a public letter to The Fletcher School students and faculty that he posted online on Monday night. Scaramucci told the Daily in an email that he chose to resign after the university cancelled his scheduled Nov. 27 appearance, following his threat of suing second-year MALD student Camilo Caballero and The Tufts Daily for “defamatory” op-eds. “Once the University made the decision to cancel my appearance I felt it was the diplomatic thing to do. I enjoyed my 35 year relationship with the University and I am looking forward to the new chal-
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Anthony Scaramucci speaks at the 2016 FreedomFest at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, Nev. lenges ahead,” Scaramucci told the Daily in an email. Banker said that, although she considered this a win, she was disappointed by the way the events unfolded, specifically regarding Scaramucci’s threat to sue Caballero and the Daily for defamation.
“It got really nasty at the end,” Banker said. “As the person who started the petition, that was really never my intention — for it to go in that direction. That was frustrating and disappointing to me.” Banker added that she did not think Scaramucci completely understood why
she and other community members were upset. She noted that in his open letter, Scaramucci was trying to address multiple people in his letter and that in the process, the narratives all became entangled. see SCARAMUCCI , page 2
University raises concerns over Congressional tax plan by Arin Kerstein News Editor
The university administration came out in opposition last week to provisions in Congress’ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that would impact Tufts and other institutions of higher education. The House of Representatives passed a version of the tax reform bill earlier this month, which included several provisions that would affect Tufts, and the Senate is expected to vote on its own version of a tax plan by the end of the week following the Senate Budget Committee’s approval of the bill yesterday, according to The New York Times. Among the proposed changes is the elimination of tax-free tuition waivers for graduate students and tuition reimbursements for employees, along with implications for endowment spending, charitable giving and the private activity bonds which allow schools to finance capital projects.
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University President Anthony Monaco posed his concerns about the plan through a Nov. 22 letter to the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation, in which he described the detrimental effect that the legislation would have on higher education. “The legislation includes several proposals that would negatively impact our students, employees and our institution, ultimately making college less affordable, discouraging participation in higher education, and decreasing U.S. competitiveness globally,” he said. Mary Jeka, senior vice president and general counsel, noted that Tufts is lobbying against the plan alongside many other institutions within higher education such as the American Council on Education and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. Ph.D. students in many departments currently receive tuition waivers in exchange for serving as teaching assistants or conducting research. Current law
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does not tax these waivers, but a provision of the new House bill would require them to be taxed. “This would have a devastating impact on our graduate teaching and research assistants as it would increase a student’s income tax by as much as $10,000 per year,” Monaco said. Karen Panetta, dean of graduate education for the School of Engineering, explained that taxing tuition waivers would disincentivize many students from pursuing further education because they would be responsible for paying the tax in addition to paying off large amounts of undergraduate debt. “Now you’ve got your undergraduate debt plus your graduate taxes to pay, so most people in STEM are going to get that $80–90,000 a year job versus spending another 3–4 years of college for the unknown and lots of debt,” she said. James Rizzi, a teaching assistant and Ph.D. candidate in the Department
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of English who was instrumental in graduate students’ in the School of Arts and Sciences vote to unionize last spring, noted that the time and opportunity cost of graduate school would no longer be possible for many students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences as well, adding that these taxes would push many out of their current programs. “[Many of my colleagues have] realized that they would not be able to live the life of graduate students, to be able to pay rent in this part of the world and to buy groceries, if they had to pay the taxes that are being proposed,” he said. Panetta explained that if the House plan is implemented, either students or the university will have to bear this tax burden. If the latter were held responsible, she said that faculty would effectively have to take on fewer students.
NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................4 COMICS....................................... 7
see TAX PLAN, page 2
OPINION.....................................8 ARTS...........................................10 SPORTS............................ BACK