The Tufts Daily - Thursday, April 11, 2019

‘Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes’ asks big questions about representation, stereotypes in Hollywood see WEEKENDER / PAGE 4

WOMEN’S TRACK AND FIELD

Team takes 1st place at MIT Quad Meet

Senior Jesse Grupper climbs way to No. 1 sport climbing rank in the country see SPORTS / BACK PAGE

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXVII, ISSUE 49

Thursday, April 11, 2019

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TCU Senate partially funds first-year Hall Council initiative, which will begin next academic year

by Andres Borjas Staff Writer

The Tufts Community Union ( TCU) Senate opted to partially fund the firstyear Hall Council and Residence Hall Association initiative, which calls for the implementation of committees of elected first-year residents to develop programming for each first-year residence hall both at the Medford and School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) campuses.

The first-year Hall Councils will be set in place in all first-year resident halls next semester, according to TCU Vice President Adam Rapfogel.

According to TCU Senate meeting minutes, the senate held a preliminary vote on the initiative on March 31 and allocated the funding on April 7.

TCU Senate President Jacqueline Chen explained how the program will benefit incoming first-years. “[First-year Hall Councils] will empower all first-year students to create and plan their own programming for their residence halls,” Chen, a senior, said. “This will build community in first-year dorms and give the chance to have leadership opportunities early on in their Tufts career.”

According to Chen, the vote came at the request of the Office of Residential Life and Learning (ORLL), which hoped to receive funding for the program from TCU because it will be a student-based and student-run activity.

ORLL initially sought $23,900 for funding, but though the TCU Senate decided to allocate smaller totals to the program.

“Senate voted to fund this program $3,000 for its first year in order to show our support for this new community building initiative,” Chen said.

Chen specified that, while many of the details of the initiative still need to be fleshed out, it is certain that council members will be chosen by elections within resident halls, and they are to serve the broad purpose of being leaders within the first-year community.

“I think there is always a need to give first-years a really strong start at the start of their college career,” Chen said.

“Building more community in the residence halls is something we should be doing more of.”

For first-year Harleston Hall resident Emily Lew, the establishment of firstyear Hall Councils represents a step in the right direction for programming in residential life.

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First-year dorm Harleston Hall is pictured on April 11, 2017. “[First-years] have a better idea of what other [first-years] want to do or want to see in their dorms,” Lew said.

“This [program] could potentially increase amount of interest in bonding and dorm programming.”

Chen expressed TCU Senate’s concerns about the relationship and overlap between the first-year Hall Councils and the already existing duties of First-

see HALL COUNCILS, page 2

Office of Residential Life and Learning responds to lottery number mishap

by Austin Clementi News Editor

The Office of Residential Life and Learning (ORLL) sent an email to Tufts rising sophomores in the housing lottery notifying them that their housing selections had been cancelled due to a glitch in the system on March 28, scheduled to be the last day of housing selection. According to Joshua Hartman, the director of the ORLL, approximately 700 students were affected.

“We are aware of the issue with housing selection occurring today, March 28, 2019, for groups of two, three, four and those students selecting from individually available spaces on campus.

In an effort to resolve the issue, we have the portal closed for the remainder of the day and will be canceling the housing choices made earlier in the day,” Angelic Sosa, the assistant director

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of housing operations, said in an email to the Daily.

Hartman echoed this information in an email to the Daily.

“Very quickly in the morning (within the first two hours of selection being open), we recognized that there was a technical issue that was having a significant impact on the selection process,” Hartman said.

Hartman noted that the technical issue came in three parts: Students were able to log in and select housing earlier than their assigned time, giving them an unfair advantage; students saw housing options that were not actually available to them; and students did not see options from which they could actually pick.

Sosa elaborated on the issues the lottery system experienced on March 28.

She explained that, after ensuring students have the best possible lottery number for their groups, selection times are assigned in increasing order.

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“The issue that arose was that some groups were given timeslots not in order by their lottery number, and some members within the same group received different timeslots, which is not how the lottery process should work and is unfair to all those participating,” Sosa said in an email to the Daily.

Hartman said this issue led to the decision to cancel all housing assignments from that day.

“When we realized the issue was systemic and impacted the entire selection process on Thursday, we made the decision to stop selection, wipe clean any selections that were [made on] Thursday, and set a new time for housing selections for this impacted group,” Hartman said.

Hartman explained that the issue had resulted from a server overload caused by both individuals and groups being allowed to make selections on March 28.

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Sosa said that she worked with StarRez, the housing management system Tufts uses for its on-campus selections to determine what caused the issue and how to resolve it. Sosa added that StarRez is continuing to look into these matters.

In order to correct the issue for this year, Sosa said selection was spread out among the groups. This would keep the servers from overloading, but students of varying group sizes would still be able to pick according to their lottery number.

An email received by affected rising sophomores confirmed this, moving two-person group selections to April 3 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and all other selections to April 4 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The email also noted that this change would not affect any group’s chance at attaining their selection.

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................3 WEEKENDER..........................4

see HOUSING, page 2

OPINION.....................................6 SPORTS............................ BACK

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Thursday, April 11, 2019

THE TUFTS DAILY Elie Levine Editor in Chief

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Rising sophomores can now select housing after initial confusion HOUSING

continued from page 1 “The change in the selection day/ timeslots will not affect your ability to choose from those spaces set up specifically for your group based on size and availability,” the email says.

Phoebe Yates, a first-year who was affected by the issue, said she and her roommate initially picked housing in Latin Way, thinking this was a valid option. “[The housing portal] was giving us options essentially to live in a double in a suite or in a quad, as well as normal doubles,” Yates said.

Confused by these selection options, Yates called the ORLL to see if these options were actually available.

According to Yates, the person who answered the phone at the ORLL said the selection was valid.

After receiving the email that all selections had been cancelled, Yates called again to ensure that her previous selection would still be valid. After the ORLL initially told her the option would be open to her, Yates eventually emailed Sosa, who told Yates that the Latin Way selection was not open for a two-person group.

Yates added that her selection time for the second round was almost an hour and a half later than her initial selection time, which was cancelled.

Hartman said that he regrets that this happened to students looking for housing next year, but for most, the selection process went smoothly.

“Almost 1,400 students went through housing selection without issue, and this group of around 700 were the only ones impacted. However, we are concerned that this happened at all, and apologize for the inconvenience that this caused for the impacted students,” Hartman wrote, adding that procedural changes

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The Office of Residential Life and Learning, located at 20 Professors Row, is pictured on Sept.

15, 2018. would be made to ensure an error-free selection process in the future.

Sosa expanded on these changes, saying new positions at the ORLL, like an assistant director of housing services, will become available within the ORLL to ensure better functioning.

“At this time, we are keeping note of all of the issues that we encountered during this process in an effort to address them all moving forward. We are currently looking to hire an Assistant Director of Housing Services who will be overseeing the housing selection process and helping streamline the process in the future,” Sosa said.

Sosa also said that as a whole, housing operations at Tufts actually run relatively well.

“Having gone through housing selection for many years that although there were some obvious frustrations with this process, Tufts’ selection process was very comprehensive with many moving parts,

HALL COUNCILS

Year Assistants (FYA), but nevertheless described the balanced cooperation she hopes to see between the two.

“That [relationship] is definitely a concern that senate has,” Chen said, “The FYAs will be supporting the firstyears … They will train the first-years in order to plan events and be community leaders.”

Rapfogel echoed Chen’s sentiments on the importance of proper integration with the FYA program.

“T​he FYAs will work closely with the hall councils and serve as mentors and partners in planning events,” Rapfogel, a senior, told the Daily in an email. “They will likely still receive a programming budget, but their role will be largely supervisory with the hall council.”

Rapfogel dove into the precise information regarding the makeup of the council, specifying that each firstyear Hall Council will be made up of five first-years who are to be elected early in the fall semester.

Lew mentioned feeling a disconnect between the activities put in place and what the residents want.

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and despite the issues, did overall run very smoothly,” Sosa said.

Sosa added that she hoped students understand that the ORLL is doing what it can to resolve this issue in the future.

“The previous days of selection did go by very well, and while we understand and hear the frustration from students and families, we hope that they see the effort we are making to ensure the best possible outcomes for students selecting housing for next year,” she said.

Hartman gave similar reassurances, saying the decisions to cancel and push back the selections students made ensured a fairer process.

“We certainly understand the stress connected with determining housing plans, and we are committed to supporting students, which is why we decided to move forward in this way in order to ensure a fair and equitable process,” he said.

ORLL initiative will elect 5 first-years per dorm to develop community continued from page 1

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On April 4 at 4 a.m., Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) observed a student running into Harleston Hall holding a wet floor sign. TUPD later identified the student and found that they had taken the sign from the Mayer Campus Center. The case has been handed over to the dean of student affairs.

On April 6 at 2:29 p.m., TUPD responded to a security alarm at 13 Sawyer Ave. (Davies House). When officers arrived, they found multiple security screens and fire escapes open and unsecured. No one was in the house at the time of TUPD’s arrival and inspection.

While responding to the security alarm at 13 Sawyer Ave., TUPD also observed various violations of university rules and regulations, including intentionally damaged property, fire hazards, a charcoal grill inside the house and alcoholic beverages. The case has been handed over to the dean of student affairs.

On April 8 at 12:33 a.m., TUPD responded to a report of an off-campus residence on College Avenue causing a disturbance in the community. Loud music emanated from inside the house, and beer cans and trash were strewn throughout the lawn.

After several partygoers closed the door in officers’ faces, TUPD was able to make contact with the residents and shut down the party.

“I’ve gone to a couple of smaller programs, [but] not intentionally,” Lew said. “In general, I feel outreach could be much better [and that] more could be done.”

But overall, Lew remained hopeful for the future that awaits incoming firstyears with the new program, believing that a change in social life in first-year dorms is necessary.

“People just see dorms as a place where they sleep and do their work, but [dorms] could be seen as more of a productive space than that, and in order to do that you need to really improve your programs,” Lew said.

EDITOR’S NOTE It has been brought to our attention that some of the subheadings in last week’s police briefs made light of situations involving assault and vandalism. The Daily regrets publishing these comments and any distress that they may have caused. We would also like to thank the members of the student body that brought this issue to our attention and who reached out to us to improve our future coverage. The subheadings have now been removed, and police briefs will be published without subheadings for the remainder of the semester.

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Features

Alumni Q&A: Ioannis Miaoulis Part II

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Douglas Berger Ripple Effect

The globalization of the commons

by Grace Yuh

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Editor’s note: This is a continuation of a two-part Q&A. The first part was published in yesterday’s issue.

The Alumni Series aims to create a diverse collection of experiences at Tufts through highlighting notable alumni. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Tufts Daily (TD): What did you do after you completed your doctoral studies at Tufts?

Ioannis Miaoulis (IM): When I finished my Ph.D. I wanted to become a professor, so I applied to different schools. I was actually in active conversation with [the California Institute of Technology] and Columbia [University] and a university in Louisiana, but my dream was always to be a professor at Tufts. But there was no opening in my area of expertise. Unexpectedly, one of the faculty had to leave for family issues and a position opened up. So I applied. It was a very stressful situation because I was already a lecturer … and a Ph.D. student.

But somehow I got the job. Years later, when I was dean, we were digging up some files on faculty searches. I found the faculty search from when I was applying. I found out that I was the fourth choice of the department.

TD: Why did you decide to go into teaching?

IM: I enjoy teaching a lot. I did a lot of teaching as a graduate student. I was a TA and a lecturer, and I love Tufts and research so this was the ideal job. I started as an assistant professor and did a lot of work and research.

TD: Beyond teaching, how else were you involved in the Tufts administration?

IM: I was an assistant professor, and I realized I was managing research, because I had a large research group, rather than doing it myself. So the year before I got tenure, I approached Dean Fred Nelson. I told him I was interested, after getting tenure, for him to consider me as department chair or associate dean so I could start going up the management ladder. Two months later, I got a call from him and the vice president and they asked me to meet with them. A month later, I was told I’d be the associate dean the coming year. I had not officially even gotten tenure yet. So I became the associate dean.

[Later] the vice president decided to organize the school and I was made the dean of the school of engineering at 32. That started my career as dean at Tufts.

TD: You did a lot of work with engineering outreach, particularly within elementary, middle and high schools. How did this project start?

IM: What happened was, I was trying to figure out a better way to drive from home to Tufts. I took a wrong turn and ended up at a dead end, which happened to be the neighborhood middle school. I was doing some work with some … superconductors with some fascinating materials … Here I was at this middle school parking lot. I thought it would be a good idea to show the middle schoolers the materials. So I got out of the car, met the principal of the school and said I was a professor at Tufts. I got to meet the eighth grade science teacher, who was an older gentleman. He was very excited and invited me to give a talk the following Friday to the kids. I was excited because I had never taught kids of that age. I spent a whole week with my undergraduate students preparing a show. Here I am giving the whole show and in front of me, there was a little girl with frizzy hair, taking notes of everything I had to say … At the end of the talk [she] said, “Dr. Miaoulis, I would like you to help with my science fair project.” Of course, I had not

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MICHAEL MALYSZKO / TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Ioannis Miaoulis is pictured. helped anyone with a science fair project, but what do you say when a kid is so excited? … That was the moment that changed my life. It [inspired me to] start the whole K-12 outreach program at Tufts. Right now, it’s one of the strongest engineering programs in the country.

TD: Can you speak about how you transitioned to the Museum of Science?

IM: Chris Rogers and I decided to introduce engineering along with science as a new discipline in schools starting with kindergarten. We helped begin the whole STEM initiative in 1995 and this whole engineering thing blossomed at Tufts but was very difficult to make national because my focus was on the Engineering School. That’s why I made the move to the Museum [of Science].

They wanted to introduce engineering at the Museum of Science as a discipline. I thought that was crazy, because I love Tufts and I’d just been promoted to associate provost, but I thought it would be a good platform to get my dream of introducing engineering to young children to become a reality. So to everybody’s shock, I left Tufts.

Even my golden retrievers are named after Tufts buildings. My first one was Ballou, the second one Anderson and the one right now is called Fletcher.

TD: What did you do at the Museum of Science?

IM: I went to the Museum and started this whole expansion of engineering. The Museum trained about a quarter of a million teachers and … our efforts have reached about 20 million kids. The Museum has become the international leader in K-12 engineering education. The little girl that actually started that — she won the science fair that year. She graduated at [the] top of her class, went to Haverford College and studied biology and history. And then she went to Tanzania to start designing science laboratories for children … She was instrumental in introducing the E in STEM.

TD: You will become the next president at Roger Williams University in August 2019.

How did you decide on taking that opportunity?

YM: I stayed at Tufts 16 years and I stayed at the museum 16 years. I had to make a decision whether to stay at the museum to see the completion of the Blue Wing and then retire, or to do something different. I decided it was time to do something different. My heart has always been in academia and I was planning on taking a break because I’d never had a sabbatical in my life. But the moment that it was announced that I was going to be leaving the museum, all the search firms started calling me and the first call I got was from the search firm finding the position for president of Roger Williams. In the beginning, I was interested. I used to fish in Narragansett Bay, so I’d seen the university many times from the water. When I looked closely at the university, I really saw potential for it to become the university the world needs now. It combines liberal arts with professional education, it focuses on an affordable education for students and it’s in an amazing location. So I decided to do it.

They picked me and I picked them and I’m looking forward to the next journey.

TD: What is one piece of advice you would give to incoming first-years at Tufts?

IM: Schedule your academic and social life … That freed up a lot of my time to do a lot of fun things. Tufts has so much to offer both in academic life and social life. If you’re organized, you can enjoy it so much more than wasting your time.

TD: What is one piece of advice you would give to seniors at Tufts?

IM: Tufts has prepared me and I assume prepared you for a wonderful life, academically, civically and socially. You never know where you’re gonna be. Keep an open mind and always try to do the right thing. Think out of the box.

he government of Sierra Leone has banned industrial fishing in its territorial waters for the month of April.

Why would one of the world’s poorest nations put a halt to one of its most important industries? Sierra Leone’s fish stocks have been dangerously depleted — not by local fishermen — but by foreign trawlers coming from around the world.

Demand for fish is skyrocketing worldwide.

The global trade is worth billions of dollars.

People consume 50% more fish today, on average, than they did 50 years ago. Simply put, we are eating more than can be sustainably caught.

Almost 90% of the world’s marine fish stock is either fully exploited, over-exploited or completely depleted, according to the World Economic Forum. The result is that many countries, chief among them being China, are sending their fishing fleets farther and farther afield in search of greener pastures.

The coast of West Africa is one of the world’s most productive fisheries — or at least it should be. For years, fishermen in coastal villages across the region have complained of declining catches. Perhaps nowhere is this felt more keenly than in Sierra Leone, where fish makes up 80% of the average person’s protein intake.

These coastal fisheries are what are known as commons — a resource an entire community can access and upon which it relies. And they are being exploited by an international fleet on an industrial scale. This on its own would be destructive enough, but many of these vessels are flouting the laws of Sierra Leone and wreaking havoc on their fisheries in the process.

Foreign trawlers have been documented illegally fishing in Sierra Leonean waters — either fishing too close to shore in areas reserved for locals or pair trawling. Pair trawling is a fishing activity in which two ships a set distance apart trawl a single large net between them. This allows a greater catch because the net can cover a larger area, but it doesn’t leave much behind. It is also cheaper since less equipment is needed compared to single-vessel trawling.

Pair trawling is incredibly damaging to marine ecosystems. It is associated with fish stock depletion and high levels of bycatch, i.e. when vast numbers of non-target fish and other species become accidentally caught in nets. The Sierra Leonian authorities, with only a single patrol vessel, are ill-equipped to enforce the law against pair trawling. The country desperately needs the revenue legal trawl fishing could bring but lacks the capacity to enforce the regulations needed to keep it sustainable.

This is what happens when environmental commons enter the global market, and the states that govern them lack the capacity to protect them from exploitation. But these commons are global. The world’s marine ecosystems are important to the health of the planet overall, and ultimately, the wellbeing of all its people — not to mention increasingly important to their food supply. The flip side of our increasingly global access to resources is that these same resources are now increasingly depleted.

Douglas is a senior studying international relations. Douglas can be reached at douglas.berger@tufts.edu.

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Thursday, April 11, 2019

WEEKENDER

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‘Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes’ asks questions about stereotyping, representation

COURTESY OF TUFTS DEPARTMENT OF THEATER, DANCE, AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES

A scene from the dress rehearsal of ‘Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes’ is pictured.

by Stephanie Hoechst Arts Editor

This weekend, the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies will be presenting their spring production, “Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes.” While the cast is small, with only five actors, the show asks big questions about stereotypes in Hollywood and grapples with issues of representation.

Heather Nathans, chair of the department and director of “Jihad Jones,” sat down with the Daily to talk about her experience directing such a thematically complex piece.

“Jihad Jones” follows struggling actor Ashraf as he is called into his agent’s office and offered the role of a lifetime, with an amazing director and plenty of money. The only problem, though, is that Ashraf would have to play a terrorist. This decision causes Ashraf to question his potential role in racial stereotyping and representation.

Nathans explained the significance behind this plot setup.

“The entire play is about Ashraf wrestling with the decision of, ‘Do I take this role and maybe I have the chance to make a more humane terrorist? Or try to change things from the inside? Or do I say, no, I’m going to stand up for what I believe in and continue to play Hamlet’ — which is what he’s been doing — ‘for $200 a week and live in my parents’ basement?’” Nathans said.

Nathans finds this play particularly relevant because it poses these questions.

“It’s looking at stereotypes for racial and ethnic and religious groups; it’s

also looking at stereotypes for women, because the giant female star in the play has a really powerful monologue about — ‘You think you get stereotyped? Do you know what it’s like to be a woman in Hollywood? Guess what I get offered?’ And so I think the entertainment industry is trying to look at some of those issues, but I think that they are still very much in the mix. You can see a TV show, you can see a movie, and you can sort of smack your head and go, ‘Oh, my god, no, really? Aren’t we beyond that?’”

Nathans hopes that viewers of the play evaluate their own role in these issues and what they can do to combat harmful stereotyping.

“I hope most people would agree that stereotypes are bad, but [the play] doesn’t just want you to go, ‘Okay, well, noted,’ and walk away. It’s wants you to think about what lies in your power to change — what can you as an audience member do when you’re confronted with a stereotype? Do you challenge? Do you say, ‘I’m not going to go see that movie any more, or that director’s movies,’ or, ‘I’m not going to buy that book, because I’m not going to allow that to continue?’” Nathans said. “And that’s something that I talk about in my research — the assumption that stereotypes have always been with us. Stereotypes are created by people. There is a choice made to perpetuate them, or to resurrect and redirect them.”

In addition, Nathans has previously worked with the playwright of “Jihad Jones,” Yussef El Guindi, who is visiting Tufts this week.

“He’s going to visit a number of different classes. He’s going to have

the opportunity to meet with different student groups and I think that’ll be really exciting. He’s going to do a talk-back after opening night about the issues that the play raises and his work as a playwright. He’s somebody who frequently wrestles with issues of stereotypes and whose stories get told, [as well as] whose voices get heard.”

Nathans explained that because the spring is such a busy time, the spring show is designed to be a smaller production. “It’s five people,” she said.

“It’s great! It’s a fantastic cast — we have people who have been on our stage before, we have people who have never been on our stage before. That’s very Tufts, I think.”

In order to create a meaningful and well-rounded experience for the actors, Nathans made sure everyone involved was well-informed about these issues of representation.

“We wanted to create as much context for the actors as possible,” Nathans said. “So we brought in a number of different speakers, actors read articles, they saw documentaries before they came into the rehearsal process.”

According to Nathans, speakers included Celene Ibrahim, the Muslim chaplain; Walker Bristol, the Humanist chaplain; Nandi Bynoe, assistant dean of student affairs; and Tasha Oren, associate professor in the Film and Media Studies (FMS) program.

In addition, Nathans noted, “We have two graduate students in our program who work on Muslim and Arab theater, and they came in to talk about both what’s happening in the field and also their own personal experiences of feeling targeted.”

Overall, Nathans hoped that this contextualization would create not just a more powerful production, but a more meaningful learning experience for the actors.

“What we wanted to do [was] create as much of a context, as many opportunities for conversation, so that everyone would feel like they had the opportunity to hear, to express, to question, to learn,” Nathans said. “I’m so grateful to all our colleagues around campus who have collaborated. We’ve really had a lot of people come in, share time, make place in their classes … But I’m really grateful for the Chaplaincy, for the Dean’s Office up in Dowling [Hall], for Tasha, for FMS to come in, it’s been really kind. And people have given us time in their classrooms as well — so, we’re going to an Arabic class; we’re going to a playwriting class, et cetera.”

Nathans urged everyone to see the show, not only because of the hard work of the actors, but because of the relevant themes of “Jihad Jones.”

“For us, it’s part of our commitment to thinking about whose stories get told onstage, and who has the opportunity to share their experience, but then who also has the opportunity to think, ‘I never knew that was your experience,’ and learn something from it as well,” Nathans said.

“Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes” will be showing in the Balch Arena Theater this Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., as well as on Saturday at 2 p.m. Depending on the night, tickets range from one to $10 and can be purchased online at Tufts Tickets.

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The limits of free speech online

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Thursday, April 11, 2019

CARTOON

Spring has sprung

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his week, British regulators unveiled a proposal to punish technology giants such as Facebook and Google who “fail to stop the spread of harmful content online.” “Harmful content” includes terrorist activity, violence and fake news. This proposal would create a regulatory body with the power to fine tech companies, and implement other deterrents and punishments and to remove such posts from the public domain. Tech company executives could themselves be held liable for content published on their platforms. Officials involved in the plan have characterized it as part of the plan to make the United Kingdom “the safest place in the world to be online.” While there are clear dangers in allowing governments to lay down such rules, a third party could play an effective mediating role.

The question of where to draw the line between free speech and public safety is never clear-cut, but allowing totally unfiltered “free speech” often has deleterious consequences. For example, videos of the recent attack on New Zealand were publicized virally on 8chan, an anonymous board where terrorist sympathizers and other groups are free to discuss across borders at will. Many sources have concluded that users on Facebook influenced political outcomes, including the U.K.’s 2016 Brexit referendum and the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Facebook was pivotal in the organization of the 2017 Charlottesville rally. A fake video showing an attack by a Pakistani terrorist group is one example of fake news having a profound impact on India’s upcoming general election.

In March, Facebook officially banned content supporting white nationalism and white separatism. The company had faced public pressure to do this after it was discovered that the prior rules allowed users to advocate for the creation of a whites-only nation.

Facebook’s position changed after extensive consultation with academic experts; the company concluded that white nationalism “cannot be meaningfully separated from … organized hate groups.” Perhaps it is time to extend the scope of these consultations beyond experts. We need to have a national, even a global, conversation about where free speech crosses the line. The nature of technology and social media’s impact is largely unprecedented, and our previous conceptions of rights and free speech should not remain unyielding and absolute principles but should evolve and adapt to the changing discourse of the 21st century. We should harness emerging tools such as artificial intelligence to aid us in such regulation.

Tech companies have long enjoyed a special degree of autonomy and the ability to self-regulate. The U.K.’s recent announcement shows that this era may be coming to a close. Unfortunately, platforms that in theory should serve as forums for open communication have transformed into vehicles for propaganda and harmful messaging in multiple cases. However, regulations like the U.K.’s are minimally effective if enacted in one country alone. The U.S. and other countries should seriously consider similar proposals. The specifics of implementation can be debated, but we must not let the principle of free speech preclude this important conversation from happening in the first place.

Ria Mazumdar is a junior studying quantitative economics and international relations. Ria can be reached at ria.mazumdar@tufts.edu.

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Sports

Thursday, April 11, 2019 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

Jumbos earn multiple nationally qualifying times

Arjun Balaraman Off the Crossbar

WOMEN'S TRACK AND FIELD

continued from page 7 The Tufts 4×400 relay team, comprised of junior Julia Gake and first-years Hannah Neilon, Luana Machado and Tara Lowensohn, took first in their event with a time of 3:59.76.

Their time currently sits 15th in the nation.

Neilon claimed her second victory of the day in the 400-meter, winning it in a time of 58.90.

The Jumbos were also dominant in the field events, claiming three first-place finishes.

Senior co-captain Evelyn Drake took first in the hammer throw with a 155’6” throw, currently 38th in the nation.

Sophomore Nkemdilim Aduka won the discus throw with a 123’5” mark. To round out the field events, junior Julia Kissel took first in the javelin throw with a 117’5” mark. The thrust was just over 10 feet shy of her season best of 128’6”, which she accomplished at the Tufts Snowflake Classic.

By the end of the day, Tufts accumulated 198 team points, just beating out MIT’s 194. RPI took third with 138 points, while Bates finished fourth with 134.

The Jumbos were pleased with how the team finished.

“We were really excited with the results,” DeSmith said. “Our team hadn’t beaten MIT in a meet in over 10 years, and we had set that as our team goal … It definitely gives us confidence as we look ahead to the postseason.”

The Jumbos attribute their success to their passion for outdoor and the morale boost that comes along with the great weather Boston has been blessed with. Field events like the hammer and javelin throw are other additions to the outdoor meets that help the Jumbos’ team performances.

“We have been fortunate to have great weather on meet days, and the team has really rallied to make the most of the great weather,” coach Kristen Morwick said. “I think we are a better outdoor team, so that helps [to get results], but also, I think many of our kids just love outdoor track since most of them only did outdoor in high school. We also add events in the outdoor season that help us.”

7

Can City win the quadruple?

U

MADELEINE OLIVER / THE TUFTS DAILY

First-year Danielle Page wins the 10k race at the Snowflake Classic on March 30.

Up next, the Jumbos compete in the Silfen Invitational at Connecticut College on April 12. The team is looking to keep up its string of great results at this next meet.

“We’re definitely hoping to continue the success we had last weekend,” DeSmith said. “We’re trying to get as

much hard training in as we can before we start to taper for NESCACs. This weekend, we’re trying to improve our seed times and solidify who we might want to enter in different events for NESCACs while hoping to place well at the meet and continue the team’s success.”

nlike American sports teams that only compete for one trophy, almost all soccer clubs around the world enter multiple competitions each year. And, while some trophies carry more weight than others, a trophy is a trophy. All the prominent European leagues have one or even two domestic cup competitions, where teams from tiered professional leagues are put together into one March Madness-style tournament. The ‘treble’ consists of winning the domestic league, the domestic cup and the UEFA Champions League.

Only seven teams have achieved this historic feat, most recently the Barcelona team of 2014–15. No England team has done it other than Manchester United, which famously sank the hearts of Bayern Munich fans with a last-gasp winner to win the Champions League and complete the treble in 1999.

This season, Pep Guardiola and his Manchester City squad have a chance to make history and pull off an unheardof ‘quadruple.’ Having already won the Carabao Cup, one of England’s cup competitions, Guardiola’s men are still fighting for the other three victories in this season’s final stages. The FA Cup might be their easiest chance when they meet either Watford or Wolverhampton Wanderers in the final in May. The more challenging tasks fall in the Champions League and the English Premier League.

On the Champions league front, City faced Tottenham on Tuesday in the first of its encounters, losing the first leg of their quarterfinal tie, 1–0. But this side is more than capable of overturning the deficit in the second leg at home. If they do, City faces either Juventus or Ajax in the semi, and then potentially Barcelona, Liverpool or United in the final.

In the Premier league title race, City looked down and out after a series of slip-ups during the Christmas period when title-contender Liverpool seemingly couldn’t lose. But Guardiola’s side persevered, and now, after a series of strong results on their end and Liverpool dropping points, City controls its own destiny as the team defends the title it won last year.

Indeed, the next two weeks will define City’s season. In the space of 15 days, Guardiola and his side will have played Tottenham three times (twice in the Champions League and once in the Premier League) and crosstown rival Manchester United. After the defeat in the first leg on Tuesday, City will need to win both remaining Spurs’ fixtures and the match against United if they want to keep its quadruple dream alive.

Player for player, this City team is talented enough to win each trophy. But the real difficulty comes in winning all of them. Playing in four competitions takes a toll on the players, and City is starting to show signs of wear and tear with injuries piling up.

Pep Guardiola knows how difficult the quadruple is. He won an astounding six trophies with Barcelona and could become the first manager to win the treble twice, but winning all four titles available seems a little out of reach this season.

Arjun Balaraman is a sophomore studying quantitative economics. Arjun can be reached at arjun.balaraman@tufts.edu.

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Sports

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Climbing to greatness: Tufts’ own Jesse Grupper takes top spot at US Sport and Speed Climbing Open Nationals

by Sam Weidner Sports Editor

A month ago, senior Jesse Grupper, competing in his fifth straight U.S. Sport and Speed Climbing Open Nationals, held the No. 1 seed heading into the finals of the competition at the Sportrock Climbing Center in Alexandria, Va. He had dreamt of winning the event ever since he placed second in the competition back in 2015. This time around, Grupper realized his dream: becoming the best sport climber in the United States at the ripe age of 22.

In the final round of the competition, Grupper, as the top seed, competed last of all the climbers. Having only briefly previewed the route he was about to climb and not knowing how high his competitors had gotten, Grupper strapped into his climbing harness and made his way up the wall. He started up the route like all the other finalists had, but the crowd brimmed with excitement as it became clear that Grupper had a chance to outperform every climber before him. Minutes later, Grupper returned to the ground a national champion.

Grupper explained what that moment meant to him as a culmination of his whole climbing career.

“Four years ago I placed second at this event, and ever since then I’ve had the dream and the goal to push myself a little bit further within the sport and that discipline,” Grupper, a Montclair, N.J. native, said. “It was a pretty surreal experience for me to be able to make that a reality and to see it actually happen. Obviously that took a lot of work and a lot went into it, but I’m super happy with the result.”

Grupper first started climbing at age six when he was dragged along to his sisters’ climbing lessons. He has competed in regional, national and international competitions, and he traveled this past summer to Bratislava, Slovakia for the World University Sport Climbing Championships where he placed fifth out of 53 athletes in the lead climbing division. Having been a part of the climbing community for so long, he says that there are a lot of familiar faces whenever he attends these competitions today.

“The open national field comes a lot from youth competitions which I was also involved in growing up, so it’s a lot of the same people that I’ve seen since I was young doing the same kind of sport,” Grupper said. “It’s a lot of my old friends, a [definitely] close-knit community of people who are really passionate and caring towards each other.”

Grupper also explained how the culture of climbing differs from other sports. The individual aspect of climbing lends many

COURTESY DANIEL GAJDA

Senior Jesse Grupper competes at the World University Sport Climbing Championship in Bratislava, Slovakia on June 23, 2018. climbers to lean on each other when they compete.

“I think what stands out about climbing compared to other sports is the competitive aspect of it,” Grupper said. “In a lot of sports, you might have competitors that are really cutthroat towards one another, but in climbing you’ll … find competitors helping one another and trying to make sure that everyone can have their best performance.”

Grupper has been able to find the collaborative spirit of the climbing community in the Tufts Climbing team, which he joined when he first became a Jumbo nearly four years ago. The climbing team is one of the larger and more successful club sports on campus, as proven by a third-place showing at collegiate nationals last year. This year, the team will send climbers to compete at the U.S. Collegiate National Championships in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Tufts Climbing team competition chair Alex Scaperotta spoke about what it’s like having Grupper on the team.

“Jesse is clearly an amazing climber, but on top of that he’s a pretty spectacular guy to … have around,” Scaperotta, a junior, said.

“He’s one of the friendliest guys I’ve ever met.

He’s super supportive and a real team player.”

Because of its size, the climbing team has in its ranks both athletes who compete at

the national level and those who climb for fun. Grupper talked about how they are all able to bond over their common passion.

“It’s a really fun community — it’s creative, it’s physically challenging,” Grupper said. “It doesn’t matter whether you are climbing 5–15 or 5–6 [levels of difficulty] honestly … We can all relate to the problem-solving techniques that we are working on with climbing, so I think it has been really important to me to have that community of people who all understand that problem-solving technique and are also passionate about something else around academia.”

The connection between climbing and academia has always been present for Grupper. As a mechanical engineer, he sees a climbing wall as just another opportunity to solve a problem. Spending your college career traveling to elite climbing competitions across the country and around the world means getting very good at doing homework in the car or on a plane. Grupper says that he has always prioritized school over climbing, but that both play an important role in fueling his ambition and drive in the other.

Looking ahead, Grupper’s plans aren’t entirely clear. His climbing success has earned him a chance to represent the U.S.

in the World Cup Circuit next year, but he values the things he has learned at Tufts and the opportunities his educational experience has opened for him, too.

“Because I won this competition three weeks ago I was given an invitation to compete in the World Cup Circuit for elite climbing, so I’m definitely planning on competing in as many of those as I can [while] representing the U.S.,” Grupper said. “I want to continue making an impact in the community and not just climb for myself but also [find] a way to give back, whether that’s helping with conservation efforts in the areas I climb or helping to get people who aren’t necessarily involved in the sport right now more involved.”

As the best sport climber in the country, Grupper plans to climb professionally next year, too.

“I would call myself a professional climber next year. That’s my ambition: climbing outside, competing,” Grupper said. “Then when I come back, I think I would either go back to school or industry because I definitely don’t wanna give up on mechanical engineering either.”

Regardless of where he chooses to go, Grupper has a bright future ahead of him in both academics and climbing.

Women’s track and field earns 2nd consecutive first-place finish at MIT Quad Meet

by Liam Finnegan Sports Editor

On Saturday, the Tufts women’s track and field team competed against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), MIT and NESCAC opponent Bates at MIT’s Morrison Track in Cambridge, Mass. Many of the athletes had nationally ranked times and the team took first in the event, their second consecutive first-place finish of the outdoor season.

Senior Kylene DeSmith had an outstanding individual performance at the

meet. Out of the five events she competed in, she achieved personal records in three of them. Desmith ran a 27.06 time in the 200-meter to take ninth out of eighteen competitors, earning one of her three personal records of the day. She took second in the 100-meter hurdles with a 14.98 time, currently the 25th best time in the nation. She then went on to take sixth in the high jump to earn her third personal record of the day.

“I’m happy I was able qualify for some postseason meets and extend my season

past what is guaranteed, especially since it’s my last season,” DeSmith said. “It was also the first time I had broken my 100 hurdle PR from high school, and it was really satisfying to beat it by so much. Even more special was that at least three-fourths of the team had some sort of personal best or season best this past weekend, and it was nice to share that with so many teammates and get excited for what is to come.”

DeSmith also commented on the transition from the indoor season to the outdoor season.

“Coming off of a solid indoor season, I had been disappointed in the results of my first outdoor meet the weekend before at the Snowflake Classic, so I was really motivated to improve on those at MIT,” DeSmith explained.

“Coach Morwick had also given me an easier week, as I’ve been battling hamstring problems for a couple months now, so my legs felt really fresh before my race.”

see WOMEN'S TRACK AND FIELD , page 7