Daily
the Brown
vol. cxxii, no. 28
Herald
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Since 1891
U. to support Proposed UCS amendment highlights historic debate affirmative relationship in the past has (led) to harsh dealings between the two action in entities and has impeded the efThe Undergraduate Council of ficient function of undergraduate Supreme Students proposed an amendment student government.” last month that would allow it The issues raised by the to allocate its own budget rather amendment discussion are not Court brief than having its funding approved isolated. Past leaders of the counBy Margaret Nickens Senior Staff Writer
By Joseph Rosales Senior Staff Writer
The University plans to submit a brief to the Supreme Court by next year in favor of continuing the use of affirmative action in admission decisions, said Beverly Ledbetter, vice president and general counsel at the University. The planned brief is in response to a case brought by a student against the University of Texas at Austin that will be heard by the Supreme Court in its next term. Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin is the first major Supreme Court case regarding affirmative action since the 2003 case of Grutter v. Bollinger which involved the University of Michigan. The University’s brief will support UT Austin, Ledbetter said. If the Court votes in favor of Fisher, the use of race in college admissions could be eliminated. Abigail Fisher, a white student, sued UT Austin in 2008, alleging she was denied admission based on her race. The state of Texas upholds a “top 10 percent law,” which states that students in the top 10 percent of their graduating classes gain automatic eligibility continued on page 2
Herald file photo The recently proposed UCS amendment spotlighted disagreements with UFB.
by the Undergraduate Finance Board. Though the amendment did not receive the required twothirds majority necessary to pass, it raised wider questions about the historic relationship between UCS and UFB and the level of engagement in student government. In the council’s amendment proposal, UCS outlined persistent problems in defining the roles of each undergraduate governing body. “UFB currently views itself as an equal and separate branch of student government at Brown,” the proposal states. “This skewed
Simmons gives ‘universal’ corporate advice By Caroline Flanagan Senior Staff Writer
President Ruth Simmons and fellow successful businesswomen gave sound advice to all students — not just females — interested in entering the corporate world at a discussion yesterday. Besides Simmons, the panelists at the event, called “Women in the Corporate World: Breaking the Glass Ceiling,” were Martha Goss ’71 P ’04,
the former CFO of Booz Allen Hamilton, and Tracy Harlow, the senior director of Global Associate Communications at Walmart. The panel was organized by the student group, Smart Women Securities, and sponsored by the Commerce, Organizations and Entrepreneurship department. Maria Carkovic, director of the COE department, moderated the discussion. Yingsi Zhang ’12, a cofounder of Smart Women Securi-
ties, said that Carkovic was an ideal choice for moderator because the COE department has always supported her group, the Brown chapter of a nationwide nonprofit that provides finance education to undergraduate women through lectures and speaker series. The event attracted a moderately sized and predominantly female audience that occupied continued on page 4
M. basketball coach’s contract will not be renewed Following losses last weekend to Penn and Princeton that concluded a disappointing season for the men’s basketball team, Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger announced Monday that Head Coach Jesse Agel’s contract will not be renewed when it expires in June. Associate Head Coach T.J. Sorrentine will take over as interim head coach, and a decision on the new permanent head coach will not be announced until a new director of athletics is named. Goldberger is retiring at the end of the academic year.
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inside
The basketball team finished the season with an 8-23 overall record and a 2-12 record in the Ivy League, finishing seventh in the conference ahead of only Dartmouth. Agel has
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been on the coaching staff for the past six years, serving as head coach for the last four seasons. He compiled a 39-79 overall record as head coach, with a 25 percent win record in the Ivy League at 14-42. “It was time to make a change in the leadership for the program,” Goldberger said. “I didn’t feel we improved over the last year or that we would next year under the current leadership.” “Coach Agel was dealt a difficult hand at the beginning of the season because of Tucker (Halpern ’13) and Rafael (Maia ’15) being out and Stephen’s (Albrecht ’13) back injury,” said Andrew McCarthy ’13. “At the same time, we had more than enough talent to compete much better than we did.” “Coaches are evaluated on how many wins they get,” said co-captain Matt Sullivan ’13. “We’ve had a continued on page 4
Go veg!
Student activists encourage meat-free Mondays campus news, 2
The creation of UFB
Before the creation of the finance board, the council and the nowcontinued on page 3
Bill would ensure servers keep tips By Sinclair Target Contributing Writer
A bill was introduced last week in the Rhode Island House of Representatives that would prevent employers in the service industry from taking a cut of their employees’ tips. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Christopher Blazejewski, DProvidence and East Providence, and has also gained the support of a local YouTube celebrity, Joey “Quits” DeFrancesco. Under the terms of the bill, employers who take their employees’ tips would face a mis-
city & state
Sam Rubinroit / Herald After a seventh place finish in the Ivy League this season, the men’s basketball team will return to the court with a new head coach next year.
Hate crimes
New legislation will expand hate crime definition city & state, 5
Helpful?
Dorris ’15 questions double concentrating opinions, 7
weather
By Hannah Abelow Senior Staff Writer
cil and the finance board have described the relationship between the two groups as “rival,” “bitter” and “overly dramatic.” Over the last decade, UCS and UFB have struggled to define the appropriate division of powers between the bodies amid a lack of student awareness of these two organizations tasked with overseeing campus life.
demeanor charge punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or 60 days in prison and possibly both. Staff would also be able to file lawsuits against their employers to reclaim tips they believe were withheld from them. Blazejewski said he introduced the bill after he heard complaints from several constituents who worked in the service industry. “Anyone who has ever worked a service job knows how hard and demanding and long those hours are,” he said. “In this tough continued on page 5 t o d ay
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The Brown Daily Herald Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Meatless pledge gains momentum By sonia phene Contributing Writer
Nearly 300 students pledged to participate in Meatless Mondays, a national initiative that asks students to avoid consuming meat one day per week. The commitment of the 287 current participants reduces the University’s carbon footprint by about 59 kg of CO2 per week, according to the site. The site has been up for ten months, said Adalyn Naka ’13, who brought the movement to Brown as part of a project for ENVS 0410: “Environmental Stewardship” last year. “Our biggest goal is to get people thinking of what they’re eating,” said James Hayes ’13, a member of the group that started the project. “A lot of the time, food is there, and we just eat it.” The national movement’s website states that multiple college dining halls have committed to Meatless Mondays. Columbia is one such school, according to its dining website. Environmental, health, economic and social issues are listed as reasons to go meatless on the Brown Meatless Mondays site. Meatless Mondays at Brown is not about eliminating meat from the school dining halls but about raising awareness, Hayes said. “The national movement is very much focused on getting rid of (meat) in the dining hall. We want to say, ‘Yes, there’s meat available, but here’s the vegetarian special,”’ said Alison Kirsch ’15, a member of the Sustainable Food Initiative. The University’s initiative is more focused on the social issues behind meat consumption
Courtesy of the Brown Meatless Mondays website Several hundred students have committed to reduce their meat consumption.
than the health issues the national movement stresses, Naka said. Naka paired with Kirsch and the Sustainable Food Initiative a few weeks ago to seek more publicity for the movement. They hope to submit a proposal to Dining Services that would permit them to advertise the movement in campus eateries, Naka said. Gathering data from an online survey on students’ eating habits will help legitimize their proposal, Kirsch said. “The questions on the survey are aimed at figuring out how much meat students are eating, what issues drive their dietary decisions, and if they’d be willing to take the pledge. These questions help us better understand the population we are targeting,” Naka wrote in an email to The Herald. The length of the pledge commitment is up to each participant, Naka said. “We can’t make you
do it, but hopefully you will,” she said. Hayes said he thinks he will avoid eating meat on Mondays forever. “I can’t see what would make me stop,” he said. It’s not difficult to go meatless one day per week, especially when your friends are doing the same, he said. Kevin Casto ’13, a signer of the pledge, said that he would stay committed “into the foreseeable future,” adding that he appreciates the flexibility of the once-perweek commitment. “I was uncomfortable with the way vegetarianism can become very strict,” Casto said. Before taking the pledge, he used to eat meat as part of “every other meal,” he said. “The problem is that people think that vegetarianism is all or nothing. The point of Meatless Mondays is that it isn’t,” Kirsch said.
U. stands by affirmative action policies continued from page 1 for admission within the University of Texas system. In 2003, Ledbetter co-wrote a brief on behalf of the University alongside general counsels from Harvard, the University of Chicago, Dartmouth, Duke University, Penn, Princeton and Yale in support of affirmative action. Though the Fisher case is different
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from the Grutter case, Ledbetter said the University’s views on affirmative action have not changed. “Nothing has changed at Brown to change our position,” she said. “Brown is committed to having a wide variety of students,” said Provost Mark Schlissel P’15. Administrators are closely following the case, but Schlissel said it is “far too early” to speculate on
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the court’s decision. The University understands the importance of diversity in education, he said. “A lot of the learning here comes outside of the classroom,” Schlissel said. “The broader and more inclusive the voices, the greater the learning.” Ledbetter said she finds it unlikely the decision would affect the University’s admission policies unless the Court reverses its 2003 decision. “I don’t think anyone expects the court to abandon affirmative action,” Ledbetter said. “But they could tighten it.” Ledbetter said she expects the new brief to be written by early 2013 by a group whose members will be similar to those who wrote the 2003 brief. Ledbetter expects a wide variety of opinions put forward from higher education sources and otherwise, she said. Harvard also expressed interest in submitting a brief favoring UT Austin, the Crimson reported Feb. 23. “All of academia is watching,” Schlissel said.
Campus News 3
The Brown Daily Herald Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Tensions characterize UCS, UFB relations through the years continued from page 1 defunct Brown Student Union together were responsible for funding student organizations, said Daniel Pipkin ’14, the UCSUFB liaison. Due to these overlapping responsibilities, “inconsistent budgeting decisions” led to some groups being overfunded and others receiving no funding at all, according to UFB’s website. To reduce these conflicts, the council and the student union formed the finance board in 1984 “for the sole purpose of making budgeting or student group funding more efficient,” Pipkin said, rather than to serve as a check on the council’s power. In 2003, the student union became inactive, and UFB became a subsidiary of the council. According to Article V of the council’s current constitution, UCS entrusts UFB with the responsibility of funding student groups on campus. In the years since 2003, the council and UFB have struggled with upholding a productive relationship between the two bodies, debating the council’s right to oversee the finance board’s operations and the board’s ability to adequately and fairly fund the council. A check on power
Such budgeting discussions arose during the 2006-07 school year when UFB, led by then-chair Cash McCracken ’08, significantly reduced the amount of funding it approved for UCS to undertake projects on campus, decreasing the council’s budget by around 70 percent, McCracken said. “There was a number of years where UFB would mostly rubber stamp all of UCS’s expenses and just allow whatever UCS wanted,” said Ryan Mott ’09, chair of UFB from 2007-08. But during McCracken’s term, UFB noticed that the council was submitting “outrageous budgets,” Mott said, citing an instance when UCS requested $17,000 to fund the set-up of chairs at their meetings. Though council members were initially shocked by the budget reduction, many came to understand the reasoning behind the funding change, McCracken said. John Gillis ’07, president of UCS at the time, said that even with the change, the two bodies maintained a solid working relationship. While Gillis was president, he said the council advocated for student groups to receive funding from UFB, but UCS received more funding from University departments than from UFB. As a result, the reduction in UFB funding did not seriously impact the council’s ability to carry out its mission, he said. Though the funding change did not directly strain the relationship between the governing organizations, “there’s always been an inherent tension between UCS and UFB,” McCracken said. “You want those two groups to be able to have some oversight over each other and frankly don’t want them
to be too cozy. That being said, obviously too much tension’s a bad thing.” ‘A transitional year’
Disagreements over funding resurfaced near the end of 2007 after an Oversight Task Force was created to address the way UFB distributed funds. The task force, assigned with reviewing the way UFB operates, was formed due to concern about UFB’s “lackadaisical approach to allocating funds,” Stefan Smith ’09, head of the task force, told The Herald in Feb. 2008. “We are in the midst of reform, and this is a transitional year,” Smith said in March 2008. Though the task force’s recommendations are not included in the current UFB constitution, the task force affected the relationship between UCS and UFB, said Jose Vasconez ’10, UFB chair from 2009-10. “We felt that UCS was distrustful of the UFB, but we weren’t really sure what we did to merit that,” Vasconez said. Despite efforts to keep lines of communication open, tensions arose outside of the task force due to lack of available funding for student groups, said Michael Glassman ’09, president of UCS from 2007-08. “We usually would reject things that (UCS) would come in with, and they didn’t like it because they would just come and expect to get everything through,” said Ryan Mott ’09, then-chair of UFB. “I wish that UFB’s job was just to say yes, but that’s not UFB’s job. UFB’s job is to say no, and that’s what makes this hard.” Mott said UFB was only able to fulfill between 40 to 50 percent of the budget requests that year. Glassman said that while funding was scarce across the board during his stint as president, the council was underfunded compared to other student governments. He said the strained relationship between UCS and UFB affected funding for the council. “There were times that UFB tried to use UCS as an example or fund UCS less than it probably should have out of frustration with the student activities funding system,” he said. Tensions flare
Vasconez said tensions further heightened between the council and UFB in the 2008-09 school year, when UCS requested funding for such things as cell-phone chargers in the library and money to advertise for student groups in The Herald. Because they were student activities, UFB could not fund them, Vasconez said. “When those two, primarily (The Herald) contract, didn’t pass and UFB refused to fund, UCS grew more and more bitter towards UFB, and I think that animosity has existed for a few years since then,” Vasconez said. During this period, he also said issues arose when UCS would make “strong requests” that UFB fund particular projects.
“UFB’s pretty independent as it is,” Vasconez said. “The only issue that UFB has with regards to its independence with UCS that I see as an issue is that UCS has more and more taken the position that it is in charge of UFB and can tell it what to fund.” In March 2010, UFB proposed an amendment that would give the finance board the ability to fill its own vacancies in the event that a UFB member steps down from the board. The council is responsible for appointing members to fill these vacancies. Tyler Rosenbaum ’11, then UFB secretary, former UCS member and a former Herald opinions columnist, said he spearheaded the amendment in an attempt to modernize UFB’s constitution, which had not been changed in 30 years. But UCS rejected the amendment proposal. “I thought that gave UFB a certain degree of power without any checks,” said Ben Farber ’12, former vice-president of UCS. Farber also said the failure of the amendment to pass did not seriously impact the relationship between UFB and the council. But Rosenbaum said the amendment’s failure reflected a persistent lack of dialogue between the two bodies. “UCS should have approved the minor changes like that,” he said. “If there is a lack of comity on minor things, how are you going to have agreement on bigger things?” Rosenbaum said there seemed to always be some distrust between UCS and UFB, and tensions were especially high when discussing the council’s budget. The council was uncomfortable with UFB’s closed deliberations, and UFB felt the council was “trying to change them,” he said. UFB dealt with a very limited budget and was only able to fund around a fifth of the requests made each year, Vasconez said. He said student groups generally requested around $6 million in funding, though UFB was only able to allocate about $1.4 million. As UFB decreased the council’s budget, the relationship became increasingly tense, Rosenbaum said. Apathy through the ages
Farber said the council had a strong relationship with UFB when he was vice president from 2010-11. Though some UCS leaders have argued that the relationship between the two bodies affected the council’s funding, Farber said he did not find this to be the case. “I don’t think that UFB ever held any bias either for or against UCS when it came to funding decisions,” he said. Adam Kiki-Charles ’11, the chair of UFB at the time, said good communication between the two bodies allowed for a strong relationship in the face of budget crunches. But the two bodies suffered from a lack of student engagement, Kiki-Charles said. Farber,
vice-president of UCS from 201011, said he tried to make communicating with the student body a top priority when he served on the council. To get student feedback on the council’s activities, UCS would hold office hours in the dining halls and set up a table on the Main Green once a week, he said. Under current UCS President Ralanda Nelson ’12, the council also reinstated dorm rounds, which had not been practiced in recent years. Vasconez said the bodies struggled with student engagement in the process during his time as well. Students would rarely show up to meetings or public forums hosted by student government, making it difficult to promote the roles of UFB and UCS on-campus, he said. In elections to vote for UCS and UFB leadership over the past several years, roughly one-quarter of the student body voted. In 2008, around 1,300 students voted. This number increased to 2,279 in the 2009 elections. But in the 2010 and 2011 elections, the number dropped back to just over 1,500 participants, The Herald reported at the time. Dara Illowsky ’14, a member of the Brown Band, said she does not understand the roles of UFB and UCS and does not think UCS communicates effectively with the student body. In a question included in the Herald poll conducted last fall that asked students if they approved or disapproved of the way the council was handling its job, 43 percent of students responded that they lacked sufficient knowledge of the council to answer. Though UCS declined to release the specific results from this year’s amendment, including the number of students who voted, Sam Gilman ’15, UCS communications chair, said the debate surrounding the referendum helped increase awareness of student government. “I think now a lot more people know who we are and what we do,” he said. “It can bring student government more into the community.” Future steps
With the failure of the proposed amendment, UCS and UFB will be forming a joint committee to look into UFB’s funding structure and clarify the relationship between the two bodies. Two council members, Nick Tsapakos ’13 and Holly Hunt ’13, two UFB members and an undecided number of community members will sit on the committee. The committee will look into the history of UCS and UFB, how they have worked together in the past, the funding available for student groups, whether the council is funded appropriately and how the University’s funding structure for student groups compares to that of other schools, said Pipkin, the UCS-UFB liaison. The committee will then design a proposal “looking at ways to recognize that student government has a different role on campus than a student group,” Gilman said. “I think they are just going to adjust the process a little bit to make up for the fact that student government operates differently.” The proposal will come in the form of a UCS code change to address the funding relationship between the bodies, Pipkin said. According to the UCS Code of Operations, a code change will only pass with a two-thirds majority vote by the council. “Hopefully, we can come up with a structure that is not too different from what happens right now but gives UCS more leeway,” said Michael Perchonok ’12, vicechair of UFB. “If they come up with the same proposal that UCS presented to us last semester, it’s probably going to be rejected, and nothing’s going to come of it.” Perchonok said the committee may consider easing the process through which UCS receives funding while still holding the council to the same spending standards applied to student groups. “The most important message coming forward is students realize that there’s a problem now and that student government, UCS, UFB and the community need to come together to figure out what’s the most efficient allocation of resources for student government and student groups and to fix this problem,” Gilman said.
4 Campus News
The Brown Daily Herald Tuesday, March 6, 2012
‘Play by your own rules,’ Simmons advises Experts speculate continued from page 1
about a quarter of Salomon 001. Carkovic began by introducing the panelists, who went on to describe their career trajectories and some of the challenges they faced as females in the male-dominated corporate world, such as confronting gender stereotypes and balancing family lives with careers. Simmons described the struggles she endured at the beginning of her career, at a time when penetrating the “glass ceiling” was practically impossible for African Americans. She said she set low expectations for her future and aspired only to live a life that was different from that of her parents’. Simmons originally reasoned she would be satisfied if she could complete enough schooling to get an office job, but she fell in love with French in college. She chose to pursue a career as a professor, even though the majority of her peers emphasized practicality and activism in their career paths. “I pretty much lived my life with the assumption that wherever I am, I will have to prove myself again and again,” Simmons said. “Many of us are fortunate enough to be given that by virtue of how we look or where we come from.” Students were inspired by Simmons’ story of breaking through the glass ceiling. “The idea that when she was our age, she didn’t believe that she would have these opportunities, made me feel extremely privileged,” said Rie Ohta ’13. During her introduction, Goss described her reasons for retiring from her full-time job in order to work on small corporate boards. “When you’re in the corporate world, you’re competing against your peers even if they’re your
on Korea’s future By Eunice Kim Contributing Writer
Dan Fethke / Herald President Simmons and other panelists discussed female leadership.
friends,” she said. “On corporate boards, you have to work together. It’s rewarding because collegiality is required. If I don’t say something at a meeting, then the other board members will ask what I think about an issue. It gives me pleasure that my opinion counts and they want my input on all these issues.” Simmons also described her time working on corporate boards, saying the most important lesson she learned is that “the solution is definitely not to retreat.” Simmons emphasized women should not be afraid to set their own standards in the workplace, such as requesting specific hours to make family lives easier. Women are often too quick to accept what they are given in the workplace and can feel trapped as a result, she said. “I can tell you that leaders don’t play by the rules. If you want to advance, you have to play by your own rules,” Simmons said. “Minorities and women are often
afraid to paint outside the lines because they don’t want to be seen as problematic or different. They want to be seen as compliant. But that’s not the way to break through.” Harlow also spoke about the importance of open communication between employees and their bosses and stated she is happy to communicate in this way with her staff. “It’s terrifying at first, but it’s actually okay because so many companies today are enabling their employees and associates to get the job done,” she said. “It’s no longer about eight to five — it’s about getting the job done.” The panelists also advised students on where to find mentors. Goss stated that peers make excellent mentors to each other. Harlow mentioned that many corporations integrate mentoring systems into their companies. Simmons stressed that students should search for the right mentor — someone who does not simply “provide approbation” but is honest and gives genuine criticism. Simmons said without the right type of mentor, she would have continued to make the kind of mistakes that would have kept her from advancing. Panelists also discussed double standards women face and the importance of their presentation and composure in the corporate world. Though the panelists agreed that the situation for women in that sphere has improved, Simmons said that even at Brown, she still often sees women’s intellect dismissed and their opinions questioned. Many students said they found the discussion informative and inspiring. “It had a lot of valuable lessons for anyone going into the business world,” said Patrick Temple ’12. “I thought they said a lot of interesting things, particularly about the idea of being assertive.” Ohta described the panel as “illuminative.” “It’s almost a shame that they catered toward the corporate world and didn’t get as many people to come as they could have, considering how universal the advice of the panelists was,” she said.
Experts in North Korean affairs spoke about the Korean Peninsula’s future in the aftermath of Kim Jongil’s death during a well-attended forum held in MacMillan 117 Sunday afternoon. Jin Sup Hong, president of the National Unification Advisory Council of the South Korean government in Boston, nicknamed the North Korean regime successor and Kim Jong-il’s son, Kim Jong-un, a “football” due to the unpredictability of the effects that the leadership change will have on global society. Kim Jong-il was the dictator of North Korea from 1994 until his death in December 2011. “Kim Jong-un studied abroad and traveled around the world, unlike his father, who avoided travel,” said Sung-Yoon Lee, an adjunct assistant professor of international politics at Tufts University. This has led some academics to believe Kim Jong-un may be more open to increasing interaction with the global community, Lee said. But having more exposure to the international community does not guarantee that the North Korean leader will turn from totalitarian rule, said Lee, pointing out that Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet leader, also studied abroad. While some believe the death of Kim Jong-il could lead to the end of North Korean dictatorship, “no one knows” if this will actually be the case, Lee said. Some believe Kim Jong-un may be unable to keep the strong dictatorship that his grandfather and father had, Lee said. “(The) typical
lifespan of a dynasty is three generations,” he added. When the North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung died in the 1990s, people also doubted that Kim Jongil would last longer than five years because of North Korea’s high dependency on external aid and the possibility of rebellion, Lee said. But he ended up being a very successful dictator, Lee said, lending support to the perspective that North Korea could go on for 500 years. Still, Lee predicted that the North Korean dictatorship will fall within next 20 years. “North Korea is a failed case of nation-building,” he said, adding that thousands of its civilians have attempted to flee the country. While Lee’s lecture focused on the possibilities of unification between North and South Korea, Jongsung Kim, a professor of economics at Bryant University, addressed economic pros and cons of unification. Depending on when the unification happens, “the cost of unification is estimated to range between $347 billion to $3.15 trillion” for South Korea, Kim said. He pointed to North Korea’s natural resources as a potential benefit South Korea could reap from unification. The Korean International Students Association, Korean American Students Association and Liberty in North Korea collaborated with the National Unification Advisory Council of the South Korean government to invite Lee and Kim to speak about their research and the possibilities of unification.
Heavy losses prompt decision to change coach continued from page 1 couple tough years in a row, and there are other teams in the Ivy League that have been winning and been winning a lot, and sometimes it’s time to take a step in a new direction.” McCarthy added that the manner in which the team lost is also significant. “Losing by 30-plus points to Ivy League teams is embarrassing for Brown, especially when we show we’re talented enough to beat them,” McCarthy said. “We lose by 30 at Columbia and beat them by 20 at home.” Though sudden leadership changes are always a possibility, Tellef Lundevall ’13 said the team was surprised by the announcement Monday. He said Agel was “upset to have to leave” when he met with the team Monday. “He wished us the best of luck,” Lundevall added. “You never like to see somebody get fired or want to see somebody lose their job, but we did have a tough year,” Sullivan added. “We’re going to look forward and concentrate on the future and do the best we can and not
dwell on the past.” Goldberger said it would be “inappropriate” for him to speculate about the future of the head coach position. “To me, this is such an important, high-profile decision that it should be the decision of the new athletic director whether to maintain interim status or a start a full search for a new head coach,” Goldberger said. Players expressed excitement about the possibility of Sorrentine taking over the program. “T.J. was a bright spot for the team this year,” McCarthy said. “He’s a completely different guy. He attacks the way you prepare for a game in a completely different way than Agel did.” “We’re pretty excited about T.J.,” said Patrick Donnelly ’13. “Everyone has built up their own relationships with him, since it’s easier to get to know the assistant coach. Everyone on the team was watching him play college when we were younger, so we know how good he was and that he knows what he’s talking about.” “We hope he gets the job full time,” McCarthy added.
City & State 5
The Brown Daily Herald Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Bill would protect service tips Legislators propose
expansion of hate crimes law
continued from page 1 economy, I think employers are looking for ways to increase their profit margins, and unfortunately it’s coming at the expense of their workers, who have no choice but to put up with what seems to me really unreasonable.” The bill would also prevent employers from requiring service staff to participate in tip pools involving other employees who do not earn tips, though pools formed strictly among service staff would be permissible. Employers who charge formal gratuity fees would be required to remit those fees entirely to their staff or inform their patrons that the fee is not a tip or service charge. “The patron has a reasonable expectation that the tip, which they pay to their waiter or waitress, goes to them,” Blazejewski said. “Especially if they are making less than minimum wage, they are relying on tips to get by.” DeFranceso, a local viral video star, is publicly backing the bill. He became famous for a video called “Joey Quits,” in which he dramatically quit his job at the Renaissance Providence Hotel downtown, accompanied by a full brass band. It has now been viewed more than three million times. DeFrancesco said he was moved to make the video by the terrible way he and his co-workers were being treated by the hotel where he had worked for three and a half years. He said the hotel charged customers a service charge as well as an additional fixed gratuity fee. But the hotel took some of the service charge, while his immediate supervisors took half of what was left of the service charge as well as half of the gratuity. “They were skimming off a good amount of our tips,” he said. “It was a big issue the entire time I worked there.” DeFrancesco said he had previously filed a lawsuit with the Rhode Island Department of La-
By Billy Watterson Contributing Writer
James Hunter / Herald Under a proposed law, employers would face penalties for taking portions of their employees’ tips.
bor and Training, only to discover that what his employers were doing was entirely legal. “All (the Labor Department) was investigating was whether I was making minimum wage after they had stolen the tips,” he said. “They told me as long as the tips you make put you over minimum wage, they can steal as much as they want.” Motivated by the success of his video, DeFrancesco got in touch with Blazejewski. He said he worked with the representative to draft the bill, which they based on a similar Massachusetts law. “Massachusetts is our neighbor, and oftentimes they are the ones we are competing with,” said Blazejewski. “So it makes sense that we match their statute on this.” California and New York are the only other states with tipping fraud laws. California’s law contains an additional provision that bans the practice of counting tips toward minimum wage, meaning that all employees must earn
minimum wage, even if they also earn tips. DeFrancesco said he didn’t think including the California provision in the Rhode Island law would be feasible. “The bill would get attacked too viciously as being bad for business,” he said. Simon Mallouk, the owner of a Thayer Street restaurant, said he had no problem with the bill. He said the employees at his restaurant were paid $2.89 an hour, but kept all of the tips they earned. He said his restaurant also charged parties over six people an 18 percent gratuity fee, but that the fee went entirely to the staff who served the party. The owner said he was glad the California provision had not been included. “That’s what they do in California? That’s too much,” he said. “I would go work as a waiter after that.” Blazejewski said he was hopeful that the bill, which is currently being held for further study by the House Labor Committee, will be passed sometime before June.
Legislation intended to extend the definition of hate crimes to include gender, sexual orientation and gender identity was introduced in the Rhode Island House of Representatives by House Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Edith Ajello, D-Providence, Jan. 12. Though President Barack Obama signed a hate crimes bill into law to add these designations to the federal hate-crime definition in 2009, Rhode Island has not established a similar statute. Ajello said she was motivated to introduce the legislation by the stories she heard from members of one of Rhode Island’s LGBTQ groups, Youth Pride. The “pain and fear I saw in the eyes of young people just to be out in public” influenced her, she said. Without this legislation, there is currently no method of tracking gender identity-related hate crimes in Rhode Island, she said. The legislation is “one more step in the right direction,” said Annie Russell, director of the LGBTQ Center at the University of Rhode Island, adding that “hate crimes legislation (is) an important facet” of the ongoing battle for LGBTQ civil rights. She added that the federal law does not do enough to protect against hate crimes based on gender identity expression and that states must now take the initiative. URI created a “Bias Response Team” two years ago to monitor campus hate crimes and to make sure the university is responding appropriately. It has since seen a decline in the number of hate crimes on campus, Russell said. The bill has the support of the URI administration, she said, though many on campus are unaware of its existence. Transgender hate crimes and the current legislation also receive little attention at Brown, said Madeleine Jennewein ’14, representative of GenderAction, a transgenderspecific subgroup of the Queer
Alliance. Transgender crimes are “very invisible” yet occur at a high rate, she said. This lack of awareness accounts for the infrequent prosecution of transgender crimes, Jennewein said. This legislation would be important to “bring greater awareness to trans-issues,” she said. Ajello has previously submitted the present bill twice, but former Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 vetoed the bill on the grounds that “as long as a criminal act was done willfully and knowingly, the perpetrator’s motives are irrelevant,” reported GoLocalProv. Ajello said most opponents of the law are concerned that punishing the intent behind a crime is “Orwellian.” Rep. Michael Chippendale, RFoster, Glocester and Coventry, opposed the bill because he thought the law would prosecute “thought crimes,” she said. Chippendale did not respond to The Herald’s request for comment. Ajello said the legislation does not increase punishment and does not punish mere thought, but rather provides a method for collecting data to increase awareness that these crimes are occurring and affecting members of the LBGTQ community. The legislation has passed the House and is awaiting a vote in the Senate, where it has passed twice before and is likely to pass again, according to Ajello. Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 has voiced strong support for the legislation. “In the U.S. Senate, I was proud to co-sponsor and support legislation broadening the definition of a hate crime,” Chafee wrote in an email to The Herald. “In my campaign for governor, I pledged to support expanding state hate crimes legislation to include gender identity and expression. With this in mind, I fully support (the) House bill.” Ajello said she is “cautiously optimistic” the legislation will be enacted.
comics Dreadful Cosmology | Dario Mitchell
Fraternity of Evil | Eshan Mitra, Brendan Hainline, and Hector Ramirez
6 Editorial & Letter Editorial
The Brown Daily Herald Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Editorial cartoon by lo r e n f u lto n
Santorum is totally not a snob Republican Presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum recently called President Obama a “snob” for encouraging all Americans to go to college. We are thankful that someone has finally stood up for the (heterosexual) worker and commend Santorum for sticking it to the president. Obama’s snobbish investments in community colleges and trade schools that will help train future generations of workers, close a persistent opportunity gap and get middle-class Americans back to work are absolutely indefensible. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines snob as “one who has an offensive air of superiority in matters of knowledge or taste.” Other dictionaries state that a snob is someone who believes that he or she is an “expert” and is “disdainful of those who hold other opinions.” This sounds right, seeing as Santorum definitely doesn’t have an offensive air of superiority in his remarkable disdain for a particular group of people, like homosexuals. For those not familiar with Santorum’s stance on gay rights issues, the former senator has said that he doesn’t believe that homosexuals should necessarily have the right to engage in private sexual acts behind closed doors. He has also said that homosexual marriage could dangerously legitimize “man-on-dog” or “man-on-child” relationships and that children with fathers in jail are better off than those with lesbian parents. We are extremely impressed with the senator’s ability to coalesce such levels of misogyny, fear-mongering and homophobia around a singular issue. Hopefully, Santorum will continue to turn up his nose at snobbish liberals who encourage an educated populace and mischievous homosexuals perverting American culture from the privacy of their own bedrooms. While President Obama has made proposals to increase funding for community colleges and two-year colleges, Santorum doesn’t want to waste his time with silliness like training and educating a struggling workforce. Higher education is for snobs, and the American worker is no snob. Santorum’s plans to slash government spending, push a balanced budget constitutional amendment that would undoubtedly terrify elitist foreign investors and credit rating agencies and freeze education spending seem completely in line with his desire to empower the working class. Thankfully, Santorum will give American workers the greatest asset of all — time. Because they won’t be educated or trained enough to get a job. Economics experts have noted that most desirable manufacturing jobs necessitate more education than a high school degree. Frank Levy, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stated that “unless you’re okay with the earnings of a high school graduate,” artisans, mechanics, manufacturers and the like need to get a college education. But we’re skeptical of Levy’s claim. A so-called expert at an elitist university supporting Obama’s big spending policies? Sounds like a liberal conspiracy to us. In all seriousness, we are deeply troubled by Santorum’s comments on a number of subjects, particularly higher education and homosexuality, and find him to be a particularly vile and offensive candidate. While we understand that Republicans seemingly would rather nominate a lounge chair than Mitt Romney, their latest conservative alternative is especially disconcerting. In that vein, we propose that perhaps they nominate someone who has integrity, financial experience, history running a successful corporation, the appropriate respect for higher education and who will soon be out of a job anyway. That’s right, GOP: Why don’t you give Ruth a call? Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
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le tter to the editor Column’s argument should be added to next video To the Editor: Regarding the March 1 opinions column entitled “Mhm, Whatcha Say?” about the “S— Brown Students Say” YouTube video, I think the article should be included in the next installment of the video because only Brown students would analyze “S— Brown Students Say” for its lack of racial and economic diversity. Scott Friedlander ’12
quote of the day
“A lot of the time, food is there, and we just eat it” — James Hayes ’13 See meatless on page 2.
Correction An article in Friday’s Herald (“Prenatal test identifies chromosomal defects,” March 2) incorrectly identified Amy Blustein as a Herald photographer. The Herald regrets the error.
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Opinions 7
The Brown Daily Herald Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The exceptional classroom By Houston Davidson Opinions Columnist Whether it’s through furtive texting, Facebook dithering or online shopping, virtually everyone has been guilty of defiling the sanctity of the classroom at some point. Less blatant, though perhaps more insidious, are the more subtle patterns of disengagement — muffled snacking, side conversations and, most vexatious, packing up before the end of class. These practices remove us from the classroom and cheapen our academic setting. The way we carry ourselves in our classrooms means everything. Ironically, this most basic element of our academic experience often goes unmentioned. Yet it could not be more important, because from it emanates a distinct impression of our collective attitude as a university. This impression is received not only by the world external to Brown, but also by the Brown community. With this in mind, I want to argue that we ought to consciously reject this trend of disengagement and instead adopt an ethos of gratitude. By gratitude, I mean a deep appreciation for the opportunity of being enrolled at Brown and for the resources necessary to create such a valuable opportunity. How might such an ethos of gratitude manifest itself in our classroom behavior? First, we would need to rethink and intentionally adjust the way we carry ourselves in the classroom. This effort needs to focus
around demonstrating gratitude for three principal resources in the classroom: professors, the academic material itself and fellow students’ expectations of academic excellence. This will not only instill a new ethos in our daily academic experiences, but it will also distinguish Brown from other schools that fail to operate with this principle in mind. I would humbly like to offer some proposals for reaching this goal. While each teacher has idiosyncratic expectations for student behavior, I believe
for glibly dismissing the material of academia or for tepidly engaging the vital content of our education — after all, that’s why we’re here. The most damning criticism of higher education is that there is a chasm between the passion demanded by the topics at hand and the students’ interests in this topic. We should preempt this skepticism by elevating the quality and intensity of our discussions both inside and outside the classrooms. Finally, we must respect the Brown classroom and our fellow students. Brown’s vaunt-
The way we carry ourselves in our classrooms means everything. there are two behaviors that should be universally required of students. First, a student’s oral participation and body language should suggest active engagement. The refrain of “I’m just a little tired” is hardly a legitimate excuse for a torpid disposition. Skipping is probably less deleterious to the classroom experience than lackadaisical participation. Second, unless a tight schedule prohibits doing so, arriving to class on time should become a serious expectation of students. Casually strolling 10 minutes late into a 50-minute class is either disrespectful or worryingly incompetent. This said, fear of being late for the next class is not an excuse for noisily packing bags and exiting before the professor can complete his or her lecture. Next, we need to respect and appreciate the ideas of our courses. There is no excuse
ed academic setting is the beacon that justifies the high tuition and hard work necessary to matriculate here. When students fail to do the assigned reading and offer instead a hackneyed dime-store platitude or, alternatively, leave a seminar discussion in an awkward silence, they do not just harm themselves. They are doing violence to others’ reasonable expectations for their university experience. We absolutely owe it to each other to make sure that these expectations are met, if not exceeded, by invigorating class discussion and furnishing Brown with its one truly essential resource — engaged students. There is an important proviso I must conjoin to my argument here: I do not intend to prescribe an ethos to the discursive setting of the classroom. Gratitude does not in principle legislate classroom conversation to be
conducted in a certain manner. For example, a grateful student can also be fiery or bellicose when arguing in a seminar. While some might object to this, my rebuttal is that the most important thing is to engage passionately with the material and the pedagogical setting of the classroom, be it in a deferential or aggressive manner. For those who think these suggestions are trivial, I say that triviality is never an excuse for inaction. To those of you who think the premise is moralizing, anachronistic, parochial or hailing from a spirit of conformity, I must politely disagree. After all, it would be difficult to find a case when embodying respect — not to be confused with uncritical sycophancy — for professors, the curriculum and the expectations of fellow students represents an oppressive hegemony. My dream is that a visitor to Brown will see something extraordinary in the way we carry ourselves. In time this reputation would amplify itself, signaling to all prospective students and faculty that Brown is the destination for those who seek a collegiate experience that embodies this ethos. How excellent would it be if Brown could pride itself on being the only school to consciously reject the emerging practice of classroom non-behavior and disengagement, instead embodying an earnest ethos of gratitude? This would make Brown truly exceptional. Houston Davidson ’14 aspires to live up to his own standards. Responses welcome to benjamin_davidson@brown.edu.
The double concentration paradox By Cara Dorris Opinions Columnist Though fall pre-registration is more than a month away, many of us are still thinking about what classes we’d like to take and how they will fit into our potential concentrations. Maybe it’s because we’re Brown students, or maybe it’s because we’re just relentless overachievers, but many of us have considered double concentrating at one point or another. We all have wide variety of skills and abilities. Won’t limiting ourselves to one concentration hinder our marketability? In a still-turbulent job market, if one concentration opens up a certain number of jobs, won’t two open up twice as many? Not exactly. If a first choice does not work out, some think that an extra concentration will provide that needed “fallback plan.” But there are very few jobs that ask that only certain majors apply. Yes, certain careers may prefer a specific background of study, but there always seem to be ways to work around those requirements. While we may think two concentrations make one more versatile, doubling up can actually limit the diversity of an education. Think of it this way. Pretend you love economics first and foremost, but also enjoy writing. You consider double concentrating in English and economics. This is a poor idea.
You don’t need a degree in English to become a writer. You can take some classes in the department without having to make a full commitment to it. But if you double concentrate just because you like writing, you now have ten extra concentration requirements to fulfill. That means you have ten less classes you could have explored in other departments. The majority of your educational background will be in either economics or English. That doesn’t sound very versatile to me.
one’s education. But for most instances there exists a sad paradox: By doing more, we are weakening our resumes. The problem is that many employers might not see double concentrators as hardworking and disciplined. They see them as scattered and lacking focus — perhaps lacking the maturity to make a critical decision. Maybe success is not about what you do. Maybe it’s about what you don’t do. In today’s world, having multiple skills is not unique — it’s expected. The truth is
Don’t be mistaken — there are definitely instances where a double concentration is appropriate, if not beneficial to someone’s education. But for most instances there exists a sad paradox: by doing more we are weakening our resumes.
Because you were so busy writing essay after essay in your English classes, your grades in economics — the area of study you plan to pursue after Brown — will take a hit. You might even have to delay graduation just to complete the requirements for both concentrations. Yes, this example may be extreme. Don’t be mistaken — there are definitely instances where a double concentration is appropriate, if not beneficial, to some-
we are all motivated and have many interests. We are all racing wildly toward some coveted internship or job at the end of the tunnel. The winner won’t be the one who has the fullest resume. Extreme versatility is not the skill employers are seeking. They are looking for specialization. The specialist is always more valuable than the odd-job guy. For those of us who do a lot of things, we often do them poorly. There just
aren’t enough hours in the day. It’s simply impossible to build hundreds of networks on LinkedIn with the click of a mouse. You can’t lead seven different clubs and show up to all the meetings. You shouldn’t always take the most difficult classes if you really want to enjoy any of them. The sad thing is, just blindly working hard will lead to nothing. There is no extra credit for taking five classes when you could have taken four. There are no bonus points for not sleeping, for not having a social life, for leaving a voicemail when an email would have worked just as well. None of this will pay off in the end — it will only lead to burnout. One hundred and ten percent is not the answer. Luckily, there is an answer to all of this. It’s deciding what does not interest you and winnowing it away. It’s trying to do less — it’s doing what you do well. It’s putting all your passion into something, even if it means failure and more failure and possibly having nothing to “fall back on.” Some of us have lived our entire lives buried underneath our schedules, and we don’t know anything else. We have stretched ourselves so thin that the deferment of happiness has become an addiction. We shouldn’t hide behind double concentrations just because we don’t know what makes us happy. Cara Dorris ’15 still plans on concentrating in Applied Math and Modern Culture and Media. She can be reached at cara_dorris@brown.edu.
Daily Herald Sports Tuesday the Brown
Softball
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Baseball
Bears get lone win in Bears ‘optimistic’ despite weekend sweep the Lone Star State By lewis pollis Sports Staff Writer
By alexandra conway Contributing Writer
The women’s softball team opened up the 2012 season in El Paso, Texas at the University of Texas at El Paso Invitational this weekend, where they won one game out of five after facing the University of Texas at San Antonio, UTEP, Valparaiso University and Iowa State University. In the first day of the tournament, the Bears defeated UTSA (6-9) 10-5 in their season opener and then fell to UTEP 10-2. The next day, the Bears had two losses, falling to Valparaiso 10-2 and then to UTEP again 27-5 before coming up short against Iowa State 17-3. Bruno’s first game was the highlight of the weekend, as they beat the team that would go on to finish second in the tournament. In just three innings of play, the Bears poured on nine runs to take a 9-0 lead. Rookie pitcher Jessica Cherness ’15 earned the win for the Bears on the mound, giving up five runs, striking out three batters and walking two. In the first game against UTEP, the Bruno offense struck early in the game. Kelsey Hom ’15 hit a twoRBI single to bring home Kelsey Williams ’14 and Trista Chavez ’15, which gave the Bears a brief 2-1 lead over the Miners. But the lead did not hold for long, as UTEP scored four runs in the third inning on its way to a 10-2 victory. In the next day’s rematch, UTEP scored a staggering 15 runs in the second inning to put away any hopes for a Bruno win. Against Valparaiso, Williams hit a double to bring home Alyssa Caplan ’13 and Kate Strobel ’12, driving in the sole two runs for the Bears in another 10-2 defeat. “Unfortunately, we finished at 1-4 for the tournament, as our defense, beginning with the pitching, gave up a lot of runs,” wrote Head Coach DeeDee Enabenter-Omidiji in an email to The Herald. “In addition, our defense behind the pitching was not as solid as it needed to be either, as we had a lot of errors in those losses.” Though it was a tough weekend for the Bears, Enabenter-Omidiji said the team is optimistic and excited about the upcoming season, with high hopes of improving upon last year’s record of 14-22-1. “Our goal is to continually improve everyday,” EnabenterOmidiji wrote. “We want to climb
up the Ivy ladder overall, but take a legitimate (shot) at perennial powers Harvard and Dartmouth at the top of northern division.” The team welcomes back a mix of experienced players and rookies looking to make big contributions this season. Leading the way is captain and 2011 first team AllIvy selection Strobel, a first baseman who started all 37 games last season. Another key player will be Stephanie Thompson ’13, who led the nation last year with a .504 batting average and was a Second Team All-Ivy Selection. “Offensively, we hope to have a much stronger lineup from top to bottom,” Enabenter-Omidiji wrote. “We don’t want to have to rely on Ivy All-Stars Thompson and Strobel for our only offensive output. Defensively we hope to stay close enough in games by our pitchers exhibiting control and staying around the plate. Hopefully our defense will continue to be fundamentally sound.” The Bears have a large first-year class with seven out of 17 players joining the team from the Class of 2015. The pitching staff is completely new this year, as rookies Cherness, Sam Brady ’15 and Denise Van Der Goot ’15 step into the rotation. Also joining the staff is Trish Melvin ’12, who is returning after missing the entire 2011 season due to injury. Since conference games do not begin until the end of March and continue through April, the team is keen on gaining essential experience this upcoming month throughout its nonconference schedule. Last season, the Bears kicked off their Ivy play on a high note, winning both games against Penn and then splitting the Cornell and Princeton series (2-2). Overall, the Bears won eight of their 20 Ivy games played. “We are off from games this weekend, so it will give everyone time to regroup and refocus,” Enabenter-Omidiji wrote. “We are excited about getting back into the water after getting our feet wet. We’ve seen what (our) weaknesses are as well as our strengths.” The Bears play next March 17 and 18 at the University of Maryland Baltimore County Spring Classic in Baltimore, MD. They kick off their Ivy campaign away March 30 at Penn and March 31 at Columbia before returning home April 6 to face Cornell.
The baseball team’s season got off to a rough start this weekend as the Bears were swept in a three-game away series against the Florida International Panthers. Despite the losses, cocaptain and shortstop Graham Tyler ’12 and co-captain and pitcher Kevin Carlow ’13 said they are pleased with how the team played. “Obviously, everyone wants to win, and so when you go 0-3, it’s tough,” Tyler said. But he said he was “pretty encouraged” by what he saw from the team. Carlow expressed the same sentiment. “It’s always tough to lose … but we played pretty well for our first weekend out,” he said, adding that the current mood of the team is “optimistic.” Bruno (0-3) started off well in game one, taking a 2-0 first inning lead. Tyler scored on catcher Wes Van Boom’s ’14 single to get the Bears on the board, and first baseman Cody Slaughter ’13 scored the second run when center fielder John Sheridan ’13 reached base on an error. Bruno added another run in the second inning when right fielder Matt DeRenzi ’14 drove in second baseman J.J. Franco ’14 with a RBI single.
The Panthers (4-5) rallied in the middle innings, taking a 5-3 lead in the fifth. The Bears added two more runs to tie the game in the top of the seventh when Slaughter walked in Franco, and DeRenzi scored on a balk. But the Panthers took the lead for good when Adam Kirsch took Will Marcal ’15 deep for a solo home run in the bottom of the seventh to beat Bruno 6-5. The Bears got on the board early again in game two. Designated hitter Mike DiBiase ’14 hit a two-run home run to score Tyler in the top of the first, and DiBiase scored again on Sheridan’s fielder’s choice in the third to give Bruno a 3-0 lead. But the Panthers scored four runs in their next three at-bats to take a 4-3 lead, while the Bears’ bats fell silent en route to another Panther win. After two close contests, game three was the Bears’ biggest loss. After eight innings, the Panthers held an 8-1 lead, with Bruno’s only run coming when Marcal, playing right field this time, doubled in DiBiase. The Bears scored two in the ninth as Marcal and pinch hitter Dan Kerr ’15 crossed the plate on wild pitches, but it was not enough, and the Panthers won 8-3. Carlow said the most encouraging signs from the weekend were the
contributions from the team’s young players. Specifically, he and Tyler both praised Marcal, who pitched four innings in game one, striking out six batters while allowing only one earned run and went 4-8 at the plate in games two and three. “He really showed us some stuff this weekend,” Carlow said. Both captains also singled out Taylor Wright ’15 after he pitched 3.2 shutout innings in game two. He had “a really great series,” Tyler said. There is still some uncertainty about who will be in the starting lineup and rotation for the conference season, but Tyler said he does not see this as a bad thing. Of the players looking to win spots, “no one took their name out of it” with poor performances this weekend, he said. “I think everybody’s got a chance to really pitch in,” Tyler said. Unlike past years when it was clear that some players would not get much playing time, “we don’t have any guys on this team that … don’t have the ability or don’t have the chance to really contribute this year,” he said. Neither captain said he was concerned about the Bears having lost two games that they initially led. “That’s just a case of it being early,” Carlow said. “I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.”
Lecture questions link between freedom and violence By Katherine james Contributing Writer
Chandan Reddy, associate professor of English at the University of Washington, questioned the idea of violence as “the antithesis of freedom” in his lecture “Precarity after Rights: On Queer of Color Critique” at the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts Monday afternoon. Around 30 undergraduates, graduate students and professors attended the presentation, which was part of a lecture series presented by the theater and performance studies department this semester that considers identity in the face of social and political change.
News The lecture introduced the arguments of Reddy’s recently published book, “Freedom with Violence: Race, Sexuality, and the U.S. State.” Reddy said he examines the more complex connections between freedom and violence in his book in order to “undo this pedestrian understanding of the relationship.” The neoliberal state, which Reddy said promotes privatization and a free-market economy in order to maintain democracy, connects the expansion of civil rights with institutionalized violence, he said. And rights, he said, “expand the zone of precarity” — defining an individual’s civil rights in society raises precarious questions of individualism, cultural “norms” and interpretations of social customs. The fight for marriage equality, particularly California’s Proposition
Corrine Szczesny / Herald A University of Washington professor spoke about freedom, violence and civil rights at a lecture at the Granoff Center yesterday.
8, inspires thoughts on these questions, he said. Instead of liberating individuals and stopping violence, modern civil rights legislation defines categories and actually breeds controversy. Reddy’s argument focused on this and another contemporary example — the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The act, signed as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010, is a perfect example of the violence and freedom contradiction, he said. The Matthew Shepard Act classified crimes committed because of sexual identity, gender or disability as hate crimes, but it was attached to the bill that expanded the Department of Defense budget, which Reddy described as funding “legitimatized violence.” This contradiction, Reddy sug-
gested, forms when a state falls into a crisis because it “can no longer repress its own expression of violence.” After this discussion of contradictions and precarity, Associate Professor of History Naoko Shibusawa, who also introduced the lecture, responded with the critical question “what can people do?” Reddy said the next step is a student movement away from egalitarianism and towards a new state not based only on legal definition. The next lecture in the series, “Bedding the Horizontal: Entertaining Pleasure in the Permanent Present,” will be given March 12 by Sue-Ellen Case, theater and performance studies department chair at the University of California at Los Angeles.