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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016

VOLUME CLI, ISSUE 35

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City Council votes to memorialize slave trade

M. LACROSSE

Initiated by Rhode Island Middle Passage nonprofit, project recognizes state’s role in slave trade By KYLE BOROWSKI SENIOR STAFF WRITER

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

Senior captain Jack Kelly ’16 clears the ball, igniting the Bears’ up-tempo offense. Kelly is first in the nation in save percentage and has led Bruno to a 5-0 start. Saturday, the captain will likely be tested by No. 14 Harvard.

Bruno continues climb in national polls Kelly ’16, Gural ’16, Molloy ’17 lead Bears to perfect 5-0 start before opening conference play By NIKKO PASANEN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

There was plenty of hype surrounding the men’s lacrosse team before the season started in February. Excitement was high for good reason, as the Bears were coming off a breakout year that

led to an Ivy League championship and a trip to the first round of the NCAA tournament. But it was fair to wonder how Bruno would handle the pressure of becoming a team with a target on its back. Five games into the young season, it seems safe to say that the Bears have lived up to the expectations. After starting the year ranked 10th in the nation, they have breezed through the early portion of their schedule while posting the highest average margin of victory in the country. Now, ranked

fifth nationally, Bruno hopes to continue building on its promising start when it kicks off Ivy League play against No. 14 Harvard Saturday. “It means a lot to us to have gotten off to this start, especially because of all the work we put in over the winter,” said attacker Henry Blynn ’16. “I think, moving forward, we can look at these games as encouraging, but we have to stay confident and focused.” One of the main sources of this confidence has been the team’s potent » See M. LAX, page 2

The Providence City Council voted unanimously March 3 to support efforts to memorialize victims of the transatlantic slave trade and their descendants. The resolution formalizes the council’s support of the work being done by the Rhode Island branch of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project to erect a marker in the city in an effort to acknowledge the state’s historical association with the slave trade. “In voicing their support, they help create awareness of the project on a broader level,” said Michaela Antunes, press secretary for the Providence City Council. The resolution also indicates the city’s willingness to cooperate with the project and “facilitate anything that needs to be done on the city’s end,” she said. The Rhode Island Middle Passage Project is part of a larger national organization that seeks to erect memorials and hold ceremonies honoring the plight of enslaved Africans as well as the role they played in building communities across America. To that end, the project has erected memorials

and held ceremonies from Texas to Maine, a fact that is indicative of the far-reaching nature of the American slave trade. “It was a phenomenon that involved the entire United States,” said Anthony Bogues, professor of Africana studies and director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. A common misconception is that slavery was a phenomenon solely limited to the South, and while the majority of slave-holding plantations were located in Southern states, the actual financing of the trade was centered in the North, Bogues said. During the height of the transatlantic slave trade, Providence was one of the most active ports responsible for the transfer of slaves between the African continent and other American cities, Bogues said. Providence had extensive shipbuilding and rum distilling industries as well, implicating many of the city’s residents in the slave trade, he added. “Because Rhode Island was so involved in these other industries, small towns like Bristol were towns in which everybody was involved,” Bogues said. “You weren’t a slaver, but you worked in one of those industries, so it impinged upon a vast majority of people’s lives,” he added. The University has also been implicated in the slave trade, as its eponymous Brown family was widely » See MEMORIAL, page 2

Courses@Brown site to Chaplain’s office to facilitate religious discourse Newly formed intergroup aims replace Banner system religious to provide curricular More ‘flexible,’ ‘userfriendly’ interface aims to improve shopping, registration experience By GWEN EVERETT SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The University launched Courses@ Brown, a new website for course search and registration, Monday. Students can expect to use Courses@Brown in the next round of course registration for the 2016 fall semester. Already, 2,000 students have browsed the new site, and 1,000 potential course carts have been made with 8,000 potential courses, said Robert Fitzgerald, university registrar. The site will replace the Brown Course Scheduler on Banner, which Brown students currently use to sign up for, shop and drop courses. There is no

INSIDE

mobile application for the site because the site is already mobile friendly, Fitzgerald said. Courses@Brown aims to provide “a unified user interface and a unified student experience,” Fitzgerald said. The Banner site was clunky and difficult to navigate, he said, adding that “we’ve been getting suggestions from students pretty much ever since we launched Banner.” The design of the site involved a joint effort between administrators, students and Leapfrog, a third-party vendor that supplies the interface on which Courses@Brown runs, Fitzgerald said. Brown’s Computing and Information Services also collaborated with Leapfrog on the site. The University gauged student input throughout the design process in various ways, such as student focus groups and the “student suggestions” » See COURSES, page 3

resources to study religion By KASTURI PANANJADY SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Inter-Religious Working Group kicked off with a four-hour inaugural meeting Feb. 29, facilitated by the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life. The IRWG is University Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson’s attempt to delve deeper into issues surrounding religious tension and difference. The group hopes to increase accommodations for religious practice on campus and expand the co-curricular and curricular resources for religious exploration at Brown and beyond, Cooper Nelson said. The IRWG comprises students, faculty members and staff members and is run in conjunction with the Diversity and Campus Life Advisory boards. The group marks a departure from the office’s earlier Multi-Faith Council,

KASTURI PANANJADY / HERALD

University Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson leads the Inter-Religious Working Group in facilitating on-campus discussions on differences between faiths. where student representatives from different religious organizations gathered to stay in communication with each other. “There was an informality about it, and I began to think that it needed to be more substantial,” Cooper Nelson said.

Cooper Nelson was heartened by the intensity of the response the program has received, she said. The 11 selected members took two full hours to introduce themselves and listen to each other’s narratives, she added. » See RELIGION, page 2

WEATHER

FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016

NEWS University seeks permanent director for Brown study abroad program in Paris

NEWS New Bootstrap program to be used in computer science courses to Rhode Island public schools

COMMENTARY Bennett ’16: Arguments of pinkwashing are offensive, ignore Israel’s record on LGBTQ+ rights

COMMENTARY Meyer ’17: GOP’s obstruction of Supreme Court nomination is part of a long list of blunders

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NEWS

PAGE 2 • FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016

» MEMORIAL, from page 1 known to have participated in the slave industry. The University has taken steps in recent years to address its past, including the formation of the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice in 2003. The committee offered a number of solutions to grapple with the University’s tainted past, but most importantly, offered a forthright acknowledgment of the University’s entanglement with slavery. “The way the University confronted (its) past is the way the United States should,” Bogues said, adding that “not many institutions or countries have done that.” “Brown brought it to the forefront,” Antunes said, adding that the University’s acknowledgment of its past may have influenced City Council members who thought that Providence’s role in the slave trade “deserved to be elevated to the forefront of conversation on the city level.” That conversation now includes the potential for a new marker in the city. The design of the Providence marker will be coordinated with other projects in Rhode Island to be located in Bristol, Newport and Warren, said Emily Kugler, a member of the national advisory board for Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers. “These markers are an important way to acknowledge the people who survived the Middle Passage and their descendants,” Kugler said, adding that “when it’s well placed, someone who may not be looking for that history can learn about it.” Funds for the project will be raised by local organizations, Kugler said, though in the past, cooperation with larger entities like the National Park

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Identified Middle Passage port sites in New England

Four ports of entry of enslaved Africans in the transatlantic human trade are located in Rhode Island.

Portsmouth, NH Boston, MA Providence, RI Warren, RI Bristol, RI Middletown, CT Newport, RI New London, CT Marker placed Ceremony held Marker placed and ceremony held Neither marker nor ceremony Source: Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project LILLY NGUYEN / HERALD

Service has allowed for a reduction in the cost of projects. She added that it will likely take 12 to 18 months of planning before a ceremony is held and a marker is placed. It is also important to note that memorials like these not only record the sins of the past but also acknowledge the legacies they have left on our modern society, Bogues said. The ball and chain memorial designed by National Medal of Arts recipient Martin Puryear located on the Quiet Green is a perfect representation of this truth, he added. “If you look at the memorial we have on campus, the chain is broken, but it is incomplete,” Bogues

said, adding that “slavery is finished, but the legacies of structural racism continue to this day.” Confronting a problematic history in this context is the first step in a long process that does not have a predetermined path, Bogues said. “We have a lot of work to do because the legacies are still present,” Bogues said, adding that additional efforts like extended education of the Providence community are warranted given both the city’s deep-rooted history with the slave trade and the legacies that persist as a result of it. “This memorial should not be seen as a close of a chapter,” Bogues said. “It is rather a call to further action.”

» RELIGION, from page 1 “At Brown, religious life is on the margins,” said Leo Shiner ’19, explaining that he chose to apply to the IRWG in an effort to “gain a foothold” in the religious community on campus. The son of a university chaplain, Shiner benefitted from frequent exposure to his father’s interfaith gatherings at Colgate University, he said. “I learned to appreciate the value of religion and faith in people’s lives in an objective way,” he said. Shiner found the way that religious students who identify as gay introduced themselves at the meeting to be particularly interesting, he said. There tends to be a perception that religion is antithetical to liberal values, and the way “they reconciled different parts of their identities” showed that the two need not be mutually exclusive, he added. “What religion means is different for everyone,” said Elizabeth Carlson ’19, adding that she was struck by how every perspective was unique. For instance, the group included students who were religiously observant, and others who considered themselves culturally religious, she said. “Culturally religious means you don’t necessarily practice the religion at all. You could be Jewish and atheist,” Carlson said. Carlson considers the Jewish

» M. LAX, from page 1 offensive attack. After installing a new system last year under the guidance of second-year Assistant Coach Sean Kirwan, the Bears have taken what was already one of the country’s best scoring units and turned it into something even better. Bruno currently ranks as the number one offense in the nation, averaging an impressive 18.6 goals per game. The increased efficiency has much to do with the Bears’ vastly improved six v. six offense, said defenseman Alec Tulett ’17. While the team had no trouble scoring in transition a year ago, it often stumbled when the pace of play slowed. This time around, that hasn’t been the case, as Bruno has found numerous ways to find the back of the net within its more traditional set offenses. Another important factor has been attacker Dylan Molloy ’17, who has taken on a new role after leading the nation in scoring last year. With so much attention geared towards keeping him away from the goal, a lot of opportunities have opened up for other players, Blynn said. This is more than evident when looking at the stats. Perhaps the biggest beneficiary has been captain Kylor Bellistri ’16, who is currently second in the country at four goals per game. Bellistri was just named the USILA’s Division I Offensive Player of the Week after tallying 13 goals in the last two games alone. Blynn and Bailey Tills ’16 have also been heavily involved, scoring 14 and eight goals during the season, respectively. But it would be a mistake to think that Molloy only serves the purpose of a decoy. The junior standout has become the Bears’ main distributor

and leads the nation in both assists and points per game. Even with this new style of play, Molloy has managed to score three times per contest, good enough for eighth in the country. The face-off X has also been an area where the Bears have excelled, often sparking the team’s high-octane system. After a solid junior year, Will Gural ’16 has blossomed into the nation’s number one face-off specialist, converting at an astounding rate of 75.8 percent. With Ted Ottens ’18 right behind Gural on the depth chart, the healthy competition has lead to the improvement of both players, Tulett said. While it would be easy to talk about the offense all day, Bruno is anything but a one-dimensional team. You can find three of the team’s best players on the defensive side of the field, starting with All-American Captain Jack Kelly ’16 in the goal. Adding to the long list of top-ranked Bears, Kelly is first in save percentage in the nation with a 65.5 percent success rate. Anchoring the defense in front of him are Tulett and All-American Larken Kemp ’17, who constantly disrupt play in the midfield. The two are tied for sixth in turnovers caused per game, and Tulett has averaged an impressive 7.2 ground balls per game. There is no denying that the stats are impressive, but the numbers won’t mean anything once the Bears take the field in Cambridge Saturday. After losing its last two contests, the Crimson will be eager to right the ship and spoil Bruno’s perfect start. Blynn and Tulett expressed their excitement for the game, noting that playing Harvard is always a big rivalry. According to Tulett, it’s pretty simple: “We hate Harvard, and they don’t like us.”

community to be central to her understanding of religion, she said. “Shabbat dinners are the highlight of my week,” she added. “Those 3 a.m. discussions about whether God is real are great, but they are only a small part of what religion is about,” Cooper Nelson said, emphasizing that religion is also deeply entrenched in heritage, community and tradition. “There’s lots to be said about religion that isn’t about argument and debate, ” she said, adding that she chose to replace the word “faith” with “religion” in the group’s name for that reason. One concern with the IRWG in its current form is that there are no people of color on the committee, said committee member Joshua Kurtz ’17. There are also no students who self-identify as belonging to South- and East-Asian spiritual traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, the Baha’i Faith and Shintoism. To combat this lack of representation, individual members of the group are seeking input from diverse voices by inviting students to discuss religion over coffee. At the end of the first meeting, Cooper Nelson handed all participants a notebook and a Blue State gift card. “I like to call it field inquiry,” she said. “We’re trying to determine what is most helpful to people here,” Kurtz said.

The conversations will be confidential, Cooper Nelson said. Committee members also hope that the IRWG will go on to address some of their own concerns. “I would like to see religion more integrated into the Brown community,” Shiner said, describing a lack of religious consciousness in mainstream campus discourse. As a religious studies concentrator focusing on eco-theology, Kurtz said that he hopes IRWG will also examine how religion engages with social justice work, particularly in light of the recent Janet Mock controversy. “Religious illiteracy is a serious problem at Brown, in the United States and maybe even in the world,” Cooper Nelson said, adding that she envisions that the IRWG will affect change on a curricular level as well. “As it stands, you can concentrate in areas like international relations and comparative literature without ever having taken a religious studies course,” Cooper Nelson said, adding that the IRWG and the Department of Religious Studies may develop an interdisciplinary concentration requirement for related fields of study. Cooper Nelson also plans to institute semester-long study abroad programs designed to immerse students in different religious climates, she said.

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NEWS

FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016 • PAGE 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

The University revealed a new website, Courses@Brown, for students to choose their classes. The interface replaces the Banner system that many considered outdated and aesthetically displeasing. The design of the new site was a collaborative project between The University, students and third-party vendor Leapfrog.

» COURSES, from page 1 link on Banner, he said. The University also assembled a team of students to test the site prior to its release. A number of key features facilitate the student shopping experience, Fitzgerald said. For example, course

materials and information regarding professors, such as their past research, are listed alongside course titles, he said. A “students like you” feature also provides shoppers with ideas of potential classes they may be interested in by showing courses that students with similar interests to their own have

taken, he said. Students can also tag all courses they have successfully completed at the University, allowing future shoppers to search for classes through hashtags such as “intersectional” or “law-related,” rather than by course title alone, Fitzgerald said.

Courses@Brown “gives you a lot more information about classes,” said Luke Camery ’17, who tested the site prior to its release. Camery added that user-friendly features such as “students like you” and the site’s ability to allow students to add courses to a tentative schedule without adding them

to their carts facilitate the shopping experience. The new website “is optimized for a web viewer application, as well as a mobile one,” said Svet Kostov ’18, who also tested the site prior to its release. The new site is “much more flexible and faster,” he added.

NEWS

PAGE 4 • FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Bootstrap curricula to be part of CS4RI initiative Gov. Gina Raimondo’s plan to include other programs developed by Microsoft, URI By HATTIE XU STAFF WRITER

Earlier this month, Gov. Gina Raimondo unveiled the Computer Science for Rhode Island Initiative — a goal to have a computer science class in every Rhode Island public school by December 2017, according to the initiative’s website. Among the five programs that schools can implement is Bootstrap, a sequence of computer science curricula developed by Professor of Computer Science Shriram Krishnamurthi, Adjunct Professor of Computer Science Kathryn Fisler and Emmanuel Schanzer. Other programs available have been developed by Code. org, Project Lead the Way, Microsoft TEALS and the University of Rhode Island, according to the website. CS4RI aims to increase the number of students that are CS literate, equip students with necessary skills for future jobs, attract and maintain information technology businesses in Rhode Island and grow the economy, according to the website. The project began when Raimondo and Chief Innovation Officer Richard Culatta learned about Microsoft TEALS — a program that pairs CS professionals with teachers to bring CS education to the classroom — and decided to bring a similar initiative to Rhode Island, wrote Ashley O’Shea, deputy communications director of the governor’s office in an email to The Herald. Raimondo has also proposed allocating $260,000 to support and develop the initiative, according to the press release. As one of the partners of CS4RI, the Bootstrap team has been busy communicating with government officials since the team’s initial conversations with Lee Pichette, a business development professional, Krishnamurthi said. Pichette connected the team to Octavia Abell, special assistant to the deputy chiefs of staff at the governor’s office, and from then the partnership began. The Bootstrap team is currently in the process of pitching and providing demonstrations of its curricula to schools, Krishnamurthi said. The state will sponsor one teacher from any

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

Emmanuel Schanzer, founder of the Bootstrap program, leads a workshop with young students hoping to learn more about computer science. The Bootstrap program is part of a state initiative to bring opportunities in computer science to all students attending public schools in Rhode Island. interested school to attend a professional development seminar that Bootstrap will host in the summer, he said. Once a teacher attends the seminar and commits to teaching Bootstrap, the curricula can be taught in the 20162017 school year, he added. “One of the benefits to being a small state is they can put together a statewide initiative,” Fisler said. “When you get to things like teacher certification, that’s often a state-level decision. Getting all of the schools talking about the issues at the same time is going to let the state make progress on policy issues.” Though most of the programs available are aimed at high school students, there are also curricula developed with

younger students in mind. Project Lead the Way’s “Intro to CS” course teaches students from sixth to eighth grade to develop apps, while Code.org’s “CS Fundamentals” course teaches students from kindergarten to sixth grade to create computer games, according to the website. “By offering computer science in every public school and every grade, Rhode Island has become the latest state to lead the way in offering computer science for all,” said U.S. Secretary of Education John King, Jr., according to the press release. “Only 1 percent of Rhode Island public high school students are currently enrolled in CS courses,” according to the CS4RI press release.

“(Advanced Placement) Computer Science is offered in only nine public high schools and no Title I schools.” Title I schools are schools with students failing or at risk of failing state assessments, according to the Rhode Island Department of Education website. Krishnamurthi believes in the importance of CS education and wants every student to be able to build programs and understand data, he said. CS allows students to solve problems in new ways in their respective disciplines, such as searching through records for historical analysis, he said. Understanding data is also essential to critical thinking for another reason, he added. “I want students to be able to

process data because the people who process the data control your thoughts,” Krishnamurthi said. “They decide what question to ask, what analysis to run and how to present the answer. I want everyone to get to a place where they can at least ask meaningful questions about how (the data) was computed.” Though the goal of having a CS course in every school by December 2017 is approaching in less than two years, the governor is confident that it is feasible. “This is an ambitious goal,” O’Shea wrote. “But with the support of school leaders, teachers, private sector partners, educational organizations and government, we believe the goal can be reached.”

University searches for permanent director for Paris program Chair of French Studies Lewis Seifert heads search committee, hopes to name new director by Aug. 1 By AILEEN SEO STAFF WRITER

The University has launched a search committee to fill the resident director position for the Paris study abroad program. The Office of International Programs is seeking out a permanent hire to replace the rotating Brown faculty members who filled the position in past years. The University decided to make this change to ensure the continuity of education for students studying French at Brown, said Dean of the College Maud Mandel. Instead of having faculty lecturers in the French

department go abroad, it has become important to have the faculty members stay on campus to work with students during the year, she added. The OIP is launching the search for the new resident director with Lewis Seifert, professor and chair of French Studies, heading the committee. “Typically for these positions, we look for people who have experience in study abroad programs or experience as a scholar,” Mandel said. “It benefits students studying abroad by having somebody who is permanently there and able to have deeper connections over time with the local academic landscape,” she added. “It

has benefits to students here as well because the lecturer for French studies will be here throughout the year.” The study abroad program in Paris is the only program that had a faculty member as the resident director. The new change will align the French program with other study abroad programs at Brown. The resident director provides academic advising for students by helping them navigate the French education system, find relevant information and monitor students’ academic progress throughout the semester, said Stephanie Ravillon, senior lecturer in French Studies and the current Brown in France resident director. The resident director is also responsible for meeting with students

throughout their time abroad to set up and discuss a personalized project around an activity or theme of their choice. Jaclyn Zhong ’17 studied abroad at Sorbonne University in Paris and Pierre and Marie Curie University last fall and recalls that Ravillon was a significant help in adjusting to the French university system. “The French academic system is very different, and Professor Ravillon acted as a liaison between exchange students and the French university system,” Zhong said. Zhong added that she planned her semester abroad knowing that Ravillon would be the resident director that year. “She was one of my French professors my freshman year, and I

knew her pretty well,” she said. “She was really close with a lot of people, and I would consider us friends.” Ravillon said she found it meaningful to work with students studying abroad as resident director. “Participating in their study abroad experience has been important to me as a teacher as well, as I know I will be able to build on that experience if returning students take classes with me — which I hope they will,” she said. “Having studied in the French system and having taught in France at the university level, it was also a pleasure to share my experiences with my students.” The search committee hopes to have an academic director in place by Aug. 1, Seifert said.

TODAY

FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016 • PAGE 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

s a lo m o n i n s p r i n g

SATELLITE DINING ANDREWS COMMONS

Pizzas: Bacon and Feta, Harvest, Buffalo Chicken BBQ Chicken Sandwich JOSIAH’S

BLUE ROOM

Quesadillas

Clam Chowder, Italian Wedding Naked Burritos

DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH

DINNER

Rotisserie Chicken, Shaved Steak Sandwich, Summer Squash, Rice Crispy Treats with M&Ms

Spicy Buffalo Chicken, GardenStyle Tilapia, Garlicky Green Beans, Brazilian Chocolate Cake

VERNEY-WOOLLEY LUNCH

DINNER

New England Clam Chowder, Breaded Chicken Fingers, Potato Salad, Cream Cheese Brownies

BBQ Boneless Chicken, Corn Cobettes, Squash Quesadillas, Cajun Apple Cake

sudoku

crossword

MARIANNA MCMURDOCK / HERALD

Rays of sunshine shine through the Salomon Center to brighten students’ days as spring finally approaches.

Q U O T E O F T H E D AY

“We hate Harvard, and they don’t like us.” — Defenseman Alec Tulett ’17

See m. lax on page 1. calendar FRIDAY MARCH

Faculty and Staff Bingo 12:00 P.M. Kasper Multipurpose Room

Feek Good Fridays: Free Massages 12:00 P.M. Faunce Room 229

SATURDAY Piano Extravaganza 2:00 P.M. Grant Recital Hall

Jazz Band Concert 8:00 P.M. Salomon Hall 101

SUNDAY Singing, Signing and Sliding 8:30 P.M. Metcalf Research Building 101

Skorts: Sketch Comedy Show 9:00 P.M. List 120

COMMENTARY PAGE 6 • FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

EDITORIAL

Brown Bites

Janet Mock Janet Mock, a black, native Hawaiian trans woman and activist, canceled her upcoming talk “Redefining Realness” due to students protesting the circumstances in which she was invited. Mock was invited to be the keynote speaker by the student group Moral Voices. But some students signed a petition asking Mock to disassociate her lecture from Hillel, saying the invitation was an attempt to “pinkwash” the history of Israel, meaning to “improve Israel’s image and rebrand it as a liberal, modern and ‘hip’ country.” The petition, which received 160 signatures, said that the invitation was an attempt to deflect attention from Israel’s previous track record of LGBTQ rights, racism and the occupation of Palestinian territories. According to Mock’s representatives, the activist decided not to come because she felt “the focus of Janet’s work was lost leading up to the proposed event.” Moral Voices co-chairs Natalie Cutler ’16 and Rachel Levy ’16 voiced their disappointment, saying “Does simply engaging in a Jewish space render one unfit to do justice work?” Let’s never grow up A behind-the-scene look at PhD admission also made headlines this week, as 6,136 applicants are slated to receive decisions online March 31. Only about 12 percent of applicants have been accepted on average in the past two admission cycles. Though each of the 51 departments with doctoral programs have different application review processes, most faculty members emphasized the importance of fit, with many departments encouraging applicants to come to Brown and tour facilities, talk to students and meet with professors. Considering how hard it is for us to sit through a Monday seminar, we applaud anyone who would purposely try to go to school for another 8 years.

R O L A N D H IG H

comic Cat Ears | Najatee’ McNeil

Regretting your course schedule yet? News of an anthropology class on homelessness made students all around campus wish they had looked through Banner a little more closely. In ANTH1301: “Anthropology of Homelessness,” students are required not only to study homelessness through reading and writing, but also by spending at least two hours per week doing volunteer work geared towards helping the homeless in Providence. The professor, Irene Glasser developed the course based on decades of experience in the field. According to Sarah Hsu ’17, who took the class last year, the course gave her “a more holistic perspective on homelessness.” Lauren Galvan ’16, who also took the class last spring, noted that she “gained an understanding that homelessness is not the fault of anyone’s actions — or lack thereof — but rather a result of systemic failures.” Up, up and away Connor Lynch ’17 is going to Mars. Kind of. Lynch was accepted by the Mars Society to live and work for two weeks in a full simulation of life on Mars at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. The astrophysics concentrator’s research proposal focused on using time-lapse photography to capture the changes in landscape, among other things. “The information we’ll gain from this experience will hopefully be used to better prepare people that do go to Mars,” Lynch said. “It’d be awesome if I could be one of those people, but, even if I’m not, it’s cool knowing that we (would have) contributed to that.” Don’t worry, Connor. If Matt Damon can live on Mars, we bet you can, too.

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COMMENTARY FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016 • PAGE 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Pinkwashing is a poor reason to reject the Mock event ADAM BENNETT op-ed contributor Last week, a petition began circulating online that demanded the acclaimed trans activist Janet Mock disassociate her lecture from its sponsors, Moral Voices and Brown/RISD Hillel. Among other accusations, the petition charges Hillel, and by extension, Israel, of “pinkwashing” the Israel-Palestine conflict. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, anti-Israel activists accuse Israel of showcasing its exemplary protection of LGBTQ+ rights as a means of deflecting attention from its conduct in the occupied territories of the West Bank. As a result, anti-Israel activists both on our campus and nationwide frequently boycott and protest events with LGBTQ+-identifying Israeli or Jewish speakers. As a gay, Jewish and Zionist Brown student, I find this pinkwashing argument weak, offensive and obfuscatory. One reason that the petition likely chose to make this pinkwashing argument is that its authors cannot indict Israel’s treatment of its LGBTQ+ citizens. Same-sex sexual activity was decriminalized in Israel four years before the occupation began in 1967 and was formally legalized 15 years before the U.S. Supreme Court did the same. Gay and trans citizens of Israel have had full rights to serve in the Israeli Defense

Forces without hiding their identities since 1993. Israel remains the only country in Asia where same-sex marriage is recognized. Pinkwashing smears are indicative of anti-Israel activists’ pursuit of demonizing Israel in every respect; if a topic can’t be used to critique the Jewish state, it may as well never be discussed. This pinkwashing argument is also incredibly offensive. Used as a cudgel to eliminate the discussion of LGBTQ+ rights when analyzing the Middle East, it erases gay Jews

paid to human rights abuses against LGBTQ+ people in the Arab world both on campus and in the Middle East. How can these activists, many Middle Eastern themselves, dismiss my rights and those of gay Arabs and Jews as a distraction from more important issues when gay people across the Middle East are regularly executed, castrated and tortured? Even if I weren’t Jewish, as an out gay man there is not a country in the Middle East where I would be safe aside from Israel. LGBTQ+ rights

right by dismissing any discussion of LGBTQ+ rights within Brown/RISD Hillel. Brown/RISD Hillel has created spaces for Jews of every conceivable identity, including LGBTQ+identifying Jews, Jews of mixed identity, Jews of color, Zionist Jews, anti-Zionist Jews, conservative Jews, reform Jews, Orthodox Jews, reconstructionist Jews, Humanist Jews and atheist Jews. As a native Hawaiian, black and trans woman, Mock speaks to students like myself who find themselves at the intersection of

Talking about LGBTQ+ rights in Israel and the Arab world does not dismiss discussion of Palestinian rights.

and Israelis by denying this minority within a minority spaces to explore their intersectional identities. Students who petitioned against Mock demonstrated their belief that Hillel should not be a forum for discussing LGBTQ+ identities or rights in any context because of the spectre of pinkwashing the Arab-Israeli conflict, as Mock’s speaking engagement wasn’t related to Israel or the Middle East in the slightest. These students’ vision of Hillel’s role on campus precludes LGBTQ+ activism in a world where little attention is

may not be of the utmost importance to the predominantly straight activists who are obsessively focused on undermining Israel and Jewish support groups on campus, but they are to the thousands of Palestinian Arabs, Egyptians and Iranians, among others, who have sought asylum in Israel from their bigoted, murderous governments. My gay, Zionist, Cuban and Jewish identities are neither separate nor divorceable, a fact that Brown/RISD Hillel has recognized and a premise that anti-Israel students reject out-

many identities, whether part of the diverse Hillel community or not. It is not a coincidence that just as Israel has been the vanguard of codifying LGBTQ+ rights into law, the American Jewish community has been the source of many of the pioneers in the LGBTQ+ community’s fight for recognition and acceptance in the United States, including Emma Goldman, Harvey Milk and Larry Kramer. The Jewish community that raised me, including my temple, family and friends, provided me with the support and acceptance that

allowed me to come out of the closet confidently at a young age. My first trip to Israel at the age of 14 demonstrated to me that, beyond the West Los Angeles bubble of tolerance I was fortunate to be born into, there were places I would feel safe and have a sense of belonging. In response to anti-Israel student pressure, Mock decided to cancel her appearance at Brown. This is not just a loss for Hillel but also for the entire student body that will not have the privilege of hearing Mock speak about her life and advocacy for trans people of color. To those students who took pride in silencing Mock: This event was never about Israel, but rather about providing Mock a space to teach Brown students about her life work. Talking about LGBTQ+ rights in Israel and the Arab world does not dismiss discussion of Palestinian rights. A woman who speaks to many issues that are important to LGBTQ+ and AfricanAmerican Brown students was silenced and shunned because a select few have blind animosity towards Israel, and inexplicably and by extension, Brown/RISD Hillel, which provides a safe space and varied programming for the large and diverse community of Jews on our campus. Mock, Brown students and LGBTQ+ activists deserve better.

Adam Bennett ’16 is president of Brown Students for Israel and can be reached at adam_bennett@brown.edu.

The GOP’s auto-obstruction DANIEL MEYER staff columnist With the Senate Republicans trumpeting their opposition to President Barack Obama’s Wednesday nomination of a respected, qualified moderate Wednesday, it’s hard to figure out their long game. Merrick Garland is as palatable as any Democratic nominee could be — U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-UT, has called him a “consensus nominee” and predicted only a week ago that Obama wouldn’t nominate a moderate like Garland because of electoral politics. Evidently, the GOP leadership has decided they have something to gain by blocking Garland. But what? If they hold out until after the election, they risk accepting a younger, more liberal nominee from Hillary Clinton. Otherwise, they are probably facing the unpredictability of a Donald Trump nominee. In private, I doubt that most GOP senators would prefer to let Trump pick than to seat Garland. But their knee-jerk stance after Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing backed them into a corner. To reverse course now would seem weak and would anger the allimportant base. As virtually every observer has noted, to block the Garland nomination is to put politics over policy. Garland himself is not the problem — the fact that Obama chose him is. I’m not naive enough to think that this is anything new; the U.S. Supreme Court has been intertwined with politics for its entire existence. The

GOP leadership has come close to admitting as much. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, has insisted that the stand is over “the principle, not the person.” But the “principle,” is not drawn from a non-existent pseudo-precedent about lame duck nominations. The principle is to block the President at every turn, consequences be damned. The decision to block Garland is emblem-

able Care Act remains a law, despite countless repeal attempts from the House and a contrived appeal to the Supreme Court over the minutiae of statutory construction. Planned Parenthood is funded. The closest thing to a success was the sequester, but that would be a perverse loselose example of the term. By opposing Garland, McConnell called the only play he seems to know. Immediately after

Though obstructionism may feel automated at this point, it’s a strategic choice that the Republican leadership continues to repeat despite its continued failure. Would-be-Justice Garland is the latest victim of a failed political calculation.

atic of the GOP’s decision-making over the past eight years. In other words, it’s a really bad move. I’m not saying that I disagree with right-wing values (or that I don’t). I’m arguing that the party’s political strategy has failed to accomplish any significant conservative objectives. The GOP is devoid of policy accomplishments despite controlling the House for six years and the Senate for four. The Afford-

the seat opened, he and his Senate colleagues chose to turn the nomination into a fight. They didn’t have to, but they did. Now, their trumpeting of ideological purity prevents an aboutface, even though it’s clear that opposing Garland will do little to further conservative values. The story of the party’s strategic blunders starts in 2007 with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Needless to say, U.S. Sen. John McCain’s, R-AZ,

attempt to “energize the base” by picking her as his running mate didn’t work. As the Tea Party rose in power, the GOP continued to embrace the strategy of preaching to its most devoutly converted. As each election cycle passes, it has moved further from the center. Now, many pundits argue that the rise of fringe candidates like Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, was the result. The strategy of elevating the conservative base empowered the outer edge of the party’s constituency. The failure to deliver any significant results pissed them off, allowing Trump to run against the Republican Party from within. Ironically, Trump has shown that all of the party’s straining towards consistency has been for naught. Many primary voters are evidently unbothered by his willingness to change stances and go off the standard GOP policy script. None of this needed to happen. McCain didn’t have to choose Palin as his running mate. Back in 2010, McConnell didn’t have to declare that his top priority was to make Obama a oneterm president (even if it was). The strategy of budget brinksmanship was one of many routes the opposition party could have adopted. None of these moves have paid off. We shouldn’t expect any different from the Senate’s refusal to vote on Garland’s confirmation. Though obstructionism may feel automated at this point, it’s a strategic choice that the Republican leadership continues to repeat despite its continued failure. Would-be-Justice Garland is the latest victim of a failed political calculation.

Daniel Meyer ’17 can be reached at daniel_meyer@brown.edu.

SPORTS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

Jorden Mitchell ’17 scored a career-high 9.900 in the floor routine at the Bears’ most recent home meet. Mitchell also recently won the all-around title at the All-Ivy Classic at Cornell. After winning ECAC Gymnast of the Week for her efforts, the junior will look to win her seventh floor title of the season come next week at the ECAC finals.

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

Jorden Mitchell ’17 leads Brown to Ivy title, chases ECAC crown Mitchell ’17 sets career-high mark in floor routine, aims to continue success at ECAC finals By JAMES SCHAPIRO STAFF WRITER

For the third year in a row, the gymnastics team is returning to the ECAC finals. After placing a close second last year and winning it all the year before that, this year, it returns again, riding the momentum of a stellar performance by Jorden Mitchell ’17, which secured a victory in the team’s home finale. Mitchell scored a 39.050 overall, notching the Bears their fifth win of the season. On the floor, Mitchell scored a career high of 9.900, enough to win her the ECAC Gymnast of the Week award and her sixth floor title of the season. The Bears now move ahead to the finals, which they enter leading the field in regional qualifying score,

slightly ahead of Cornell and William and Mary. In addition to ranking first in the ECAC, they rank seventh in the Northeast region and 52nd nationwide. At the individual level, Mitchell ranks fourth in RQS with 38.65 and teammate Caroline Morant ’17 ranks second, with a score of 38.705. Each has a chance to win the ECAC individual title with a strong finish at the upcoming meet. Before the ECAC final, Mitchell won the All-Around title at the Ivy Classic, helping the Bears to a share of the team title in a tie with Cornell. Mitchell has been a driving force behind the Bears’ success all year, leading the team with six all-around titles. For her career-high score en route to a Bears win and a trip to the ECAC finals, Mitchell has been named the

Herald’s Athlete of the Week. Herald: You guys just won your fifth meet of the season. What did you think of the team’s performance this year? Mitchell: We’ve been doing really well. I would say we’re surprised, but we’re not — we’ve trained really hard and we have a lot of talent, so it’s not a surprise. We went into Ivies knowing that we were the better team and that we were going to win, and having that confidence definitely makes you perform better. It’s been really awesome that we’ve been having a great year — we’re really happy and we’ve had a lot of fans this year, so it’s awesome. It’s always awesome to win a meet at home in front of family and friends. Tell me about when you scored a career-high 9.900 at the most recent meet.

It was really exciting — I’ve never gotten a 9.900 before. I would say my teammates were more excited than I was, so it’s really awesome to know that they’re equally as excited for you when you do well. We always have each other’s backs, and I couldn’t do it without them. You finished first, and you had teammates finish second and fifth. The entire team must have been working really well. Yeah. On the floor, on everything. You’ve got the ECAC championship on Saturday. How much does that mean for the team? A lot. It’s equally as important to us as winning Ivies, and it’s a little bit harder than Ivies because there are more teams, and we’ve only ever won once in program history, our freshman year. We’re looking to do that again and hopefully get another ring.

You rank fourth in the ECAC with an RQS of 38.615 — what does that mean? It means that I’m in the running for hopefully looking at an ECAC allaround title. It’s going to be really hard, obviously, I’m still in fourth, but I’m not really focusing on where I’m going to place individually. The team goal is more important than the individual goal. Overall, how do you feel about the team going forward? I’m really excited. We’re looking really good. We’ve been practicing really hard, training really hard all year, so going forward we only have ECACs and Nationals left. We’re looking to do really well in Nationals as well, and make team finals at Nationals … but you know, take one step at a time. Focus on the baby goals, and then the overall goals will hopefully come.

Is the Red Sox’s poor spring training worth worrying about? CHARLIE BLASBERG sports columnist

This spring, the Red Sox — which made the major offseason acquisitions of David Price and Craig Kimbrel — came into Fort Myers, Florida with the cockiness that accompanies wearing a Boston uniform. Each season has the potential to be a championship season with the team’s large market and even larger payroll, and the players definitely act like it. But they aren’t playing like it. Sixteen games into the team’s spring training schedule, the Red Sox are 6-10. And the Sox are giving up a lot of runs in the process. Spring training games are

essentially meaningless. Their results don’t have any bearing on regular season standings, and teams sit their key players for the late innings of games or for entire games in order to limit wear on starters and give experience to younger players who are often not ready for more important games. As a result, a team’s spring training results are generally not true indicators of how a team will fare in the regular season. But often, especially this spring, the teams atop the Grapefruit League’s standings reflect the teams that qualified for the playoffs last year. Though spring training records don’t necessarily forecast a team’s regular season strength, they do show an important aspect of a team’s composition: depth. The Sox, so far,

have shown that they lack deep Major League talent in the infield and in the bullpen. While Manager John Farrell has limited the innings for his starters, he auditioned a number of potential bullpen arms, few of which have impressed. Teams that do the best in spring training games have the most players who are competitive at the Major League level. Having replacements that can produce in the Majors is an asset to a team, especially as the dog days of August set in. The Red Sox’s poor Grapefruit League record is not cause for concern, but the fashion in which they are losing is worrisome. Their pitching, which was an aspect that the front office was adamant on improving over the offseason, has flopped in many cases in the preseason. The Sox are

giving up an average of over 10 runs per game. Usually a reliable closer and now set-up man Koji Uehara has given up five runs in two appearances. Clay Buchholz, who entered this season with high hopes of a bounce-back year, has an ERA of almost seven after two appearances. Eduardo Rodiguez is currently out with a knee injury and won’t be ready for opening day. Though Boston’s recent acquisitions have lived up to expectations — most notably, Carson Smith has allowed no hits in three appearances — the Sox must be wary not to get bogged down by the thorns that could not produce last season. Rick Porcello has already thrown a stinker and does not inspire confidence after his abysmal season last year. The Sox should not put too much

stock into their poor performance this spring, but they do need to further bolster their bullpen over the course of the season. The Sox’s offense will produce. The way the Sox will make an impact this season is to win games even when the offense doesn’t score runs. If they can hold slim leads through the late innings of games, they’ll be playing baseball from now until at least late September. The mantra states that defense wins championships, but let’s qualify that. Great bullpens win championships. And the Sox need to figure that out sooner than later. Charlie Blasberg ’18 is a die-hard Red Sox fan. Trash talk him at charles_ blasberg@brown.edu.