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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

FAMILY WEEKEND EDITION

BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

Friday, October 25, 2024

Brown reaffirms public statement policy as several Ivies adopt neutrality policies KAIA YALMANCHILI / HERALD

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Paxson and other University officials have gestured to this policy in response to calls for divestment

Corporation vote against divestment has raised discussions on neutrality BY CATE LATIMER SENIOR STAFF WRITER In their letter to the Brown community announcing that the Corporation voted against a divestment proposal from 10 companies with ties to Israel, President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 and Chancellor Brian Moynihan ’81 P’14 P’19 wrote that Brown’s mission is “not to

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adjudicate or resolve global conflicts.” The communications indicate that despite heightened calls for divestment from companies with ties to Israel, the University has made a critical decision that goes beyond the one-time proposal: not to take an official stance. Within the past year, despite heightened calls for divestment from companies with ties to Israel, the University has made a critical decision: not to take an official stance. Brown is not alone in this course of action. Facing invigorated campus protests, a

slate of top colleges and universities have adopted policies of institutional neutrality, which typically prohibit administrators from commenting on contentious social or political issues. In May, Harvard decided to refrain from commenting on public policy issues. Schools such as Penn and Barnard College have adopted official institutional neutrality policies. At others, including Yale and Columbia, the move is still under consideration. In the last year, three Ivy League presidents have stepped down following backlash against statements they made

regarding the Israel-Hamas war. University presidents have found that institutional neutrality could “remove them from the political crossfire,” according to Luther Spoehr, a senior lecturer emeritus in education at Brown. Brown’s Public Statement Policy, created in 2022, states that Brown “may exercise its leadership by issuing institutional leadership messages, or Public Statements, for matters of direct impact to the Brown community or matters affecting higher education and/or the ability of Brown or other educational institutions to fulfill their mission of education and research.”

Unlike the policies of many of its peer institutions, Brown’s policies allow institutional statements on matters that impact other institutions of higher education internationally, not just Brown. Still, public statements must meet certain criteria, including alignment with Brown’s mission. Brown may issue public statements if an event would affect Brown or other institutions of higher education in their ability to pursue Brown’s mission, if the issue directly impacts students, faculty and

Your guide to Family Weekend 2024, College Hill edition

METRO

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Providence may become first East Coast city to ban new gas stations

Breaking down how relationships unfold on Brown’s campus

U. set to reconsider legacy admissions as students discuss issue

SEE FAMILY WEEKEND PAGE 8 & 9

SEE GAS PAGE 5

SEE LOVE PAGE 10

SEE ADMISSIONS PAGE 14

SEE NEUTRALITY PAGE 3

UNIVERSITY NEWS

CS TAs vote to ratify first long-term contract

Jewish activists may face conduct violations

AI-assisted cheating drives in-person exams

Contract includes 3% annual increase in base hourly rate

Students are sleeping in “Gaza Solidarity Sukkah”

BY ETHAN SCHENKER SENIOR STAFF WRITER The Teaching Assistant Labor Organization has ratified its first longterm contract with the University, the union wrote in an email to members Wednesday afternoon. Voting members of the union, which represents undergraduate computer science TAs, casted their ballots on the three-year agreement between last week and Monday night. The contract passed with 94% of the votes. The contract, which will apply to all CS TAs, replaces a one-year interim agreement in place for the 2023-2024 academic year. It will go

into effect after both the union and the University sign the final agreement in the coming weeks and last until fall 2027, TALO President Yasmine Abdelaziz ’25 said. Negotiations for a long-term contract started in March 2024. “Additional steps remain to execute the agreement, and we expect to communicate further when the agreement is final and ready to post publicly,” University spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. “Undergraduate teaching assistants have played an important role in the Department of Computer Science for more than 50 years, and we’re pleased to have reached this point in the bargaining process.” The newly-ratified contract includes a 3% annual increase in the base hourly rate for all undergrad-

SEE TAS PAGE 2

BY CIARA MEYER AND SOPHIA WOTMAN SENIOR STAFF WRITERS Early Tuesday morning, members of Jews for Ceasefire Now were threatened with conduct violations by the Department of Public Safety for sleeping in a temporary structure that they had built to celebrate the week-long Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The group erected the sukkah, a tent-like structure that Jews use for holiday traditions such as eating meals and sleeping, on the Quiet Green last Wednesday. While the construction of the sukkah was sanctioned by the University, administrators told the group Wednesday

evening that sleeping in the structure was not permitted under Brown’s green space usage policy. University Spokesperson Brian Clark wrote that the group’s requests to build the sukkah “indicated no plans for sleeping in the structures, and the University approvals provided were for the short-term use of space on the greens, provided the students adhered to Brown policies.” On Thursday evening, DPS officers told JFCN members they were not allowed to be within 20 feet of the structure between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m, according to a Wednesday press release from JFCN that also said the warning did not refer to a written policy. Clark did not specify why students could not be in the sukkah during that time, but he noted that students were barred from sleeping in the sukkah due to the green space

SEE ACTIVISTS PAGE 3

Professors cite ease of cheating with LLMs like ChatGPT BY CLAIRE SONG SENIOR STAFF WRITER After an era of take-home exams, primarily due to COVID-19, in-person exams are returning to campus. For some professors, suspected cheating and AI use is behind the shift. Since large language model tools like ChatGPT became commonplace and freely available, some measures suggest cheating has become more common. Turnitin, a popular plagiarism detection program which released an AI detection feature in April 2023, reported that more than one in ten papers

reviewed in its first year were at least partially written using AI. APMA 1650: “Statistical Inference I” and BIOL 0470: “Genetics” have both returned to in-person exams this semester. “I grew tired of dealing with suspected academic dishonesty (and) students collaborating or straight-up having AI generate their solutions,” wrote Applied Math Lecturer Amalia Culiuc PhD’16, an instructor for APMA 1650, in an email to The Herald. “There was always some plausible deniability: friend groups all had the exact same answer because, according to them, they had studied together.” Culiuc mentioned that AI usage is “harder to detect” in computational assignments. She added that she most clearly

SEE EXAMS PAGE 14