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Thursday October 20, 2016 vol. cxlno. 91
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U. graduate students vote in favor of AFT By Rose Gilbert contributor
On Oct. 18, University graduate students gathered in McCosh 62 and voted to affiliate the emergent Princeton Graduate Student Union with the American Federation of Teachers, a national union specializing in education. AFT received 77.1 percent of the vote, winning by a significant margin over the PGSU’s other option, the Service Employees International Union, a more generalized national union that emphasizes political solidarity and currently represents service workers at the University. 162 graduate students voted, which accounts for about six percent of the graduate student body population. According to AFT’s proposal to the PGSU, the American Federation of Teachers has the advantage of focusing on education and having a significant presence in New Jersey: they have successfully organized a union at Rutgers University, consisted of full-time faculty,
part-time faculty, and graduate students. AFT also generally grants local affiliated chapters more autonomy than SEIU does and it is less inclined to have official political stances, which many students at the town hall meeting on Oct. 11 worried would alienate students with differing political beliefs from participating in PGSU. David Walsh, a leading member in the unionization effort and a third-year student in the history department, said that ultimately the vote wasn’t strictly necessary, but was about making the unionization movement as democratic as possible. “This is an internal decision made by the Princeton Graduate Student Union; it’s not the same thing as a union election. Nevertheless, we wanted to be as inclusive as possible when it came to making this necessary decision,” he said. “Actually having six percent of the student body is actually a very encouraging sign. See PGSU page 3
ACADEMICS
Men outnumber women 2 to 1 in this year’s Shapiro Prize By Marcia Brown Associate News Editor
Recipients of the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence from 2015-16 were composed of a group of sophomores and juniors who were overwhelmingly male — in a two to one ratio. According to Senior Associate Dean of the College Claire Fowler, due to the selection process for the prize, this is an outlier year. The gender breakdown often fluctuates for the prize because it is chosen based on academic excellence. Approximately 45 freshmen and 45 sophomores are chosen each year, Fowler said. “It really varies when you have 45 people,” Fowler said. “This year it was a two to one
ratio but actually that’s not always the case.” “Sometimes there’s a gender disparity in who’s in the top 10 percent of the class, sometimes there’s not,” she said. She said that, for example, some years there might be a lot of winners in one particular residential college. The University announced 87 total Shapiro Prize winners this year, hosting a dinner for the winners, faculty members, and administrators in Chancellor Green on Sept. 27. 30 were women and 57 were men. Last year, there were 58 women and 36 men selected for the Shapiro Prize. “Traditionally, we have a dinner and speaker and all the winSee PRIZE page 5
ORANGE AND BLACK
LILLIAN CHEN :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
In Opinion
Senior columnist Nicholas Wu discusses the need for a racial awakening among Asian Americans, and Elly Brown, president of the Princeton Pro-Life, responds to the Editorial Board’s position on the Women*s Center. PAGE 6
IN THE SERVICE OF HUMANITY
VINCENT PO :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
A new plaque containingthe revised unofficial motto was installed in front of the Nassau Hall. BEYOND THE BUBBLE
U. research scholar pen open letter against Trump By Jessica Li staff writer
Joined by nine other former nuclear launch officers, University Research Scholar Bruce Blair penned an open letter Friday questioning the ability of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to serve as commander-in-chief. “The pressures the system places on that one person are staggering and require enormous composure, judgment, restraint and diplomatic skill. Donald Trump does not have these leadership qualities,” the letter reads. Other signatories of the letter include former officers from all three of the missile
launch stations still active in the United States. Blair, who served in the underground launch center at Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base before accepting his position at The Wilson School’s Program in Science and Global Security, explained that the authority to deploy a nuclear weapon is a power granted only to the President and cannot be checked by any other decision-making body. He further noted that there is no room for flexibility once the decision is made at the highest end of the chain of command. Once the President issues a command, even the highest ranking officers in the Pentagon war room will have to
create the launch order and must transmit the signal down to the very operators who are responsible for firing the weapons. “All of us in our careers were trained and persuaded to not question the decisions made at the top — that being the White House or generals above us. Our job is to carry orders,” he said. “I, as a very young man, [could] receive this message and it would take us one minute to turn the keys to send a signal to the missiles through underground cables,” Blair added. He said that he and his colleague could have fired up to 50 missiles carrying high yield nuclear weapons in a See LETTER page 2
LECTURE
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
U. professors discuss Kerner Report findings
Clinton, Trump face off in final debate
By Allie Spensley Contributor
University professors Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Imani Perry, and Julian Zelizer gathered on Wednesday to discuss the 1968 Kerner Report — a Johnsonera federal document analyzing race riots occurring across the country — and the ways in which its findings and recommendations are still relevant today. Glaude, chair of the University’s department for African American Studies and professor of Religion and African American Studies, said that of all the Kerner Commission recommendations, the ones focused on policing — more so than those pertaining to education and housing—are the ones that persist in today’s political climate. The underlying causes of the 1960s riots, such as institutional racism and police brutality, are still prevalent in America today, Glaude added. “We are constantly limiting the expression of our values, and the scope of our politics, because we are afraid of triggering racism — which is in fact an explicit acknowledgement that it exists and that we want to leave it alone, that we want to
navigate it rather than uproot it,” he said. Imani Perry, University professor of African American Studies, focused on four central points of the Kerner Report: how we historicize riot rebellion, how we situate the document in the midst of a complicated history, the way we talk about the historical pivot to the Black Power movement, and the issues identified by the report that we are still facing. She discussed her transition from focusing on the intent of historical documents such as the Kerner Report to focusing on their real-world function regardless of their often idealistic purposes. “I find myself called to think about the function of these reports in American life,” Perry said. “What’s their mechanism? And that doesn’t hinge on the question of intent.” Julian Zelizer, professor of History and Public Affairs, focused on the historical implications of the document in his comments. The report demonstrated the limits of liberalism during the time period, but still served the important role of sparking a dialogue on race and riots, Zelizer said. See REPORT page 3
Today on Campus 4:30 p.m.: Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and screenwriter Robert Schenkkan will discuss the making of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall.
By Samuel Garfinkle staff writer
The third presidential debate of the 2016 election season took place on Oct. 19 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News, this debate returned to the format of the first general election debate of the season, with a 90-minute program divided into sections that represented a wide spread of political issues. Much of the debate saw the two candidates standing by positions they have previously taken during the campaign, as well as attacking their opponents for previous scandals. Some questions, however, provoked newly worded responses. For example, when asked about his purported support for the repeal of Roe v. Wade, Trump said that he thought his promised appointment of pro-life Supreme Court justices would cause this to “happen automatically.” Clinton was then forced to defend her vote against See DEBATE page 4
WEATHER
STUDENT LIFE
HIGH
73˚
LOW
59˚
Cloudy. chance of rain:
20 percent