Vol. 114, Iss. 11 | Wednesday, October 23, 2024
The Flat Hat The Weekly Student Newspaper
of The College of William and Mary
GRAPHIC BY MONA GARIMELLA / FLAT HAT NEWS EDITOR
flathatnews.com | @theflathat
KiMBERLY MCCANN / THE FLAT HAT
Award-winning filmmaker, writer sits with The Flat Hat to discuss fights, Confederate flags, hurricane streaking at the College ANNA ARNSBERGER AND PEERAWUT RUANGSAWASDI // THE FLAT HAT
Cord Jefferson ’04 has won both an Emmy and Oscar. He has written for shows like “Master of None,” “The Good Place” and “Watchmen.” His directorial debut, “American Fiction,” was nominated for five Academy Awards and named a top 10 film of 2023 by the American Film Institute. Jefferson has also streaked across the Sunken Garden approximately 10 times. A journalist and a filmmaker, Jefferson is no stranger to the entertainment scene. While serving as an editor for the entertainment blog Gawker, he wrote a column in 2013 satirizing “Black on Black” violence. That column would lead to him appearing on Chris Hayes’s “All In” on MSNBC, which helped propel his TV writing career. Hailing from Tucson, Ariz., Jefferson arrived at the College nearly three decades after his father became the second Black student to graduate from the William and Mary Law School. Jefferson majored in sociology, which he says introduced him to new ways of thinking. “I was just exposed to all these ideas that sort of really shaped how I view the world and shaped my politics and shaped my values,” Jefferson said. “I think it’s just, you know, when you’re that young, when you come to college, I think that one of the great things about college is that you can be really porous and just sort of take a lot of different ideas.” Jefferson also touched upon his experience as a Black man at a predominantly-white institution. “It was very white when I was here,” he said. “There was not a lot of diversity. And, you know, that was challenging. I never heard of lacrosse before I got here. And there’s all these dudes with swoopy hair carrying sticks with nets on the end. And I’m like, ‘What’s this?’ And it’s like, ‘It’s lacrosse, dude.’” He also described his shock seeing the Confederate flag on display at the College. “I remember getting into arguments with people about the Confederate flag when I went here because this was also the first time that I really spent a lot of time in the South,” Jefferson said. “I
used to be right next door to a fraternity called Kappa Alpha and their sort of spiritual founder was Robert E. Lee. So they would be seen carrying Confederate flags and you’d have these kinds of parties where some dressed like Confederate soldiers. And I was like, okay, this is an interesting sort of thing that I had to sort of be around this.” Reflecting on the current state of the College, Jefferson sees improvements in terms of the diversity of the student population and the extracurriculars offered. He especially noticed this when serving as the grand marshal at this year’s Homecoming parade. “It was really nice to see in the parade, how it seems like there’s a tremendous amount of racial diversity,” Jefferson said. “It’s the fact that there’s two Bollywood dance groups and you had Black sororities and Black fraternities. I didn’t really feel like that this was a hyper diverse place when I went here. It’s nice to see that that is changing.” While Jefferson believes his time here formed him as a person and a writer, he has yet to produce work directly based on the College. “Everything that I write is so personal to me,” Jefferson said. “It’s so deeply personal and so I would say that in some ways it’s certainly inspired everything that I’ve done since I’ve been here.” Despite that, Jefferson would be open to writing a movie set in a university setting similar to the College. “I want to eventually do a movie about being a young person,” Jefferson said. “I think that I have thought about maybe trying to set it at a college campus similar to William and Mary. So I have a character that’s not here necessarily, but in a place like here.” Jefferson is also aiming to help build up the College’s pipeline to the entertainment industry. He hopes to establish an infrastructure for sending grads to work in television and film that mirrors other schools. “In entertainment, there’s so many people from Harvard, from the Harvard Lampoon, there’s so many people from like Yale,” Jefferson said “There’s all these people from East Coast schools who end up in entertainment. And I think that William and Mary has a bunch of really talented, wonderful people here. And I’d like to start building a pathway
hopefully for an easier entry into show business.” Despite his longstanding connection to the College, Jefferson never thought of himself as a good student. He once recalled his experiences at the College as a time of “getting in fights and cutting class.” In particular, Jefferson remembers frequent fights with the football team. “I was an angry kid,” he said. “I was an angry young man. I’m an angry old man now too, but I’ve learned to channel my anger in much healthier ways. But, I was just kind of rowdy. My friends were rowdy. There was a lot of fights with the football team.” He considers it ironic that he was honored during this year’s homecoming football game when he did not have a good relationship with the team during his time at the College. Still, Jefferson looks back fondly on the lasting memories he made at the College. One such memory took place during categoryfive hurricane Isabel. While all students were expected to evacuate, Jefferson and his friends decided to stay in Williamsburg. “We rented a hotel room at the Days Inn I believe, and we bought a lot of beers. We brought a lot of DVDs to play on the DVD player, but we were idiots because within like two hours, the power went off. So we couldn’t watch DVDs, the beers all got warm, and so we’re sitting there and the entire school is empty, eating a cold pizza from Chanello’s wishing that we had actually got out of town instead of staying in,” Jefferson said. Even with no power, Jefferson made the most out of the situation and decided to partake in one of his favorite activities — streaking across the Sunken Garden. “The campus was empty, the hurricane was pouring down,” he said. “It was pouring down rain, it was windy. And we walked from the Days Inn through the storm to the Sunken Garden and streaked the Sunken Garden in the middle of Hurricane Isabel. There were like downed power lines — it was wildly unsafe getting there.” Jefferson graduated with a 2.37 GPA and is a proud proponent of the saying “Cs get degrees.” READ MORE AT FLATHATNEWS.COM
CAMPUS
College Republicans hosts Jan. 6 insurrectionist, students express discontent over event Club writes that Proud Boys member Jonathan G. Mellis is not white supremacist or hateful, disappointed students call for accountability
MONA GARIMELLA AND ALEX NAKAMITSU THE FLAT HAT
Thursday, Oct. 17, the William and Mary College Republicans invited Jonathan G. Mellis, a member of the far-right Proud Boys group. Mellis was charged with assaulting law enforcement during the Jan. 6, 2021 breach on the Capitol in an attempt to interfere with the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Mellis, also known as “J6 Jon,” posted multiple videos online during the insurrection threatening law enforcement and ultimately pleaded guilty to assaulting the officers that day. WMCR recapped Mellis’s visit to the College in an Instagram post. Under the post, there were more than 50 comments from students and community members expressing their discontent with the group inviting Mellis. “Last Thursday, we finally got to welcome J6 Jon! Jon, a Proud Boy, was at the capitol on January 6, and came to share his experience of what it was like!” WMCR wrote in their caption. After receiving backlash from Instagram comments, as well as students on the anonymous platform YikYak, the group
INDEX Profile News Data Opinions Variety Sports
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updated the post’s caption. “William and Mary College Republicans is committed to hearing a diversity of opinions, even from those who are marginalized from the traditional political discourse. Because of this commitment, we will invite a diverse array of speakers. This does not indicate an endorsement of the thoughts, actions, or beliefs of our speakers. We will not be pressured or intimidated to stop inviting people of ALL opinions to be heard, questioned, and criticized,” they added. Nia Bradley ’26 was one of many who commented on the post. “Y’all are not beating the extremely racist allegations,” she wrote. In an interview with The Flat Hat, Bradley explained her comment. “Obviously, my comment was a bit of a somewhat of a satirization, like somewhat of a joke, a little bit, but they’ve posted consistently anti-Black rhetoric on their page for several semesters at this point,” Bradley said. Bradley takes issue with WMCR’s actions, given Mellis’s ties to the Proud Boys, which has been classified as an “extremist group with ties to White Nationalism,” according to the FBI. She believes
inviting such a figure reflects poorly on WMCR. “It’s just flat out racist to invite somebody that is from an organization that has ties to white supremacy, also believes the election was stolen, and also was at the Capitol,” Bradley said. Another student, Cameron Morris ’25, expressed disappointment with the administration, citing a failure to protect a student body with a diverse array of political and personal identities. She feels as though the presence of Mellis on campus made students of color, queer and Jewish students feel unsafe. “It’s of my personal belief that his presence on this campus presented a threat to marginalized students on this campus. And I think that [College President] Katherine Rowe is responsible for maintaining a safe environment for students here. And she completely and utterly failed, or not just her, but the school itself,” she said. She also believed the lack of action on the part of the administration of this event demonstrates a double standard of other expressions of political beliefs. Specifically, Morris cites the changes to the College’s protest guidelines, which she thinks unfairly targets students involved in activism against the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in the Middle East.
“I think that it’s incredibly hypocritical that the school hasn’t said anything about an RSO bringing in a member of a white supremacist, openly violent terrorist organization. They haven’t condemned, they haven’t done anything about it. Yet, they specifically cracked down on protests of like left wing protesters, and introduced a lot of different new rules and regulations regarding protesters,” Morris said. After receiving criticism from students, the College Republican Executive Board submitted a statement to The Wren Journal, a conservative magazine on campus and The Flat Hat. In this statement, WMCR reiterated their reasoning for inviting the speaker. “First and foremost, the College Republicans are absolutely committed to freedom of speech, especially when it concerns conservative voices who are marginalized from the typical political discourse. We give a voice to the unheard. We invited Jon because he offered a fascinating look into the treatment of J6 political prisoners, which we believe has been a serious issue that has not gotten the attention it deserves,” the statement reads. READ MORE AT FLATHATNEWS.COM
Inside Data
Inside Opinions
Inside Variety
Inside Sports
A text-based analysis of YikYak. page 4
Eden Leavey ‘28 discusses the effect of digital media on the presidential debates. page 6
Marriage Pact algorithm matches compatible students, participants share varied experiences. page 7
Senior running back Malachi Imoh rushes for 122 yards, records one TD page 10
Open forum for information or anonymous hub of gossip?
Why I no longer watch presidential debates
Finding “the one” with zeroes and ones
Tribe defeats Campbell 35-28 in thrilling Homecoming game