October 29, 2020 - Student Life Newspaper at Washington University in St. Louis

The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020

VOLUME 142, NO. 7

FIRST YEARS

How WU’s newest students are making friends in the midst of a pandemic (Scene, pg 5)

WWW.STUDLIFE.COM

NEW COMMUNITY

PANDEMIC ART

Senior hurdler discusses the challenges facing Black student athletes at WU (Sports, pg 6)

Sam Fox students are finding ways to cope with the intricacies of online learning (Cadenza, pg 9)

‘The most frustrating experience I’ve had ‘We’re not gonna as a Wash. U. student’: 13 members of the Co-Curricular Advisory Board resign be quiet’: Students demand WUPD abolition EM MCPHIE SENIOR NEWS EDITOR

co-curricular activities diluted the purpose of the board. “When you broaden the topic in such a way without broadening the membership and without broadening the voices that are involved with it, you aren’t going to accomplish anything,” Ehrenstrom said. “If 80% of the board are members of Greek life, how can you expect them to try and create an action plan that’s going to create a co-curricular environment that works for everybody who isn’t in Greek life?” Similarly, former WPA President junior Emily Regan said, “It’s a gross oversimplification to compare Greek Life to organizations that don’t have a history of harm and exclusion and weren’t founded on principles of white supremacy…It is a way for Campus Life to completely delegitimize our concerns and brush abolition aside.”

Carrying a banner that read “WUPD protects property, not people,” students marched from Brookings Hall to the South 40 to call on University administrators to defund and abolish the Washington University Police Department, Oct. 24. Junior Nana Kusi, an organizer with WashU for Abolition, said that the protest served to honor victims of police brutality and highlight the problems with policing, demonstrating the need to reallocate resources to better serve both students and the local community. “We really wanted to cement in our campus’ conscience that the area that we occupy and the space that we take up is one that was carved out through violence and continues to be carved out through violence,” Kusi said. “...Wash. U. is probably the largest single agent of gentrification in the St. Louis community.” Sophomore Aaliyah Allen addressed students from the steps of Brookings Hall, after organizers reminded students to remain masked and distanced for the duration of the protest. “I’ve had to sit with the cold fact that there is no justice for a lost Black life in America’s justice system, and that in fact, snuffing out Black lives is more core to its function than preserving or avenging them has ever been or will ever be… More and more I’ve had to grapple with the depth of the oppressive systems we’re facing and bear the conscious weight of their insurmountable power,” Allen said. While she acknowledged that the protest was an important step, Allen urged students to think about it as one small piece in a much larger struggle for equality and liberation.

SEE RESIGNATION, PAGE 4

SEE WUPD, PAGE 3

GRAPHIC BY CHRISTINE WATRIDGE

ORLI SHEFFEY STAFF REPORTER Following the Co-Curricular Advisory Board’s first meeting this month, 13 student members who support the abolition of Greek life have resigned in protest. After students spoke up about the systemic oppression inherent to Greek organizations over the summer, more than 50% of fraternity and sorority members at Washington University permanently deactivated from their organizations. With the future of Greek Life uncertain, Campus Life created a Co-Curricular Advisory Board for students to provide insight and make recommendations. “[The board’s purpose is] to provide an opportunity for students to look specifically at issues of race, class, gender, interpersonal violence and homophobia within student groups and make recommendations

to create a more equitable co-curricular experience for students at Washington University,” Campus Life Director Beth Doores wrote in a statement to Student Life. According to Doores, the Co-Curricular Advisory Board’s recommendations will be added to existing input from faculty, staff, student groups, national organizations, alumni and campus partners with the goal of implementing changes to co-curricular activities in the spring. Members who support the abolition of Greek Life, however, had concerns about the board from the start of the first meeting. Senior Mia Hamernick said that she noticed early on that the board’s diversity was “nonexistent” and was disappointed that Campus Life did not reach out to cultural affinity groups. According to Hamernick, Campus Life only sent an email to members of fraternities and sororities to invite them to the board.

“This board is really skewed in terms of who is being represented and who is being left for the conversation,” Hamernick said. “I wouldn’t have even been at that meeting if I hadn’t heard about it from someone else.” Since the majority of students at the first meeting were affiliated with Greek organizations, members were surprised to discover that Campus Life extended the scope of the board to all co-curricular activities on campus. Doores wrote that Campus Life broadened the board’s agenda because “these issues do not solely exist in one area of our community.” “If we do not address the whole, we will continue to perpetuate the injustice and harm that our community and students have been facing,” Doores added. Senior Luke Ehrenstrom disagreed, arguing that focusing on all

SU suspends ‘90% rule’ for student group funding, switches to appeals-based process as a first step in a larger budget overhaul TED MOSKAL SENIOR NEWS EDITOR In anticipation of the challenges of a largely virtual semester, Student Union made significant changes to its budgeting process for the fall 2020 semester, including switching to an appeals-based funding process and suspending the 90% rule. The rule required that student groups spent over 90% of their allocated budget in order to receive the same amount of funding from SU the following semester. For example, a student group would have to spend 90% of its budget for the fall 2018 semester in order to justify receiving the same amount for the fall 2019 semester. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this model became unfeasible for

the foreseeable future. The lack of programming options for student groups during a largely virtual semester meant that student groups simply could not use their SU funding in the same way that they could before. “In-person programming is essentially gone for good,” Speaker of the Treasury senior Zach Sorensen said. “If you think about any of the performances and competitions and shows and rehearsals from performance groups, a cappella groups, sports groups, et cetera, none of that is happening...I think every group has been really, really affected, and there's just very few ways to spend money.” For China Forum, a student group dedicated to facilitating discussions about Chinese politics and culture, its typical programming of guest speakers and panel discussions can no

longer be held in person. Although China Forum has still been hosting a number of different events over Zoom with speakers from all over the world, the financial cost of hosting a Zoom meeting is fairly minimal compared to a physical meeting. “There’s definitely a drop in terms of the conventional expenses you are talking about,” China Forum President Serena Wu said. “For events, we no longer need to buy food for the audience… we don’t need travel expenses and other miscellaneous expenditures like that.” Wu mentioned that new expenses such as paying for zoom’s webinar function and obtaining software for collecting admissions fees had arisen, but were still manageable. In anticipation of these drastic changes for the fall semester,

Treasury nixed its planned budget for fall 2020 and switched over to a more flexible and smaller appealsbased process. “Basically, there's no funding that's happening through budgets this semester,” Sorensen said. “It's all appeals. And we've got about $35,000 that we have for that because we also cut the student activities fee to $50 from around $280. Basically, Budget Committee spent 60 hours budgeting, but then we realized it was not going to be viable to do that. It just didn't make sense because all the programming plans people had are not going forward.” Sorensen said that the Treasury only received a single appeal for over $1000 in funding during the first six weeks of the semester, indicating

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SU’s usual spending of over $1 million on student groups would not have been necessary. According to VP of Finance senior Alexa Jochims, many of the changes caused by the COVID pandemic were already underway as part of SU’s financial overhaul, which was scheduled to kick in for the spring 2021 semester. “We knew that the 90% rule was going to be gone as soon as we were sent home in March, just because... there was going to be no way to figure out exactly how much groups [would have] spent in spring 2020 and hold them accountable for a pandemic that they had no control over,” Jochims said.

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EM MCPHIE & TED MOSKAL | SENIOR NEWS EDITORS | NEWS@STUDLIFE.COM

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EVENT CALENDAR THURSDAY 29 Craft Talk with Mark Bibbins Virtual Event, 8 p.m. Visiting Hurst Professor Mark Bibbins is the author of four books of poetry: “13th Balloon”; “They Don’t Kill You Because They’re Hungry, They Kill You Because They’re Full”; “The Dance of No Hard Feelings”; and “Sky Lounge”, winner of a Lambda Literary Award. The recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in poetry, Bibbins teaches in the graduate programs at Columbia University and The New School, where he cofounded LIT magazine.

FRIDAY 30 A Conversation with Scott Sternberg Virtual Event, 2:30 p.m. Please join WashU alumni, parents and current students for a virtual conversation with Scott Sternberg, AB ’97, American fashion designer, photographer and entrepreneur. Scott was the founder, chairman and creative director of the brand Band of Outsiders from 2004–2015, during which time he won two Council of Fashion Designers of America, Inc. (CFDA) awards for Menswear. In 2018, Sternberg founded Entireworld, a direct-to-consumer brand offering re-imagined, sustainable basics for men and women.

SATURDAY 31 New Perspectives Talk: Confronting the Strange in Max Ernst’s “L’oeil du Silence” Virtual Event, 11 a.m. Max Ernst’s “L’oeil du silence” (“The Eye of Silence;” 1943–44) actively resists interpretation and frustrates any attempts at description. Prolonged looking only gives the viewer more contradictions and impossibilities, rather than bringing more understanding. This talk by Max Dunbar, doctoral candidate in the Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences, will explore the indeterminate and ambiguous nature of this enigmatic painting.

SUNDAY 1 Public Tour: Multiplied—Edition MAT Virtual Event, 2 p.m. Join us for live, interactive tours on Zoom. Student educators design and lead virtual tours featuring several artworks in the Kemper Art Museum collection or special exhibitions, showing images of the artworks through screen sharing and answering participant questions. On November 1, Jessie Smith (Arts & Sciences ‘22) discusses a selection of works from the special exhibition “Multiplied: Edition MAT and the Transformable Work of Art, 1959–1964.”

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020

SU urges WU to expunge alcohol and marijuana offenses from student conduct records EM MCPHIE SENIOR NEWS EDITOR Following conversations with Washington University administrators about potentially allowing students to clear certain conduct violations from their records, Student Union Senate recently passed a resolution urging the University to implement an expungement policy and expand it to include marijuana offenses. The resolution passed with 19 votes in favor and one abstention, according to SU Executive Vice President junior Anne He. Senator Philip Keisler, a junior, sponsored the resolution after initial proposals for the policy provided for the expungement of alcohol but not marijuana violations. “I thought it was important that we as Student Union take a really strong stance that alcohol possession should be able to be expunged, but [that] we also support the ability to expunge marijuana possession,” Keisler said. Early in the spring 2020 semester, Interim Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Rob Wild met with the University Student Affairs Advisory Board as well as SU to discuss the potential expungement policy, with a goal of getting approval for a policy by the end of the semester. However, the conversation was tabled in March when campus shut down due to the pandemic. While the SU resolution encouraged the University to take action immediately, Wild said that there was currently no timeline for the release of a new policy. “We hope we can take it up again in the spring, but we’re not going to revisit it for now because we have many other things we’re focused on,” he said. Currently, the University’s Student Conduct Code allows for most offenses to be removed from student records after 10 years, with the exception of records related to academic misconduct or cases resulting in suspension or expulsion, which are maintained indefinitely. Many schools retain records for a far shorter length of time. Vanderbilt removes most student conduct offenses after seven years, the University of Chicago removes such offenses after six years and the University of California, Irvine removes such offenses after five years. However, Wild noted that not everyone is in favor of allowing students to clear their records before Washington University’s current 10-year period. “Some people feel like, you know, are you taking away accountability for violations of the student conduct code by allowing students to have their record expunged?” Wild said.

“The reason we’re considering it is we’ve always tried to be educational in our process and we do realize that in our process students have the ability to make mistakes, learn from their mistakes and improve.” Keisler strongly disagreed with the 10-year timeframe, suggesting that students should be able to expunge alcohol and marijuana violations after a maximum of two years. “If you’re looking at what those 10 years are, you’re talking about when you’re applying to grad schools and when you’re applying for your first job or two—very critical times where you want to have your best foot forward,” he said. Under the expungement policy proposals that have been discussed so far, students would not automatically have their records dismissed, but would rather apply and explain why they believed themselves to be eligible for having their offenses expunged. Such an approach would be in line with a restorative justice model, promoting learning and growth, according to SU President sophomore Ranen Miao. “A restorative justice model is…basically applying a framework that says, ‘You are a human being who oftentimes will make mistakes,’” Miao said. “We should focus on, number one, how we can make things right with the person who has been harmed, and number two, how we can help you improve in the future so that this doesn’t happen again—as opposed to the current American model, which is, ‘Let’s punish you as hard as we possibly can and give you as much time in prison as possible,’ when we have statistically, empirically proven that that is not an effective method.” In addition to the general benefits of the restorative justice model, Miao and Keisler emphasized its importance for communities of color, who are often disproportionately harmed by more punitive enforcement. “Obviously, Wash. U. is not in itself locking up people for marijuana possession, but the idea that Wash. U. can perpetuate a disparity in the way we’re treating marijuana versus alcohol, which is very much linked to racial justice, isn’t right,” Keisler said. “I think that it’s great that Wash. U. is examining this critically during this time, and hopefully they can adjust and finish the expungement policy in a way that is about restorative justice but also is not furthering disparities between alcohol and marijuana.” Anti-immigrant sentiment played a major role in sensationalized media coverage and political rhetoric about marijuana in the early 1900s, and racism impacts marijuana’s continued controversial status

as a Schedule I drug, according to research cited by the SU resolution. “The entire war on drugs has, number one, been this incredibly racist scheme to try to arrest and disenfranchise people of color, and secondly, [been] a horrible failure, because we haven’t seen reductions in drug use—we’ve actually just seen it skyrocket,” Miao said. “So the rejection of that criminalization is really important, and that should be one of the primary considerations, I think, that Wash. U. should take into account.” Wild said that he had not yet looked at the data for drug offenses at the University to see if there was racial bias in enforcement, but that such data would be taken into consideration in the future. “[The SU resolution] will cause us to, as we’re thinking about expungement, look carefully at the offenses that are eligible for expungement and make sure that there’s not a bias,” Wild said. “If you look at the number of people who are found responsible, are we not allowing students of a certain population—whether it’s race or socioeconomic status—to have access at a consistent level?” In 2018, the most recent year for which the University’s Clery crime statistics are publicly available, the Washington University Police Department reported 78 drug law disciplinary referrals and six drug law arrests. This was roughly even with 2017, when there were 79 disciplinary referrals and seven arrests, and a significant increase from 2016, which saw 48 disciplinary referrals and five arrests. The records do not specify the type of drug or the demographic breakdown of offenders. Alcohol violations have been consistently higher; 532 disciplinary referrals were reported in 2018, up from 391 in 2017 and 378 in 2016. Wild said that no decision had been made for whether or not an expungement policy would apply retroactively, potentially affecting thousands of students, but he said that it seemed like a good goal. Miao said that he would be meeting with the Office of Student Conduct in the coming week to further discuss the policy. “I think that the University is open to implementing a restorative justice approach towards student conduct,” he said. “And that’s really important as we move forward, because a lot of our conversations right now about incarceration and policing in the United States also revolve around these core ideas of what justice looks like and how we can best use the restorative model to help make sure that people are able to get justice in a way that’s not focused on punishment and harm, but rather focused on improvement.”

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020

EM MCPHIE & TED MOSKAL | SENIOR NEWS EDITORS | NEWS@STUDLIFE.COM

STUDENT LIFE 3

WUPD from page 1 “The issues we’re facing are not single-pronged, easy-answer, feel-good issues,” she said. “These are complex, messy, lifeor-death issues, and they should be treated as such.” After Allen’s address, students sat or laid on the ground for a die-in, during which an organizer read out the names of just a few of the many victims of police brutality in St. Louis: Isaiah Hammett, Anthony Lamar Smith, Michael Brown, Cary Ball Jr. and Kiwi Herring. Following the remarks at Brookings, students took to the street, marching down Forsyth Boulevard and then blocking the intersection at Forsyth and Wallace for five minutes, with chants such as “Black lives matter,” “Defund the police” and “Hey hey, ho ho, these racist cops have got to go.” WUPD cars soon blocked traffic approaching the intersection, and two officers exited an unmarked police vehicle to stand near the protesters, prompting shouts of “Why are you here?” “For your safety,” one of the officers replied. “For the safety of the property,” a student shouted back, while others chimed in with calls of “We’re safe!” The march proceeded down Wallace and onto Shepley Drive, with students chanting “Out of your dorms, into the streets” as they passed Koenig and Liggett Houses. Students gathered around their final destination of the WUPD office on the South 40 to listen to a speech from junior Lawton Blanchard, followed by an open mic for protesters to share their thoughts about and experiences with policing. Comparing WUPD’s 66 full-time personnel to the Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center’s single staff psychologist, students called on the University to reallocate the money spent on WUPD’s staff, vehicles and weapons toward resources such as Habif ’s mental health services, Uncle Joe’s, the Emergency Support Team and other underfunded services that benefit students. Many pointed out that crimes involving drugs, alcohol and assault are rampant on campus but that WUPD fails to solve these issues, instead overpolicing the neighboring communities. “You want to look for drugs in our neighborhood?” one student said. “Go to frat row.” While WUPD currently reacts to crime, it fails to prevent it, Kusi said. She cited WUPD’s ineffectiveness at preventing crime within Greek Life as an example of the University protecting property over people and caring about liability more than protection.

“People do party drugs in the frat houses all the time, people have dangerous relationships with alcohol,” Kusi said. “The University knows that this happens, but because they’re able to relegate liability to the fraternities, they would prefer to simply not look at it. If WUPD was hoping to reduce crime, why are we not pursuing or talking about the rates of sexual assault that happen inside of frat houses?” Students and administrators should interrogate this hypocrisy and what it means, she said. Kusi also pointed out that University students often discuss crime as if it is an inherent feature of St. Louis and allow it to inform their interactions with the community, rather than attempting to understand the root of and potential solutions to the problem. “Crime doesn’t happen in a vacuum—people commit crimes because they’re coming from backgrounds of poverty, from a lack of access, and I think we really need to interrogate how Washington University directly plays into that narrative of closing off access to different sorts of things that would prevent crime in the long run,” she said. “Instead of a proactive stance, we’re coming from a reactive stance that really serves to overcriminalize the community.” Although students have long been calling for the University to reevaluate WUPD, Blanchard noted that WUPD’s presence had continued to increase over the past year. “I think of all the people who've looked like me, have been doing things that I do…who have been killed for just existing and looking like me,” Blanchard said. “I remember that [and] deep in my soul, I feel less safe. There's only so many times when you can see someone in a specific uniform kill someone who looks like you…and walk around on campus and feel safe when you see someone that looks like that.” Executive Vice Chancellor Hank Webber wrote in a statement that the University is supportive of students expressing their views. “As a community committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, we acknowledge the concerns that have been raised at Washington University and more broadly about public safety and policing,” he wrote. “We seek to examine our approach within an ecosystem of services that includes, and extends beyond, our police department. We have begun the important work of exploring what our different communities at Washington University need to feel safe and supported on our campuses

and in our neighboring communities, and how we can come together to best meet the safety needs of the diverse University community and create structures for ongoing transparency and review.” Webber currently oversees the University’s public safety committee, which is examining the role and scope of WUPD in the context of the University’s broader support services and within the St. Louis community, with the goal of presenting recommendations early in the spring semester. However, Kusi was skeptical about the University’s commitment to the best interests of St. Louis. “Our University talks a very big game about being in St. Louis and having a relationship with the surrounding community, but…increasing policing around the surrounding areas and increasing the presence of Washington University patrols puts St. Louis citizens in danger by increasing possible contacts with police officers,” Kusi said. During the speeches outside the WUPD office, the crowd grew as students walking between the Danforth campus and the South 40 came to listen. Many said that the speakers’ remarks resonated with them, and that they wanted to learn more about alternative models of public safety. Freshman Jebron Perkins emphasized the importance of students showing up beyond social media activism, whether that meant physically attending protests or financially contributing to relevant causes. Perkins also noted the University’s significant financial investment in WUPD, as opposed to what he said was inadequate investment into the surrounding community. “I hope the administration took away that we’re not gonna be quiet,” he said. “This is not a fad, it’s not something that happened [during the] summer and now we’re over it— we’re not gonna be over it until we get the problems fixed that we want to fix... You can’t reform a system that was built broken, so we need to start over from scratch.” Freshman Shalah Russell said that she attended the march to support her Black and brown peers as well as to learn more about potential WUPD abolition. “I learned a lot about Wash. U. that I didn't know before, and how Wash. U. interacts with the neighboring cities and the people that don't go to the school,” she said. “It was a wake up call for me as well [about] the amount of privilege we have just attending this University.” Russell said that she

wanted to continue to involve herself in efforts not only to abolish WUPD but to help neighboring communities. While Kusi said she was happy that the protest had over 100 students in attendance, she noted that it was a lower turnout than the vigil for Breonna Taylor held earlier in the month. “I think [students] should really ask themselves why it is easier for them to come out in a more solemn moment, but not so easy to take the extra step of doing the work to dismantle the systems that necessitate those solemn moments,” she said. “We would never have had to have a vigil for Breonna Taylor if we were having the real conversations about what policing does to our communities and to Black and brown people across the U.S., and particularly in a city as segregated as St Louis.” Even if students might be unsure of what abolition could look like or held

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some differing opinions to those stated by organizers, Kusi encouraged them to show up anyway. “Abolition can be difficult to grapple with because our society, our culture, is so deeply carceral,” Kusi said. “The concepts of the prison system [and] of policing are so deeply ingrained with how we operate as a culture that it’s difficult to separate or see what life could be like without them. I would like to remind people that there was a time before the institution of policing and prisons, and there will be a time after...We’re all at different stages of that learning journey, and if you’re coming to this movement with genuine intentions, we will meet you where you are.” In addition to protesting, Allen encouraged students to think holistically about community organizing and donate to mutual aid funds and grassroots organizations, as well as educating themselves and others. “This protest is poised

to be a great first swing, but rarely does a fight take one blow, and rarely is each punch equal,” she said during her speech at Brookings. “This is one blow. What’s the next?” While organizers acknowledged that abolishing WUPD would be an uphill battle, they expressed confidence that the struggle would be worthwhile. “There used to be a world in which someone decided that they could own other people, and then they made that a possibility. And then there was a world in which people imagined they would be free, and they made that happen,” Blanchard said. “We can change the systems that we live under. By refusing to change them or saying that they are impossible to change, we’re saying that we’re okay with the systems as they are. A better world is possible— we have to fight for it.” Additional reporting Julia Robbins

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ATTENTION, WASHU VOTERS!

DID YOU KNOW THERE WILL BE A POLLING PLACE ON CAMPUS THIS YEAR? There will be a St. Louis County polling location in the Field House of the Athletic Complex open from 6 am to 7 pm on Election Day.

This is a convenient resource for all undergraduate and graduate students who are St. Louis County voters, and all university employees who are St. Louis County voters and already authorized to be on campus on Election Day.

QUESTIONS? YOU CAN DIRECT ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR VOTING PLAN TO WASHUVOTES@WUSTL.EDU FOR PERSONALIZED VOTING ASSISTANCE.

VOLUME 142, NO. 7

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EM MCPHIE & TED MOSKAL | SENIOR NEWS EDITORS | NEWS@STUDLIFE.COM

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020

RESIGNATION from page 1 Junior Cassie Vaden, former Pi Beta Phi vice president of risk management, said that Doores gave a 30-minute presentation at the Oct. 2 meeting, which was followed by a question and answer session that lasted approximately 90 minutes. According to Vaden, Doores identified four issues in her presentation for the board to focus on: racism, classism, sexism and homophobia. After the presentation, Vaden asked Doores why interpersonal violence wasn’t included. “[Doores] said that she usually included interpersonal violence under

sexism...That was a tough moment for me,” Vaden said. “Interpersonal violence is not always gender-based violence, and it is rooted in so many things other than sexism.” “These terms literally have definitions. There are very clear guidelines as to what constitutes sexism versus interpersonal violence,” Hamernick added. “I don’t know if the people who are in charge of this are completely aware of what things mean.” In a follow-up email, the presentation slide was edited to include interpersonal violence. “I just think it goes to

show that Campus Life is gonna do anything to save face, even if it’s backtracking on statements and contradicting what they said,” Regan said. Pro-abolition members became more frustrated when a student brought up a petition that Black students wrote over the summer to abolish Greek Life, which was submitted to Campus Life. According to Ehrenstrom, Doores said that she had not read it. “To have them tell us that we need to be willing to do a lot of work to change campus, and then they come into the first

meeting and they haven’t even read the demands... what they are doing is shameful,” Ehrenstrom said. “It’s quite honestly the most frustrating experience I’ve had as a Wash. U. student.” Ehrenstrom, Hamernick and Regan, along with 10 other pro-abolition members, ultimately resigned from the Co-Curricular Advisory Board after the first meeting. “We see being part of it as legitimizing the University’s deliberate attempt to try and not create any solution to the problems that surround Greek life on our campus,”

Ehrenstrom said. “Over my time here, I’ve sat through a lot of administrative meetings, I’ve spoken to so many people,” Hammernick said. “And I have rarely left a meeting so angry, just by the lack of action, or by just seeing how resolute these administrators are to stick to something we know will not work.” “Campus Life wasn’t listening to these abolition voices anyway, so continuing to participate in that board legitimizes the sham that it is, and it only goes to stifle abolition sentiment when it could be channeled elsewhere and could thrive

elsewhere,” Regan added. “My friend calls the advisory board a bureaucratic train of nothingness.” Vaden, on the other hand, was one of four proabolition members who decided to remain on the board. “Whether I’m on it or not, the board is going to make recommendations to implement broad sweeping reforms across campus, not just within Greek Life,” Vaden said. “And if the Board only has current Greek Life members, I would rather bring my voice and continue expressing it than relinquish it from that conversation.”

College Dems, Reps find little common ground in debate EM MCPHIE SENIOR NEWS EDITOR The 2020 Campus Crossfire debate featured a fast-paced discussion with few areas of overlap between representatives from the College Democrats and College Republicans. The debate took place in person, with all participants wearing masks. Moderator Guillermo Rosas, a political science professor, asked a variety of questions about topics such as the pandemic, economic policy and climate change. Coming just days after a student protest calling for the abolition of the Washington University Police Department, one of the questions posed at the debate was about the movement to defund the police. “Right now, policing in America is the second greatest source of local expenditures across the United States, only

after education: $176 billion spent every single year,” said sophomore Ranen Miao, a representative for the College Democrats. “What should we be diverting that money towards? Mental health resources for our communities, the $20 billion to solve homelessness across the U.S., feeding people who are hungry, investing in community resources.” After taking a moment to honor the victims of police brutality, Miao discussed policing’s racist history and argued that the existing system of policing is problematic because of the racist laws that police uphold and disproportionately enforce on communities of color. Senior Jacob Ramer of the College Republicans disagreed, calling the idea of defunding the police based on its history an “insane response.” “The fact is, these aren’t racist laws, these aren’t extreme

laws…[The Democrats] don’t want drug crimes being enforced, they don’t want murder crimes being enforced, they don’t actually want safety on our streets,” he said. College Republicans representative sophomore Molly McNamara said that police departments should actually be given more funding “so they can have diversity training [and] so they can have nonviolent interactions training.” Citing recent examples of fully trained police officers responding to mental health calls with brutally fatal force, Democrat junior Philip Keisler emphasized the importance of finding solutions that actually work. “We need a system of safety in this country to prioritize mental health [and] poverty prevention, and not putting all our eggs in the police basket and saying, ‘People with guns should handle every single crisis,’” Keisler said.

One of the main topics of the debate was the United States federal COVID-19 response, with the Democrats condemning and the Republicans praising it. “Dr. Birx said in March that 200,000 lives would be lost if this situation was handled perfectly,” McNamara said. “Now we just approached that number not too long ago, so we are on the right track.” McNamara was referring to Birx’s March 30 prediction of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities. The current United States death toll has since climbed to more than 225,000, and the country’s average daily deaths have remained roughly constant for the past two months—higher than they were back in late June. “We are in the midst of a third wave, and that is because the federal government has not been competent in its response,” Miao said. “The fact that we are prioritizing the economy over human life represents moral bankruptcy in this country.” When asked if she supported stimulus checks being sent to every American family, McNamara said yes, claiming that Democrats were the ones who voted against a recent proposal to accomplish that. Keisler pointed out that the $500 billion relief package proposed by Senate Republicans did not in fact include funding for stimulus checks, noting that the proposal paled in comparison to the Democrats’ $2.2 trillion version, or even the White House’s suggestion of $1.8 trillion. “These stimulus checks are not meant to be a long-term solution,” McNamara said. “We have to open the economy, or our government will fail.” Another point of contention during the COVID portion of the debate surrounded the topic of masks, with Keisler citing proposals from Sen. Bernie Sanders and the United States Postal Service to send masks to families across the country, free of charge. “There’s no reason that families need to be provided [with] masks,” McNamara said. “You can make them with a bandana, you can make them with a bunch of different things—an old t-shirt can make a mask. That’s what’s been so great about our innovation in this country.” Miao noted that bandanas are shown to be insufficiently effective in preventing the spread of COVID. Bandanas do not satisfy the University’s mask policy. Ramer argued in favor of the government allowing people to return to their pre-pandemic routines and allowing children to return to schools. “This is very important, and there are ways to do this safely—encouraging masks, encouraging high vigilance and especially focusing on

developing a vaccine, which Democrats have not really pushed on,” he said. Keisler called the idea that the United States must either fully open its economy or go into a permanent lockdown a false dichotomy. “What we need to do is a reopening over time that’s based on science, not on fears of the stock market, and we can do that,” Keisler said. “Unfortunately, what’s happening is a lot of governors, encouraged by this president, are just trying to ram through openings just because it’ll look good for their stock prices.” As the conversation shifted to the economy, Ramer argued that increasing the minimum wage would hurt small businesses who couldn’t afford to pay workers higher rates. Miao replied that historically, a high minimum wage in the United States has been associated with a low unemployment rate, due to the increased spending of working class individuals. “Nowhere in America is $7.25 sufficient,” Miao said. “Between 2009 and 2020, the minimum wage went from $7.25 to $7.25. The wealth of the top 0.001% in this country went up from $1.2 trillion to $3 trillion. Our working class people today...deserve a living wage.” “[Issues of wealth inequality] are definitely worrying concerns in the sense that we really want the best for all Americans,” Ramer said. “I think the major goal of any administration should be, ‘How can we improve the lives of middle/lower class Americans,’ not necessarily ‘How do we bring down those who have succeeded?’” McNamara highlighted the renegotiated NAFTA treaty (now known as USMCA), calling it one of the highlights of the Trump administration and saying that it allowed companies to be globally competitive and pay their employees good wages. “One in seven children in this country go to bed hungry,” Miao said. “There are millions of people in our streets who are currently homeless, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development says these are not problems that we just cannot overcome. The cost of ending homelessness in the US is $20 billion—that is one tenth of Jeff Bezos’ wealth. The fact that one man is able to have all of that wealth, while millions of people continue to suffer, is absolutely morally obscene.” To combat this inequity, Miao voiced his support for instituting a wealth tax and also increasing taxes for corporations, implementing sanctions should they try to escape taxes by moving operations overseas. Ramer agreed that American companies should stay in the United States, but argued that they should be incentivized to stay rather than punished for leaving.

The environment was also discussed, with heated exchanges over the Paris Climate Agreement, clean energy and housing regulations. “I’d like to point out the considerable hyperbole coming from the Democratic side...This is not the end of the world we’re talking about,” Ramer said. “This is a serious problem that we need to address, we absolutely agree, but to describe it as killing Indigenous communities, killing Black communities [and] destroying our country is kind of insane.” Miao highlighted several areas where the environment intersected with racial justice, such as the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines plowing through Indigenous communities, the fact that Black children are four times as likely to develop asthma as white children and the unsafe water in Flint, Mich., among other cities. On the issue of healthcare, Keisler spoke emphatically in favor of Medicare for All, framing the fundamental right to life to include the right to not be killed by easily preventable diseases. “Unfortunately in the United States, we have 45,000 Americans die every year from lack of healthcare,” he said. “We have a $1 billion in medical debt in this country. Those are disgusting figures that speak to the brutality of our current healthcare system.” Miao highlighted disparities in healthcare costs, pointing to the $10,000 price tag of giving birth in the United States as compared to other countries where it would be fully covered. McNamara agreed that healthcare should be considered a right, but argued that everyone in the United States already had it, saying that if someone went into an emergency room they would not be left to die. “When Ranen talks about a doctor seeing you as a customer, this also makes them more likely to innovate and more likely to treat you with the best care,” she said. “If they’re not actually profiting from good results, they’re not actually going to care if they get good results.” Despite additional heated exchanges about the Paris Climate Agreement, clean energy and the housing industry, students from both sides thanked the others for participating in the conversation. “Today was really fun for me, as I appreciate engaging with those who hold different opinions from me whenever I can,” McNamara told Student Life. Keisler expressed a similar sentiment, saying that he was grateful for the opportunity to engage with students about important policies. “I hope everyone votes, but also continues to engage in the activism necessary to put these policies into place,” he said.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020

SCENE

BENJAMIN SIMON | SENIOR SCENE EDITOR | SCENE@STUDLIFE.COM

STUDENT LIFE 5

Virtual bingo and 1000-person group chats: How WU freshmen are finding creative ways to meet RYAN RICKS STAFF WRITER From Zoom calls to masks to social distancing, this semester has been unlike any before at Washington University. In a time where we have all been asked to balance safety and socializing, perhaps no one has felt the strain of this task more than the University’s freshmen, who have been forced to transition to college in this atmosphere of unpredictability. In a typical fall semester, freshmen are given ample opportunity to build a community with each other. First Day, First Friday and Symphony on the South 40 are all staples of what Campus Life calls the “First 40,” appropriately referring to the first 40 days of classes for new students at the University. This year, however, the First 40 looks a little different. Instead of inperson events, most of the highlights this year, like First Day, moved to a virtual format, if they weren’t canceled altogether. To compensate for this, Campus Life introduced a brand-new virtual event called BEAR-adise. “[At] Campus Life, we were thinking of all the different ways we could do a virtual program, and this was not just for students who were on campus but particularly for students who chose to be away as well,” said Danny Kim, associate director for Campus Life. BEAR-adise, happening every other Friday at 7:00 p.m., features a wide array of activities, ranging from their featured bingo to game rooms to Bear-ly Met, a kind of speed-meeting where you are paired with another student for two minutes before moving to the next. Right now, Campus Life has been focusing on expanding the virtual event to reach more students. “We do put a lot of time and effort into BEAR-adise,” Kim explained, “so that on Friday nights, students are finding entertainment in a safe way, and hopefully not going out.” Safety is on everyone’s mind this semester. For the University, it means doing whatever they can do to minimize the risk of an outbreak occurring on campus. For freshmen, it means figuring how to make new friends when they’re not even supposed to get within six feet of each other. For many freshmen, the answer lies in taking advantage of their newfound digital dependence. Valencia Ajeh is one of these freshmen. After she was admitted to the University, someone sent her the GroupMe for the class of 2024. From there, she said, many smaller group chats were created and through those, she was able to form connections with people, finding them on other social media platforms like Instagram. Now that the school year has started, she has recognized many of them on campus.

Another freshman who’s been taking advantage of GroupMe is Jalen Bogard. Bogard is one of the more active class of 2024 GroupMe members, and over the summer he spent a lot of time meeting people through the app. This semester, although he’s on-campus, he’s been trying to meet his classmates using a mix of in-person and virtual interactions. “I formed a study group in my calc class,” Bogard said. “Sometimes we go out to eat after class, that usually works out great, so we’re getting closer through that.” Even though he has been able to make some friends this year outside of what he did during quarantine, Bogard expressed some disappointment in the quality of these new bonds and experiences compared to the older ones. “Catching lunch with someone, socially distanced and everything, that’s probably as close to making friends as we can get right now,” Bogard said. However, even though making friends has become more difficult now that the semester has started, Bogard and other freshmen like him, are going to keep trying, even if it means doing something a little different. “I just feel like in order to build these new connections we’re just going to have to find new ways, new methods of getting closer with our classmates,” Bogard explained. The GroupMe for the University’s class of 2024 has over 1100 members, the vast majority of them belonging to at least one of the many, many other groups created by freshmen. From “Tennis” to “Avatar: The Last Airbender” to “Chem Lab 151,” there’s a group chat for every interest and if there isn’t, students can always make one. These GroupMes have helped freshmen build a sense of a community that would otherwise be lacking this year, especially for those who aren’t on campus. “Even though I’m not there in person, [course group chats] really contribute to the academic atmosphere and make me feel like I’m still in a group,” said Tiana Mao, a remote freshman. Over the last month, Mao has been attending her classes virtually from her home in Memphis, Tenn. At first, Mao felt like she was missing out, betrayed by posts and discussions on the very social media apps that have been working to bring students together. “Everyone was posting about Wash. U. and the architecture and [I was] scrolling through the [Instagram] stories being like ‘Oh I wish I could be there too,’” Mao explained. In addition to the group chats dominated by inperson students, Mao has also joined the GroupMe and Discord server for remote students. The combination of all these different group chats has

allowed her to meet new people, so that she no longer feels left out. Although GroupMes have helped freshmen get to know each other, they have their limits. It can be difficult to form bonds with someone based on only their online presence. Indeed, many freshmen have indicated that they prefer in-person interaction as opposed to virtual, demonstrated, at least in part, by how many freshmen decided against attending the University remotely this semester. But for many freshmen, this method of meeting people has proven to be a challenge. “My biggest struggle has been finding a lot of people who I have a lot in common with,” said Caroline Sauer, an oncampus freshman. Sauer is not alone. Other freshmen have also expressed difficulties in making friends with shared experiences or interests. One of these freshmen is Sophia Green-Baskett. While most of the incoming class of 2024 were high school seniors during the 2019-2020 school year, Green-Baskett was taking a gap-year. She is also living in an off-campus apartment. Green-Baskett has felt isolated from her peers, a feeling caused by her age, her place of living, her experiences and, of course, the pandemic. “I feel like I just have a different experience than other freshmen with my gap-year and living off campus,” Green-Baskett said. Both Sauer and GreenBaskett agree that they haven’t been able to meet people like they wanted this year, largely because of difficulties in talking to people in their classes and clubs. Getting involved in student groups is a particular area of concern for Sauer, who was primarily hoping to make friends through clubs this year. “It’s been much harder to join clubs, since the activities fair was a lot less accessible [this year],” Sauer said. Like most things, the activities fair took on a virtual format. Rather than exploring booths, students explored pages on the Washington University Student Group Organizer (WUGO) website. From there, students could sign up for the mailing list for their chosen clubs, and if they were interested in learning more about a specific group, they could log onto the group’s Zoom meeting. Even though joining student groups has been more difficult this year, freshmen shouldn’t give up, says Residential Advisor (RA) junior Nina Lawrence. “I would keep trying,” Lawrence said, “I’ve met some great people, so I would totally recommend it.” Lawrence also encourages her residents to make more of an effort to introduce themselves to their peers. “[Freshmen] are really having to put [themselves] out there a little bit more,” Lawrence

GRAPHIC BY MIA GOLDBERG

explained. “I think everyone really does want to make those connections, so any person reaching out is seen as a good thing.” Although this approach may be a bit nerve-wracking, it seems to have been working for some freshmen this year. “In a few of my classes, once we’re walking out, I try to make conversation with people, and through that we’re able to be like, ‘Let’s grab lunch sometime after class,’” said Sarah Chen, another oncampus freshman. Chen has been trying to make

use of her available opportunities to make friends, even if they look different than usual. Chen has three suitemates, and she’s found that she’s been able to get along with them pretty well. “It’s like a built-in friend group for me,” Chen said. Joining clubs is something that Chen is still working on, she says, but she has been able to get involved in a few of them, as well as attend some student-groupsponsored events. During the Chinese Students Association’s “dinner with

execs,” for example, Chen was able to eat with other members in person, while socially distancing of course. Although the position of a freshman this semester is not an enviable one, so far the University’s first-years have been doing well, says Katharine Pei, director of the First-Year Center. “I’ve been really impressed by the resiliency and the creativity of first-year students to be able to work through this and make the best of a really challenging situation.”

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SPORTS

DORIAN DEBOSE & JOSH SHAPIRO | SENIOR SPORTS EDITORS | SPORTS@STUDLIFE.COM THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020

6 STUDENT LIFE

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

BY DORIAN DEBOSE SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR

Leaping towards liberty: A conversation with Caira Watson-Haynes Senior Caira WatsonHaynes is one of the fastest hurdlers in Division III. When the season was suddenly halted last semester, she was in position to compete for a national title. In addition to being one of the best individual performers on a top-tier track team, Watson-Haynes is also copresident of the Washington University Black Letterwinning Athletes Coalition, WU BLAC, an organization founded this summer to create a community of Black athletes and progress Black issues. In this edition of Athlete of the Week, I spoke with Watson-Haynes about how she stayed ready during the long off-season and her goals for WU BLAC.

seems almost impossible, but for sports like track and field where the important thing is time or distance, It does seem a bit more possible. Do you anticipate there being a spring season?

track team been practicing at all?

really took no time off. I kept basically training through the summer. Of course, I tried to mix it up a little bit by taking some time away from this track and doing those trainings in a park to switch things up. One thing that I focused on through the summer was not even focusing on training for track, but just training for my health. Like the only time I got out of that house was to train. So I use joy in training and just going on runs and using that as my free space to escape from everything going on in the world, to escape from my internship for the summer. I got back in the gym, trained until the gym got shut down. Ran outside, and then I started working formally with one of my high school coaches, I guess you can say, in August to really get ready for actual training when I came back to school.

Caira Watson-Haynes:

SL:

Gotcha. So before COVID had hit, I imagine that track and field was something that was just part of your routine. Do you think that having a little bit of that routine disrupted made you appreciate it more?

SL: To switch gears a little

CWH: For me, it wasn’t

CWH: Yeah. Speaking from

disrupted since I took no more than two weeks off of running since the season got shut down. But it definitely made me appreciate it more and it helped me realize the role that I want track to play when I no longer formally have track. It made me enjoy the process of running instead of just focusing on training for the next meet.

personal experience, it’s just like the different conversations that I would have with coaches, them not really understanding my identity, my experience. And going to my coaches saying I feel isolated on the team. And them insisting that we have this family vibe. As a Black female, the family experience I have will be different from the majority-white aspect that my teammates are feeling. An eye-opening

Student Life: Has the

We’ve been practicing together for about three or four weeks, in groups of 20 people max. Each event group is split up. Depending on the event group, girls and guys are split to maintain numbers. We practice together as a team like four or five days a week.

SL: When we spoke in March, you mentioned that right after the NCAA Championships were canceled, you were starting to think about training already. Did you do any training during the offseason?

CWH: I did. We found out everything got canceled that Friday, that Saturday I drove home and that Sunday I was back in the gym training. I

SL: For sports like football, competing socially distanced

CWH: I can’t judge. I definitely think there will be an outdoor season. Because it is outdoors, it’s a little bit easier to maintain social distancing. I think indoor will be more of a challenge though. Like Brandeis [University] and Johns Hopkins [University] have already canceled the indoor track season. Emory [University] and [the University of] Chicago have yet to even start practicing. Based on what other schools in our conference are doing, I do think indoor is a little bit less likely. But I don’t think it will be ruled out that we at least have some weeks just to compete.

bit: During the summer, I noticed that you were critical of the athletic department and how it handles Black athletes. Would you be able to talk to me about any of the issues that you encountered as a Black athlete?

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Then-sophomore Caira Watson-Haynes turns the final bend in a spring 2019 race. She is one of the fastest hurdles in Division III and is the co-president of WU BLAC, a new group focused on improving the experience of Black student-athletes at Washington University.

experience for me was when I would try to go to the trainers and they had a nobandana policy and a no-hat policy. Well, I have natural hair. It’s not as simple as me just taking off my hat or my bandana. Another big thing for me is that I would try to talk to my coaches and they would just not realize because our two main coaches are white men from rural areas. But we actually have a document where alumni have all their different experiences. Because I only want to speak on my experiences. I know some players have heard people say the n-word at parties or just having all white coaches. We have no Black coaches. We have a coach who is a thrower, but the majority of the team doesn’t get to interact with her. But it’s a sport like track and field. How do you not have Black coaches? Or how do we have like three Black coaches in the whole department? It just makes it really hard to feel accepted in the whole department when on the administrative level, the odds are so low.

came from us feeling very isolated. It also felt like we didn’t have an established community amongst ourselves. Not only was the athletic department not establishing a community for us, we felt like the athletes didn’t take enough of an initiative to establish a community across sports.

student athletes. We have monthly bonding meetings just so the athletes can play games and relax and get to know each other better. We also have a speaker series. In two weeks—November 4—we have a Wash. U. alum who’s a doctor who’s coming back just to talk about being Black in the workplace and his experience as a doctor and how his experience as a student-athlete at Wash. U. helps him in the field. We’re also working with the athletic department. We met with the athletic department every week over the summer to let them know some of our grievances, some of the changes that we want to see, how we want to see increased diversity on the staff level as well as across athletes. Trying to get diversity and inclusion training for all staff and athletes. Getting athletes on hiring boards: We have two athlete representatives—our co-president [senior] Eka Jose and our VP [junior] Kameron Mack—they both sat on the committee for the new head athlete trainer position. We recognize that we not only need Black administrators, but we need Black studentathletes to help make sure that we have diverse representation on things such as hiring boards, so we can get diverse applicants in the door at Wash. U. We haven’t really been able to delve into this aspect much, but we really want to connect with the St. Louis community. We recognize that there’s a gap between Wash. U. athletics and the Black St. Louis community.

SL: Could you tell me about

SL: This summer, a lot of

what WU-BLAC does?

prominent athletes were vocal about Black issues, especially police brutality and voting. What power do you think Wash. U. athletes have in progressing a

SL: Were the frustrations the reason for the founding of WU-BLAC?

CWH: Yeah. It definitely

CWH: We plan events for

@sunshinedaydream420 for updates.

Black student athletes at Wash. U. We want to build a community for the Black

conversation about issues in their community?

CWH: The athletic department has definitely been vocal about voting. Their goal is to get 100% voting participation across all athletes. Our coaches have implemented a speaker series directed at increasing racial conversations. We have a Wash. U. alum who ran for office in Minnesota coming to talk to us about policing. Our coaches are bringing in speakers to talk about controversial issues. It’ll help us all become more informed voters. When it comes to voting, student athletes on college campuses, I feel, play a very important role. I don’t necessarily know at Wash. U., but student athletes tend to be leaders on campus. They tend to be at the forefront of most campuses, especially publicly.

SL: This is your second to last semester at Wash. U.

CWH: Correct. SL: What do you hope WU-BLAC becomes after you graduate?

CWH: I hope it becomes this organization that is here to last. I hope it becomes an organization that supports Black student-athletes. I hope it is active in the recruitment process of Black student-athletes as well as more Black coaches and administrators. I also think that the biggest thing is being active and supporting the Black student-athletes so that we get more. I really hope we continue to do service with the community and I know that if we focused on increasing Black numbers and being active in our community, that will lead to change in the administrative level at Wash. U. as well.

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020

DORIAN DEBOSE & JOSH SHAPIRO | SENIOR SPORTS EDITORS | SPORTS@STUDLIFE.COM

STUDENT LIFE 7

I thought LeBron was lame for going bald until it happened to me DORIAN DEBOSE SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of all time. This is beyond argument. His resume on the court is matched only by others on the basketball Mount Rushmore. He’s been an elite performer in every facet of the game for a decade and a half. At 35, he looks like he could continue being a great player until he’s 40. He’s a better scorer than Magic Johnson, a better passer than Michael Jordan, more durable than Larry Bird and during his prime, he was more athletically gifted than any American athlete not named Bo Jackson. If LeBron was created in a basketball lab by scientists devoted to crafting the best player ever, nothing about his frame or skill set would change. However, those onthe-court talents don’t necessarily make him the best basketball player ever. There’s an argument to be made that Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were better players who were even more dominant in their peaks. What makes LeBron the greatest basketball player of all time is what he has done off the court and— to some extent—on the court: He’s going bald. I remember when LeBron’s hairline first became a topic of national mockery. He was at his peak. Kobe was aging. Steph Curry was not reinventing the game yet. Kevin Durant was still developing into the unstoppable offensive force he was for most of

the 2010s. At this time, LeBron was the best player in the NBA. And it wasn’t even close. Yet between his monster dunks, humiliating chase down blocks and flashy passes, pundits still found time to needle him about his receding hairline. Other NBA players have gone bald. Hell, other greats have. Jordan became Air Jordan after his hair left. Lou Alcindor was a dominant Bucks great with a puffy afro. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the shiny dome at the top of the NBA all-time points leaderboard. But few other players have gone bald while fighting so publicly to avoid it. There was headband Lebron, who tried to cover the fact that his waves had reached lowtide with headgear. Then there was “balding and proud Lebron” who was balding, but did nothing to hide it. This was a brave performance, but bravado can only last so long because eventually, we got “Rogaine LeBron” where LeBron’s hairline miraculously reappeared for a postseason. Maybe being a superhuman athletic specimen reverses your aging. Or maybe the strain of losing your hair while you still think you’re at your peak was too much for King James to handle. This might seem like I’m mocking LeBron for being able to save every franchise he touches but not being able to save his own hairline. But I’m not. I used to mock LeBron for the measures he’d take to combat baldness. I was in the peanut gallery that roasted headband LeBron. I poked fun at my own

bald father about trying those hair regrowth products that LeBron used. But then something terrible happened to me. Something worse than I could ever imagine; something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy (the IRS): I started going bald at the age of 20. It started with a bald spot right in the back of my head. When my hair was lush and thick all over, I would feel that spot and I think I always knew it would betray me. When it finally did, I was still in denial. Maybe I was stressed. Maybe I got a bad haircut. Surely, I couldn’t be going bald before I had even consumed alcohol. The death knell came at my hairline. It’s a slow killer. The edges of your formerly crisp waves slowly begin to creep back. And only you know it. And now you’re paranoid about when your plight will become apparent to all around you. I tried to headgear it away. I never wore hats in high school or early college. But suddenly I found myself with a hefty collection. Then I tried to barber it away. I started going to the barber every two weeks, asking advice, trying to figure out how I could live in a post-hair world. As I bartered with my barber to do whatever necessary to prevent me from going bald in my early 20s, I finally realized how LeBron must have felt. Here is one of the best basketball players of all time, feeling the same existential dread I was. But instead of being made fun of by just his family

GRAPHIC BY CHRISTINE WATRIDGE

and the few “friends” he had confided in, perfect strangers were dunking on him online. Jordan punched Steve Kerr over a practice. He couldn’t have survived the media cauldron LeBron emerged from. Going bald is a personal

time for a man. LeBron didn’t accept his fate easily, but he has handled it gracefully. He has provided a blueprint for balding young men across the country who feel that their time with their hair is fast fading. Do what you can to save it. If that

doesn’t work, grow a beard. And if that doesn’t work, buy a hat. LeBron has shown us that going bald is normal. Being insecure about it is normal. And you shouldn’t feel like less of a man because your hair didn’t make it to 30.

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FORUM

8 STUDENT LIFE

KYA VAUGHN | SENIOR FORUM EDITOR | FORUM@STUDLIFE.COM

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020

STAFF EDITORIAL

Ways to find brightness in the midterm gloom

T

his year, the fall semester has been compressed to a short few months, forcing the eradication of Fall Break entirely and shortening Thanksgiving break. Breaks have traditionally provided students a reprieve from school work and activities, but with the retraction of breaks this year, students must push through the monotony and lack of energy that arrives at this point in the semester, both of which can be harmful to students’ mental health. The members of the Student Life Editorial Board share their methods on how to de-stress safely during this fall.

Don’t do an assignment Listen, you’ve worked really hard this semester. You’ve taken exams, written papers and stayed on top of tedious side tasks.

Your instructor might not cancel one of your assignments. But why not do it for yourself ? Save yourself an hour and let that quiz “slip your mind.” What’s the difference between a 98% and a 96% anyway? -Dorian Debose, Senior Sports Editor

Switch up your schedule Making small changes to your daily routine can help to ease the effects of pandemic burnout and to help you feel more refreshed in the absence of a well-deserved mental health break. Even in the most monotonous and draining of semesters, I’ve found that the details make all the difference. Finding a new study spot for an afternoon, going on a morning walk, trying out a new coffee order or even putting on your favorite outfit can help lift your spirits and

make you feel just a little bit more present as the days start to get more cold and dark. -Jayla Butler, Managing Editor

Make something I learned how to knit many years ago. It was something I dropped during my first two years of college—there was simply never time. Now, I am knitting more than ever. I knit during my Zoom lectures. I knit while listening to assigned podcasts and TEDTalks. I’ve even begun taking my knitting to my in-person class. For me, it’s about making something physical. Online school feels distinctly different than in-person school, and it was hard for me to feel like I was making progress. Now, I just look at the socks/gloves/blanket/etc I have knitted this semester, and I can see that I’ve

made something. -Isabella Neubauer, Senior Cadenza Editor and Copy Chief

Eat dessert With online classes and barely any social activity going on, the days have become unbelievably monotonous. I often feel like I rarely have something to get excited about in the way I used to for dinners with friends, live performances or dorm hangouts. So I try to make sure I always have something to look forward to-–dessert. Nothing gets me through a day of Zooming like knowing that in a few hours I’ll get to dig into that tub of ice cream in the freezer. Now, I understand dessert may not be the thing that keeps you motivated, but that means you just need to find your own form of dessert. Something to look forward to, like an episode

of your favorite show or a regular call with a friend. However, if you are, in fact, like me, I recommend cake a la mode. -Jaden Satenstein, Multimedia Editor

Call someone you care about During my freshman and sophomore years at Wash. U., I would call my family no more than once every couple of weeks. Now, I find myself calling every few days, and the calls are a highlight every week. They serve as an escape from college life and a reminder that life exists beyond the seemingly endless readings and midterms. It doesn’t have to be a family member: maybe it’s a friend from a summer job or a childhood neighbor. Even if it’s a 10-minute chat as you walk to your surveillance test or splash through the gloom, a call

to someone you care about can brighten your day. -Matthew Friedman, Associate Editor

Have a movie night Sometimes you just need to escape reality for a couple hours, and there are few better ways than by curling up with a fuzzy blanket and watching your favorite movie with friends. Fortunately, there are still several ways to host a movie night while being socially distant and mindful of COVID-19. From Netflix and Disney watch parties to drive-in movie theatres and even renting an AMC movie theatre (it’s cheaper than you’d think!), movie night is not going anywhere. So grab your friends and watch that movie you’ve been waiting to see, I promise you might just feel better. -Kathleen White, Director of Engagement

You can’t have your pie and eat it too OLIVIA POOLOS STAFF WRITER

I

have a lot to be thankful for this year—new friends, interesting classes and the fact that I get to be on campus this fall, to name a few. And I’m particularly grateful that Washington University’s COVID-19 transmission rate seems to be relatively under control (knock on wood). According to the Danforth Campus COVID19 Dashboard, there are 17 active cases after the second round of surveillance testing.

However, the University’s response to their relative success confuses me. The revocation of the “If you leave for Thanksgiving, stay home” rule could undo weeks of careful planning and preventative measures. A late-September email from Interim Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Rob Wild amended that now, the University is only “strongly recommending” that students abide by this former policy. Functionally, this change means that students can come back to campus if they leave–why bother

with the “recommending” business? In the next breath, Wild acknowledges that travel and contact with loved ones, typical Thanksgiving activities, increase exposure to COVID-19. This isn’t radical new information. In fact, it’s a great reason to stick with the original plan. While steps can certainly be taken to prevent contracting or spreading the virus (read: wear a mask, wash your hands…you know the drill), airports, airplanes and family reunions all pose risk. Multiply that risk by however many students

are now planning to travel home come November, and then reconsider if inviting everyone back to campus (albeit reluctantly) is such a good idea. The best-case scenario is that those who do go home can be tested before returning to normal campus life, but it’s not hard to imagine friends reuniting with their on-campus peers before they get their 24-hour test results back. Testing is not the end-all-be-all when it comes to controlling the spread that can stem from off-campus travel. While I understand

that the choice between spending Thanksgiving away from the comforts of home and staying remote for the last weeks of the semester is a difficult one, we all know too well that sacrifices need to be made this year in order to prevent outbreaks, and this is just another hard decision in a year of hard decisions. To my fellow students, I’m asking you to consider your personal role in preventing the spread. I’m disappointed that there seems to be no clear administrative ruling on how to approach Thanksgiving this fall, but

because of that, individual choices matter. If friends from home, family pets and Grandma’s pumpkin pie are calling— by all means go home for Thanksgiving! But please consider staying home. If Wash. U. approves a testing plan for students who do come back, it’s crucial that you abide by the rules of quarantine until you get your test results. A few new travel-borne cases mixed with disregard for quarantine protocol could easily whip up a not-so-jolly holiday recipe for an epidemic on campus.

Why America must normalize masks beyond the pandemic REILLY BRADY STAFF WRITER

W

ithin the first few minutes of watching an episode of “Sherlock” this weekend, I immediately reacted with alarm, wondering, “Where are their masks?” This wasn’t the first time I had been startled by a pre-pandemic image: Looking back, I often feel nauseated to remember traveling in large crowds, exploring amusement parks or flying on airplanes without thinking twice about the germs I was collecting. I’ll never be able to share another Starbucks drink like I used to do with friends every Friday morning or stay in a hotel without wiping down all the surfaces. With this perspective, one practice that I hope to continue

is one that is especially important in a pandemic, yet is highly contested by Americans: wearing masks. After many months of mask-wearing, I feel more protected in public places as well as more courteous to others who I could expose to sickness. It only makes sense that Americans should normalize wearing a mask when you are sick, even beyond the setting of a pandemic. This isn’t a radical idea outside of Western countries. In many East Asian countries, wearing a mask in public spaces sends a message of community solidarity and support, in contrast to America and European countries, where masks are stigmatized as images of apocalypse and fear. Other influences have also contributed to America’s aversion to

OUR VOICE: EDITORIAL BOARD

masks. From not requiring masks at crowded rallies, ridiculing Democratic nominee Joe Biden for wearing masks, and rarely wearing masks himself, the anti-mask rhetoric and actions of President Trump have provided evidence of America’s anti-mask attitude. America’s lack of understanding regarding mask-wearing as a community issue extends beyond President Trump’s actions. These ideas trace back to our very own Constitution and Bill of Rights, which emphasize individual liberties. Throughout the pandemic, many anti-mask supporters have used these constitutionally protected freedoms to argue for their decision to not wear a mask and to oppose a government mandate of a mask. Though I

Senior Forum Editor: Kya Vaughn Senior Sports Editors: Dorian DeBose, Josh Shapiro

Staff editorials reflect the consensus of our editorial board. The editorial board operates independently of our newsroom and includes members of the senior staff and forum section editors. Editor-in-Chief: Emma Baker Associate Editor: Matthew Friedman Managing Editors: Jayla Butler, Kya Vaughn

Senior Cadenza Editors: Isabella Neubauer, Sabrina Spence

Copy Chiefs: JJ Coley, Isabella Neubauer Engagement Editors: Kathleen White Forum Editor: Jamila Dawkins Multimedia Editors: HN Hoffmann, Jaden Satenstein

fully support the essential nature of the Bill of Rights and individual liberty, there reaches a point where the promotion of individual freedoms over community need is an act of selfishness. There are rules in place that restrict freedoms in order to protect us and our community, such as speed limits in a school zone and seatbelt requirements. Why is wearing a mask any different? The outcry for individual freedom has overshadowed the true purpose of masks: to keep our communities healthy. One concrete example of a place where normalized masks post-pandemic would keep communities healthy is in the classroom, as many students feel pressured to attend school despite being sick and take the risk of spreading sickness to

others. In high school, my history teacher feared coming to school every day due to her pregnancy and begged students to stay home if they were sick. If masks had been normalized in schools at the time, my teacher could have potentially felt much safer coming to school knowing students who felt sick would wear masks to protect her. From schools to public places to work settings, all types of communities can benefit from the normalization of masks as a sign of common courtesy even post-pandemic. I personally see myself wearing a mask in the post-pandemic future when going to a grocery store or other public spaces if I am sick. Instead of dealing with the problem directly, America has learned to live with COVID-19.

YOUR VOICE: SUBMISSIONS We welcome letters to the editor and op-ed submissions from our readers. Submissions may be sent to letters@studlife. com and must include the writer’s name, class and phone number for verification. Letters should be no longer than 350 words in length, and readers may

Despite this reality, I am hopeful that we can shift our perspective and change how we see masks in America. How do we break down the barriers of stigma and societal pressure? The answer is complicated and lacks a single solution, but we can start with voting for leaders––both national and local––who exemplify wearing a mask for the good of our country and local communities. From there, we can work towards separating the mask from its negative stigma by promoting messages of unification and compassion. Though America has a lot of work to do before we can normalize masks, I hope that beyond the pandemic, we will be able to see masks as a symbol of community effort and common courtesy.

OUR WEB POLICY also submit longer op-eds of up to 750 words. We reserve the right to print any submission as a letter or op-ed. Any submission chosen for publication does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Student Life, nor does publication mean Student Life supports said submission.

Once an article is published on studlife. com, it will remain there permanently. We do not remove articles or authors’ names from the site unless an agreement was reached prior to July 1, 2005.

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020

ISABELLA NEUBAUER & SABRINA SPENCE | SENIOR CADENZA EDITORS | CADENZA@STUDLIFE.COM

STUDENT LIFE 9

Sam Fox students adjust to a semester of virtual critiques GRACIE HIME STAFF WRITER The Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts has had to adjust their methods of working in response to COVID-19. Though some studio work is still allowed, students have found new ways to pursue their trade despite the ever-changing environment. Charlie Shaw, a freshman interested in communication design and fine arts, expressed how certain aspects of remote learning seem to work well for art students. “It’s going a lot better than I expected,” they said. “With online studio, some students have found it easier to critique work.” This new ability to zoom in on fine details through screen sharing has made it easier, in some ways, to analyze, critique and assess art. For one assignment this semester, students depicted a conversation or concept in the form of art, not words. Shaw explained that since COVID-19 has exasperated social issues and brought pre-existing problems to the forefront of social attention, they decided to create conversation pieces around police brutality and the hypersexualization of queer youth. Shaw explained that “You go in [to the LGBTQIA* community] assuming it is a safe space, but it really

opens the door to a lot of predation.” In Shaw's art, they display a “portrait," but instead of being a typical face, it is simply a grey body being grabbed by a hand. The work's black and white coloring serves to contrast the colorful nature of the pride flag, with Shaw implying that the risk of predation is not what the community should accept. And that is just one of many issues that have been brought to light this year. Even as Shaw thinks that two-dimensional schoolwork has adapted to the impacts of COVID19 well, they do find it strange not being around people while working. “I’m a pretty social person, so it has been odd not being able to go out and work with others," they said. Architecture students have also encountered changes as they adapt to the COVID-19 world. Freshman architecture student Cindy Wang explained that the shared screen critiques have been more difficult because they are virtual. “Zoom makes it easier to maximize and zoom in on artwork, but it is nearly impossible to effectively edit your art through the application,” she said. This has caused some frustration, Wang said, but students have still found some relief in being able to still have a

CURRAN NEENAN | STUDENT LIFE

An empty letterpress studio in Bixby Hall. Studio access has been more limited this semester, inhibiting the hands-on, collaborative approach that usually powers Sam Fox. Despite these limitations, students have found ways to modify their workflow for the time being.

physical studio space. One of the adaptations to working in art studios during this time is that professors cannot walk around and watch students work, as they typically would. In Wang’s case, her studio professor is isolated to their office, which is only a flight of stairs away. This makes it hard to reach out to others for advice or inspiration. "It’s harder to keep focus

and stay inspired when a large majority of your work is through Zoom, especially when your professor is literally a floor below you," she said. For Wang’s conversation piece, she decided to take a more personal approach and base her work off a person that inspires her. Because the political environment has been negative the past several months, so

she decided to focus on something that makes her happy. The piece displays I.M. Pei and the controversy around his Louvre Pyramid. It shows how people have taken Pei’s work both positively and negatively, despite being an iconic architectural building. With the pyramids separating a “happy Pei” and a “sad Pei,” Wang expresses the balance of praise and

criticism. Sam Fox has taken many approaches to optimize their students’ experience despite the limiting effects of COVID-19. Whether it be a positive or negative impact on the students, it is their reality. Artists are in a confusing but interesting place because of COVID-19, and they have taken the opportunity to explore their trade.

Television just can’t replace live entertainment, and the pandemic proved it ISABELLA NEUBAUER SENIOR CADENZA EDITOR One year ago this week, Washington University students, myself among them, packed into apartments and dorms in anticipation of WILD. Classes were largely forgotten and all emphasis was on the night’s activity. Looking back, I can’t even remember who the performer was, though a quick Google search tells me it was A$ap Ferg. The performer didn’t really matter; the event was an excuse for everyone to ignore school for a night, pack into Brookings Quad and, well, go wild. This year, I am sitting in my off-campus apartment, an apartment I didn’t expect to be in one year

ago. (Before COVID, I had planned to go abroad.) There is no WILD this year; the height of excitement is seeing my masked friends from six feet away. Brookings Quad is empty, as is most of campus. That kind of communal gathering is gone, put on a shelf until it becomes safe again. In the last eight months, since Wash. U. students were sent home over spring break, I’ve missed a lot of events like WILD. I had tickets to a concert for my birthday—the concert was postponed twice before being canceled. I was both looking forward to and dreading sitting in the movie theaters for the big releases of May, “Black Widow” and “No Time To Die.” Looking forward because I have followed

both franchises for over a decade, dreading because I didn’t think either movie would be particularly good. Now, both movies have moved their release dates to the early summer of 2021. That trend hasn’t changed with my return to St. Louis. Instead of my phone calendar reminding me of events that are no longer happening, I find myself surrounded by people whose clubs are no longer performing. A cappella groups aren’t having concerts; they’re still trying to figure out how to recruit and sing together remotely. Sitting down for a show in the Village Black Box or the Edison is out of the question, leaving Zoom plays (as the Black Rep has done) and a dark,

empty stage. For the first several weeks of the semester, it was like nothing was different. No clubs would have had performances anyways, being too consumed with (in a normal year) auditions and rehearsals. But it’s the end of October. This is when things should be starting, and instead, there is nothing. I have not been to a movie theater since February, when I saw “Birds of Prey.” I had no idea it would be both the first and last movie I would see in theaters in 2020. February was probably the last time I saw a play as well, too, scrambling to fit “Men on Boats” into my schedule. I spent much of my

February in The Pageant, buying cheap concert tickets and swaying or jumping in the middle of the standing-room-only crowd. I’m not sure when I’ll be comfortable doing something like that again. The Pageant is holding a concert on November 20. I will not be there. What I have done instead, and what I think many people have done, is fill the time that would be spent on live entertainment—trips to the movies, going to an open mic, seeing a concert—watching pre-recorded content on streaming services. Given that I was an essential worker, I spent much of my spring and summer working, but even still, I plowed through six TV shows that had been on my

list. Since school started, I’ve watched three more. And it’s been great! But watching TV isn’t a true substitute for live entertainment, and I’ve found myself missing that more and more, especially as I walk past Mallinckrodt or see the empty stage in Brookings Quad. TV is isolating, especially when it’s unsafe to do something as mundane as having a “Bachelor” watch party. And it’s a strain on the eyes, which are already tired from sitting through Zoom class after Zoom meeting. It’s too cold now for outdoor entertainment, but I’m hopeful that in the spring, I can once again be a part of a gathering in Brookings Quad—all attendees six feet apart and masked, of course.

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020

‘Borat’ sequel provides outrageous comedy and unexpected poignancy GRADY NANCE STAFF WRITER Editor’s note: This review contains spoilers and discussion of xenophobia. Writing a newspaper-appropriate—or anywhere-appropriate, for that matter—review of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” is a bit like trying to tiptoe around a sleeping lion with tambourines strapped to your ankles. Nevertheless, here we are. Sacha Baron Cohen returns as Borat, the now-disgraced Kazakh journalist who is tasked by his government to travel to America and regain the respect of their leaders after his disgraceful 2006 film. He plans to accomplish this by bestowing a lavish offering onto Vice President Mike Pence, America’s “most famous pussyhound” or, in the movie’s official language, “Gift of Sexy Monkey to American Regime for Make Benefit Recently Diminished Nation of Kazakhstan.” However, when his 15-year-old daughter Tutar (Maria Bakalova) sneaks onto the boat to America with dreams of becoming “the

next Melania,” Borat decides his daughter will be the offering instead. In a series of unbelievable encounters beginning with a scene of Borat successfully infiltrating the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes, ending with an “Oh my god this cannot be real” scene with a… touchy Rudy Giuliani, Borat and his daughter navigating a new and very different America than he visited long ago. Cohen returns to form as the now-iconic character without skipping a beat, this time with a Robin to his Batman in Bakalova. Their brilliant chemistry adds a new dimension to the traditional Borat stunt, as their possibly-illegal, definitely-strange fatherdaughter relationship leaves everyone they encounter dumbfounded, from store employees to pastors to the movie’s true hero, Jeanine the babysitter. Like the original, the movie seeks out and finds the rabbit holes of America, but this time those holes are more like canyons. On the backdrop of a pandemic, a vicious election cycle and an

intensely divided America, Cohen and company need only turn on the news to find a target for their next stunt. The scale of what’s possible has grown given the climate, and Cohen and company take full advantage. Now it’s not a small dive bar singing along to Borat’s anti-Semitic lyrics; it’s an anti-mask protest, whose heavily armed participants join Borat to sing “Corona is a liberal hoax” and “inject ‘em with the Wu-Han flu.” Like the original, Cohen dive-bombs without remorse into every controversial topic from feminism to COVID-19 to disinformation, and his character is so outrageous, so deliberately offensive, that it’s hard to imagine anyone taking his antics to heart. Rather, his vulgarity pierces the veil of decency and provides a metacommentary on America’s increasingly public warts. As Borat ventures further into America and “learns” from increasingly extremist sources, the viewer gets an idea of how easily one can fall into the trap of disinformation. In his most impressive performance to date, Cohen quarantines for

five days—in character— with two far-right zealots who indoctrinate Borat with QAnon conspiracies and alt-right dogma. The obvious fictions that Borat believes, such as women being inferior to men or Jewish people being evil, are paralleled by similarly toxic American views he is told: China weaponizing the coronavirus and Hillary Clinton drinking the blood of children to

stay young, just to name a few. The difference is that Borat is merely a character, and his lies are written in the script—the people he encounters who peddle such conspiracies are not playing to the camera. Cohen deftly manages to not expose something unseen in America—the rise of extremist, altright ideology in the US has been embarrassingly public—but to capture it

from the inside out. In this way, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” not only succeeds in following up the successor’s hysterical stunts, but also in providing a new lens through which to observe and critique the growing issues in the United States. I have to admit, it is surprising that this nuance is coming from the same character who coined the term “Wawaweewa!!”