The Amherst Student Magazine Issue 3

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 3 Photo Courtesy of Anna Smith ‘22

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2021

AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS

In This Issue 8 10 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 21 22 23

NEWS

In Response to Atlanta Spa Shootings, Asian Students Grieve, Mobilize and Call for Action Yee-Lynn Lee ‘23 A Story 200 Years In The Making: The College Celebrates its Bicentennial Sophie Wolmer ‘23 Board of Trustees Announces Divestment from Fossil Fuels by 2030 Sophie Wolmer ’23, Zach Jonas ’22 and Yee-Lynn Lee ’23

OPINION What’s Taking So Long?

The Editorial Board Black Perspective: Protect and Serve — The “Us” in Justice Sika Essegbey ‘23, and Ellis Phillips ‘23 and Sirus Wheaton ‘23 Seeing Double: Our Vaccine Regime is Killing People Cole Graber-Mitchell ‘22 Sunrise Amherst Responds to Divestment Announcement Sunrise Amherst College

ARTS & LIVING In 2021, The Grammys Remain Woefully Out of Touch with Newer Styles of Rap Noah John ‘21 Amid Covid Restrictions, Student Ensembles Find New Ways to Make Music Milo Leahy-Miller ‘24 Personal and Moving, “In & Of Itself” Is a New Kind of Magic Show Ross Kilpatrick ‘23

SPORTS NCAA Tournament Weight Room Disparities Highlight Persisting Gender Inequities Alex Noga ‘23 Softball and Baseball Face Wesleyan University In Season Opener Cedric Skerlecz ‘24 The Spring Journey for Amherst Track Mike Schretter ‘23

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THE AMHERST

STUDENT

Feature

E X E C U T I V E B OA R D Editors-in-Chief Ryan Yu Rebecca Picciotto Managing News Zach Jonas Sophie Wolmer Assistant News Yee-Lynn Lee Managing Opinion Scott Brasesco Skye Wu Managing Arts and Living Theo Hamilton Lauren Kisare Managing Sports Ethan Samuels Assistant Sports Liza Katz Liam Archaki Managing Design Anna Smith Digital Director Dylan Momplaisir S TA F F Publisher Emmy Sohn

Letters Policy

Photo courtesy of Palace of Monaco

5

Musings of a Monarch: an Interview with His Serene Highness Prince Albert II Sophie Wolmer ‘23

The opinion pages of The Amherst Student are intended as an open forum for the Amherst community.

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The offices of The Amherst Student are located in the basement of Morrow Dormitory, Amherst College. All contents copyright © 2020 by The Amherst Student, Inc. All rights reserved. The Amherst Student logo is a trademark of The Amherst Student, Inc. Additionally, The Amherst Student does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or age. The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of The Amherst Student.

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April 14, 2021 | The Amherst Student | 3

Feature

Musings of a Monarch: an Interview with His Serene Highness Prince Albert II Sophie Wolmer ’23 Managing News Editor His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco is the 32nd hereditary ruler of the principality of Monaco. His reign began in 2005 and continues to this day. Prince Albert II was the only son of Prince Rainier III, and his wife, Princess Grace Kelly. He was baptised on April 20, 1958 with Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain and Prince Louis de Polignac as godparents.

The prince graduated from Amherst College in 1981 with a degree in political science. At the college, he participated in numerous varsity and club sports, sang in the Amherst College Glee Club and held a job in the art library. Following graduation, Prince Albert served in the French Navy, attended the Olympics as part of his principality’s bobsledding team and held multiple positions in the International Olympic Committee. His Serene Highness also founded the “Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation” which focuses on environmental protection. The foundation has an ongoing partnership with the college.

Sophie Wolmer: Why did you decide to attend an American college, and Amherst in particular?

Prince Albert: There was a discussion at the time [that I was to choose a college] that I had, of course, with my parents. I had always had it in the back of my mind [in] my early teens.

And so it was pretty clear to me that I wanted to have that experience. I didn’t know where that would be. I went to see different colleges, but in the end, it seemed to me to make sense to go to a smaller school, one where you would be able to have some sort of interaction with your professors and I liked the idea of having classes that were a seminar-type of format. I thought that that made sense. And then, there was a more human side to it. At a big state university, I would just be a number in a huge classroom. Also quite frankly, there was a friend of my mother’s [Grace Kelly] that had told her about Amherst. I interviewed at different schools: Princeton and — I probably shouldn’t say the name — Williams, and even the Naval Academy. I didn’t quite think that [the Naval Academy] was the right channel. Although, after Amherst, I did spend eight months in the French Navy training program, and that was very interesting. It was a great experience!

Anyways, I had a great interview at Amherst. Dean [Ed] Wall of admissions, a great historical figure now, was the dean of admissions for quite some time. He was such a lovely person, quite a personable person. I just loved the campus and loved the general kind of atmosphere there. And then, before I knew it, I filled in some good [application] papers I guess and made a choice that I have never regretted! But [studying at Amherst] was an incredible experience, so enlightening and great. I knew the States — I had visited many, many times because I am half-American. My mother was American which gave me a different kind of opening and experience.

SW: What was your favorite course at Amherst?

PA: Wow, maybe human sexuality? No, no, no, [laughs] I don’t know. I can’t say I had one favorite one, but there were some wonderful political science classes that were really amazing.

Professor [Ronald] Tiersky, Professor [Hadley] Arkes — all of those people. And then I took some great literature courses, some in writing, and then a lot of art. I took some sciences too, but you know, that’s the beauty of liberal arts education. Not only does it make you work hard on different things, but [it] keeps your mind open all the time. You gather so much information, knowledge and different perspectives on the world, rather than being solely focused on one area. Of course, you have to focus at some point but, [the liberal arts] really forces you to have a genuine interest in different subjects and [acquire] different experiences. And it’s a word — experience — that I [have] already said a lot in this short interview so far. I mean, it’s true though. I can’t speak more highly than I am right now of the liberal arts education.

SW: How has your Amherst education shaped your reign and your royal duties?

PA: Well, you know, that’s the great thing. I’m sure you’ve heard this from several of your professors — and it’s probably true of any college or quality education — [but the liberal arts education] really teaches you to think on your feet [and] to be able to respond to different

4 | The Amherst Student | April 14, 2021

Photo courtesy of Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco in 1981. Click the image to view the entire 1981 Olio.

Feature different situations. If you have that background, you know where to look for information and what to do with it. The sort of thinking [encouraged by the Amherst education] keeps your mind open to different possibilities.

“ It’s paramount to be able to have the flexibility to work and

to listen. It’s very important. You learn to do that at liberal arts colleges: to be a good listener but [also] form your opinion pretty quickly. Amherst provided the tools to make the right choices.

— Prince Albert II

”

Carolyn’s and my first nanny — when we were kids.

It’s an incredible story of coincidence. So, then I started — this was the winter of 1985 — getting into bobsledding and started training for it. I went to different driving schools to learn how to drive the sled and to train for the event. Then, I started recruiting some other guys [for the Olympic Team]. It was really kind of incredible how it all happened! That original trip to the Olympics [in 1984] and trips to Canada planted a seed in my head.

SW: What is bobsledding actually like?

PA: It’s fascinating because [bobsledding is] a team sport: whether it’s a two man bobsled or one man bobsled. You know, you’ve got your teammate or teammates with you, but when you’re a driver, it comes down to you, your sled and getting down the track in the fastest line possible. But, it is also about taking the safest line, too, because you’re responsible for your teammates. It’s very interesting, psychologically, and takes a great deal of preparation. You have to combine your athletic ability to to push the sled out of the starting blocks and then you have to quiet down and be able to focus on your sled and the track. You have to try to beat the track and beat yourself.

[It has taught me that] there’s not just one truth in the world; there’s several different possibilities out there. Technology has shown that there’s a whole range of possibilities. As I said, my education has taught me to think on my feet and to think outside of the box. This is incredibly necessary in our day and age for any position of responsibility no matter what you do in life — but especially if you’re in a position of responsibility like I am.

It’s paramount to be able to have the flexibility to work and to listen. It’s very important.

You learn to do that at liberal arts colleges: to be a good listener but [also] form your opinion pretty quickly. Amherst provided the tools to make the right choices. Of course, you learn from your books and from different media, but [at Amherst], the different conversations that you have outside of the classroom are as important as those that happen in the classroom.

[In today’s world, Amherst students] are confronted with an incredible amount of information. There were no personal computers [during my time at Amherst], but for some courses we did have access to a big computer room in the basement of Converse. That has changed. Now, you have a lot of information at your fingertips, but never underestimate the value of interacting with your professors, fellow students and other people that come into your student life. So I think that that all has prepared me in a wonderful way. And then the other thing is that I had great life experiences in sports and extracurricular activities that kept me grounded and kept [me] interested in different things, different contexts and led me to appreciate different things.

SW: So you’re quite the athletic extraordinaire sir, but did you do any other clubs or activities outside of sports at Amherst?

PA: Yes, I was a member of the college Glee Club at the time. Now there are mixed choirs, but at the time, I was a part of the male choir and Glee Club. And that was fantastic! We did concerts and tours outside of Amherst with other orchestras. In the summer of 1979, [we toured] Europe and the Middle East under the leadership of Professor Bruce G. McInnes. It was fantastic!

SW: What sports and extracurricular activities did you participate in at Amherst?

PA: I did quite a bit of soccer and tennis, [as well as] squash and swimming. I tried to have a sport for every season, but it didn’t always work out well. I loved every aspect of it. I knew I wasn’t going to be good at basketball, football or baseball so I didn’t really try out for those. I threw the softball around a little bit, played a little ultimate frisbee and did different things in the spur of the moment. [I was very much the guy who was] joining friends to do informal pick up games, this or that.

And of course, I was able to go back to Amherst in recent years and so I saw that great new facilities are [now] available. Even back in my day, [the athletic facilities were] already fantastic for a small school like ours! Those facilities made it possible to play a whole range of different sports whether they were intercollegiate or just recreational. But I think it’s just a wonderful opportunity [for students at Amherst] to be engaged in sports.

And then I was interested in the arts too, and held a job in the field. I was an art library attendant for several months — it was great to know what it feels like to earn a paycheck. Not that I don’t get paid in Monaco, but I don’t really see my paycheck.

SW: How did your experience as an NCAA college athlete inform your Olympic experience?

PA: When you’re competitive in sports, it triggers you to want to try different things. It’s pretty much my personal curiosity that led me to try unusual sports and I played at different competitive levels. I have played 17 different sports in my life. A lot of those I happened upon quite by accident. I stumbled into bobsledding. I didn’t really think about it until the Olympics in 1980. It was during that time that I went up on a weekend to Lake Placid to watch some Olympic competition. Then, I saw a bobsled competition for the first time in my life.

So, Amherst was involved indirectly in my interest in bobsledding. It wasn’t until four years [after I graduated] that I went down during a sea vacation in St. Vincent, Switzerland, to do a guest ride at the track there at St. Lawrence. It was great! A lot of fun. It was like a roller coaster with ice around you. But, I didn’t think of training or doing it competitively, until the following year where I met a Swiss coach who turned out to be the husband of my sister

““And then I was interested in the arts too, and held a job in the field. I was an art library attendant for several months — it was great to know what it feels like to earn a paycheck. Not that I don’t get paid in Monaco, but I don’t really see my paycheck.”

— Prince Albert II

” SW: In your day-to-day life, do you still look back on your time at Amherst?

PA: Not daily, but very often. And I’m reminded through Amherst-related objects I have around the home but also, through friends that I’m still in touch with. Also, [I have a relationship with] your president [Biddy Martin] and different officials from the college. I’m very happy to help when I can.

But of course, I do remember those great times. College is a very special time in one’s life and I [remember the memories fondly], even though those memories are unfortunately now 40 years old, or very close to that. By the way, in May, I will be participating in an online session with some of my classmates [for] a virtual reunion.

SW: What led you to establish the Prince Albert II Foundation (PA2F) Green Revolving Fund?

PA: Well, you know, it was very simply a discussion with your president [Martin]. Since my foundation — the one I created here — was also involved in similar types of funds with various organizations (like coral reefs for marine protected areas) it made sense to help an educational institution. I wanted to give Amherst priority if they wanted to establish such a fund. I think it was a very appropriate vehicle to not only raise awareness, but also to get people involved and interested in environmental issues.

And because of the college’s newest policies and policy of recent years to find more sustainable solutions in terms of energy conservation and waste management, [both parties] thought that it was a great way to maintain a connection and [create] a general strategy in the best way possible.

April 14, 2021 | The Amherst Student | 5

Feature Then, we have moved to put different standards of construction in place to make new buildings. Not only [will these buildings] meet the international standard in terms of eco-friendliness and [the use of] environmentally friendly materials, but [Monaco’s infrastructure] will also become energy-neutral first and then energy-positive. That took a little time to put into place, and there was some resistance at first (because it was more expensive and because [it represents] a movement away from what was common practice).

In our efforts to help internationally — this was before I set up my foundation — we were able to participate in bilateral projects with different countries around the Mediterranean Basin. We then created small environmental projects in neighboring regions. This has had a social impact on local populations [including] some in Lebanon, some in Morocco, Madagascar and other African countries. It has become apparent that it’s time I do something — not just with the Monaco government, but for something more personal, such as a foundation, that could be the right vehicle to address urgent needs for environmental problems.

SW: How do you anticipate that these substantial efforts will have a significant impact on the carbon footprint?

PA: I’m sure you’ve seen that every country has their own goals for the Paris Agreement. [Monaco] has slightly increased their targets. The goal is an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. By 2050, we are aiming for carbon neutrality. We’re on the right track now, but still need to increase our effort somewhat. We’ve already reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by some 28 percent. Additionally, we have new possibilities [for environmentally friendly construction] in the renovation of some old buildings.

Photo courtesy of Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

In a March 5, 1987, issue of The Student, Kristen Flynn ‘90 reports on Prince Albert’ II’s time at Amherst.

SW: How do you view Monaco’s role in environmental issues?

PA: Well, I think, Sophie, quite frankly, we’ve been able to set up different policies nationally and then internationally. I thought, many years ago, that Monaco could — given [Monaco’s smaller] size and consequently that it is easier to do things here — implement new policies and lead by example. [We could] show what’s possible on a smaller scale, which would lead to replication on a larger scale.

What we first concentrated on was clean mobility. For 20 years, back in my father’s time, we had alternative energy and electric vehicles. We also had an alternative energy vehicle show every year in April. That led to [the implementation] of various schemes and incentives.

Not only did the government turn their fleet of vehicles into electric or hybrid vehicles, but it also gave incentives to individuals to purchase electric or hybrid vehicles. That led to a whole strategy of moving toward clean mobility in different areas. It also marked a shift away from public transportation to biofuels.

A few days ago, [Monaco] presented a truck in Prague for construction purposes that is fully electric. [Monaco has] had electric buses now for almost a year now. We were [also] able to put more of an emphasis on trains. We bought four new trains to put emphasis on public transportation in and out of Monaco. [Our aim is] to increase the frequency and numbers of railways and services in and out of Monaco. Also, we have a free electric bike service. All the bike rentals are electric. There is also a free car service: a fleet of small French cars, the Renault Twizys. We have developed a whole range of possibilities to increase our efforts, including mobility.

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SW: Monaco’s Covid-19 policy has been remarkably successful at controlling the spread of Covid-19. How did you decide what measures would be best for your principality?

PA: Of course, we do have a scientific and medical board that consults with the government. I usually follow their recommendations. We look closely at our incidence rate. When considering contaminations, the standard is per 100,000. We have to adapt the number to us because [a standard of] 100,000 people goes way beyond our borders. [Instead], we cater to the Monaco population that is just over 30,000.

But, you have to take into account our neighboring towns. Those towns benefit from our medical facilities and fall under the medical umbrella if you’d like. Thus, we consider more than 55,000 people potentially. From the beginning of the crisis, we have had a lower incidence rate than neighboring France.

When we decided to keep the restaurants open, especially in the evenings, that caused a little bit of uproar with our neighbors. Their restaurant owners said, “Hey, that’s not fair!” So, we tightened down and now restaurants are only open at lunchtime for Monaco residents. [Restaurants] can’t accept reservations for people who cannot prove that they have a legitimate reason to be in Monaco.

We haven’t opened everything up. It’s really just been a balance between what medical experts have told us, and then just being pragmatic and knowing our territory. [Our government] knows the habits of [our] people and how they behave. We send out the right messages of social distancing, wearing masks and hand sanitizing.

And I must say that people follow those recommendations and guidelines very well.

I was very impressed by the way that [the Monaco population] adhered to those principles.

It’s never easy to be confronted with a totally new situation. Some might argue that it’s easier for a smaller country with a smaller population to be able to control [Covid-19]. But, we have open borders and we feared that there would be a big influx of people coming in and out both from both sides — from Italy and France. Our workforce comes in every day from both sides.

We were also able to do extensive testing. And even though our vaccination rollout has not been the best ever, it has been pretty consistent and regular. As of now, 30 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. That puts us in a pretty good position in terms of the well-being of the population.

SW: Well, that’s all the questions that I have! Thank you for taking the time to meet with me, Sir. PA: You’re welcome! Wishing you all the best in your remaining years at Amherst.

This article first appeared on April 7, 2021

Feature

Photo courtesy of Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

A photo of Prince Albert II and his mother Grace Kelly at Commencement Ceremony on May 30, 1981.

April 14, 2021 | The Amherst Student | 7

News

In Response to Atlanta Spa Shootings, Asian Students Grieve, Mobilize and Call for Action

Photo courtesy of Jess Li ‘24

Photo of students protesting against Asian hate on Porter lawn in a Stop Asian Hate rally organized by the Asian Pacific American Action Committee (APAAC) and Asian Students Association (ASA) on Saturday, March 27.

Yee-Lynn Lee ’23 Assistant News Editor The killing of eight people, six of whom were Asian women, on March 16 in a series of three mass shootings in Atlanta, Georgia devastated the college’s Asian and Asian American community. In an email sent the following day, President Biddy Martin condemned the attacks, offering resources and support to community members. But with the letter coming almost a year after anti-Asian racism during the pandemic first made it to the forefront of campus consciousness, many students found the administrative response to be deeply inadequate.

Fueled by misinformation surrounding culpability for the coronavirus pandemic, anti-Asian hate crimes have spiked 150 percent since the pandemic began. Stop AAPI Hate, a national reporting forum, received nearly 3,800 accounts of discrimination from last March to this February. It found that women reported 2.3 times more incidents than men. The shootings in Atlanta mark the deadliest of such attacks against Asian women during the pandemic.

When the shootings first came to light, students struggled to process their emotions, which ranged from shock to grief to anger, particularly with the way in which mainstream media outlets covered the events.

“Wednesday morning was so rough, because not only were we forced to process the insane amount of violence that happened, but the way that we were being fed this story felt extremely violent to me as well,” said Seoyeon Kim ’21. “Everywhere I looked, every article in the mainstream news was centering [the shooter’s] face, his name and later that day, his ideology.”

Denial by news sources that the shootings were racially motivated only added to students’ distress. “I think when I initially found out [about the shootings], there was a bit of numbness and just confusion about how to react,” said Mica Nimkarn ’24, vice-chair of the Asian Students Association (ASA). “The way that the media

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framed it, it was as if it wasn’t a racially-based crime, and it wasn’t about Asian Americans, and I think that was something that a lot of us had to figure out on our own.”

“I couldn’t believe that it was even a debate whether this was a race issue or a sex issue,” Kim added. “People weren’t even considering that it could be both racial and sexual violence, and that stunned me, just the amount of ignorance that was happening.”

In response to the events, the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) released a “Statement of Solidarity and Community Call to Action,” that acknowledged the recent rise in anti-Asian prejudice, as well as the long history of xenophobia in America. “The Association of Amherst Students is clear: neither hate nor privilege kills people, people with the power to kill people,” the statement read. “We remain resolute in our commitment to working to dismantle oppressive systems and remind all members of this College community of our commitment to ‘enlighten the lands.’” The statement also called for the “creation of an individual department and major for Asian and Pacific American Studies.”

Martin’s email to the college community condemned the attacks, committed the college to the fight against anti-Asian racism and offered resources for students to seek support and report incidents of bias. “Our fight against anti-Asian racism is part of our college’s overall anti-racism plans and our efforts to oppose white supremacy,” she wrote. “I ask that each one of you find ways to support our Asian and Asian American students, faculty and staff and to show that support by intervening, should you witness any forms of racist harassment.”

For many Asian students, the process of healing first began in spaces organized

by Asian affinity groups on campus. In addition to club meetings within groups like ASA and the Chinese Students Association (CSA), ASA held two vigils on March 20 for the campus community at large, with the first taking place in-person at the War Memorial on campus and the second occurring later in the evening over

News Zoom.

Led by Sunghoon Kwak ’22, senior chair of ASA, and Nimkarn, the in-person gathering offered an intimate space for students to speak about their feelings and reactions to the violence. Martin, Chief Student Affairs Officer Karu Kozuma and Director of the Counseling Center Jackie Alvarez were also present to provide support. The virtual gathering allowed for further discussion and featured 10 student and faculty speakers, including Jiajia Zhang ’22 and Professor of American Studies Pawan Dhingra, who read excerpts of poetry, essays and literature and reflected on the campus response to the shootings.

Hannah Zhang ’22, secretary of CSA, found the Zoom vigil to be candid and emotional. “I hadn’t felt very connected to the community before that, but in that moment, it was just very overwhelming, and everything kind of clicked,” she said.

“I really am grateful in times like these for affinity groups, especially the student leaders of those affinity groups,” added Jess Li ’24, who does outreach for CSA. “They’re going through a lot right now too, and yet they’re still taking the time and the effort, planning events for us and making sure that everyone else is okay.”

“The Asian community at Amherst has been really proactive and relentlessly supportive, and I think that’s the biggest thing that has gotten a lot of people through this,” she said.

Although student leaders felt that it was necessary to organize healing spaces and appreciated the help and support offered by certain administrators like Kozuma, many wished there had been more proactive discussion on the part of the campus community as a whole. “Because so much of the administration is not Asian-identifying, we thought that it would probably be best if Asian students took the lead on this one,” said Kwak.

“It is a little bit disappointing, though, that outside of Karu and some of the other administrators, there seems to be [more] muted discussion than I had hoped within the administration. Beyond Biddy’s letter, there wasn’t really much to address the community about the happenings,” he continued.

Silvia Huang ’22, president of CSA, added, “From what I can tell, the administrat[ors] that have been active in a lot of this, or actively reaching out to student leaders for the Asian affinity groups, are Asian themselves. I would like to see the other affinity groups, administrators and departments also get involved and offer support or resources.”

Some students also expressed disappointment that faculty members did not take the time to acknowledge the shootings in their immediate aftermath. On the day that the news came out, “professors didn’t really address anything and just jumped into their classes, as if everything was normal,” said Nimkarn. “In one of my classes, we went around saying how we felt that day on a scale from 1 to 10, and everyone said, ‘8.5, 9, the weather’s really nice today’ or something, [while] I was like, ‘1, I’m really struggling.’”

She continued, “A lot of the professors didn’t give us as much space as I wanted to have that day, [and the same was true] for a lot of my other Asian classmates as well.”

“I think that [this lack of acknowledgment] contributed to a sort of internalized racial gaslighting that a lot of Asian American students have in our country and at our school,” added Kim. “It’s really hard for us to take our feelings in as valid, when they are not being acknowledged, when our tragedies aren’t being acknowledged in a public space.”

For both Nimkarn and Kim, such disappointment highlighted the need for expanded course offerings on Asian American experiences at the college. “The classes that did give me space were the ones that were about Asian identity, and I think that that just goes to show the merit of having classes like that at Amherst,” said Nimkarn.

Indeed, the continuing failure on the part of the college to provide an Asian American studies major made it difficult for students to feel supported by what public acknowledgment the college did offer. “Biddy’s letter was helpful, but we couldn’t help but feel like it was a little ironic to say that Amherst College unequivocally supports its Asian students during this time and during this violence,” said Kim. Kim clarified that “it felt a little ironic, because student activists have been advocating for an Asian and Pacific American studies major at our school since 1972.

This hasn’t been a recent thing — it’s a decades-long thing that’s been going on.”

Students took particular issue with Martin’s use of newly hired Christine Noelle Peralta, an assistant professor who starts in the fall of 2021 and will teach in Asian American studies, to affirm the college’s “commitment to educating students on the experiences of Asian Americans.”

“People were upset that [Professor Peralta] had to be introduced in the context [of such violence] and in a way that didn’t really highlight her or celebrate the work that she does — just as an appeasement offer, a hyperlink in a very long list of very long bullet points,” said Li. “I think a lot of people are still unsure as to what’s holding [the college] back from properly establishing an Asian American studies department.”

Reflecting on the comparison between the college’s response to anti-Asian racism last spring and now, Kwak said, “Honestly, it feels like the support then and [the support] now is pretty identical, in that there seems to be this, ‘Oh, anti-Asian racism sucks,’ but no tangible action being taken. I haven’t noticed a difference within the campus community.”

Several students saw that kind of tangible action as starting with changes in day-to-day interactions. “I think there is sort of an accepted culture within the U.S. of making small remarks or little microaggressions towards Asians and it being brushed off in a way that other sort of microaggressions aren’t,” Kwak said. “It feels wrong to overreact on such small things, but the buildup of [things like] that could lead to greater violence.”

Indeed, even serious aggressions against Asian students are not often discussed or seen as problematic. “The fetishization and sexualization of Asian women is something that is very apparent on Amherst’s campus and the dating and hookup culture here, and so I would like to see that addressed and talked about,” said Nimkarn. “We talk about sexual assault and we talk about consent, but we don’t always talk about the way in which race and sex coincide.”

“Hyper-sexualization of Asian women is often thought of as a joke, as something we should be grateful for,” elaborated Kim. “I hope people recognize that it is actually extremely debilitating to go through — the exhaustion of having to negotiate your presence and your worth as an Asian woman every single day — and realize that it’s a threat to our livelihood.” “[It’s] the casual dialogue surrounding what it means to be Asian [that hurts] — I just want us to be taken seriously, us and our issues,” she said.

Opening up about their experiences feeling unheard by the college, students also hoped the administration would be more receptive to and proactive in enacting change moving forward. “It’s difficult knowing that we are expected to be activists when our communities are hurting and grieving, that we are expected to be vocal about things that happen to us,” Li said. “It sucks that we are either going to get pushback or we’re going to get pushed aside or this might just be another incident of Asian activism that will be forgotten, just because that’s not what people want from us, and that’s not what people see in us.”

“I think it’s been exhausting for a lot of student activists to have to go through the same process over and over again,” added Kim. “We’re really hoping that we’re actually being heard this time.”

Within the Asian American community itself, student leaders are urging their peers to not give up even in the face of tremendous grief and setbacks. “As much as it sucks that it takes six women dying to start a conversation, this is the moment where we should be trying our hardest to make change,” said Nimkarn.

“There’s a lot of good things in this community that have been happening this week surrounding what happened in Atlanta, and there’s a lot of things that need to be worked on,” added Li. “To just keep that momentum going and keep being there for each other, supporting each other — that’s the best we can do at Amherst.”

In an email extending support to members of CSA, Zhang wrote, “My parents and grandparents, who thought it necessary to stay complacent and silent to survive in this foreign, and often cruel, country, did so so that one day, a generation of their sons and daughters wouldn’t have to — that we could actually speak and not be afraid or chastised, and instead, be heard and validated in our experiences.”

“I really, really hope we can be that generation,” she concluded.

This article first appeared on March 24, 2021

April 14, 2021 | The Amherst Student | 9

News

A Story 200 Years In The Making: The College Celebrates its Bicentennial Sophie Wolmer ’23 Managing News Editor

On Feb. 24, President Biddy Martin officially launched the Amherst College Bicentennial. She emphasized the twofold commitment of the bicentennial in a prerecorded video: celebration of the past and an ongoing commitment to the central tenets of the liberal arts education. Originally slated to kick off in-person last fall, most of the Bicentennial celebrations were adjusted for a later start because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

More recently, the college celebrated its 200th anniversary with a “Masked Mammoth Meet-up” on March 19. This celebratory occasion, which hosted food from local vendors and live music, is one of numerous events scheduled to celebrate the bicentennial year. Planning for the bicentennial began two years ago. The celebration has more than ten projects which include live events, college property renovations, contributions to the arts and reflections on the Amherst Uprising and Indigenous History in Western Massachusetts.

“This college has earned distinction for the quality of its faculty for the intense engagement of faculty with students, for the dedication and talent of its staff, and very importantly for the loyalty and the generosity of its alumni. 200 years later the core mission remains the discovery and sharing of knowledge, the gaining of understanding and wisdom, and seeking of truth,” Martin said.

Members of the Bicentennial Advisory Committee (BAC), a representative group of 12 students, faculty, staff, alumni and trustees, were chosen at the onset of the project to serve as ambassadors for and liaisons to the Bicentennial. They are charged with evaluating proposals from the college community for Bicentennial events, activities and projects and providing feedback on how each proposal will enhance the celebration.

The Bicentennial and Amherst’s Past For the first prong of the Bicentennial’s stated goals, the college thoroughly examined its past and published a website exhibiting their findings. Tracing its origins back to the South College cornerstone in 1820, online archives created by Frost Library provide insight into the college’s history.

This process began several years ago, when Provost and Dean of the Faculty Catherine Epstein sponsored an extensive Bicentennial digitization project within Frost Library’s Archives and Special Collections. Led by Mike Kelly, head of Archives and Special Collections, the team digitized thousands of yearbooks, student publications, photographs, scrapbooks and more from 1960 to 2005, all of which are available on its website.

The archive team found that, over the decades, students have consistently risen up to challenges of their times: For instance weathering the hurricane of 1938 and voting in favor of coeducation in 1974. The investigation revealed ongoing short-comings in college policy and framed the goals for the next century.

The college also commissioned three Bicentennial books around that period: “Eye, Mind, and Heart: A View of Amherst College at 200” by Nancy Pick ’84; “Amherst College: The Campus Guide” by Blair Kamin ’79; and “Amherst in the World,” edited by Professor Emerita Martha Saxton.

Bicentennial Manager Rebecca Kennedy stated, “Planning for the actual celebration of the college’s 200th birthday commenced more than two years ago with the formation of a Bicentennial Advisory Committee and with dozens of planning meetings across the college with all of our constituent groups. The Bicentennial website was unveiled last fall to offer one location where all Bicentennial projects and activities can be found, as well as a rich look at the college’s past, present and future.”

The first part of the undertaking highlights historical photos of Amherst students alongside current students. According to the college, the academic, athletic, campus, student and tradition folders demonstrate that in spite of significant world changes

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in the past two centuries, the college has remained steadfast in its dedication to liberal arts values. Viewers can drag a cursor situated between a historical and contemporary photo to reveal parallel moments in the college’s past and present.

Bicentennial Projects The process of reflecting on a story that is almost two hundred years in the making framed the diverse projects of the Bicentennial. All events were proposed by members of the college community.

The first initiative is the The Solidarity Book Project (SBP). Launched by Professor of Art Sonya Clark ’89, this collaborative, community-based work of art and activism invites members of the college community and the general public to stand in solidarity with Black and Indigenous communities.

Another project will be a physical manifestation of the college’s story. Kelly was in charge of creating an exhibition on the first floor of Frost Library that is intended to reach a wide range of audiences. His goal was to create a display case featuring the range of archival materials.

In reference to the Archives & Special Collections, Kelly said “I intend to use this space to share some of the things I have found deep in the bowels of Frost Library.

Everything you see on these pages [of the website] is available for use in the Archives & Special Collections.”

In an effort to recognize Indigenous history at Amherst, a part of the Bicentennial Celebration will be a land acknowledgment plaque dedicated to Indigenous people from the area. The project will also include a panel with alumni, students, and faculty who identify with the Native American community. Led by Sarah Montoya ’21, the Native and Indigenous Students Association (NISA) initiated the design and installation of a formal land acknowledgment plaque and the virtual event.

The lobby of the Amherst College Alumni Gym will also be refreshed to “brighten the space,” the website states. Particularly, the trophy cases on either side of the athletic center’s lobby will be redone to tell the college’s athletic story. This will give the college an opportunity to feature the milestones of one of the oldest athletics programs in the nation — one that began in 1860 with a compulsory physical fitness regimen for Amherst students.

The final construction project will renew the college’s sanctuary trail system and bird sanctuary. The goal of project sponsor Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies Katherine Sims and co-leader Kenny Lauzier is to create a welcoming and well-marked trail system that will be accessible to all members of the Amherst community, town included. She aims to improve signage and wayfinding, physically spruce up some trail sections and integrate Sanctuary spaces into programming. Sims consulted frequenters of the trail system, such as members of the varsity cross-country teams for input on the initiative.

“The best part of doing this project has been meeting and working with all the other people on campus who love these paths, woods and meadows. It has been inspiring and humbling to learn more about the incredible day to day work to maintain this landscape that is led by Kenny Lauzier, Mark Uchneat and others,” said Sims.

Three Emily Dickinson-themed projects will be offered as part of the Bicentennial. The Emily Dickinson Museum will host a themed museum tour that interprets the daily’s multi-generational involvement with the college and the influences of the college on the life of Emily Dickinson, a treasured American poet. The Emily Dickinson Museum also hosted the ninth consecutive Slant Poetry Festival on Sept.

14 as an ode to the “Writing College,” a reference to the centrality of writing to the college’s academics. The 2021 festival featured the works of various alumni, headlining poets as readers and masterclass facilitators. The final event is the composition of a new chamber opera titled “Emily Dickinson: The Homestead.” It will take place in various rooms of the Emily Dickenson Museum and will highlight Dickinson’s poetry.

Other arts events include the Women in Music at Amherst College initiative. Cel-

News ebrating the coinciding centenary of the passage of the 19th amendment and the Bicentennial, the Amherst College Choral Society, Amherst College Symphony Orchestra and Amherst College Jazz Ensemble will join forces to premiere a piece by composer Reena Esmail. The 30-minute work will consist of settings of poems by contemporary female poets.

The bicentennial has also committed to improving online educational resources about the Amherst Uprising. The five-year anniversary of the Uprising coincides with the bicentennial year.

Additionally, the college aims to empower underrepresented groups through music. Professor of Music Amy Coddington, a sponsor of the project, pointed out that “the Bicentennial project has not been completed — we are doing an advance preview of the work next fall, and then will premiere the piece in fall 2022.”

She also mentioned that “The most rewarding part of this project has been working with the composer and librettist to create a musical work that recognizes the political power of marginalized voices.”

Furthermore, the college supported LitFest 2021 as part of the Bicentennial. This virtual event included an alumni career panel of unconventional writers, and three virtual events that detailed and explored the fifth anniversary of the Amherst Uprising. Jennifer Acker, the director of LitFest, as well as the founder and editor-in-chief of The Common — the college’s literary magazine, — explained that in 2021, LitFest aimed to draw attention to writing careers that don’t necessarily lead to writing books, but in which a writing practice is integral. This led the team to the idea of inviting several performing artists for the annual panel.

Acker hopes that “via the Bicentennial books Amherst is producing, and the Solidarity Book Project, and LitFest, and The Common and other book- and literature-centric events and activities, [the bicentennial planning team] can continue to broadcast the importance of writing at Amherst, which has led to its moniker as ‘the Writing College’ Already Amherst has graduated so many important writers, editors and literary scholars, and I hope current and future students are inspired to continue in this tradition and make it their own.”

An In-Person Celebration The latest edition of the Bicentennial celebration was the “Masked Mammoth Meet-Up” that took place on the afternoon of March 19. The event was held on the college-wide day of no classes. Students were encouraged to enjoy the outdoor hangout with vendors and Amherst-themed decorations.

In an Instagram post advocating for the “Masked Mammoth Meet-Up” Martin said, “I hope wherever you are you will take the day off. You will get outdoors or do something very different from your normal routine. All of us need to take care of our overall well being by taking a break.”

Bobby Innes-Gold ’22 attended the event. “ It was nice to see lots of people out and about in one place, and especially great to see Biddy. I also liked the sandwiches and cookies. Also the music was very interest-

Photo courtesy of Amherst College Website

Students attend the “Masked Mammoth Meet-Up” on Friday, March 19. ing,” he recalled.

When asked what she enjoyed about the event, Aditi Nayak ’23 said, “My favorite part was how alive campus felt even during the pandemic. Sometimes with remote learning, it’s hard to spontaneously run into people: I can’t help but wonder are there actually other people on campus. But seeing the entire student body come together and relax last Friday was so energizing!”

In an official statement, Martin said, “Once again, our wonderful events team, with help from other staff, designed a great event. I don’t know whether everyone had as good a time as I did, but I think the cookies and pulled pork, the cider and the Bicentennial hats were big hits.”

Major Initiatives Planned for the Next Century As the college enters its third century, it has made a promise to continue promoting the values of the liberal arts. The campaign for Amherst’s Third Century is a promise to promote “critical thinking, freedom of inquiry and expression, reasoned argument, opportunity, equity and friendship” according to the Bicentennial webpage.

In an interview with The Student, Kennedy noted that the Bicentennial does not have an overarching theme, but aims to celebrate the college’s influential contributions to higher education and consider how the college will continue to evolve.

Kennedy remarked, “Amherst College’s Bicentennial will celebrate the contributions the college has made to our students’ lives, to higher education and to the world. It will allow us to reflect upon the institution’s extraordinary enduring qualities, the critically important ways we have changed and new directions we may pursue over the next 100 years. We will also explore the difficult times in the institution’s past.”

Among the college’s planned initiatives for the next century include a new student center in the place of the Merrill and McGuire buildings. The space will replace the Keefe Campus Center.

The college has also made a commitment to joining

the fight to mitigate the devastating impacts of climate change with its Climate Action Plan. The goal is to modernize its energy usage and shift from fossil fuel usage to renewable electricity. The college also aims to go beyond carbon neutrality and inspire students and alumni to address climate change on a global scale.

Still, the college has faced criticism for recent inaction around this goal, especially given the lack of staffing in the Office of Environmental Sustainability after former Director of Sustainability Laura Draucker’s departure last year.

Advancing the Bicentennial also includes an ongoing recognition and addressment of racism. The Bicentennial will continue to pursue the aims set forth in the college’s anti-racism plan, which was published on Aug. 3, 2020. Although students were generally glad to see the prospect of concrete changes on the part of the college, many still noted the long road ahead of them to truly achieve a sense of racial justice.

Bringing the Community Together While the Bicentennial celebration is kicking off quite differently than organizers imagined due to Covid-19, they are confident that the planned events will enable members of the Amherst community to engage with the Bicentennial.

The events and goals of the Bicentennial demonstrate the college’s concerted efforts to significantly increase accessibility to students from a wide range of backgrounds. In the college’s eyes, though the student body, faculty and curriculum may have changed over the past 200 years, the Bicentennial celebrates the common thread that connects communal members: deep intellectual curiosity, commitment to truth and a community that extends across generations.

“We hope to accomplish the goals we set out two years ago. Given that we’ve had to be apart for more than a year now, we also hope the Bicentennial can bring us together — virtually for now, but, with luck, in-person next fall,” Kennedy stated.

This article first appeared on March 24, 2021

April 14, 2021 | The Amherst Student | 11

News

Board of Trustees Announces Divestment from Fossil Fuels by 2030 Sophie Wolmer ’23, Zach Jonas ’22 and Yee-Lynn Lee ’23 Managing News Editor, Managing News Editor and Assistant News Editor The college will not make any new investments in fossil fuel investment funds moving forward, Board of Trustees Chair Andrew J. Nussbaum ’85 announced in a letter to the community on March 31. The college will also phase out its remaining investments in fossil fuel funds by 2030 and take a more proactive approach to relationships with investment managers. While recognizing that the announcement is a step in the right direction, students and faculty demanded more immediate action to address the urgent problem of climate change.

The college’s divestment announcement represents a formalization of the college’s decreased investment in fossil fuels in recent years. The proportion of the endowment tied to direct and indirect investment in fossil fuels has rapidly declined — from six to three percent — since the Board released the Sustainability and Investment Policy in February 2015. However, the Board’s Sustainability and Investment Policy did not make mention of nor commit to divesting from gas and oil and did not address ongoing student requests to divest from the prison-industrial complex.

Amherst is not the only institution to take action. Rather, it follows in the footsteps of many colleges and universities across the globe. Beginning in early March, schools such as Columbia University, Cornell, Brown and Oxford have committed to divesting in fossil fuels.

The decision also aligns with the college’s ongoing commitment to sustainability and coincides with the release of the Climate Action Plan of 2019. This plan accelerated the timeline to achieving carbon neutrality by five years and pledged $80 million to a complete conversion to geothermal energy.

Following the announcement, Amherst College Sunrise, a student organization that operates as part of a national movement to stop climate change, issued a response to the announcement. Though the student organization applauded the decision of the college to divest in fossil fuel funds, it made immediate and long-term demands to President Biddy Martin and the Board of Trustees in its response. The recent letter continues the ongoing requests made by Sunrise Amherst last November. Specifically, it called on leaders of the college to address and divest in the prison-industrial complex.

The organization also established definitions of the fossil fuel industry — energy companies whose primary business relates to the extraction or transport of fossil fuels — and participants in the prison-industrial complex, which it explained consists of entities that provide financial support to private prison companies, rely on unpaid or low-paid prison labor in its supply chains, have a monopoly on the provision of prison necessities or hold contracts with prisons to supply weaponry or surveillance technology.

Amongst the immediate demands was a commitment to end all new investments in prisons or companies that depend on prisons for profit, as well as divestment from the college’s holdings in a prison telecom company that Martin admitted in her November letter derives profit from the prison-industrial complex. Sunrise Amherst also requested quarterly meetings with the president and the Board of Trustees, quarterly reports on the college’s progress and information about the members of the “secretive” Investment Committee.

As for longer-term demands, Sunrise Amherst called the college to make a public commitment to divestment in the prison industrial complex by 2021, a divestment from fossil fuels by 2025, an ongoing awareness of future student concerns and the creation of six student positions on the Board of Trustees.

In an interview with The Student, Margot Lurie ’21, a leader of Sunrise Amherst, said, “It’s a really big deal that we got this commitment from the Board of Trustees — they’ve never come out publicly [saying], ‘we’re actually serious about phasing out our investments.’ But on the other hand, this doesn’t actually commit the school to anything that they hadn’t already decided to do. And even those decisions were made behind closed doors.”

12 | The Amherst Student | April 14, 2021

“So students and community members didn’t know about these decisions,” Lurie continued. “These were effectively policy choices that were made many years ago. It’s great to have [the] public commitment of the college, because now we can hold them accountable. But it also doesn’t really feel like the school has moved forward.”

Prior to the official update’s release, Sunrise Amherst was notified that the college was planning to make an announcement. Claire Taylor ’23, also a leader of Sunrise Amherst, mentioned, “We were given a little bit of a heads up that they were going to make an announcement, but not what the announcement was going to be [about].

We were fairly cynical and thought [it would be] an announcement that the [college] would not invest in fossil fuels in the future, and not a public commitment to phasing out the current investments. So that was surprisingly good, but at the same time, it definitely fell short of what we had asked for, and some things, some conversations we even had with the board members.”

The roadblock to divesting in the prison-industrial complex, Nussbaum said, is related to the activity of investment managers. He explained, “We allocate money to managers, who in turn make decisions about where it’s sensible for the college to be invested as part of a larger investment pool of funds from many other institutions — not just academic ones, but others like retirement plans, for instance.”

He went on to express that “it’s very difficult, if not impossible, in most cases, to say to managers, ‘we would like to give you money, but you now need to make sure that you don’t do the following 10 things.’”

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Ashwin Ravikumar, whose research focuses on the management of natural resources, recognized the importance of the decision but believed the process is being unnecessarily drawn out. “This announcement doesn’t amount to any big changes or bold steps that demonstrate any newfound commitment to divesting from fossil fuels,” he said. “And the timeline of 2030, to me, seems really, really long, given the urgency of the problem and given Amherst College’s institutional clout and the size of its endowment.”

He added that the Sunrise Movement’s demand to divest from the prison-industrial complex goes hand-in-hand with this decision. “The other thing that jumps out to me from this statement is that it’s silent on the prison-industrial complex and the campaign, Sunrise Amherst, that students have been pushing for has made a really strong point of showing how these issues are connected, of emphasizing that climate justice is fundamentally about racial justice, and that divesting from the prison-industrial complex is incumbent on Amherst College, to the extent that it views itself as an anti-racist institution,” he said.

With more work to be done, leaders of Sunrise Amherst encouraged students to keep working together to push the college to align its actions with its stated values. “If you see injustice in our campus, don’t be afraid to speak up,” said Jeanyna Garcia ’23, a leader of Sunrise Amherst. “That’s something that I’ve been learning throughout [the] years — that I can actually speak up, and chances are that I’m going to find other people who also [see] those same issues that I do.

Correction, April 8, 2021: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Amherst College Sunrise is composed of Amherst College and Amherst Regional High School students. The group consists only of Amherst College students.

Correction, April 8, 2021: A previous version of this story misstated one of the immediate demands Sunrise Amherst made in response to the divestment announcement. The group did not call for divestment from all prison telecom companies, only for divestment from the college’s holdings in one prison telecom company that President Martin had previously conceded depends on the prison-industrial complex for profit.

Correction, April 8, 2021: A previous version of this story referred to Claire Taylor ’23 and Jeanyna Garcia ’23 as “member” and “co-founder” of Sunrise Amherst, respectively.

Their preferred designation within the organization is “leader.”

This article first appeared on April 7, 2021

Opinion

What’s Taking So Long?

Last Wednesday, the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) issued a statement of solidarity with Asian Americans in the Amherst College community following the Atlanta spa shootings on March 16. This statement ended with a call for an independent major and department of Asian and Pacific American Studies at the college, recognizing the role of higher education in pushing back against harmful stereotypes at a societal level.

Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the first calls for an Asian American Studies department at the college.

As we come upon bicentennial, it’s worth questioning what has held back efforts to pursue Asian American Studies for nearly a quarter of the college’s history. This is an especially poignant concern as we reflect over the increasingly open racism against Asian Americans in the U.S. during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Though the push for the new department began in 1972, the college only hired its first Asian American Studies professor in 1994 (who only stayed for three years) and declined to join the Five College Asian/Pacific/American Studies Certificate Program (A/P/A) until 2005, five years after it had been established.

It hired its first tenure-track Asian American Studies faculty in 2008, slowly employing and retaining a total of three tenure-track Asian American Studies faculty — Professors Bolton, Dhingra, and Hayashi — by 2018, each of whom now participate in the A/P/A program along with Visiting Professor Odo. In President Biddy Martin’s letter addressing anti-Asian racism following the March 16 shooting, she specifically highlights the role of education in combating systemic racism.

She also claims that the college is committing to educating students on the Asian American experience through enhanced curricular offerings. Specifically, an assistant professor, Christine Noelle Peralta, who specializes in Asian American Studies will be joining the faculty in fall 2021.

We acknowledge that hiring more faculty in an area of study is one of the first steps toward establishing a major.

However, after almost 50 years of calling for a department, such limited efforts are inadequate.

After all this talk, we’re left with the question: Why don’t we have an Asian and Pacific American Studies department or major yet?

On this question, the recent effort to create an Education Studies major at the college offers a revealing parallel.

Education Studies was successfully instituted as a major in that it was successfully undertaken in about a tenth of the

time that advocacy has surrounded the potential Asian and Pacific American Studies program.

The proposal for the Education Studies major projected itself far back in time, to 1950. Proponents claimed that Amherst students have always been interested in working in education after undergrad, so the college should provide a course of study preparing them for that work.

Obviously, in the case of an Asian and Pacific American Studies major, for many students, the major would serve less to prepare them directly for future work, but more to prepare them for life itself as an Asian or Pacific American or someone who interacts with Asian and Pacific American communities.

Another key theme from the creation of the Education Studies program was an acknowledgement that many peer institutions offer their own Education Studies programs and, thus, the college was lagging behind and disadvantaging its own student body.

While this is not true of Asian American Studies — the closest such program is at Tufts University, but few have yet to follow—when has Amherst College ever been ashamed to take the lead? Not to mention that creating a formal program for Asian American Studies would give us a nice edge over competitors like Williams, whose current hodgepodge of Asian American Studies courses resembles our own.

Pedagogy that centers Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and other marginalized peoples is foundational to the pursuit of justice and truth. Having an Asian and Pacific American Studies major is essential in fighting against xenophobic, racist and sexist political rhetoric.

We, the Editorial Board, stand behind calls from the AAS and Asian American Alumni for a deeper investment in Asian and Pacific American Studies at the college.

At the very least, we deserve to know why these calls remain unanswered for a task that doesn’t seem harder than the creation of an Education Studies program or even the recently created Latinx and Latin American Studies major.

Our Asian American and Pacific Islander peers deserve the same investment and scholarly respect as anyone else, and it is incumbent on the Board of Trustees, President Martin, Provost and Dean of the Faculty Catherine Epstein and the Committee on Educational Policy to demonstrate that this college affords them that respect.

Unsigned editorials represent the Editorial Board (assenting: 8; dissenting: 0; abstaining: 6) This article first appeared on March 24, 2021

April 14, 2021 | The Amherst Student | 13

Opinion

Black Perspective: The “Us” in Justice

Photo courtesy of Marco Verch on Flickr

Sika Essegbey ’23, Ellis Phillips ’23 and Sirus Wheaton ’23 Columnists As Derek Chauvin’s trial regarding the death of George Floyd continues into its second week, Black people nationwide are again painfully forced to watch a process that seems rigged against them. We watched Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman, get acquitted in 2013. We watched Alton Sterling’s murderers get off in 2017. We watched Michael Brown’s murderer, Darren Wilson, escape in 2015 and 2020. Now, we watch this.

This time, however, we are told it is different. It feels different. This time, “justice” may be truly served. But what does this notion of justice represent? We reject the idea that justice, in this situation, is even a possibility. After all, we cannot bring Mr. Floyd back to life — we cannot right the wrong. This impossibility shows us a gap — an inherent flaw in our justice system — between what we, the people, consider “just,” and what the arbiters of justice (police, judges, etc) consider “just.”

The discrepancy between the justice system’s notion of justice and the citizen’s notion of justice is readily apparent. So where does this discrepancy come from?

We interpret this discrepancy to be a necessary product of the way the law functions in the U.S. The law is usually understood as a set of principles or ideals by which the order and smooth functioning of society is maintained. However, the discrepancy arises because these principles do not exist literally, but rather, only the interpretation (carried out by judges) and enforcement (carried out by police) of these ideals exist in reality.

Thus, while the “law” exists as an idea for those who carry out its bidding, it exists as something wholly material for those who are subjected to it.

Black people have always felt the sting of this discrepancy between the law’s material enforcement and its immaterial model. From the inception of the United States as a country, the principles propounded in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, simply did not apply to Black people. “We, the People” does not, and never could, include us. Therefore, Black people have always felt the weight of a society structured against their interests rather than the lofty ideals of freedom, justice and liberty.

The standard response to this criticism is that these ideals, though initially applied in a racialized manner, are not racialized in themselves, and thus can be salvaged if only we bring reality to match them. This is a horrendous response. The best (and in a sense, only) way we can understand principles and ideas is by the way in which they exist materially. It is a farce to say that things can be understood outside of their objective existence.

For instance, under the standard response, how can we condemn the actions of a murderer if he purports to be a “good person”? He may say he is good, yet the true measure of his character can be defined only in his actions.

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Thus, for Black people, not only do the American ideals of justice represent something that does not exist in reality, they represent something in contradiction to reality.

This discrepancy can also be shown to exist in Amherst’s very own microcosm of a justice system: the Amherst College Police Department (ACPD). The discrepancy here is between the police’s perceived view of their duty and the students’ lived experiences with the police’s enforcement of such duty.

When put in the context of campus life, it is easy to understand the discomfort Black students feel when constantly surrounded by an overbearing, armed police presence.

Almost two years ago, on April 16, 2019, two black youth were shot sixteen times by two police officers, one of whom was part of the Yale Police Department (YPD). In response, students created a group called Black Students for Disarmament at Yale (BSDY). Despite this unjust use of force against an unarmed couple who were singing along to music in their car, the Yale Police Department has refused to listen to the pleas of the students requesting the disarming and eventual abolition of the force.

Here at Amherst, ACPD is heavily involved in student affairs. Each time a student wishes to rent a car, call a Safe Ride or even request a new dorm key, they are forced to interact with an armed entity. Sofia Guerra ’22, an Association of Amherst Students (AAS) senator for the class of 2022, organized a town hall with ACPD on March 29 in hopes of creating a dialogue between the student body and their self-proclaimed protectors. Though AAS came prepared with notes about ways the student body feels we can achieve public safety, some of which were even included in President Biddy Martin’s Anti-Racism Plan, ACPD remained inflexible and never budged from their cemented, conservative mindset. Instead of truly considering disarmament or reform, we have gotten “Coffee with Cops” and a dog. The parallels between the responses of ACPD and YPD to the disgruntlement of the students aren’t surprising either, considering that John Carter, chief of the ACPD, looked to Ronnell Higgins, chief of the YPD, for assistance in his “reimagining” of ACPD. Despite supposedly being an institution meant to protect and serve, these police departments have blatantly ignored the requests of the citizens they’re meant to serve. In the case of Derek Chauvin, eighteen complaints were filed against him in his nineteen years of work, yet only two resulted in any form of disciplinary action. Had the complaints of those citizens been taken seriously, perhaps there would have been the opportunity for proper justice; a version of justice that George Floyd didn’t have to die to achieve. Must we wait for a tragedy like the Yale shooting or George Floyd’s murder to occur before our calls to action are taken seriously? Can we not favor preventive action over delayed reaction?

This article first appeared on April 7, 2021

Opinion

Seeing Double: Our Vaccine Regime is Killing People Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 Columnist So far, the United States has administered more than 124 million coronavirus vaccine doses — more than a fourth of the total doses administered worldwide. About a fourth of the country’s population has received at least one dose, and one-eighth of all people in the United States are fully vaccinated. But as we take care to protect our population, we’re screwing the rest of the world.

See, most countries have vaccinated nowhere near the number of people that the United States has. Many don’t even report any shots. It’s true that there just aren’t enough vaccines for everybody yet. But they’re lagging behind and we’re jumping ahead because we have the power, influence, and cash to skip in line.

Of course, it will take some time to produce the billions of doses needed worldwide. However, the United States and a few other wealthy countries are slowing that production down. Right now, only a few companies have access to the intellectual property — both legally and materially — that we need to produce coronavirus vaccines.

They could share those production secrets and legal rights, allowing other organizations to produce the vaccine themselves, but so far none have. And wealthy countries like ours support that decision in the World Trade Organization (WTO), where a coalition led by India and South Africa is asking for a waiver to the intellectual property agreements that reserve the vaccines for the globally powerful.

This isn’t a hypothetical problem, either. Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, the producers of the three biggest vaccines, are able to make more than 3.5 billion doses in 2021, enough to vaccinate about a fourth of the world’s population by the end of the year. Outside of those companies, the world has the capacity to manufacture another 17 billion doses this year — but only if Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and their host countries share. That’s enough to vaccinate every human being on earth by the end of the year.

We have a choice to make. Do we care about profits for pharmaceutical companies, or do we care about human lives? Are we so committed to our own greed that we won’t share life-saving information with the rest of the world? Even my notoriously ambivalent co-columnist can see that moral imperative.

Every day that the United States opposes waiving the WTO’s intellectual property laws, it decides to prioritize profits over people. At our current pace, vaccination ef-

forts will barely start in poorer countries in 2021 and won’t finish until at least 2023.

By then, millions more will have died. And the virus’s constant spread will allow it to mutate into vaccine-resistant variants that could easily sweep across the world once more.

This doomsday scenario is entirely preventable, but only if we require the pharmaceutical companies that make Covid vaccines to share their secrets with the world. Some argue that this move would hamper medical technology research in the future, but we aren’t in the future. Thousands of people are dying every day. What’s the point of medical research if we can’t use the miracle drugs we make to save lives?

At the same time that the United States is fighting efforts to expand vaccine production worldwide, it’s holding onto stockpiled vaccines that it can’t use. The AstraZeneca vaccine, which 86 countries have approved, isn’t approved for use in the United States. Yet we have more than 40 million doses just sitting around, most of them bottled and ready to go — doses that we don’t even need.

Our purchase agreements with Moderna and Pfizer account for more than 600 million doses by the end of July, enough to vaccinate almost everyone in the United States. And that’s not even including Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine. Our contracts with AstraZeneca, which account for another 300 million doses, are extraneous. We can’t use that vaccine now and we won’t need it later.

We should send all of these unused vaccines to places that can immediately use them to vaccinate people. Though the United States has pledged to send a few million of these doses to Canada and Mexico, that isn’t nearly enough. We’re in a race against Covid’s new, more dangerous variants. We fall behind when vaccines sit on shelves, and falling behind means more preventable cases and deaths.

Though we like to act like we are, the United States isn’t alone in defeating this virus. Just as it’s a collective responsibility to wear masks, socially distance and isolate if we get sick, the United States has a responsibility to the world to help by sharing its resources — beating this virus must be an international project. And if you think that’s asking too much, then we can at least agree that the United States shouldn’t sabotage global vaccine efforts by hoarding and hiding its vaccines.

Giving our unneeded vaccines to those who can use them will save lives, and sharing vaccine secrets will save even more. The choice — between killing people and saving them — should be clear. It’s up to the new administration to make it.

This article first appeared on March 24, 2021

Photo courtesy of Marco Verch on Flickr

April 14, 2021 | The Amherst Student | 15

Opinion

Sunrise Amherst Responds to Divestment Announcement Sunrise Amherst College Contributing Writer Dear President Martin and Board of Trustees, We would first like to thank the Board for the March 31 announcement regarding fossil fuel divestment. We appreciate that the college is listening to and addressing the concerns that student organizers and the campus community have expressed regarding fossil fuels.

Divestment is both a financial and moral statement, and we are thus grateful that Amherst is willing to take a public stance against the unethical and destructive fossil fuel industry.

That being said, we still feel there is more work to be done. Broadly, while the college partially addressed our demands with regard to fossil fuels, it did not address our call for divestment from the Prison-Industrial Complex (PIC), which was the other focus of the letter we released this past November.

As we continue to push for PIC divestment, as well as for a more aggressive timeline for fossil fuel divestment, we would like to circulate a list of specific demands and timelines that we still expect the college to meet.

We recognize that certain goals will take longer to achieve than others, and we have thus split our demands into two categories: immediate and longer-term.

We feel that the timelines we outline below are reasonable in light of the information we have received from the Board of Trustees, and in light of the similar demands of many of our peer institutions.

We also feel it is important to be specific about what we mean when we reference “the fossil fuel industry” and “the prison-industrial complex.” By the fossil fuel industry, we mean energy companies whose primary business relates to the extraction or transport of fossil fuels.

Drawing inspiration from our peers at Harvard and Georgetown, we consider an entity to be part of the PIC if: a) It provides financial support to private prison companies; b) It relies on unpaid or low-paid prison labor in its supply chains; c) It has a monopoly on the provision of prison necessities, including but not limited to healthcare, food, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, commissary items, etc; d) It contracts with prisons to supply weapons, surveillance technology, etc.

Given these clarifications, here are our updated demands.

Immediate Demands Investment Decisions 1. We call for an immediate commitment to end all new investments in prisons or companies which depend on prisons for their profit.

2. We call for immediate divestment from the college’s holdings in a prison telecom company.

In President Martin’s response to our initial letter, she conceded that Amherst College holds one indirect investment in a company that depends on the prison-industrial complex for its profit.

While she asserts that this investment is small and indirect, we nevertheless feel that immediate action is warranted.

Transparency and the Role of Students 3. We call for quarterly meetings with President Martin and the Board of Trustees.

We appreciate the meeting we had with the Board and hope we can continue to meet in the future. We also appreciate that the college has now released an Investment Transparency Report that makes public some of the knowledge we gained at past meetings about our endowment.

Moving forward, we would like the regular meetings to have a student-led agenda, as well as many student representatives as the student body sees fit.

4. We call for transparency regarding who sits on the Investment Committee, a group which is, as of now, kept secret from the student body.

5. We call for quarterly reports about the college’s divestment process.

We have appreciated the quarterly reports President Martin has been circulating re-

16 | The Amherst Student | April 14, 2021

Keep up with Sunrise Amherst and the status of these demands by clicking the logo above. garding the college’s progress towards the anti-racist agenda laid out this past summer by our peers in Reclaim Amherst and the Black Student Union.

We request a similar level of accountability regarding divestment, which could also take the form of quarterly email updates to the entire college community.

Longer-Term Demands 6. We call for Amherst College to publicly commit to divestment from the prison-industrial complex by the end of 2021.

The college must commit to a firm deadline for total divestment from the prison-industrial complex by 2025.

7. We call for Amherst College to divest from fossil fuels by the end of 2025.

Amherst has currently committed to divesting most of its fossil fuel holdings by 2030, in accordance with the natural phase-out of its existing contracts.

We feel that divestment should be an active choice rather than a passive one; the college is prioritizing its obligations to fossil fuel companies over the well-being of its current and future community.

In the face of rapidly worsening global ecological crises, the 2030 timeline is simply not acceptable. The college must commit to a firm deadline for total divestment.

8. We call for the college to evaluate this and future student demands with an eye towards conflicts of interest amongst those on the Board of Trustees.

Right now, each board member is required to declare their own conflicts of interest annually. However, no information is available as to how these declarations affect members’ voting eligibility.

Moving forward, we would like board members to disclose not only their conflicts of interest, but also their processes for determining said conflicts, to the entire Amherst community. We demand that no board member who profits from the fossil fuel industry should be permitted to vote on the issue of divestment.

In any analogous future situation, board members should recuse themselves from voting on investments that directly affect a source of personal income.

9. In solidarity with our peers in Reclaim Amherst and the Anti-Racism Task Force, we call for Amherst College to create six student positions on the Board of Trustees.

These six positions will be filled by the Association of Amherst Students President and five representatives to be elected by the student body, at least two of whom must be Black students (see priority #2 from Reclaim Amherst).

These students must be full board members with voting power.

Sincerely, The Amherst College Divestment Coalition This letter first appeared on April 2, 2021

Arts and Living

In 2021, The Grammys Remain Woefully Out of Touch with Newer Styles of Rap

Watch Nas win the 2021 Grammy for Best Rap Album by clicking the image above.

Noah John ’21 Staff Writer The 2014 Grammys featured perhaps the most stacked list of nominees for “Best Rap Album” imaginable. Between Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s instant classics “Take Care” and “good kid m.A.A.d City,” Kanye West’s then polarizing but now widely acclaimed “Yeezus,” and Jay-Z’s impressive “Magna Carta Holy Grail,” the voting committee certainly had a tough decision to make. While I hoped and expected that Kendrick Lamar would walk away with the award, I was excited by the prospect of any of these talented artists being recognized.

Imagine my surprise then, when Macklemore’s commercially successful but artistically underwhelming album “The Heist” ultimately won the award. Even Macklemore himself was taken aback by the decision. “You got robbed. I wanted you to win,” he texted Kendrick shortly after. It was at this moment that I first realized the incredibly flawed nature of the Grammys.

Many rationalized Macklemore’s 2014 win by insisting that the Grammys simply value popularity over artistic merit. They pointed to the success of Macklemore’s hit song “Thrift Shop,” which reached number one on Billboard and also won Grammy awards for “Best Rap Song” and “Best Rap Performance.” In reality, despite the success of “Thrift Shop”, Macklemore’s album had sold far less than any of the other albums nominated. Furthermore, Macklemore released his album independently, whereas everyone else had released theirs through a major label. While Macklemore’s win could have been seen as a victory for independent artists over powerful corporate interests, this was not at all a part of the discourse that emerged.

Overshadowing his independent status was the fact that Macklemore was a white rapper in a genre dominated by Black artists but controlled by white executives. In addition to his whiteness, Macklemore made light-hearted pop-rap songs about things like buying used clothing. This maximized his appeal to the older, mostly white voters that outfitted the Grammy’s selection committee. Especially compared to the egoism of “Yeezus” or “good kid m.A.A.d city’s” candid descriptions of inner-city violence, “The Heist” more closely matched the committee’s standards of respectable artistry.

Fast-forward to 2021 and the Grammy Awards continue to show the same kind of cultural

bias in their assessment of rap music. This year, the artists nominated for “Best Rap Album” were D Smoke, who is better known for his appearance on Netflix’s “Rhythm and Flow” than for his latest album; Freddie Gibbs, a talented veteran who is now enjoying overdue mainstream recognition; Jay Electronica, who previously hadn’t released an official project in almost thirteen years; Royce da 5’9”, whose prime was over a decade ago and Nas, a legendary artist who infamously hadn’t won a single Grammy in his thirty-plus-year career. Each of these artists is at least 35 years old and employs a fairly traditional, lyrically-focused approach in their music. Like in 2013, I was hopeful that Freddie Gibbs’ “Alfredo”— the most culturally relevant and sonically impressive album in my calculation — would receive the award.

Instead, it ultimately went to the 47-year-old Nas, the oldest nominee.

While Nas certainly deserves the recognition, the failure to nominate more popular albums from across rap’s emerging subgenres, such as Pop Smoke’s “Shoot For the Stars Aim for the Moon” (New York drill), Mac Miller’s “Circles” (funk and emo rap) or Lil Baby’s “My Turn,” (southern trap), the Grammys have again demonstrated that they remain out of touch.

Lil Baby and Pop Smoke each received nominations for their hit singles (“The Bigger Picture” and “Dior,” respectively, neither of which won), but were not deemed apt for the more prestigious album of the year distinction. With this decision, the Grammys declared that the new popular styles of rap, focused on atmosphere and melody, are not as respectable or authentic as older approaches focused on intricate lyricism. This is a short-sighted and pretentious approach that will seem almost as absurd relative to Macklemore’s victory in 2014.

It may be hypocritical to declare this at the conclusion of an entire article about them, but the best way to solve the Grammys’ blind spots is to stop watching them. Artists should seek validation from their fans and themselves, not the so-called “experts” in the archaic Recording Academy. I do not know anyone who still has “Thrift Shop” on their playlist, but “good kid m.A.A.d city,” “Nothing Was The Same” and “Yeezus” are timeless. The same will prove true for “Circles” and “My Turn” among others, despite their lack of Grammy recognition.

The Grammys are incapable of forecasting the future, woefully out of touch with the present and need to be left in the past.

This article first appeared on March 31, 2021

April 14, 2021 | The Amherst Student | 17

Arts and Living

Amid Covid Restrictions, Student Ensembles Find New Ways to Make Music Milo Leahy-Miller ’24 Staff Writer The pandemic has been hard for everyone. First-years like myself have come to campus missing out on so much that we’re not even aware of. Many on-campus organizations are dormant or have strict limitations in place. Music ensembles have been hit especially hard due to the inherently intimate nature of music performance and rehearsal. With many students off campus and others discouraged from participating in as many club activities, most musical groups are now much smaller in size and facing challenges like the restriction of rehearsal spaces.

I spoke with three different members of the music department on campus to gauge how Amherst student music ensembles have continued creating music during this socially-restrictive time.

Perhaps some of the biggest changes have come in the modifications made to ensure safe music-making and to ward against the spread of Covid. Indeed, many limitations were put in place in order for students to practice safely, most of which are still in place today.

Cameron Chandler, a trumpet player and graduate associate in orchestra, described the current music ensemble set-up: “For non-wind instruments, masks must remain on, and they [musicians] must be seven and a half feet apart. They can only play for a maximum of one hour … Wind players … must be 15 feet apart at all times and can only play for 30 minutes. We have … special masks that allow people to play while wearing them, and they also have to be behind these plexiglass barriers.” While necessary, these barriers, whether made from plastic or time, make rehearsals and performances extremely difficult.

Performing, especially, has radically changed. Long concerts with a full audience became 30-minute performances with a lone computer sitting in the front row. Musicians can barely hear each other from long distances away, and many are forced to record their parts individually, only seeing the full performance after it is edited together and released.

Along with these tangible restrictions comes the challenge of forming a community when faces are hidden behind masks and computer screens. “90 percent of the auditions [for Jazz at Amherst] were online, which is never something we’ve done before,” said Bruce Diehl, senior lecturer in music and director of jazz performance at Amherst. When it comes to music-making, communication—both on and off stage—is essential. But in the time of Covid restrictions, students have been prevented from getting to know each other as musicians, which has greatly limited collaboration and teamwork within the groups.

Still, the directors for each department have put their best efforts into creating a sense of community among the students, despite all the obstacles. “Even though it’s awkward, even though it’s short and even though everyone’s so far apart from one another, there is a sense of community,” said Arianne Abela, director of the choral music program and lecturer in music. “I think the [greatest success] is that we can even be in person at all.”

While there have been countless difficulties, the music department has persevered. Last semester, the Amherst College Orchestra performed “Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony” in honor of his 250th birthday, alongside many of his chamber compositions. The orchestra also played “March of the Women” and several other significant pieces written by women to celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment. This semester, the orchestra is planning “Black Music Matters,” a series of performances featuring pieces written by Black composers, similar to the “Black Art Matters” festival held earlier this March.

The jazz department has already held three “Jazz at Schwemm’s” performances, and the choral department will have a livestream on April 9 of past performances, student compositions and videos from the tour the group took in the Baltics in

18 | The Amherst Student | April 14, 2021

Click the image above to watch the livestream of the April 9 Spring Concert.

2019.

Through all of this, some light has still shone through the social and musical abyss of the pandemic. Music @ Val has popped up, supplementing the lost sense of community among Amherst student musicians. The choral department has also brought in guest speakers to share insights on anti-racism and inclusion in choral singing and are commissioning pieces to premiere virtually. Jazz at Amherst has many different performances planned for the future, albeit via Zoom, and the orchestra will be releasing many different chamber pieces. Hopefully, these new additions will remain post-pandemic, giving us a few things to look forward to.

This article first appeared on March 31, 2021

Arts and Living

Personal and Moving, “In & Of Itself ” Is a New Kind of Magic Show

Watch the trailer for “In & Of Itself” by clicking the image above.

Ross Kilpatrick ’23 Staff Writer Daniel DelGaudio’s long-running off-Broadway show “In & Of Itself,” recently taped and released Jan. 21 on Hulu, is a magic show unlike any I’ve seen. It’s true theater: personal and moving.

When most people think of magic, they think of the big, egotistical kind, typified by people like David Copperfield. These kinds of magicians use big showy tricks, which rely on simple duplicities, roping some audience volunteers in on the trick. David Copperfield makes 12 audience members ‘disappear,’ but really just lowers them through the floor. He makes the Statue of Liberty vanish, but he really uses a team of technicians. This isn’t necessarily bad magic, just outdated showmanship. But this old Copperfield style has slowly been replaced with a new type of magic and magic show, pioneered by magicians like David Blaine.

Unlike Copperfield, Blaine’s magic is up close and personal. It focuses on complex sleight of hand and relies on a small audience to amplify the impact of the tricks. That’s why Blaine’s specials don’t often involve a big studio audience, but rather a couple of people. In Blaine’s shows, he is more a side note to the magic rather than the centerpiece. The focus is always on the trick and the impact of that trick.

Daniel DelGaudio, relatively unknown before “In & Of Itself,” performs very much in the tradition that Blaine and others pioneered. His magic is not of the Copperfield variety. DelGaudio is intensely focused on his audience; he’s obsessed with their reactions. The taping of “In & Of Itself ” is cut together from several different performances of the show, all of them small and personal, performed in front of an audience of roughly 150 people. The camera is constantly cutting to the audience’s reaction — sometimes shocked, sometimes moved.

“In & Of Itself ” also uses the diversity of recorded shows to further heighten the impact of a trick or moment. Seeing the same reaction play out against ten different audiences is even more impressive than seeing it play out against just one.

But in many other ways, DelGaudio is radically different from Blaine. Blaine’s shows are dense with tricks, which might seem like a given. It is, after all, a magic show: The point is

to see magic. DelGaudio’s special, though, is much more focused on storytelling. He stands in front of a minimalist set with five square impressions, each holding a different artifact representing something from his life. He walks and paces, emotes quietly and slowly spins a tale about himself, his life and magic’s impact on it all.

But as he talks, he subverts the camera’s focus on the audience’s reaction. He talks about the complexity of inner lives, his love of magic and his distaste for performing for others — because most people just don’t get the magic, not really. The camera might show us the audience’s expression; to emphasize the power of each trick, but DelGaudio wants us to know that this whole performance is a kind of concession. He wants to perform magic, but he doesn’t want to perform for us, any of us. The show expertly mines that tension between the artifice of theater and DelGaudio as an authentic person.

There are tricks, but only a sparing few, used to emphasize — rather than substantiate — the biggest moments in the show. These tricks are brilliant, of course, as they should be. And I won’t dare spoil a single one. There’s nothing else to say but to tell you to watch the show.

But more than that, “In & Of Itself ” made me hopeful. Magic, it seems, is gaining some broad cultural appeal beyond its traditional status as a carnival trick. Stephen Colbert had DelGaudio on his show to praise the special. Not only as impressive magic, but as impressive showmanship and a good show.

Because that’s what magic is and always has been. Magic isn’t just the fun carnival trick or delightful sleight of hand. At its best, magic pushes and expands our vision of what’s possible. It tests us, strains our perceptions and dupes us into belief. Not that any magician tries to pass off their magic as real; then they would become fraudsters peddling tricks. No, the precise beauty of magic is the tension between its falsity and our wonder, our desire to believe and our knowledge that it’s fake.

The power of magic is the same as good fiction. Fiction is made up; it’s false. But how do we praise good fiction? We say that it was true. Not in a literal sense, but in how it moves us.

The best magic does the same.

And “In & Of Itself ” is good fiction.

This article first appeared on March 24, 2021

April 14, 2021 | The Amherst Student | 19

20 | The Amherst Student | April 14, 2021

Sports

NCAA Tournament Reveals Persisting Gender Inequities Alex Noga ’23 Staff Writer In the world of sports, the month of March is perhaps best known for the annual NCAA Division I Basketball Tournaments, commonly referred to as March Madness. After the tournaments were canceled last year due to the emergence of Covid-19, excitement for this year’s March Madness has been incredibly high. Difficulties were to be expected given the unprecedented nature of having to plan two massive tournaments (both the women’s and the men’s) in the middle of a global pandemic. While Covid-19 has presented challenges for certain games — such as when the vigorous daily testing protocol forced the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) men’s team to forfeit their first-round game after receiving a number of positive tests — the spotlight has recently been focused on the NCAA’s failure to provide equitable training conditions for female athletes relative to their male counterparts.

A TikTok posted by Oregon women’s basketball player Sedona Prince went viral on March 19, a day before the tournament even began. The video showed shocking disparities between the weight rooms prepared for the men’s teams in Indianapolis and the women’s teams in San Antonio. While the men were provided with an enormous space complete with enough squat racks for every member of a team to have his own, the women were expected to make do with just a measly set of dumbbells and a stack of yoga mats — albeit not even enough for each player.

The video sparked swift reactions from male and female athletes alike. NBA stars Kyrie Irving and Steph Curry joined forces with WNBA players Sue Bird, Skyler Diggins-Smith and Brianna Turner, all expressing their displeasure with the NCAA and demanding change via Twitter. The outcry prompted statements from NCAA President of Basketball Dan Gavitt, NCAA Vice President of Women’s Basketball Lynn Holtzman and NCAA Basketball Committee Chair Nina King in an effort to quell the outrage. NCAA President Mark Emmert did not make a statement until later in the day.

Emmert’s eventual response was inadequate at best and showed a supreme lack of accountability and a failure of leadership. While he stated that the inequity between the two tournaments was “inexcusable,” Emmert insisted that he didn’t know the planning details before the incident occurred and blamed a communication breakdown between the planning committees for the men’s and women’s tournaments due in large part to working remotely. The weight rooms were eventually upgraded by the NCAA, who accepted several offers of equipment made over social media by companies, but the change only came as a result of the pressure exerted by the players and coaches.

Though it has been the most visible, the contrast in weight rooms is not the only disparity between the two tournaments. The women have brought numerous other inequalities to attention. While the men dined on steak filets and lobster mac and cheese, the women had to make do with meager boxed meals and delayed delivery services. Gift bags were presented to all the athletes at both tournaments, though the women’s bags seemed to be about one-third of the size of the men’s. The NCAA has stated they have addressed the poor food quality and have claimed the two different gift bags are of equal value, but again these measures only came as a response to the outcry from the NCAA athletes.

There is also a stark difference in the marketing efforts taken by the NCAA to promote the two tournaments. The men’s championship has grown into a highly profitable asset with a $1 billion per year television deal from Turner Sports just to air the event. Meanwhile, strategies to expand the women’s tournament do not garner nearly the same promotional effort.

In fact, the moniker “March Madness” has only been applied to the men’s tournament. In all advertising material, the women’s tournament is simply referred to as the NCAA Women’s Tournament, while the phrase “March Madness” can be found on nearly every advertisement promoting the men’s game. For example, the men’s games sport massive “March Madness” logos at center court, while the women’s courts simply have small “NCAA Women’s Basketball” logos on the edges of the court. This appears to be a conscious effort by the NCAA to separate the term “March Madness” from women’s college basketball. The internationally recognizable brand of March Madness could be a valuable asset in expanding the women’s tournament, which has been naturally growing in popularity due to a higher level of competition in recent years. Instead, the NCAA has kept the women’s tournament detached from the lucrative brand even though the trademark registration of the phrase allows for use by both tournaments. The March Madness Twitter and Instagram accounts, which only feature con-

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Weight rooms like these are the norm for NCAA athletes. tent from the men’s tournament, have a combined 2.5 million followers, whereas the accounts for the women’s tournament, which have the uninspired handle “ncaawbb” (NCAA women’s basketball), have only 695,000 combined followers.

Most shocking of all have to be the disparities in the two sites’ Covid-19 testing protocols.

Each tournament is contained in a strictly isolated bubble, and players receive daily Covid tests. However, the men’s bubble in Indianapolis administers PCR tests to all participants, whereas the women’s bubble in San Antonio uses antigen tests, which are far less accurate than the PCR tests. The women receive a PCR test only to confirm the positive result of an antigen test. The NCAA claims that both methods of testing are “equally effective models” and chalked up the differences to the different testing services available in the respective locations.

Even so, with an issue as crucial as player safety, it is shocking that the two tournaments do not apply the same caliber of safety measures to ensure the health of their participants.

Coaches, players and administrators participating in the tournament have voiced their disappointment with the NCAA. In a joint statement, Stanford Women’s Basketball Coach Tara VanDerveer and Director of Women’s Basketball Setsuko Ishiyama called the actions by the NCAA “purposeful and hurtful” and claimed that it is “evidence of blatant sexism.” They continued: “women athletes and coaches are done waiting, not just for upgrades of a weight room, but for equity in every facet of life.” Legendary UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma, who has won the most NCAA championships among both men’s and women’s coaches, and who was also the first to break the news regarding the differences in Covid tests between the two tournaments, characterized the inequities as a “lifelong issue.” Senior UCLA women’s basketball player Michaela Onyenwere echoed both statements, remarking that “this is just the reality” of being a female athlete. Both the players and the public are seeking answers. 36 members of Congress, led by U.S. Representative Mikie Sherrill, called on Emmert and the NCAA to honor Title IX and rectify the numerous inequalities. They demanded a response by April 2. On March 25, the NCAA announced that it is hiring a law firm to conduct an independent review of its basketball tournaments in all three divisions.

It is extremely disheartening that an event that is supposed to celebrate the accomplishments of all the athletes involved has been largely overshadowed by the NCAA’s disregard for gender equality. The issue isn’t just about the differences between the weight rooms, but rather what this and the numerous other inequities signify: a total lack of attention to the importance of equality in men and women’s college athletics. Because of the NCAA’s failures, the coverage of the women’s tournament has been shifted from the games, which so far have featured exciting play from a highly competitive field of teams, to focusing on the NCAA’s incapacity to provide equitable experiences for its male and female athletes. The women’s tournament has certainly lived up to the madness the NCAA ascribes solely to the men’s tournament, but it has been for all the wrong reasons.

This article first appeared on March 31, 2021

April 14, 2021 | The Amherst Student | 21

Sports

Softball, Baseball Face Wesleyan In Season Opener

Photo courtesy of Melissa Martin ‘15

The Amherst Baseball team practices in anticipation of their return to play.

Cedric Skerlecz ’24 Staff Writer After a year without league play due to Covid-19 and the subsequent suspension of NESCAC sports, Amherst’s baseball and softball teams concluded their season-opening weekends with strong performances.

Both the baseball and softball teams faced Wesleyan University in three game sets over the weekend. On Saturday, April 3, both teams played doubleheaders, as softball hosted on campus and baseball traveled to Middleton, Conn.

In the first game of baseball’s doubleheader, Tyler Marshall ’21 kickstarted the offense, hitting a double to left field. Aidan Park ’22 followed with a single to deep center to send Marshall home.

The Mammoths continued this momentum throughout the first game, with strong plays

by Joseph Palmo ’21 and Daniel Qin ’22 advancing the team’s lead to 4-0. Nick Giattino ’24 struck out two of the final six Wesleyan hitters while Sachin Nambiar ’22 recorded the win, allowing only three hits and striking out four over a magnificent five shutout innings.

The Cardinals rebounded in game two, leading 7-0 after the first two innings. Anchored by a strong relief performance from Jacob Ribitzky ’24, the Mammoths bounced back and narrowed Wesleyan’s lead to 7-5, with a home run from Qin bringing the team within one run in the sixth. This effort came up short, however, as the Cardinals ended the day with a 7-6 victory.

On Sunday, Amherst baseball hosted the Cardinals at Memorial Field to take the series.

The Mammoths surged ahead with a 6-4 lead heading into the seventh and — though the Cardinals briefly evened the score — only widened the gap over time. Qin secured his

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second home run of the weekend and a string of errors by the Cardinals only hindered their damage control efforts. The Mammoths’ 12-7 victory secured the series win against Wesleyan.

The softball team enjoyed similar success this weekend. In their first game, the Mammoths jumped out to an early lead after scoring three runs in the first inning. On the mound, Talia Bloxham ’22 was remarkable, allowing only one hit in a complete game shutout. Both Sadie Pool ’24 and Autumn Lee ’23 strung together multi-hit games, leading Amherst to an 8-0 victory.

On the back end of the doubleheader, the Mammoths were equally as dominant. Firstyear pitcher Maddie Procyk also threw a game shutout, allowing only two hits. Again, Pool had multiple hits, capped off by a three-run, base-clearing triple in the 5th inning. The Mammoths went on to win again, 8-0.

On Sunday, Amherst scored at least one run in five of the seven innings and led the Cardinals 8-1 heading into the bottom of the seventh. Megan Taketa ’23 was the first to score, with Amherst adding two more in the second inning and leading 5-1 in the fourth.

Approaching their final at-bats and down by seven, Wesleyan made a late game charge — only for Bloxham to shut down the attempt. The Mammoths finished the series with a total of 23 runs while yielding only the five scored in the third game.

The past year has been a difficult one for players, as sports cancellations and often ambiguous NESCAC updates have only magnified uncertainty around the spring season.

Now back in play, the baseball and softball teams have proven their strength on the field and will make for exciting viewing as the season progresses.

This article first appeared on April 7, 2021

Sports

The Spring Journey for Amherst Track

Photo courtesy of Melissa Martin ‘15

Amherst Track Head Coach Stephen Rubin instructs a runner during a fall practice.

Mike Schretter ’23 Staff Writer With athletic competition cancelled last spring in the initial disruption of Covid-19, Amherst student-athletes have spent the past year in anticipation of a return to play. The Amherst men’s and women’s track and field teams have been struck particularly hard, as both their fall cross country and winter seasons were canceled this year. However, following the March 9 NESCAC announcement of a potential return to play this spring, the future of Amherst track and field seems to be looking up.

Many of the team members who are on campus this term are excited at the prospect of a return to competition. Chris Gong ’23 described the process as “everything [he] could ask for. Being back with the juniors and seniors … brings back a familiarity, comfort and love.”

Gong feels fortunate to be on campus this spring, as most sophomores were not permitted to return.

Some sophomore track and field members have decided to live together in off-campus houses this term in order to preserve team chemistry and train together. Jack Trent ’23 and his teammates living off campus in the town of Amherst have been “doing the same things [they] would be doing on campus … [they] go to the Amherst High School track” and “have met the coaching staff there to ensure [they] are allowed to be there, and then go about practice as usual.” While Trent will not have a chance to compete this season because of his off-campus status, he is “super happy for [his] teammates [and] that they get a chance to compete.”

Head Coach Stephen Rubin explained that he and the staff “had to make some adjustments relative to our numbers, equipment, staying spaced, etc.” in response to the pandemic. However, he characterized these changes as “minor” and suggested that the team “has been able to keep training elements very similar to what [the team] would do in a normal year.” Rubin and the rest of the staff are excited to rekindle their personal bonds with the athletes. “That’s what this is all about,” Rubin remarked. Despite the setbacks of the past year, the coaches and athletes have retained their positive outlook and are looking forward to competing this spring. Gong described being back on campus as conferring a “sense of normalcy” because he is able to see his friends again, compete with them and return to a regular workout routine.

Track and field athletes are excited at the prospect of competition this spring. Both coaches and players want to ensure that they make the most of the opportunity to partic-

ipate in meets. Gong explained that the team will be properly prepared for this shortened season. “Our coaches placed an emphasis that this pandemic should not hinder our progress.” He also noted that, throughout the fall and winter, the track and field athletes were “training at a pretty high intensity … to get our bodies strong like we were going to have a season.” The track and field teams’ consistent training in spite of uncertainty should enable them to compete at a high level this spring.

The track and field coaching staff have built a very successful program at Amherst.

The men’s track team finished first in the Little Three Championship in 2019-2020 and the women’s track team finished second in the same competition in 2019-2020. Rubin explained that he and the other coaches “are thrilled that we get competition opportunities.”

The wait for competition has taken its toll on the track team’s coaches and players alike.

“People were missing the connection of shared experiences … the more connection we create, the happier they will be,” Rubin remarked. Ella Rossa ’21, who is a captain of the women’s track team, also explained that the best part of the return to play is “the bond you are all able to build with members of all four classes” and how “it has been such a light in [her] life … to be back with [her] coaches and teammates [on-campus]”.

Despite not being able to compete over the past year, team unity remains a high point for track and field. To this point, Gong noted that he has a “focused perspective and [that] there are things more important in life than losing a race.” Gong was most excited about the opportunity presented to the team as a whole. As for his fellow track and field athletes, Gong said, “it will be amazing to see them compete again.” Rossa reinforced that same point. “I am also excited for our first-years to be able to dip their toes into some collegiate competition.”

Even Trent and his teammates who are off campus and cannot participate are excited for their teammates to return to competition. Trent “wished [he] was out there with them,” which demonstrates the deep bonds formed between athletes during their time at Amherst.

Even though the teams have had extended time off from competition, Rubin stated that the preparation for the spring will be “nothing different.” He continued, “[the team] has always planned to have intra-squad or virtual competitions, and we were preparing purposefully for that. Now we get to have better competitions.” Rubin, the rest of the coaches and all of the track and field athletes will be ready heading into the shortened spring season.

This article first appeared on March 23, 2021

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Photo Courtesy of Anna Smith ‘22