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UCMC TRAUMA CENTER LIFTS SOUTH SIDE FROM “TRAUMA DESERT”

JANUARY 27, 2021 THIRD WEEK VOL. 133, ISSUE 13

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UChicago Theta Experiences Mass Disaffiliation and Calls for Abolishment PAGE 4

Composting Initiative Wins Green Fund PAGE 3

Matthew Lee

Phase 1b Vaccinations Begin at UCMedicine PAGE 2

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SPORTS: UChicago Athletic Trainer Takes on an Unprecedented Season PAGE 12

VIEWPOINTS: How UChicago Avoids Creating the Next Ted Cruz PAGE 8

ARTS: A New Medium for a Musical, Creator Invents Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical PAGE 11

VIEWPOINTS: Creating a Personal Relationship with the South Side While Being a University Student

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UChicago Begins Phase 1b Vaccine Rollout, Eyes End of March to Start 1c

By MATTHEW LEE AND CAROLINE KUBZANSKY News Editor, Managing Editor The University of Chicago will begin distributing COVID-19 vaccines to members of the University community who are essential frontline workers, current UChicago Medicine (UCM) patients, or age 65 or older, per an email from Provost Ka Yee Lee sent Monday morning.

The email is also the first indication of the University’s plan to open a vaccination clinic to facilitate vaccinations in Phases 1c and 2 of the rollout. The vaccine available at the UChicago clinic

was developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and requires two doses to be maximally effective at preventing the disease.

Eligible University members in Phase 1b include teachers at the University of Chicago Charter and Lab Schools, faculty and staff, including emeriti faculty, older than 65, and individuals who have been patients of the UCM in the past 18 months who are 65 and older. Those people may also be contacted through MyChart to make a vaccination appointment.

To receive a vaccine, eligible individuals will need to sign up for an appointment before the close of business hours on January 29.

Patients can opt to receive the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on either January 31 or February 7. Second doses will be administered on February 21 and February 28.

These are the only times for University affiliates over 65, N-12 Education employees, or University patients 65 and older to be vaccinated during phase 1b at the University clinic. If they do not sign up for a dose this week, they will need to seek an alternative vaccine distribution site or wait until later phases of the vaccine rollout.

This vaccine distribution is consistent with Chicago’s Phase 1b, which began today. Vaccinations will be provided

at no cost to the recipient, but insurance will be billed, according to the email.

During Phase 1c, projected to begin March 31, the vaccine will be made available for all other essential workers as well as Chicagoans aged 16–64 with underlying medical conditions. The University plans to open its own vaccination clinic during phase 1c.

General population University affiliates—those between 16 and 65 who are not front-line workers nor have medical conditions that could complicate a case of COVID-19—can expect to receive a vaccine through a University clinic during Phase 2, which the city projects will begin May 31.

UChicago Medicine’s Trauma Center Increases South Side Care Access, Study Shows

By RUTHIE MITCHELL News Reporter

University of Chicago Medical Center’s (UCMC) Level I trauma center has had a promising impact on reducing racial disparities in access to trauma care, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study compared ambulance run times—the time from injury scene departure to hospital arrival—from the year before and after the trauma center’s opening in 2018 across the city. The results showed that the greatest decrease in ambulance run times occurred in Black and low-income zip codes near the center, suggesting that racial disparities in trauma care access can be reduced by opening trauma centers in underserved areas.

Ali Abbasi, the lead researcher and a recent graduate from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine (’20), said that it is “no accident of history” that the Black and low-income communities on the South Side have had poorer access to trauma care than the white and more advantaged communities of the city.

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Jeremy Lindenfeld the chicago maroon

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UCMC’s Trauma Center has Lifted the South Side from the “Trauma Desert” of the Past, Promising Better Health Outcomes for the Future CONTINUED FROM PG. 2

Before UCMC opened its Level I trauma center in 2018, the South Side was known as a “trauma desert,” according to Sam Okum, an undergraduate at UChicago who was a coauthor on the paper contributing data analysis and graphic production. Demands for UCMC to open a trauma center peaked in 2010, after 18-year-old Damian Turner died from a gunshot wound on route to the closest trauma care center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital despite being shot blocks away from UCMC. A Level I trauma center provides the most comprehensive trauma care of any level, seeing patients through trauma

prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. One of its goals is to prevent injury recidivism, or recurring injury. “People who get shot have a high chance of getting shot again,” Abbasi told the maroon. The University’s resources and the medical center’s existing infrastructure allows the trauma center to provide longer-term care such as periodic check-ins with patients after discharge and psychological services, hopefully decreasing the frequency that patients get reinjured. These services are not necessarily available at other levels of trauma centers, emergency rooms, or hospitals less well-equipped than UCMC. Ambulance run times from 2017 to 2019 decreased the most in South Shore’s

ZIP code 60649, an area with a median household income of $30,000 and in which 94 percent of the residents are Black, according to the study. After the opening of UCMC’s trauma center, the average ambulance run time in the ZIP code decreased from 17.4 minutes to 8.5 minutes. However, these numbers still remain above the four-to-five-minute average for residents of Chicago’s more affluent North Side neighborhoods, such as Lakeview, which have historically had local trauma centers.

The positive results of the study exceeded the researchers’ expectations, giving them ambitious hopes for the impact of UCMC’s trauma center. “Reduction in [ambulance run] times for Black neighbor-

hoods near the trauma center were so significant that they actually drove a citywide reduction,” Okum said.

The researchers will continue to analyze the impact of the trauma center on mortality in the next stage of the study.

“We shouldn’t forget that the story of this trauma center … is about more than just [ambulance running] time,” Abbasi said.

“It’s about historical injustices.” Abbasi said that no matter what the next phase of the study will show, the study had already demonstrated a dangerous effect of structural racism in Chicago while offering hope for improvements in racial disparities.

Green Fund Awards First Grant to Off-Campus Composting Initiative

By TESS CHANG Senior News Reporter The University of Chicago’s Green Fund, a $50,000 pool of grant money dedicated to “student-led research and projects for improving campus sustainability and reducing the University’s environmental impact,” awarded its first-ever grant to the Phoenix Sustainability Initiative (PSI) last week.

The funds will be used to subsidize subscriptions for off-campus students to a local composting service, the Urban Canopy.

According to its announcement on Facebook, PSI “will provide 50 [percent] subsidies for University students through the end of winter quarter (and possibly spring quarter). These subsidies mean your household can get compost pick-up for between $7.50 [and] $18 per month based on your preferred pick-up frequency.”

PSI’s composting initiative received $2,700 from the Green Fund grant. It was the sole grant recipient in the win-

ter quarter. The Green Fund, housed under the Department of Campus and Student Life, was formed in April of 2020 after lobbying by the UChicago Environmental Alliance (UCEA), a student-led coalition of campus sustainability groups. It has designated up to $50,000 in grants for the 2020–21 academic year.

Tim Koenning, a second-year student at the Harris School for Public Policy and a member of the Green Fund Student Committee, said that there were five or six applications in total.

“This project was the sole recipient of a grant this quarter because it was the only project submitted that the judges believed to have adequately met the requirements for funding,” Koenning said.

While the Green Fund’s mission is to increase the sustainability of the UChicago campus, “off-campus composting fits into the mission of the Green Fund because…it is considered a campus sustainability project that would provide tangible improvements

to our university,” said Koenning. He explained that the Green Fund defines campus broadly to include facets of student life that are not necessarily on University of Chicago property.

Second-year undergraduate Chloe Brettmann leads PSI’s campus composting project group. Her group has been advocating for more systemic composting efforts on campus for years, but it has repeatedly run into administrative resistance and logistical difficulties. “It was a very slow-moving process,” she said.

At the end of winter quarter last year, Brettmann’s group successfully obtained funding from Student Government (SG) to pilot a composting program in student-run cafés. The trial was supposed to run in the spring of 2020 but was abandoned due to the rapid shutdown of campus.

“This year, with all of the student cafés closed, we had to regroup and ask what would have an impact in the era of COVID…. We were sort of thinking about ways that we could subvert

administrative roadblocks entirely,” Brettmann said.

Through the program, Brettmann hopes to show students that composting is just as easy as recycling.

“We don’t think of composting the same way as we think about trash and recycling. It’s [viewed as] this extra step that hippies do,” Brettmann said.

“It’s actually quite easy, and services like Urban Canopy make it as easy as taking out your trash and recycling.”

She also hopes that success in this initiative will help persuade the administration to enact systemic on-campus composting in the future. Ideally, the off-campus composting initiative will serve as a stepping stone to integrating composting into the campus dining halls and cafés. High interest and participation in the composting subsidy program would be presented to the administration as evidence that students care about composting and the issue of food waste.

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“Founded to Exclude”: Greek Life, UChicago Theta, and the Push for Abolition UChicago Theta’s Membership is Down 80 Percent After a Summer of Social Justice Reckoning

By LAURA GERSONY and

AVI WALDMAN Grey City Editors During the 2019-20 school year, UChicago’s chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta (better known as simply Theta) had more than 180 members. Now, in January of 2021, it has just over 30.

UChicago is one of many universities across the country to see a mass exodus from Greek life in recent months.

Hundreds of students reportedly disaffiliated from Vanderbilt University’s Greek life institutions in July, the University of Richmond’s entire Panhellenic Council resigned over the summer, and “Abolish Greek life” Instagram accounts sprung up at campuses nationwide. The catalysts for these movements have varied from school to school, but one common thread runs through them all: the belief that Greek institutions are rooted in classism, racism, and exclusivity.

UChicago Theta According to an op-ed penned by five former members of Theta’s leadership—all of whom have since disaffiliated from the sorority—UChicago Theta’s most recent reckoning began with an incident in the fall 2019 recruitment cycle.

In the fall of 2019, during the tenure of previous leadership, “women of color, and dark-skinned women specifically, were excluded from the process of meeting new members from day one and told explicitly to go home throughout the process,” the op-ed read. This prevented several women of color, who had signed up to participate in recruitment, from interacting with new members.

a letter on Instagram—which has since been deleted—apologizing for the incident on behalf of the chapter, prompting widespread concern and interest in the issue from alumni and other observers.

So, in the summer of 2020, Theta’s MDC embarked on a fact-finding investigation, holding near-daily interviews with alumni and current members in an attempt to pursue disciplinary measures against those responsible for the incident. “We, as new leadership, had to go back through and figure out what happened,” said Ella Parker, Theta’s former chief external affairs officer.

But they quickly found themselves restricted by certain aspects of TheThe 1949 IF Sing. courtesy of the university of chicago photographic archive. ta’s standard disciplinary procedures, which are set by the national organiThese women “looked around the a collective experience of exclusion zation. The main one, they said, was room, and they were like, ‘Wait a min- and belittlement at the hands of fel- the wealth of confidentiality policies ute, everyone who wasn’t assigned was low chapter members to our advisers​​ within the organization, which preBlack or Asian,’” said M., a former Theta and present chapter leadership at a vent individual grievances from being member familiar with the matter who Membership Development Commit- shared with the group unless members asked to remain anonymous for fear tee (MDC) meeting, but no action was do so without naming anyone involved. of retaliation or harassment. “There taken,” the op-ed read. MDC performs Rather than discuss specific instances were other people getting multiple as- a disciplinary function within Theta, of racism within the sorority, the group signments, whereas they were not [get- adjudicating disputes among members. was only permitted to discuss “racism” ting assigned to speak with prospective “It is problematic to not recognize broadly. members].” that exclusion from sororities, and feelAs the investigation hobbled along, Speaking to new members is the ings of exclusion among Black women, the leadership’s faith in the disciplinary main way in which current sorority is an issue,” M. said. system quickly eroded. members participate in recruitment Members of Theta leadership during “It’s like a black hole. You just and, according to the op-ed, “the selec- fall 2019 did not respond to multiple re- scream into it,” B., a former Theta memtion of specific members over others” quests for comment. ber, said in an interview with The Masidelined many women of color in this But according to former Theta lead- roon. (Some former members of Theprocess. ership, the failure was as much in the ta leadership spoke to The Maroon A heated argument ensued when aftermath of the recruitment debacle anonymously, as they received threats they raised this concern with a member as in the moment. Knowledge of what of legal action for pursuing disciplinary involved in planning the recruitment happened became public in the summer action against certain members.) “We process. of 2020 amid the racial justice protest have this system that’s supposed to ad“The Monday following recruit- movement sparked by the police killing judicate these different issues and disment, multiple members recounted of George Floyd. The leadership posted CONTINUED ON PG. 5

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“It’s like a black hole. You just scream into it.”

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putes, but it doesn’t actually do its job whatsoever. Nothing actually comes out of it in a productive way, in a way that is transparent or addressable, because the word ‘confidentiality’ gets flung in your face every time.”

The fact that the chapter even has a disciplinary committee, B. said, is primarily “for show.”

Parker said that the members who came forward with the allegations of racial bias and exclusion also lost faith in the disciplinary process.

When women come forward with allegations, “they are told, ‘We will handle this; you’ve been heard; we’ll take care of this,’” Parker said. “And that was the problem, because then when nothing happened, the time had already passed, and the people who originally brought something up felt disrespected, and didn’t want to have anything to do with it anymore.”

At the conclusion of the investigation, the leadership singled out one member who had been involved in organizing recruitment and was deemed primarily responsible for the initial incident. The sorority initiated a “membership termination vote” in an attempt to kick the member out of the chapter.

The vote passed almost unanimously.

Several weeks later, however, the leadership learned that this vote was overturned by the chapter’s panel of advisors, a volunteer group of Theta alumni appointed by the national organization to advise and oversee the chapter. As the basis for this decision, the advisors cited procedural shortcomings: “They told us we didn’t take good enough notes,” B. said. The advisers also claimed that bias against the wrongdoer may have clouded voting members’ judgment, as the events from fall recruitment were at that point general knowledge within Theta.

This decision incensed many members of Theta, including Parker, who told The Maroon that the advisors had never voiced these procedural concerns throughout the disciplinary process, and that the identity of the person under investigation was kept confidential.

But beyond this, Parker said that the advisors’ decision undermined the will of

the group.

“It just says a lot that we voted near-unanimously for this, and our advisers still chose to overturn it,” Parker said. “They don’t think that we know what’s best for our chapter.”

Several weeks after this controversial decision, a rift formed within the group between those who wanted the chapter to dissolve entirely and those who wanted to remain in Theta. Per the chapter’s bylaws, dissolving would require a unanimous vote, which was clearly unattainable. The advisers’ decision was a pivotal moment, signaling to many members the national organization’s opposition to real change.

“We realized that any change that we would want to make would be met with the same resistance by, quite frankly, old white women who don’t understand why racism is that big of a problem in its manifestations here on this campus,” said Allie Salazar, a former class representative for Theta’s MDC. “That was, I think, the moment at which leadership realized: Anything we do is going to be in vain.”

Theta is not the only sorority whose efforts at reform have been stymied by an intransigent national organization: A nearly identical incident played out at Northwestern University’s chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha.

“The thing that was really damning was the system’s inability to deal with [the initial incident],” Salazar said.

“Being members who were on the administrative side of it, we found that the system was unable to rectify the wrongs that had happened, insofar as it wasn’t as explicit as a hate crime.”

For former Theta member A., who identifies as a woman of color (and asked to remain anonymous for fear of harassment), it was the response from Theta’s national leadership and one of its chapter advisers in particular that erased her faith in the sorority’s ability to change.

“There were a lot of girls who came to Nationals expressing their concerns,” A. said. “It was very obvious to not only the girls [whom Theta’s adviser] talked to but [to] pretty much everyone in the chapter that she did not care about our chapter’s women of color, and

she did not care how they felt about it.

She cared far more about protecting the people who were responsible for the incident rather than the people who were affected themselves.”

That was when A. and the majority of Theta’s members started disaffiliating in droves. In August of 2020, fewer than 30 members remained.

A Nationwide Trend The public disintegration of UChicago’s chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta was far from an isolated incident. Following the summer’s mass mobilization against structural racism, sororities and fraternities on campuses nationwide found their checkered pasts and present discriminatory practices suddenly subjected to the harsh spotlight of media scrutiny. Several past presidents of UChicago’s Panhellenic Council (Panhel) have come out in favor of abolition, and student-led movements to abolish Greek life emerged at colleges across the country, decimating many chapters’ membership in a matter of months, just as one did for Theta.

Social media has played a large role in this wave of activism. There are over 50 Instagram accounts advocating Greek life abolition at different universities, many with hundreds or even thousands of followers.

Months later, however, the question remains whether that movement will keep its initial momentum. What’s more, not everyone who sees a need for change to the Greek system agrees on what form it should take.

In June 2020, Hannah Pittock, a former member of the sorority Alpha Omicron Pi (AOII), penned an open letter to AOII headquarters, arguing that Greek life should be abolished, rather than reformed. While her article received support from many like-minded activists, it was also met with “valid resistance” from women of color who, she said, had been working toward reform for years.

“One of the inherent problems with the letter, and with my participation in this piece, is that it engages in the same problematic dynamic I’m trying to dismantle, of white women speaking over or for women of color on issues of racial justice,” Pittock wrote in a statement to The Maroon. “The reform ideas

outlined are not new, nor did I come up with them: They’re reforms women in Greek life, and especially women of color, have been working tirelessly toward for years…. This letter failed miserably in acknowledging that, it spoke over them and for them in a really problematic way, and it didn’t give credit where it was due.”

UChicago Theta did not respond to multiple requests for an interview, and AOII representatives declined to be interviewed.

While the momentum to reform or abolish Greek life is currently driven by the internal pressure of members disaffiliating en masse, observers outside the system have long exerted pressure on Greek organizations to dissolve or reform, especially in the wake of racist incidents and in conversations surrounding sexual assaults. UChicago’s Phoenix Survivors Alliance (PSA) has been critical of the role Greek life has played in campus sexual assault for years, and the close ties between fraternity social life and sexual assault took center stage in a public art installation the group put on last spring.

Since the racial justice protests reached a peak in the summer of 2020, sororities at UChicago have begun attempting to address racial injustice in their pasts. In a statement issued in November, UChicago AOII said that it had created two new leadership positions responsible for diversity, equity, and inclusion within the chapter. It is also implementing regular educational chapter meetings on racial justice and allyship, including curriculum aimed specifically at recruitment, and it has announced a “zero tolerance” policy for discrimination and harassment.

Similarly, UChicago Theta announced in October that it was eliminating preferential treatment for applicants who are related to Theta alumnae, known as “legacies,” among other reforms. Delta Gamma (DG) said in a statement on Instagram that it is also abolishing legacy admissions and implementing regular workshops on diversity and inclusion for its members.

Charting a Path Forward In spite of sororities’ problems, the CONTINUED ON PG. 6

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“When you start to make a list of all the things that would need to happen for Greek life to be reformed...it starts to unravel all of the things that make Greek life what it is.”

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women who do join their ranks say that they play an important role, serving as a social network, a support system, and more. But the feasibility of a community that preserves the benefits of Greek life without its baggage remains an open question for many.

Parker, for one, is optimistic about the possibilities of a non-Greek space for female-identifying students. “I firmly don’t believe that the only way to mobilize a group of women is through Greek life,” Parker said. “I don’t think it has to be this problematic to get a group of women together and get them to do really amazing things.”

Although she chose to disaffiliate, A. still appreciates some aspects of her time in Theta and wishes that more marginalized students would be able to experience the sense of community she found there.

“I wish there were other people coming from backgrounds like me that could have experienced that—that could have gotten to know so many different kinds of people, from so many places all over the world, and have fun with them and feel like they belonged,” she said.

Parker, too, noted that there were aspects of belonging to Theta that she still found appealing, particularly the opportunity to work on philanthropic projects and build a close working relationship with Theta’s philanthropic partner, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Cook County.

“We don’t just do philanthropy because we have to. We actually have an insane[ly positive] relationship with the organization that we do philanthropy for,” Parker said. “I understand the reason why Greek life philanthropy is problematic, I’ve read the abolish Greek life posts on it, but I do think joining Theta that was a really cool thing that I was excited to be a part of.”

One former sorority member, who spoke with The Maroon anonymously for fear of harassment, now runs the Instagram account @abolishgreeklifeuchicago. She said that even on a campus without Greek life, there may still be a need for sorority-like organizations. While several RSOs do cater

specifically to women on campus, they are generally oriented toward students interested in particular fields of study, career paths, or political concerns rather than the general interest social structure that sororities provide.

“I think it would be great to have environments on campus for female-identifying students. That’s one of the main reasons I joined Greek life in the first place,” she said. “A lot of the same infrastructure could be transferred over to some sort of all-female space on campus that’s more inclusive, that doesn’t turn people away based on their personality, based on how they look, or if they can pay their dues.”

But under these circumstances, such an organization may not be recognizable as Greek life, another moderator of the Instagram account said.

“Greek life was founded to exclude,” she said. “When you start to make a list of all the things that would need to happen for Greek life to be reformed—how do we include people who don’t identify within the gender binary? Or people who can’t afford to pay dues? How can we make this place more accessible?—it starts to unravel all of the things that make Greek life what it is.”

This conversation has already begun playing out on UChicago’s campus since the wave of disaffiliations this summer.

Some former sorority members have formed a new group for female-identifying students, referred to as the “Oak Society,” which held recruitment information sessions during the first week of winter quarter and quickly came under fire on social media for its resemblance to the sorority many of its members had just left.

Still, some see Greek life’s problems as symptomatic of a deeper issue. A. said she believed that despite the efforts of those running recruitment to bring in primarily “rich, straight white women,” many of the members of Greek organizations do want to see more students from different backgrounds join.

The problem, A. said, was an environment that has long permitted racism to go unquestioned—a problem that isn’t unique to Greek life.

“I think it happens at a lot of RSOs

and other organizations on campus, but because it’s more characteristic of the stereotype of Greek life, we’re willing to point the finger and say, ‘Well I’m not racist; I’m at XXX group organization” instead of Kappa Alpha Theta or instead of Sig[ma] Chi,” A. said. “I think solving this problem doesn’t necessarily lie in abolishing Greek life. It lies in abolishing an environment that allows these things to happen, which is harder work.”

A. said she thinks that increased representation from people of color within Greek organizations could lead to a culture shift that makes sororities and fraternities more welcoming places for marginalized students.

“I think on a Panhel-wide level there needs to be some checks and balances that place an emphasis on diversity and inclusion across all leadership positions,” she said.

Greek Life’s Other Half During the months when Theta’s public reckoning played out, members of UChicago sororities openly discussed the viability and varied historical legacies of Greek life on social media.

One AOII Instagram post claimed that Greek life institutions’ “elitist practices” serve to “preserve white supremacy within the Greek system.”

But UChicago’s fraternities largely escaped censure despite the fact that conversations about University oversight of the Greek system have long centered on fraternities, fueled by a long list of incidents that drew public outcry.

Included in those incidents were examples of overt racism, allegations of hazing, and sexual assault at fraternity parties. The University of Chicago, however, refuses to engage questions of regulating Greek organizations because of a long-standing policy of not recognizing Greek organizations. As such, former Theta leadership said that the responsibility for checking fraternity misconduct has commonly fallen to UChicago’s Panhellenic Council, to which the sororities Kappa Alpha Theta, Alpha Omicron Pi, Delta Gamma, and Pi Beta Phi all belong. Just as a lack of real self-governing power withheld by the national organization prevented

the women of Theta from enacting reforms in their own chapter, sororities’ lack of power over fraternities can restrict their ability to reform the practices of campus Greek life more broadly.

This arrangement puts sorority women in the position of policing the behavior of fraternity men, with little leverage other than the ability to issue public statements and refuse to participate in social events with fraternities, as the Panhellenic Council did with the fraternity Sigma Chi following allegations that it had failed to prevent daterape drugs from being given to female students at a number of its O-Week parties. This dynamic becomes especially fraught in cases of sexual misconduct, sometimes involving members of the same sororities who are called upon to discipline fraternities for their negligence.

“There’s a history at UChicago of [sexual misconduct] not being addressed adequately by fraternities, and I think Panhel has fallen into this role and feels a responsibility,” Parker said. “Panhel knows better than anyone because it’s so often women in sororities who are the victims of these types of things because they spend the most time at frats and at parties where sexual assault instances occur.”

While declining to say whether this was an accurate characterization of the dynamics between sororities and fraternities on campus, Panhel wrote in a comment to The Maroon that “our chapters want to provide safe spaces for women to support and empower one another.” Members of Fraternities Committed to Safety (FCS) declined to comment.

Looking back on her time in Theta’s leadership, Salazar said that she was bothered by how much sorority social life depended on the cooperation of fraternities, particularly given that UChicago sororities have no houses and are technically prohibited from serving alcohol.

“Because we weren’t supposed to do anything related to alcohol at all and college kids, for better or for worse, bond over alcohol, we became socially CONTINUED ON PG. 7

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“We need to start asking: Fraternities offer us a lot; they bring in money and other things, but what is the cost?”

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dependent on fraternities for that bonding, for this experience of going out, this experience of partying,” Salazar said.

“They became the holders of the social capital.”

That dependence, B. added, limited the ability of sorority leadership to sanction fraternities for bad behavior and to a certain extent ensure the safety of their own sisters.

“The fact that we have to use parties as a bargaining chip to say, ‘Hey, you’ve done something wrong’ is absurd,” she said. “It’s all-around bad that women are being put in this weird position where we have to interact with them, but also police them, but also ask them for money for the philanthropy event.”

The situation is made worse, A. said, by the fact that fraternities have no governing body equivalent to the sororities’ Panhellenic Council empowered to issue regulations across campus. While 10 campus fraternities (one of which, Sigma Phi Epsilon, is now defunct) signed a pledge in 2016, forming FCS and agreeing to abide by certain sexual assault prevention and response protocols, the pact contained no real enforcement mechanism for violators, and FCS’s website was inactive as of January 2021.

“If one fraternity says something [about reform], another fraternity can say ‘fuck off, I’m doing this instead,’” A. said. “It’s definitely a lower level of accountability for fraternities.”

Greek Institutions’ Deep Roots The durability of Greek institutions is a result of not only the ready-made social scene they provide to members, but also of the financial, social, and cultural capital invested in the institutions. Those seeking to topple the centuries-old institution face significant obstacles in the deep pockets and broad alumni networks that fraternities and sororities command.

On the national level, sororities and fraternities cycle through many millions of dollars yearly. For the 2017–18 fiscal year, Kappa Alpha Theta’s national organization reported $58 million in revenue and spent close to that amount.

The funds are channeled into a number

of areas: chapter programming, philanthropic fundraising, scholarships, and costs of housing, along with maintaining the national leadership apparatus.

The incentives for joining Greek life also render abolition an uphill battle.

At UChicago, fraternity housing is one potentially significant perk of joining Greek life, and housing corporations control a flow of cash through both membership dues and alumni donations. The Chi Upsilon Alumni Association, which manages housing for UChicago’s chapter of Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji), reported revenue in the hundreds of thousands in 2017, as did the Midway Educational Foundation, a separate organization that funded improvements to Fiji’s house.

Fraternities and sororities’ loyal alumni networks are powerful incentives for a prospective member, posing an additional challenge to Greek life abolitionists. The names of UChicago Greek life’s most prominent donors are familiar to any student from the names of houses and University programs: billionaire trustee Byron Trott (Fiji), wealth manager Bernard DelGiorno (Fiji), Jeff Metcalf of the Metcalf Internship Program (Fiji), trustee Gregory Wendt (Alpha Delta Phi), and hedge fund manager John Thaler (Psi Upsilon). Greek life alumni are expected to leverage their career success in order to give students and recent graduates from their fraternity a leg up—Psi Upsilon’s 2013 Member Education Guide, for example, encourages alumni to offer mentorship and summer internships to current brothers.

The national network of Greek life also has a political arm. The Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee, also known as FratPAC, funds election campaigns of Greek life alumni and lobbies members of Congress to support the interests of Greek life (including, notably, their opposition to a 2013 anti-hazing bill).

FratPAC donates to candidates across the political spectrum, ranging from Vice President Kamala Harris to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. While most of FratPAC’s donors are individuals or individual fraterni-

ty and sorority chapters, some subsidiaries of national Greek organizations contribute as well, such as the Pi Beta Phi (Pi Phi) sorority. While the legal restrictions and cash flows are complicated—Pi Phi, for instance, states on its website that it draws its donations from alumnae dues rather than collegiate ones and doesn’t contribute directly to campaigns—the financial links between Greek organizations and FratPAC’s lobbying activities on Capitol Hill have raised a chorus of objections from students to the political uses of their dues. These political commitments of Greek organizations have galvanized campus activists calling for abolition.

In addition to economic and political influence, however, Greek organizations rely on a particular kind of cultural power for their enduring place in campus life. According to Tulane University professor Lisa Wade, who studies sexual culture on college campuses and has called for the abolition of fraternities and sororities, the centrality of Greek life to narratives of the college experience in itself helps perpetuate the Greek system.

“You have these two prongs of power, [one being] economic power, which is the resources that many of these historically white fraternities and sororities have to make themselves seem indispensable to a college,” Wade said.

“But they also have this cultural power, where this state of affairs that advantages this particular group seems normal. It just seems normal and right.”

According to Wade, the concentration of social power in fraternities originally founded as exclusively white, wealthy, and male organizations is somewhat paradoxically responsible for the expansion of the Greek system to women and students of color. Given that history, Wade questions whether the boundaries of that system can be further expanded and made truly inclusive without overhauling Greek life’s defining features.

“The fraternities became the model for what it looks like to organize around an identity and lift each other up. It was because fraternities had so much power that we saw women forming their own

fraternities, that we see students of color forming their own fraternities and sororities, that we see Jewish fraternities and sororities,” Wade said. “It’s not because there’s anything special about this word or these organizations. The copycatting was because of the power that these white men held.”

According to Wade, dismantling Greek institutions starts with acknowledging that maintaining them is a choice, rather than an inevitable outcome or a necessary part of college life.

“We need to start asking: Fraternities offer us a lot; they bring in money and other things, but what is the cost?”

Wade said. “Part of the way we do that is [by] exposing this cultural lie we’ve been told [about the necessity of fraternities].”

The groundswell of student activism that rippled across college campuses in recent months encouraged Wade, who saw both abolitionist activists outside and students inside Greek life working to reform their organizations or leaving them as signs of the potential for change.

“I think students are deciding for themselves whether or not they want these institutions, and I see a lot of potential there for what might happen,” Wade said. “People in Greek life responding by disaffiliating is such an incredibly powerful thing to do. It gives other people a permission structure, the permission to say, ‘Hey, actually, I don’t love this either.’”

Despite the frustrations Salazar encountered and her own choice to leave Theta, she said that many women who chose to remain sorority members are working to accomplish the changes she found impossible to make.

“There are a lot of women, and women of color especially, who really want to make change and feel some level of institutional support for that. Whether that’s support for pure P.R. purposes or [if ] that’s genuine support, I don’t know,” Salazar said. “There’s this belief that ‘we can make the change’; the question is whether or not they can. Will this work? I don’t know.”

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VIEWPOINTS Instructing Insurrections: How UChicago Can Avoid Creating the Next Ted Cruz The University must stop masking racism as intellectual discourse and re-examine the Chicago principles.

By KELLY HUI Ted Cruz went to Princeton and Harvard Law. Josh Hawley went to Stanford and Yale Law. Amid coverage of an insurrection at the Capitol and the belated joint session to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, the educations of the two foremost election result objectors also made headlines; pundits on cable news networks and Twitter users alike were quick to point out Cruz’s and Hawley’s prestigious educations, finding it dif-

ficult to reconcile the senators’ Ivy League pedigrees with the foolishness of their actions.

Overturning the results of the election was always going to be a long shot’s long shot. Yet Hawley announced in late December that he would formally object to the certification of election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, while Cruz organized 10 Senate Republican colleagues to vote against certification and support a 10-day electoral commission to audit votes—which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell op-

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posed, and which Politico reported “had no chance” of succeeding. The actions of these two senators were wrong-headed and futile. They also incited an insurrection in the Capitol on the day of the Electoral College count, though of course much of the blame can and should be attributed to President Trump (who is a Wharton man himself!). So where did they go wrong? When in between matriculating at the top universities in the world and hiding from armed intruders in the Capitol building did Cruz and Hawley betray themselves and their country?

It is not that their education failed them—their education did exactly what it was meant to do. It prepared two budding conservative minds to go forth into the corridors of power—to disguise bigotry as love of country, hate speech as meaningful debate. You see, despite constant claims to the contrary, elite institutions are not liberal bastions that engender “woke” minds; rather, they propagate white supremacy by justifying racism as intellectual discourse. The University of Chicago is no stranger to this phenomenon—in fact, with its “Chicago principles,” our school has become a leader in framing hateful rhetoric as par for the course in the pursuit of free speech. These principles bolster and enable the next Ted Cruzes and Josh Hawleys and harm marginalized students, who are told that their rights— their very humanity—are up for debate.

The Chicago principles, first

introduced in the 2014 Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression, set forth guidelines to “promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation,” even if the ideas expressed in such so-called debate and deliberation “are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.” As of January 2021, 79 U.S. colleges and universities have adopted the principles or endorsed similar statements.

UChicago’s commitment to freedom of academic inquiry has garnered us national recognition: In 2018, The Wall Street Journal called our school “the Free-Speech University,” while President Robert Zimmer was lauded as “America’s Best University President” by UChicago alum Bret Stephens (who is not unfamiliar with controversy for his opinions in The New York Times). On September 29, 2020—the first day of fall quarter—Fox News announced that their student survey found that UChicago was “the best campus for free speech.”

By following the Chicago principles, the University effectively legitimizes and encourages students who may share similar bigoted ideologies.

When a Booth professor invited noted white supremacist Steve Bannon to participate in a debate on campus, President Robert Zimmer stood by the invitation, withstanding pressure from student protests outside Booth and a widely circulated letter signed by 122 UChicago faculty members urging him to

rescind it. Thankfully, Bannon never stepped foot on campus, though the University certainly made their stance on hate speech clear. Acknowledging that the antisemitic, homophobic, alt-right nonsense Bannon has espoused throughout his life has some academic worth or intellectual merit is categorically absurd. For a young person with hate in their heart to see a man like Bannon espousing his intolerant views behind a podium with the UChicago coat of arms is dangerous and potentially radicalizing. For an immigrant, for a person of color, for a member of the LGBTQ+ community to see that, it is devastating, an assertion that their personhood is not natural, but something to be “debated.”

When elite institutions treat people like Bannon as academics—with something to teach, with something valuable to say—it not only validates and potentially propagates such bigoted thoughts, but also signals that the University’s commitment to academic inquiry is more important than the safety of marginalized students and the ability of all students to participate in that inquiry.

Free speech on college campuses is an issue that has been debated and exhausted well before the inception of the Chicago principles, and well after.

The Chicago Thinker, UChicago’s new conservative paper, was founded to create a space that “challenges the mob’s crusade against free speech,” as “some things are too sacred to surrender to the mob, and the CONTINUED ON PG. 9

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free exchange of ideas is one of them.” My peers at the Thinker may think me hypocritical, then, for wanting to reimagine free speech on campus. It is, after all, these very principles that affirm my ability to openly criticize the administration, or, say, call for the abolition of the University. But my words— radical as they may be, disagreeable as they certainly are to some—do not do any harm.

They do not inspire hate or fear.

In short, they have no capacity for violence. And now, more than ever, we are seeing how the latent violence wrought in language can speak (or tweet) violence and death into the world.

We’ve seen how the now– twice-impeached President’s hateful rhetoric and denial of his loss instigated a deadly insurrection. We’ve seen how his early refusal to take the threat of COVID-19 seriously—directly or indirectly—caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.

His words, elevated so by his platform, carry an unconscionable death count. Accordingly, in the fallout of the attempted coup, Trump was banned from Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, and his beloved Twitter. These social media platforms cited Trump’s abili-

ty to further incite violence as reasons for indefinite suspension. If Twitter can recognize how hateful speech can beget hateful actions, why can’t UChicago?

Freedom of expression is necessary for intellectual inquiry. But we must recognize how an emphasis on free speech, which is so often used as a right-wing talking point, opens up room for bigoted language and bigoted actions, and how university administrations—including our own—enable this. In a post-insurrection society, we must reexamine the Chicago principles and find a way to balance freedom of academic inquiry with protecting our marginalized students and creating an inclusive community for all. This means disinviting pseudo-Nazis and fascists from campus, yes, but also delegitimizing xenophobic thinking when it is masked as “debate and deliberation” in our classes. We can call out and disengage with these discussions, actively voicing to the speaker and the professor the harm that they do. We need to recognize that some things (like the fundamental human rights of every student in the room) are not up for debate, no matter how many academic terms are thrown around. What

is so-called “intellectual intolerance” compared to the kind of intolerance that incites hate crimes? It is no longer a matter of students feeling comfortable—now, after an insurrection at the Capitol, after a year marked by racial injustice and police brutality, it is a matter of students being safe.

We’ve seen the consequenc-

es of elevating hateful rhetoric—we have seen it now in the highest echelons of power.

It begins in our classrooms, where the Trumps and Cruzes and Hawleys are given the tools they need to acquire and keep power, even if it means promoting fascism and white nationalism. The next Ted Cruz could be walking through the quad right

ALVIN SHI

now. The future Josh Hawley might be playing devil’s advocate in your Sosc class. We can prevent such radicalization by reexamining the Chicago principles and prioritizing safety over absolute free speech.

Kelly Hui is a first-year in the College

Leaving the Bubble While at the University, students should develop a lasting, personal relationship to Chicago and the South Side.

By MATTHEW PINNA If you applied to the University of Chicago based solely because of its promotional material, your only knowledge

of what the city actually looks like would come from different angles of the exact same halfmile radius. Chicago is reduced to nothing more than repeating shots of the Bean, the River-

walk, and flyovers of the Loop occasionally interspersed with cheerful footage of our campus, 10 miles and a 40-minute train ride away. But what about everything in between and be-

yond? What about the South Side, where the University itself is? What can we as students do to push back against a flyover understanding of what, for the time we’re here, becomes our

city? As it would turn out, the options are minimal and utterly failing, devoid of the personal initiative necessary to facilitate a thorough and propCONTINUED ON PG. 10

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er understanding of the South Side and its people. It is easy to approach exploring the city as part of a University-sanctioned program or as a public policy practicum; it is more difficult, yet significantly more rewarding, to develop our own unique relationship with the neighborhood we live in.

The University’s selective pre-orientation exploration programs do little to remedy that Loop-centered perception of Chicago for the small subset of students chosen to participate in them. Chicago Urban Explorers doesn’t publicize its schedule, but its 2019 video is yet another collage of all the Loop’s hotspots. Discover Chicago Bound, on the other hand, expresses a desire to break students “out of the UChicago bubble” and give them “a solid foundation to become a well-informed, active member of the city.” It seems, however, to be less of an immersion in the city’s vibrant culture than an olive branch to the campus’s activist groups—in this case, those under the umbrella group of UChicago United, which was featured last year on a single “UChicago Student Organizing Panel” right before a talk with Institute of Politics director David Axelrod. For an hour and a half, activists from UChicago United railed against the evils of the University’s policing and its gentrification in a time slot that they were specifically allotted by that very same administration. Clearly, the University is so terrified of campus activists that they let them be among the first impressions that a group of pre-frosh students gets of their new school; institutionalization of criticism at its finest.

More importantly, Discover

Chicago Bound’s curriculum begs the question of whether these issues should be the first things students learn of the South Side. Doubtlessly, the South Side’s politics are important to learn, but its neighborhoods and people are greater than their struggles and injustices. We must ask ourselves whether or not it is right to introduce a young person to the South Side solely with its violence, defining it for a new generation of residents (albeit temporary ones) through bloodshed and racism. Even if it is well-intended, particularly for infamously theoretical University of Chicago students, this type of teaching reduces the populace to mere “victims of,” overshadowing their personhood. In other words, it’s an “otherization,” turning human beings into a public policy problem to be solved, if only for a brief four years, after which all is forgotten and careering begins. At its worst, Discover Chicago Bound is a weeklong crash course in teaching its applicants how best to develop a savior complex.

Equally guilty in this matter are our fellow students, who are quick to forget that their classmates come from vastly different walks of life. Perhaps you’ve seen the following exchange, one that’s all too common on UChicago social media forums. Unnerved by unfamiliar surroundings and a media intent on framing the city as a warzone, a new student might innocently express their fear of venturing into the South Side.

Instead of helping in any meaningful way, the top comment typically accuses that student of “being afraid of Black people,” basking in internet clout because they’ve used the Green Line a few times. Instead of tak-

ing the perfect opportunity to dispel misconceptions about the South Side, they only end up commodifying those misconceptions for social capital in a juvenile measuring contest. Really, it’s the equivalent of leaning over the railing at Garfield to send a snap with the Englewood filter to your friends back home before scurrying to your Uber. You can claim it’s not your responsibility to educate people, but then you’d also be devoid of true conviction; simply put, you can’t say you stand for the South Side but stay seated when you get the chance to make a change in your own, small way.

Do all University of Chicago students have a responsibility to learn about the South Side and its people? I don’t think so. If you want to spend your four years at this institution meticulously examining every inch of the Reg stacks, that’s your prerogative. This answer changes, however, when a student claims to want to practice politics or activism, both of which begin, not from citing what you learned in Sosc, but from the people themselves and what they experience in their daily lives. It is for these people that the South Side must be understood as more than just empty space between campus and the Loop to the north and more than just a no-man’s-land to the south.

But where should we start?

Not with the University, that’s for certain. When has waiting for the administration to act ever been a valid means of recourse? Just ask Graduate Students United and #CareNotCops how that strategy tends to go. Even if the University did agree to some sort of program, it would have to be vastly different from the explorations

they currently offer for pre-orientation. For starters, unlike pre-orientation, it would have to be year-round, as the city outside of Hyde Park doesn’t cease to exist after a weeklong program. One week is a vacation; students need to learn to live in Chicago full-time. Furthermore, taking the necessary step of speaking to the people who live around our campus cannot be done with a large group with all of its members wearing their University-sanctioned, phoenix-emblazoned Class of Whatever gear. You wouldn’t be experiencing the South Side as an individual but rather as an extension of the University, bearing all of the negative connotations that come with that. t is clear, then, that the responsibility of broadening our personal understanding of the South Side, by virtue of it being “personal,” must lie within each of us. My suggestion is not free, but no good knowledge is free of some type of work. In a word, it’s food. For the South Side, like any other neighborhood, it means dishes, restaurants, and, most importantly, customers that you can’t find anywhere else. Anyone who’s eaten at a local favorite in a new locale can vouch for me when I say that people open up to one another when they’re around good food and equally good company. You don’t even need to make it to the restaurant to have a conversation—some of my best and most revealing discussions with locals have happened on a CTA bus en route to my culinary destination.

One moment from just before I left for break sticks out in my mind. I was on my way to my favorite rib tips joint, Lem’s on 75th, and the dessert shop right across from it, Brown Sugar

Bakery, for a little something I like to call “having my cake and eating (ribs) too.” I headed for my usual spot in the back of the bus, when, as I walked by the only other passenger, he noticed my bright red “USMC” keychain dangling from my neck.

He stopped me to ask if I was a Marine and I replied that, in fact, I had just graduated from officer candidate school a few months prior. A smile spread across his face and, with something in common, we talked for 15 minutes about his childhood; he and his brother, both Chicago natives, had always wanted to be Marines. His brother, now older and hundreds of miles away, had gone ahead and done just that. He explained that seeing me with that keychain reminded him of his now-distant brother, thanking me for the conversation. And so he got off the bus and I continued on, both of us a little more understanding of someone else’s experiences.

Now, this isn’t to say that you should bankrupt yourself by eating out every day. Akin to how the University provides us with a CTA U-Pass, there may be a future in which, through certain deals with local businesses, meal exchanges or Maroon Dollars can be used elsewhere. But the larger point of this column is to instill a sense of urgency and ownership over your four years here in the University community. You can’t wait for the University to chart your course for you—if you truly want to experience what this city has to offer, you need to begin by taking the initiative.

For me, that initiative comes in the form of rib tips, Jim Shoe sandwiches, and superb Mexican cuisine; only you can decide what that means for you.

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ARTS I KNEW I Smelled a Rat!: A Review of Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical

By GABI GARCIA and ALINA KIM Arts Editors This article contains spoilers.

As all good things do, it probably started as a meme.

On August 10, 2020, TikTok user Emily Jacobsen (@e_jaccs) posted a short musical snippet titled “Ode to Remy” on the social media platform, featuring her pitch-altered voice and a slideshow of Pixar’s Ratatouille’s star rat Remy. From there, other TikTok accounts expanded on her viral clip, creating theatrical personas for Remy’s brother Emile; no-nonsense chef Colette; and the bumbling son of Chef Gusteau, Linguini. Some fans added dance numbers, showed off their individual renditions of rat costumes, or even composed an orchestration of Jacobsen’s ode, in the case of Daniel Mertzlufft (@danieljmertzlufft). The rest is history: with Disney’s blessing (the musical was permitted to air online for 72 hours), director Lucy Moss (Broadway’s Six) and musical adapters Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley signing on, and 11 TikTok songwriters composing seven original songs, an official show was released starting at $5 a ticket. The musical would go on to raise over $2 million for The Actors Fund.

Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical is a testament to the power of social media’s virality, with a singular post’s proliferation ironically paralleling the worldwide spread of another contagious entity. In times of bleakness and separation, the Ratatouille musical is the very sort of lighthearted virtual entertainment we need, its utter ridiculousness and underlying message of hope and resilience in the most uncertain of situations a good enough reason to crack a smile.

One of the true joys of the show comes from its all-star cast: Broadway veterans like André De Shields (Anton Ego) and Mary Testa (Chef Skinner) joined younger Broadway actors like Ashley Park (Colette) and Andrew Barth Feldman (Alfredo Linguini), along with musical superstar Adam Lambert (Emile), and television and Broadway star Tituss Bur-

gess (Remy). In addition, the musical was produced by Jeremy O. Harris, the Tony Award-nominated playwright of Slave Play, and accompanied by the 20-piece, all women-identifying and majority women-of-color orchestral collective The Broadway Sinfonietta. Throughout the performance, we were joyfully surprised by star appearance after star appearance: The entire Broadway cast of Six performed backup vocals and dancing for Lambert’s stellar performance of “Rat’s Way of Life,” and off-Broadway (and theatrical social media) favorites Natalie Walker and Larry Owens appeared briefly as reporters for various European newspapers.

Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical featured smaller nods to musical theatre for more intrepid thespians in the audience.

One memorable 30-second sequence in “Anyone Can Cook” included references to Sweeney Todd, A Chorus Line, and Cats: “Rat-ical songs for rat-ical rats” was not something we expected to hear immediately after a massive, Chorus

Line-style crescendo, but we were into it.

The other major Easter egg was actually in the casting of the musical itself. Mabel, the old, Broadway-obsessed woman who chases Remy and Emile out of her kitchen (and into the sewer?) was played

by Priscilla Lopez, who originated the role of Diana in A Chorus Line. She begins the chase by singing a clever parody of “What I Did for Love,” Diana’s song in A Chorus Line. Additionally, in a nod to director Lucy Moss, at one point in the show, Remy sings, “Listen up, let me tell you a story,” an iconic line from Six. We’d like to take a moment to applaud the casting director of this musical—we could not have imagined a better cast for Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical. Feldman, best known as one of the winners of the 2018 Jimmy Awards and Broadway’s youngest Evan Hansen to date, absolutely nailed his performance as Linguini, capturing the perfect blend of characteristics for our favorite awkward noodle man. His casting was no accident: He performed “Anyone Can Cook (Re-

The Cast of Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical. courtesy of ratatouille: the tiktok musical.

prise)” in its original TikTok because he was friends with composer Nathan Fosbinder. Park, known recently for her performance as Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls: The Musical, knocked it out of the park as Colette. Feldman noted on an Instagram Live that Park worked with a dialect coach to perfect her French accent specifically for this role, which paid off enormously,especially in the number “Kitchen Tango,” in which she raps cooking instructions in an impeccable accent without breaking a sweat.

Testa’s Chef Skinner was a delight. Despite (obviously) not being a tiny Frenchman, she drew a fake mustache on her face and inhabited the character so well we forgot any evidence to the contrary.

And Brady’s Django was, perhaps, the most anatomically correct rat—his detailed makeup and costume elevated his performance of “Trash is Our Treasure” even further, encouraging us to believe in his wisdom and expertise as an older rat. We can’t forget De Shields and his CONTINUED ON PG. 12

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incredible Anton Ego: De Shields brings the precision for which he is known to his performance of our favorite grouchy food critic, making Ego’s revelation from the ratatouille he’s served that much more powerful. Finally, Joy Woods and JJ Niemann brought rat-ical energy to the show in their two-person dance ensemble.

While somewhat unfair to criticize a theatre production put together in a span of mere weeks, in the spirit of Anton Ego, we must not pardon the flaws.

Perhaps the standout pitfall comes from Burgess (Remy)’s fast-paced narration: It felt like audience members had to already possess knowledge of the plotline of the original Pixar film to fully grasp the musical’s storytelling. Burgess’s Remy was forced, more often than not, to quickly brush over major movie events, especially the Colette-Linguini romance (which was made more awk-

ward by the massive age gap between the actors playing both roles) and Gusteau’s chefs resigning after Remy’s revelation. The rapid recap left us pausing to recall specific moments from the 2007 film before pinpointing where exactly in the storyline we were located. While we feel the character-driven focus was appropriate to the TikTok production, the musical ultimately suffered by glossing over these important movie moments via dialogue in favor of a short production length.

The TikTok format of the musical certainly pays a cute tribute to the signature skit style of the social media platform’s users (the TikTok filters being quite a special treat), but by the fin, we were left with no nostalgic pining for the Parisian environment or Remy’s obsession with the artistry of food—two of the most crucial elements of the original Ratatouille. In the movie, Remy glorifies Paris’s beauty, absorbing its bustling cul-

ture and mouthwatering cuisine with wide-eyed wonder, literally showing us his visualization of food flavor through pulsing lights and French-style music.

The musical, however, does not live up to its predecessor in this aspect: Mostly recorded with gray backgrounds, save for Kevin Chamberlin singing in his own kitchen, it withdraws from both France and food alike. Did we even get to see ratatouille or Linguini’s botched (and later fixed) soup? The only reminder we have of Remy’s location is a reference to the Eiffel Tower in a digital background.

Perhaps if the production utilized more of this feature—in fact, TikTok’s many filters include inserted digital backgrounds—we would have felt more situated within the three-star culinary destination at the heart of Paris.

Beyond all the glitter and glitz, Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical served a greater purpose to many members of the theatrical community. Thousands of

theater workers have been unemployed since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But thanks to Seaview Productions, every contributor (including actors and designers) to Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical was paid for their participation and helped support other theater workers with their work through the musical’s enormous contribution to The Actors Fund.

Besides its drawbacks, the Ratatouille musical proved a wholesome delight to all who miss the theatre world. Is this digital innovation the future of the art?

Probably not. Nevertheless, we adored Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical for what it was: an echoed message from the original film, one that reminds us that passion can arise from anyone and anywhere, TikTok meme or not. We weren’t expecting a whole gourmet meal from a limited-budget virtual production, especially when our favorite theaters still remain closed to visitors, but we’re glad

SPORTS UChicago Athletic Trainer Confronts COVID Challenges With Enthusiasm

By GIUSEPPE DI CERA Sports Reporter

The onset of the pandemic last March forced everyone to adapt to a new environment fairly quickly, and UChicago athletic trainer Robert “Bobby” Smith was no exception.

Known for his charismatic personality and diligence in his work, Smith is in his fourth year as an athletic trainer at UChicago. Since coming to the University, he has worked with almost every team in the Department of Athletics and Recreation.

When the University sent students home and quarantine began last spring, Smith faced the immediate challenge of providing follow-up care to injured athletes in a virtual setting. Additionally, many athletes didn’t have access to the University’s

professional equipment for their recovery in their homes. Nevertheless, Smith confronted these unfavorable circumstances with enthusiasm and resourcefulness: “It was super cool to piece together a whole rehab program based on whatever people had access to. Being very specific with [my] wording to explain how to do an exercise was fun and brought [me] back to the basics.” Indeed, despite the difficulties of the virtual setting, Smith demonstrated his commitment to getting every student-athlete back on the field by adapting quickly and giving athletes the proper care that they needed.

By default, the transition into a redesigned campus environment in the middle of the pandemic also changed the expectations of Smith’s role. One of the most notable modifications has

been the implementation of a robust scheduling system where athletes sign up for appointment slots to see him.

This newly integrated system presents a significant change for Smith, who was accustomed to having large volumes of athletes in the training room right before teams took the practice field. “I was used to seeing 15 people every 30 minutes. Now I see one [athlete] every 15 to 30 minutes,” he said. Despite the decrease in overall interactions with student-athletes, Smith notes that the new system does have advantages that could be helpful in the future. “It’s nice to know who I’m about to see and how long I’m going to see them for,” he added.

Despite the difficulties of the pandemic, Smith is still enthusiastic about the unique nature of his role.

One of the things that Smith enjoys

the most about his job is the ability to work with such a talented, young athletic population. Smith notes just how special it is to “see [student-athletes] throughout their entire academic and collegiate career” and to observe “how much they grow and how much they change from being a first year to being a senior leader.” By creating such a welcoming and positive environment, Smith wplays a significant role in stimulating the personal growth that he observes in student-athletes.

Thinking beyond the pandemic, Smith says that he is excited for when athletes eventually return to competition. Until then, he will continue to work diligently to ensure that student-athletes are in peak condition for when UChicago teams get the opportunity to compete for national championships again.

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Playoff Appearance Cannot Overshadow Bears’ Failures

By DHEERAJ DEVARAJAN Sports Reporter

“At least we made the playoffs!”

Barely. The NFC was a mess this year.

The Cardinals fell apart at the end of the season despite of going 5–3 in the first half of the season, the Vikings’ defense was a train wreck throughout the season, and as a result, the 2020 Chicago Bears became the first wild card team to make the playoffs without a winning record in over a decade before being walloped by the Saints in the first round. The Bears’ season was marred by awful coaching decisions, another great defense being wasted by an inept offense, and a quarterback controversy that threatened to destroy the season (which it eventually did).

Let’s take a look at the quarterbacks first. If we looked at the stats, they’d tell us that Mitch Trubisky went 6–3 as starter, throwing for over 2,000 yards with 16 touchdown passes and eight interceptions, while Nick Foles went 2–5 as starter, throwing for over 1,800 yards with 10 touchdown passes and eight interceptions. Don’t let those stats mislead you. One of Trubisky’s “starting” wins came when Foles saved the day against the Atlanta Falcons, throwing three touchdown passes in the fourth quarter and overcoming a 16-point hole Trubisky had created. The other five wins came against the Giants, Jaguars, Vikings,

Texans, and Lions, teams whose seasons all ended without a playoff berth and with a top 15 draft pick (the Texans traded their first-round pick to the Dolphins). Trubisky just isn’t a top-tier starting quarterback, and this isn’t to say that Foles is either, but Foles would have been a better option at the quarterback spot this season. Five of Foles’s seven starts came against playoff teams, including four Top-10 defenses, and the Bears were just figuring their offensive line struggles and running game out when Foles was relegated once more to the bench.

In my view, the Bears should look to either trade up in the first round to draft a quarterback (Brigham Young University’s Zach Wilson would be a good pick up in my view) or attempt to make a trade for Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, even if it ends up costing them two or three high draft picks and/or a player (or two) as good as Khalil Mack, Roquan Smith, or Kyle Fuller.

Now, the rest of the team. Although the Bears defense wasn’t as consistently dominant as it should have been, they still finished in the top half of the league and shut down elite offenses such as Tom Brady’s Buccaneers and Drew Brees’s Saints (twice). All-Pro Eddie Jackson did not have an impressive season at free safety, but players such as linebackers Mack and Smith (when he was on the field) and defensive lineman Akiem

Hicks were their usual elite selves.

Most of the Bears’ issues on defense can be attributed to defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano, who was not aggressive as frequently as he should have been. With Pagano having retired at the conclusion of the season, the Bears should look to hire a coordinator from either the Ravens or Rams system, since those defenses played in the fashion that would fit the Bears’ personnel.

On the offensive side, three players stood out far above the others: wide receivers Allen Robinson and Darnell Mooney and running back David Montgomery. Robinson had over 100 catches and 1,200 yards, cementing his status as one of the best receivers in the NFL. However, the Bears were not able to reach a deal with Robinson to extend his contract, and it looks as though he will leave in free agency. Darnell Mooney emerged during the course of the season as an elite, reliable deep threat who has a promising career ahead of him. Bell cow running back David Montgomery is undoubtedly the most important player on the Bears offense, and his hard-nosed running style, elite ability to find the hole, and deceptive speed evoke memories of a young Adrian Peterson.

Finally, let’s deal with the real problems in the Bears’ organization: the owners. Matt Nagy needs to be fired; his lack of leadership and in-

ability to design an offense to suit the abilities of his quarterback show that he is not fit to be a head coach in the NFL. Ryan Pace has made several good moves as the general manager of the Bears, drafting players such as Smith, Mooney, Montgomery, and up-and-coming tight end Cole Kmet, while making important trades to acquire players such as Mack and signing Robinson in free agency. While all this is overshadowed by the fact that he picked Trubisky over Patrick Mahomes and Watson in the 2017 draft, I believe that he should have a chance to draft or trade for a quarterback after Foles and Trubisky.

However, the real problem lies at the top of the Bears, with the McCaskey family. The fact that team president Ted Phillips, in the aftermath of a 21–9 drubbing against the Saints in the playoffs, can say, “Have we gotten the quarterback situation completely right? No. Have we won enough games? No. Everything else is there,” and stay in his role at the top of the organization is simply baffling to me. The owners seem to value stability more than they value winning, and that attitude simply will not get it done in the high-stakes league that is the NFL. Things need to change in Chicago, and fast, or we might see Soldier Field and Halas Hall fall back into the purgatorial times that were the days of Marc Trestman, Mike Glennon, and John Fox.

Redza Brings International Competition Experiences to UChicago Swim & Dive

By MICHAEL MCCLURE Sports Reporter

Before Nadia Redza even set foot on the UChicago campus in the fall of 2017, she already had an enviable athletic résumé. A member of Malaysia’s national swim team since the age of 14, she has competed in locations like Azerbaijan and Samoa to represent her country.

Since Redza joined the UChicago women’s swimming and diving team, she has leveraged those experiences to become a leader in and out of the pool.

“I came into college with relatively good technique just from being at such a high level back home, and I think that helped me a lot because I’m able to help other people fix their strokes as well,” Redza, now a fourth-

year, said.

The decision to swim wasn’t entirely of Redza’s own volition. Her first experiences in the pool came at the behest of her parents, who wanted her to learn swimming as a basic life skill. Redza’s older sister, Diana, is also a swimmer, and Nadia wanted to follow her lead.

The younger Redza added gymnastics, track and field, and dance to her

list of activities when she moved to Beijing, but upon returning to Malaysia in fifth grade she fully concentrated on swimming. In 2013, at the age of 14, Redza was tapped for the Malaysian national team after competing in the 16th Sukma Games.

Most athletes would be around 18 to 20 years old when chosen for the Malaysian national team, but Redza, CONTINUED ON PG. 14

THE CHICAGO MAROON — JANUARY 27, 2021

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“Redza’s success was in large part enabled by the support and sacrifices of her family.”

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who has also represented her home state of Selangor, bucked that trend.

“My year, when I first swam at those games, was the first year they took younger athletes, so I was almost like a pilot program in a sense,” Redza said. She noted that it was a decision partially fueled by low numbers, for several of the older swimmers and divers were retiring from competition.

Since then, many young athletes have been drafted in at 15 or 16 years old.

Naturally, representing her home country of Malaysia in international competition came with additional pressure and high expectations. “I think being a national athlete, you realize you’re swimming for a larger entity than yourself. When I used to swim, I used to just swim for myself, swim for my mom at least, but then when you’re going to all these international games you have a lot more pressure,” Redza said.

Redza’s success was in large part enabled by the support and sacrifices of her family. “My mom was with me every step of the way,” she said. “I think her support really showed when I was drafted into the national team.

She was there sending me to practices every day, in the morning, in the afternoon, sending me to early morning practices on the weekends too.”

Because of the amount of traveling and training required of Redza, family holidays became a rarity.

Redza also credited her high school, the International School of Kuala Lumpur, for its flexibility. Few athletes on the national team also attended school simultaneously, and her teachers understood that her role as a national athlete—a rarity at her school—sometimes superseded academic obligations.

Redza had always expected that she would go abroad for university.

Although she began by looking at Division I schools, she realized at the beginning of her senior year that she wanted to focus more on academics, and UChicago, with its rigorous aca-

demics and DIII athletics, proved to be the perfect fit.

“I really saw the passion there,” said Redza about UChicago’s swimming and diving team. “The entire team of like 60-plus people are there because they want to swim or dive, and I didn’t really get that sense when I visited the schools that were initially interested in me.”

Redza burst onto the scene in her first year at UChicago, breaking school records in the 100-yard and 400-yard individual medley (IM) contests and earning All-American recognition for her performances in the 400-yard IM and 800-yard freestyle relay. “[I was] quite surprised, actually. I came into college with no expectations at all,” Redza said. “I just knew that I would swim the best when I was having fun, and that definitely showed in my firstyear performance.”

Her success is all the more remarkable considering the adjustments she had to make in the pool. International swim contests, including those in Malaysia, typically use long course meters (usually 50 meters from end to end), while college meets use short course yards (usually 25 yards). The distance from one end of the pool to the other is more than twice as short in college, and as such, there is greater emphasis on turns and underwaters.

But the volume of competitions came with challenges for Redza, not least burnout. “After first year I continued to train in the spring actually, when we usually have an off-season, because I had a Malaysian meet over the summer, so definitely not being able to take that off-season to reset my body took a toll on me,” Redza observed. A similar scenario developed after her second season, when she had to spend the spring preparing for the 2019 Summer Universiade, where she would again represent Malaysia.

While Redza’s first year at UChicago may have been her strongest from a performance standpoint, that didn’t stop her from giving the team her all in subsequent years. “You learn to

[have] more of a leadership role, even if you’re not as fast as you were your first or second year,” she said. Now serving as captain, she has worked to ensure that everyone is staying motivated and engaged with the team, including those studying remotely.

Redza also served as a leader in the wider world of UChicago athletics by joining the Women’s Athletic Association (WAA), spending her first year as a freshman representative before progressing to the role of special events chair on the Executive Board in her second year.

“It was a really rewarding experience because I got to learn about sports from different perspectives,” Redza said of the WAA, where she is now vice president. “Growing up, when I was swimming at home, [I] never really got to interact with other athletes.”

Having that camaraderie with fellow athletes has been one of the greatest positives of Redza’s time at UChicago. “I found myself feeling happy and feeling prouder for a lot of the races of my other teammates as opposed to mine, and I think college swimming really teaches you that, because you’re part of this large family,” she said.

Redza has also found inspiration in the UChicago coaching staff, in particular head swim coach Jason Weber.

“Since I wasn’t in the U.S., he [took] a chance [on] someone who’s from this small country in Asia,” Redza said of the recruitment process. “I just fully respect him for that and for what he’s done for this program for the last 15 years.” She cited former director of athletics and recreation Erin McDermott as another influential figure in her UChicago career.

This year, there will be no competitions for Redza and her teammates.

While few things are set in stone due to the fluid nature of the pandemic, Redza expressed hope that some virtual meets, where schools would compete by swimming at their home pools and comparing times, might come to

fruition.

The swimmers’ training regimes have also been affected by the pandemic, particularly with pool closings.

“For swimming, it’s harder to get that water cardio shape that you were in [before the pandemic],” Redza said. “I don’t think a lot of people really understand how hard it was to get back into it.”

Seeing the losses faced by last year’s graduating class, however, eased the pain of an altered ending for Redza. “I think with COVID -19 happening at least last year, as a thirdyear, and seeing how the seniors felt when the nationals were canceled or when everyone was leaving [for] home, I think that allowed us to start the closure process a lot earlier,” she said. “I think we’re doing the best we can given the situation.”

After she graduates in June, Redza will remain in Chicago, where she is set to work as an operational risk analyst in the financial technology sector.

She looks back fondly on her time as a swimmer, with the University Athletic Association’s 2020 Swimming and Diving Championships being a particular highlight.

“We were so close to beating Emory [University] and it really came down to that last relay on the last day, where points really mattered,” Redza said. “I’ve never seen our team so supportive, so together, just cheering everyone on.” Redza also enjoyed the team’s training trips. “It is a week of hard, grueling training, but it’s just us in Florida or California, and we’re all there together…excited to explore the place and get into the zone of just swimming,” she said.

For prospective college athletes, Redza offers sage advice. “Just have fun with whatever you do. I think that’s one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned from college swimming.

The more you enjoy it, the better you’re going to perform, and the more you’re going to have a meaningful experience.”