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ALUM SUES U. OF TENNESSEE, ALLEGING DISCRIMINATION

MARCH 3, 2021 EIGHTH WEEK VOL. 133, ISSUE 18

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Lab School Parents Hold Protest To Demand Return to In-Person Classes

LUKIAN KLING

Paul Alivisatos Selected as 14th President

University Mourns Death of Fourth-Year Student

COURTESY OF UCHICAGO NEWS

ARTS: Meet Reese Klemm, U of C’s Newest YouTuber PAGE 13

LEE HARRIS

VIEWPOINTS: In Defense of Sororities

VIEWPOINTS: Free Speech Is a Progressive Cause, Too

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Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/chicagomaroon and follow @chicagomaroon on Instagram and Twitter to get the latest updates on campus news.

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UChicago Alum Suing U. of Tennessee for Deeming Her Social Media Posts “Unprofessional”

By LAURA GERSONY Deputy News Editor Kimberly Diei (A.B. ’15), a second-year pharmacy student at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) College of Pharmacy, is suing UTHSC after the school tried to expel her for social media posts that violated their professionalism standards.

The College of Pharmacy’s Professional Conduct Committee investigated Diei twice after receiving anonymous complaints about her posts on social media: once in September 2019 and again in September 2020. After the second investigation, the committee voted unanimously to expel Diei on the grounds that her posts on public Instagram and Twitter accounts were “sexual,” “crude,” and “vulgar.” One of the posts in question included an image of Diei wearing a shirt that exposed her cleavage, and another post included explicit rap lyrics which Diei wrote based on the song “WAP”

by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.

“I was disgusted, hurt, frustrated, angry,” Diei told The Maroon. “I was just cycling through all of those feelings in disbelief.”

The professionalism standards for UTHSC, which were posted online after Diei filed her lawsuit, give the school permission to suspend or dismiss students for “unprofessional and unethical conduct which would bring disrepute and disgrace upon both student and profession.” While Diei successfully appealed her expulsion, her lawsuit argues that these standards are unconstitutional and overly broad, as they violate students’ right to free expression “for no legitimate pedagogical reason.”

Diei is represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit that promotes free speech on campuses and encourages higher education institutions to adopt the Chicago principles.

Diei said that her case is first and foremost a free speech issue.

“We’re here to learn, but we do still have lives outside of the classroom. I’m hoping those boundaries can be set about how far the rulings of the university can extend into a professional student’s personal life,” she said. “We should be able to partake in con-

versations that others might deem uncomfortable, but that doesn’t make me any less qualified to obtain my degree in pharmacy.”

However, she also said that it’s no coincidence that the “professionalism” standards were used to target her, a Black woman, noting the bias inherent in deeming certain appearances unprofessional.

“Professionalism rules and policies are created in an attempt to discredit Black individuals or make them feel out of place,” she said, citing the example of race-based hair discrimination, which has only recently become illegal in several states. “It’s used to target Black people and to make them feel uncomfortable in that environment. I do think it definitely has an aspect of racism.”

While the identity of the person who reported her social media posts is unknown, Diei believes the reports may have been motivated by academic resentment. Diei is a vocal participant in all of her classes, a trait she said she picked up while an undergraduate at UChicago. At UChicago, students and faculty “encourage critical thinking, they

encourage free speech to a certain degree.

We’re always given the floor, especially in certain discussion courses, to voice certain opinions and engage with the material,” she said.

But Diei’s active participation was met with a different response when she began graduate school. “I brought that enthusiasm for learning to this college environment [at UTHSC], and it was not well received. Bullying and harassment ensued,” she said. Her new classmates made Facebook posts about her, talked about her behind her back, and approached her about being less vocal in the classroom.

She was also selected for a coveted internship last summer, which was awarded to only one student in her class. This and other academic successes led Diei to believe that her classmates reported her social media posts as retaliation for her strong academic performance.

“None of this was an issue until I made myself stand out in the class as an individual who is intelligent, well-spoken, and can handle this sort of curriculum,” she

said. “Now, all of a sudden, people are prying into my social media and making these reports. Had I remained quiet and kept my head down, I doubt that such reports would have been made.”

“There are several other students who are very vocal in class, and they all happen to be either white males, white females, or Black females of very light skin tones,” Diei said. But their behavior did not provoke the same ire from her classmates: “They only targeted me.”

While Diei said some boundaries on student speech are appropriate, university professionalism codes can overstep students’ constitutional right to free speech.

“I’m not saying that there should be no rules, and I should be able to say whatever I want,” she said. “But as long as I’m not saying things that are inciting violence or showing that I’m biased in patient care, and things of that nature, then I should be left alone.”

Representatives from the University of Tennessee and UTHSC declined to comment.

Kimberly Diei, a second-year pharmacy student at University of Tennessee. COURTESY OF VIA PRODUCTIONS AND BREEZY LUCIA/FIRE

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UChicago Dining to Expand Maroon Dollars and Implement Preordering, Following CC Initiative

By ANUSHKA HARVE Senior News Reporter Students may be able to spend Maroon Dollars at several off-campus businesses starting in fall 2021, per an agreement reached at a February 5 meeting between College Council (CC) representatives; Christopher Toote, executive eirector of UChicago Dining; and Richard Mason, assistant vice president for campus life.

Administrators have agreed to CC’s initiative recommending the expansion of the Maroon Dollars program to include off-campus businesses, according to the CC website. They have also agreed to implement the preordering service GetFood on campus and have taken under active consideration a number of other changes to UChicago Dining, some of which did not even appear in the proposal.

In the proposal, CC suggested that UChi-

cago Dining contract with off-campus businesses, including Can’t Believe It’s Not Meat, Insomnia Cookies, Plein Air, Saucy Porka, Seoul Taco, and Te’Amo Boba Bar, to accept Maroon Dollars in addition to U.S. dollars.

These vendors would receive technology to scan University of Chicago Student ID (UCID) cards for Maroon Dollar payment and receive daily payment in U.S. dollars from a University account.

Once implemented, students enrolled in eligible meal plans would be able to use Maroon Dollars at these businesses starting fall 2021. CC also recommended that for the first 12 months of this program, the University should not enact any restrictions on the Maroon Dollars used in off-campus vendors.

CC representative Allen Abbott said that Dining agreed to the expansion contingent on some legal aspects, such as an examination of Illinois tax policy and restaurants’ willingness to collaborate. According to

Abbott, the University will reach out to Hyde Park restaurants over the next several months, aiming to start the program in fall 2021.

In addition, Dining will start using digital preordering platform GetFood in campus cafés and Hutchinson Commons by fall 2021. According to Abbott, the app is integrated into CBORD, the on-campus payment processing system. Like a “digital wallet,” students would load money and pay for their meals online prior to pick-up. This option would be available even after dining restrictions related to COVID-19 are lifted.

Dining said that it might start a pilot test for preordering takeout at dining halls during the COVID-19 pandemic. Upon returning to dine-in services post-pandemic, it is possible that Dining will keep the preordering option for live cooking stations, such as the omelet bar. The timeline and detailed plans for the pilot test are still unclear.

A number of other changes were discussed during the meeting. To address continued food insecurity in the student population, programs such as Swipe Out Hunger could be brought to campus. The program allows students to donate extra meal swipes or dining dollars to peers so they aren’t wasted.

Dining is also considering expanding the hours of operation in dining halls, increasing Friday and Saturday night dining options on campus, and offering fourth meal during finals week. Abbott said that these changes could be finalized in the spring.

“Housing and Dining, in general, continue to be two areas of the University [that] are consistently willing to work with Student Government to improve the student experience on campus…[and] listen to and hear out students…even when there’s some unresolved concerns or philosophical differences on certain policy matters,” Abbott said.

Survivors of Police Torture Share Their Stories at Invisible Institute Event

By ROSHINI BALAN Senior News Reporter Content Warning: This article contains a brief description of police brutality.

Eleven survivors of police torture presented their stories at an event commemorating the launch of the Chicago Police Torture Archive, a “human rights documentation” of former Chicago Police Department (CPD) commander Jon Burge’s violence against more than 100 Black Chicagoans during the 1970s–90s. The archive was published by the Invisible Institute, a journalism production nonprofit that works on issues of police transparency and accountability in the city.

Officer Jon Burge was a Vietnam War veteran who worked at the Area Two police headquarters in Chicago. Burge was infamous for his extreme torture techniques, which ranged from physical to psychological abuse, starting in 1972.

Community and cultural organizer Damon Williams, who was the first speaker at the event, provided a brief overview of the Chicago Torture Justice Center’s work, emphasizing the need to continue building on the momentum of this movement for justice even after this accomplishment of chronicling this prevalent police torture.

The Chicago Torture Justice Center, along with UChicago’s Pozen Family Center for Human Rights and the Chicago Torture Justice Memorial, helped collect survivor stories for the archive.

A series of survivors then took the floor, each discussing the violence they had endured while incarcerated.

“I’m a survivor, not a victim,” said Se’an Tylor, one survivor. “I’m glad we’re here for guys just like us on the inside who need someone to hear them.”

Gregory Banks, who was incarcerated from 1983–90, was the first of the speakers to be released from prison after his case of police torture and coersion into a false con-

fession was heard. While incarcerated, he resolved to engage in advocacy as his life’s work upon his release.

“If I ever get out, I would not stop,” he said. “I’m gonna do this for the rest of my life because this is what I was born to do.”

Banks is now an activist and a learning fellow with the Chicago Torture Justice Center.

LaTanya Jenifor-Sublett, the only woman to speak, described how society has marginalized female victims of police torture.

“I stand as the face of all the other women who people said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know they existed.’”

She reiterated how she knows she represents many women whose experiences at the Area Two police station were not shared: “I represent many; I know I do. Area two, Police station, 1990. I did 21 years in prison. I am her,” Jenifor-Sublett said.

For some speakers, the event marked the first time they had been able to share their stories with the world. Reginald Henderson

said that it meant a lot for him to speak at this launch event, even through Zoom.

“For so many years I’ve written and wrote trying to get my voice heard. But right now, to hear the echo of the phone—to hear my voice heard—means a lot,” he said.

Joey Mogul from the People’s Law Office Legal Archive then discussed the legal implications of having these accounts of torture so readily available in this archive.

“It’s great that we not only organized this information but made it accessible… Education is power. Knowledge is power.” She added that this information allows people “to free themselves, to free others, and to seek justice.”

Mogul then detailed specific accounts of torture at the hands of Jon Burge, a decorated police officer at the Area Two police station. Survivor Anthony Holmes described how Burge suffocated him using a plastic bag.

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discussion of the legacy of the Death Row 10, a cohort of police torture survivors who work with the People’s Law Office on advocacy, and of the experiences of the mothers of torture victims.

Alice Kim of the Pozen Center commented on the fight to abolish the death penalty and on how Bill Clinton’s crime bill discontinued educational Pell grants to death

row inmates. Without the ability to use Pell grants to further their education, the Death Row 10 organized their own law classes. It was in these classes that the Death Row 10 realized their shared experience of torture at the hands of Burge.

Kim talked about the classes as a means of establishing a cohort. “Law classes, religion classes, these are spaces people use to organize,” she said. Ultimately, Kim dis-

cussed how this organization cemented the legacy of the Death Row 10 and allowed them to work together: “We didn’t know that Illinois would become ground zero for the fight to abolish the death penalty.”

Finally, the mothers of the torture victims spoke. Mary Johnson described her experience seeking justice for the violence that her son, Michael Johnson, endured at the hands of police officers, regardless of his

involvement in any crime.

“I went to the police station not as a victim; I went to complain they jumped on my son and I went there to file a complaint. I thought I would get an award. I went to go tell them about some bad cops! I didn’t think I was setting up my son for being arrested each time he sees the cops,” Johnson said.

“People make mistakes, but when it comes to Black people we’ve all committed crimes.”

Office of the Provost and #CareNotCops Hold Simultaneous Public Safety Forums

By NICK TARR and ROSHINI BALAN Deputy News Editor and Senior News Reporter Last week, the UChicago Office of the Provost and the activist group #CareNotCops presented two different visions for the future of campus policing during simultaneous online events.

The provost’s office used the event as an opportunity to explain current public safety initiatives and discuss potential improvements in service. Speakers read from prepared statements before answering questions that were collected prior to the event. #CareNotCops (CNC) hosted their forum as a direct response to the provost’s, referring to it on social media as an “ACTUAL public safety forum.” CNC has long called for the disbandment of the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD).

Speakers at the CNC forum lambasted UChicago over concerns regarding racial bias and mental health training in UCPD. Alicia Hurtado, a third-year at UChicago and an organizer with CNC, opened the forum by discussing the limitations of the provost’s event.

“The UChicago forum only takes questions in advance and discusses responses they’re already implementing,” she said.

The CNC forum, according to Hurtado, would cover “public safety measures that the University is not addressing and not giving students the option to address.”

Maira Khwaja (A.B. ’16), a member of the CNC’s Coalition for Equitable Po-

licing, also criticized the provost’s safety forum.

“Forums are about asking questions and getting outcomes and having a real conversation,” she said.

CNC sees the Provost’s forums and committees as taking attention away from real UCPD reform, which would involve fewer uses of force, discriminatory violence, and neighborhood over policing.

Warren Wagner, a second-year speaker at the CNC forum, emphasized CNC’s focus on taking concrete action over the University’s creation of increasing numbers of task forces and committees. In Wagner’s opinion, while these committees don’t explicitly take away from reform, they by no means contribute to it and are a performative measure that lacks the diversity of opinion necessary to enact change.

“I can bet you money that they offered some listening session tonight, but I think it’s important to understand the history of UChicago,” he said. “It’ll convene every panel and make every microscopic reform to hide its priorities.”

Khwaja also accused UCPD of a lack of accountability to the communities under its jurisdiction. “Police can act with impunity—there is no recourse to demand knowing who the police officer is who did something. It’s hard to hold officials accountable in private police forces,” she said.

Meanwhile, at the provost’s forum, University administrators detailed recent measures aimed at increasing community involvement in public safety and offered words of support for UCPD. Throughout,

University administrators made specific reference to a series of listening sessions held in collaboration with the provost’s office from September 2020 to January 2021 to gauge areas of improvement within UCPD. According to Kenton Rainey, Chief of Police for UCPD, participants in the listening sessions, which included members of the campus community and the greater South Side, criticized UCPD for its lack of accountability to students and members of non-university communities within UCPD’s jurisdiction, poor mental health infrastructure, and limited youth engagement. However, participants also often requested increased public safety services and reported positive changes in their experiences with UCPD, according to Rainey.

“Universally, participants noted a more positive experience with UCPD since 2010,” Rainey said.

Eric Heath, Associate Vice President of Safety and Security, said that many listening session participants mentioned UCPD’s size as an issue. According to Heath, it was a common belief among the participants that UCPD is the world’s second-largest private police force.

“As of today, UCPD is an agency made up of approximately 95 full-time sworn staff members, and only one part-time sworn officer,” Heath said. “We are not the second-largest private police department in the world, and we are not even the second-largest private campus police agency in the United States.”

UCPD is, however, the largest private

police department in Chicago, with more than 65,000 Chicago residents living within its jurisdiction.

Heath also mentioned a number of ongoing changes in UCPD policy, including increases in racial bias and mental health training for officers, increases in body camera usage, greater youth engagement, and increased hiring from local communities. Studies about the effectiveness of racial bias training and body camera usage remain inconclusive.

According to Heath and in response to feedback from the listening sessions, UCPD also plans to begin releasing annual reports of data regarding key issues like bias training, departmental demographics, and arrests and uses of force.

“We believe that a concise and informative annual report that can be easily accessed and shared with our community partners will go a long way to improve communications and transparency,” Heath said. “Our goal is to inform our community and be more transparent about UCPD’s positive role in impacting the community.”

Still responding to the feedback from the listening sessions, Heath highlighted UCPD’s Independent Review Committee (IRC), which reviews complaints filed against UCPD in annual reports. The IRC consists of community stakeholders from inside and outside the University, including UChicago students. The IRC’s reports dating back to 2008 are available online.

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said at the event that complaints are first resolved within UCPD by an investigator, who recommends a course of action to Heath. The IRC then reviews complaints made against UCPD officers, but can only make informal suggestions to the department.

“The independent review committee does not have any formal power to change the results in any case. It plays solely a review function,” said Masur.

Forty-eight of the 183 complaints against UCPD since 2005 have been handled “outside of the purview of the IRC,”

according to their 2020 report. According to the same report, the IRC can only review complaints that relate “directly or indirectly to issues of excessive force, violation of rights, abusive language, or dereliction of duty.”

The IRC’s decision has only diverged with that of UCPD once, when a UCPD officer was accused of using excessive force in 2018. UCPD claimed the use of force was justified because a complainant had physically provoked the officer. The IRC disagreed, claiming that the use of force was unprovoked and citing body camera footage from the incident. The IRC’s re-

port made no recommendations to the department, and it is unclear how the dispute was resolved.

UChicago is also launching a new committee to increase community representation in public safety, tentatively called the Public Safety Advisory Committee, according to committee advisor, law school professor, and former chief administrator of the City of Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability Sharon Fairley. The new committee, according to Fairley, is intended to increase student and community involvement in public safety, as well as increase UCPD’s transparency.

CNC was formed in 2018 after a UCPD officer shot University student Charles Thomas, who was suffering from a mental health crisis at the time, according to his parents. The IRC’s report for that year makes no mention of the incident.

Provost Ka Yee Lee concluded the forum on a decisive note, emphasizing that the University has no plans to defund UPCD. “I just want to be clear that UCPD provides a vital service in helping to keep safe and support our campus and surrounding communities. [UCPD’s] role will continue,” she said.

BFI and WBEZ Collaborate on New Podcast “The Pie”

By BASIL EGIL News Reporter The Pie, a collaborative podcast created by WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR affiliate, and the Becker Friedman Institute (BFI) at the University of Chicago, first aired in December 2020. Named for a common economics term relating the amount of wealth in a given nation to its “economic pie,” the biweekly podcast aims to harness the University’s great collective expertise of economic thought.

Its first episodes have aimed to be both informative and entertaining, presenting quantitative analysis and economic theory in a way that is accessible to non-experts. BFI Director Michael Greenstone told The Maroon that the podcast was motivated by the belief that UChicago’s study of economics can be a force for good in the world.

“You’ve got this incredible group of economists on our campus…. Basically,

maybe not every single one, but 90 percent of them wake up every single day and think that they’re doing something that has value for society,” he said.

However, Greenstone acknowledges that economic research and principles can be inaccessible to people outside their field.

“In order to communicate with each other, we’ve developed these languages that are basically impenetrable for the outside world. And they’re really efficient for communicating with each other, but they’re just terrible for communicating with the outside world,” he said.

The WBEZ and BFI’s first attempt at decoding economist jargon was Pandemic Economics, a limited series podcast released between April and November of last year that focused on the economic problems caused by COVID-19. Its success convinced WBEZ and BFI that further collaboration would be feasible, leading to the creation of The Pie.

Tackling everything from student debt to the ongoing COVID-19 vaccine rollout, The Pie plans to feature dozens of University of Chicago faculty from across departments. Executive Producer for WBEZ podcasts and Sound Opinions Brendan Banaszak’s favorite episode of The Pie so far—“Shots on Goal: How to Jumpstart the Economy”—features former Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Randall Kroszner and former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Austan Goolsbee. Both guests, who are now professors at the Booth School of Business, engaged in a frank and lively discussion about what tools the Federal Reserve might deploy to reverse the pandemic-driven recession. All this was greatly helped by WBEZ’s efforts to produce the series, which was demonstrated by the team put together to head it.

The Pie is produced by Ellen Horne, an award-winning executive producer for Radiolab for 12 years. The show is cohosted by

Tess Vigeland, an award-winning anchor on NPR’s Marketplace and All Things Considered, and Eduardo Porter, a New York Times economics reporter.

Having WBEZ as a collaborator on the project was integral to its success. “Having a professional team to make sure that we have a podcast that sounds good, that is, you know, really clean and well-communicated, was another big piece of why this partnership felt attractive to them [WBEZ],” said Karen Anderson, senior director of policy, communications, and external affairs for the BFI. Ultimately, Greenstone sees increasing the accessibility of economic ideas as integral to the BFI’s future.

“What we’re trying to do at BFI, besides facilitate the development of more of these ideas, is to basically translate that into language that people can relate to, and so that it has a fighting chance to be influential in the broader world,” Greenstone said.

New UC Med Study Shows Vulnerable Populations Are Often Underrepresented in COVID-19 Research

By RACHEL WAN Senior News Reporter A new study has found that COVID-19 research often does not include the pop-

ulations most vulnerable to the disease.

The study, led by UChicago Medicine researchers, was published on January 27 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

This study is part of a growing body of academic research showing that long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put many people from racial and ethnic minority groups

at increased risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19. The study also suggests that patients from racial and ethnic minorities, pregnant women, and chilCONTINUED ON PG. 6

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dren are underrepresented in ongoing COVID-19 treatment trials.

Since the pandemic began, Black and Hispanic communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, with some studies suggesting that they are 30 percent to 50 percent more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than their white counterparts. The authors of the paper attribute this to several factors, including systemic health disparities, working frontline jobs and living in multigenerational households.

The researchers performed a cross-sectional analysis of all U.S. COVID-19 treatment trials registered on clinicaltrials.gov under the terms “coro-

navirus” and “COVID.” The UC Med team also used available census data from centers that provide Medicare and Medicaid Services to conduct analysis regarding COVID positivity rates with regard to geographical location.

Results showed that about half of U.S. COVID-19 treatment trials underrepresented people with conditions deemed medically complex, such as pregnant women and children. Research data was also collected in hospitals that predominantly served white populations: An aggregate estimate suggests that only 17 percent of the hospital patient populations were Black and 14 percent Hispanic.

“Smaller community hospitals may

have larger communities of color but may not be equipped to set up these sorts of trials for infectious diseases,” commented Sukarn Chokkara, a second-year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and lead author of the paper in an interview with UChicago Medicine’s publication, At The Forefront. “Given how little is known about COVID-19, being overly cautious with these populations means we have little evidence as to how to actually take care of them when they do contract [the virus].”

Pregnant women and children, who are often treated as unrepresentative of the broader population, are routinely excluded from clinical trials because these

groups are viewed as potentially complicating the work of researchers in understanding and evaluating new treatments.

These exclusions, however, lead to harmful consequences including treatments that will likely be less effective on vulnerable populations. The paper argues that lack of data will translate to little evidence about COVID-19 treatment for these populations, increasing their risk of experiencing potentially severe adverse drug reactions.

“Greater effort is needed to develop and study treatments in vulnerable populations, and this is going to take a longterm commitment to prioritize health equity,” Chokkara commented.

Let’s Grab Drinks and Maximize Utility: Econ Professor Talks Economics of Dating

By ERIC VANDERWALL News Reporter “There’s no divorce between marriage and economics,” professor Pablo Peña said in a virtual presentation organized by the Chicago Economics Forum.

And yes, the pun was intentional.

The economics of dating “is a very Chicago topic,” Peña continued, citing the work of the late University of Chicago professor Gary Becker (A.M. ’53, Ph.D. ’55), whose work applied economic analysis to domains previously considered outside of the discipline such as sociology, criminology, anthropology, and demography, yielding concepts such as household production and human capital. “If there’s a decision, there’s room for economics,” Peña said.

Choosing a spouse for marriage comprises myriad decisions. Peña said this choice can be understood as determining household production. This denotes all the experiences of living together, including both the prosaic routines and events such as vacations, which are still the province of domestic life despite oc-

curring outside the home.

“Who are you going to pick for your household production process? With whom do I want to experience life?”

Peña asked rhetorically, articulating the questions underlying household production. “You want somebody to produce fun, to produce enjoyable experiences.”

The second set of decisions in marriage economics falls under the heading of assortative matching, or the tendency of people—and even some non-human species—to select partners who are similar to themselves. Unlike economic activities such as buying a car, courtship and marriage involve two parties, each with their own objectives. In the car analogy, it would be as if cars and drivers shopped for each other, all parties simultaneously seeking to maximize their utility. And here the analogy ends. “You cannot go to Spouse Mart or Spouse Depot,” Peña said of the two-sided marriage market.

All people seeking a spouse engage in assortative matching, with many variables under consideration, from education level, smoking habits, physical fit-

ness, and religion to animal preferences (cats versus dogs, the insoluble conflict) and astrological signs (what’s your rising?). Some characteristics receive more attention than others, such as education level: People generally choose spouses of their own education level. In addition, Peña said that research indicates a clear pattern correlating to gender: Men put more value on looks than women do.

Men also tend to marry women about two years younger, an age disparity that has persisted even as the average age of first marriage has increased.

Young people will be familiar with assortative matching from experience with filters on dating apps, on which people look for those whose education levels, political affiliations, and substance use habits (e.g. alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana) align with their own.

Those old enough to remember personal ads will recall the many acronyms and abbreviations used for the same purpose. In this case at least, like seeks like.

“Assortative matching is efficient,” Peña said. People who best maximize each other’s utility are suited for one

another; each helps the other achieve the greatest share of happiness possible. Think of happiness as a cake. “If you switch [assortative matching], the size of the happiness cake goes down.”

A marriage creates a new instance of a basic unit of social organization: the family. Peña calls the family “the number one not-for-profit organization” in the history of humanity. Economically speaking, Peña said, it is in the family that most human capital is generated: Families “actually produce people” through procreation.

The family has existed in some form since before the beginning of recorded history, but the radical changes accompanying industrialization in the past few hundred years are apparent everywhere, including familial dynamics and even the physical body itself. “Human height has increased half a foot over the last 300 years,” Peña said. Other changes—notably in infant mortality and the nature of work—have “changed the way people invest in themselves and their children.” As an example, he offered CONTINUED ON PG. 7

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the concept of quality time, a new phenomenon on the timescale of human existence. Until recently, there was simply “time,” and for the majority of humans alive at any moment until not that long ago, most of it was devoted to subsistence. Survival was quality time enough.

In the last few decades, the level of investment in the family has decreased.

According to Peña, the low cost of divorce benefits people in what he considers abusive or truly unworkable marriages, but divorce is so convenient that its other costs, which are considerable, are ignored. Much of this cost of divorce falls on the children, Peña said, affecting their human capital and future prospects. “Children are growing up without

enough people paying attention,” Peña said.

Peña began his discussion of online dating with what he called “the simplest and lamest economics analysis.” These platforms, he said, make much more information available to daters than otherwise possible, and that leads to a more efficient allocation of resources.

For example, people can meet one another without having a workplace or mutual acquaintances to introduce them.

In this sense, Peña said, more is better.

Until it’s not. Peña said that like most apps, dating apps encourage people to focus on constant novelty and sampling.

As a result, people are more likely to engage in dating as an end in itself rather than a means to find a spouse. “I don’t

know if I want to marry this person,” he said, explaining this mindset with a partial metaphor recapitulating his earlier explanation of rental and ownership economies. “I might want to rent more cars in the future.”

Peña believes that the trend toward more casual dating is negative, claiming that long-term relationships are more substantive than shorter-term ones, without elaborating further.

“Meeting 50 people in a year and hanging out with each of them once or twice is not the same as having one person for the same period,” Peña said.

“Dating apps have created a poor substitute for relationships. Piecemeal relationships are not a replacement for real relationships.” Peña said that dating

apps have caused “a crowding out” of chances to develop relationships that, in his view, provide more sustenance but less novelty.

Peña concluded the discussion by arguing that the marriage economy is currently in an extreme position, but that he observed a rise in what he called “relationship economics” in contrast to rental economies. This has occurred in response to the restricted options of the pandemic era, Peña said.

“The world swings. Society swings.

Things move,” Peña said of cycles in the marriage economy, which is in constant flux, as any market is. “We live and die by relationships. We just got distracted.”

University Mourns Death of Fourth-Year Student

By YIWEN LU News Editor Sampson Wu, a fourth-year economics major, passed away in September, according to an email Dean John Boyer and Dean Jay Ellison sent to the College community on Friday, February 19. The University had only recently received the news.

Wu hailed from the southern suburbs of Chicago and graduated from Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy as valedictorian. He was accepted to the University of Chicago on a full merit scholarship. At the College, Wu was a for-

mer resident of Max Palevsky Residential Commons.

In an email to The Maroon, Max Palevsky Residential Head Suzanne Riggle said that they were unable to directly comment due to not knowing Wu personally. “Jason [Riggle] and I care deeply about the students in the Max Palevsky community and are tremendously saddened when we hear of a young person’s life cut short. Our thoughts are with his family and friends,” Riggle said.

“Sampson was very sweet and super loving,” said fourth-year Sophia Ridgner, who went to high school with Wu. “He’s definitely one of those people who re-

ally open up once you get to know him.

I remember when I was sick, he would reach out and check in on me...which is something I appreciate and will forever appreciate about him.”

Like many others, Ridgner only found out that Wu passed away after receiving the University’s email. “If UChicago hadn’t sent that, I would have never known, and nobody from my high school would have known,” she said.

Ridgner spoke with Student Wellness after she received the email, hoping to learn more about the reason for delayed communications. “It sounded like the parents [only recently] let the University

know, so maybe it’s just one of the situations that the University maybe didn’t see [his passing],” she said.

Ridgner reconnected with her high school classmates and informed them of Wu’s passing after she received the email.

In these conversations, Wu’s old friends told Ridgner about their memories with him. “They said he stood out in our high school; if you took the time to get to know him, he was genuinely a sweet guy always cracking jokes; he was always focused on getting work done if you ever worked with him in a project,” she said, “I want people to know that Sampson was a person that had an impact on a lot of people.”

Lab School Parents Protest for Return to In-Person Classes

By LUKIAN KLING Senior News Reporter UChicago Laboratory Schools parents and students held a demonstration on Thursday, February 25, at the Lab School’s campus, demanding that school administrators release a plan for the imminent resumption of in-person classes at Lab. The protest was organized in conjunction with the drafting of a petition by “Concerned Parents of

Lab,” who expressed their requests in print. At press time, the petition has 562 signatures.

The petition demands that the Lab School return third through fifth graders to full-time in-person instruction by March 1. The petition also calls for more in-person attendance for sixth through 12th graders who have been fully remote for almost a year. Ultimately, the petition calls for all grades to return to

full-time, in-person learning by the fall of 2021.

About 50 parents and students gathered outside the Lab School’s Blaine Hall at noon, holding signs with messages such as “Kids First” and “Science Not Fear.” A variety of speakers spoke about students’ deteriorating mental health and focus as the school’s remote learning curriculum approaches its one-year mark. “What started as a public health

emergency is turning into a mental health crisis for our children and our teenagers,” one concerned parent said.

“Private and public schools in Chicago have gone back [to in-person learning],” Lab School student Lila Orlov said. “What’s taking you so long?” The Chicago Public Schools system, which has been virtual since last March, plans to return grades K–5 to in-person clases CONTINUED ON PG. 8

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“These are decisions that profoundly affect our children’s education...” on March 1 and grades 6–8 on March 8.

A date has not been established for the return of students in grades 9–12.

“I have been in my room all year, and it feels like my room is just shrinking in on me,” another fifth grader at the demonstration said.

After the protestors gave speeches that cited scientific support for returning students to classrooms, they

marched from the Lab School through East 58th Street to Levi Hall on the quad. There, event organizer and UChicago Medicine physician Sarah Hoehn handed a printed copy of their requests to Director of Administration and Operations at the Offices of the President and Provost Maria Romanucci, who was standing outside her office.

Romanucci promised to deliver it

to Provost Ka Yee Lee, who oversees all University affiliates in her position.

Hoehn urged the University to “open the school for all the grades, for all the children, all of the days.”

Many community members were frustrated by the lack of transparency from the University administration on the Lab School’s return to in-person school. “Who is determining the future

of Lab attendance?” asked one parent of a 12th grader and a 10th grader at the school who asked to remain anonymous because she felt her children would be angry that she attended. “We want transparency. We want a seat at the table. These are decisions that profoundly affect our children’s education, their mental health, their ability to thrive, [and] our ability as parents to work.”

UCM To Create Medical Records for Student Body in Preparation for Vaccine Distribution

By KATE MABUS News Editor All students who do not opt out by March 1 are to have a UChicago Medicine (UCM) medical record created for them in preparation for Phase 2 of vaccine distribution, according to a UChicago Forward email sent by Dean of Students Michele Rasmussen on Wednesday.

The program follows the University’s announcement of an on-campus vaccine clinic in partnership with UChicago Medicine that will open to all eligible members of the University community.

The clinic will serve community mem-

bers through Phases 1c and 2 upon approval from the Chicago Department of Public Health.

Students who do not want UCM to create a medical record for them must opt out by 5 p.m. on March 1 using this form. Creation of a medical record does not obligate any student to receive the vaccine, but any student who opts out of a UCM medical record will not be eligible to receive a vaccine from the University’s on-campus clinic.

Students who are enrolled in the surveillance testing program or who have previously been UCM patients already have a medical record through UCM’s MyChart patient portal. Once a medical

record has been created, students will be able to use MyChart to schedule their vaccination appointments and access any other medical records.

Most students will become eligible for the vaccine during Phase 2, which is projected to start May 31, less than two weeks before the end of the academic year on June 12. In the email, Rasmussen wrote, “We do not yet know how many students will be able to receive vaccines on campus before the end of the academic year or over the summer. But we are preparing for many contingencies with the goal of offering the vaccine to as many members of the University community as possible.”

Students who have high-risk medical conditions or whose employment includes on-campus activities and exposure to classrooms may become eligible in Phase 1c and must self-identify using this form. Those students with medical risk must attest to having at least one of a number of conditions identified by public health officials as risk factors, including cancer, diabetes, heart conditions, pregnancy, and smoking.

Students without an existing MyChart account who do not opt out from UCM’s creation of a medical record will receive instruction on how to activate their accounts by email in March.

Hunger Strike Over Metal Shredder Relocation to Southeast Side Reaches Three-Week Mark

By LAURA GERSONY Deputy News Editor Over the summer, in the middle of a respiratory pandemic, Chicago’s majority-Latino neighborhood Little Village was blanketed in a cloud of smog. Hilco Redevelopment Partners had demolished the smokestack of a coal power plant in the neighborhood, spewing dust across Little Village with no advance warning to resi-

dents. For many Chicagoans, the incident raised awareness about the dangers of air pollution.

In Lincoln Park, on the other side of town, the metal recycler General Iron’s operations had long released particular matter called “fluff” into the air. To the relief of many of its neighbors, General Iron’s Lincoln Park operation closed on January 4.

The move was no surprise. General Iron had previously indicated its willingness to sell

its Lincoln Park facility, which sits on land that was once a center of industry for Chicago but is now surrounded on three sides by the upcoming $6 billion mixed-use upscale development Lincoln Yards.

But far from ceasing operations, General Iron now plans to move to the economically disadvantaged Southeast Side, a move that has drawn protest and condemnation from activists.

More than 100 Chicagoans have par-

ticipated in a hunger strike to protest the relocation, calling on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to deny General Iron’s permit to relocate to the Southeast Side. The new location is within half a mile of an elementary school and a high school.

Several hunger strikers haven’t eaten in three weeks, and others have joined for brief “solidarity fasts.” Among them was UChicago second-year Alexis Florence, CONTINUED ON PG. 9

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“...we have to think more strategically about the bigger picture.”

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who joined the hunger strike for 24 hours on February 16.

To Florence, the fast “is just a little experience of the dedication that those 10 [hunger strikers] are making: to starve their bodies for something greater than themselves,” she said. “In the end, people are just trying to breathe. Going without food for so many hours is nothing [compared] to the damaging health effects of living next to some of these plants.”

Activists are also circulating a petition demanding that Lightfoot and Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Allison Arwady deny General Iron’s permit to develop on the Southeast Side.

Marynia Kolak, assistant director for health informatics at UChicago’s Center for Spatial Data Science, studies environmental health disparities in the city. Kolak told The Maroon that, when assessing environmental risks, there are two main variables at play: exposure and vulnerability. Exposure refers to the sheer amount of pollution emitted, and vulnerability refers to the extent to which a given community’s underlying risks, such as poverty, make it more susceptible to the health risks of pollution.

A City report released in August 2020 concluded that the South and West Sides of the city are “over-burdened,” as they experience both high levels of both pollution and vulnerability. The confluence of these two factors makes the situation a “perfect storm” for health risk, Kolak said.

“Groups that are marginalized, if anything, should be more distanced from potential exposure, because of what we already know about these really complex

relationships between structural racism, persistent chronic stress, and inequitable access to opportunities,” she said. But in reality, “proximity to [pollution] tends to, over time, correlate with groups that are subject to more barriers on a daily basis.”

Brian Urbaszewski, the director of environmental health programs at the Respiratory Health Association (RHA), said that facilities such as the proposed metal shredder are known emitters of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), molecules so small that they easily penetrate the lungs. PM2.5 is associated with a wide range of health risks, most notably premature deaths.

“Where you have a lot of particulate matter, people tend to die earlier. The strength of that relationship has been reinforced over and over again,” he said. “The fine particulate standard has gotten tighter several times because they keep finding a relationship of increased sickness and increased death at even lower concentrations.”

While the causality of this relationship remains ill-defined, he said, there is no doubt that PM2.5 is harmful. Contrary to national air quality standards which permit nonzero levels of the molecules, research has not identified thresholds below which adverse effects do not occur, according to World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. In other words, Urbaszewski said, no level of exposure to PM2.5 is considered safe.

Randall Samborn, a spokesperson for Reserve Management Group (RMG), which owns General Iron, wrote in an email to The Maroon that the company performed air-dispersion modeling of RMG’s existing

businesses at the request of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA).

This modeling found that “RMG’s existing businesses continue to qualify for the ROSS program as a minor source of emissions” and that “the cumulative air impact will not exceed established standards.”

“PM and metals emissions are well below federal health standards,” Samborn wrote. “The IEPA issued a construction permit last June after its nine-month review demonstrated that Southside Recycling would meet or exceed all applicable air quality standards.”

The increased volume of diesel traffic in the area also poses a risk of emitting particulate matter. A recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report found widespread pollution-control issues in diesel pickup trucks. Urbaszewski told The Maroon that there is a risk these issues would also be present in larger trucks servicing the facility on the Southeast Side.

A report from the RHA shows that rates of asthma are significantly higher on Chicago’s South and West Sides and among the city’s Black residents.

While the debate over General Iron is playing out locally, its scope extends far beyond the city of Chicago. The large-scale rollback of environmental regulation under former president Donald Trump’s administration has weakened many of the mechanisms by which cities nationwide have punished chronic polluters.

Kolak diagnosed the situation as a case of “NIMBYism”—an attitude in which communities oppose development in their local area, born from the phrase “Not In My BackYard.” Kolak believes public officials

will eventually have to start asking bigger questions when crafting a policy response to the issue and grapple with the city’s history of environmental racism.

“How can we have industry in a safe way that protects people, especially the people who are most vulnerable to any kind of pollution?” she said. “Instead of just pushing industrial areas from neighborhood to neighborhood, we have to think more strategically about the bigger picture.”

A spokesperson for Lightfoot wrote in an emailed statement to The Maroon that “since Mayor Lightfoot took office, the City has taken significant steps to ensure that our residents’ concerns about health and the environment are being heard and, more importantly, acted upon,” noting the City’s hiring of a chief sustainability officer and last summer’s Air Quality and Health Report.

“We also worked with stakeholders - including groups representing the Southeast Side - to create new and more stringent rules for large recycling facilities,” the statement reads. “Our efforts to create a more environmentally just and responsive city is about more than one facility - it is about advancing policies that truly promote the health and well-being of people who live near industrial areas.”

When reached for comment about the hunger strike, Samborn wrote in an email to The Maroon, “We regret that individuals are choosing to engage in activity that we believe is unwarranted by the circumstances, and we strongly urge them not to put their health at risk or encourage others to do so.”

Student-Run Planned Parenthood Chapter Launches Trio of Advocacy Projects

By LUKIAN KLING Senior News Reporter The Jane Project, an anonymous question-and-answer hotline for students seeking reproductive health tips, launched this month. The Jane Project is one of three current initiatives of UChicago’s Planned Parenthood

chapter, Project Reproductive Freedom (PRF), which seeks to destigmatize sexual health and fill in gaps in students’ knowledge about the subject.

Second-years Sophie Luard and Zoe Torrey said the motivation for the Jane Project came from the results of a survey they posted in the Class of 2023 Facebook group last year. It asked fel-

low second-years to rate their knowledge on contraceptive and abortion resources as given by the University.

“The overwhelming consensus from those survey results was that UChicago was not informing people either about where to get contraception or abortion or how to pay for it,” Torrey said.

This revelation spurred Torrey, Lu-

ard, and second-year Gillian Major to create the Jane Project, the name of which is derived from plaintiff Norma McCover’s pseudonym (Jane Roe) in the landmark Roe v. Wade case. So far, moderators have responded to almost ten questions on the Facebook page, but they look to receive more going forCONTINUED ON PG. 10

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How do I know which type of contraceptive is right for me?

CONTINUED FROM PG. 9

ward. Students with questions either fill out an anonymous Google Form or text a hotline to get a response within a half hour.

Examples of questions asked on the Facebook page range from “If I am on my parents’ insurance plan, will they see I’m getting birth control?” to “How do I know which type of contraceptive is right for me?” The answers to these questions are important to get right and often depend on an individual’s circumstances, so moderators are required to make sure they are sharing accurate and relevant information.

The Jane Project holds itself ac-

countable by giving students the chance to provide feedback whenever possible.

“We’re researching things and learning them as we go, and so there’s bound to be times when someone [says] ‘Wait, my experience was different’, and so if you go to any of our social media pages we have a Google Form link [for] feedback,” Luard said.

In addition to answering questions, members of the club shared that it is important to accumulate a resource bank to refer students to if certain situations arise. Luard remembered spending an entire afternoon calling the Ryan Center, UChicago Medicine’s Department of Obstetrics and Gyne-

cology, to figure out the numbers that put students in touch with the correct personnel.

Other projects PRF has developed include a menstrual destigmatization campaign on Instagram where PRF posts anonymously submitted funny period stories and a menstrual product drive, where donors can buy menstrual products to be donated to Chicago House, a local social services organization.

Since its conception in 2017 by founder Qudsiyyah Shariyf, PRF has endeavored to spread knowledge and advocate for reproductive freedom through many avenues, such as lec-

tures, documentary screenings, group outings, and a recurring event known as Paint Your Orgasm, wherein participants make art and meet new people. “Reproductive rights, justice, and awareness is everything, especially to college students at this age,” Torrey said. “[Reproductive] health is so essential,” she continued, “[because] in the same vein that if you break your leg, your entire world changes—your path to class changes and the time it takes you to do things changes—if you can’t control your reproductive autonomy your entire world can be undermined by that.”

Paul Alivisatos Selected as University’s 14th President

By MILES BURTON Editor-in-Chief The Board of Trustees elected Paul Alivisatos (A.B. ’81) as the 14th president of the University of Chicago on Friday.

Joe Neubauer, chair of the Board of the Trustees, announced the decision this morning in an email to the university community.

Alivisatos currently serves as executive vice chancellor and provost at the University of California, Berkeley, a position he has held since 2017. Prior to that appointment, he held a number of positions at UC Berkeley, as well as the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Alivisatos will take over from President Robert Zimmer, who will transition to his new role as chancellor of the University on September 1.

Neubauer said that, in consultation with the Trustee Advisory Committee and the Faculty Advisory Committee, the trustees approached “a diverse set of individuals, including presidents, provosts, and deans of private and public institutions. Candidates included a broad range of disciplines, backgrounds, and demographics.”

The decision to seek a new president is the second high-level shakeup in the

university’s top brass in less than two years. Former Provost Daniel Diermeier, now chancellor of Vanderbilt University, stepped down in December 2019 and was replaced by Ka Yee Lee last year.

Last June, Zimmer announced that he would step down as president a year ahead of schedule, citing health concerns. In May, Zimmer underwent an emergency surgical procedure to remove a tumor from his brain. While Zimmer will not be leaving the University immediately, his transition to chancellor will have him focusing on “high-level strategic initiatives, stewardship and development of key relationships, and guiding high-level fundraising,” according to the email. As chancellor, he will be the first to hold that position at the University of Chicago since 1961, when the University began designating its Chief executive as “president” for the first time since 1945.

In a subsequent email to the University community this morning, Zimmer called Alivisatos an “outstanding choice” to lead the university, and said the new president’s experience as a alumnus of the College “gives him an understanding of and c ommitment to our distinctive approach to education and research, and to the particular values and meaning that this entails.”

The Board of Trustees selected Paul Alivisatos (A.B. ’81) to be the 14th president of the University of Chicago. COURTESY OF UCHICAGO NEWS

THE CHICAGO MAROON — MARCH 3, 2021

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VIEWPOINTS DG Does Good By Me Despite the noise about Greek life on campus, DG subverts these alleged trends by providing community and being committed to breaking down institutional barriers.

By MANYA BHARADWAJ Like many of the women in Greek life at UChicago, I didn’t think I’d join a sorority in college.

The stereotypes aren’t uncommon: Everyone in sororities is blond, basic—bitchy, even—none of which I see myself as. I knew, of course, before coming here, that UChicago is far from a party school and that

Greek life here would probably be different from what I pictured at a Southern state university. Even still, while I signed up for rush last fall, I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it. I felt like I didn’t know enough about Greek life to commit to it so early in my college years.

My reservations about getting involved with Greek life were

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quickly dispelled, though, as I got to know more women in sororities and learned that they were much more relatable than the stereotypes in my head had suggested.

Sometime in the middle of my first year, I realized that I desperately wanted a way to connect with more like-minded people on campus.

When the pandemic hit, I knew that meeting new people would be harder than ever. So, with the encouragement of my roommate, I decided to rush again this fall, and joined Delta Gamma (DG). As apprehensive as I might have initially been, I can confidently say that joining Greek life was one of the better decisions I’ve made since coming to campus.

I’ve never considered myself to be a good example of the typical UChicago “quirky” character.

Throughout first year, while I did make many dear friends, I found that I didn’t really have a lot in common with many of the people I happened to encounter in my day-to-day life, such as some of my housemates. I’ve found DG to be particularly valuable in giving me an opportunity to find a community I belong in—people whom I could spend several hours talking with the first time I meet them; people who I spontaneously discovered shared some of my most random interests like learning languages or criminal justice research; and most of all, people whom I know I can relax, be myself, and have fun around. I remember thinking during rush that I could see myself being friends with almost every woman I spoke to in DG. And I was initially skeptical about this translating to the entire chapter of nearly

200 people—another misconception about sororities is that we all secretly hate each other—but the sense of community is something that I’ve found to be just as strong even after joining.

This has been important particularly during a pandemic, when opportunities to meet new people have been so limited. In DG, I’ve gotten to meet all kinds of different, diverse women who value our organization’s mantra of “doing good.” I’ve made friends I can genuinely count on, despite having not known them very long. And beyond friendship, whether it’s finding a study buddy, a mentor I can reach out to for advice on internship recruiting, or someone to teach me Excel for some coursework, joining a sorority has given me a support system for all kinds of little things that I didn’t realize would add up to be so valuable. It’s a tightly knit community that I wouldn’t really have been able to find elsewhere.

That is not to say that Greek life in general doesn’t come with its own issues, including institutional class and race barriers. But what I admire about the women I’ve met in DG is that they strive to address the chapter’s specific issues to make the sorority experience better for existing members, and easier for potential new ones to choose to join us. In response to financial concerns, I’ve seen our vice president of finance work to make dues as low as the national executive offices will allow, and I’ve been proud to work with our honor board to create alternatives to fines. In an effort to combat Greek life’s history of excluding people of marginalized backgrounds, I’ve been in meet-

ings where we’ve discussed ways as a chapter to create liaisons with our multicultural organizations on campus, after we address our own issues to the best of our ability. In order to tackle the problem of sexual assault in Greek life, I’ve seen leadership plan a new, comprehensive reporting and prevention policy for chapter members as well as conduct workshops on how we can learn to support survivors. And this has just been the beginning. As a financially independent woman of color myself, I’ve been so proud to see my fellow DG members strive to reform the chapter’s policies and operations in response to these institutional issues.

I can’t argue that DG or Greek life as a whole is perfect. And I certainly can’t speak for every chapter on campus or every UChicago student in the system. Greek life is something that will always have its critics, and not for invalid reasons.

But what I can say is that I’ve seen my chapter commit to learning from criticisms, implementing reforms, and becoming more institutionally inclusive—and I couldn’t be happier about it. Joining DG has been a crucial component of my college experience in these months so far, and I can tell that it will only become more important in the future as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. Sororities definitely aren’t for everyone. But for those of you who might be considering rush, don’t be deterred by all the posts on UChicago Secrets—you might find that it shapes up to be a lot more than what you think it is.

Manya Bharadwaj is a second-year in the College.

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The Chicago Principles Keep Us Safe Progressives and liberals on campus should be devoted to the cause of free speech.

By KETAN SENGUPTA I’m not a masochist. At least, I don’t think I am; I don’t enjoy pain, and I don’t seek it out. Like most people, I do my very best to avoid it. But I’ve got a confession to make: Sometimes, I willingly inflict it upon myself. And every night for the past four years, I forced myself to watch live coverage of each of Donald Trump’s many rallies. There’ve been hundreds, but they all share the same hallmark moments—deafening chants about walls and immigrants, tales of jobs stolen and inheritances robbed. It’s an uncomfortable and deeply disturbing experience, and it serves the sole purpose of making me hyperaware of how little some people feel I belong in this country—my country. Try as I might, I can never manage to desensitize myself to the sheer depravity of those rallies—they make me feel small, weak, and deeply unwanted, but I’ve watched them almost ritualistically since 2016, and I continued to do so up until the day Donald Trump left office for good.

It’s a habit seemingly incompatible with the very first sentence of this column. Who does that to themselves? (Over and over, no less.) Maybe not a masochist, but certainly a madman. But that’s not it at all. I watch those rallies because history is a cassette tape that’s been looping over itself for centuries. I watch them because January 6’s insurrection on the Capitol is merely a progression of 2017’s Charlottesville rally, the seeds of which were sown, half a world away, during 1923’s Beer Hall Putsch. I watch them because our country is the heir

to a diseased legacy of hate, and to turn a blind eye to it by de-platforming those that champion it is tantamount to self-imposed revisionism.

That revisionism starts with the push to eliminate the University’s Chicago principles, which have been the source of immense controversy for years now. Though I’ve spent less than two quarters on campus, even I can tell you with a reasonable degree of certainty that the debates surrounding them have grown neither less frequent nor less impassioned.

At their most distilled, the principles are a reaffirmation of free speech: that anyone can say anything on campus, within reason, without fear of administrative response.

It all seems dangerously laissez-faire, doesn’t it? We all know how damaging words can be, and—left unchecked—they have the potential to run rampant. A few weeks ago, a column published in The Maroon took aim at the Chicago principles, accusing the administration of using them to “legitimize and encourage…bigoted ideologies.”

It was a compelling, insightful read, and it’s easy to see the appeal in its proposed eradication of the principles. I suppose it’s unsurprising that they’re as reviled by students as they’re revered by the administration, but—despite how attractive the prospect of diverging from the principles may be—it’s also one that I’m absolutely sure will prove lethal not only to our community but to our capacity to combat hatred as a whole. You can’t fight what you can’t see, and abandoning the principles forces us to wage a war against the invisible—something guaranteed to prove deadly.

When I think about the Chicago principles, I can’t help but remember an SNL sketch I watched a few years ago. It’s called “The Bubble,” and its entire premise is the construction of a (literal) bubble for the wokest of liberals to live in. I’d move there in a heartbeat, and so would a sizable portion of the College’s population. But we can’t—and that’s the entire point. The more we limit people like Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking on our campus or engaging with our community, the easier it is for us to forget that they—and the millions of people enthralled by their words and convictions—actually exist. And then we find ourselves blindsided when hundreds of insurrectionists storm the Capitol with alarming levels of success. Those people are out there, and by “out there,” I’m not referring to some faraway land where Confederate flag prints are sold as wallpaper. By “out there,” I mean the quad, and Pret, and the Starbucks at Saieh Hall. They’re in the bottom-most corners of our Zoom classes—or, alternatively, at the very top, playing devil’s advocate while discussing The Prince. We see their bylines in The Chicago Thinker. In order to fight the good fight, and in order to fight it well, it’s essential that we keep what we’re struggling against firmly in our line of sight.

My defense of the principles might seem like apologism; it might seem like complacency.

But the Chicago principles, and my support of them, are not tacit endorsements of hate speech.

To me, free speech isn’t just significant as an inviolable right— no, it’s a reminder. A reminder

that there will always be stadiums full of people who think my parents never should’ve immigrated here, that my being born in Philadelphia is no excuse for someone with my skin to have natural-born citizenship, and that some of my closest friends shouldn’t love the people they do. Only by confronting, challenging, and acknowledging the existence of bigotry can we better equip ourselves to combat it, because to ignore it would be to ignore the reality of the world we live in.

The past few months have illustrated the dangers of that ignorance. Apps like Parler— used to organize the Capitol insurrection, among other acts of domestic terror—sprang up in the wake of a push by social media giants to remove conspiracies like QAnon from their platforms. It might’ve seemed like a good decision at the time, but the notion that removing an idea from public view kills it is a misconception—and a fatal one. It just pushes that idea into spaces which radicalize it further, making it harder for us to monitor it. Parler, for instance, was created as a response to the perceived limitation of free speech, but it quickly mutated into fuel for a cancer that fed on itself and grew to massive proportions. Once you put destructive ideas in a positive feedback loop, the people behind them get pushed further down the rabbit hole of things like Nazism and fascism. If academia is all about confronting misconceptions and changing them, ignoring dangerous ideologies by nixing the Chicago principles is the intellectual equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns. (I know it didn’t actually happen, but the expression still

works—I promise.)

Here’s the worst part about stifling free speech on campus: It allows those being “stifled” to reverse the narrative. Suddenly, the straight white guy with a penchant for spitting vitriol becomes the victim of censorship—and that, as I’m sure we can all agree, is an issue. Because it’s that idea of victimhood that drove veterans to storm the government they once swore to defend, and it’s that sense of victimhood that contributed to the groundswell of anger that left a police officer at the Capitol dead on January 6. Actions have consequences, yes—but inaction does too.

And the more we throw a blanket over things like radical domestic terror and xenophobia, or disinvite people like Steve Bannon from campus events, or ignore our peers who traffic in the same reckless ideas that the most dangerous people in our country do, the more ammunition we hand to the very movements we’re trying to defeat.

What I’m trying to get at is this: Free speech isn’t just useful because it’s a right. It’s useful because it forces us to confront the often-nauseating truth that scores of our neighbors, friends, family, professors, and peers are just diluted versions of the Capitol insurrectionists (or, worse yet, Senators Cruz and Hawley.) And the pen we strike the Chicago principles out with might well be the same one we use to sign our own death warrants.

Ketan Sengupta is a first-year in the College.

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ARTS Meet Reese Klemm: The Newest Addition to UChicago’s Youtube Community Second-Year Reese Klemm Brings Her Own Angles and Pizazz to Her Channel

By NATALIE MANLEY Arts Reporter Maybe you’re tired of waiting for new itschloetan videos, or perhaps you want to know what it’s like to live in the newly opened Woodlawn Residential Commons.

Maybe you’re wondering what it’s like being in University Theater, or perhaps you’re just looking for a refreshing new angle among UChicago’s small, yet growing, YouTube community.

Well, look no further than second-year Reese Klemm’s new Youtube channel (Reese Klemm), which, among other things, features videos covering all of the above, including one that quite literally contains over 25 camera angle changes.

Klemm started her YouTube channel after moving into the newly built Woodlawn Residential Commons during O-Week this year. No one had seen the inside of the brand new building before, inspiring Klemm to start her channel with a video tour of Woodlawn, as well as what she brought to school with her.

“When I was moving into I-House during first-year O-Week, I had no idea what to bring

or what my room was going to look like because there was nothing on YouTube about it,” Klemm told The Maroon. “I ended up bringing way more than I needed to, so I thought it would be a good idea to show firstyears what they could be doing and what they could be seeing in the future.”

A large part of Klemm’s channel is dedicated to sharing this sort of information with prospective students and first-years. Many of her videos feature advice and information she wishes she had gotten as a first-year student.

“You can only get so much from the UChicago propaganda that is published online through the official website,” Klemm explained. “I kind of wanted to give people some insider knowledge.”

Klemm recognizes that, unlike other top universities, UChicago’s community of YouTubers is rather small. She jokes on her “about” page: “How many UChicago ‘YouTubers’ does it take to screw in a lightbulb?…

Sqrt(–1) because we don’t exist.”

All jokes aside, there are some other UChicago YouTubers out there (itschloetan, chocopuffeater, Steph Ran, Makayla MacGregor, and k80 ambrose to name a few), and Klemm

“I love to talk about myself, so that’s super easy.” COURTESY OF REESE KLEMM

hopes to set herself apart from them despite their channels’ similarities. While there are a few classic college YouTuber videos on her channel (college essays, tips for first-years, a day in the life, etc.), Klemm’s channel is also filled with light-hearted, fun, and uniquely UChicago videos with titles such as “Letting UChicago Poll Party Design My Painting” and “Rating UChicago Buildings.”

She said of other UChicago YouTubers, “I feel like we’re all very similar, but I try to add a little pizazz and personal flavor to things that I just enjoy doing.”

For Klemm, the best part about being a YouTuber is the interactions she’s been able to have with prospective UChicago students from all over the world, from Brazil to Bahrain.

Klemm explains, “At the end of my video I’ll say, ‘Let me know if you have any questions,’ and it’s inspired a lot of people to reach out and ask if I can read their essay, or give edits on their essay or answer additional questions about one of the clubs I’m in or something like that. And I love to talk about myself, so that’s super easy.”

What’s not so easy, Klemm notes, is balancing filming and editing videos with school

work. However, even when editing takes six hours, Klemm still finds creating videos to be worthwhile.

“I think I have to keep reminding myself to continue doing it, because giving up just because it’s likeworking out and you have to set aside time, is a dumb thing to do,” Klemm reasons. “I can make time for it, you just have to make the commitment to do it in the first place and continue doing it once you’ve made [a bunch of] videos.”

More than anything, Klemm just enjoys making videos. She told The Maroon that former YouTuber Jenna Marbles is one of her big inspirations because her videos were made purely for fun, and not to please her audience.

“I really enjoy the way [Marbles] went about making videos,” Klemm told The Maroon. “Her motto was , ‘I will make videos for all of you, but I’m not making them for you.’

A lot of her videos are really stupid and she wanted to do them just because she wanted to, and I think that’s really respectable. All of my non-Chicago weird videos…they don’t do well but they’re still awesome.”

You can check out Klemm’s videos by visiting and subscribing to her YouTube channel.

“You can only get so much from UChicago propaganda.” COURTESY OF REESE KLEMM

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SPORTS White Sox Seek Follow Up to Breakthrough Season

By FINN HARTNETT Sports Reporter

For a long time, the Chicago White Sox were as predictable as it got. In 2017, they lost 95 games; in 2018, 100; in 2019, 89. The team had sunk, almost dreamlike, into baseball’s lowest echelon. But 2020, as it did with so many aspects of life, brought change, and for a team with nothing to lose, that could only be a good thing.

During the shortened 2020 MLB season, the White Sox exploded out of the gates, clinching a playoff berth on September 17 for the first time in over a decade, and eventually finishing third in the highly competitive NL Central.

The team had always had good players on their roster, but 2020 was the first time in a while where it felt like the Sox’ potential stars were becoming actual stars. First baseman Jose Abreu, who had always been a high point of Chicago’s low years, had the best offensive season of his career, leading the American League in RBIs (60), hits (76), and slugging percentage (.617). His efforts were rewarded at the end of the season, as he took home the AL MVP award. Pitcher Dallas Keuchel, who the Sox had paid $18 million for over the offseason, proved he was worth every penny by going 6-2 with a 1.99 ERA. It was Lucas Giolito, however, who showcased the team’s best pitching performance in 2020. Back in 2018, Giolito was on the brink of being cast out of the majors entirely, after putting up a 6.13

earned run average and walking 90 batters in 173.1 innings. But on August 25th, his no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates summed up his renaissance as an elite pitcher. His four-seam fastball zipped past hitters, and his change-up left them frozen in the batter’s box. Giolito struck out 13 Pirates on the day.

Rookie second baseman Nick Madrigal entered the big leagues in late July for the White Sox, and exploded for a fourhit game on August 2nd. He continued looking sharp throughout, finishing the season with a .340 batting average in 109 plate appearances. Rookie center fielder Luis Robert also looked good, with the 22 year old absolutely crushing baseballs at times. Robert homered just two days after his major league debut, and hit a monsterous 487 ft. shot in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series.

That October 1st Game 3 would be the only October game the White Sox played in 2020, as they lost that Wild Card Series to the Oakland Athletics, two games to one. Still: they had made it, which was more than most White Sox teams of the past could say, and they had made it in style. They had hit bombs, they had pitched gems. As it turns out, they weren’t the team of the present, but—White Sox fans will hope—they may well be the team of the future.

At the end of the 2020 season, the Sox fired their manager, Rick Renteria.

This decision seems strange considering their rebirth in 2020, and all the strang-

er considering that Renteria was wellliked by players and board members alike. But Renteria had been in charge for 3 years, and GM Rick Hahn decided that a change was necessary after a disappointing second half of the season.

Renteria’s replacement, announced on October 29th, was Tony La Russa. Older White Sox fans might already be familiar seeing La Russa chewing tobacco in the dugout—he’s managed the team for seven years already from 1979 to 1986. With three World Series rings over his lengthy managerial career, he certainly has the know-how required to bring a title to the South Side of Chicago. That being said, the choice of La Russa as manager didn’t go over well with many fans; the news that he had been arrested for drunk driving in February didn’t help either. It will be a test for him to get the best out of his young and old talent alike.

So what are the White Sox’ prospects like heading into the 162-game 2021 season? The team is the definition of upwardly mobile at the moment. Yes, there is always the possibility with Chicago sports that things will go wrong. There was that worrying stretch at the end of 2020, where the White Sox dropped 6 of their last 8 games and ended up in the playoffs by the skin of their teeth. It will continue to be tough to wrestle the division away from the homer-happy Minnasota Twins and the experienced Cleveland Indians.

But, at least on paper, the Sox have what it takes.

Their biggest strength, of course, is their offensive firepower. Abreu has been raking since 2018, and showed no signs of stopping last year. Robert has demonstrated the ability to swat balls out of the park without breaking a sweat. And if Madrigal, who had shoulder surgery this offseason, continues where he left off in 2020, he should nail down a starting spot at second base thanks to his hitting ability.

And all this is before third baseman Yoan Moncada and veteran shortstop Tim Anderson even come into the picture; both players have received MVP votes in the last two years due to their talent at the plate.

Trades that have taken place this offseason have only strengthened the White Sox’ position. Though they lost catcher James McCann to the New York Mets, who shined for them in 2019, they possess a suitable backup in Yasmani Grandal.

The Australian pitcher Liam Hendricks, who was recently dubbed the top reliever in baseball by MLB Network, was the White Sox’ first big offseason acquisition.

Their division rivals in the Twins and the Indians have not, at time of writing, picked up any significant new players this offseason. In fact, the Indians have gotten significantly weaker after the losses of both star shortstop Francisco Lindor and pitcher Carlos Carrasco. There is a gap opening up in the AL Central, and the Chicago White Sox, after struggling in the depths for so long, have a good chance to continue their rise to the top.

Tom Brady Cements Legacy in Bucs’ Super Bowl Win

By FINN HARTNETT Sports Contributor

“Tom Brady has won his seventh Super Bowl” is probably a headline you’ve seen a bunch of times since the Bucs’ victory last month. While true, that headline does not reflect the levels to which Brady has been assisted by his teammates and coaching staff on this incredible Super Bowl run the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have gone

on in the past 40 days. This run has included wins against three teams with Super Bowl MVP quarterbacks (Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Pat Mahomes), three away victories in the conference and becoming the first ever team to participate in (and win) a Super Bowl in their home stadium and home city. While the Super Bowl itself was a major blowout, the playoffs have been anything but easy for these Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and

they are now deservedly Super Bowl Champions. So, how was this Super Bowl game won by the Buccaneers?

The biggest difference between the two teams was in the trenches.

The offensive and defensive line play of the Buccaneers was on a different stratosphere to the Chiefs, and that was the biggest key in this game. Four of Kansas City’s five starting offensive linemen were ruled out for the big game due to injury, and it showed,

as Tampa’s fearsome front seven, including All-Pro players such as Lavonte David, Ndamukong Suh, Shaq Barrett, Jason Pierre-Paul, and MY Super Bowl MVP, Devin White, simply took over, giving Mahomes absolutely no chance to get comfortable and deliver the ball into tight windows as he is so used to doing. Mahomes was running for his life from the very first series of the game and still managed CONTINUED ON PG.

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Brady’s greatness goes beyond what the common fan can see with their eyes CONTINUED FROM PG. 14

to make some incredible throws only he and maybe one other quarterback in NFL history (Aaron Rodgers) are capable of making. However, he was let down by his offensive line’s incapability to give him enough time to throw, as well as his receivers dropping some very catchable throws, including two throws into the endzone.

Holding the most potent offense in the NFL to just nine points and no touchdowns is a simply remarkable feat and Bucs defensive coordinator Todd Bowles called a perfect game, as Tampa Bay’s defense took center

stage in the biggest game of their lives.

The throws Tom Brady made in this game could’ve been made by any game managing quarterback, such as an Alex Smith or an Andy Dalton, but as we all know by this point, Brady’s greatness goes beyond what the common fan can see with their eyes. Firstly, the three players who scored touchdowns in this game (Rob Gronkowski, Antonio Brown, Leonard Fournette) were all recruited by Brady to come to the Bucs in the offseason. Secondly, if we look at the offensive game plan crafted by

Bruce Arians and Byron Leftwich, it is highly reminiscent of the system Tom Brady ran in New England as opposed to the one Bruce Arians usually runs. Brady was able to get the ball out of his hands quickly to the litany of offensive weapons the Bucs possess, Leonard Fournette ran the ball extremely effectively as he had done throughout the playoffs, and the offensive line was excellent. The Bucs offense played an extremely clean, efficient game and were an excellent complement to their ferocious, dominant defense.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have

the best roster in the NFL and this was one of the biggest reasons why their season ended with them hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. All credit should go to General Manager Jason Licht, who constructed the roster, and Head Coach Bruce Arians, whose man management skills came to the fore in a major way as the season progressed. Their desire and willingness to go all in on Tom Brady and allow him to use his experience to guide them to a winning formula is the reason why the Buccaneers are now parading on boats through Tampa with the Lombardi Trophy.

Maroon Sports Will Return in 2021 Season

Baseball will return to the mound on March 12 for their first game in over a year. The Maroons are currently scheduled to play a thirty-four game season, mostly against thier Midwest Conference opponents. In the 2019 season, the Maroons clinched the MWC North Division title with a record of 24-12. Softball will kick off their twenty-two game season on March 12, seeking to rebound from a 13-19 campaign in 2019. COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS