GRADUATE STUDENTS WILL FORGO NORMAL WORK FOR TEACH-IN
JUNE 3, 2020 NINTH WEEK VOL. 132, ISSUE 28
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Hyde Parkers, Chicagoans Take to the Streets With Nationwide Demonstrations, Meet Massive Police Presence
JEREMY LINDENFELD
PHOTOS: A Weekend of Demonstrations in Chicago PAGE 5
GREY CITY: Tracking Title IX at UChicago PAGE 7
VIEWPOINTS: What’s Wrong With the Police? PAGE 9
VIEWPOINTS: Student Government Elections Reveal Deeper Issues with Discourse Around Sexual Assault
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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Yerkes Observatory Eyes Future By BRAD SUBRAMANIAN Senior Reporter Renovation has begun at the Yerkes Observatory after the University of Chicago successfully transferred ownership to the Yerkes Future Foundation (YFF) on May 1. The observatory, based in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, has hosted the largest refracting telescope in the world since its construction in 1897, and served as a hub for astronomical research throughout the 20th century. However, the observatory was shut down by the University of Chicago in October of 2018. YFF chair Dianna Colman commented on the YFF’s progress towards renovating the observatory, saying that while the impacts of COVID-19 prevented a public signing ceremony, the transfer of ownership and renovations have continued as planned. Regarding the renovations, “There’s a sequence of steps that have to take place which are relatively detailed and not glamorous, but necessary to keep it a viable building for the next 125 years,” Colman said. She added that aside from painting and brickwork, an extensive amount of work on the observatory’s dome would need to be done. “We have to be respectful of the building and the history, but also respectful of the community that we’re in. We have two consultants, we have a master plan that we have a time frame for, [and] the structural engineers that we’ve hired are experts in historic restoration. So, when I use the word respectful, it’s a broad statement— when you look at the history of the people
who went through Yerkes, you have to be respectful,” Colman said. Aside from the observatory’s physical changes, the YFF has also focused on expanding future opportunities for research and scientific innovation. The observatory’s ownership transfer has been supported by University of Chicago professors, librarians, and archivists who have offered guidance on potential areas of development for future research which respect the Observatory’s past. “What we’re hoping is that by creating that same atmosphere, younger students, graduate students, professional astronomers, astrophysicists, and everyone will want to be there again. That’s the whole goal,” Colman said. She added that the YFF plans to integrate features of more modern observatories, such as remote access to the observatory’s databases for researchers who are unable to conduct studies in person. Colman estimated that the total time to complete the Observatory’s physical restorations and hire a team of employees to build and expand research programs could take up to seven to ten months. However, she also added that the observatory may open to student visits and guest speakers as early as this fall, depending on the impact of COVID-19. The YFF envisions a broader goal of using the Yerkes Observatory as a hub promoting the pursuit of an array of scientific fields ranging from astrophysics to biology. “It’s a rebirth. It’s going to be a revitalization, and it’s going to be moving everything forward. We are very aware of the need for broadening and encouraging science in any capacity,” Colman said.
The 40-inch refracting telescope at Yerkes Observatory.
COURTESY OF THE UNIVER -
SITY OF CHICAGO
Students Demand Black Peers’ “Right to Grieve,” Optional Finals During Nationwide Upheaval By LAURA GERSONY Senior Reporter A petition calling on University administrators and professors to make final exams optional in light of nationwide unrest due to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Po-
lice has gained nearly 2,000 signatures within a day of its release. It is part of a broader campaign, which organizers call “Black Students: Assure Your Right To Grieve,” seeking academic relief in light of the emotional toll that current events are taking on students of color. The petition, authored by first-year
Madeline Wright, argues that many students are unable to devote the usual amount of attention and energy to their studies due to their participation in protests and organizing or simply the distressing effects of national discourse. This burden falls heavily on Black students, it says.
“Black students have spent the last two weeks seeing more than one death of another Black man or woman by police. Black students are exhausted, traumatized, and simply not focused on a final,” the petition reads. “By forcing students to take non-optional finals, professors CONTINUED ON PG. 3
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and administration prioritize academics before the fears, emotions, and mental health of their students.” Wright, a member of the Organization of Black Students (OBS) and African and Caribbean Student Association (ACSA), attended three demonstrations within a week of Floyd’s death. She told The Maroon that the immediate demands of protesting quickly forced her academic responsibilities into the backseat. “We’re really just worried about protecting each other, making sure people can get bailed out, making sure people have resources as things get shut down,” Wright said. “I have not submitted an assignment, I have not studied, I am not going to.… I just do not have the capacity right now.” Even those not directly involved in activism are facing difficulties, Wright said, as the conditions surrounding the protests create a stressful environment for many students. “People have worries that their brothers or their sisters can’t go out-
side because there’s National Guard,” Wright said. “We have helicopters over our houses. We’re really just not worried about a final.” Over 700 students have responded “Going” or “Interested” to a Facebook event advertising the “Right To Grieve” campaign. The event has links to email templates for students to individually send to their professors, as well as a form where students can request that organizers contact faculty members on their behalf. So far, the UChicago Global Studies and Philosophy departments have announced that their final exams will be optional, with some other professors waiving requirements on a class-byclass basis. Organizers told The Maroon that while the administrative reception of the campaign has been variable, it has garnered widespread support from the student body. “This was definitely speaking to a need that a lot of students felt. Black students especially, but also non-Black allies and white students, are all strug-
gling to focus,” organizer Tyler Okeke said. They also emphasized that the campaign is centered around the emotional experience of Black students. “Black students are the ones who don’t have the time. Non-POC students can kind of dissociate; they can send off a tweet and then focus on their schoolwork. But if you’re a Black student, this is on your mind all the time. You’re just thinking about how people are being killed on the streets, and brutalized by police,” said Zebeeb Nuguse, second-year and copresident of ACSA. The other ACSA copresident Chase Leito said that the campaign is informed by a longer history of Black students being expected to “let go” of race-related difficulties and trauma without accommodation from the University. “For so long, Black students have been expected to be strong and to let things go: from microaggressions, to overt forms of racism, and racist comments in the classroom, on campus, and in society in general,” Leito said. “It’s very, very unfair that because society
treats you differently because of the color of your skin, you should just suck it up and keep it pushing. I don’t accept that anymore, and I don’t think that other Black students should accept that.” Wright said that providing academic relief offers a chance for UChicago— which Leito classified as “fake woke”—to act on the value of diversity the University claims to espouse, as stated in Provost Ka Yee Lee’s Saturday email to students. “Let Black voices be heard. Stop using us as a cover photo and start acting like we matter,” Wright said. “They only like to spew diversity when we’re on the front cover of a page, but they’re not acting right now.” Some peer institutions have already adopted alternative grading policies due to the coronavirus pandemic, with Harvard University, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others adopting universal pass/fail grading policies for their spring semesters. UChicago has an optional pass/ fail policy in place, which organizers criticized as exacerbating inequalities within the student body.
Graduate Students Plan Teach-in for Final Day of Classes By AVI WALDMAN Senior Reporter Graduate Students United (GSU) is planning strike action on June 3, the last day of spring quarter classes. The resolution, passed by GSU’s Steering Committee (its day-to-day decision-making body) last Tuesday night, calls for graduate students who teach and TA classes to stop work for the day and hold a teach-in instead, which will feature a series of panels from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The resolution states that the action was planned as a consequence of the University’s lack of response to two GSU petitions. The first demands pandemic relief measures such as one-year extended time-to-degree, $4,000 relief grants for all graduate students, and extended visa sponsorship for international students. The second address-
es the doctoral funding overhaul announced last October, which GSU says is “a threat to basic contract and employment protections for graduate workers across the university.” The teach-in panels will cover topics such as GSU history, student-led organizing campaigns, the ongoing fight for a Community Benefits Agreement with the coming Obama Presidential Center, and the status of graduate student unions nationwide. GSU will partner with activist groups and other unions on campus and in the South Side Community, among them the UChicago Labor Council, #CareNotCops, the Reparations Working Group at UChicago, and UChicago for Fair Tuition. For those who are unable to attend the teach-in, GSU published a reading list for the graduate labor movement and urged students to participate in mutual aid efforts benefiting Chicago Public Schools students
and the Black Lives Matter movement. While the demand for COVID-19 relief is the most immediate impetus for GSU’s labor action, the resolution situates the teach-in as part of organizing efforts addressing the funding overhaul that the union has undertaken all year, and notes that this action could help build the infrastructure for a possible escalation in the fall. “GSU refuses to normalise UChicago’s abysmal pandemic working conditions. We propose this teach-in as a key intervention in campus-wide and Southside discourse about academic labour conditions and meaningful community support,” the resolution states. “This teach-in will be a culmination of a year-long organising effort in GSU to respond to the Funding Overhaul, demand minimal labour protections in light of Covid-19, and fiercely assert our collective right as graduate workers who deserve better
working conditions.” Amid protests sweeping Chicago and the nation calling for justice for Black people harmed by police violence, GSU copresident Kit Ginzky said that GSU sees its organizing as part of a much larger response to racial oppression in the University community, and has called for the abolition of the University of Chicago Police Department. “The teach-in will explicitly focus on the university’s harmful and exploitative relationship with the South Side and how our union, along with many community organizations, can best organize against this,” Ginzky said. “The same forces at the University which exploit workers are the forces behind our costly, private, militarized policing regime.”
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Hyde Park Businesses Clean Up and Hunker Down By CAROLINE KUBZANSKY Managing Editor After a week of mounting protests across the country in response to the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, Hyde Park businesses evaluated damage and closed early, anticipating window-smashing Sunday night after several stores had their windows broken and items taken on Saturday. Clothing store Akira had one of its windows smashed at about 1:25 p.m. Sunday afternoon. A University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) sergeant, one of about a dozen UCPD and Chicago Police Department (CPD) personnel on the scene, said they did not know who the perpetrator was. Walgreens, CVS, Target, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Xfinity all reported damage or missing merchandise. Some smaller businesses, like Kimbark Beverage Shoppe, were also clearing damage. Jonathan Swain, the proprietor of Kimbark, said that burglars had smashed windows, taken some highend liquor, and destroyed cash registers and computers. He did not yet know the cost of the damage. For Swain and other local business owners, the cost of potential damage will be much higher than it is for national brands like Xfinity. Kimbark Beverage had posted large signs on its windows reading, “BLACK OWNED; SE RV I NG OU R C OM M U N I T Y; PLEASE DON’T.” “I’ve talked to other business owners in our plaza, and we are all concerned because we’re community folks, and we support the community with our businesses,” Swain said. “We hire from the community. And so when folks come and attempt to burglarize and vandalize us, it hurts a lot.” However, Swain also noted that he thought his store was a victim of opportunistic thieving “under the guise of civil unrest.” He chalked the damage of the protests up to generations’ worth of financial disadvantages in the Black community. “We are experiencing, even with people that burglarized us, a lot of that
is the fruit of significant disinvestment for years,” Swain said. He called Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s deaths “the powder keg that set it all off.” “This has been around for a long time. While I don’t excuse it, in some ways, I understand it,” he said. Mohammed Court, 18, was standing in front of his father’s general store on 53rd Street. They were preparing to close and board up the store, Court said, in response to a threat they had received earlier that day. “Some guy came by. He wanted to return something, and we wouldn’t give it to him because the item was torn up and already open,” Court said. “And
before he left, he said, ‘I’m going to make sure these motherfuckers break your windows tonight.’ We’re planning to barricade up the place.” Jimmy Johnson, a manager at Nando’s, began to close down the restaurant in response to the broken window at Akira. “We were right next to T-Mobile, which got hit last night. And now that I’m just seeing in broad daylight, Akira, about a block away, I fear for our customers and their safety, and for the safety of our employees as well. The safety of our guests and our employees comes first,” Johnson said. Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s also closed early. Ali Bennouna, a captain at
CPD and UCPD officers look on at a shattered 53rd Street storefront. CAROLINE KUBZANSKY
Trader Joe’s, said they were shuttering early as a precautionary move. “I don’t want to take any risks and have any of my crew get injured,” Bennouna said. Police began advising businesses to close for the day at about 1:30 p.m. Fewer than 24 hours after an email from Provost Ka Yee Lee expressed “solidarity and for a strengthened commitment to care for each other and work to improve our community, our city and our nation,” University members received a security alert about increased UCPD and CPD presence in the area in the wake of damage to 53rd and 55th Street businesses.
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Bridges Raised, Trains Halted, Curfew Enforced: A Weekend of Protest in Chicago
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After Weekend of Protests, University Closes Campus Out of “Abundance of Caution” By CAROLINE KUBZANSKY Managing Editor Campus facilities are closed to all but essential personnel and shuttles will not run on Monday, June 1, Provost Ka Yee Lee wrote in an email to University members late Sunday night. The provost said the decision came out of “an abundance of caution.” The Polsky Exchange and several Univer-
sity-owned commercial properties in Hyde Park, including Hyde Park Shopping Center on East 55th Street and Kimbark Plaza, were damaged on Sunday. According to University spokesperson Jeremy Manier, the Polsky Exchange was the only property of the University to sustain damage this weekend. The email arrived after a weekend of protests in both downtown Chicago
and in Hyde Park. In Hyde Park, businesses were advised to close early in anticipation of potential damage from protests after an initial wave of broken windows and stealing on Saturday night. In Hyde Park, protesters and police were active for much of the day on Sunday. Kimbark Beverage Shoppe, located in the University-owned Kimbark Plaza, also had its windows smashed,
merchandise taken, and equipment damaged or stolen on Saturday night. Woodlawn Tap, on East 55th Street, had its window broken on Sunday night, according to a University of Chicago Police Department incident report. This was confirmed by a staff member on call Monday morning.
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Tracking Title IX: Sexual Violence by the Numbers Grey City looked back at this year’s campus climate survey and examined how UChicago stacks up to peer institutions nationwide. By LAURA GERSONY & KATE MABUS Grey City Reporters
This is the second in a series of articles relating to sexual assault at UChicago. THE MAROON’s data analysis is not intended to be prescriptive or to imply causation among any measured variables, as it is strictly observational. The high-profile “1-in-5” statistic has long been a rallying cry among sexual assault victims’ rights advocates: by many estimates, a startling 20 percent of undergraduate women report experiencing sexual assault while in college. But a 2019 “campus climate survey,” commissioned by the American Association of Universities (AAU) and administered at 33 universities nationwide, including UChicago, suggests that this number has only increased in recent years. According to student self-reported data, this statistic is up three percentage points from 2015, when the AAU last administered this survey: The oft-cited “1-in-5 statistic” of sexual assault among undergraduate women, the report found, now exceeds one in four. The AAU’s national survey results, as well as UChicago’s individual report, are publicly available online. But, for a more detailed breakdown of this data, The Maroon obtained all of the 33 participating universities’ surveys and performed a retrospective analysis of school characteristics not assessed in the aggregate national report, such as the presence and recognition of Greek life, undergraduate sexual assault prevention measures, and a school-by-school look at the location of incidents. 2019 Survey Results The campus climate survey was the second such survey that the AAU has com-
missioned, with the first one taking place in 2015. While UChicago did not participate in the first survey, the AAU has described several main trends in the nationwide findings from 2015 to 2019. First, the nationwide prevalence of “nonconsensual sexual contact by physical force or inability to consent,” as measured by student self-reports, has increased since 2015 among many populations. This statistic increased by 3.0 percent (to a total of 26.4 percent) among undergraduate women, by 2.4 percent for graduate and professional women (to 10.8 percent), and by 1.4 percent among undergraduate men (to 6.9 percent). The results of UChicago’s individual campus climate survey were made public to the student body in October 2019. 32 percent of the total undergraduate, graduate, and professional school population responded to the survey. UChicago fell close to nationwide averages with regard to the total rates of sexual assault among the general student body. The rate of sexual assault was 21.8 percent among the female undergraduate population, a few percentage points lower than the nationwide
averages, and 7.8 percent among a male undergraduate population, one point higher than the national average. Undergraduate women and TGQN (transgender, genderqueer, nonbinary) students also reported the highest rates of other forms of sexual misconduct. Nationwide, 65.1 percent of undergraduate TGQN students and 59.2 percent of undergraduate women reported experiencing harassing behavior since enrolling at their school. This was also reflected at UChicago; 60.2 percent of TGQN students reported experiencing harassing behavior, compared to the total respondent average of 39.8 percent. Students across the country reported significantly higher levels of awareness of their schools’ definition and procedures related to sexual assault since 2015; in particular, the percentage of students knowing their school’s definition of sexual assault and other sexual misconduct increased by 11.5 percent among undergraduate women and 12.4 percent among undergraduate men. However, the AAU concluded, the results of the 2019 survey show that students “still aren’t reporting assault or using resourc-
Percent reporting nonconsensual sexual contact involving physical force or instability to consent or stop what was happening since enrolling in school by gender and affiliation. AAU 2019 NATIONAL REPORT
es for victims often enough.” At any given school, the percentage of incidents involving penetration that were brought to school programs or resources ranged from 65.6 percent all the way down to 16.5 percent. Analyzed by cohort, 42.9 percent of TGQN students, 29.5 percent of women, and 17.8 percent of men who experienced an incident involving penetration contacted official authorities or resources. UChicago’s report showed a tendency for students to seek help through personal contacts after a victimization rather than through University resources. Most female respondents who experienced nonconsensual sexual contact told a friend (82 percent), far fewer reported the incident to a University-offered program or resource (15.5 percent). The most common reasons why victims of non-consensual penetration chose not to contact resources were the belief that “they could handle it themselves” and the perception that “the incident was not serious enough,” or the victim “felt embarrassed, ashamed, or that it would be too emotionally difficult to report.” By gender, fear of embarrassment and shame was a more common answer among women and TGQN students (41.7 percent women, 36.0 percent TGQN students, 27.9 percent men) while men most commonly cited the belief they could handle it themselves (60.4 percent men, 48.8 percent women, 40.1 percent TGQN students). At UChicago, the aggregate levels of confidence in the University’s reporting process were similar to national averages. UChicago’s survey from this fall found that around a third of the total student population felt it “very likely” that the University would conduct a fair investigation and 14.6 percent felt it “extremely likely.” CONTINUED ON PG. 8
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“These disturbing numbers make clear that there is much more we must do.”
Figure 3 in UChicago’s individual AAU report. AAU 2019 UCHICAGO REPORT CONTINUED FROM PG. 7
However, also consistent with national averages, there were disparities within the student body regarding levels of confidence in school resources. Female undergraduates felt less sure than their male counterparts that the University would take their report seriously. 10.5 percent of undergraduate women, compared to 22.3 percent of undergraduate men, felt it extremely likely campus officials would take their report seriously. Graduate students showed more confidence than undergraduates that their report would be taken seriously, and TGQN students showed the least confidence, with only 8.1 percent reporting it “extremely likely” campus officials would take their report seriously. The data also sheds light on the perpetrators of incidents of sexual misconduct among various campus populations; notably, 24.5 percent of harassing behavior experienced by female graduate students was perpetrated by a University “faculty or instructor.” The results of the nationwide survey have elicited concern from many onlookers, including AAU President Mary Sue Coleman. “These disturbing numbers make clear that there is much more we must do,” Coleman wrote following the release of the survey. Cross-Institutional Comparisons To supplement the aggregate report released by AAU, which reported the nationwide average figures, the maroon analyzed all of the 33 participating universities’ survey results with regard to university characteristics not addressed in the national report. 1. The two schools with no Greek life on campus reported the lowest rates of sexual assault. According to both formal outlets and
several current students at both institutions, Caltech and Rice University have no Greek life presence on their campuses. These two schools reported the two lowest percentages of undergraduates “experiencing penetration or unwanted sexual contact due to force or inability to consent” of all 33 participating universities. At Rice, this statistic was 14.3 percent among women undergraduates and 3.1 percent among men. At Caltech, these statistics were 17.7 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively. 2. UChicago was a high outlier as compared with other universities with similar Greek life policies with respect to the fraction of incidents which occur in fraternity houses. The other four participating universities which either do not have Greek life or do not recognize Greek life are Caltech, Rice, Harvard, and Georgetown. These four institutions reported the four lowest fractions of incidents involving sexual touching or penetration which take place in a fraternity/sorority house (ranging from 0 percent at Caltech to 2.1 percent at Georgetown). Consistent with nationwide averages, the largest fraction of incidents at UChicago take place in residential housing. UChicago was the fifth-highest of the 33 participating universities with regard to the fraction of incidents that take place in a fraternity house: just under one in four. The national average for this statistic was 10.7 percent. Representatives from UChicago Greek life organizations declined to comment, saying that it is not their policy to speak with the press. 3. Although The Maroon found no significant difference among most mandatory sexual misconduct prevention programs, Rice University—which has a mandatory, several-week-long sexuality and consent
training course for all first year undergraduates—was a low outlier. All schools were categorized as having a one-time, annual, biannual, extended, or no mandatory training program. UChicago performed similarly to other schools with an annual training requirement. There was no significant difference in the incidence of sexual misconduct among these categories, with the exception of Rice University, which requires an extended five-week or semester-long course for all incoming first-year undergraduates. Reception of the Survey UChicago administrators expressed concern about the results of the survey at the “Community Conversation” following its release. “Any data where students have been sexually assaulted or harassed is concerning, but there are particular findings that we’re interested in understanding in more depth,” Title IX Coordinator Bridget Collier told The Maroon, noting especially the finding that TGQN students, students of color, and students of disabilities report significantly higher rates of incidence. The University’s main response to this finding has been to create the position of Director for Education and Outreach in the Equal Opportunity Programs Office. Director of Resources for Sexual Violence Prevention (RSVP) Vickie Sides said that the main purpose of her position is to improve outreach to student populations most vulnerable to sexual assault. She works with staff and student leaders across the University from LGBT Student Life and Disability Services, as well as with “community resources”—such as the Center on Halsted, a Chicago-based LGBT+ community center—to tap their expertise on how to connect with these populations. Prior to administering the survey, the University convened a Faculty Advisory Committee chaired by Professor of Sociology Kate Cagney and including UChicago’s Title IX Coordinator Bridget Collier, Assistant Vice President for Institutional Analysis Liam Schwartz, and three other faculty members. Representatives from the committee also added questions to the survey regarding sexual coercion or “quid pro quo” situations and perpetrator characteristics, including the number of perpetrators, their sex, and how they are associated with the University. The committee is in the process of re-
viewing the results of the survey, and intends to issue recommendations based on their data analysis. In collaboration with RSVP and the Title IX Office, the committee’s primary efforts have been focused on cross-institutional analyses investigating UChicago’s results compared with peer institutions. The main factors under consideration by the committee, Collier said, are the prevalence of sexual assault, the characteristics of those incidents (such as location or drug and alcohol use) and students’ knowledge of available resources. Another focus of the committee is student confidence in the incident reporting process. The committee is also in conversation with universities whose data suggests a stronger sense of community and individual belonging on campus regarding practices they have found to be successful in this respect. Collier said that given the benefits of the AAU survey, the University will consider participating again in future years. Student Reaction Still, the results of the survey did not come as a surprise to students with experience in matters of sexual assault on campus. Members of UChicago victims advocacy group Phoenix Survivors Alliance (PSA) told The Maroon that the survey results simply underscored a saddening campus reality. “We are naturally not surprised by the results of the AAU campus climate survey and would like to stress that given the nature of our institution, we feel that the numbers are still underreporting the reality of life on campus,” one member said. To another member of PSA, the report reveals another simple and harrowing truth: that the University’s measures to mitigate sexual assault have not been enough. “If over 90 percent of students report having some form of sexual assault training and the numbers are still this high, then we would hope that the University understands that their current solutions are not educating students well enough to help solve or diminish rape culture.” THE MAROON is committed to achieving a thorough understanding of this issue. If you or someone you know has experiences or information that you would like to share with us relating to sexual assault and/or the Title IX reporting process at UChicago, please contact us at kmabus@uchicago.edu or lgersony@ uchicago.edu.
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VIEWPOINTS What’s Wrong With the Police? If we really want to change law enforcement, let’s start with the UCPD By AK ALILONU Dashawn Oliver had had his fair share of encounters with the police, especially when he was younger. In the summers, officers would stop and frisk him every day. Now that he was older, they didn’t bother him as much. Except when he went north of 61st Street. It was Sunday morning, and Oliver’s friend had convinced him to come with him to church on the University of
Chicago’s campus. They didn’t even make it to 60th and Ellis before they were stopped by University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) officers. The police were looking for a young black man with a red backpack who had been breaking into cars, and apparently Oliver fit the description. A Black officer asked Oliver for his backpack and started to go through his items, calling some other cop cars to the scene while the two men stood
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there. When the officer saw an old ID from Oliver’s time with AmeriCorps, he called Oliver “an educated brother.” They let him and his friend go. Oliver didn’t think much of it. Since he was a kid, his mom had told him not to go too far north. He was the one who had forgotten her advice. But he also didn’t feel like he should’ve had to remember it. “You shouldn’t feel like this is normal, you know?” he said. Oliver was one of several people I had the opportunity to speak to for my year-long B.A. thesis project on how South Side residents respond to police misconduct. For 65,000 Chicago residents who live as far as two miles away from the campus border, that can include misconduct committed by the officers of the UCPD. Those officers are still patrolling their streets, even as the university that employs them remains closed due to the pandemic and many of the students whose tuition funds their salaries have left the city. The murder of George Floyd, a Black man choked to death beneath a police officer’s knee, has inspired an incredible amount of anger from University students and faculty and an incredible outpour of emotional and financial support for the protesters. So has the murder of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. There were similar reactions at the University of Chicago when UCPD officers shot Charles Thomas and Myles Frazier. Those reactions
were helpful, but the problem is bigger than all of these cases and needs a bigger response. Every time we hear about police misconduct, it’s usually pretty clear what most people want, which is for the people in charge to fire the officers, arrest them, charge them with crimes, and lock them up. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and even Joe Biden and President Donald Trump have all signed on to some version of this. But we’re not just angry because officer Derek Chauvin killed someone. He’s under arrest and is facing murder charges. I don’t even think we’re angry solely because police officers unfairly kill people. We’re angry because the thing that let a police officer with 18 complaints and a federal lawsuit filed against him get his hands on George Floyd is the same thing that made Dashawn Oliver afraid to go north of 61st Street. It’s that there’s a gap, often a racial one and a socioeconomic one, between the people who get to decide how the law is enforced and the people who live with those decisions. It’s that certain people choose the policing, and others get policed. Police officers who commit crimes should face the punishment. But stopping and frisking Black people who go north of 61st Street is not a crime. Responding to a mental health episode with a gun is not a crime. The protests
need to ask for more than for the same government that employed Chauvin as of last week to apply the penalty for murder to four people who committed a murder. Black people aren’t going to trust the police any more after Chauvin is sentenced than they did before, because we can’t arrest our way out of this problem. To an extent, many people already realize this. Something I’ve seen shared on social media a lot recently is a quote from poet Audre Lorde, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” The University of Chicago Police Department represents an almost comical example of the problem of policing. It is run by University administrators, funded by University students, and has the power to take the life and freedom of any one of thousands of South Side residents who can’t so much as look at its budget. That’s a problem being worked on by student groups like #CareNotCops, who deserve our support. So let ’s be angry about George Floyd, knowing that the Minneapolis Police Department isn’t the only one we should be taking a look at. This is a crisis, but it’s also an opportunity to put Black neighborhoods in charge of their own law enforcement. That starts on campus. AK Alilonu is a fourth-year in the College.
THE CHICAGO MAROON — JUNE 3, 2020
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Farewell, UChicago Law student columnist reflects on activism and identity By LEENA EL-SADEK This is my last article to my UChicago community (at least for now). I wasn’t supposed to land at UChicago. At least, the numbers say so. America’s success is reserved for the select few ( you can imagine how they look and how many figures are in their investment funds)– others are merely spectators and facilitators of the country’s success, but not beneficiaries thereof. Somehow, I trudged through into at least one circle of America’s elites: UChicago. And now, I’m preparing to receive my diploma from it. I, too, was allowed to be a player in this game we call “America’s ladder of success-opoly.” You can call me an American winner, I suppose. But there’s a difference between my wins and those of my classmates. I did not have a social network of friends, family, and acquaintances prepared to connect me into and out of Chicago, nor did I (or my people) have a chunky piggy bank to help survive it, nor did I have the privileges of instant, assumed respect because of how “John Doe” or “Sarah Joe” I looked. But I did benefit from the dedicated labor of many of my people. Because of their support, my victories extend beyond me. I did not get here on my own. My victories are not my victories alone. My law school experience was a collective one, and as I leave the University of Chicago Law School behind, I bid farewell to the many wins that were won off the court. This article is a tribute to them, and to the people that enabled me to create them. This article is also a reminder to lowerclassmen to leave the classrooms for the
match point. To MLSA: Someone once told me they thought there were 20 Muslim Law School students because we were notably loud and active. While we were a mighty group, we were actually a small one. I entered law school with only a handful (literally, count us on one hand) of fellow Muslim classmates. And every year, fewer and fewer Muslims were admitted. Despite our numbers, we sent ripples throughout the Law School community. Every year, we hosted a community iftar. We brought speakers to speak about important issues. And this year, our MLSA cohosted the second annual National Muslim Law Students Conference, bringing together Muslim students, professors, and attorneys from across the nation. You know how they say there is power in numbers? We debunked it. There is power in passion. Students, never underestimate your power. Never let anyone tell you that you are voiceless. Act with the bravado of a peer whose accolades have been fertilized and nurtured by his trust fund. You just need one person to tell you an idea is a good idea, and that one person can be you. To my SWANA: When I commenced law school, SWANA, or Southwest Asian and North Afrikan Law Students Association, didn’t exist. SWANA fosters community for students who have an interest in Southwest Asian and Afrikan cultures, politics, and legal institutions. Known as the Middle Eastern organization at other schools, SWANA rejects discourse and rhetoric that depend on an exclusively orientalist or national security
framework. I vividly remember SWANA’s inception: I was sitting in Mansueto with the future cofounder of SWANA. Classmates were knee-deep studying for finals while we were filling out an application on behalf of SWANA to be recognized as an organization. As 1Ls, every piece of advice we received was to stay the middle course: Focus on exams, and ignore everything and everyone until we finish our first year of classes. Yet, it was important to us, an issue of principle, that this community was recognized. Benighted and bigoted, elite institutions of higher education, like UChicago, have deeply entrenched modes of privileging the privileged, like legacy admissions and employment opportunities. Recognition begets accountability, and there was a lot of harm for which the school should be held accountable, like student representation and Islamophobic and orientalist rhetoric from faculty. Recognition also connects us to resources that are afforded to other students, like affinity networking receptions and funds for conferences. Students, if there’s a void, fill it, and at no cost settle for blending in. Stand out, and use the power of attention to supplant the status quo. To Pal-Trek: My biggest achievement of law school was taking 30 classmates to the Occupied West Bank (and this year, sans COVID-19, we would have been nearly 100). To discuss Palestine and the suffering of Palestinians is to invite reprisal, wherever you are (see anti-BDS laws, fired pro-Palestinian professors, and websites demonizing pro-Palestinian students). UChicago is no different as it
has a history of deftly condoning rhetoric and actions that harass and intimidate students who speak out in support of Palestine. Pal-Trek was created against the mold of civility. Along with a Palestinian at the Law School, we organized and led a student organized trip to the West Bank. Several other universities from around the country joined us in this trek. I found joy in reading student messages after the trip. One student immediately texted me after the trip and said, “I didn’t really know what the conflict was about. Now that I do, I promise to share the lessons I gained.” Several others called it “life-changing” and “unforgettable.” Most of the students had little to no knowledge of the conflict. Now, I am confident they have the fortitude and knowledge to advocate and fight for the liberation and justice for Palestinians no matter where their careers and conversations take them. Students, don’t let fear inhibit you from pursuing justice. Offend the sensibilities of your peers. Hell, offend the sensibility of your professors, too. Address the conformity of educators and administrators. Uplift and amplify the voices of the dispossessed. Working towards true justice is a nebulous path – it’s disruptive and often you’ll find yourself in the minority. But remember, the status quo doesn’t receive majority popular support when it hasn’t made it to status quo. There is no liberation without labor, just as there is no real education without moral honesty. There’s a theme to my law school victories—they had little to do with the classroom. One last victory I can put under my UChicago journey is writing,
although it’s more personal in nature. When I first started law school, several upperclassmen both at UChicago and beyond told me that the law school journey is like a conveyor belt: You stay on and do the basic requirements until you have to get off. Although I’m sure doing so would have been easier, doing so, to me, would indicate a capitulation to the founders of a field that didn’t even envision me as a student learning their centuries-old curriculum. Writing, both here in The Maroon and my own journaling, has been my own personal revolution. When overwhelmed by classroom mendacity, I turned to writing to parallel my education. I’ve done my research, questioned my assumptions, and memorialized events that would have otherwise been forgotten. Often, my thoughts reach no one (or very few), but they have reached me and helped me grow when I have been in my lowest lows. It is so easy to be hard on yourself, especially here at UChicago. Do not ever forget: You alone have volumes to teach yourself. Your ideas and experiences are of inherent value, and no professor, curriculum, or pedagogy can replace you. I hope all students find or develop their own outlets where they can learn and grow against this institution that is so good at invalidating and taking away from individuality. This is my last Maroon piece (God-willing, please let me graduate). It’s been a pleasure sharing myself with you, and I pray wherever life takes you next, you do it in happiness, health, and humility. Leena El-Sadek is a third-year in the Law School.
THE CHICAGO MAROON — JUNE 3, 2020
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It Goes Beyond Student Government Elections SG elections reveal deeper issues with the way UChicago talks about sexual violence By AMARA BALAN Our election has given me a lot to think about when it comes to the way that our institutions handle discussions of sexual violence. No, I don’t mean November’s presidential election. I mean our election to choose UChicago’s student government leaders for the upcoming year, in which members of two of the four slates running faced allegations of sexual violence leading up to the election. Malay Trivedi of Elevate declined to confirm or deny the allegations, even after his slate suspended their campaign in response to survivors contacting them to substantiate the allegations. Myles Hudson of Engage eventually confirmed the allegations, and Engage went on to win the election. As the chair of the Student Government Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Committee, my immediate concern following the election was the fact that, over the next few months, my colleagues and I will have to work with Engage, a slate whose decision to continue their campaign in the face of sexual violence allegations directly conflicts with my ideals. More deeply concerning, though, was the subsequent outpouring of misinformation, confusion, and even outright vitriol on online forums. Throughout and following the election, “sexual misconduct” was the prevailing term used to describe the allegations against the candidates. As a result, students attempted to parse the difference between sexual assault and sexual misconduct, arguing that these survivors didn’t experience “real” sexual violence, and that calling the candidate’s behavior sexual assault invalidated the experiences of “real” survivors. To be clear,
at UChicago sexual misconduct is an umbrella term that includes sexual assault, but the inaccuracies of students’ comments represent a larger problem with how we as a campus community understand sexual violence. This in turn feeds into who we believe is deserving of acknowledgement, recognition, and support. The election may have brought these misconceptions to light, but it did not, in and of itself, create them. Rather, it demonstrated how the language of university policies, and the educational tools aimed at promulgating them, end up leaving students misinformed about concepts of consent, Title IX, and sexual violence. Consent education at UChicago is generally part of a broader curriculum about sexual violence and bystander intervention, most notably during O-week, but also as part of workshops offered by the Office for Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Support throughout the year. These discussions are extremely important, and bystander intervention training is an effective tool in the prevention of sexual violence at institutes of higher education. However, discussing consent solely in these contexts ends up portraying consent as though its principal function is to prevent a sexual assault, rather than to empower people to take charge of their bodies. Words like “power” and “agency”—words that are crucial to discussions of sexual violence, since sexual violence arises from power imbalances and strips its survivors of agency—are nowhere to be found in the University’s terminology. Instead we talk about consent as something that needs to be “obtained,” framing consent, and by extension, sex, as something that is given by one person to another, rather than the
result of mutual agreement based on all parties having agency over their own bodies, sexualities, and pleasure, and having equal power in the situation. Terms like “misconduct” only serve to further downplay sexual violence or obfuscate students’ understanding of it. Even though at UChicago “sexual misconduct” is a term intended to encompass a range of acts, including sexual assault, sexual harassment, dating violence, and stalking, it isn’t hard to see how “misconduct” can be viewed by students as something lighter or lesser than sexual violence, in a way that terms like “violence,” “harassment,” and “assault” cannot. In choosing terms that are easy to swallow, we end up with terms that are easy to misconstrue. Consequently, when student leaders face serious allegations, campus discourse is quick to argue that it is “only misconduct” as though this cannot encompass a wide range of sexual violence. Even tools like the Campus Climate Survey, a nationwide survey conducted by hundreds of institutions of higher education to assess strengths and weaknesses around sexual violence prevention efforts for students, have flaws despite providing us with data that is invaluable to the process of understanding sexual violence on campus and how it is perceived. Yes, the survey revealed significant deficits in the ability of resources and students to connect with one another—deficits that the University can hopefully begin to resolve—but many survey questions were worded in such a way that they failed to take into account the reality of how sexual violence occurs on a college campus. Around 80 percent of survivors know their assailant. In fact, the most common assail-
ant is either a friend, or a current or former partner. Given this, how can a student be expected to list the “date(s) nonconsensual sexual contact occurred” if sexual violence was an ongoing aspect of an abusive relationship? Is the violence that a student experiences the single occasion or occasions where, as University policy would state, “an act of sexual penetration without consent” occurred? Or is the violence the escalation of dangerous behavior on the part of the assailant that led to that point—over the course of hours, days, or even months and years? I would argue that it’s both. Still, it’s no wonder that when the language of the resources our school attempts to use to support us creates an incomplete narrative of sexual violence, we as a community are left with an incomplete understanding. We may not be able to change the language with which UChicago portrays sexual violence—that language is the product of years of federal legislation, adjudicated by individuals with various goals from protecting institutions’ liability to preventing assailants’ lives from being “ruined”—but we have the power to advocate for better tools to combat it. The goal of Title IX is to prevent discrimination in education, specifically discrimination on the basis of sex, but when we prioritize semantics over clarity, we lose the ability to work as a community to address sexual violence. The very factors that contribute to the prevalence and the nature of this problem on a college campus—a closed community, the likelihood of knowing your assailant, independence, entitlement, entering serious relationships for the first time— can also be leveraged to create a community in which people hold their peers accountable, practice
healthy relationships, and work together towards restorative justice while still understanding the gravity and impact that sexual violence can have not only on survivors, but their peers, and the community at large. Even in a situation where there is still uncertainty—such as an allegation that has not been formally resolved by an administrative body—the community is harmed when it is forced to choose between leaders who they believe have committed acts of sexual violence. Survivors are harmed when they are forced to watch their assailants battle for positions of power that directly impact them, or worse, win. As the Department of Education rolls out regulations aimed at reducing institutional accountability, all of the slates running for election included in their platforms some variation of goals aimed at increasing it. Our candidates called for increased trauma-informed counseling services, mandatory prevention training of students in leadership positions, and more widespread marketing of sexual violence resources, changes that would undoubtedly begin to chip away at our misconceptions, and hopefully lead to a greater understanding on our campus about what sexual violence is and how it affects people. These goals are admirable at any level, from collegiate to national, and I am proud to attend an institution where students prioritize, value, and actively campaign for such reforms. But it also matters who’s in charge of them. Amara Balan is a fourth-year in the College and chairs the Student Government Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Committee.
THE CHICAGO MAROON — JUNE 3, 2020
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Finding Time Amid Timelessness A change in our daily life has shifted the ways we can mark the passage of time By MAYA ORDONEZ On campus, I’m used to everything being fast-paced all the time. Mondays differ entirely from Tuesdays, and there’s always the possibility for the unexpected to occur. Yet, in quarantine, the days don’t pass in this way. Mondays blend into Tuesdays, and I have begun to feel stuck in a horrible pattern of waking up, studying, eating, studying some more, sleeping, and starting all over again. For me, this loss of spontaneity has been one of the most difficult transitions. Finding something that does transform from day to day has helped me re-
store a sense of time and thereby has brought me some ease. Looking for this anchor, something to keep me grounded, I turned to nature. Nature is not monotonous. It’s continuously changing and evolving. By merely observing the trees on the hill outside my living room window, I have regained my footing somewhat, although it did take the majority of the quarter. When I first arrived home in March, the trees were bare, their branches blanketed with snow. I didn’t give the landscape much thought, since I grew up looking at it. Yet, in late April, I began to notice that the trees were growing their
first buds. I began to spend a few minutes each morning to see if anything had changed from the morning prior. Now, the entire slope has turned a cheerful chartreuse. Yet, I still take the time to look at it when I wake up—a reminder of the passage of time. I have also discovered that UChicago has provided its students with this natural clock through the 24/7 webcam of Botany Pond. At first glance, I thought that the idea was somewhat silly and I ignored it. Yet, I kept wondering what made it so special. When I finally got the chance to sit down and open the webcam, I realized why. The
ripples washed out my raucous thoughts and, for the first time this quarter, I found a deep sense of calm. I could make out where my friends and I had stood on the pond this past winter when it was frozen over. I traced my eyes along the path where my close friend and I walked during my final evening on campus before returning home for spring quarter. During those times, Botany Pond had seemed trivial, a simple landmark that I never really gave a second thought. Now, I rely on it as a tether to UChicago when everything else feels so aimless and uncertain. Although our lives aren’t changing as noticeably
each day as they did on campus, the world is changing. Pinpointing and watching subtle changes serve to connect us, in a small way to the greater uncertain state of the world. I recommend finding something that seems insignificant, such as a neighborhood tree or even just a dandelion in your backyard, and watch how it changes (or doesn’t) from day to day. It may sound like a somewhat vacuous idea, just as the Botany Pond live stream did at first, yet for me it has made all the difference. Maya Ordonez is a first-year in the College.
HIDDEN GEMS By CHRIS JONES Across 1. Center 6. Half of a Shakespearean inquiry 10. One of the hidden words 14. Building material 15. State of France 16. Feeling it 17. “Made to touch your senses” smartphone 19. Body double? 20. Pub offerings 21. Apple product from 2001 22. Primp 23. Gets the worm, say 26. ATM transaction 29. Carly ___ Jepsen 30. “I think...”, in texts 31. Beachy cruise destination 33. Place to tuck in 34. The Bean for Chicago, for example 38. Gun-slingin’, justice- bringin’ hero of
old Westerns 42. Exam for a wouldbe attorney 43. Part of many German names 44. Goes (to) 45. Narrow opening 47. Common A.P. class 49. Sweet finish? 50. Microsoft project manager behind Comic Sans 55. Actor Yankovsky and designer Cassini 56. H.S. groups with a secretary-general 57. Like some orders 61. Extended family 62. Danger hidden in some occultism, purportedly 64. “For ___ jolly good fellow” 65. Where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded 66. Skirt 67. Like some airports (abbr.)
68. Giant Mel and others 69. Society whose creator commented, “I do get disappointed that so many members spend so much time solving puzzles” Down 1. Tortilla flour 2. Justin Bieber, e.g. 3. Ready to eat 4. Austin, TX, music festival with a geographic name 5. ___-Mex 6. Alternative to a 14Across home 7. Others for hombres 8. Search engine creator 9. H, to a sorority 10. Put out? (alt.) 11. Influence 12. “Part of Your World” singer 13. Kravitz who played
Cinna in “The Hunger Games” 18. Noise for a certain mouse 22. For each 24. Asia’s disappearing ___ Sea 25. ___ colada 26. Willy Wonka’s creator 27. Attractive force? 28. What a caterpillar becomes 32. Certain call for assistance 33. Starter (abbr.) 35. “Later!” 36. Neighbors for 2018 37. TSLA host 39. “Metamorphoses” poet 40. Nonobligatory 41. It’s fit to be tied? 46. Rds. 47. Five-strings 48. “___ girl!” 50. Japanese dessert 51. Woman’s name that
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rhymes with another woman’s name 52. Fewest 53. Self-reproach
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54. Jobs, for one 58. Home of Muscat but not Muscat grapes 59. Not men
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60. Coveted airline seat 62. Tic-tac-toe win 63. Rep.’s rival
THE CHICAGO MAROON — JUNE 3, 2020
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ARTS Notes on The 1975’s notes
Editors’ Note By ALINA KIM & WAHID AL MAMUN Arts Editors Like the rest of you, we have observed with horror the violence enacted by police on Black communities last weekend across the United States, including repression of protests in Hyde Park. We recognize that these protests are the result of ongoing and extensive police brutality, and wish to honor the names of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and countless others. In this unsettling time, we have decided to persist with our usual pre-planned arts coverage. We commit to forging a space where our readers can seek normalcy and comfort from their present realities. However, we also recognize that art—and therefore arts journalism—can never be divorced from politics. Where there is social justice, there is always art. In this spirit, we invite your criticism on art you have found inspiration and refuge in recently. Contact us at voices@chicago maroon.com.
By ISABELLA CISNEROS Arts Reporter After multiple delays, album artwork changes, and of all things a pandemic, The 1975 has finally released their fourth album: Notes on a Conditional Form. Written and recorded prior to, throughout, and after the band’s all-encompassing 2019 tour, the 22-track record is the group’s most ambitious project by far. A project of this magnitude is difficult to boil down into a brief description without incurring the danger of over-simplification. At its heart, however, Notes is a celebration of the band tucked into reflections on subjects that lead singer Matty Healy has repeatedly referenced throughout the band’s discography. As he shared in an interview with Apple Music, “It’s the most me record. It’s the truest.” Despite the solidity of its identity, however, the album is not without its surprises. The album begins with a significant departure from the norm in the first track, “The 1975.” For the past three albums, “The 1975” has always served as the band’s theme,
Album art for The 1975’s new record, Notes on a Conditional Form. COURTESY OF INTERSCOPE
or “video-game start-up sound,” as Healy called it during a Twitter listening party for the band’s first album. It’s a hallmark of the band, but that’s not the case in this album. Instead, the track features a speech given by Greta Thunberg regarding the current climate crisis, softly punctuated by background instrumentation reminiscent of A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, the band’s previous album. To listeners, it’s both a symbol of the group’s newfound commitment to activism as well as a wake-up call, with Healy shouting “Wake up!” at the beginning of the next track, “People.” It’s a wake-up call that the band has taken to heart in more ways than one; the CDs and vinyls of this album have been manufactured and packaged with as much recyclable material as possible, and prior to cancellations due to the pandemic, the band had pledged to plant a tree for every ticket sold throughout the U.K. and Ireland 2020 tour. The climate crisis isn’t the only issue explored in the album. Focalized through Healy’s views and experiences, the record covers significant ground in a myriad of introspective subjects, from social anxiety to a search for purpose. Notes allows us to see the evolution of these ideas throughout the band’s albums, in addition to that of Healy himself. In some ways, the album shows us a Healy in stark contrast to the brazen and confident versions he’s presented us with in past albums. Vulnerability takes the helm throughout the tracks, strengthening the album when its soundscape becomes too polarizing. In an interview with NME, the singer described the album as one of domesticity, an aspect that definitely shines through in tracks like “Don’t Worry,” which was written and sung by Healy’s father in response to his wife’s postpartum depression, and “Guys,” a love song dedicated to bandmates George Daniel, Ross MacDonald, and Adam Hann. The emotional openness exhibited by this album is expansive, further inviting the listener into the doubts and fears that plague Healy’s mind, the same ones that plague ours. While The 1975 has never been known to firmly inhabit one genre, Notes on a Conditional Form is perhaps the band’s most
diverse musical foray yet, with sounds ranging from the country twang evoked by “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America” to the 2000s-esque rock in “Me & You Together Song” to the intense punk-rock sound of “People.” The soundscape of this album is ever-changing, leading some critics to accuse the band of excessive self-indulgence. While the chaos inherent in the album can appear to some as a form of carelessness or excessive ambition, deep thought and self-awareness of the band’s entire discography is heavily embedded in each track: easy to miss, but definitely present if listened to carefully. Take the third track of the album, “The End (Music for Cars),” for example. At first listen, it seems to be a grand overture, an orchestral tip of the hat to what the band has termed the end of an era. On closer inspection, however, the track sonically mirrors “HNSCC,” a track from the band’s first album, The 1975. Similarly, “Roadkill” mirrors another track from their first album, “Undo.” What critics have interpreted to be an absentminded and rash creative process is truly the culmination of a yearslong reflection on the music the group has created and what they hope to achieve with it. The sonic diversity inherent in the album shows us that Notes is as much a reflection as it is an experimentation. After the critical acclaim of A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships, the band was faced with two options: go bigger, or go back to where they started. In Notes, they manage to do both. In addition to evoking the qualities of their earlier albums, the band also incorporates the music that inspired them into tracks like “Frail State of Mind.” Drawing on artists such as Burial and MJ Cole, the sounds of the U.K. garage music the band grew up with are enthusiastically embraced in this track, as they are throughout the album in tracks like “Shiny Collarbone” and “Streaming.” Other tracks have seemingly come out of left field in terms of the band’s repertoire, such as “Tonight (I Wish I Was Your Boy),” which embraces late ’90s pop in combination with a Kanye West–esque sample at its beginning. Considering the sheer diversity of the album, the production, courtesy of band member CONTINUED ON PG. 14
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Noah Cyrus Breaks Free in The End of Everything By CYNTHIA HUANG Arts Reporter Nothing screams apocalypse like the title of Noah Cyrus’s latest E.P., The End of Everything, except for, perhaps, the fact that it was released in the middle of a global pandemic. But make no mistake—this is no quarantine record, no plague-fueled melodic fever dream. The End of Everything is a self-conscious, introspective, and mature venture that sets out to publicly cement the identity of its creator: Noah. Not Billy Ray’s daughter, not Miley’s sister, not just another Cyrus, but Noah. The song that best encapsulates the mood and message of the album is “Young & Sad.” Here, Noah embarks on the time-old tradition of artists referencing their youth. But whereas Lana Del Ray was “Young and Beautiful” and Khalid was “Young Dumb & Broke,” Noah casts aside the superficial and focuses on the personal: What defines her youth is the existentialist depression of coming into being and the pains and depressive states that emerge from this journey to self-acceptance. She highlights the contradictory wants of someone growing up who denies the help offered by others—“Let me go…./ Don’t you know I’m only trying to disappear.”—in order to craft a self-motivated reprieve: “Don’t wanna be young and sad another day longer./ Don’t wanna feel numb or mad until I go under.”
It must be said that Noah’s lyrics leave much to be desired. They often come across as routine, if not a bit hackneyed. The opening lines of “Ghost,” “Why don’t we kill the lights?/ I’m no good at hiding underneath a sea of tears,” read like forced poetry. From “Liar,” “You always break a heart when you break a promise” sounds like what one would write in a diary entry never to be shown to the world. From “Lonely,” “’Cause I go to parties sometimes/ and I’ll kiss a boy and pretend for the night” is what many a slighted person has said post-breakup. This is all to add a massive, red disclaimer that I definitely do not think that it was the lyrics that brought The End of Everything, and this unintentional review, to life. Nor was it Noah’s voice, which I’m sure many singers and vocal coaches would find issue with. It’s breathy at times and strained at others; her range leaves much to be desired. It’s hard not to compare her to her powerhouse sister or her achy breaky father. Instead, what Noah has an excess of, and infuses into her E.P. with great care, is emotion and authenticity. Both are evident in her delivery and in the feel of her songs. The music itself is deeply embedded in a steady tone of melancholia that carries the whole album, which draws its inspiration from a sense of identity. The best works in this E.P. are those that speak wholeheartedly to this sense of identity, both musically and emotionally. “July”
is my personal favourite from this album for this reason. Though “July” appears at the latter end of the album, the folk, pop, and country ballad roots Noah’s musical identity with that of both past and present inspirations alike: the folksy, country music of her father, and the indie and pop influences that drive her today. It’s a little ironic how one of the refrains in this piece is “You know I, I’m afraid of change./ Guess that’s why we stay the same.” Though there is a sense of things staying the same, with her returning to her roots genre-wise, there is also a continuous sense of motion in the infusions of pop and narrative of traveling in the song. This push and pull, coming and going, staying the same yet changing, is what’s at the core of growing up, as told by Noah. Some of the other interesting pieces in the album experiment with different approaches to varying degrees of success. “Young & Sad” opens with a voice message from Noah’s father, telling her, “Hey bud, this is ol’ dad./ Just wanted you to know, you ain’t alone./ Keep a smile on your face./ Everything’s gonna be fine./ I love you.” The intention behind this message is sweet, but when put into a song for the world to hear, it gets uncomfortably intimate. “Wonder Years,” which features Ant Clemons, samples the Beatles’ famed track “With a Little Help From My Friends.” If I strain my ears a lot, I can maybe make out the iconic song that inspired “Wonder Years.” But for the most part, “Wonder Years” takes a new direction, which I suppose is a sampling success—to take what has been done and reinvent it. Despite how most of these songs appear as responses to personal struggles with mental health, Noah’s vision for this album was far more universal and cosmological. In an
interview with NPR, Noah cited the inspiration behind this album as John Boswell’s YouTube video, “Timelapse of the Future,” which chronicles the eventual unfolding and end of the universe. In a more existentialist sense, Noah’s E.P. is then meant to guide us through different frames of understanding that our time in the world is limited, and everything will end one day. However, excepting the title track, I fail to really experience any of the songs in her album as playing into an extended commentary on temporality and existence. They mostly seem to target particular feelings in a particular moment of her life. But it’s worth mentioning the source of her inspiration because most of the videos of her songs on her YouTube page are filled with galactic images, butterflies (presumably referencing the butterfly effect), and many other lofty existentialist sequences. Ultimately, The End of Everything has high ambitions that it doesn’t meet. It aims to proffer a commentary on the state of the universe and the transience of life, but ends up at something quite unique to a moment in time and in one’s life. Her lyrics need work, and her voice is not quite where it needs to be yet. But the almost irrationally intimate and personal experience of hearing her emotions bleed through is something I last experienced in Lady Gaga’s Joanne. The End of Everything is self-conscious, and consciously so. Noah lets us into her shadowed world and guides us through her painted cosmologies. Perhaps this album is a cry for help, perhaps it’s an expression of that help; either way, it’s nothing if not a contemplation on starts and finishes, on beginning and ends, on what it means to live as told through the soul of someone growing up and struggling in that process of growth.
“Discovering something new in each listen” CONTINUED FROM PG. 13
Cyrus’s latest E.P. is a self-conscious, introspective, and mature venture that sets out to publicly cement the identity of its creator. COURTESY OF LEX MERICO
George Daniel, is truly an impressive feat. Similarly, the instrumentation provided by band members Adam Hann and Ross MacDonald is incredible in its adaptability to the range of sounds present. The endless variety of the album ensures that the listener discovers something new in each listen, a quality that sets this record apart from anything the
band has released before, a fitting achievement for the end of the Music for Cars era. As The 1975 and its fans look to the future and the start of another era, the last track, “Guys,” best summarizes the prominent attitude of both: “You guys are the best thing that ever happened to me.”
THE CHICAGO MAROON — JUNE 3, 2020
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SPORTS Letter From the Editors: The Sporting World’s Response to COVID-19 By BRINDA RAO, ALISON GILL, & THOMAS GORDON Sports Editors As our country continues to reopen in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we face many difficult decisions. While states are going into phases of these reopenings, ultimately, life will not return to normal for a long time. For summer 2020, there will not be any of sitting in movie theaters and sporting venues, packed shoulder-to-shoulder with others. This leaves the world of professional, collegiate, and recreational athletics in a state of extreme uncertainty. On March 30, 2020, the International Olympic Committee announced the official delay of the 2020 Summer Olympics to 2021. This decision came with passionate efforts to act in the best interest of athletes’ health and training as well as preventing additional global spread of the virus. In the wake of the virus, many professional athletes across the globe have been forced to abstain from typical training. With pools, gymnastics gyms, and official training sites closed, these athletes have been unable to properly prepare for any competition in 2020. Ultimately, this will also impact performances in the 2021 Games; many athletes will have a longer, delayed return to regular, pre-pandemic training. Professional sporting leagues are recreating the world of their athletics through intensive efforts to create the circumstances for continued play. With MLB losing around $75 million a day, officials are keen to reopen July 4, given the right conditions. These conditions include sanitation efforts like disinfecting baseballs on a daily basis and closing games to spectators. Baseball fans will be forgoing the beloved American tradition of a summer day spent at Wrigley Field or Yankee Stadium. While professional athletes have vested financial interest in resuming play, the NCAA and universities must balance these desires and the health of its amateur athletes. A recent NCAA survey found that
43 percent of athletes regarded the fear of exposure to COVID-19 as a current barrier to training. The NCAA released the Resocialization of Collegiate Sports: Action Plan Considerations in late May, as colleges around the nation prepare for the return of football and basketball players on June 8. The NCAA Division I Council voted to allow universities to resume voluntary workouts and training sessions at athletic facilities, but the decision remains up to each individual college as to how to approach the return of student-athletes. The University of North Carolina, Texas A&M University, and the University of Arizona are among the schools that have announced reopening plans for the early weeks of June. The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked financial havoc on athletic departments across the country, forcing universities to shutter entire teams. In response to the pandemic, at the Division I level, Bowling Green cut its baseball program; Central Michigan ended men’s track and field; Cincinnati eliminated its men’s soccer team;
Ratner Athletics Cetner YAO XEN TAN
Old Dominion dropped its wrestling programs; and Wisconsin—Green Bay shut down its men’s and women’s tennis teams. The most sweeping changes were made by Brown University, which eliminated 11 programs, although the decisions were made pre-pandemic, according to the Brown athletic department. As the college football season and its $4 billion revenue stream (estimated by WashU professor Patrick Rishe, hangs in the air) we may witness more Division I athletic departments trimming down their athletic programs. Few athletic departments at the Division III have been forced to shutter programs, due in large part to the lack of reliance on athletics-generated revenue. Only Earlham College in Indiana (men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s tennis) and Ohio Wesleyan (women’s rowing) have announced any eliminations. However, the NCAA has announced that the minimum number of competitions needed for postseason selection and sports sponsorship has been reduced by 33 percent.
What this could mean for the University of Chicago teams remains to be seen. There has been no official word from the University or athletic department administration about expectations for the 2020—21 season, but we can speculate. The Maroons might face seasons with delayed preseasons, fewer games, and more local contests. At this point, the chances of seasons being outright cancelled seem low, although, depending on the anticipated second wave of the coronavirus and on-campus availability, it still remains a possibility. We will keep providing updates on the changing landscape of college athletics throughout the summer. Given the uncertainty of the upcoming fall quarter and athletic season, we will provide insight and reactions to whatever the outcome may be. We hope that we will be able to provide live sports analysis in the new school year for all of our readers and live through the ups and downs of our student-athletes and athletics at the University of Chicago.