BOOTH GOES VIRTUAL AFTER M.B.A.S GATHER OFF CAMPUS
OCTOBER 21, 2020 FOURTH WEEK VOL. 133, ISSUE 5
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Acclaimed Chinese Restaurant Jade Court to Open in Harper Court
matthew lee
In Just Three Seasons, Griffith Grew Her Legend By DYLAN ZHANG Sports Reporter
Fourth-year Emma Griffith’s incredible volleyball journey wasn’t always so clear-cut. Hailing from New York City, Griffith first fell in love with volleyball while playing on beaches with her father. Although not a big volleyball fan himself,
VIEWPOINTS: Climate Activists Should Couch Divestment in Economic Terms PAGE 6
he noticed her early aptitude for the sport and encouraged her to play more as she joined her middle school’s volleyball team. She frequently mentions her father as an important influence in her life, quoting his advice. “If there’s something in your life that you care about enough, you make it a must and just go do it.” CONTINUED ON PG. 10
NEWS: New President and CEO Named at MSI PAGE 5
By YIWEN LU Deputy News Editor Jade Court, a Chinese restaurant whose original Racine Avenue location closed last year, is slated to reopen in Hyde Park this October. The original Jade Court earned a three-star review in the Chicago Tribune, with food critic Phil Vettel deeming it one of Chicago’s best Chinese restaurants. Jade Court was first opened in 2016 on Racine Avenue in University Park by Eddy Cheung and his daughter Carol Cheung. After Eddy Cheung passed away in 2019, his family decided to close Jade Court until they decided how to proceed, though Carol Cheung vowed “we definitely will reopen” in an interview with Chicago Tribune. The Chicago Tribune’s restaurant critic, Phil Vettel, wrote that the Hong Kong-born Cheung family owned “two of Chicago’s best Chinese restaurants:” Phoenix Restaurant in Chinatown and Jade Court in University Village. Cheung was also among the first to bring Hong Kong–style dim sum to Chicagoans back when he founded Phoenix Restaurant in 1996. After one year of searching for a new location, Carol Cheung decided to relocate Jade CONTINUED ON PG. 4
Chaotic Betrayal and Friends We Made Along the Way By GABI GARCIA Associate Arts Editor Betraying your friends has become very popular as of late, especially with the advent of online games like Among Us and Town of Salem. But, before these games worked their way into the mainstream, there was the classic party game
ARTS: McKeevy Develops Celery-Stick Schtick on TikTok
Mafia. The premise is straightforward: Everyone sits in a circle as members of a “town” except one player, who acts as “God”—the storyteller of the round. While the town members close their eyes to “sleep” for the night, the God selects players to fill a few key roles: CONTINUED ON PG. 8
NEWS: Five Labs Deficient in Energy Use, According to Summer Study
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Five Campus Labs “Underperforming” in Energy Use, Summer Research Finds By LAURA GERSONY News Reporter Five labs on UChicago’s campus consume significantly more energy per square foot than other labs in similar climate zones, according to research conducted this summer as a part of the University’s ‘Environmental Frontiers’ (E.F.) internship program. The E.F. interns, who are UChicago undergraduate students working under faculty supervision, analyzed data from over 300 lab buildings in Hyde Park’s climate zone. They used this data to model a typical building’s energy use intensity (EUI) given its square footage, accounting for the fact that biology and chemistry laboratories tend to be more energy-intensive. Five of the eight lab buildings that the group analyzed—Searle Chemistry Laboratory, Michelson Center for Physics, Bio-Psychological Research Building, Gordon Center for Integrative Sciences (GCIS), and Eckhardt Research Center (ERC)— have an EUI higher than the benchmark model predicts. In other words, they use more energy than comparable buildings. ERC and Searle are LEED–certified,
a certification given to buildings designed with sustainable features. The remaining three buildings that the group analyzed, which includes Kent Chemistry Laboratory, Henry Hinds Laboratory for the Geophysical Sciences, and George Herbert Jones Laboratory, were found to be “overperforming,” or having a lower EUI than predicted by the model. The percent disparity between predicted and actual EUI ranges from -21.5 percent for Kent to +90 percent for Searle. The E.F. interns attributed the buildings’ high energy use in large part to their “minimum ventilation rates,” or how often air within a lab is recirculated. Lab buildings at UChicago perform a constant number of recirculations per hour, whether the building is occupied or not. In contrast, the peer institutions that the group analyzed reduce their circulation rates during unoccupied hours and use fewer recirculations than UChicago when buildings are occupied. Third-year Shopnavo Biswas, one of the E.F. interns working on this project, noted that lower ventilation rates may increase the risk of contaminants in the air. The group recommended conducting risk
assessments to determine the safety of this measure. The group also found that most electricity in campus labs is used in fume hoods. They recommended upgrading the fume hoods in certain labs from constant air volume (CAV) to variable air volume (VAV), as this would decrease energy consumption when the fume hoods are not in use. The interns also recommended behavioral energy-saving measures, including a “Shut the Sash” campaign that would encourage researchers to close the fume hood sashes when not in use. Based on similar campaigns that have been implemented at peer institutions, they estimate that this campaign alone could save the University an annual $120,000, or upwards of 1 million kWh per year. The group’s other recommendations included restarting the UChicago GreenLabs program, a discontinued initiative that monitored labs’ energy use and slightly raising the storage temperature of ultralow-temperature freezers to further reduce electricity use. Biswas’s research team also found that lab buildings make up over a third of campus energy use, despite comprising only
around 10 percent of building area. Another E.F. research group found that UChicago’s LEED-certified buildings do not perform better than non–LEED buildings in Chicago. However, Jasmina Scekic, a third-year student working on this team, said that this trend was not specific to campus; a wealth of past literature, including research done in the City of Chicago, suggests that LEED–certification does not lead to better building energy performance, as measured by EUI. In explaining this finding, the group emphasized a flaw inherent in LEED: Certification is granted based on a building’s predicted energy use model rather than any actual energy use data. Scekic said that not a single building on campus was performing up to its predicted efficiency and described UChicago LEED buildings’ predicted energy use models as “ambitious.” The group recommended that UChicago increase its focus on building operations and management in order to improve existing buildings’ energy efficiency. The group also recommended that, when certifying new buildings, the University uses a framework based on buildings’ actual—rather than predicted—energy performance.
Senator Robert Peters Talks Justice, Housing Amid COVID–19 By NICK TARR News Reporter Senator Robert Peters has represented Hyde Park in the Illinois State Senate since January of 2019. On October 2, The Maroon sat down with Senator Peters for an interview where he reflected on his past efforts and gave insight on key issues as they relate to the COVID-19 crisis and the presidential election. Peters’s legislative record is extensive. Since 2019, he has passed 13 bills addressing criminal justice, secure housing, and public health throughout the state. He is responsible for the end of “pay to stay” in Illinois, which allowed jails to charge inmates for their detention, as well as removing the parental consent requirement for young people to get access to Pre-Exposure
Prophylaxis, an HIV prevention drug. He was also instrumental in the implementation of civic education for people recently released from prison. Criminal justice reform has always been central to Peters’s platform. A supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, he sees “law and order” policies as toxic and discriminatory. “We should indict the four decades–long Tough-on-Crime policies that clearly do not make anyone feel safe. We need to indict a system that seems not to stop murders or solve them,” he said. The existence of the University of Chicago’s private police force, the UCPD, makes this issue more complex from the perspective of Hyde Park. Student organizations and community leaders have called for its disbandment over reports of racial profiling, over-policing, and a lack of ac-
countability. Peters shares many of these beliefs. “The University does not need the police force they have. There’s no accountability there. We need to start scaling back the UCPD so it’s not doing random stops on anyone who is Black in the neighborhood,” he said. “You can’t call it public safety without the public having input.” Peters feels that much of the contention between the University and its surrounding community is the result of social issues like the UCPD and housing displacement caused by gentrification. However, Peters does not want the UCPD to disappear; rather, he calls for a UCPD that acts more benevolent than antagonistic. “Let’s get back to getting cats out of trees and helping folks cross the street,” he said. “They don’t need to have the police force
that they have.” This nuanced perspective extends to other aspects of the University’s relationship with Hyde Park. “I respect the University as one of the most important economic engines on the South Side. If you need to go to a hospital right now, you go to the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC). They have a lot of Medicaid patients. If you are working on the South Side, you might be working at the UCMC,” he said, adding that many small businesses also operate through the University. For Peters, reconciling the two aspects of this relationship comes down to community organization, not just from within the University, but from the outside. “The organization we need to see is not for folks CONTINUED ON PG. 3
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“The people have to have the power to be in control...” CONTINUED FROM PG. 2
on campus; the organizing that needs to happen needs to be community-centered,” he said. “We need to reimagine what safety, justice, dignity, and community look like.” Of the issues facing Hyde Parkers, secure housing has become even more urgent in the wake of the COVID–19 crisis, which has left millions of Americans unemployed and unable to pay rent. Recent measures like the Woodlawn Housing Ordinance have aimed at combating displacement on the South Side. “According to the Illinois Housing Authority, there were more than 370,000
people on the verge of eviction in January. We don’t know how many people have been pushed out of their houses. We’re in a horrible housing situation. It is absolutely a crisis,” he said. Peters is a proponent of grant programs for those unable to pay rents and mortgages, as well as higher rent regulation to offset the effects of gentrification. “If a grocery store comes up near you, you shouldn’t have to worry about a $400 increase on your rent. Let’s keep people there and let them enjoy the grocery stores that they have deserved for so many years,” he said.
Housing is not the only issue exacerbated by COVID–19. Peters called it a “triple crisis,” saying, “there’s the crisis when it comes to health, the crisis when it comes to economics, and the crisis when it comes to racism, particularly in law enforcement. These issues all have existed for quite some time, but the urgency in which these crises have exhibited pain onto peoples’ lives [due to COVID–19] has made me feel even more urgency to act.” Peters blames the federal government for failing Americans: “There’s so much we need at a state level, but we have an incompetent president and an equally vicious
Senate majority leader. It’s going to cause an even worse crisis for people whether it’s Illinois or Texas.” Peters is hopeful that his legacy in Hyde Park will be positive. “If I’m lucky enough to keep this seat in the future, that’s great. But, I want to say that I was able to pass a series of systemic bills that improve peoples’ lives,” he said. “The people have to have the power to be in control of their community, their safety, and their dignity. If I can play a small role in that, it would be the happiest thing in the world for me.”
Booth Shifts Online for Two Weeks By RACHEL WAN News Reporter The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business will move to virtual instruction for two weeks after “a large group of full-time MBA students congregated off-campus on Chicago’s North Side, many without wearing face coverings,” according to an email to the University community by Dean
of Students in the University Michele Rasmussen and Associate Vice President for Safety and Security Eric Heath. As a result, both the Gleacher Center, Booth’s campus in the Loop, and the Harper Center in Hyde Park will close until at least October 28. “Some indiv idua ls from that group have since tested positive for COVID-19,” and over 100 M.B.A. students connected to the gathering must
quarantine for two weeks, according to the email. Booth announced the closure as a “precautionary measure” to prevent the spread of COVID–19, made after consultation with the University of Chicago Medical Center. “We ask everyone on campus to once again review the terms of the UChicago Health Pact and uphold its principles. It takes only one incident like this to put
many others at risk,” Rasmussen and Heath said. Rasmussen and Heath asked University faculty and staff who believe they are experiencing COVID–19 symptoms or had a close contact with a person who has tested positive for COVID–19 to call the UChicago Medicine COVID–19 triage hotline (773.702.WELL). Students are asked to call UChicago Student Wellness (773.834.WELL).
AFT Makes South Side Stop for Fair Tax, Biden-Harris Ticket By AVI WALDMAN News Reporter The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) stopped by Chatham on Wednesday morning with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) as part of a nationwide get-out-the-vote bus tour. Union leaders urged voters to support Illinois’s Fair Tax Amendment and endorsed the Democratic presidential ticket. The Fair Tax Amendment is a measure on the November ballot that would amend the state constitution to allow Illinois to replace the current flat tax rate with a progressive income tax structure. If 60 percent of Illinois voters vote in favor of passing the measure, a bill passed by the legislature and signed by Governor J.B. Pritzker in 2019 would
take effect, raising rates for taxpayers making more than $250,000. AFT President Randi Weingarten said that passing the Fair Tax Amendment would fill gaps in the state budget that underfund sectors such as education, helping teachers who are struggling to meet the needs of remote teaching. “How is it that 80–90 percent of teachers are spending their own money on [personal protective equipment]? How is it that 16 million kids do not have digital equipment?” Weingarten asked. “If you make a billion dollars or 5 billion dollars or 10 billion dollars or even are a millionaire…you pay the same percentage tax as a bus driver. That’s what the governor is trying to change here.” The question of how much money Chicago’s public schools need, and by extension where it will be coming
from, underlies CTU’s current dispute with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office over whether and how to reopen schools. CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates voiced concerns that school buildings would need to be renovated in order to improve ventilation and filtration systems before it is safe for in-person classes to resume, and she emphasized that the safety of teachers and students must be the city’s top priority when considering school reopening. “It costs money to reopen schools in a pandemic, and these are schools that have been under-resourced for generations. We cannot magically think that we can bring people back into unsafe situations,” Gates said. She pointed out that infection rates have risen as restrictions on bars and restaurants have been relaxed, and that
many of Chicago’s primarily Black and Latinx neighborhoods suffer from significantly higher rates of infection than the rest of the city. “I would ask this question: What has changed with the virus [and] with the rate of infections since March that would make for a safe reopening in Chicago? If we can’t answer that question then we have to go back to the drawing board.” Weingarten said that any school reopening plan needs to include input from CTU on how to provide teachers with a safe workplace. Lightfoot’s administration has so far been reluctant to negotiate with CTU again over pandemic working conditions after finalizing a collective bargaining agreement last fall. In May, Lightfoot told reporters CONTINUED ON PG. 4
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“It’s nonsense to not be talking to CTU. It’s ridiculous. It is basically a recipe for disaster.” CONTINUED FROM PG. 3
that she would not consider reopening contract negotiations, and CTU filed a complaint with the state alleging that the city violated emergency regulations by failing to discuss remote learning plans with the union. “It’s nonsense to not be talking to CTU,” Weingarten said. “It’s ridiculous. It is basically a recipe for disaster.” Gates emphasized that aside from the issue of reopening schools, teachers need more resources to develop better online learning models and serve their most vulnerable students, particularly special education and bilingual learners. The funding necessary to relieve some of the pressure on teachers, suggested Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, could come from increased taxes on Illinois’s wealthiest citizens, some of whom have spent millions campaigning to oppose the measure. “There is a real enemy that continues to lurk around the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois, and that enemy is structural racism. It’s white supremacy, quite frankly,” Johnson said. “It’s
why it’s so easy for somebody like Ken Griffin to spend hundreds of millions of dollars so that Black women and brown women will have to carry the burden that he refuses to do. That’s a wicked system.” According to the Chicago Tribune, Griffin has so far spent nearly $50 million opposing the amendment, while the governor’s cousin Jennifer Pritzker pitched in $500,000. In addition to the Fair Tax Amendment, Weingarten and other speakers expressed support for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, citing his promise to triple funding for Title I, which issues federal grants to schools with high percentages of low-income students. “One of the things [the pandemic] exposed is that wealthier districts and wealthier parents could create pods to overcome some of the losses,” Weingarten said. “[That’s] why Joe Biden’s proposal for tripling Title I is so important, because it’s a way of overcoming the resource issue which then can pay for the instructional things we need.”
Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Stacey Davis Gates. Avi Waldman
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Linguists, Anthropologists Discuss Analyzing Language in American Politics By RUTHIE MITCHELL News Reporter Graduate students from the University of Chicago and the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) are holding five virtual talks under the title “Talking Politics: Anthropologists and Linguists Analyze the 2020 Election.” The focus is on evaluating political issues from a linguistic standpoint. The first of these events took place on Friday, October 9. Professor Adam Hodges of CU Boulder presented his talk: “How Plausible is Deniability?” The series featured various anthropology and linguistics professors from CU Boulder, Stanford University, University of
California, Los Angeles, among other universities. The series honors the late linguistics and anthropology professor Michael Silverstein (1945–2020). A pioneer in anthropology and socio-linguistics, Silverstein’s work primarily focused on Chinookan languages, Aboriginal Australian societies, and U.S. political culture. Silverstein taught the undergraduate course “Language in Culture” for 50 years. According to the University of Chicago’s Anthropology Department website, Silverstein “fundamentally changed the place of linguistics in the field.” Hodges launched the “Talking Politics” series with his Friday lecture. The lecture
Chevy Humphrey Named President and CEO of MSI By GUSTAVO DELGADO News Reporter Chevy Humphrey, the president and CEO of the Arizona Science Center (ASC) and chairwoman of the Board of the American Alliance of Museums, became the first Black American to lead a science center in the U.S. when she assumed leadership of the ASC 15 years ago. She succeeds David Mosena as president and CEO of the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI). In response to Humphrey’s appointment, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in the MSI’s press release that “the Museum of Science and Industry is one of the brightest stars in Chicago’s cultural universe, and we eagerly welcome the historic appointment of Chevy Humphrey as the first Black woman to hold the role as CEO and president. I personally look forward to collaborating with Chevy on new ways to inspire both our young people and visitors of all ages to engage with cutting-edge scientific advances.” During her time at the ASC, Humphrey advanced informal science education for teenagers. Humphrey also partnered with organizations within her community to en-
sure that the ASC was a space for education that welcomed all. Under her leadership, the museum’s revenue increased by 216 percent and the ASC’s assets grew significantly from $3 million to $42 million. Humphrey has received accolades for her work both at the ASC and as chairwoman of the Board of the American Alliance of Museums. The Phoenix Business Journal named Humphrey its Mentor of the Year in 2017, the first time the award was given. Humphrey was also named a Visionary Leader by the Women’s National Basketball Association. “We chose Chevy because of her effective, proven leadership skills that make her the right leader for MSI in this next chapter,” said Michelle Collins, MSI trustee and chairwoman of the search committee that located Humphrey. “It is an exciting appointment for a number of reasons, including her track record and commitment to science education, her international leadership within her field, and her deep desire to engage with Chicago’s many diverse communities,” Collins said. Humphrey will begin her role as president and CEO after Mosena retires at the end of this year.
discussed President Donald Trump’s attempts to claim plausible deniability for his own controversial statements. Hodges focused on a statement Trump made in February 2017, to FBI Director James Comey, concerning the recent resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Trump told Comey: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He’s a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Comey understood this statement to mean that he must either terminate the investigation into Flynn’s communication with Russian officials or risk losing his job. By this interpretation, Trump would have obstructed justice. Comey did not drop the investigation and was fired on May 9, 2017. During Senate hearings in June 2017, Comey testified about the FBI investigation into the 2016 election and his private conversations with the President. Republican Senators sympathetic to the President focused on the exact words that the president told Comey. Republican senator James Risch of Idaho got Comey to agree that Trump did not explicitly say to stop the investigation, nor did he threaten to fire Comey directly. According to Hodges, the single-minded focus on words is faulty: “implicature”— implicit meaning, or what is implied but not stated—is an important aspect of linguistics.
Semantics alone are not enough. Hodges pointed out that words can be actions in themselves as “performative utterances.” Implicature helps create and communicate these actions. A performative utterance is composed of three things: the act of saying something, the act performed in saying something, and the act performed by saying something. The second act is called the “illocutionary act,” which Hodges described as the “force” of what is said. The illocutionary act of Trump’s statement to Comey was a directive. Comey assumed that Trump was directing him to drop the investigation on Flynn. He considered more than Trump’s exact words: timing, social roles, and cultural norms. Hodges pointed to Trump’s rude imitation of a disabled New York Times reporter and Trump’s misogynistic remark about how a woman’s behavior was related to “blood coming out of her wherever.” These were used as other examples in which Trump denied implied meaning to avoid taking responsibility for the offense. The next “Talking Politics” event will take place virtually on October 20, 3 p.m. Central Time. Professor Michael Lempert of the University of Michigan will deliver his talk titled “Political Gesture in Presidential Debate.”
Jade Court Brings Cantonese Cuisine to Hyde Park CONTINUED FROM COVER
Court far from its old home. The acclaimed Cantonese restaurant will reopen at 1516 East Harper Court in Hyde Park, becoming one of its kind in Chicago’s South Side. “Hyde Park had been on my radar with its growing dining scene, and when I learned about the available space in Harper Court. I thought it would be a great fit for the new Jade Court,” Cheung commented to UChicago Voices. She made this decision after the University of Chicago’s commercial leasing team approached her. Due to the impact of COVID–19, Jade Court will start with approximately 65
seats and a partial menu to accommodate take–out demands. In a departure from the original location’s traditional Chinese-style dining room, the Harper Court location will be designed in a contemporary style and include a full bar featuring “old school Tiki-style drinks.” Cheung will also back the kitchen crew from the original Jade Court, who were overseen by her father and “are happy to be working together again,” Cheung told Vettel. Jade Court is projected to open in mid-October. It will operate Monday-Sunday from 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. Dine-in, carry– out, and delivery will be available to diners.
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VIEWPOINTS To Achieve Genuine Sustainability, Let’s Get Strategic Student environmentalists should speak to the University’s economic interests in order to advance their agenda. By JULIA SPANDE UChicago is going green. Unlike some of the University’s past actions, the recent series of changes is more than an Earth Day-inspired bout of Maroon greenwashing. In late April, the University announced more stringent emission reduction targets, pushing the University to cut carbon (emissions per square foot of building) in half by 2030, as opposed to by a 20 percent reduction by 2025. We
now have a Green Fund: 50,000 trustee-funded dollars invested in students’ sustainability projects. The Program on Global Environment is buzzing, promoting dozens of classes, events, and opportunities labeled with student-friendly buzzwords like sustainable, green, and climate change. The environmental fervor common among students has finally manifested in long-overdue campus reform. But this new, green UChicago still has an oil-black underbelly.
As Atman Mehta highlighted in his May article, UChicago trusts over $33 million to exchange-traded funds managed by the controversial BlackRock, which has come under fire for its multi-billion dollar investments in companies like Peabody Energy, Vinci S.A., Total S.A., BNP Paribas S.A., and Société Générale SA. There emerge two universities: the university powered by activists and concerned faculty, and the university funded by BlackRock. While both universities exist, they exist in contention. As environmental activism carves
out space for itself on campus, it will become clear that fossil fuel divestment is the only rational end goal; green investment can only neutralize so many dirty dollars before the 1995 Chicago heat wave becomes a bimonthly event. In order for a genuinely sustainable UChicago to win out, we need to learn from failed divestment efforts by campus activists and instead frame advocacy in money, the University’s favorite kind of green. Students can accomplish this if and only if we establish two environmental movements: one that acknowledges the complexity of environ-
mental politics and an apolitical, wallet-friendly model that might allow the two UChicagos to converge on a single, more sustainable university. But how can we argue divestment to a university unreceptive to any politically normative actions? UChicago is cocooned in its own mythology. The Kalven Report, written in 1967 and trotted out every year since, is a no take-backsies, “get out of jail free” card that allows the University to invest in exploitative institutions (apartheid South Africa, Darfur) without room for the maCONTINUED ON PG. 7
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“We don’t have to believe that climate change is apolitical or amoral, but we need to realize that arguing against the codified Kalven is fruitless and a waste of activist energy.” CONTINUED FROM PG. 6
jority opinion to reverse its decisions. The report fears UChicago will become a sociopolitical arbiter rather than an educator: “It should not, therefore, permit itself to be diverted from its mission into playing the role of a second-rate political force or influence.” Barring “extraordinary measures,” the University “must act as an institution in its corporate capacity” when choosing to condone or to censure a political action with University money. Student climate activists have tried to catch loopholes in the Kalven Report. In 2013, the now-defunct UChicago Climate Action Network argued that the social impact of climate change was, in the language of the report, “so incompatible with paramount social values as to require careful assessment of
the consequences.” Their divestment bids were still punctured by President Robert Zimmer for being too political. In order to make divestment feasible, we need to argue divestment without politics or morals. We need the University to see that fossil fuels are risky not just to biodiversity and human life but to any corporate entity. In conversations with the administration, we need to flatten the nuanced discussions around divestment to address only the economic dimension. We can present a sanitized, Kalven-friendly pitch but ensure our call for divestment stands. We don’t have to believe that climate change is apolitical or amoral, but we need to realize that arguing against the codified Kalven is fruitless and a waste of activist energy. Student activists
can fight for climate justice within classes, academic departments, RSOs, community outreach groups, research labs, and the dozens of environmental and social justice coalitions in Chicago. We can organize to reduce methane-producing food waste and donate the excess to community food banks or volunteer with solar power initiatives in marginalized communities. But when we storm admin offices calling for divestment, we should carry only growth charts. It’s not compromise: It’s marketing. I am probably the last person expected to champion economics over politics. If I tried to register for a class taught by Allen Sanderson, I’m sure my.UChicago would cackle and spit me into gender studies instead. But if there’s any time for climate ac-
tivists to become economists and vice versa, it’s now. As the coronavirus raged this spring, the plummeting price of oil made global headlines, hinting at a grim future for an oil-based economy susceptible to any number of impending crises. Even the banks heralded as gods in Saieh Hall are consistently downgrading oil stocks’ ratings. This is our chance to challenge the primacy of fossil fuels, and it happens to coincide with the Green Fund’s application cycle. Take the school’s money and make divestment look good. Let’s weaponize economics, not to bolster South American dictators for once, but to fight for our sustainable future and, maybe this time, win. Julia Spande is a third-year in the College.
Hong Kong and the University’s Free Speech Responsibility In order to stay true to the Chicago Principles, the University must work actively to protect faculty and students’ free speech in and outside of Hong Kong. By DEVIN HAAS The University of Chicago has a long, proud commitment to freedom of speech. After the Communist Party U.S.A.’s presidential candidate called for the violent abolition of capitalism on campus in 1935, the University president defended the “seditious” speech before a special session in the Illinois Senate. More recently, the University administration generated controversy and earned plaudits for rejecting “safe spaces” and promoting Chicago Principles of free expression. The report that outlines these principles states, “The University has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.” However, months into the most alarming restriction of campus free speech in decades, the University administration has not lifted a finger or
said a peep. If it really does care about the freedom of speech, the University must do more than end its silence. It must act decisively and again lead academia on the issue. After a year of protests, the People’s Republic of China imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong this June. The law harshly penalizes broadly defined crimes including “sedition, subversion, terrorism, and colluding with foreign forces” and advocating “secession” from mainland China. Most disquietingly, the law’s Article 38 asserts extraterritorial jurisdiction to prosecute activism and offenses “committed against the Hong Kong Special AdministrativeRegion from outside the Region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the Region.” In other words, the law applies to everybody inside Hong Kong and out. It applies to you. Beijing has a history of seeking the extradition of non-Chinese citizens to China for criminal prosecution. Students
at American universities are not exempt from its pursuits and crackdowns. Just this year, a 20-year-old University of Minnesota student was sentenced to six months of imprisonment upon returning to China for tweets posted while in the U.S. The tweets were deemed to portray a “national leader” in an unflattering light because they likened him to a certain banned cartoon bear and “created a negative social impact.” Hong Kong student activists as young as 16 have already been arrested under the national security law for social media posts that called for “regaining [Hong Kong’s] right of self-determination.” Hong Kong authorities have also released the arrest warrant for Samuel Chu, a Hong Kong-born activist and community organizer who has lived in the U.S. since 1990 and has American citizenship. Many UChicago students unable to return to Hyde Park are currently taking classes remotely from Hong Kong and mainland China. As Zoom class-
es are recorded and stored as files, and many classes require blog posts, there is a real risk of immediate arrest for remarks made in class discussions and writing. While this risk is most acute for mainland Chinese and Hong Kong students, it exists for any and all students and faculty who may one day visit Hong Kong. Classes at other universities now carry labels to alert students that they will cover “material considered politically sensitive by China,” and their professors are experimenting with blind grading, codes in place of individual names, anonymous online chats, and allowing students to opt-out of discussions without an impact on their grade. UChicago’s Tom Ginsburg, Leo Spitz Professor of International Law and Professor of Political Science, has a regional specialty in East Asia and has written specifically about the national security law. He confirmed that he has received no guidance from the University adminCONTINUED ON PG. 8
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“Months into the most alarming restriction of campus free speech in decades, the University administration has not lifted a finger or said a peep.” CONTINUED FROM PG. 6
istration on what privacy precautions he should take. Ginsburg wrote to me, “I do think that, in our era of remote attendance, those of us who teach relevant subjects should be aware if we have students who are physically located in Chinese territory, including Hong Kong, that might be at risk.” He uses blind grading and supports giving such students the option to opt-out of discussions that may violate local law. The University of Chicago must uniformly adopt the measures advised by the Association for Asian Studies and the additional suggestions of Asia Society scholars. While some may be, and have already been, adopted by individual faculty, technology policies and video software are university-wide concerns.
Zoom’s cooperation with mainland Chinese authorities is worrying, and the University must further inquire into which “local laws” its technology partners comply with to ensure that student and faculty data are secure. The collection of student and staff data of any kind must be minimized, and data storage must be decentralized. Overreliance on Zoom is dangerous; having multiple and redundant software systems would further decentralize and mitigate the risk of one company deciding to comply with Chinese law in ways that jeopardize data security and student safety. Unless the University takes decisive action soon, an arguably more dangerous threat to academic freedom will worsen: self-censorship. Author George Packer wrote, “Fear
breeds self-censorship, and self-censorship is more insidious than the state-imposed kind because it’s a surer way of killing the impulse to think, which requires an unfettered mind.” At a time when U.S.-China relations have deteriorated to their worst state in decades, we cannot afford to suspend rigorous inquiry and research into the affairs of the world’s most populous country. Students and professors must be able to continue honest, candid, and complete discussions about Hong Kong and mainland China in line with the Chicago Principles of which the University administration is so proud. Ginsburg emailed me, “The purpose [of uncensored academic discussion] is not advocacy but analysis.” I think it can be both. When students are arrested for
social media posts and pro-democracy professors are fired for dissidence, to resist self-censorship and forthrightly analyze the “politically sensitive” are acts of solidarity. When under the shadow of totalitarian censorship, studying and speaking freely are not neutral. Good people can disagree over whether Steve Bannon should speak on campus. But surely all can agree that being imprisoned for a Winnie the Pooh tweet is as unjust as it is absurd. Until the University administration rises to the challenge of ensuring its community’s safety, let us continue to speak, study, think, and tweet freely and merrily. We must. Devin Haas is a third-year in the College.
ARTS “Mafia is a fun game to play for all ages. But how do you play when you and your friends aren’t physically in the same space?” CONTINUED FROM COVER
Mafia, Angel, and Detective. Each “night,” the Mafia selects a town member to “kill” and the Angel chooses one to “save.” When everyone reawakens in the daytime, the God announces the death, and the Detective accuses someone of being the Mafia. If the Detective selects correctly, the town wins. If the Mafia manages to “kill” the whole town, the Mafia wins. Though most players are traditionally on the younger side, Mafia is a fun game to play for all ages. But how do you play when you and your friends aren’t physically in the same space? Enter UChicago second-year Ryan Choi, who posed a simple question in the Class of 2023 Facebook group the June before his first year: “Would anyone be down to play Mafia over [Facebook Messenger]?” CONTINUED ON PG. 9
Players Tristan Bachmann, Arielle Roane, Melia Allan, and Liz Chen have a socially-distanced picnic. courtesy Melia Allan
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“I’ve made friends with a lot of incredible people, a lot of whom I probably would not have met otherwise, across all years of the college.” CONTINUED FROM PG. 8
Of course, the game works a little differently over Messenger. “Day” and “night” are synced with real-life day and night, meaning games can last for a week or longer. Choi also added more roles (many lovingly lifted from Town of Salem) to heighten both its complexity and entertainment value, like the town’s Lookout, Escort, and Vigilante, and the Mafia’s Consigliere, Blackmailer, and Disguiser. He also included a new faction of neutral roles, like the Jester and the Plaguebearer (an oddly prescient character). “I [had] played with my high school friends a few times earlier in the summer,” Choi explained to The Maroon. “I thought it would be a fun activity for first-years to get to know each other before arriving on campus.” Choi was right. Over the course of summer 2019, a group of about 30 members of the Class of 2023 got very good at lying, betrayal, and deception, while also building long-lasting friendships spanning the globe. Jessica Zhong, a fellow second-year,
was one of these people. Though known among players for somehow consistently being assigned “evil” roles, she’s wellloved. “The people that I’ve met through a year of playing Mafia have become a great friend group,” she said. “It’s been super cool to see them on campus and meet them in real life, having already become friends over late nights of plotting on Facebook Messenger.” Players continued to stay in touch, but games were indefinitely suspended due to the sudden, all-consuming demand of classes of the autumn quarter of 2019. Some ended up being housemates (even roommates!), but others, like me, drifted away. Then, when we were all given the unceremonious boot from campus at the end of last winter quarter, Choi revealed he’d already been planning a spring break game. Perhaps UChicago Mafia would be a good way to alleviate quarantine boredom—plus, some new, more fitting roles could be added to the game. Thus began what would be dubbed “UChicago Mafia Season 2.” The game exploded in popularity
among the Class of 2023. Though Choi didn’t run games during spring quarter, he started them back up in early summer. Members of the UChicago Mafia group later founded the UChicago Poll Party Facebook group, and its rapid expansion reciprocally fueled the growth of the UChicago Mafia group even further. Choi wasn’t the only player leading games—others frequently took up the mantle, like second-year Melia Allan, whose space-themed game hosted a record-breaking 30 participants, and second-years Hannah Brody and I, who ran a pirate-themed game that shot even further to 45 members. Allan’s game was also the first game to not overwhelmingly contain second-years; rising first-years, upperclassmen and alumni also joined in on the fun. We played several more games throughout the summer, but as of recently have gone on another indefinite hiatus due to classes restarting. The most powerful thing about UChicago Mafia has been its incredible ability to facilitate connection and
community building, particularly in a time of constant uncertainty and stress. Third-year Tristan Bachmann summed it up well: “I’ve made friends with a lot of incredible people, a lot of whom I probably would not have met otherwise, across all years of the College.” Several players also cited the game as a great way to maintain their mental health. “Playing [UChicago] Mafia made me feel sane during these months of isolation,” second-year and self-professed extrovert Alice Breternitz said. “I don’t think I would have gotten through the summer without these games, simply because I need people.” “My mental health and anxiety became turbulent during the pandemic,” second-year Amani Mryan added. “Playing Mafia helped me [find] human connection. I had something fun to do [that] helped me calm down.” Perhaps “join the Mafia” isn’t quite the piece of quarantine advice you’re looking for, but it may be what you need. If you’re interested, we’ve got a Facebook group where we’ll announce the next game. Come join us!
Veggie Tales: How Luke McKeever Turned Celery Into Celebrity By KAYLA MARTINEZ Arts Reporter
Don’t stalk to me or my sons ever again!. courtesy Luke McKeever
Personally, I don’t find plain celery a particularly appetizing snack choice. Then again, I don’t have 200,000 followers on TikTok (disappointed crunch), so maybe I should rethink my vegetable hierarchy. Fourth-year Luke McKeever has recently made a name for himself on TikTok as @celery_boy, where he tells stories that would be funny on their own, but, with the help of his handy dandy fibrous sidekick, they become absolutely *chef’s kiss*. At this point, Luke’s brand is fairly cemented, but it wasn’t always that way. In fact, the celery-stick schtick (celery schtick?) was a happy accident: Luke had a story to tell and decided to record it mid-snack. He’s been eating the vegetable plain since he was a kid and once went on
a liver cleanse that largely featured celery, so he didn’t think twice about his choice, but the internet certainly did. Comment after comment rolled in. He kept making the occasional celery video, sprinkling them in throughout his other content. But then he noticed that the celery videos really seemed to be filling a niche, nearly always doing well. He hopped on live and jokingly suggested changing his handle to @celery_boy. The people approved, and the rest is history. Since he’s a bit of a TikTok connoisseur, I had to ask Luke about his favorite TikToks. He enjoys one of his own TikToks where he taped a carrot to the front of the celery stick (so you know he’s down to switch up his veggie consumption) and another where he’s in the shower telling a story mid-nosebleed. His all-time favorite CONTINUED ON PG. 10
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“In fact, the celery-stick schtick was a happy accident.” CONTINUED FROM PG. 9
TikTok is one from the illustrious @tannertan36, in which Tanner talks about loving Lana Del Rey in middle school while everybody else preferred jamming to Pitbull’s “Timber.” As for his opinion on another popular video-sharing app (RIP), Luke says he’s never even watched a Vine compilation. I think he’s missing out. I love a good celery joke, but we all know the first healthy food to make it big was an avocado (“thanks…”). Of course, TikTok isn’t Luke’s whole life—he’s a fourth-year studying computer science and creative writing. While he isn’t totally sure what he wants to be when he grows up (honestly, who does), he definitely
does not want to move to LA and become an influencer—he thinks he’d probably get bored. Still, being a bit of a celebrity has its perks—namely, free stuff. His favorite freebie is vegan nail polish from Talon, a company that encourages customers to send back their empty bottles to be cleaned and recirculated. He’s involved in multiple RSOs across campus, and, if you’re an underclassman, it’s possible he led your tour. If you’re an upperclassman, you may have seen him in a University Theater production back in the 2017–18 season. He also once started a knitting club—while it tragically never received RSO status, it did boast more than a hundred people on its listhost. If you’re anything like me, one of the
first things you notice when scrolling through Luke’s profile is his impeccable fashion taste. If you’re looking for some style inspo, he recommends a good thrifting trip. Though he spent a lot of time in Wicker Park’s Buffalo Exchange and Crossroads Trading Company in his first year, he’s now more likely to be spotted at Village Discount. If you’re looking for celery-buying advice here in Hyde Park, Luke’s a lot like the rest of us—he recommends Trader Joe’s, although specifically not the Trader Joe’s brand (something seems off about it). And his other Hyde Park opinions? His favorite coffee shop is Pret, where he recommends the Moroccan Lentil soup. Having 200,000 followers might go
to some people’s heads, but Luke says it hasn’t really affected his day-to-day life (though that may be because we’re in the middle of a pandemic). Sometimes, friends of friends will recognize him in pictures on Snapchat, and it’s always a little awkward when someone mentions it on Tinder. If he were to go into entertainment, he’d love to be a talk show host, and that makes a lot of sense—being both a tour guide and a TikTok star tends to make one a good conversationalist. However, the talk show probably wouldn’t be celery-themed. Maybe brussels sprouts? Asparagus? Whatever he decides, I’m sure it would be veggie good content.
SPORTS “As hard as it is to think about the season we are not getting, I’m grateful to be playing in the one that we do have.” CONTINUED FROM COVER
Soon after, Griffith’s career took off and she began to garner interest from colleges, but UChicago wasn’t initially a top choice for her. Griffith explained that she wanted to “stay in the Northeast, in a smaller liberal arts school. [But] I had sent an email to [UChicago’s] coach, Sharon [Dingman], and asked if she could ever come see me play. And then she ended up seeing me at a tournament in Colorado and then invited me to come visit…. [She] ended up offering me a spot. But yeah, it was wild, thinking UChicago wasn’t necessarily on my radar.” On the volleyball team, Griffith is a three-time team captain and stellar setter, holding three of the top ten assist seasons in UChicago’s history and ranking second all-time in assists despite only playing three seasons. She also is an AVCA Honorable Mention All-American, a member of the AVCA All-Region team, and a First Team All-UAA. Griffith finished second in the nation in the 2018 season
with 1,367 assists. Last year, Griffith was a key reason that the volleyball team ascended to number one in the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) DIII national rankings and became major contenders in the NCAA tournament. Outside of the team, Griffith is a dedicated student, majoring in Law, Letters, and Society. After college, she plans to work at Accenture as a strategy analyst. Griffith is active as the president of the Women’s Athletic Association (WAA), an organization designed to encourage close relationships between female athletes at UChicago in order to promote women’s athletics. Griffith has found many friends through the organization, noting, “we play completely different sports, but sports, it has the same impact on all of us. UChicago’s [WAA] was the first women-only association in the nation, and we emphasize that by giving a space to give female athletes a place to give their voice.” Griffith has finished three inten-
sive years as a student-athlete but is hungry to achieve more. In 2019, the UChicago women’s volleyball team achieved a 28–4 record, gelling together at just the right time to establish an even stronger team next year. But with the rapid spread of COVID -19, Griffith’s final season will never happen. She admitted that “it took a while to process that we wouldn’t be playing. Unlike the spring sports where the news was just sprung on you, it really took a long time to set in.” “It’s going to take a while adjusting to the shifting identity. Being a student-athlete is a big part of my identity, of my time, and it’s weird to confront that shift in identity from being an athlete. A lot of things come from that. I didn’t know that the last game I played was going to be the last game I ever played, and that has been a hard adjustment,” she added. While the 2020 season is cancelled due to COVID –19, Griffith and her teammates have been keeping in shape through virtual Zoom training
sessions and rigorous workouts. For the first time in 11 months, the volleyball team is practicing, albeit with strict COVID -19 guidelines. Griffith described the return to the courts as an incredible opportunity to be back with many of her friends. “I don’t think there is another group of people who could make a seven-hour bus ride fly by as much as the women on the volleyball team,” she said. Griffith lauded the sense of community the women’s volleyball program had, noting that all nine fourthyears came to practice and competed just as hard as everyone else, despite the fact that they will never play again. And that is the hard reality that comes with this season. But in the gloom of COVID -19, Griffith tries to keep positive: “I feel lucky to be able to play right now. As hard as it is to think about the season we are not getting, I’m grateful to be playing in the one that we do have.”