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DECEMBER 4, 2018

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

University Responds to Title IX Changes

By MATTHEW LEE news reporter

By LEE HARRIS news editor

A classroom in the Woodlawn branch of UChicago’s Charter Schools.

courtesy of uchicago charter schools

U of C Charter Schools Lack Libraries

By MATTHEW LEE news reporter

Libraries are not just collections of books, computer equipment, and study spaces. They become spaces for socialization, where friendships form over study guides and problem sets. Library bookstacks—and the freedom that is found within them—allow a student to learn, explore, and grow independently.

Yet none of the University of Chicago’s four charter school campuses have libraries on site. The campuses serve a range of ages: pre-kindergarten to fifth grade at North Kenwood/Oakland and Donohue campuses, eighth grade at Carter G. Woodson campus, and grades six through 12 at the Woodlawn (UCW) campus on 6300 South University Avenue.

Only UCW students are specified as being allowed to use any facilities on the University of Chicago campus, according to Dayna Dion, the senior director of national engagement at the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute (UEI).

“All of our UCW high school students can visit and use the Joseph Regenstein Library at any time if they present a photo ID from the school, and they have access to many other buildings and resources at UChicago. The UChicago Charter School staff is actively working to ensure that all students have a current photo ID, and understand that they need to present this ID to gain access to the Regenstein Library.”

The private University of Chicago Laboratory School maintains four libraries, for different age groups within its student body.

A Charter for Success The University of Chicago’s

Dean’s Men Measure Misfortune With Humor

By OLENKA WELLISZ page 6

charter school program began in 1998 as an initiative of the UEI. Instead of an entrance exam, the charter schools admit students through a lottery system. From the first campus, North Kenwood/ Oakland, the charter schools have since expanded to four. For six years straight, 100 percent of UCW’s graduating class have earned college acceptances.

The charter schools serve an economically diverse student body. Students pay small fees—ranging from $100 for the pre-kindergarten through fifth grade Donohue campus to $545 for high school students at Woodlawn. Additional instructional fee waivers are granted to eligible students. Most of its students are from Chicago’s South Side, including communities that have had complicated relationships with the University in the past.

Of IDs and Identity Spokespeople from the charter school stressed the quality of their respective campus’s facilities while acknowledging the lack of on-campus library facilities.

Tonya Howell, director of the pre-kindergarten through fifth grade North Kenwood/Oakland campus, stated that all classrooms have small collections of books and urged charter students to use the Chicago Public Library system.

Sonia Wang, middle school director of UCW, said Woodlawn used a similar system.

“Our literacy classrooms all have classroom libraries that are accessed by students for their pleasure and for instruction,” she said. “Also, most of our other content classrooms, social studies, science, and math, also have a smaller classroom library

for students. Our students are encouraged to utilize the Chicago Public Libraries and on occasions, we have taken students on field trips to different locations for research.”

UChicago’s Senior Director of National Engagement, Dayna Dion, said that Woodlawn students can access Regenstein Library “if they present a photo ID from the school.” With access to the University’s nearly 10 million book collection, Ms. Dion said, a dedicated on-campus library would be unnecessary.

However, K ieran Pa lmer-Klein, director of UCW’s high school, was unaware that his students could access the Regenstein’s collections.

“Woodlawn students do not have access to the library at either campus (unless for a field trip with adult chaperones) or at the Lab School to my knowledge,” he said.

Angel Burgess, a parent at UCW’s high school and member of the Parent-Teacher Advisory Committee, says her son never received an ID from the school.

“The thing is, you need to have an ID [to access the library], and I know my son doesn’t have an ID with his picture on it, so he wouldn’t have access to it at this time.”

Dion said that the newly renovated Woodlawn campus may not feature a library, but does have “a college resource center, a media arts space, technology-equipped classrooms, and state-of-the-art technology and infrastructure throughout the building.”

T he M aroon could not reach officials from the Donohue and Carter G. Woodson campuses. continued on pg.

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New regulations surrounding campus sexual assault recently released by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are closer to becoming federal law.

Under the new guidelines, which are open for public comment through January 28, students accused of sexual misconduct will have the opportunity to cross-examine accusers and witnesses in a live hearing, among other changes that mark a radical shift from Obama-era policy. Several changes also conflict with Illinois law.

In November, DeVos released a draft of the regulations that update several key provisions of Title IX, the civil rights law prohibiting

sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funding. Advocates for survivors of sexual assault have expressed concerns that the new guidelines weaken already insufficient protections for victims, and civil rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union say the update would unfairly favor perpetrators. Meanwhile, proponents of the change argue that it is an overdue corrective on Obamaera guidelines that opened up universities to unreasonable liability and made it too easy to convict those accused of misconduct.

UChicago’s Deputy Title IX Coordinator Shea Wolfe spoke to students about the changes on Friday in a public talk co-sponsored continued on pg.

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Marshall Scholars Named

Marshall scholars: fourth-year Sarah Nakasone and Law School student Christopher Crum. courtesy of news office

By DAKSH CHAUHAN deputy news editor

Two University of Chicago students are among this year’s Marshall Scholarship recipients: Sarah Nakasone, a College fourth-year, and second-year Law School student Christopher Crum. Both will start graduate degrees in the U.K. this fall.

The prestig ious Ma rsha ll Scholarship selects up to 50 students from across the U.S. to pursue a graduate degree in any field. The program fully covers tuition, cost of living, and miscellaneous expenses like travel and research grants.

Nakasone, a global studies major, told UChicago News that she hopes to work in disease control and prevention, focusing on ways to foster greater community engagement in addressing HIV. Inspired by her time researching

UChicago Falls Short to Calvin College in NCAA Semifinals

By DIESTEFANO LOMA

VOL. 130, ISSUE 19

page 8

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

HIV as an undergraduate, she will be working toward an S.M. degree in the control of infectious diseases from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a Ph.D. in epidemiology and population health from University College London.

Crum will pursue a master’s in the social science of the internet at the Oxford Internet Institute. He views issues with cybersecurity and spread of fake news as particularly pressing. “If fake news could be removed from public discourse and elections could be electronically safeguarded, it would go a long way towards restoring public faith in the democratic systems in the U.S.,” Crum wrote in his Marshall application.

With the addition of Nakasone and Crum, a total of 27 individuals associated with UChicago have now won the Marshall Scholarship.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - DECEMBER 4, 2018

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Events 12/4-12/6

Tuesday

PSA, U of C Hold Talk on Title IX continued from front

20th Ward Aldermanic Forum Social Sciences Research Building Room 122, 6:15—8 p.m.

UC Dems and UChicago Political Union are presenting a 20th Ward candidate forum. 15 candidates have filed for the race, making it one of the more competitive wards. The 20th Ward includes areas of campus south of the Midway.

South Side’s Mayoral Candidates Forum First Unitarian Church, 7:30—9:30 p.m.

Hear from mayoral candidates Lori Lightfoot, Amara Enyia, and La Shawn K Ford at this forum hosted by Indivisible Chicago.

Wednesday Hillel’s Hanukkah Party Logan Center for the Arts, 8— 10 p.m.

Hillel is hosting a Hanukka Party at the Logan Center. The event will feature donut decorating, polaroid photos, and games and prizes.

How to Choose a Number Social Sciences Research Room 122, 7— 8 p.m.

Join the Oriental Institute for this lecture on the depiction of numbers in the ancient Middle-East.

Thursday UChicago Jazz X-tet Logan Center for the Arts, 8 p.m.

Join the UChicago Jazz X-tet for a presentation of “You Can’t Separate the Two,” a program of works by Duke Ellington and arranged by Billy Strayhorn, with special guest Jukube Felton on piano.

Zafa Collective Performance Fulton Hall, 8—10 p.m.

Join Chicago’s Zafa Collective as they perform six string quartets by the members of composition collective Kinds of Kings. Two of the composers will stay afterwards to talk about music composition.

Jingle Bells Rockefeller Chapel, 5 p.m.

Enjoy an evening of hot beverages and snacks while members of the Rockefeller Carillon Studio play Christmas music on the chapel bells.

Support Our Advertisers Page six: 10 percent discount on dental work as well as a complimentary oral exam for new students and faculty at the Kaufman & Kaufman Smile Design Studio.

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Subscribe to the Maroon newsletter for e-mails every Tuesday and Friday

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by Phoenix Survivors Alliance (PSA), a student advocacy group for survivors of sexual assault.

While many of the proposed changes are non-mandatory and unlikely to affect the University’s handling of Title IX cases, some changes may affect procedures followed in disciplinary hearings and incident reporting.

Wolfe said she is working under the assumption that the University will receive finalized regulations in summer 2019. At that point, administrators will audit existing procedure to determine necessary changes.

Wolfe stressed during the talk that administrators, including members of the Office for Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Support, do not anticipate a major overhaul, especially as many of the updated guidelines are not mandatory.

“We’re not interested in making a whole lot of radical changes with our policy or process, and so we’re kind of doing a wait-andsee approach to what’s going to happen next,” she said.

Live Hearing and Cross-Examination One of the most controversial updates requires that universities allow complainants and respondents in formal investigations to cross-examine each other, and witnesses, during a live hearing. The accuser and accuse would have the opportunity to ask questions of the other party through an adviser, or what Wolfe calls a “support person”—likely a friend, relative, faculty member, or attorney.

The Department of Education under former president Barack Obama had discouraged cross-examination, arguing in a 2011 Dear Colleague letter that “allowing an alleged perpetrator to question an alleged victim directly may be traumatic or intimidating.”

Illinois adopted this recommendation its 2015 Preventing Sexual Violence in Higher Education Act (PSVHEA), which UChicago is mandated to follow. The PSVHEA does not allow for the alleged perpetrator and the alleged victim to cross-examine each other, but allows them to submit questions that university administrators may choose to ask the other student.

Meanwhile, DeVos’s proposal argues that those accused of assault have been denied due process under Obama-era guidelines. The proposal cites the recent opinion of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Doe v. Baum, a case brought against the University of Michigan in which the court held that public universities must give students the opportunity to cross-examine accusers. “Not only does cross-examination allow the accused to identify inconsistencies in the other side’s story, but it also gives the fact-finder an opportunity to assess a witness’s demeanor and determine who can be trusted,” the ruling reads.

Also citing the court’s reasoning in Baum, the proposal contends that conducting cross-examination via an adviser can mitigate trauma for a complainant and “accomplish the benefits of cross-examination… without subjecting the accuser to the emotional trauma of directly confronting her alleged attacker.”

A major gray area in the guidelines concerns whether universities will be mandated to provide an attorney if one party in a suit cannot afford representation.

The proposal stipulates that “if a party does not have an advisor at the hearing, the recipient must provide that party an advisor.” However, it does not specify whether that adviser must be an attorney.

Wolfe indicated that this ambiguity poses major equity concerns, potentially giving one party the unfair advantage of legal representation. Further, Wolfe noted, if universities are required to underwrite lawyers, this would seem to run counter to the DeVos

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is awaiting public comment on updated guidelines surrounding universities’ handling of sexual assault. gage skidmore guidelines’ stated aim of reducing university costs.

Narrower Definition of Sexual Harassment DeVos’s guidelines update the Obama administration’s definition of sexual harassment—“unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature”—to a stricter standard including only “unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to the recipient’s education program or activity.”

In a statement to The Maroon, PSA expressed concern about the narrower standard, arguing that “survivors will have to endure repeated and escalating levels of abuse until they can actually seek help from their institutions.”

Jurisdiction of Disciplinary Cases The proposed rules also narrow the jurisdiction of Title IX activity, meaning that formal complaints would be limited to conduct that took place on campus—that is, housed within a university educational program or activity. Schools would not be required to investigate activity occurring on property owned by groups not affiliated with the university, such as off-campus housing. Still, education attorneys expect colleges to continue investigating off-campus sexual misconduct, Inside Higher Ed reported.

Changing Standard of Evidence Under incoming regulations, schools could choose between the “preponderance of the evidence” standard currently in place at UChicago—a more than 50 percent likelihood that alleged misconduct occurred—or the “clear and convincing” standard, which sets a higher bar of proof. Universities would be required to apply the chosen evidentiary standard across all conduct code violations, rather than applying a lower standard to sexual misconduct cases.

The PSVHEA mandates that Illinois schools follow the preponderance of the evidence standard.

Conflict With Illinois law Some updates, including required cross-examination and a higher standard of evidence, are in direct conflict with Illinois state law.

Incumbent Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has previously condemned DeVos’s guidance on Title IX, and Wolfe said university administrators expected Madigan to fight for Illinois universities’ right to adhere to state law. It is unclear whether Attor-

ney General–elect Kwame Raoul will pursue the same course. Typically, federal regulations on Title IX have overridden state law.

Wolfe encouraged students to review an open letter students drafted at the Illinois Student Sexual Misconduct conference, which will be delivered to incoming governor J.B. Pritzker and Raoul. The letter, sponsored by Student Government Vice President Malay Trivedi, urges the lawmakers to fight for Illinois state law to override the federal guidelines.

In a statement to The Maroon, PSA said “the proposed Title IX regulations harm survivors in multiple ways in the name of ‘cost saving,’” and singled out several key areas of concern, including the reliance on a narrower definition of sexual harassment, the option to adopt a higher standard of evidence, and the introduction of live cross-examination during disciplinary proceedings.

Concluding her talk, Wolfe expressed concern about the planned changes.

“I feel badly that this is happening because I feel like there was a corner being turned here, with regards to these types of cases on campus, and I don’t know if universities will be taking a step back,” she said.

College Republicans did not respond to The Maroon’s request for comment on the Trump administration’s proposed changes.

All Four Charter Campuses Lack On-Site Libraries continued from front

Problems and Progress Despite the charter schools’ matriculation and college acceptance rates, members of the community feel as if more could be done to make charter school students feel welcome.

Burgess said that she wanted the University of Chicago to do more to ensure charter school students were full and equal members of the UChicago community. Ms. Burgess continued: “I would also like to see them have access to the sports center, the dining commons—just think about it, we’re in a food desert here. To be able to walk two blocks would be an absolute benefit. That would be a great opportunity for us to take the next step.”

THE CHICAGO MAROON - DECEMBER 4, 2018

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Innovation, Explosion, and Reckoning on Ellis Avenue Bearing Witness to Chicago’s Role in the Nuclear Epoch, 76 Years Later

By RORY NEVINS grey city reporter

December 2, 1942: Beneath the stands at Stagg Field, something fundamental about mankind changes.

Enrico Fermi’s calculations are correct, and Leo Szilard’s design works.

The towering stack of graphite and uranium contains the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

We now have access to the indescribable power of the atom.

Innumerable changes have taken place since that day, in and out of the University. On the eastern side of South Ellis Avenue, Max Palevsky residence hall now houses many of the University’s students. Next door, where Stagg Field once was, Regenstein and Mansueto Libraries bustle with activity. But between the orange façade and the futuristic dome, where the stacks of graphite and uranium once stood, sits a curious brazen form. Its smooth rounded top emerges from a twist of metal.

Its core is hollow. On the platform which raises the statue from the sidewalk, rays propagate out from the center. A plaque a few yards away informs passersby that the structure is a memorial to Chicago Pile-1, the beginning of the Atomic Age. August 6, 1945: The underside of a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, Enola Gay, opens over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It releases a single bomb, called Little Boy, which explodes over Shima Hospital. Conservative estimates say that America’s first use of the atomic bomb kills 80,000 people instantly. Three days later Bockscar drops a second bomb, Fat Man, on Nagasaki, killing at least 35,000 people.

Professor Henry Frisch works in the Physics Research Center, located across the street from the memorial.

His father, David Frisch, worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, where the seed formed under Stagg Field first began to sprout.

Fat Man used plutonium and was a more precise device than the simpler Little Boy, which used uranium. Henry Frisch said that “a good high school kid could build a Hiroshima bomb in his garage in a weekend.” That is, if they managed to obtain enough uranium-235, the particular isotope used in Little Boy. Dieter Gruen, who previously worked at the material sciences division of the Argonne National Laboratory and helped create the uranium for Little Boy at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, told The Maroon that “in September of 1944…there was not a gram of uranium-235 to be found.” By April of 1945, Gruen and the other scientists at Oak Ridge had separated “more than 50 kilograms of uranium-235,

which made its way into the Hiroshima bomb.” Gruen arrived in America in 1937, a refugee from the Nazi regime. He studied at Northwestern, then earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Before he came to the University of Chicago, he worked on the Manhattan Project. The University of Chicago had completed its role in the Manhattan Project by 1944, and there was no more work to be done in the city where Gruen studied.

“But the project at Oak Ridge, the separation of uranium-235,” he said, “was very much in need of scientific manpower, so I went down there.”

Although he had helped make Little Boy’s material, Gruen heard about the bombings of Japan at the same time everyone else did. “I expected it would be used,” he said, “but I had no conception of the destruction that it caused.” Gruen and his colleagues, he said, were immediately convinced that the atomic bomb should never be used again.

March 1, 1954: A device housed in a long metal cylinder and watched by innumerable scientific instruments sits on an artificial island at Bikini Atoll.

The Castle Bravo nuclear weapons test begins, and the device, a newly designed thermonuclear bomb, detonates. Its flash turns the sky white and boils the sea. As the light dies away, rings drift into the sky. The bomb exploded with the force of 15 megatons of TNT—more than twice as strong as the six megatons predicted. Its fallout goes farther than predicted. It poisons more people than predicted.

This generation, Gruen emphasized, “has to become aware of that fact that the arsenals today are not Hiroshima bombs, but they are bombs that are a thousand times more destructive. A hydrogen bomb today would destroy not a city the size of Hiroshima, but a city the size of Chicago. It would not kill 100,000 people, but 10 million people.”

In 1947, the recently founded Bulletin of Atomic Scientists published their Doomsday Clock as a measure of how close the world is to the “midnight” of apocalypse. In its first appearance, it was set at seven minutes to midnight. Since then, it has ticked back and forth, keeping pace with developments in the technology and politics of nuclear energy.

January 1, 1946: The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 goes into effect.

Section 10: “Control of Information” states that new nuclear developments shall be born secret and shall remain secret until explicitly declassified.

Professor Jessica Hurley, a literary scholar who studies the nuclear-military-industrial complex, told The Maroon that the act constituted “the biggest shift in the nature of de-

Henry Moore’s “Nuclear Energy” statue with temporary installation, “Nuclear Thresholds.” “Nuclear Thresholds,” a part of the 75th anniversary commemoration, has now been removed. sarah wasinger mocracy this country has seen.”

Hurley catalogued the ways nuclear technology has affected the world around us. “It’s the largest national project in American history, not only the Manhattan Project, but also every year since then,” she said.

“It has completely transformed our legal system, our democratic structure, the way that business operates, the way that our cities are laid out.”

The secrecy around nuclear weapons, she said, “also meant that everyone who worked anywhere near it needed security clearance, which obviously opens up people’s lives to a whole lot of government surveillance.”

“In an abstract sense,” Hurley said, “I can think about little that is less democratic than having a situation where one person with their finger on a button can kill everyone on the planet, without consultation, without even congressional approval.”

Hurley also referenced how some groups, like Native American communities, are more vulnerable to nuclear exposure than others. “People are being killed by this every day, and we don’t see it if we don’t think of it as something that is ongoing and happening now,” she declared.

December 8, 1953: President Dwight Eisenhower gives his “Atoms for Peace” speech before the U.N. General Assembly. He acknowledges the horror of nuclear weapons, but proposes that unfinished nuclear technologies could improve life.

That same year, to account for the invention of the hydrogen

bomb, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock forward to two minutes to midnight.

In 1954, an amendment to the Atomic Energy Act made commercial nuclear reactors legal for the purpose of producing electrical energy. Nuclear reactors improved little by little and slowly appeared around the country. Gruen pointed out that despite electrical generation ostensibly being a peaceful use of nuclear technology, the products of the nuclear plants still pose an inherent threat.

“Nuclear reactors produce plutonium, which is a bomb material, so there is always danger that the plutonium, when it is produced, will be diverted from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons,” he said.

Gruen explained that a reactor designed at Oak Ridge in 1956 demonstrated a design safer that the technology in service even today. But “that reactor was built and operated in the mid-sixties, and then it no longer received funding and was shut down.”

Gruen also “worked in problems related to fusion for 20 years.” Fusion could imaginably lead us into a world of clean atomic power. “But to do fusion energy here on earth,” Gruen said, “requires that we duplicate the conditions that exist in the center of the sun, here on earth.

And that creates enormous technical problems.”

Hurley questioned the promise of Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech, claiming that it projected an ultimately illusory image of a peaceful and safe atomic future. She believes it was an intentional attempt

to divert international attention away from the destructive possibilities of nuclear weapons.

In 1953, the Doomsday Clock read two minutes to midnight, and, in Hurley’s words, “everyone else on the planet was like ‘Americans are barbarous mass murders, warlords!

What are they doing, building up this giant nuclear arsenal?’”

So America, Hurley said, started to paint pictures of possibilities.

However, the peaceful technologies didn’t exist yet, weren’t safe, or weren’t cost effective. “But it is an extraordinarily effective PR campaign, because it does a really good job of changing people’s connotations around atomic energy,” she said.

Remembering the Cuban Missile Crisis, Frisch recalled that “we came very, very close to losing it all. I don’t think people understand….how easy it is to lose it all.”

Following the introduction of still more powerful nuclear technology, the world was in a new and precarious situation. At any moment, a single flash could wipe out every major city. But in 1963, in fresh memory of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Castle Bravo, the Partial Test Ban Treaty was put into effect, banning all but underground nuclear tests.

So the Doomsday Clock ticked backward to 12 minutes to midnight.

December, 1967: In the 25 years since CP-1, the old Stagg Field has been razed, though Regenstein Library has yet to be built. A curious brazen form, titled “Nuclear Energy” by its creator, British artist Henry Moore, is unveiled to the public at the continued on pg. 4

THE CHICAGO MAROON - DECEMBER 4, 2018

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“Very few people have ever seen what destruction can be caused”

continued from pg.

University of Chicago.

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The University had been considering an anniversary memorial since the early ’60s. Eventually, they settled on a statue. They commissioned Henry Moore because he had offered to take on the project without contract, or even without certain payment.

Moore said that to him, the curved top of the statue recalled the mushroom cloud of a bomb, the destructive side of nuclear technology.

The lower half was comfortingly structural, “more an architectural cathedral.” It represented productive nuclear technology, Eisenhower’s focus in “Atoms for Peace.”

To Gruen, the statue brings to mind his conviction against nuclear atrocity.

Hurley said that the statue reminds her of Maya Lin’s stark black Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C. But she said she doesn’t see “Nuclear Energy” as carrying quite as powerful a warning.

Despite general scientific consensus that the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, the result of a mechanical failure in Pennsylvania that led to a partial release of radioactive material, did not cause a significant increase in the area’s cancer rates, it

shocked Americans into anti-nuclear advocacy. Major protests against nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons swayed public opinion and influenced politics and business. Many Americans began to distrust all nuclear technology. Gruen pointed out that “there is no nuclear reactor [that has] been built for power production in the United States for 40 years, not since Three Mile Island.” For Hurley, nuclear accidents aren’t a matter of if, but of when.

In the early ’90s, with the 50th anniversary of Fermi’s experiment approaching, Frisch had an idea. “I proposed,” he said, that the University of Chicago “assemble the heads of state of the nuclear states, and have each one discuss how we made it through 50 years.” He wanted the university where the Atomic Age began to host a series of speeches, so that leaders could tell the world “what they proposed to make it more likely to get through the next 50.”

Reception to the plan was warm at first, but cooled rapidly.

Frisch pointed out that since he proposed his conference plan, Pakistan and North Korea have developed bombs. The United States, Russia, China, France, United Kingdom, India, and perhaps Israel still have theirs.

December, 2017: The University of Chicago holds a series of events to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the experiment that took place on its grounds, including speeches by field leaders and panelists before packed auditoriums. Artist Cai Guo-Qiang sets off pyrotechnics from the roof of Regenstein Library, briefly erecting a multicolored mushroom cloud over the campus, for all to see and hear.

Students laid silently on the steps of Henry Moore’s “Nuclear Energy” while the colorful cloud rose above them in what Hurley called “a die-in.”

The event’s own organizer, fourthyear India Weston, proposed it as a “productive and meaningful peripheral event” to remind attendees that radiation does not vanish as quickly as a pyrotechnic cloud.

“Look up and see the festive mushroom cloud,” Hurley said, “and then look down and students are challenging you with the reality of what it actually did. That to me captured something really powerful.”

In 2018, the Doomsday Clock is at two minutes to midnight, the closest it to midnight has been since 1953. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists stated that they moved the clock 30 seconds forward from 2017 due

to “the failure of President Trump and other world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war and climate change”—two perennial, not unrelated problems that threaten to end life as humans know it on earth.

Hurley explained some of the links she sees between nuclear technology and climate change and pollution. She pointed out the contamination of the Hanford Site in Washington state. She also claimed that government actions to turn contaminated land into “nature reserves” or to compare nuclear technology to fossil fuels are part of an attempt at “greenwashing.” “Greenwashing,” as she defines it, “is when you make something look environmentally friendly to disguise all of its other bad parts.”

Reminiscing on the Cold War, Frisch said, “Those were scary times.

They are scary times now, except that people sort of have forgotten.” Gruen echoed his concern: “Very few people have ever seen what destruction can be caused, and if you had a global nuclear war today, it is entirely likely that it would destroy all of civilization.” Our generation must look back at history, before, in our blindness, we repeat it.

Frisch worries about nuclear proliferation, and the ease with which

rogue groups could construct a bomb with stolen material.

Gruen is working on solar power, hoping to head off climate change with a less dangerous tool. “The current situation doesn’t look very encouraging,” he said, “but who knows.

I have myself decided that what we need to do as a society and as a world is to concentrate on solar power, so I have spent the last six years of my life developing a new concept for making cheap solar electricity.”

Hurley sees two futures. Perhaps, “civil society continues its slow crumble until it becomes incapable of upkeeping the nuclear infrastructures it has built, and we just get more and more low grade nuclear disasters, more and more Chernobyls, more and more sites like Hanford.” Humanity would fade out.

Or perhaps, as in Hurley’s second future, “communities all over the world will decide that actually they don’t want to live in this immiserated situation, under the threat of horrifying death at every minute. They will organize and take apart the nuclear complex bit by bit, and figure out how to store it in a way that actually promotes human life and human dignity and human values and environmental safe keeping for all beings.”

VIEWPOINTS Early Decision Unfairly Favors Wealthy Applicants As the holiday season draws near, some high school seniors may be growing jittery as they await decisions from colleges. Those who applied early decision (ED) to a school might be especially anxious.

Students who apply ED are able to submit their application materials and receive their admissions decision earlier. The catch is that if they are admitted, they must attend. While institutions like the University of Pennsylvania have had an ED program since as early as the 1990s, UChicago has only offered ED options for applicants to the Class of 2021 and later.

This year, the College offered four first-year application options: Early Action, Early Decision I, Early Decision II, and Regular Decision. The Maroon Editorial Board believes that UChicago’s decision to start offering ED plans is misguided since it gives an unfair advantage to wealthier

applicants.

There are many incentives for a university to offer ED options. ED helps a university boost its yield rate, the percentage of admitted students who actually end up enrolling in that university. The yield rate for the Class of 2021 was up a whole six points from the Class of 2020’s. A higher yield rate means that a school won’t need to accept as many students to reach its class size, decreasing acceptance rates and boosting a school’s prestige and sometimes its place in college rankings.

University administrators have recently expressed a desire to shape UChicago to be more like other elite institutions, with Dean John Boyer boasting that UChicago is becoming much more competitive with Penn, Columbia, Brown, and some other Ivy+ institutions. Many of those peers have relied on ED plans for years.

But while ED may benefit an insti-

tution’s reputation, it unfairly benefits wealthier applicants.

Because admitted applicants only learn of their financial aid packages after receiving their admissions decision, those whose ability to attend UChicago is contingent on receiving enough financial aid may be discouraged from applying ED, lest they renege on their promise to attend.

Granted, the agreement each ED applicant signs states that “Should a student who applies for financial aid not be offered an award that makes attendance possible, the student may decline the offer of admission and be released from the Early Decision commitment.” But such a caveat still makes ED an unappealing option for those unwilling to go back on their word.

So ED may be a feasible option for low-income students on paper, but less feasible in reality. A Jack Kent Cooke Foundation study found that 29 per-

cent of high-achieving students from families making more than $250,000 a year applied ED for the 2013–14 school year, compared with only 16 percent of high-achieving students from families with incomes less than $50,000.

Indeed, the College admissions website discourages those for whom financial aid may be a concern from applying through the ED II plan. It notes: “if you...would like to compare admissions offers and financial aid packages from multiple colleges before making a final decision, you should consider applying through the Regular Decision plan.”

Concerningly, the acceptance rate is higher for students who apply early than for those who don’t: for the Class of 2022, the overall acceptance rate was 7.2 percent, but the acceptance rate for regular decision applicants was just 4 percent.

UChicago students should not

be rewarded with a greater chance of acceptance simply because they come from wealth.

UChicago would be better served if it stopped offering ED plans and switched its policies back to what it offered to the Class of 2020 and earlier. It ought to return to only having a nonbinding early action admissions program in addition to its regular decision program, which is already the policy at some other elite institutions, such as MIT and Georgetown.

If the admissions office truly cares about welcoming “students from all backgrounds,” then it needs to take steps to ensure that the poorest applicant has the same chance of being accepted to UChicago as the richest. ED has no place in an application system that seeks to evaluate candidates on their merit.

- The Maroon Editorial Board

Making the Most of the Megadorms Changes to College Housing Are Coming Whether We Like Them or Not. We Might as Well Make the Most of Them.

ALEXA PERLMUTTER Undoubtedly, the recently announced changes to the college housing system will change the culture and social life at UChicago. In fact, several columns have been published in the past week about these changes: Brinda Rao’s “The Complexities of Turning a House Into a Home” and Marlin Figgins’s “Don’t Force Us to Stay in the Dorms,” which both make compelling arguments about the lim-

its of these future developments.

However, the decisions have been made and the e-mails have been sent. Whether we like them or not, these changes are happening. The megadorm is coming, and students will be required to stay in housing for two years, starting for the first-years in the 2019–20 academic year. Even if criticism is in order, rather than simply chastising the process, our time

as students is better spent coming up with more creative ways to optimize the on-campus housing experience.

Though many may lament the changing house culture initiated by the closing of Stony Island and other satellite dorms over the years in favor of Renee Granville-Grossman, Campus North, and the forthcoming megadorm, this dorm structure can actually facilitate improvements to daily life, so long as we start asking for these changes. Indeed, these huge dorms have spaces for new and exciting amenities that can be provided to students. As a resident of South, I bear witness to the slew of empty rooms

on our basement level, one or more of which could easily be turned into an exercise center or small gym.

When I chose to live in South as an incoming first-year, UChicago’s housing website advertised that there was indeed a gym in the basement. If University administrators want to house us in these new spaces, they should invest in a few treadmills, some free weights, and mats, so students can use the spaces in their dorm building to their fullest extent. Housing and Residential Life should make it a priority to revamp the exercise centers in South, I-House, and eventually the new megadorm.

Other rooms in South’s basement that go largely underused are the “lounges” which, right now, hold a few chairs and, if they’re lucky, a pool table. With new furniture and perhaps a TV, these lounges could become spaces where friendships can develop outside of traditional house culture, which Rao’s column argues is made nearly impossible within the current system.

The University can also take advantage of this opportunity to revamp the laundry services. Not only are washers, dryers, and—most importantly—the credit card machines, continued on pg.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - DECEMBER 4, 2018 continued from pg.

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often broken, but laundry isn’t even free for residents. While at least once a quarter, rumors abound during house meeting of the possibility of free laundry, this has not yet been realized. While paying $1.25 for a wash doesn’t sound like much, these costs add up over the quarter and over the year. Furthermore, the University could also make printing free in dorm buildings as another way to reduce extra costs. While of course these small changes don’t make up for the difference in cost between onand off-campus housing, it is at least a small step the admin can take to recognize, even if not entirely ameliorate, the financial burden—the financial

burden that living on-campus poses for many students.

But, of course, improvements to dorms’ physical spaces alone cannot ameliorate all the concerns regarding changes to the housing system.

Indeed, Figgins’s column raises many salient points about the effect of these changes on marginalized communities and students of color.

His column describes housing as a breeding ground for insensitive microaggressions against people of color that make these communities hostile for many. These issues are ones that all of campus needs to address, and the University must take Figgins’s experiences and stories seriously.

That being said, if students are going

5

to be required to live on campus for two years, we need to think critically about new ways to allow students to create supportive communities outside of their assigned house.

I argue that the structure of megadorms like South and North— where several hundred students all live under one roof—can potentially help ameliorate issues within a particular house or floor. With more people in each building there is more of a chance to foster relationships and connections with other individuals beyond. With eight houses in South and eight in North, each of these buildings houses hundreds of students, and this large conglomeration of people all living together makes

it much easier to meet people than in smaller, more isolated dorms like Stony. Further, with large inter-house study breaks and trips planned by Resident Deans, cross-house friendships are rendered very accessible, if not encouraged. Perhaps Resident Deans can facilitate the forming of affinity groups for different racial and sexual identities in these large buildings, communities which can create a dialogue about diversity in-house and serve as, to quote Figgins, “safe havens” for students.

Of course, these potential fixes are reactionary, only Band-Aids to problems within University housing.

The fact is that on-campus housing is not affordable for many students,

and furthermore, may not provide the safety and comfort that each of us wants and needs in a home. Our ultimate goal should not be to circumvent or work around these issues, but to find ways to make housing more affordable, more inclusive, and more desirable all around. But, with the changes to housing imminent, we must try to work with administration to make on-campus housing as welcoming and accessible as possible for all students, current and future.

Alexa Perlmutter is a second-year in the College.

Phi Delt’s Recolonization: A Revolution or Disaster?

The Recolonization of Phi Delt Will Foretell the Future of Fraternities at UChicago as the Newest Experiment in Greek Life

RUBY RORTY Over the past two weeks, I’ve been talking to people about Greek culture, the source of significant controversy on UChicago’s campus. It’s a topic many feel strongly about—this paper has recently published both calls to abolish Greek life and heartfelt defenses of frats and sororities. I was surprised, however, at the number of people I talked to who don’t know what to think about UChicago’s Greek life; I heard this sentiment quite often during the interviews I conducted for this piece. To be clear, these interviews were incredibly casual—I talked with friends, dates, and acquaintances, both first-years and upperclassmen,

over coffee and on treadmills at the gym. I heard the phrase over and over that “there are two sides to the story.” Students kept telling me, “I know there’s another perspective” and “I’m not sure which side is right.”

Take the recent announcement that Phi Delta Theta (Phi Delt) is recolonizing, for example. Many people, even those that generally fall on one side of the fraternity debate, seem unclear what to make of the move—myself included. Should we be concerned that a frat with a history of hazing scandals, including making brothers drink dangerous amounts of alcohol and holding them in a base-

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ment, is making a comeback, or glad that the new brothers have expressed a commitment to ensuring that “nothing from this frat...is similar [to the old Phi Delt] in any way”?

Indeed, parsing one’s own opinion about Greek life can be hard, especially with the plethora of conflicting stories out there. It’s easy to argue that Greek life has been net beneficial, creating a much-needed space for students to escape UChicago’s notoriously stressful academic culture, and that compared to other institutions, our fraternities are really quite tame. At the same time, however, Greek life’s dismissal of the safety of women and minorities on campus in favor of occasionally fun yet often dangerous parties paints a disturbing picture.

Let’s accept for a minute that it might not be all of Greek life creating the problem— after all, sexual assault claims and racist e-mail receipts don’t pile up on the doorstep of campus sororities, and not every fraternity has had accusations leveled against it. It is a select few fraternities that have, again and again, demonstrated a disregard for the bare minimum social expectations of our generation: namely, not being racist and not being a rapist.

We should not vilify all Greek life because of the bad behavior of particular fraternities or create a single story of all frats as economically exclusive and casually misogynistic incubators of rape culture. That being said, there can be no space in modern Greek life for these bad frats. Racist parties, patterns of sexual assault, and even casually objectifying policies like “hot girls get in free” should not play a role in UChicago’s frats. It is these patterns that led nearly 65 percent of non-Greek students polled in 2016 to report that they do not feel safe in Greek-run spaces.

But what’s the alternative?

Right now, a few Greek groups on campus are experimenting with the idea of revisioned Greek life—creating frats and social clubs that preserve the good parts of Greek life and condemn the bad. The recolonization of Phi Delt is probably the most notable of these experiments. National representatives and founding fathers said that Phi Delt is returning with a recommitment to social responsibility and claim they are working to bring Greek brotherhoods into the modern era, from emphasizing “community service, philanthropy…[and] leadership” to specifically calling out notoriously bad

frats like Delta Upsilon and discussing the formation of a frat oversight board composed of student organizations in the absence of University oversight.

Anyone who has a stake in our campus culture should be keeping an eye on these groups. We can consider Phi Delt’s recolonization as a case study to investigate the future role frats might play on our campus. If these ongoing experiments result in more bad behavior—sexual assaults, derogatory policies towards women, and the like—this should send a message to the school population about the viability of so-called socially responsible frats. It may, in fact, indicate a need to permanently shut down Greek life on campus.

So far, at least one of these Greek life experiments has run into difficulties. In the application process for the new Phi Delt’s inaugural class, one standard misconduct-related question was used to select new brothers: “Have you ever had a Title IX case against you?” This may not establish a suitably high standard for gender relations in the recolonized Phi Delt group, but it does represent an important first step to fostering an awareness of sexual assault within the revived frat. The real problem? Since the University does not recognize Greek life, the fraternity cannot request school data on Title IX complaints, so this information is coming purely from brothers’ self-reports or word-of-mouth from the community. Already, at least two members of the incoming Phi Delt class have had their pledge offers rescinded on the basis of rumored sexual assault or harassment, though both maintain their innocence. The fact that Phi Delt is already removing members based on bad behavior should actually be seen as a good thing, although it is disturbing that sexual misconduct is so present as to already have come up among the applicant pool. The removal of the two accused brothers demonstrates an early willingness on the part of Phi Delt to follow through with their avowed commitment to be a better frat. Will this correspond to a long-term ability to balance parties, alcohol, and brotherhood while maintaining the social awareness, responsibility, and conscience necessary for student organizations of the 21st century? I really hope so. The founding members seem to be setting out with good intentions and a well-meaning charter. Unfortunately, however, the difficulty in recruiting due to the lack

of administrative cooperation in providing Title IX data foretells a grim future.

Dean John W. Boyer said in 2016, “I’m not an enemy of the Greeks. I’m not any enemy of any student organizations. My view has always been that of Hutchins: as long as people don’t violate the criminal laws of the state of Illinois, I don’t care what they do. It’s a free country and a free university.”

But sexual harassment and assault are illegal in the Prairie State, and the drinking age is 21. Illegal activities are perpetuated by campus frats, and the University certainly knows this.

So what are we to make of Boyer’s stance? Our school administration is so desperate to balance its pro-frat and anti-frat donors that it will neither acknowledge nor police Greek life, and that seems unlikely to change. As Boyer puts it, “A lot of alumni leaders that I know were part of Greek life, and they feel very strongly and protective of that. That’s undeniable.” He does deny that money from these donors constitutes a “special interest,” but it’s hard to ignore the fingerprints of Greek brothers past smudged across campus—Metcalf, DelGiorno, and Trott, to name a few—especially when the school has not released comparative data on the donation rates of Greek versus non-Greek alumni.

In the absence of administrative responsibility, the burden is falling to frats themselves to foster safe, inclusive environments on campus.

Hopefully, Phi Delt can keep its promises and restore our faith in fraternities—the discussed formation of an oversight board would certainly be a good first step. One thing is for sure: If the Phi Delt experiment fails, it will reflect just as badly on this school’s failure to police Greek life or provide assistance to fraternities that are actively working toward greater social responsibility as it will on the brothers themselves. Ultimately, the administration’s Greek life balancing act might spell doom for fraternities—which is why it may be time for both sides of the frat debate to band together in favor of administrative recognition of campus Greek life.

Ruby Rorty is a first-year in the College.

THE CHICAGO MAROON - DECEMBER 4, 2018

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ARTS Dean’s Men Measure Misfortune With Humor

By OLENKA WELLISZ arts reporter

It is tragic that Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays, because it is one of his funniest works. Both a genuinely thought-provoking experience and a masterpiece of bawdy humor, Measure is full of sexual innuendos and cheeky puns. While the Bard’s signature lowbrow moments are amusing, the play’s plot and the moral quandaries it raises makes the Dean’s Men production worth watching.

Vienna has become degenerate, and its ruler Duke Vincentio (second-year Sam Jacobson) decides to address the problem. His plan for doing so, however, does not actually involve him taking any responsibility (for that would make too much sense)—instead, he runs off and leaves Lord Angelo (first-year Liam Flanigan) to rescue the city from its depravity. His choice to entrust Lord Angelo with the task lies in the latter’s moral austerity, which is so great that it is said that “when he makes water, his urine is congealed ice.” The new deputy does his job and makes fornication illegal, to the great indignation of all the prostitutes in Vienna, as well as to Claudio (first-year Justin Saint-Loubert-Bie), who is arrested and condemned to death for impregnating his mistress Juliet (second-year Matilda Kupfer). Claudio’s friend Lucio (firstyear Franziska Harling) alerts Claudio’s sister

Isabella (second-year Sabrina Sternberg), an aspiring nun, about her brother’s situation. Whatever will she do?

The Dean’s Men production was originally intended to take place during Prohibition, but they ultimately decided to move the setting back some 40 years to the 1890s. I was initially skeptical about this change, but the shift in era ended up providing an opportunity for some wonderful costume design that would have been lost in a later adaptation. In fact, the entire show is visually compelling: The dim atmospheric lighting combines with impressive set pieces to take the audience through dank prisons, seedy bars, and imposing seats of governmental jurisdiction, and reflects not only the physical setting but also that scene’s tone and emotional significance for the characters inhabiting it.

Director third-year Sophia Lubarr focuses on the play’s humor as much as its seriousness and atmosphere, a choice which provides some much-needed relief from the direness of Isabel’s situation. Especially funny are the cocky and messy Lucio and the cackling, knife-wielding executioner Abhorson (first-year Natalie Chapin).

The more serious parts of the play were equally captivating. Isabella is a difficult role to play—the character must plead to Lord Angelo for her brother’s life and then suffer under his ultimatum: give herself over to his lust, or allow her brother to die. Sternberg does the role justice giving scope to all of Isabella’s conflicting emo-

When Museums Fit in Boxes: Deball and “This Is Not a Bomb”

The plastic molds made for the portable museums were modeled after the Joe and Rika Mansueto Libarary. jad dahshan destruction may its meanings be discerned.

By JAD DAHSHAN The TINB museums contain replicas of real, arts reporter imaginary, and parafictional artifacts creatOn November 28, two “portable muse- ed by the students, such as “Egyptian arms, ums” were delivered to the Oriental Insti- Teotihuacan masks…and the possessions of tute (OI) and the Special Collections Re- an extraterrestrial Chicagoan,” according search Center (SCRC), with a third to be to the group’s signed donation letters to the donated to the Chicago Cultural Center on aforementioned organizations. The museDecember 8. Named “This Is Not a Bomb” ums themselves are modeled after the Joe (TINB), the nearly identical miniature mu- and Rika Mansueto Library. seums are the culmination of a quarter-long Describing themselves as a “random conproject between the 2018 Tinker Visiting federation of unlike-minded vagrants,” the Professor Mariana Castillo Deball and the group explains in the letters that the “honor” students taking her autumn course, “The of the TINB museums will last “until the end Audience, the Archaeologist, and the Art of the world,” and that the above institutions Historian.” are responsible for their protection. The The studio course is built upon the tech- gifts were well-received by OI Head Archiniques used to study archeological objects as vist Anne Flannery and SCRC Assistant Uniwell as researchers’ interpretations thereof. versity Archivist Eileen Ielmini. Throughout As an artist, Deball’s practice draws heavily the quarter, Flannery had collaborated with on research in archaeology, anthropology, Deball and her students, giving them access and ethnography, and the course was de- to the OI Museum’s archives to draw upon signed with a similar framework. The por- for their project. table museum presented to the Oriental InMariana Castillo Deball: Petlacoatl is curstitute was cast in plaster, so that only by its rently on display at Logan Center.

tions and portraying them extremely persuasively. Her pain is palpable, and she is as dignified and graceful while also being defiant. Flanigan, meanwhile, is cold and convincing as Angelo, and Jacobson brings a considerable amount of humor to his depiction of Duke Vincentio. Laughing at the ridiculousness of Vincentio, one can almost forget that Jacobson’s character might be just as morally reprehensible as Angelo.

This possibility reveals itself most clearly in the final minutes of the play. In the original script, Vincentio, after claiming to have aided Isabel in retaining her virginity, exposes Angelo. Then, saving her brother’s life, he asks her to marry him, or, rather, declares that they will be

married. However, Shakespeare never writes Isabel a response; in fact, she does not speak for the rest of the play. That moment after the Duke’s proposal is fascinating because it is so open to interpretation—does she implicitly consent by her silence, or does she act in some way beyond what the words in the script say? Is Shakespeare highlighting the Duke’s hypocrisy, or is he simply providing a happy ending for his play? What does Isabel, who never replies, look like after the proposal? Lubarr makes a very definitive and intriguing choice in her adaptation of this part of the play. I will not spoil what that choice is—you shall have to see the show and find out for yourself.

(From left to right) Claudio’s sister Isabella (Sabrina Sternberg) and Claudio’s friend Lucio (Franziska Harling) in Measure for Measure. courtesy of natalia rodriguez

THE CHICAGO MAROON - DECEMBER 4, 2018

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The Gritty Political Battle of Widows

By KENJIRO LEE arts reporter

It is easy to forget why so much film discussion revolves around technique.

People often discuss Andrei Tarkovsky’s long takes, Yasujirō Ozu’s unconventional composition, or Jean-Luc Godard’s jump cuts as if they themselves were the point.

It’s as if the reason we keep searching for new cinematic languages was for novelty ’s sake. But this is not how spectatorship works: Millions of people do not go to the mov ies ever y week, a rmed w ith stopwatches and notebooks, on the prowl for innovations in film style. The significance of such techniques is instead in the effect they have on us. This precept is unfortunately easy to forget and, ironically, most often out of sight to those of us who spend the most time in the cinema. Form for form’s sake not only alienates those who have no patience for such technicalities, but also distracts from truths of our own experience.

Every so often, I see a movie that is so carefully constructed, conceived with

such clarity of vision, that I am reminded of why any of this matters at all. Widows was such an experience. Director Steve McQueen, who won the Academy Award for Best Picture for 12 Years a Slave, brings to the screen a brilliant story cowritten with Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl.

That is to say that Widows is intelligent, but not in a heady, desperate-to-be-clever Nolan-esque way. Its success is instead marked by sheer competence. The elaborate plot follows a diverse set of characters, involves itself in their struggles, and resolves every one throughout the course of the film.

Though unremittingly violent, Widows begins in a moment of tranquility: in the bed of Veronica ( Viola Davis) and Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) as they kiss passionately in the bright morning light.

Unusually, both actors are over 50, but McQueen keeps the camera close, emphasizing the “imperfections” that come with age. In this way, one could say the film is “gritty,” not just in its darkness, but also in the attention it pays to such uncomfortable details—wrinkles, gray hair, imper-

fect skin—that would normally be glossed over for the screen.

Their peace is shattered by rapid intercutting between the couple and the desperation and chaos of Harry’s last heist.

The conf lagration that kills him and his team also destroys the money they had just snatched from Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), kingpin-turned–aldermanic candidate for Chicago’s 18th Ward. The white, decades-long incumbent of this majority-Black district is retiring, and Jamal is locked in a tight race against the incumbent’s son, Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell).

Like every aspect of this film, the contest between the two is not all black and white. The Mulligan family is unceasingly corrupt—the cantankerous, racist father as much as the son, who oversaw the fraudulent extension of the Green Line through their ward. While Jamal is not so tainted, he makes it clear to his brother and enforcer Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya) that he is on ly r unning to receive the bribes and kickbacks that the Mulligans have for so long enjoyed.

The high stakes for his campaign mean

that Jamal needs his millions back soon and, unfortunately for Veronica, he expects to collect her husband’s debt from her. Armed with a notebook her husband lef t beh ind wh ich det a i ls a heist t hat would net her more than enough to repay her debts, Veronica reaches out to the widows of the team that perished with him (Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki). Together, they struggle to disentangle themselves from the underworld in which their husbands abandoned them.

The mov ie’s welcome complexit y is ref lective of the reality it depicts; while the plot itself is resolved with panache, the underlying forces that created it defy such solutions. These political aspirations separate Widows from most of its genre— rarely is a thriller made so socially conscious. And even more rarely is one with such pretensions executed with this director’s bravura. Widows is, after all, an exercise in McQueen’s anxious style, but more importance is placed on the anxiety than the style.

Friendship and Culture Unite in Ralph Breaks the Internet

By JESSICA JIWON CHOE

for themselves. It was a fun throwback to childhood, repackaged for modern audiences.

The simple video arcade setting of the first If I could compare Ralph Breaks the Internet movie is reframed and thrust into the broad to a certain food, it would be a blast-from-the- expanse of modern Internet. The striking conpast retro milkshake decorated with multiple trast to the limited setting of the first movie Easter-egg cherries and topped with sprinkles brings attention to just how fast the world is of woke self-awareness. In other words, the changing. The variability and development movie is so ambitiously embellished that it happening every day is just one line of social takes away from the main message of the film. commentary the film touches upon in its deTo give credit to the screenwriters and an- cision to tackle the Internet. The visual repimators, the humorous moments are absolute resentation of eBay as an auction corner for gems. I caught myself laughing constantly, not rare niche items and BuzzTube as a hub of evonly with a smug sense of accomplishment from er-changing crazy, viral content is a hilarious recognizing all the pop culture references, but lens through which to examine such websites. also at the string of self-aware jokes running Much like in WALL-E, humans are shown as through the film. It pokes fun at a multitude of somewhat irrelevant, surfing around in little topics ranging from Disney’s many princesses chairs to destinations of their choosing. Unlike over the years to quirky aspects of the Internet. WALL-E’s critiques of consumerism or obesiI appreciated how Disney tried to redeem its ty, however, this image doesn’t offer especially relatively traditional princesses by depicting deep social commentary. Besides some very them as modern heroines who could stand up noncontroversial statements, such as casting arts reporter

the dark web in a negative light, Disney avoids making a comment on the Internet’s influence on our lives. Usually, I walk away from Disney movies with a moral lesson, such as the importance of taking care of the environment (WALL-E) or of family (Incredibles 2), but Ralph Breaks the Internet doesn’t provide such a clear message.

Its main theme deals with the importance of friendship, but this message isn’t complemented with a myriad of other morals that Disney films tend to include. Throughout much of the film, the sweet surprises of character cameos from other Disney movies and the sheer flashiness of the digital world expanding in picture-form distract from Ralph and Vanellope’s friendship, which was swept under the carpet as an afterthought.

It’s very typical to be jealous in friendships, a problem that is compounded with best friends. I personally believe that you can only have one best friend since the word “best”

denotes the highest level of friendship. Some might call such a view outdated, but Ralph is clearly on that boat, and even more possessive than I could ever be. Watching him chase after Vanellope like there is no end in sight makes the audience take a step back and reevaluate their own relationships. The moment Ralph realizes his love for his best friend should extend to support of her individual interests is deeply moving. At the same time, it is somewhat saddening to see how long it takes him to reach that realization, and the damage he does before reaching it.

Ultimately, Ralph Breaks the Internet ends with an empowering message that an individual should be able to feel complete independent of others, but that two such identities can come together to form an even more amazing couple.

Even with the layers and layers of pop culture around the main message, the film offers a sweet homage to the importance of friendship.

UChicago Symphony Orchestra Displays Power of Prokofiev

By ALINA KIM arts reporter

On the night of a thunderstorm, the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra delivered an astounding performance of Russian composers Sergei Prokofiev and Alexander Glazunov, filling the performance ha ll w ith wails of despair to vivacious f lamboyance. Although Glazunov ’s rarely-heard-of ballet pieces and Prokofiev’s famous concert repertoire initially appear to be a strange combination, the aesthetic contrast was complemented by the brooding rain thrumming against the walls of the Reynolds Club.

The orchestra began with “Autumn” from Glazunov ’s The Seasons (Op. 67).

The strings set the bar high for the rest of the night with the introduction, which resonated with deep splendor. The quick running notes of the violinists and the unor thodox sha r p spiccatos peppered throughout created a dramatic contrast to the introduction of the piece. This continued with a small clarinet solo, that spurred on a more legato approach, with a sweet, sultry, and romantic arabesque blending in through the harp and flute. A call-and-response ensued as the piece pro-

gressed, the long pulses of a gradual crescendo becoming more and more apparent as the oboe soloist took the melody from the clarinet, and the clarinet responded with delicate staccatos. Although the tempo was a little slower than the expected tempo, the orchestra concluded the piece with the original expository melody with greater ferocity than before.

Director Barbara Schubert then invited guest performer, violinist William Hagen, to the stage to perform a thrilling rendition of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major (Op. 19). Beginning with an impossibly-soft tremolo, the orchestra created a background of intimacy as Hagen evoked a grieving tone reminiscent of the famed Schindler’s List theme, ref lecting a depressive soliloquy. Then, in a brazen performance, Hagen shifted gears and aggressively performed in the violin’s lower octave. Although his tone was slightly sacrificed, sometimes bordering on screeching, it was for the sake of expressing pain and anguish. The theme that followed was quirky and pleasantly odd, as Hagen began plucking the string with his fingers. The 16th notes con brio were acceler ated u nt i l a r a l lent a ndo brought the exposition to a close with a

single, dissonant note that rang throughout the otherwise-silent Mandel Hall.

Brimming w ith a v ivace tempo, the second movement of the Prokofiev was livelier, and delivered the most awe-striking f lair of the night. Brilliantly executing his ricochets and rapid jumps as his f ingers g lided across t he str ings, Hagen introduced a breath less approach to Prokofiev when he brought the tense third movement to an end with a soft, yet squeakily high pitch that demanded the audience’s silence and undivided attention. It left them with a sense of curiosity and emptiness: Was that the ending of the movement? W hy does this feel incomplete? Is there more?

Before the intermission, Hagen entertained the audience with his version of Bach’s Partita in E major, performed with a playful style and dramatic dynamic contrasts throughout. Without losing his spirited energy, he built up the signature polytonality of Bach’s baroque style, and at times it felt like two violins were being played at once. His efforts were rewarded with a standing ovation from the audience.

Upon returning to the stage, the symphony orchestra’s final performance of

the night was Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 6 in E-flat minor (Op. 111). Quite jarring in comparison to their other pieces was the blaring brass in the introduction, complemented by the legato of the strings. In fact, the bizarre juxtaposition created by the entire orchestra was delightfully unsettling: The imbalance was tangible as the piercing woodwinds lurked behind the richness of the strings, and the mechanical tone of the brass and the rattling snare d r u m ag g ravated t he fol k mu sic–l i ke swinging of the violas. Mimicking something like the Doppler effect, suddenly the alarm of bells shrilled over the ensemble.

T he t h i r d a nd f i n a l movement of the night was a thrilling conclusion to the blend of harmony, the cacophony of screeches, and anguished wails of solos that defined the power of Prokofiev. Although the orchestra faltered a little in terms of the energy that they showed in the beginning of the performance, the orchestra students finished strongly with a suspenseful ending that left the audience wondering if the symphony was a joyous one or one with an ominous message that we have yet to determine.

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SPORTS UChicago Falls Short to Calvin College in NCAA Semifinals MEN’S SOCCER

By ANDY PRESHER sports reporter

The UChicago men’s soccer team’s impressive season and postseason run came to an end on Friday, November 30, in Greensboro, North Carolina, as they were defeated 4–1 by Calvin College in the semifinal of the NCAA Championship.

The two sides had met before at Calvin on September 22, when a 50th-minute goal by fourth-year Matthew Koh proved to be enough to give the Maroon men a 1–0 victory despite being outshot 19–9. This time, however, the Knights showed themselves more able to finish their chances, with 11 first-half shots turning into three goals.

Calvin opened the scoring in the 28th minute, then added another less than two minutes later with a shot that went in off the post. However, the 2–0 lead lasted less than 30 seconds as Koh beat two defenders on the end line before assisting third-year Dayo Adeosun. Calvin added another in the 44th minute, and despite outshooting their opponents 6–4 in the second half, the Maroons could not break through. In the 66th minute, a Calvin counterattack put the game out of reach, and it ended 4–1.

Despite the loss, the Maroon men had a strong season, securing their thirdstraight UAA conference title. They closed it out with a solid performance in the NCAA Championship, pushing through to the quarterfinals by defeating Carleton 2–1 and Trinity 2–0. Against quarterfinal opponents Luther, the dominating Maroons were frustrated again and again, racking up a total of 27 shots during regulation while the score remained 0–0. Eight min-

Fourth-year Matthew Koh battles a Calvin Knight player for possession. courtesy uchicago athletics utes into overtime, in a series of quick passes by the Maroon men, fourth-year Max Lopez played the ball to Adeosun.

Adeosun took only one touch, passing it straight back to Lopez and giving him space to fire the winning goal past Luther’s goalkeeper.

The Maroon men lost only three games all season, going 6–1 in UAA conference play. An excellent record of 18–3–1 seems a fitting finale for the five Maroon men playing their final seasons here at UChica-

Maroons Place at Tough Invitational WRESTLING

By ALYSSA RUDIN sports reporter

This past Saturday, the Maroon men’s wrestling team placed fifth at the Milwaukee School of Engineering Invitational, with one wrestler winning his weight class and seven other wrestlers reaching the podium. Over half of the Maroon wrestlers brought to the invite placed in the top six in their weight classes.

Third-year Kyle Peisker led the team with his 174-pound weight class triumph. After receiving a bye in the first round, pinning his second-round opponent in the first period, and winning 15–0 in a technical fall, Peisker won the rest of the bracket through two withdrawals. In the same weight class, first-year

Ben Sarasin made it to the finals with three decisions and one major before withdrawing against his teammate. First-year Cole Riemer also made it to the finals of his weight class, pinning both of his first two opponents in the first period, earning a 5–4 decision and a 21–6 technical fall to reach the finals where he lost to a wrestler from Central Iowa.

Additionally, third-year Kahlan Lee-Lermer and first-year Maguire Pecci placed third in the 165-pound and 149-pound weight classes, respectively. Second-year Will Britain went 4–2 to place fifth in his class, and third-year Steve Bonsall and fourth-year Nick Ferraro both placed sixth in their respective classes.

This Saturday, the Maroon wrestling team heads to Naperville to compete in the North Central College Invitational.

SCOREBOARD SPORT

W/L

Men’s Soccer

L

Wrestling

W

OPPONENT

SCORE

Calvin

4–1

MSOE Invite

5th of 14

M Basketball

W

Kalamazoo

82–72

W Basketball

W

Elmhurst

73–54

go. They are fourth-years Nicco Capotosto, Matthew Koh, Max Lopez, Zachary Pierce, and Josh Scofield, and they complete their time here with an overall record of 66–11–8 and three consecutive UAA titles, the winningest in program history. This is not the only record this exceptional group has set. Lopez leads the program in goals with 54 over his four years, while Koh holds the program record for assists with 34. While disappointed to fall in the semifinal, Koh showed nothing but optimism

when asked about his years in the program and the team’s future without his graduating class, saying, “I couldn’t be more proud of everything this team has accomplished this season and everything my senior class has accomplished throughout our careers.

It was an unfortunate ending, but there is no doubt in my mind that one day this program will bring home a national championship.”

Both Women and Men Dominate on the Road BASKETBALL

By MATTHEW LEE sports reporter

The Maroon women’s basketball team soundly defeated Elmhurst College’s Bluejays 73–54 on Saturday afternoon.

Despite trailing 18–15 during the first quarter, the Maroons quickly rebounded, ending halftime ahead at 39–30. Elmhurst proved helpless as the Maroons kept their lead for the rest of the game.

The Maroons’ dominance was evident statistically, as Chicago led Elmhurst by 8.6 percent in shooting percentage, 36.1 percent to 27.5 percent. The Maroons also secured nine assists to Elmhurst’s six. Defensively, Chicago captured 48 rebounds to the Bluejays’ 45 and scored 17 points off turnovers compared to the opponent’s nine.

Third-year guard Mia Farrell recorded 19 points, her best performance in the season so far. To this offensive sum, she added four defensive steals. Other standout performers include third-years Taylor Lake, with 14 points and five rebounds, and Miranda Burt, with 13 points and four rebounds, as well as first-year forward Klaire Steffens, who scored nine points and dominated defensively with 11 rebounds.

The Maroon men’s basketball team enjoyed similar success, defeating Kalamazoo College 82–72 on the same day.

The University of Chicago got off to a

lightning start, quickly leading by double digits. By halftime, the Maroons were ahead 38–23. Despite attempts at a rally

by Kalamazoo in the second half, the Maroons ended the night with a double-digit lead, 82–72.

Star players for the night included second-year Dominic Laravie, who scored 14 points, including eight from free throws.

A pair of guards, third-year Jordan Baum and fourth-year Noah Karras, combined for 20 points. Fourth-year guard Max Jacobs and second-year forward Brennan McDaniel came off the bench and each added 10 points. Meanwhile, fourth-year Ryan Jacobsen and third-year Mattia Colangelo earned a combined 15 points and 14 rebounds, helping the Maroons keep up their strong lead throughout the game.

Chicago led Kalamazoo in shooting percentage by a whopping 12.9 percent—an impressive 50 percent to the Hornets’ 37.1 percent. Rounding out a strong offensive performance, the Maroons recorded 18 assists, 10 more than Kalamazoo’s eight. The Maroons also took away six more rebounds, 44 to 38.

The Maroons leave the game with a strong 5–2 record. They hope to continue their dominance on Saturday, December 8, against Albion College.