Vol. CXXXVII—No. 20
Monday, February 18, 2013
columbiaspectator.com
TEDxSIPA features Krugman, Stiglitz Nobel laureates, students consider means to social change BY SHARON LIAO Spectator Staff Writer
MICHAEL DISCENZA / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
A NEW WORLD |
Robert Lieberman, interim dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, speaks at the TEDxSIPA conference.
Dems protest marriage conference BY LUKE BARNES Spectator Senior Staff Writer The Columbia University Democrats protested a conference that considered marriage and family, contesting a featured address at the event that argued marriage may only be between a man and a woman. The Family in Modern Society Conference at Columbia University, featuring scholars whose research argued for the “importance of family to the continued success of American society,” prompted members of the student group to arrive early in the morning on Saturday outside Lerner Hall, where they passed out fliers throughout the afternoon. But the bulk of the day’s activity came in the form of an in-conference silent protest against a speech delivered by Sherif Girgis, a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at Princeton and J.D. candidate at Yale, whose article on the subject was originally published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
As Girgis began his speech, CU Dems members and other students held up signs expressing their support for same-sex marriage, with slogans such as “Family is family, love and devotion are always equal” and “People like you are why LGBTQ teens are five times as likely to attempt suicide.” “The point was to tell the rest of the community that this was not the general consensus of the campus,” said CU Dems activist Nikita Ash, BC ’16. In his speech, Girgis argued that while people’s life choices and partners should be respected, redefining the institution of marriage for same-sex couples based on emotional connection opens the doors for other redefinitions that include, for example, “threples” (three-way couples) and other uncommon life companionships. Girgis also addressed the issue of equality, saying that preventing certain people from getting married was not discriminatory, but rather indicative of a definition of marriage that precluded homosexual or polygamous relationships.
“We don’t think that denial of marriage is a denial of equality,” Girgis said. “Using marriage law as a stamp of social approval comes from a certain vision of marriage.” Although they were vocal in their disapproval of Girgis’s message, members of the CU Dems stressed that their silent protest was not an attempt to smother free speech, but rather to peacefully express disagreement. “We won’t stifle, but we will let it be known that we do not find this agreeable,” CU Dems member Melissa Quintana, CC ’16, said. “It was very respectful, and we were not infringing on their rights while exercising our own.” Some members of the audience, however, criticized the tactics of CU Dems, and said they felt a critical and intellectual discussion was being treated in an emotional, kneejerk manner. Jamie Boothe, CC ’15, argued that because the conference was a space set aside for
momentum, winning the 1650yard freestyle event by more than 13 seconds after the Tigers had won the first two events of the day. Junior Philipp Gaissert, along with freshmen Alex Mango and Christian Vivadelli, later swept the first three finishes in the 200-yard freestyle, securing SEE SWIMMING, page 6
SEE RECYCLING, page 6
SEE PROTEST, page 2
DAVID BRANN / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
FAMILY VALUES Zoe Ridolfi-Starr, CC ’15 and a lead activist for CU Dems, protested in support of marriage equality outside the Family in Modern Society Conference Saturday morning.
CU ends season with win over Princeton The men’s swimming and diving team (8-2, 5-2 Ivy) pulled off an upset Saturday against No. 22 Princeton (6-2, 5-2), finishing its regular season with men’s a seven-meet swimming
winning streak and an undefeated home record. Columbia beat the four-time defending Ivy League champions by a score of 158-139—the closest finish either team had all season. The stars of the meet were sophomores David Jakl and Dominik Koll, who combined for five individual wins. Koll helped stop Princeton’s early
BY ABIGAIL GOLDEN Spectator Staff Writer At both Barnard and Columbia, student environmental groups are exploring less conventional ways to reduce the schools’ landfill waste. Rose Winer, CC ’13 and the head of Columbia EcoReps’ living green committee, said that the group is working with fraternities and sororities to develop the new Green Your Greek project. “We’re thinking right now it might be fun to have a competition between the frats, and the sororities in turn have requested that we come to their weekly meeting and do a brief educational program,” Winer said. CU EcoReps also has plans to organize a number of other initiatives to increase the general student body’s awareness of recycling. In general, the group wants to “put the idea of recycling more in front of the students’ eyes ... to make it more convenient for them to recycle, and to make it more part of their daily routine,” Winer said. One year ago, Barnard launched its Sustainable Initiatives Consulting Board to take over Barnard EcoReps’ role as a liaison between students and the administration. Since then, it has begun a zero-waste initiative, designed by members of the committee. The project also includes an effort to find a way for students to recycle plastic bags. As a first step, the SICB is planning an Earth Day event this year where students can exchange plastic bags for a reusable tote. “We’re looking into longterm options and also shorter-term options,” Deborah Robertson, BC ’13 and chair of the SICB, said. But these recycling efforts are only the latest of examples of Barnard’s efforts to create a greener campus. Barnard employs a private contractor called Action Carting that has facilities to process all seven types of recyclable plastic, and it provides readily accessible bins for unusual items—books, batteries, e-waste, and lightbulbs—in the Quad, the 600s, and Plimpton Hall.
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BY PHIL GODZIN Spectator Staff Writer
Student groups expanding recycling
How do we create a better world? Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz and numerous other speakers considered this question on Friday at the day-long TedxColumbiaSIPA Conference, an initiative organized by School of International and Public Affairs students. Stiglitz, a SIPA professor who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001, was featured on the panel “A Fairer World” and discussed the consequences of an increasingly polarized income distribution in the United States. “The American Dream is really part of the American psyche,” he said. “But if you go to the numbers, they don’t support this view.” Stiglitz noted that the share of wealth going to the top 1 percent of earners has doubled since 1980, a trend he compared to the economic conditions of the Gilded Age and the 1920s. “In both of those instances, Americans looked over the brink. They decided they didn’t like the direction in which we were going. We pulled back from the brink,” he said. “Will we once again pull back from the brink?” Krugman, the 2008 Nobel laureate in economics and a New York Times columnist, addressed unemployment on a panel about happiness. “Now is a unique time when expansionary government policy actually creates jobs,” he said. “Only now, only until the economy has recovered some more, is this true.” Teachers College professor Christopher Emdin said that educators, especially those who work in crime-ridden communities, need to provide students with
ways to relate their classroom experiences to problems in their neighborhoods. “Urban public education, to be truly urban public education, must open youth up to the reality of their experiences, to realize people are making decisions about them without them,” he said. Emdin proposed teaching math lessons that have students “calculate the fact that there are these awful things going on in their community,” driving home lessons that would show them the issues in their neighborhoods. The conference featured SIPA faculty members and experts in economics, political science, media, and public health. Divided into four sessions on health, safety, equality, and happiness, it addressed topics such as the economy, terrorism, citizen journalism, and youth empowerment. Other notable panelists were News Corporation Executive Vice President Joel Klein, who is the former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, and BBC Media Action USA Executive Director Yvonne Macpherson. The TEDx conference also featured presentations from current students in SIPA and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The student organizers set up a competition for student speakers, and over 30 applied. Event co-organizers Ethan Wagner and Caroline Le Viet, both SIPA ’13, described it as a full-time job since November. They were initially interested in planning a TED talk on microfinance, as both are members of Microfinance Working Group, a student organization at SIPA. “After thinking about it more, we agreed that TED events are SEE SIPA, page 2
Taxicab sideswipes parked car, injures CU employee BY AVANTIKA KUMAR AND CASEY TOLAN Spectator Senior Staff Writers One person was injured in a traffic accident Friday afternoon at Broadway and 115th Street, when a taxicab sideswiped a parked car before hitting a FedEx truck and a pedestrian. The pedestrian, a young man, was left lying in the street with a head wound, said Matt Martinez, CC ’13, who was at the scene and talked with him. “I wasn’t there when the accident actually happened, but I was on campus and I heard the crash,” Martinez said. “He was conscious and talking and I tried to comfort him.” “It wasn’t a lot of blood,” Martinez added, referring to the wound. Martinez said that the
man, whose first name was Nicholas, had him call one of his roommates, and that he was soon taken to St. Luke’s Hospital.
“He was conscious and talking and I tried to comfort him.” —Matt Martinez, CC ’13 bystander “One of my co-workers got hit,” a woman who identified herself as a Columbia employee at the scene, said. She said she SEE ACCIDENT, page 2
CASEY TOLAN FOR SPECTATOR
SIDESWIPED | A taxicab sideswiped a parked car before hitting a FedEx truck and a pedestrian on 115th Street and Broadway Friday.
OPINION, PAGE 4
SPORTS, PAGE 3
EVENTS
WEATHER
An unfounded protest
Women’s basketball wins first Ivy game
Tbilisi-Moscow-Paris-New York, 1910-1935
Today
Judging arguments before hearing them mars debate.
Bipartisan exemplars We finally see rare but beautiful political party cooperation.
The Lions came away victorious for the first time since December against Brown at home on Friday night.
Tomorrow
Explore Georgian modernism in the context of Western art. Seminar Room 1219, International Affairs Building, 12 p.m.-1:30 p.m.
Jack Kerouac’s Bilingualism A UNC professor discusses Kerouac’s use of French in his writing. Sulzberger Parlor, Third Floor, Barnard Hall, 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
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