February 9, 2014 An Independent Publication
Volume XXXII Issue V
The Cornell Review WE DO NOT APOLOGIZE
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Jake Zhu ‘18 examines the implications of the UVA rape hoax reported in Rolling Stone magazine.
AN INDEPENDENT PUBLICATION
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Andres Sellitto ‘17 discusses the Paris terrorist attacks and free speech.
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John Pedro ‘18 reviews potential 2016 GOP presidential candidates who are moderates.
University to Charge $350 ‘Student Health Fee’
President Skorton: “For the common good” Casey Breznick Editor-in-Chief
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ornell student, you are now your brother’s keeper. In the name of the “common good” and equality, the University administration decided to levy an onerous “student health fee” of $350 to be levied on all students who do not purchase Cornell’s Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP) next academic year regardless of whether they use Gannett Health Services. According to estimates provided by Skorton,
this fee should raise about $3.9 million per year. The plan also calls for $10 copays for most Gannett visits. In his email to students last Thursday, Skorton identified students’ “inequitable access to care” as the reason behind this fee. At a Student Assembly (SA) meeting held later that day, however, this reason went unmentioned as Skorton and Vice President Susan Murphy ’73, Ph.D. ’94 tried in vain to defend the fee. Skorton stated that the fee will provide a “reliable revenue stream” for Gannett and
argued that “tightness on the [University’s] bottom line” has rendered the current allocation model of funding Gannett unfeasible. SA members and students in the audience pried Skorton and Murphy for information regarding how the fee revenue would be spent. Skorton initially said the fee-generated revenue would go exclusively to operational costs. Later, Skorton admitted Gannett is operating at a deficit, but his answer
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Steven Lai/The Cornelll Review
Review of Ithaca Mayor Myrick: A Pro-Growth Democrat Benjamin Rutkovsky Staff writer
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SvanteMyrick.com
UNLIKELY SUPPORTERS: “[Myrick] has set aside the failed dogma of the past in order to concentrate on growing the city, and that is the [exact] mentality that our mayor needs to have,” local Republican leader Rocco Lucente told the Ithaca Voice.
n December of last year, I discussed how local government authorities lifted zoning regulations related to parking in Ithaca and the positive effect this will have on Collegetown residential development. These pro-growth policies that are in place do not end at the decrease in zoning regulations. Mayor Svante Myrick, a 27year old Democrat and graduate of the Cornell Class of ‘09, has led the way in the recent spout of development in Ithaca. Though a Democrat, Myrick has taken strides to push forward economic development in the city, and the politicians in support of him are not who
you may think. Largely due to his pro-growth economic and city development policies, Myrick has lost support from the left-wing of the local Democrat Party and drawn support instead from local Republicans. However, it is hard to disagree with a politician overseeing a city with microscopic unemployment rate of 3%. Myrick seems to genuinely care about the citizens of Ithaca, and yearns to provide the town with more affordable housing, a major point of contention for the local community. For this to happen, Myrick realizes that the city must increase the supply of housing to satiate the growing demand, thereby decreasing rents and home prices. The development
of high occupancy apartment complexes will decrease the cost of housing across the board. Alderperson George McGonigal, a Democrat, usually expresses approval in speaking about Mayor Myrick, but has recently been doubting the effectiveness of the Mayor’s plan. He fears that the new housing will be too expensive for working class citizens to afford. In addition, he fears Ithaca will “lose its charm” if it becomes too commercially developed. However, Mayor Myrick’s pro-growth policies have earned him respect and praise from local Republicans such as Rocco Lucente. He wrote,
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Martha Robertson Joins Rowdy Ivy League Round-Up Pg. 9 Seneca Lake Protesters Dartmouth bans Shay Collins Staff writer
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oters in New York’s 23rd district should now feel even more confident in their decision to select Republican Tom Reed as their House Representative over Democrat Martha Robertson by a margin of nearly two-to-one. Robertson, a longtime opponent of hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as “fracking,” has become an ardent supporter of and occasional speaker for We Are Seneca Lake, a
faction opposing the storage of liquefied petroleum gas in Reading, New York, which is
READ MY LIPS: “The taxpayers paid for this building, the taxpayers are heating this building” said taxpayer-funded Robertson.
approximately forty minutes from Ithaca. Protesting outside of Crestwood Midstream’s Reading property since late Oct. 2014, We Are Seneca Lake has racked up a huge number of arrests, mostly for trespassing. Currently, the group’s website, wearesenecalake.com, boasts: “There have been 160 Seneca Lake Defenders arrested, with a total of 200 arrests since the We Are Seneca Lake campaign started.” The website also
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hard liquor on campus
Pg. 8 Harvard bans sex between undergrads and professors Pg. 9 #CarryThatWeight: Alleged Columbia rapist speaks out
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Rolling Stoned: UVA Frat Rape Story One Big Hoax Truth, facts no deterrent to campus and media liberals Jake Zhu Staff writer
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t is not uncommon to witness prominent journalists and media giants take a page out of Saul Alinsky’s playbook and report disingenuous, sensationalistic stories in order to stir up misguided emotions for the latest left-wing cause or movement. Each year, proponents of the college “campus rape culture” generate countless stories of sexual assault cases while refusing to provide evidence to support their claims and declining to give assistance in locating the actual perpetrators. Most recently, Sabrina Erdely published an article last November in the Rolling Stone which detailed the alleged gang rape of a female freshman at the University of Virginia at a fraternity house. The story, titled “A Rape in Campus,” claimed that “Drew,” the pseudonym for a brother of Phi Kappa Psi, lured the young, unsuspecting victim, who identified as “Jackie,” into a party at his fraternity house, where seven men violently raped her. The article was written based on interviews that the author conducted exclusively with Jackie and failed to use the words like “alleged” and “supposed” in describing the reported criminal acts. Following the publication of the story, otherwise reasonable individuals begun to view UVA not as the Southern bastion of intellectualism that it truly is, but instead as a predatory environment that desecrates the innocence of female students. This media-fueled outrage engendered a draconian campaign that sought to not only
would serve her purpose. As Erdely embarked on her left-wing, radical feminist crusade to depict college campuses and, in particular, the male-dominated fraternities, as rape-facilitating environments, she mercilessly took UVA as her victim. She then conned the nation, hurting equally those she accused and those she says she is trying to aid in her writings. Another problem arises from the fact that Rubin’s entire article exemplifies the classic case of the confirmation bias. Although Erdely interviewed the UVA Inter-Fraternity Council on the matter of sexual violence, she decided to exclude the entire interview from her article, demonstrating her hidden biased assumption that fraternity members are unable to disclose the truth. It is clear that she had a predetermined theory, or perhaps more accurately an agenda, and could not accept any facts or information other than those which directly confirmed her misguided beliefs. Unfortunately, by the time Rolling Stone retracted the article, the damage had already been done. Unknown persons vandalized the Phi Kappa Psi house, UVA faculty protested the fraternity, and people made death threats against the brothers. Ironically, although Erdely has a history of publishing anti-bullying articles, her fallacious rape allegations against the UVA students caused them to suffer from severe emotional distress due to the frequent physical and verbal assaults. One Phi Psi brother reported to the Washington Post that the day the article was published was the “most emotionally grueling of [his] life.”
“While there is no doubt that sexual assault is a serious problem within the nation, it is essential to underscore these issues truthfully without using fabrications to exaggerate their prevalence.” shut down the single fraternity supposedly responsible for the rape but to also condemn the entire fraternity culture as the breeding ground for sexual assault. In fact, Colin Downes, a UVA law student, went as far as calling the fraternities “criminal street gangs” in his op-ed in the liberal magazine Slate. To make matters worse, the UVA president Teresa Sullivan hastily implemented a suspension of all Greek life on campus as punishment for the alleged rape incident. In the days immediately following the publication, however, a number of editors from other, arguably more credible media sources such as Reason Magazine and the Washington Post, openly expressed skepticism on the veracity of Jackie’s claims and questioned the reporting methods of Erdely. As investigators reviewed the evidence and truth begun to unravel, it became abundantly clear by mid-December that no such rape had ever occurred. Not only do Jackie’s own close friends, who rushed to help Jackie on the night of her alleged rape, believe Drew is a fabrication, but all attempts to locate Drew on social media or the UVA database have resulted in dead ends. The fraternity in question also provided evidence demonstrating it had no house party on the reported date of the alleged rape and that no member of the fraternity worked as a lifeguard as Jackie had said. Perhaps worst of all were Erdely’s unscrupulous journalistic methods. Her interview with the Washington Post revealed that she intentionally sought out a story on sexual assault in college. In essence, she “shopped” around campuses until she found the most lurid story that
There is little doubt that the revelation of Erdely’s story aroused the cult-like zealots who unequivocally adhere to all sexual assault claims as if they were tests of spiritual faith in the campus rape culture. However, by inciting this kind of mob rule, “justice” is served through impulsive emotional responses rather than the due process that every person deserves and is constitutionally afforded. Additionally, it is important to realize that false stories about rape negatively impact the actual victims of rape, akin to the fable of the “Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Due to the fallout from the UVA fabrication of rape, there may arise the public belief that all women scream “rape” for attention or some other unwarranted reason. Djuna Perkins, a Massachusetts attorney who commented on the case, put it best when he asserted, “Every time somebody makes up a terrible crime, it does harm to the rest who tell the truth and don’t get believed.” While there is no doubt that sexual assault is a serious problem within the nation, it is essential to underscore these issues truthfully without using fabrications to exaggerate their prevalence. It is essential for today’s consumers of news to discern between tall-tales and real stories. For if people fail to do so, they leave themselves vulnerable to the political left’s emotional appeals and galvanized to adopt a misguided social justice cause that ends up victimizing innocent lives. Jake Zhu is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at jjz43@ cornell.edu.
The More You Know “1 in 5 women on college campuses are victims of sexual assault!” A claim so patently false, even the authors of the study it comes from discredit it: “We don’t think one in five is a nationally representative statistic.” Why? The study’s data came from only two schools. While anything more than 0% of women being raped at college or anywhere is despicable, peddling false statistics isn’t constructive and will not save any lives.
Robertson Back in Activism Action From front page displays portraits of all of the arrested protestors, some grinning from the passenger seat of a police car, some posing with animals or grandchildren. Unsurprisingly, the massive number of arrests has strained both the small Schuyler County police department and Reading town court. In a Nov. 18 Ithaca Voice article, Schuyler County Sheriff Bill Yessman stated that the protestors have caused drastic problems for the police department and other Schuyler County residents. Yessman also stated that dealing with the protestors delayed trained officers from responding to a 911 call about someone suffering from cardiac arrest. “By the time responders arrived it was too late: the patient died,” Jeff Stein reported in The Ithaca Voice. Let it be noted that the New York State Department of Conservation investigated and approved of Crestwood’s storage plan. While organizer Sandra Steingraber suggested that police officers simply ignore them, We Are Seneca Lake has greatly burdened the local court and police departments. Enter Martha Robertson On Jan. 7, We Are Seneca Lake members held a rally at the Reading Town Court featuring a speech by Robertson. Robertson and other speakers alleged that the Reading town board had committed an “abuse of power” in preventing We Are Seneca Lake members from entering the court room during the arraignment of several protestors as quoted by a Jan. 8 Ithaca Voice article. Importantly, Justice Berry did allow for the court to stay open to members of the press. At one point in her speech, which can be viewed online at the Ithaca Voice, Robertson states, “The taxpayers paid for this building, the taxpayers are heating this building” to argue that members of We Are Seneca Lake should have been allowed inside the town court. Perhaps Robertson and the members of We Are Seneca Lake should be reminded that the taxpayers did in fact pay for the court building, which has now become swamped by dealing with the over 200 arrests of protestors. Taxpayers, specifically Schuyler County taxpayers, also paid for the protection and service of their police force, which now must primarily focus on dealing with masses of protestors, many of them from outside Schuyler County. Earlier in the video, Steingraber states, “[The Reading town supervisor] could not name any other groups of people who had been denied access to the building while court was in session.” In short, We Are Seneca Lake is the only group that has routinely broken the law and bogged down town resources with regards to the Crestwood project. Can the Reading Town Board really be blamed for wanting to prevent the group form entering the courthouse? Looking Forward In the end, the vital parts of the project remain intact. Crestwood possesses the New York State Department of Conservation approval necessary to continue with the expansion, and seem intent on doing so. Thus, We Are Seneca Lake’s dispute should be cast not as a battle against an unwanted, evil corporation, but rather as an abuse of the residents of Schuyler County who deserve quick access to the police force they support. Scrolling through We Are Seneca Lake’s proudly displayed list of arrested members, a certain pattern quickly becomes evident. The vast majority of the arrested protestors are white and middle-aged or older. In effect, Schuyler County’s police and court system has become saturated with older liberals with a lot of time on their hands and an opposition to anything gas-related. Shay Collins is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at smc377@cornell.edu.
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Presidency in Paradise: How Much of Your Tax Bill is Going to Fund Obama’s Vacations? Christopher Nowacki Staff writer
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ust another day at the beach. A marimba sounds as the sun shines down on a picturesque oceanfront villa. A Polynesian-looking gentleman slices a coconut swiftly with one strike of the machete. He prepares a drink and hands it to a man at the bar then asks, “Cash or credit, Mr. President?” “Put it on America’s tab,” he replies coolly. A little far-fetched you think? This past Christmas holiday marks yet another Obama family get- away to tropical paradise. And according to WatchDog.org, this one only cost American tax payers a mere $15,885,585.30. Perhaps this is all assuaged by the fact the economy is booming, our government’s debt is null, it’s waging no wars overseas, and most importantly, it has a definitive budget to fund itself in fiscal year 2015. And as many Obama fanatics put it, at least our community-organizing president hasn’t taken as many vacation days as our ignorant, Texas-loving president, Mr. George W. Bush. According to FactCheck.org, as of September 1, 2014, Obama had taken only “125 full or partial days” compared to Bush’s beefy 407 at the equivalent point in his presidency. Add in the short trips to Hawaii and Africa, and Obama is still significantly shy of Bush. Then does this mean that Obama is off-the-hook? Love him or hate him, it would be hypocritical to attack someone for only copying his or her predecessor. As it turns out, where Obama lags behind in in days off, he wins in extravagance of the trip. FactCheck.org reports that of the 533 vacation days taken by President Bush over his eight years, 490
LegalInsurrection.com
BALL IS LIFE: A year ago, President Obama called ISIS “JV.” Since then, the terrorist group has killed tens of thousands, including three Americans. Meanwhile, the President has golfed on 208 separate occasions since taking office.
were spent at his ranch in Texas, and the remaining 43 days at his parent’s home in Maine. Maine? Isn’t that near Martha’s Vineyard? Maybe Barry-O could answer that one, because his airfare to the Cape and back (to DC) this past summer alone was only $1,164,268.80 according to Judicial Watch. Now I’m not here to bolster Bush’s reputation at the expense of trashing Obama’s, I just find it difficult to rationalize all of the lavish getaways the current administration has taken in these still trying times with an unemployment rate hovering around 5.6% (not counting a significant discouraged working population), government debt held by the public surpassing the size of the American economy, and global terror at an all time high.
The Cornell Review Founded 1984 -> Incorporated 1986
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The Cornell Review is an independent biweekly journal published by students of Cornell University for the benefit of students, faculty, administrators, and alumni of the Cornell community. The Cornell Review is a thoughtful review of campus and national politics from a broad conservative perspective. The Cornell Review, an independent student organization located at Cornell University, produced and is responsible for the content of this publication. This publication was not reviewed or approved by, nor does it necessarily express or reflect the policies or opinions of, Cornell University or its designated representatives. The Cornell Review is published by The Ithaca Review, Inc., a non-profit corporation. The opinions stated in The Cornell Review are those of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or the staff of The Cornell Review. Editorial opinions are those of the responsible editor. The opinions herein are not necessarily those of the board of directors, officers, or staff of The Ithaca Review, Inc. The Cornell Review is distributed free, limited to one issue per person, on campus as well as to local businesses in Ithaca. Additional copies beyond the first free issue are available for $1.00 each. The Cornell Review is a member of the Collegiate Network. The Cornell Review prides itself on letting its writers speak for themselves, and on open discourse. We publish a spectrum of beliefs, and readers should be aware that pieces represent the views of their authors, and not necessarily those of the entire staff. If you have a well-reasoned conservative opinion piece, we hope you will send it to cornellreview@cornell.edu for consideration. Copyright © 2015 The Ithaca Review Inc. All Rights Reserved.
To the point made above, a classic retort is, “if you were a two-term president you would need a vacation at some point too.” Perhaps this is so, but there is a time and place for everything, especially when it comes to taking vacation days away from the Oval Office. Take President Calvin Coolidge (nicknamed “Silent Cal”), for example. He was “out to lunch” for much of his presidency (from 1923-1929) according to George Mason University History News Network. He would often spend a great deal of his day eating, and even sleeping on average of 15 hours per day. Ask anyone on the street who the laziest president in our nation’s history is/was, and I guarantee you less than 1 percent of the sample will respond with “Calvin Coolidge.”
For despite his atrocious amount of time mentally away from the demands of the Oval Office, Coolidge’s presidency was no uneventful period. Context is still imperative to analyzing the scope of his presidency. Upon the death of President Warren Harding in 1923, Coolidge would be the benefactor of a thriving post-war economy, a productive Congress, and would go on to become somewhat decent president. He even managed to, as Mason’s History News Network reports, rekindle diplomatic relations with Mexico in the wake of the 1914 invasion, as well as send relief aid to an earthquake-torn Japan via the Naval Pacific fleet. As mentioned before, for every decision and approach to a situation, there is a time and place. And to President Coolidge’s benefit, a time of peace and prosperity allowed for a more progressive, diplomatic, and lax approach to his executive obligations. Sadly, America is not in the same shape as it was in the heart of the “Roaring Twenties.” Its enemies are still all-powerful, and its economy is still lagging with trepidation. Yet, we have a President who continues to run away to the warm rays of the tropical sun and leave his countrymen to their own devices while he plays golf--utterly unacceptable. But after all, so long as this administration can juxtapose itself with the previous one, the sycophantic media will forever justify Obama’s vacations and laxness. However, we all know that what Obama lacks in personal days taken off, ISIS is making up for in decapitations. Christopher Nowacki is a sophomore in the College of Human Ecology. He can be reached at cmn63@cornell.edu.
Did you know that 45% of the cost of beer is taxes?
Outrageous, right? If you think so you will be in good company at The Cornell Review. Send us an email at cornellreview@cornell.edu. Join us on Tuesdays at 5pm in 158 Goldwin Smith Hall.
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FREE! FREE! FREE!
Three reasons why “free” community college is a bad idea Casey Breznick Editor-in-Chief
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here’s no such thing as a free lunch. There’s also no such thing as free healthcare or free housing. Why should free community college be any different? President Obama’s recently-announced plans to make the first two years of community college free to all will go down in history as one of the worst rhetorical and economic pieces of rubbish in the 21st century. First, consider that community college is basically already free. The average community college tuition is $3,300 a year, but families earning less than $24,000 a year can apply for federal Pell grants that provide up to $5,730 a year in aid. Additionally, community colleges are already heavily government-subsidized: The American Association of Community Colleges reports that more than 60% of community college costs are subsidized by federal, state, and local government aid. Now ask yourself what exact-
that 4-year private institutions like Cornell are doing most of the price-raising while state and community colleges are absorbing the excess demand. The bursting-at-the-seems enrollment demands on state and community colleges is driving up their costs and thus their tuitions. In 1975, 21.9% of Americans aged 25 to 29 had at least a bachelor’s degree. That figure rose to 33.5% in 2013. The number of foreign students attending US universities, a figure that has grown 72% in just fifteen years, also contributes to the overall rising demand for higher education. This enormous rise in demand, especially domestically, could only have been made possible by US government subsidies. By pumping more dollars than natural econoimc foces do into the education market via grants and loans, governments incentivize universities to simply raise tuition. It’s no different from the government subsidizing, say, automobile purchases and car dealers responding by raising the prices of cars. All of this subsidization
argue that the relaxed burden of having to pay for tuition will improve current student graduation rates, but only 20% of full-time students at community college—full-time meaning those who ostensibly are putting maximum effort into college and not outside jobs—earn an associate’s degree in three years, even though it’s only supposed to take two years to get one. In other words, the graduation of full-time students is actually less than the overall graduation rate. Besides, the track record of free government stuff isn’t very laudable. For example, library cards are free, but a recent Renaissance Learning report found that the average college freshmen reads at a 7th grade level. Education from 8th to 12th grades is also free, but apparently those five years spent in school don’t amount to much. Free community college would only extend the failure that is public education in this country for another two years. Rather than lowering their admission standards, real community college reform would come in the form of increas-
“Ezra Colin Cornell, a senior at Tompkins Cortland Community College, says, ‘People don’t have to go to [community college]’ and those who do attend them for free ‘would not work very hard to pass classes.’” ly is the President’s $60 billion plan going to pay for? Next, consider how this plan will actually make community college more expensive. Since 1978, the cost of higher education has increased by over 1100%. This means that $11 today buys the same amount of education $1 did in 1978, which is nearly three times greater than overall inflation over the same time period. There are several reasons why college costs have skyrocketed over the past thirty-five years. Some of these reasons include rising faculty salaries, rising administrative costs, and investments in expensive technology and amenities. While all of these are significant, the single-greatest factor has been the increase in demand for higher education. As increases in demand outpace increases in supply, the price of education must necessarily rise. Yet, it’s not as if every year there are scores of people who can’t attend college at all because there isn’t any room for them; really, it seems almost as if everyone who wants to attend college can in one way or another. So it seems then that demand and supply every year are almost equal. What is really happening is
started with the GI Bill in 1944, and even then colleges responded to the massive subsidies by raising tuitions. There was, however, justification for the GI Bill: namely, the enormous demographic shifts and economic dislocations caused by the Second World War, and the great sacrifices returning soldiers had made. The Great Financial Crisis, though seriously damaging, was nowhere near as severe as the Great Depression or WWII, and today’s millennial generation is nowhere near as deserving. If the government, as proposed, provides $6 billion a year for the next ten years in the community college market, then the government will essentially raise the price of community college by $6 billion a year for the next ten years. This might not be perceived immediately, but it will happen. As politicians always do, President Obama is dangling “free” stuff in front of his party’s electorate by selling out future generations. Finally, consider that community colleges in their current state are a worthless investment. Would making the first two years of community college “free” raise their dismal 22% graduation rates? The populists
ing them. Such reform would also require students receiving federal aid to pursue meaningful studies in business, STEM, or vocational fields. Community college should be the domain of older adults returning to school and young adults seeking job-specific training in nursing, welding, plumbing, accountancy, etc. Even community college students say that community college isn’t for everyone. Ezra Colin Cornell, a senior at Tompkins Cortland Community College, says, “People don’t have to go to [community college]” and those who do attend them for free “would not work very hard to pass classes.” Contrary to what President Obama says, free community college is not “middle-class economics.” Simply going through the motions and coasting through two years of free 13th and 14th grades doesn’t guarantee you a middle-class life in the same way coasting through four years at Cornell doesn’t guarantee you a middle-class life. Casey Breznick is a sophomore in the College of Agricultre and Life Sciences. He can be reached at cb628@cornell.edu.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Free Healthcare (i.e. Obamacare)? $50,000 in taxpayer money per person who gets health insurance under the program
Free Cellphones (i.e. Obamaphones)? $2.2 billion in taxpayer money in 2012 spent on cellphones for 6 million people, half of whom were ineligible for the program
$2.2 billion divided by 6 million recipients comes out to $367 per person... cellphones sell for as little as $20
Oh well.
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Does Diversity Damage or Improve Workplaces? Alexis Cashman Staff writer
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ow diverse are we really? For anyone applying for a job, I’m sure you’ve seen a clause somewhere on the application, probably in tiny print, that mentions the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Since 1964, the United States has pledged to decrease and eventually eliminate discrimination in the workforce and moreover, to increase workplace diversity. But are the organizational policies now in place to achieve this goal actually effective? Do they fall short of expectations? Or worse, do they actively hurt the entire company (including other employees) because they encourage employers to hire unqualified candidates simply to meet a diversity quota? According to a workshop proposal written by Pamela Tolbert and Esta Bigler, Cornell University’s ILR Labor and Employment Law Director, “little evidence exists… on the efficacy of such practices or on the conditions that may moderate their impact.” The next step to ensuring that workplace discrimination is reduced is to analyze several of these organizational policies in context, and discuss the pros and cons of structures that may or may not make the workplace a fair place. In August of 2014, an article published by Tech Republic summarized some incriminating statistics on workplace diversity in major tech companies. Google, Apple, and Facebook all reported that only about 30% of their employees are female, and more than 50% of all employees are white. Some major companies have gone to great lengths to attempt to diversify the workplace; for example, Sodexo tied 25% of top executives’ bonuses to diversity goals. Moreover, as written in an article published by Fast Company, these companies will begin to face a major
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supply and demand problem: as employers search for more diverse, qualified candidates, labor demand will rise as the supply remains the same. It is still true that 80% of college graduates are white, and that of those graduates with computer science degrees, less than 20% are black or Hispanic. By trying to simply meet a quota by making workplace diversity a human resources problem, employers put themselves at risk of severe inefficiency, both financially and in their attempt to diversify. If employers focus on talent acquisition without an inclusive internal culture favorable to diversity, it will simply create costly employee turnover, amongst other problems. Without enough qualified candidates, a problem inherent in socioeconomic and educational realms, employers would be hiring candidates that may simply not be up to par. So what are employers doing to try to avoid these problems, and are their methods working? For June 2015, a workshop is being planned in the ILR School Conference Center in New York City unlike any previous conferences that have explored social inequality. Pursuant to the workshop proposal, the “focus on studies or organizational practices and inequality in the workplace is very different” from other social studies on diversity. During this workshop, managers, analysts, and lawyers will participate in discussion integrating law, organizational policy, and current HR practices to gather, for the first time, data dedicated solely to understanding whether or not efforts to increase diversity are performing their proper function. It’s about time. Alexis Cashman is a sophomore in the School of Industry and Labor Relations. She can be reached at arc269@cornell. edu.
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Aim for it, regardless of whether or not you understand it.
7 out of 10 college graduates in 2013 had student loan debt $33,000 was the average amount of student debt in 2014 70% of students take on debt $1.2 trillion is the total amount of U.S. student debt 40 million Americans have student loan debt DEBT DEBACLE: Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) has a solution to the student debt crisis: Let student debtholders file for bankruptcy. Moral hazard, anyone?
Problem? Data from various sources, including Project on Student Debt, CNN Money, and the Wall St. Journal
Democrat Bankruptcy Bill a Bankrupt Solution for Student Loan Fiasco Austen Rattray Staff writer
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ecently, Representative John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) introduced a bill to Congress that would allow individuals to declare bankruptcy without the fear of lenders collecting on their debt. Under the provisions of the bill, which was introduced on Jan. 6, 2015, a court would decide whether or not the creditor had just cause to demand payment. Rep. Conyers hopes to give some relief to those who are al-
For example, someone who is bankrupt suffers a blow to his credit rating. In most cases, this penalty lasts either seven or ten years and results in trouble receiving new lines of credit from banks. Some employers do not consider potential applicants if they have a poor credit rating. Proponents of the bill argue that under current rules lenders can take advantage of those with student loans as they are filing for bankruptcy. During this period of time, debtors are most vulnerable because they do not have the means of pay-
minds of young people mired in debt.In fact, although Rep. Conyers wants to help recent college graduates, he is, in fact, doing the opposite. If the bill were ratified, it would overall negatively impact those with student debt. At first glance, the bill seeks to bail students out with the safe option of bankruptcy. The bill, however, encourages debtors to accumulate student debt before declaring bankruptcy because of the immunity it provides. This is a classic example of moral hazard, whereby the
“The bill, however, encourages debtors to accumulate student debt before declaring bankruptcy because of the immunity it provides.” ready struggling with repaying their student debt. At the moment, the amount of student debt in the United States is $1.2 trillion. This sum of money is larger than the nation’s credit card debt, which stands at $883 billion. This amount creates crippling effects on the U.S. economy such as fewer new small businesses and decreased home ownership. The benefit of filing for bankruptcy is that a portion of or sometimes all of a debt is nullified. For individuals with outstanding loans, filing for bankruptcy removes the burden of having to worry about repaying their debt. Unfortunately, this action does not come without consequences.
ing back the amount of money demanded by their creditors. Rep. Conyers believes that lenders demand too much from students at an unjust time. A significant negative aspect of this bill is that it encourages those with student debt to file for bankruptcy without knowing the full consequences of the action. As Shane Lewis ’18 believes, “I have several loans so I would definitely be happy if the bill passed because then I would not have to pay back several thousand dollars if I were to file for bankruptcy.” This bill’s provision would create a large incentive to file for bankruptcy because of the immediate relief it offers. This short-term thinking clouds the
protection provided by the law incentivizes the bad behavior it is trying to alleviate. Thus, it would create a new standard to not fear bankruptcy. The thought of thousands of recent graduates with abysmal credit ratings struggling to find new lines of credit and work is frightening. Even more frightening are the consequences of increasing student debt on the nation’s economy. In order to keep this nation’s youth away from a grim future, this bill should be shut down in the House. Austen Rattray is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at ar547@cornell.edu.
A HISTORY OF HUMILIATION: PAST ISSUES
LIVE BY THE PEN
Islam was not the only religion targeted by the pens of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists.
“We Must Hide Charlie Hebdo!”
DIE BY THE SWORD
Charlie Hebdo Vive La Liberté Andres Silletto/Text Steven Lai/Design
“If Mohammed came back...” “I am the Prophet, idiot!” “Shut your face, infidel!”
“One shouldn’t make fun of!” A satirical depiction of popular French film “Intouchables.”
The Reply: 01/14/15. “All Are Forgiven.” “I am Charlie.”
It is safe to say that writing about the Charlie Hebdo massacre is difficult. First, and foremost, it is a harrowing event that raises serious questions about the very state of humanity today, no matter what beliefs you might hold. In the same time, it brings out once again the great headache of modern generations: what public opinion perceives as the never-ending, quixotic and almost undefinable conflict between the West and the Middle East. Terrorist attacks keep happening, and we keep getting used to them. We condemn them and feel outraged, sometimes hypocritically, because they mostly happen far away from home. This time, nevertheless, the nature of the event makes the threat feel more universal and close than ever. Regarding the event itself, it comes down to this: masked gunmen broke into the satirical journal’s newsroom, executed eleven of its members--among whom were its most prominent figures--, and fled the scene screaming “We avenged the prophet Mohammed” and “We killed Charlie Hebdo.” The assailants were later identified as Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, two Muslim extremists that had attempted to recruit young people to fight the jihad in Syria in the past. What does this event implicate? Two extremists killed eleven journalists because the former felt insulted by the latter’s drawings. Charlie Hebdo, as most know by now, is a far-left tabloid that attacked everyone indiscriminately, especially when it was about religion. In addition to cartoons featuring Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, the magazine has depicted Hitler kissing a rabbi and has graphically accused Catholic priests of pedophilia, among other risqué publications. The last thing Charlie Hebdo can be accused of is of intentionally discriminating against Muslims: it was sued by most religious organizations, including the Muslims, but it was always victorious because the French justice system has always protected freedom of expression. Then why the preferred treatment when the terrorists are so-called “defending Islam?” Across the world, people refused to back Charlie Hebdo by creating the phrase “I Am Not Charlie,” as opposed to the original motto of support and sympathy, “I Am Charlie.” Their claim is that the paper was insulting to all Muslims and that they should not have messed with people who killed them if they knew about the imminent threat. To pretend that this event was not so grim for hardcore supporters of Muslims gets even more absurd when you consider one of the cops brutally executed was also Muslim. Have the “I Am Not Charlies” mourned Ahmed Merabet? No, because he is a cop first and foremost. He certainly does not fit the liberal anti-establishment rhetoric, in which terrorists are “freedom fighters” and this massacre is an appropriate response to the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the invasions in the Middle East. Now, being straight-forward, I believe that there are two great implications to this massacre. The first is that no matter how heinous and spiteful Charlie Hebdo’s drawings are, they should and must exist in order to strengthen freedom of expression. If you kill someone because of a joke or a drawing, you are wrong. If you choose not to abide by the rules of your country, and come from elsewhere pretending to impose your own rules, you are wrong. The second is that this massacre adds to the list of reasons of why we are sick of having to deal with Muslim terrorists. There is obviously a serious problem that can only be solved inside the Muslim community. However, this problem will not be fixed anytime soon, simply because the societies that produce these individuals are just too backwards and incompatible with the rest of the modern world. It will take too long for these people to realize by themselves that they are the ones who are wrong, just as the Christians and the Jews have been wrong many times but without wanting to erase all the non-believers off this earth. It is very sad to think that liberals in the West do not want to acknowledge that they are defending people who practice everything they despise. How can you stand by the Islamic fundamentalists who slut-shame women, stone them to death for committing adultery, and force to be totally dependent to their husbands, among other heinous rules under sharia law? It’s more than just an inconvenient truth, but only a few are beginning to recognize it. Left-wing comedian Bill Maher, for example, has finally decided to think for himself and stop all the liberal nonsense about how sweet and innocent these people are. However, do you know what really is the saddest part of all this? The place and the people that gave us modern civilization, that have one of the most beautiful and extensive histories and cultures in the world, are now subjected to the evil of having to deal with the lowest scum that sells itself as salvation in the name of the forsaken prophet. In the meantime, we, as the West, not only must prevail, but we also must keep standing our ground of freedom against these fake Muslims. We must, more than ever, become allies of everyone who believes in freedom. I would love to close this article with a quote from Stéphane “Charb” Charbonnier, one of the assassinated cartoonists. This quote, paraphrasing Mexican revolutionary Zapata, sums up the courage that many of us would like to have defending our freedom and that Charb held on to until the day of his death: “I am not afraid of retaliation. I have no kids, no wife, no car, no credit. It perhaps sounds a bit pompous, but I prefer to die standing than living on my knees.” Rest in peace. You died for all of us.
MAJOR ISLAMIST TERRORIST ATTACKS IN WESTERN EUROPE, 2011-2015 Frankfurt, GERMANY Mar. 2, 2011: Arid Uka guns down 2 US airmen at Frankfurt airport.
Toulouse and Montauban, FRANCE
Mar. 11, 2012: Members of Jewish community and military gunned down. 30 hour siege.
Woolwich, BRITAIN
May 22, 2013: British Army Fusilier Lee Rigby is stabbed to death by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who claimed to avenge the killing of Muslims by British soldiers.
Brussels, BELGIUM May 24, 2014: Mehdi Nemmouche, a French national with links to ISIS, opens fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium
Paris, FRANCE Jan. 7, 2015: Gunmen open fire on Charlie Hebdo offices. Information courtesy of The Economist.
THE CONVERSATION Cornellians reply “It would have been ideal to have Obama there at the peace rally, but I understand for security reasons him not attending. Though there is no excuse for Biden or John Kerry not attending.”
“Yes, they were provocative, but it was well in the lines of any nation that supports free speech.” Patrick Marcel Adamkiewicz ‘18
Patrick Hartigan ‘18
“The incident was so tragic, something beyond most of us students’ understanding. It makes you realize the blessing that artistic freedom is.” Beatrice Jin ‘18
Around the world
“I'd rather die standing than live on my knees.” Charb, 1967-2015 “There are tensions abroad where people don’t understand our attachment to the freedom of speech.” François Hollande
“Germany wants peaceful coexistence of Muslims and members of other religions.” Angela Merkel
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Stanford Students Obtain Admissions Records Laura Gundersen Managing Editor
the recommendation letters written by their high school teachers and counselors will all be turned over to the students, who can do what they choose with them.” One email that was sent out by The Fountain Hopper begins, “Below is the Founhink back to your days as a high school senior. It’s likely you were scrambling tain Hopper’s tried and tested Five Step PlanTM for getting hold of your admissions with college applications, trying to work your way through the dreaded Com- records, including qualitative and quantitative reviews by your admissions readers. mon App, and, of course, deciding on which school to attend once accepted. Requesting your admissions documents is a simple 5 step process that takes less Have you ever wondered how the admissions process actually works? What than 5 minutes.” these people behind the scenes do and say about you and how on earth schools The newsletter goes on to provide very clear instructions on exactly where to go choose their students? It turns out this information no longer has to be a mystery. to fill out the application form, what to write, and how to submit it. At the end of Recently, a group of anonymous Stanford students who run an independent one email there is even a “Frequently Asked Questions” section. email newsletter called The Fountain Hopper sent to their subscribers step-by-step The Fountain Hopper’s impact has been impressive—their story has been covinstructions detailing how to request access to their admissions files from the uni- ered by The New York Times, Fox News, Buzzfeed, and more, and there are likely versity registrar. over a thousand students at Stanford set to follow their lead and request admissions That’s right: under Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) students documents. According to Fountain Hopper staff, within 24 hours of sending the are allowed access to their education records, including information related to the emails out, over 700 people had clicked the links to the forms. college admissions decision-making process. As reported by The New York Times, It is likely that, because of the success of many Stanford students in obtaining “[T]he written assessments that admissions officers gave of applicants, the numeri- their records, this means that any student, attending any university, can do the cal scores those officers assigned them on a range of factors and, in some cases, even same. So what are the likely effects of this potentially large-scale infiltration of the secret world of admissions? Undoubtedly, we will gain insight into what exactly colleges seek in applicants. Admissions records likely contain admission officials’ written thoughts about applicants. If more students request and share their records, there is the potential to see trends in admissions that we may not expect. For example, how many students were chosen to fit a quota or something similar based more so on background, race, or gender than merit? It’s hard to say. There is a catch to this process, however. The law only guarantees documents to students from schools where the students were accepted, so if you want to know why you were denied from your dream school, you may be out of luck. If these requests for student admission information were to become commonplace, there could be an effect on the severity or honesty of those who write about students, an arguably dangerous consequence for multiple reasons. First, would high school officials write in a more sugarcoated fashion, knowing that the students who know them well would likely read their comments in the future? Would admissions officers tone down their comments? This could paint an inaccurate picture of a student. There have been concerns that Stanford could be planning to delete the files of those who didn’t request them, as it is illegal under FERPA to delete requested files. The Fountain Hopper addressed those who did not submit requests to see their files, writing, “We’ve heard loud noises suggesting Admissions is planning Casey Breznick / The Cornell Review to permanently remove every matriculated student’s admissions documents. This means you may not be able to get your records COMMON SIGHT: In Ithaca’s downtown Commons area, construction has been stalled and delayed on numerous occasions. Right now, construction is halted due to the winter weather. Cones, fences, even if you really want them, because they might be permadeletand construction debris have become an unseemly fixture of this iconic Ithaca location. ed.” This idea that the institution would fear the leaking of this information is disconcerting, to say the least. “Institutions of higher education maintain different retention policies when it comes to admissions records,” Joel Malina, Cornell Vice President for University Relations said. “Cornell, for example, has long maintained a policy of not retaining admissions committee notes for matriculating students. Given the variations in institutional policy, it is difficult to assess the potential effects of the Stanford case.” From front page Transparency in the college admissions process is crucial to students’ understanding of the system and the prevention of cor“[Myrick] has set aside the Myrick’s part, in that he did not reasonable excuse for cutting ruption behind the scenes. If the students themselves aren’t refailed dogma of the past in obtain realistic estimates from the jobs. viewing their own information, who is? order to concentrate on grow- contractors about the length Despite Myrick’s otherwise
T
Odd Bedfellows: Local GOP Supports Myrick, Dems Balk
ing the city, and that is the [exact] mentality that our mayor needs to have.” This unprecedented support from Republicans for a politician who touts himself as a progressive Democrat is thanks to Myrick’s pro-growth economic policies--namely his approval of projects to build high occupancy housing downtown and in Collegetown. Despite Myrick’s success in housing development, another development project--rebuilding the commons--has been a source of heavy criticism for Myrick. The project is way behind schedule, as it was supposed to be finished this summer, and optimistically it will be finished by the middle of next summer. The project’s costs will be more than initially estimated, up 58% from $9.5 million to $15 million. This has been seen as a simple lack of foresight on
of the project, which speaks to his youth and inexperience as a politician. However, certain complications occurred that were not his fault, like faulty city maps of utilities which caused several pipes to burst during construction. Another crowning achievement in Myrick’s eyes was his elimination of the $3.5 million budget deficit he inherited. He did this through cuts across the board – including politically-unsavory in the fire and police departments. Myrick’s budget cut the positions of four firefighters and nine police officers according to a Cornell Daily Sun article on the subject. In my opinion, these cuts were justified. There are still plenty of cops strolling around Collegetown with nothing better to do than bust a fraternity annex party. In Myrick’s opinion cutting four fire fighters is a small price to pay for a balanced budget, which is a fairly
impressive achievements and pro-growth vision, the mayor unfortunately has also enacted Bloomberg-esque restrictions on personal freedoms in the Commons. In the “inner-T” of the Commons—an outside area--smoking is now banned.. Smoking a cigarette outside is not a health risk to anyone but the smoker if passers-by steer clear of the smoker (which is easy to do in the Commons); therefore, that right should not be restricted. Though there are a few disagreements I may have with his policies, Mayor Svante Myrick has been a surprisingly good mayor as he has helped Ithaca blossom into a more modern, productive, and affordable city. Benjamin Rutkovsky is a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He can be reached at bmr88@ cornell.edu.
Laura Gundersen is a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She can be reached at lcg63@cornell.edu.
Harvard Sex Ban Casey Breznick Editor-in-Chief
E
ffective Feb. 5, Harvard professors can no longer have sex with Harvard undergraduate students. The specially-drafted Faculty of Arts and Sciences Committee on Sexual Misconduct Policy and Procedures clarified the university’s policy after spending nearly a year consulting with faculty and students about the nature of “relationships of unequal status.” It’s hard to say who are the winners and losers here, so I won’t try, lest I get myself in trouble. What is for certain is that the natural reaction anyone reading this announcement
had was “So you mean to say this was OK before?” Apparently it was. But will this ban actually amount to anything? Of course not. If a professor and student have amorous feelings for each other, they’re going to engage in whatever activities they want to regardless of what Harvard administrators or Alison Johnson, the history professor who led the committee, decree. Even at Harvard, love will find a way. Casey Breznick is a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He can be reached at cb628@cornell. edu.
9
GOP 2016 Hopefuls Anti-establishment Libertarian
From the Review Blog
Visit blog.thecornellreview.com for more blog posts by the staff of The Cornell Review
Bottoms Up: Dartmouth Bans Hard Liquor on Campus Casey Breznick Editor-in-Chief
Rand Paul, Kentucky Senator
Marco Rubio, Florida Senator
Ted Cruz, Texas Senator
Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin
Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey Jeb Bush, Former Governor of Florida
Establishment Moderate
All Things in Moderation: 2016 Republicans Too? John Pedro Staff writer
A
s the presidential sweepstakes begin to heat up and the prospective Republican field takes shape, a series of candidates considered “moderate” have begun to cast long shadows over the process: former governors Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and current New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. In the past Romney has vigorously denied his interest in running for president—it would be his third time. Earlier this year, he appeared to be seriously contemplating a campaign, evidenced by speeches to donors and party insiders, and a series of public events in Mississippi. However, he announced in late January that he would not be running for President. This is probably best for Romney and the Republican Party. Although a talented executive and experienced leader, Romney’s political skills have long been suspect. Bush, the younger brother of former president George
Bush, surprised many with his early declaration of interest in running for president. Bush, the brother and son of former presidents, is considered a formidable contender. He has demonstrated his seriousness by resigning from all corporate and non-profit board involvements. Yet even more shocking than Bush’s announcement have been the recent actions of former Massachusetts Governor and 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney. Rounding out the trio of moderate, “establishment” Republicans is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. After sweeping to reelection a year ago he was considered a presidential frontrunner, but “Bridgegate” dampened his approval ratings. Although he has been cleared of wrongdoing, the scandal has been damaging to Christie because it reinforced the negative assumptions about his blunt, argumentative political style. All three governors are considered “establishment” candidates. That is, they have support from and friends amongst
Continued on page 10
thus making them beholden to this on-campus hard liquor ban. A common concern risen by those opposed artmouth College is enacting a camto or skeptical of Hanlon’s ban is that students pus-wide ban on hard liquor–-that is, any desiring hard liquor will still find ways to obdrinks that are more than 15% alcohol. tain it, but now under even more dangerous cirIn a speech delivered to students and faculty cumstances. For Dartmouth students in the isooutlining the ban and other new policies, Dart- lated Hanover, New Hampshire, there is little mouth president Phillip J. Hanlon cited the sul- elsewhere to go for social activities and drinklied reputation of the college due to students’ ing other than the fraternities. While fraterni“extreme behaviors.” In the past several months, ties at Dartmouth and elsewhere are certainly Dartmouth found itself in the news often due to not extremely safe environments, they do offer numerous incidents and allegations of student some benefits: large crowds that increase the misconduct, including sexual assault and ex- probability someone will notice and stop illicit treme levels of hazing. or dangerous behavior; there are usually “sober Hanlon also announced plans for a new monitors” keeping watchful eyes over parties; freshmen residential community that will be and first responders and emergency services ready for newly-admitted students incoming know these locathis fall. These six tions well. Stuhousing units will dents still desirconnect freshmen ing hard liquor with faculty and will inevitably graduate students find ways to obearly on, and fostain it, say critics, ter an on-campus by going off camcommunity among pus, which could freshmen. In other cause increased words, it seems this drunk driving, “most transformaand drinking in tive item” is really smaller, private a measure to comgroups with no bat the appeal of sober monitors Dartmouth’s powor first-responderful Greek culture, ers close by. especially its noDespite some toriously raucous skepticism surfraternities. rounding the The power of hard liquor this ban lies in the ban’s effectivefact that all of Dart- DRY DARTMOUTH: Most agree a hard liquor ban will not amount to ness, the basic mouth’s fraternity much, but universities have yet to find workable solutions to cut down truth remains houses are located high-risk drinking behavior among students. Darmouth student Sandor that fraternities Farkas suggests fraternities serve “more controllable forms of alcohol, on school property, such as kegs.”
D
Continued on page 11
#CarryThatWeight: Alleged Coumbia Rapist Speaks Out Laura Gundersen Managing Editor “I love you,” writes Columbia student to her alleged rapist weeks after she claimed he attacked her. Emma Sulkowicz, who started the “Carry that Weight” campaign at Columbia Univeristy, lugged a mattress across mattres in protest of her alleged rapist’s presence on campus, and has inspired women nationwide to follow her lead. Alleged rapist Paul Nungesser recently spoke out against Sulkowicz’s claims, citing friendly exchanges between the two after the alleged rape. A Facebook message from Sulkowicz to Nungesser from August reads: “I feel like we need to have some real time…we still haven’t really had a paul-emma chill sesh since summmmerrrr.” When Nungesser reached out to wish Sulkowicz a happy
birthday, she responded, “I love you Paul. Where are you?!?!?!?!” The two have different accounts about what happened during the alleged assault. Sulkowicz claims that the occurrence started as a consensual
Casey Breznick / The Cornell Review
CORNELL CARRIES: Inspired by Sulkowicz, four female Cornell students carried a mattress across campus last semester.
hook-up and became violent, while Nungesser says that it was entirely consensual. Two days after the alleged assault, Sulkowicz accepted a Facebook invitation from Nungesser to a party. “I reached out to Paul after he raped me,” Sulkowicz told the Daily News. “I wanted to talk with him. I wanted to continue our friendship and ‘talk things out.’ This is hard for anyone who hasn’t been raped by a close friend and lover to understand, but many people do not call the police after they have been raped.” Columbia found Nungesser “not responsible” after Sulkowicz reported him later that year. Laura Gundersen is a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She can be reached at lcg63@cornell.edu.
10
Je Suis Charlie... Je Suis Nigeria?
Murderous Rampages of Nigerian Islamic Terrorist Group Boko Haram Go Unnoticed by Western Media Abhinav Saikia Staff writer
D
uring the month of January, the world’s attention fixated on France and the attack on Charlie Hebdo. The terrorist strike was not merely an act of violence against cartoonists and cops; it was a calculated blow against the very ideal of freedom of speech. In response, millions of people gathered in Paris to participate in anti-terrorism rallies to protest killing in the name of religion. It was an incredible message of solidarity and unity in a time of grief, and the global media focused most of its attention on the events and emotions around this tragedy. The deaths of 12 cartoonists and several law enforcement officials completely immersed the global media into the tragedy, leaving little room for coverage of events elsewhere. The worldwide community also exhausted its supply of compassion and interest in international affairs
the events in Paris. But where are the hashtags or messages of unity for Nigeria? Rather, there is an overwhelming ignorance about the events transpiring in the war-torn region, which by no means is part of the first-world. Boko Haram is the bloodiest Islamic fundamentalist force in Africa, rivaling ISIS in its levels of brutality, but most of us have never heard of the group because it provides little international threat, at least to the Western World. On Jan. 3, militants attacked the town of Baga, as well as 15 surrounding villages and a nearby military base in their largest attack to date. According to Amnesty International, satellite images “show devastation of catastrophic proportions in two towns, one of which was almost wiped off the map in the space of four days.” The majority of victims were predictably women, children and the elderly, unable to flee from the wholesale destruction. This was merely the climax of a campaign of terror conducted by Boko Haram ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections. A week before, a ten-year-old suicide bomber wreaked havoc at the commercial center of Maiduguri. In 2014, the organization first captured the attention of a previously indifferent global media when it abducted 276 young schoolgirls. There was an outpour of outrage and condemnation, but little-to-no actual aid offered to the beleaguered Nigerian government, itself plagued by corruption and incompetency. Through its reign of terror, Boko Haram has gained control of swathes of Nigeria equivalent to the size of Belgium, and has established ties with ISIS and Al Qaeda. The US and other Western countries have only recently recognized it as a terrorist organization, but this is the extent of Western intervention. Supportive
“By body count, the tragedy in these remote Nigerian villages far outstripped the events in Paris. But where are the hashtags or messages of unity for Nigeria?” because of this attack. In consequence, a far deadlier terrorizing campaign in an ongoing conflict in Nigeria has gone criminally under-reported. While #Jesuischarlie trended around the globe, a terrorist faction known as Boko Haram conducted large scale massacres resulting in the deaths of 2000 innocent civilians in the span of a week, but has gone largely under the radar. Why, you might ask? The answer is unfortunately quite simple: events in the Western world take precedence over those elsewhere in the global media. Let’s face the hard facts. By body count, the tragedy in these remote Nigerian villages far outstripped
And Then There Were Two... GOP Moderates
words and condemnations will do little to alleviate the situation. There is no clear solution to this problem. Nigerian politicians are struggling to impose their authority during these times of terror. Who will believe their promises for security and peace when so much of the countryside is engulfed in perpetual destruction? Some are advocating for harsh countermeasures against Boko Haram, which has merely resulted in more fighting and suffering as human-rights violations run rife. This is a war fueled by inter-religious hatred, ignorance, and incompetence. The fighters of Boko Haram are determined to eradicate Western influence in Nigeria and neighboring regions. The Western response has been lukewarm to say the least, and the Nigerian authorities are powerless to stop this conflict from escalating. Any act of violence or oppression that violates basic human rights in the West is met with strong condemnation and swift action. The attack on Charlie Hebdo was condemned as an attack on freedom of speech. Yet, when such events or oppression occur elsewhere, our proactivity peters out. The Western world is largely unwilling to confront the complete absence of this fundamental human right in a majority of Islamic countries. Killings in the name of religion and terror in places like Nigeria are essentially relegated to second-tier news events because they lack the publicity and media coverage afforded to tragedies like Charlie Hebdo. As members of Western society, we must open our eyes to the injustices and tragedies occurring worldwide, not just in a myopic manner that purveys only the Western world. Abhinav Saikia is a sophomore in the College of Engineering. He can be reached at as2586@cornell. edu.
Reviewer Climbs Mt. Kilimanjaro
Continued from page 9 the Republican Party’s donor class, and are generally considered plausible Presidents who could appeal to independents in the general election. However, they are only one subset in what will surely be a crowded Republican field, and the presence of more than one in the race could foster division amongst establishment members. This would create an opening on the right for a more conservative candidate— perhaps Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker or Kentucky Senator Rand Paul—to clinch the nomination. Another scenario could see a candidate with one foot in both camps, such as Florida Senator Marco Rubio, earn the party’s nomination. Critics from within the GOP point out that the party often nominates supposedly electable moderates who go on to lose the general election. Examples of this include Bob Dole in 1996, John McCain in 2008, and Mitt Romney in 2012. This prevailing notion could prove troublesome for
Bush or Christie, and clearly was for Romney. Bush has instant name recognition, a massive network of dedicated supporters and donors, and a strong political base in one of the most important electoral states in the country, Florida. These will surely work in his favor. However, he also is burdened by the history of his last name, so-called “Bush fatigue,” scrutiny about his corporate involvement with InnoVida and Lehmann Brothers, and has been out of public office since 2006. Christie faces questions about how his attitude will play with voters outside of New Jersey; he has become a YouTube sensation for his confronting of citizens at town hall meetings and hecklers on the campaign trail. Despite these negatives, he is a fresh face in national politics and has demonstrated crossover appeal with independents and moderate democrats that would be a boon if he were to run in the general election. If Bush and Romney were both in the field it could’ve
had the effect of squeezing out Christie. Christie is indeed the most direct beneficiary of Romney’s decision. It also remains to be seen how Republican primary voters will react to a third Bush running for President. However, with nearly two dozen possible candidates, there will be no lack of choice come Iowa and New Hampshire. A moderate candidacy in 2016 will be premised in some part on the ability to defeat Hilary Clinton. Due to this, the status of Clinton’s run and her showing in the Democratic primaries will affect the campaigns of any moderate candidate. Although Romney has decided against a run, the role of moderates’ and Romney’s presences looming over the campaign will create an interesting dynamic within the Republican nominating cycle. John Pedro is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at jmp488@cornell.edu.
Laura Gundersen/The Cornell Review
REVIEW ‘ROUND THE WORLD: The Cornell Review’s own Laura Gundersen climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro this past January while on a charity trip with Mountains for Moms. The charity raises money to pay for operations for women with obstetric fistula, a childbirth injury. Check out what’s in her left hand.
Students Unite to #FighttheFee Dartmouth Goes Dry, Cornell Next? Continued from front page
made it unclear as to whether or not any part of the fee would go to servicing this deficit. The deficit originated, Skorton admitted, due to mistaken administrative actions, including those of his own.
Student Outrage Gets Political: #FighttheFee Student reaction to the fee has been writhe with indignation. Hours after the announcement, a Facebook event titled “#FighttheFee” calling for a protest in Willard Straight Hall on Monday, Feb. 9 (The Cornell Review went to publish on the Friday before) had over 500 slated to attend. A picture posted in the group showed a donation jar with a sign on it reading “Help Skorton buy back his soul.” All students, naturally, are outraged at yet another increase in the cost of attending Cornell. Since the 2009-10 school year, Cornell’s tuition has increased by nearly 25%, making for a 4.8% yearly increase that widely outstrips inflation over the same period. Many have also observed the political nature of this fee. Many students were quick to actually liken the fee to a tax, prompting The Cornell Review to come up with the acronym: Student Health Insurance Tax, or S.H.I.T. One poster on the public Facebook event, James JuSeong Kim ‘16, wrote: “Literally what Skorton is telling us to do is help out those in need, but Its [sic] just bullshit. Why do we, the ones who are not even using the plan obligated to pay the originally unrequired fee just to help those that we dont [sic] even know...?” Opposition to the student health fee has united campus conservatives, liberals, and apolitical types in a way rarely seen at Cornell. It is, however, curious to note liberal students’ outrage, given the clear analogy between the Affordable Care Act’s tax on those who do not own health insurance and Cornell’s student health fee imposed upon those who do not purchase SHIP. While there are clear distinctions between Obamacare and Cornell’s case--one being that attending Cornell is voluntary--the underlying principle is mutual: taking from some to pay for others in the name of the “common good.” Only hypocrisy can explain the student who supports Obamacare or socialized medicine but challenges the student health fee. The thinking is undoubtedly: “Redistribution of wealth is great and fair so long as it’s not my wealth being redistributed.” Indignation over the fee also narrows in on the secretive decision-making process behind its implementation. “The student health fee is another egregious breech of students’ trust by the university. It was done behind closed doors, without student input, and with a purpose to essentially tax students to pay off a deficit incurred largely due to the administration’s mismanagement and fiscal irresponsibility,” said Cornell College Republicans Chairman Brandon Thompson ‘16. Thompson likened the fee to “modern-day taxation without representation.” A request for comment went unanswered by Cornell Democrats president Eric Pesner. While all these grievances are justified, student outrage should be directed too at Skorton and the administration’s refusal to reform Gannett via cost-cutting and quality-of-care improvements. At the SA meeting, Murphy stated there are no plans to let go extra staff hired in 2010 to cope with rising demands on Gannett due to a H1N1 virus scare and the cluster of suicides that occurred that year. Murphy linked this increase in staff to the deficit that exists on Gannett’s books today. Yet, even with the increased staff, most students who have ever visited Gannett for medical attention will relate stories about its inefficiency, byzantine bureaucracy, and low-quality care. What private business would insist on operating under such a model? The resolve not to actually fix Gannett coupled with an initiative to raise money for its ongoing inefficiency raises a large concern regarding to how this money will be spent. Skorton
and Murphy say it will go to “operation costs,” a term which can amount to nearly anything. Can Cornellians at least count on their $350 actually going to actual healthcare providers and services? Or will it go to bureaucrats and paperwork- pushers? Skorton and the administration are making it highly unclear.
Students’ Best Interest? The student health fee is ostensibly meant to subsidize the healthcare costs of students who themselves or whose families cannot afford health insurance, as evidenced by Skorton’s references to the “common good” and students’ “inequitable access to care.” Yet, during the aforementioned SA meeting, Skorton spoke at length about how students often postpone seeking or deter themselves from seeking medical care in Ithaca, whether at Gannett or Cayuga Medical Center, because of cost considerations. Introducing a $350 flat-fee and $10 copays that guarantee students health services while at Cornell, Skorton argued, will prevent such behavior. This type of self-deterrence is probably more of a few-extreme-cases situation rather than a widespread-norm issue at Cornell, but it is an argument that makes sense. Regardless, it flies in the face of the originally stated purpose of this fee as a cost subsidizer for uninsured students. Now, all of a sudden, it also serves the insured student population, and encourages them to seek additional medical care. This provides further strains on Gannett, which is already under enormous strain according to Skorton and Murphy. This strain is why it needs the revenue stream from the fees in the first place. In other words, it does not appear the administration has clearly worked out its communication strategy, or perhaps even its underlying strategy here. It is desperately trying to appease all elements on campus and tack every positive spin on the fee into its talking points. Right now, it is a befuddled mess. Vice President Murphy is reportedly going to hold a series of meetings in the semester to speak more about the fee, and perhaps then some of these issues will be sorted out. But that’s quite unlikely. Ethical Considerations Beyond the ethical considerations of a feehike and redistributing students’ and student families’ wealth, investigation into the whole matter has revealed additional questionable aspects surrounding the student health fee. In September 2013, the Cornell Daily Sun reported that Gannett was attempting to raise $18.3 million in donations in order to help fund a $55 million renovation and expansion to be completed in 2017. In the original Sun article, Murphy is cited saying that the funding goal would need to be met by January 2015 in order for the project to move forward as scheduled. There has since been no update on the nature of the donation campaign and whether the goal was met. Pointing this out is not to insinuate student health fees will go to Gannett renovation and expansion costs, but the timing of the announcement health fee--February 2015--and the expiration of what might have been a failed campaign that needed to be successful by January 2015 is highly coincidental. It also adds to the general worry that the fee, or a portion of it, will go to non-health services costs. The timing of this announcement, however, might have been influenced by another consideration. Skorton in the SA meeting suggested he made this controversial decision so that incoming university president Elizabeth Garrett would not have to. This raises the question why the administration would introduce this fee, or any measure, knowing it would be so poorly received to the degree that it did not want a new president announcing it and tarnishing her ability to foster amicable relations with the student body. According to an anonymous source, the administration notified select members of the SA
Continued from page 9 and the students who attend their parties–at Dartmouth and across the nation–have not made any progress in reforming their image as raucous binge-drinkers. The hard liquor ban comes on the heels of Dartmouth’s Inter-fraternity Council unanimous vote last fall to end the pledging process. The vote was most likely motivated by the media storm whipped up by a Dartmouth alum’s tellall book Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy, which detailed the disgusting and humiliating initiation rituals he voluntarily underwent to become a brother at the school’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Perhaps one of the most disturbing incidents he discusses in the book is the “fratty baptism”: swimming in a kiddie pool “full of vomit, urine, fecal matter, semen and rotten food products.” Naturally, Lohse’s book was just as challenged as it was touted; he could have entirely made it up, or at least embellished to sell copies. But it did create enormous mainstream media coverage, popular outcry, and embarrassment for the otherwise sleepily tuckedaway Dartmouth campus. Regardless of its truth value, it remains un-debunked, and it undoubtedly created a major headache for Dartmouth’s Board, trustees, administration, and, most importantly, its high-rolling donors. Sandor Farkas, a Dartmouth student affiliated with the Dartmouth Review, told The Cornell Review, “While this affair may seem to be the result of various behavioral problems among students, the truth is that a small group of students, bitter for various reasons, triggered the scandal-seeking media to turn their eyes on Dartmouth. In turn, the Board
recognized that bad publicity could lead to decreased donations, funding, grants, and other financial repercussions.” It seems most people, including many students believe that there is ample reason to be skeptical of hard liquor ban and similar measures on college campuses, and ample reason to support fraternity reform. The problem is there currently is no suitable policy that will suitably both curb students’ high-risk drinking behavior and not create loopholes that promote even higher-risk behavior. Farkas suggests fraternities serve “more controllable forms of alcohol, such as kegs,” an idea that might work at Dartmouth because fraternities are on campus property but not on other campuses where fraternities are private residences. Last semester at Cornell, there was some discussion regarding campus policy barring freshman from entering fraternity houses until a certain period in their first fall semester. Members of the Inter-Fraternity Council, including then-president Cameron Pritchett, argued that this university policy caused freshmen to go off-campus to socialize and party at fraternity annexes in Collegetown, making for an overall more dangerous environment. Hanlon, who became Dartmouth’s president in 2013, graduated from Dartmouth in 1977. He was a brother at the Alpha Delta fraternity, which is said to have inspired the hit-comedy 1978 comedy “National Lampoon’s Animal House.” Casey Breznick is a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He can be reached at cb628@cornell. edu.
about the imminent student health fee but barred them from notifying other students. That those who were notified--and it was not all members who were--did not share this information is indicative of the fact that many SA members’ loyalties are bound to the administration more than they are to their constituents. Final Thoughts The majority of the student population is clearly against the student health fee. If they are not opposed to it philosophically due to its redistributionist nature, then at least they are protesting yet another increase in the cost of attending Cornell. There should, however, be greater outcry calling for the administration to reform Gannett itself rather than squeeze more money out of students to keep it prattling along. Despite all the negativity surrounding the student health fee, one can at least relish in the fact that Cornell’s student liberals and leftists will finally get a taste of what they have advocated for so long, and for of them many it will sting. Reality bites. Casey Breznick is a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He can be reached at cb628@cornell.edu.
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WISEMEN & FOOLS BARRY GOLDWATER on GOVERNMENT “Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.”
ROSIE O’DONNELL on FEARING TERRORISTS “Don’t fear the terrorists. They’re mothers and fathers.”
MARGARET THATCHER on FREEDOM “To be free is better than to be unfree – always. Any politician who suggests the opposite should be treated as suspect.”
ADAM SMITH on RATIONAL SELF-INTEREST
ANDREW CUOMO, Governor of New York, on POLITICAL SYSTEMS “The other states look to New York for the progressive direction.”
Moral philosopher, Scottish Enlightenment figure, & the father of modern economics: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
DR. BEN CARSON on FRIENDS AND ENEMIES “We, the American people, are not each other’s enemies. The enemies are those people behind the curtain jerking everybody’s chains and trying to divide us up by age, by race, by income.”
BARACK OBAMA Change change change change change change change change change change change change change change change change change change change change
JUST THE NUMBERS $2,000,000,000,000
Amount in new taxes President Obama proposed in his 2016 budget
$250,000,000
Box office gross of American Sniper, the highestgrossing war film of all-time
$125,000
2,000
Number killed in Boko Haram’s deadliest massacre to date
Amount alumnus must pay Cornell after losing negligence lawsuit against university
106%
Increase in number of Jews fleeing France to Israel in 2014 compared to 2013
2035
Year when Cornell seeks to become carbon neutral
$18,106,980,000 Our ever-increasing national debt
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