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Case Western Reserve University volume xlvii, issue 1 friday, 8/21/2015
Observer Cleveland chows down at 116th annual “Feast” Festival Anne Nickoloff Director of Print A man sat under the Mayfield Rapid Transit Authority bridge, greeting groups of pedestrians as they walked by, using the same line for everyone on their way to Little Italy: “Excuse me, I think you dropped your smile.” He was just a man trying to be pleasant, and maybe trying to make a buck; further away under the bridge was a violinist, some change sitting in her open instrument case. After passing under the bridge, visitors were faced with the Feast of the Assumption Festival. The annual Little Italy street fair stretched up the Mayfield Road hill, featuring booths that sold stromboli, drinks and t-shirts. There was even a gambling booth section, located (strangely enough) on the sidewalk immediately adjacent to the Holy Rosary Catholic Church. Holy Rosary has hosted the festival for the past 116 years in celebration of the Catholic feast day honoring the Assumption of Mary. The Feast was going strong this past weekend, shutting down the usual high-traffic street and replacing cars with hungry visitors. One of those visitors was Case Western Reserve University senior Austin Mak. “My favorite part of the feast is being around a lot of people,” he said. “You don’t really see a lot of people walking around that late at night.” Mak celebrated the long weekend event with his usual Feast food order: cheese ravioli with meatballs. Fellow CWRU senior Alex
Xu tried the cannoli. Xu thought the event was a pretty standard block party, but it also brought out the character of the city. “I like meeting new people,” said Xu. “It seemed like the actual side of Cleveland that I can’t really experience just at Case.” For those who live in Little Italy like myself, The Feast was a different sort of experience than just a quick visit for food. Music continued into the late hours of the night, cigar smoke wafted in a steady breeze over the crowd and litter scattered around the streets and sidewalks, to be collected in the morning. On Sunday, Aug. 16, Little Italy’s residents celebrated the last day of The Feast by gathering in the streets and on rooftops to admire fireworks shot out over the neighborhood, mostly in green, white and red colors. Just a few streets away from the explosive boom of the fireworks, I ran outside to catch the majority of the show. When it was over, I could hear cheering and applause surrounding the neighborhood, despite not being near any other guests. The sense of neighborly pride is one that makes The Feast stand out. It’s not just a block party; it’s a cultural celebration. Though many Clevelanders face difficult commutes because of the Mayfield Road closure, a few days of clogged traffic pays itself off with a standing Little Italy tradition. “I think anything that brings a community together is valuable, especially when all these new students come in,” said Mak.
Angeline Xiong/Observer The annual festival celebrated Little Italy’s Italian culture and Catholic rooots.
Disgraced law school dean will not return Mitchell leaves to pursue “other professional opportunities”
The Lawrence Mitchell era at Case Western Reserve University is officially over. According to Provost W.A. “Bud” Baeslack, Mitchell, the former dean of the School of Law who has been on leave since November 2013, resigned from his teaching position this summer to pursue “other professional opportunities.” In October 2013, law school Professor Raymond Ku, a tenured CWRU School of Law faculty member who had previously served as the law school’s associate dean for academic affairs, sued CWRU and
Mitchell, claiming Mitchell, his superior, had retaliated against Ku after the professor reported the dean for committing sexually inappropriate acts. According to Ku’s attorneys, Mitchell directed gestures and comments towards females in the law school, including publicly caressing a female colleague who was wearing a summer dress with a bareskinned back. Additionally, Mitchell allegedly commented to staff members that one graduate student “wasn’t good for anything but keeping the bed warm.” Additionally, one of Mitchell’s former assistants, Daniel Dubé, alleged in a detailed affidavit that Mitchell propositioned him for a threesome and forced him to help cover up the dean’s issues to keep his
job. When Dubé finally reported Mitchell through the proper channels, he says he was “laid off for budgetary reasons.” Ku’s complaint also included allegations that the university had knowledge of Provost Bud Baeslack III, Faculty Diversity Officer John Clochesy, and Vice President for Diversity, Inclusion and Equal Opportunity Marilyn Mobley were allegedly made aware of Ku’s claims of retaliation but did not intervene. Mitchell’s legal team tried to paint Ku as a “disgruntled professor” who was jealous he was not picked for the dean’s position. While Mitchell was a professor at George Washington University—his previous place of employment before he ac-
cepted the dean position at CWRU—he married a law school student, divorced her, married a subordinate law school professor, adopted a daughter with her and then ended that relationship as well. Mitchell was supposed to return in a teaching capacity this August, nearly a year after the court case was settled out of court in July 2014. He had previously served as the dean of the CWRU School of Law for nearly three years before the suit was settled. Terms of the settlement were never officially disclosed, but it was noted in the same press release that Ku was promoted to the director of the law school’s newly created Center for Cyberspace Law and Policy.
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pg. 11 Get Involved
pg. 15 Soccer shoots for success
Mike Mckenna Executive Editor