SPORTS Football NU’s well-rounded class features talent throughout » PAGE 8
NEWS Around Town CTA crime down in 2015, up slightly in Evanston » PAGE 2
OPINION Mueller How we should approach Macklemore’s new song » PAGE 4
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The Daily Northwestern Wednesday, February 3, 2016
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Burlesque talks inclusion efforts Show directors make changes following diversity concerns By MADELINE FOX
daily senior staffer @maddycfox
With Northwestern Burlesque surpassing 100 cast members for the first time this year, participants raised concerns that its solo and small group performances do not sufficiently represent different races, body types and experiences. Following the concerns, the show’s directors said they are working to make the show feel more inclusive. NU Burlesque, now in its fourth year, holds open auditions at the beginning of Winter Quarter. Although all who audition and can commit to attending rehearsals are in the show, NU Burlesque co-director Avril Dominguez said performers can choose to go through a second round of auditions to receive a solo slot. She said this year, for the first time, separate auditions were also held for duet and trio slots because of the large number of participants. Dominguez, a Communication junior, said after the results were shared with performers who had gone through the second round of auditions, the show received criticism on social media and through emails to the directors that marginalized experiences were not sufficiently represented in the selected acts. “It was brought to our attention that there are people in our community who feel that those solos and duets and trios are not best representing what the Burlesque community is,” Dominguez said. “We do have a very inclusive and representative cast at large (and) we’re taking that criticism into account and really trying to reestablish a safe space.” Cast members discussed the concerns raised early last week at their Sunday rehearsal, when Weinberg sophomore Genesis Garcia said she was one of several cast members to
speak about their feelings on the criticisms and the atmosphere of NU Burlesque as a whole. Some members did decide to leave NU Burlesque’s cast, said Garcia, who added that she had also considered leaving because she could see that other people had been negatively affected by their experiences with the show. She said she ultimately stayed because she felt the cast was working to actively to address the concerns. “I decided I’ll stay because I want to see changes being made — I want to make sure people are being held accountable and to be held accountable myself,” she said. “The biggest thing from here on out is accountability.” Garcia, who participated in NU Burlesque as a freshman and called it one of the best things she did last year, said that while she was upset to see people hurt, she didn’t think it was intentional and appreciated that cast members were supportive in hearing and working on those concerns. Dominguez and co-director Alaura Hernandez emphasized, however, they stand by the individual and small group performances they had selected prior to the complaints, which Hernandez said reflected a wide range of viewpoints, styles and experiences. “People are upset because they don’t think we have diversity in our small groups, but they don’t know the people who got solos — all they see is a name, so they might have made an assumption based on those names,” the Medill senior said. “We see the diversity in our acts because we saw the auditions, but it’s not our place to broadcast what these acts represent.” That role, said assistant director Victoria Case, belongs to the performers themselves. “We don’t want to out a performer with something they don’t want to share,” she said. Medill senior Taylor Cumings, who » See BURLESQUE, page 1
Zack Laurence/The Daily Northwestern
LOOKING AT PRISON LABOR Political science and legal studies Prof. Jacqueline Stevens discusses how private prisons profit from immigrant detainees’ labor at an event held by Unshackle NU on Tuesday night. Stevens was the second speaker in the group’s quarter-long series, which began last month with activist Mariame Kaba.
Prof discusses prison profit At Unshackle NU event, Stevens focuses on detainees’ cheap labor By CHRISTINE FAROLAN
daily senior staffer @crfarolan
Political science and legal studies Prof. Jacqueline Stevens highlighted the way private prisons profit from the labor of immigrant detainees at Unshackle NU’s event Tuesday evening. About 45 students heard Stevens, the director of the Deportation Research Clinic at the Buffett Institute for Global Studies, speak at University Hall. She began by discussing the “dollar a day” conditions in which detainees in immigration jails, or detention centers for people
suspected of illegal entry, are forced to perform janitorial, kitchen or other duties for only $1 per day. “I call them slaving wages,” she said. She explained that the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, does not label work done as part of punishment as illegal. But because people in immigration jails have not committed crimes and are only being held because they are a “flight risk,” they are actually covered by the 13th Amendment, Stevens said. She also discussed how private prisons will add an extra $1 or $2 to inmates’ pay if they seem unwilling to work for just $1. “It really shows the illegality of it,” Stevens said. Facilities as close as the McHenry County Jail in Woodstock, Illinois, about an hour and a half northwest of Evanston, use “dollar a day” labor,
she said. Stevens said she became interested in learning more about NU’s possible involvement with private prisons due to other activities by the University she found disreputable, such as its role in the case of former philosophy Prof. Peter Ludlow, who resigned last quarter after more than a year of legal battles and University findings that he sexually harassed two students. However, the Illinois Freedom of Information Act exempts nonprofits and private institutions like NU from having to disclose information, Stevens said. She called on students to lobby for a change in the act. “NU has a $2.1 billion operating budget,” she said. “We want to know where that money is being distributed. It’s hard to find the » See PRISON, page 6
NU students report apartment break-in By JEREMY MARGOLIS
the daily northwestern @jeremyrmargolis
Zack Laurence/The Daily Northwestern
CRIME ON CLARK Residents reported a break-in at 620 Clark St. early Tuesday morning. The man who broke in took laptops, wallets and a book bag, some of which were later returned.
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
A man broke into a residence in the 600 block of Clark Street early Tuesday morning and threatened two Northwestern students, police said. The man broke a window in the rear door to gain entrance to the apartment at approximately 2 a.m. He told the residents he had a weapon but they did not see one, according to an alert released by the University. Police took a man into custody following the incident but he was
released Tuesday afternoon because the students could not positively identify him, Evanston Police Department spokesman Perry Polinski said. The man who broke in — described to police as a black male in his 40s with a medium build and a black hoodie — took two laptops, two wallets and a book bag. Some of the items were later recovered, Polinski said. The man originally taken into custody remains a person of interest but the investigation is ongoing, Polinski said. jeremymargolis2019@u.northwestern.edu
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