The Daily Northwestern — May 3, 2019 by The Daily Northwestern

The Daily Northwestern Friday, May 3, 2019

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History is repeating in front of our eyes

This story contains detailed descriptions and discussions of gun violence. The last time Carolyn Murray saw her son alive, he told her he loved her before boarding a flight to San Diego, where he was living. She almost saw him again, when he flew home to Evanston for a surprise visit. But before Justin Murray could reach his mother, a bullet got in the way. He was killed on Nov. 29, 2012, less than half a mile from Evanston Township High School, his alma mater. He was 19. “I feel like I failed him as a mother because I couldn’t protect him,” Carolyn Murray said. “So for the rest of my life, I have to advocate for gun violence to protect him.” Justin Murray is one of multiple

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ETHS students and recent graduates who have been shot to death since 2007. Others include Darryl Shannon Pickett, Dajae Coleman, Kaylyn Pryor and Yakez Semark. For their parents, these shooting deaths have often led to activism in various forms — from establishing memorial scholarships to organizing gun buyback events. The murders, along with mass shootings across the U.S., have also sparked activism among ETHS students. In the first episode of The Daily Northwestern’s new documentary series, Toppling the Trigger, parents and activists discuss how these losses have impacted their lives, ETHS and Evanston as a whole. — Christopher Vazquez and Kristine Liao

TOPPLING THE TRIGGER ETHS parents, students fight to curb gun violence in the wake of shootings

Christopher Vazquez/Daily Senior Staffer

Ex-student pleads not guilty Students criticize admin University ordered to perserve surveillance footage By CAMERON COOK and JOSIAH BONIFANT

daily senior staffers @cam_e_cook, @bonijos_iahfant

A former Northwestern student pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse Thursday at Cook County’s Second Municipal District courthouse. The move sets up a legal battle for Scott Thomas, who was arrested March 19 by University Police after students leaving the library early on March 16 saw him allegedly holding the victim against a glass door and assaulting her. Prosecutors say UP have video surveillance footage of the incident as well. Cook County Judge Lauren Edidin signed an order for Northwestern to preserve the footage at the request of Shelby Prusak,

Thomas’s attorney.The order stipulated the University preserve footage from between 10 p.m. March 15 and 4 a.m. March 16, provided it hadn’t already been deleted. “I don’t know if they kept it,” Edidin said. Pamela Stratigakis, who represents the alleged victim, asked for a protective order on the footage to stop it from ever being made public, due to its graphic nature. Edidin also agreed for STI and HIV testing to be arranged for Thomas at Stratigakis’ request. Stratigakis requested this occur in Cook County, and Prusak said Thomas would agree to the testing. Thomas is still under bail conditions that prohibit him from being on campus or making contact with any Northwestern student, and is allowed to live at home with his family in New Jersey, provided he return for each court appointment.

This is a change from the conditions of his original bail, which stipulated he remain within the court’s jurisdiction under GPS tracking and refrain from contact with any Northwestern student. Last month Judge Paul Pavlus decided there was “no better way” than Thomas’s return to New Jersey to ensure he keep away from campus. He also ruled Thomas’ GPS would be removed. A charge of aggravated criminal sexual assault is considered a Class X felony in Illinois. If Thomas were found guilty, his sentence could be between six and 30 years in prison, with possible extensions and fines. Class X felonies require the offender be sentenced to prison time and not probation. Thomas is scheduled to appear again in court on June 20.

Thursday’s community dialogue protested by students By WILSON CHAPMAN

daily senior staffer

Students and administrators discussed mental health and campus climate at this quarter’s community dialogue in Foster-Walker dining hall on Thursday. During the discussion portion of the dialogue, students discussed multiple issues they had with the administration, including a lack of transparency from administrators and a lack of communication regarding how they deal with issues of student wellbeing. Several students mentioned

mental health as an issue, and a need to increase the staff and resources of services such as Counseling and Psychological Services, Center for Awareness, Student Enrichment Services, and sustainNU. Medill sophomore Emma Evans discussed campus climate and space equity on campus. Evans said many marginalized groups lacked a space to socialize compared to predominantly white Greek life, which she said was exacerbated by the two-year live-in requirement. Evans also said conversations were circular and repetitive in Northwestern-created task forces.

“We’re tired of having the same conversation over and over and it’s hard to see the point of conversations like this and task forces when there’s documents of recommendations that are out there,” Evans said. This was the second community dialogue to follow a new format established during Winter Quarter after Associated Student Government and Quest+ recommended changes. Previous community dialogues were done in a more traditional town hall format, where a moderator would select » See DIALOGUE, page 6

cameroncook@u.northwestern.edu josiahbonifant2021@u.northwestern.edu

Underrepresented in STEM

Women in McCormick struggle with lack of equity

By GABBY BIRENBAUM

daily senior staffer @birenbomb

This article is the first in “Overlooked,” a series that explores the experiences of underrepresented groups in different spaces on campus. In the fall of her freshman year, McCormick sophomore

Beth Prouty walked into her very first college class, looked around, and realized there was only one other woman in the room — the professor. Prouty and her 15 male classmates were taking Design Thinking and Communication, commonly referred to as DTC. It’s an important class in the first-year engineering sequence for students to get experience in the shop, where they have access

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to tools and machinery. Having a female professor who was willing to call out the “implicit sexism” in the classroom setting and ensure all voices were heard saved Prouty’s experience. “I was really glad to have a female professor for that class especially,” Prouty said. Female engineering students experience the effects of being in » See ENGINEERING, page 6

Daily file photo by Leah Dunlevy

Foster-Walker Complex. Students at a community dialogue Thursday criticized the administration for failure to properly address student concerns.

INSIDE: Around Town 2 | On Campus 3 | Opinion 4 | Classifieds & Puzzles 6 | Sports 8

2 NEWS | THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2019

AROUND TOWN

Housing and homeless commission approves grant By CASSIDY WANG

the daily northwestern @cassidyw_

The Housing and Homelessness Commission voted unanimously Thursday to approve a grant for the Homeless Management Information System in hopes of gathering of better data and operation of city services for the homeless. The Alliance to End Homelessness in suburban Cook County requested $20,500 for HMIS to “ensure full participation and exceptional data quality for all Evanston homeless shelter programs,” according to city documents. The HMIS is a database mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is used throughout the Cook County Continuum of Care — a program that promotes community-wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness. The system stores data on individual homeless people and provisions of housing and services, according to city documents. Commission member Renee Phillips said the data HMIS provides is important, allowing the city to better understand homelessness and measure progress. The Alliance is an agency in charge of implementing and administering the database, in addition to training users. Since 2008, the system has grown from

27 providers entering data on 1,300 clients to over 40 agencies entering data on over 8,000 clients each year. Jennifer Hill, the executive director of the Alliance, said the funding would help update their systems to assess the vulnerability of the homeless population, ordering a binding list of people. Housing and grants division manager Sarah Flax said HMIS is used to determine the city’s Continuum of Care funding. Most of Evanston’s homeless funding comes through the Alliance to End Homelessness of Suburban Cook County, Flax said. Due to competition in receiving funding, the data from HMIS is “critical” in making the city’s Continuum of Care program competitive, Flax said. “It really is a major and very essential piece of the functioning of the continuum and of Evanston getting the funding that comes directly to our agencies who are supported through Continuum of Care,” Flax said. Flax added that the city funds HMIS through the affordable housing fund “because it really is a critical piece of the whole functioning of the Continuum of Care.” Using local funds for HMIS maintains compliance with the Federal mandate all Emergency Solutions Grants recipients use the database, leveraging significant federal funds for needed services in the city, according to city documents. cassidywang2022@u.northwestern.edu

POLICE BLOTTER

email said. No further information was provided.

Sunglasses, cash stolen from unlocked vehicle

Cash stolen from L.A. Fitness locker room

Sunglasses and cash were stolen Wednesday from an unlocked car in the 1400 block of Maple Avenue. A 57-year-old Evanston resident called police at 6:45 p.m. to report that his car had been ransacked and a pair of sunglasses valued at $700 and $25 in cash were missing, Evanston police communications coordinator Perry Polinski wrote in an email to The Daily. The theft occurred sometime after Tuesday at 11 p.m., the

A 51-year-old Skokie resident called police at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday to report that money had been stolen out of his locker at an L.A. Fitness in the 1600 block of Sherman Avenue. The man told police that the lock had been removed from his locker and $50 in cash was taken from his wallet, the email said. No further information was provided.

Boots stolen from Goodwill

Cassidy Wang/The Daily Northwestern

The commission approved HMIS, a database mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is used throughout the Cook County Continuum of Care. The implementation of this database would make it easier for the city to keep track of homelessness within the city.

Police responded Wednesday to reports of a retail theft in the 1900 block of Dempster Street. At 10:55 p.m. the manager of a Goodwill called police to report that a woman in a red jacket and black vest and carrying a large duffel bag entered the store, removed a pair of black boots valued at $10, and left. Police conducted a search, and a suspect matching the description given was located. However, a search of the woman yielded no results and she was released without charges. — Joshua Irvine

Setting the record straight An article in Thursday’s paper titled “Freshman Hand earns singles bid to NCAAs” included a photo that did not feature Clarissa Hand. It depicted Julie Byrne. The Daily regrets the error.

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN | NEWS 3

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2019

ON CAMPUS

Author aims to tell stories through food By KRISTINA KARISCH

daily senior staffer @kristinakarisch

Despite having a bestselling cookbook, New York Times Magazine food column and Netflix show under her belt, Samin Nosrat is still figuring out how to make lunch. “I never had that period of life where you have to figure out how to feed yourself after you get home from your first job,” Nosrat said. “I went straight from quesadillas to three-course meals. It was very confusing for my head. When I left restaurants in 2009, I was 30 and I had to acclimate for the first time as a person who came home and had to figure out what to eat for dinner.” Nosrat, who grew up in California as the daughter of Iranian parents, started her cooking career after college at the award-winning restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Since then, she has been working as a food writer, author and host. Her first cookbook, “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking,” won the James Beard Award in 2018, and was adapted into a Netflix show that October. Speaking to a full auditorium Thursday evening at the McCormick Foundation Center, Nosrat shared her background in cooking and her approach to food as part of the Contemporary Thought Speaker Series. The conversation was moderated by Mike Sula, the chief food critic for the Chicago Reader. Nosrat said she is a firm believer that cooking is not a “talent,” but a skill acquired through practice and awareness. Her book, which features simple recipes and illustrated charts — there is a “Powers of Pie” chart that zooms in on different crust constructions and a “Pasta Nostra” family tree for the major sauces, among others — is meant to get people to think critically about ingredients and flavor. “If I had had it my way, I would have included no recipes in the book,” Nosrat joked, “but there was no way a book (like that) was going to be

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Samin Nosrat speaks in the McCormick Foundation Center auditorium. Her first cookbook, “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking,” has been adapted into a Netflix show.

published.” Her Netflix show goes one step further, as Nosrat travels to Italy, Japan and Mexico to introduce viewers to traditional methods for preparing foods — including soy sauce, parmesan cheese and acidic honey — and home in on the importance of using different flavors to “put taste first” and improve a dish. Nosrat said she wants viewers to come away with a new eye for flavor, and a healthy dose of inspiration, but also an appreciation for the tradition and generations of craftsmanship that goes into making each ingredient and dish she features. Since the show premiered, Nosrat said many of the foods she spotlighted, which have been made available through an online site, sold out. Many of the show’s subjects are women

— who were the primary cooks in society for thousands of years, until the invention of restaurants and professional chefs turned cooking into a male-dominated field — and Nosrat said she was intentional in spotlighting them, in part to reclaim the history of female cooking. All through the show, Nosrat aims to tell stories and create space for representation through food. She spoke about cultural appropriation within food and cooking, as well as reframing cooking as something accessible and innate. “You approach cooking with such confidence and ease,” Sula said to Nosrat during the discussion. “That’s the inspiring thing about the show. No matter what your experience is in the kitchen, (after watching it) you just want to cook.”

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OPINION

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Friday, May 3, 2019

History is repeating itself — right before our eyes MARCUS THUILLIER

DAILY COLUMNIST

History has a tendency to repeat itself. As memory fades, events from the past can become events of the present. Some, like author William Strauss and historian Neil Howe, argue that this is due to the cyclical nature of history — history repeats itself and flows based on the generations. According to them, four generations are needed to cycle through before similar events begin to occur, which would put the coming of age of the millennial generation in parallel to the events of the early 20th century. And if recent events are any indicators, American society is inching dangerously close to mirroring events of a century ago. Hate crime reports increased 17 percent in the United States in 2017 according to the FBI, increasing for the third consecutive year. I talked about this a little last week when mentioning a rise in LGBTQ+driven hate crimes, but this rise in crime also marks a return to a dangerous reality. It is not just LGBTQ+ hate crime that is on the rise. 2018 saw a 99 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents versus 2015, according to the Anti-Defamation League. When it strictly came to race/ethnicity/ancestry motivated crimes, the increase was 18.4 percent between 2016 and 2017. It is a dangerous time if you are not a cisgender, white, Christian in America, but that is not new. A hundred years ago, in 1920, the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party was founded in Germany. It started a generation of Germans that came of age around World War II, meaning they were

young adults in 1939. I raise that point because this is where the generational theory and the recent hike in anti-semitic crime connect. The reason this is relevant is because, in 1939, the German American Bund, “an organization of patriotic Americans of German stock,” had an “Americanization” meeting that drew a crowd of 20,000 people in Madison Square Garden. They denounced President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Jewish conspiracies. The Nazis held a rally in New York City, where they were protected from protesters by the NYPD. This occurred a full six years after the concentration camps started in Germany. American history sometimes casually likes to omit those events in its recounting of World War II. Americans were undoubtedly the good guys of World War II, saving many countries and millions of people worldwide from fascism, but it has also done a poor job at ensuring these fascists ideas stay out of the country in recent years.

The Anti-Defamation League says it like it is: Anti-Semitism in the U.S. is as bad as it was in the 1930s If you, like any average citizen, know what happened in the 1930s, you would know that is absolutely terrifying news. The late 1930s saw the Nazi regime

kill about six million Jewish people. It saw a country commit genocide against the Jewish people. It saw a country continue to commit mass murders all the way up to the point of defeat. This is the type of behavior the current administration is excusing by not taking a stand against the neo-nazi groups popping up all over the country. This is not really surprising. History repeats itself. And people forget about history. The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany conducted a survey that found that 41 percent of respondents did not know what Auschwitz was. A third also did not know that the true death tally for Jewish people during the war was — six million. How can we protect history and avoid making the same mistakes we made in the past when we forget what happened? In the same survey, 93 percent of respondents said that students should learn about the Holocaust in school. Americans understand the importance of passing down the knowledge of this dark past, but we have a government that still refuses to condemn groups promoting the same ideas that tore the world apart 80 years ago. White nationalism and white supremacist groups have made a push in recent years in the United States. Even here on campus, “it’s okay to be white” stickers have been appearing. The violence and disgusting ideas that these groups promote have no place in a country that fought fascism the 1930s. But we forget, and history repeats itself. Recently, a group of white nationalists in Washington D.C. interrupted a book reading by Jewish author Dr. Jonathan Metzl by chanting “this land is our land.” Even in non-violent demonstrations such as these, these groups refer to events that changed the landscape of the world and caused massive casualties. Those events took so many lives,

led to a collective awakening to the plight of the Jewish people and now, 80 years later, we are falling back into old patterns.

There is no easy fix. The United States government could come out and condemn those groups, but I’m sure some people would be really upset about their first amendment rights. We should continue to teach people about the Holocaust and about many of the events of history that my generation and future generation might forget about. It is easy to think that those events are in the past, that society has changed and that it will never happen again. But history repeats itself, and what many don’t realize is that it is already happening again. Marcus Thuillier is a first-year graduate student. He can be contacted at marcusthuillier2019@u. northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

On the mistake in the April 19 edition of The Daily Digest Some mistakes are so wonderful that they supersede whatever ordinary, more correct things would have taken their place. Misprints can be completely banal or inconsequential, and often they are. But the April 19 misprint on The Daily Digest was a whimsical, deeply funny contradiction: it was both the news and not. Reading The Daily Digest is an efficient, accelerated experience. It feels like the last five minutes before an exam when all the room’s noise is different bits of content, all tight and

important. Newspapers can be read leisurely, newsletters can only be sprinted. Scrolling through them, information comes one blow after the other. Except, on April 19th, at the end of the sports section, Guy Fieri appeared. In the non sequitur to end all non sequiturs, the heading reads: “Flavortown is near.” The paragraph comes from a Twitter exchange, where @keatonpatti reveals the episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives written by a bot that watched the show in its thousand-hour entirety. Guy Fieri has a meme

status in current Internet culture, and the bot’s language takes the eccentricity of Fieri’s character and adds an existential, absurdist bend. The Flavortown of dozens of memes and jokes is now omnipresent and the resulting mood is futuristic, even apocalyptic. The show the bot writes is not a show as any viewer would understand it and even in text, it reads as both hilarious and impossible. The script written is barely a script, but the humor is ambient and it grows. The thread is funnier than its source material ever intended to be.

The text is funny on its own, but in a newsletter, it brings lightness to a contemporary struggle between emotion and truth in journalism. Fake news is a sensationalized and deeply flawed side of the media machine and the mistakes made there are often deliberate. Yes, the text was not news. But in context, in a world of Breitbart and Fox News, it was a reminder of how innocuous and funny mistakes can be. — Zoe Huettl, Weinberg sophomore

The Daily Northwestern Volume 139, Issue 108 Editor in Chief Alan Perez

Opinion Editor Andrea Bian

Managing Editors Kristina Karisch Marissa Martinez Peter Warren

Assistant Opinion Editors A. Pallas Gutierrez

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR may be sent to 1999 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208, via fax at 847-491-9905, via e-mail to opinion@ dailynorthwestern.com or by dropping a letter in the box outside The Daily office. Letters have the following requirements: • Should be typed and double-spaced • Should include the author’s name, signature, school, class and phone number. • Should be fewer than 300 words They will be checked for authenticity and may be edited for length, clarity, style and grammar. Letters, columns and cartoons contain the opinion of the authors, not Students Publishing Co. Inc. Submissions signed by more than three people must include at least one and no more than three names designated to represent the group. Editorials reflect the majority opinion of The Daily’s student editorial board and not the opinions of either Northwestern University or Students Publishing Co. Inc.

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN | NEWS 5

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2019

At Walk to Remember, a reality no one can forget By JOSHUA IRVINE

daily senior staffer @maybejoshirvine

It was wet, gusty and 45 degrees outside Thursday evening, but the weather did little to deter the procession that marched down Sheridan Road in silence. Between 70 and 80 participants strode through campus as part of the Walk to Remember, an annual event co-sponsored by fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi and B’nai B’rith International as part of Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom HaShoah. The silent walk symbolizes the forced march of Jews and other victims of the Nazi regime between concentration camps, event coordinator Avram Kordon said. The event began at the Rock at 5:45 p.m., where students, community members and faculty gathered. “I thought this was a very good event,” Kordon, a Weinberg freshman and AEPi’s cultural chair, said. “Everybody who was there seemed to have a reason to be there, and it meant something to them to come.” The Walk took participants out onto Sheridan Road through the Arch before turning on Northwestern Place and looping back to The Rock via Campus Drive. Since the Walk is silent, participants were given “Never Forget” stickers to wear and yellow pamphlets to hand out to passersby. Upon their return from the Rock, participants circled around speakers from Northwestern Hillel, Tannenbaum Chabad House, University Christian Ministry and the Holocaust Educational

Two of the nation’s largest textbook companies plan to merge

Two major U.S. textbook companies are planning to merge in a deal that would generate the secondlargest provider of textbooks and higher education materials in the nation. McGraw-Hill and Cengage said in a news release earlier this week that the two would enter an agreement to “combine in an all-stock merger on equal

Foundation of Northwestern University, as well as several students who had visited the Auschwitz concentration camp. The speeches addressed modern horrors as much as past ones, as speakers drew analogues between modern anti-Semitic violence like last week’s shooting at a Poway, California synagogue and the mass extermination of European Jews by Nazi Germany some 80 years prior. “We decided to make it in conjunction with what happened in California over the weekend,” Kordon said. “The themes (of the Walk to Remember) are even more poignant today, given that tragedy.” Hillel rabbi Brandon Bernstein expressed distress at the resurgence in anti-Semitic violence as the last of the Holocaust’s survivors are dying. The Anti-Defamation League recorded 1,879 antiSemitic incidents in 2018, including the deadliest attack on Jews in the history of the United States with the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “It was not supposed to be like this,” Bernstein said, repeating a phrase from moments earlier in describing Nazi Germany’s rise. “We should not have to start viewing our sanctuaries as places of danger. We should not have to live in this world so full of hate and fear and xenophobia and homophobia and racism and anti-Semitism.” Sarah Cushman, director of the Holocaust Educational Foundation, emphasized the importance of historical study in paying tribute to the Holocaust’s victims. “Critical and knowledgeable engagement in historical inquiry are both ways to remember the Holocaust,” Cushman said. The foundation became a part of Weinberg terms.” The transaction is awaiting approval from regulators and is expected to close by early 2020, the companies said. The merger would create a new company, McGraw Hill, with an estimated $3.16 billion in revenue and over 44,000 titles in a variety of fields. It would also save the companies about $300 million in costs. The resulting company would be second only to Pearson, a British company with a large U.S. market share that brought in about £4.13 billion in revenue in 2018. The news comes at a time when textbook

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Students march down campus drive as part of Alpha Epsilon Pi’s Walk to Remember in memory of Holocaust victims.

College of Arts and Sciences in 2016, having been independently founded by a Holocaust survivor in 1976. Rabbi Dov Hillel Klein focused much of his attention on the Poway shooting, describing the shooting from the perspective of the Poway synagogue’s rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who Klein said he attended rabbinical school with in 1980. Goldstein lost two fingers in the shooting, but survived when the shooting’s sole victim, Lori Kaye, leapt between the shooter and Goldstein. “It could have happened anywhere,” Rabbi

Klein said. “It could have happened here. It was random. It usually is.” Seven candles were placed on the low wall encircling the Rock; they were initially meant to be lit after the crowd returned from the march around campus, but event leaders elected to delay the lighting until the end of the event due to wind. Six of the candles represented the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The seventh was for Lori Kaye.

companies are under increasing pressure from the digital, rental and used textbook markets. Professors in recent years have pushed for alternatives to new textbooks amid concerns about their affordability, especially for low-income students. The inflation-controlled price of college textbooks has risen more than 90 percent since 1998, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The top five textbook companies control about 80 percent of the U.S. market. McGraw-Hill and Cengage said they hope the merger would make textbooks more affordable, but some consumer groups criticized the move, saying power consolidation

would result in higher prices. “Consolidating the already broken textbook market into fewer, more powerful companies is only going to exacerbate the problems that caused the textbook affordability crisis in the first place,” Kaitlyn Vitez, the higher education campaign director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said in a statement. “Cengage’s CEO claims that this move will make materials more affordable for students. But, given past behavior by the publishers, we can’t take that claim at face value.”

joshuairvine2022@u.northwestern.edu

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6 NEWS | THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

DIALOGUE From page 1

people from the audience to answer questions. However, the current format groups students and administrators into tables centered around topics salient to students such as mental health, financial aid, campus climate and student and faculty interactions. The format change was an attempt at eliminating the confrontational attitude the old format fostered. “We had a very successful experience at the last community dialogue,” Associate Provost and Chief Diversity Officer Jabbar Bennett said in opening remarks. “And part of that success has to do with the students themselves who said ‘The old way that you’re doing it, this

ENGINEERING From page 1

a male-dominated space regularly, from being talked over during class to taking on extra work without recognition. The McCormick School of Engineering is 34.2 percent female for undergraduates, which is higher than the national average — the Society of Women Engineers says 21.3 percent of bachelor’s degrees in engineering and computer science go to women. Still, situations like Prouty’s are common. In addition to being the only woman in a class of 16, she said her Peer Adviser group had three women and 14 men. And having a female professor to recognize achievements and actively work against biases and discrimination is not guaranteed for engineering students — women make up only 13 percent of tenure-line faculty in McCormick, lower than the national average of 17 percent, and 25 percent of instructional faculty. Those gender ratios are the worst among all Northwestern schools, graduate and undergraduate. Katherine Johns, a McCormick sophomore and president of Northwestern’s chapter of SWE, said having a female professor has made a major difference in her life. Upon entering McCormick, she felt unqualified, particularly in computer science. Whenever she struggled or questioned her place in STEM fields, computer science prof. Sara Sood took the time to encourage her. “There would be times when I would tell

Illinois Senate passes Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s income tax plan

The Illinois Senate approved Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s progressive tax income plan on Wednesday. With a 40-19 vote, the proposed plan passed

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2019 whole approach, really isn’t working that well.” Bennett said several officials who usually attend the community dialogues were unable to attend. University President Morton Schapiro was originally scheduled to come, but was participating in the Walk to Remember event for Holocaust victims, while Provost Jonathan Holloway was traveling to Northwestern University in Qatar for commencement. Vice President for Student Affairs Patricia TellesIrvin was also unable to attend. Before the community dialogue started, eight student activists from Black Lives Matter NU, Fund Our Care Collective and Students Organizing for Labor Rights walked in and stood silently at the back of the room. The activists wore signs taped on their red

shirts reading “I heart black students, I heart FGLI students, I heart my mental health. Does Northwestern?” which were modeled after the “I Heart Northwestern” campaign and used as an act of solidarity. Weinberg junior and SOLR member Seri Lee told The Daily the student groups partnered to protest what they felt was inaction on the administration’s part towards student demands. Lee said community dialogues pretend students have an impact on policy, but they ultimately have little impact on creating solutions to the systemic issues the university ignores. Lee said there was a 51-year long history of administrators ignoring student demands, referring to the Bursar’s Office Takeover in 1968.

Toward the end of the town hall, Bennett acknowledged the activists, asking if there was anything they wanted to let the room know. Communication senior Danielle Douge said she was frustrated with how decentralized and unaware of student demands administrators are, especially since student organizations work so hard to publicize their concerns to the Northwestern community. “You guys don’t know student concerns that we’ve presented multiple times,” Douge said. “That’s incompetence. You guys should all be in connection and discussion with each other and know these things, especially since we make these things public.”

her, ‘I don’t feel like I’m smart enough to do this,’ and she’d say, ‘You absolutely are,’ and she’d (take) me through the process,” Johns said. “She’s been in my shoes as a female college student in a STEM field and so, it was just nice having her not only as a teacher and a professor, but as a mentor and a role model to look up to as well.” As the president of SWE, Johns is an advocate for finding female mentors and friends in the male-dominated space of engineering, which can be “intimidating,” she said. SWE provides a space for women to be comfortable discussing their challenges and helps prevent them from switching out of engineering and STEM fields, which 32 percent of women do, nationally. One important initiative SWE does is HeForSWE, where female engineers talk to their male counterparts about gender inequality in the hopes that they will stand up to their peers when they hear women being talked over or ignored. Johns said this problem is particularly prevalent in the shop during DTC, where stereotypes are enforced and women struggle to be heard. “You have to go make a prototype of whatever your design is, and the classroom is much more progressive than the shop is, in terms of feeling comfortable and feeling equal,” Johns said. “The shop is very, ‘Let the guys have the tools. The girls can sketch it.’” Johns had to confront her own ingrained sense of sexism when a man in her DTC group said they could leave the making of the

prototype to him. When she came in the next day, the prototype was unfinished and poorly made, which meant she and another female team member had to fix his mistakes. She realized she had assumed he could use power tools simply because of his gender. McCormick sophomore Jessie Bailey, an environmental engineering major, also said she struggled with gender biases in DTC. In a group with three men, she felt she had to work harder to earn their respect. “I don’t want to make generalizations,” Bailey said, “but it was definitely harder for me to get my ideas (across) and gain their respect than it was for each other.” In her all-male DTC group, Prouty had the opposite problem — her team members barely did any work and were “loafing off of (her).” Prouty put in extra hours to ensure the work got done, often in the middle of the night. In doing so, she fell into a trap her female professor told her was common. “Women oftentimes will feel like if work isn’t getting done, it’s their responsibility to pick it up and make sure that things get done,” Prouty said her professor told her. “This isn’t just women, but the fact is, when women do it, they often won’t get the recognition. The whole team will get recognition, but in reality, it’s just the one person doing a majority of the work.” When she discovered the problem, the professor held a class-wide discussion about implicit sexism in the workplace and told Prouty

it was not her responsibility to do her group members’ work, even if that meant it would not get done. While Prouty initially didn’t take the advice well, continuing to sneak into the shop at night to ensure her group met deadlines, she realized the effects of her professor’s talk when her team members finally started to meet expectations and respect her more. She said she does not believe change would have happened if her professor had not discussed gender roles with the class. In her experience, no male professor has ever stopped to discuss gender stereotypes or ensuring class experiences are equitable. Johns said she wishes McCormick would hire more female faculty, especially women of color. While the school has remained ahead of the national averages in gender ratio, progress in hiring female faculty has slowed in recent years. There were 20 tenure-line female faculty in 2009 — a decade later, only four have been added, according to Northwestern’s Institutional Diversity and Inclusion reports. Prouty said she wishes McCormick would facilitate dialogue about gender biases and stereotypes in classrooms. Bailey said at the very least, McCormick needs to recognize the disparity between men’s and women’s experiences. “They need to understand what’s going on,” Bailey said. “I don’t think that they fully acknowledge the difficulty that it takes of being a woman in McCormick.”

the three-fifths majority in the Democrat-controlled Senate required to approve the proposed amendment. The plan is now off to the Illinois House, which is also majority-Democrat, where it will require the same approval margin. If passed in the House, Illinois voters will be allowed to vote on the proposed amendment on the November 2020 ballot. The proposed constitutional amendment

would replace the state’s flat income tax with a progressive tax, where higher earners would pay higher rates. Tax rates would begin at 4.75 percent and increase until 7.95 percent for taxpayers making more than $1 million. The plan promises that 97 percent of taxpayers would not pay more than they currently do, and only taxpayers earning more than $250,000 would face higher tax rates. The new tax structure would generate $3.4 billion

in revenue for the state, according to the March proposed plan. The governor’s proposed tax plan is one of the main proponents of his campaign goal to fix the state’s budget deficit. The state currently faces a $133.5 billion unfunded pension liability and a lack of funding for state services.

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DAILY CROSSWORD Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle ACROSS 1 Org. monitoring wetlands 4 Reachable 10 Wall support 14 Like the dawn’s early light 15 “Old MacDonald” sound 16 One might be commanding 17 Year, in Seville 18 Caviar fish 19 Capital of Samoa 20 Debussy’s “La __” 21 Purposes 22 July 4th or December 25th, for many 24 With 64-Across, “Henry and June” author 26 Request at the bar, with “up” 28 Old-style “Tsk!” 29 Gardener’s supply 30 Many a southwestern Asian 31 The “1” in 15, really 32 Lucy’s TV pal 33 Move using eBay 34 Shop sign nos. 35 Cause to boil 36 ’60s campus org. 37 Chem. class suffix 39 Small shot 41 When “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” is spoken in “Macbeth” 43 Identifies 46 PC key 47 __ gum: thickening agent 48 Tile space-filler 49 Friend of Tigger 50 More than asks 52 “I didn’t really say everything I said” speaker 53 Pupil covering 55 “Sweet!” 57 “Platoon” setting, briefly 58 Ronny Howard role 59 Teahouse mat

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61 British suffix 62 Divided trio? 63 Type of band 64 See 24-Across 65 Once, quaintly 66 Equestrian’s forte 67 Empty talk DOWN 1 Sushi bar side dish 2 Pesto morsel 3 Chronicles of Sodom and Gomorrah? 4 Group of stealthy attackers? 5 Ring holders 6 Tiger’s targets 7 Act like a court jester? 8 Seasonal quaff 9 Negotiate successfully 10 Obedience school word 11 Supposedly Irish greeting ... or a hint to four long answers 12 One promoting togetherness

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13 Overwhelms with sound 23 Flashy jewelry for a stroll in the park? 25 Writer of sweet words? 27 Chic modifier 36 Buck 38 Take the risk 39 Checkout facilitator

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40 Outtake, often 42 Museum manager 44 It borders four oceans 45 Pollen producers 51 “Ditto!” 54 Aerie, for one 56 Arabian Sea nation 60 Darth, when he was young

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN | NEWS 7

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2019

Students ref lect on ‘Mean Girls,’ 15 years later By THEA SHOWALTER

the daily northwestern @theashowalter

Evanston students were most likely not wearing pink last Wednesday — or any other Wednesday. This week, as the movie “Mean Girls” turned 15, Evanston Township High School, New Trier High School and Northwestern students reflected on the accuracy of the famous flick, which, as true fans know, was set in Evanston. The fictional North Shore High School, where Cady Heron stirred the pot, was inspired by New Trier High School, according to some students and Internet fan pages. “I’d say it’s fairly common knowledge,” said Paul McAllester, a senior at New Trier, adding that people rarely talk about his school’s connection to the movie. A lot has changed at New Trier since Fey’s feisty flick hit theatres, according to McAllester. For one, half of the high school has been remodeled, with renovations completed as recently as last year. The new half has been constructed out of glass in a modern style, McAllester said. The rest of the building remains, but the renovations cost a total of $102.5 million — a far cry from the humble halls of the imagined North Shore High School. But even without the recent changes to New Trier, “Mean Girls” wasn’t reflective of the New Trier campus from the start. New Trier High School has a freshman campus in Northfield and a campus for sophomores and upperclassmen three miles away in Winnetka, which the movie doesn’t include. While New Trier students speak to inaccuracies in the film’s depiction of the infamous Winnetka high school, ETHS and Northwestern students assessed the movie’s interpretation of Evanston and brief references to Northwestern. “Their Old Orchard Mall is fake,” ETHS senior Isabella Miller said. “All the mall scenes are supposed to take place at Old Orchard, which is false. Old Orchard is an outdoor mall and it’s an indoor mall in the movie.” While the landscape of the movie may not be true to North Shore, Miller said the social relations depicted in the movie are much more accurate. At ETHS, some students like Miller said

Athena LeTrelle/Flickr

“Mean Girls” takes place in a fictional North Shore high school.

the culture tends to be more friendly than in the movie, but “not by much,” especially when it comes to the cliques and divisions that the movie emphasizes. “You can see those cliques fall into place, and while they’re over dramatic and stereotypical in the movie they’re not incorrect,” Miller said. And while ETHS gym teachers don’t roar intimidating “facts” about sex while distributing “rubbers,” students at ETHS do spend time in their sex education courses writing poems about STIs, ETHS sophomore Sadie Sims said. Sims said that for a class project, she and peers composed a “Gonorrhea Poem,” complete with symptoms, treatments and prevention information. Sexual education at ETHS is undoubtedly more progressive and informative than Coach Carr’s iconic approach. ETHS junior Henry Eberhart said part of the disconnect between the movie and ETHS is that North Shore, just like the school where it was filmed, is considered to be “very cliquey, a lot

richer, and very white,” while ETHS’s environment is more diverse but still segregated. “In the movie, the big thing is that (North Shore) is like the rich white people school, which is also the reputation that (New Trier) has,” McAllester said. “If you look at the school, there are a ton of rich, spoiled, white kids, but I do think it’s super played up in the movie. I don’t remember any diversity in the movie, but we’ve got some. It’s low but it’s there.” However, students like Miller expressed different experiences with social life at ETHS. Miller said she often describes ETHS as a “guest-list school,” where openness and inclusivity are not really prioritized. Miller said the girls idolized in middle school continued to be idolized in high school, and that the kind of groups and hierarchies created contributed to “really problematic behavior.” “If you walk into a student center, you’re going to see people in clusters, and they’re going to be racially divided, they’re going to be grade divided,

and personality divided,” Miller said. “People stick to their own at ETHS.” One of the largest points of contention, that apparently often annoys hardworking Northwestern students, is the fact that Cady’s love interest, Aaron Samuels, joined Northwestern’s incoming class of 2008 after apparently flunking his senior year of math. But McCormick junior Upasana Pathak said she doesn’t think NU would have been out of reach for Samuels. She said Samuels seems like a “well-rounded person,” and if math was his only bad subject, then perhaps he was accepted on an athletic scholarship. But ETHS students, like Miller, don’t think it’s too far-fetched. She said she heard that Northwestern doesn’t rescind offers to accepted students who receive Cs and Ds late in their senior year, and wouldn’t be surprised if Northwestern overlooked his failing grade in math.

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SPORTS

ON DECK MAY

ON THE RECORD

We’ve been working really hard to get that extra step so we can beat the top teams in the country. Hopefully that will be enough. — Izzy Scane, midfielder

Lacrosse No. 19 NU at No. 13 Minnesota, 6 p.m. Friday

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Friday, May 3, 2019

SOFTBALL

NU heads to Minnesota seeking conference title By SOPHIA SCANLAN

the daily northwestern

Daily file photo by Andrew Golden

Kate Drohan talks to her team after an inning. The Wildcats head to Minnesota this weekend, trying to win their first Big Ten title in 11 years.

This weekend will be a contentious one as Northwestern heads north to play Minnesota in pursuit of its first Big Ten title since 2008. The No. 19 Wildcats (41-7, 20-0 Big Ten) enter the weekend with sole possession of the first place in the Big Ten, leading No. 22 Michigan by one game and the No. 13 Golden Gophers (37-10, 18-1) by 1.5. In addition to still being undefeated in the conference, NU is also in the midst of a 19-game winning streak, its longest since 1985. However, Minnesota — riding its own 11-game win streak — won’t let up easily. The Golden Gophers could win the Big Ten title if they sweep the Cats this weekend and if Michigan loses a game to Maryland. The Golden Gophers’ pitching staff will be tough to break, with a team ERA of 1.79. Junior pitcher Amber Fiser leads the staff with an individual ERA of 1.32

— the second-lowest in the Big Ten behind NU pitcher Danielle Williams. “Fiser is probably one of the hardest throwers in our conference, so we’ve got to work to be on time and not feel hurried,” coach Kate Drohan said. “We’re working on our timing a lot, and that’s probably been the most unique area of focus right now.” Drohan added that the key to the Cats’ success this weekend will be timely hitting and getting through tough at-bats. She said NU has improved at this type of hitting throughout the season, especially in two-out situations. “We’ve become a tougher out in the batter’s box, meaning I see our team battling off two-strike pitches a lot, getting rid of pitcher’s pitches, extending at-bats and really driving pitchers’ pitch counts high,” Drohan said. “That’s an area where I’ve really seen us grow.” NU will have to bring strong pitching of its own to combat a hefty Minnesota lineup. Junior Makenna Partain will pose a threat with her .409 batting average as will freshman Natalie DenHartog with

BASEBALL

her .875 slugging percentage. Sophomore pitcher Kenna Wilkey said she thinks the Cats’ pitching staff can handle the Golden Gophers. “I need to go out there with confidence like I’ve been doing these past few games, and I’ll be fine — and I think our whole pitching staff will be fine,” Wilkey said. “We work well together (and have) a lot of depth.” She added that NU is going into the weekend focusing on itself and its own performance instead of worrying about the talent of the other team. Though a lot is at stake for NU this weekend — the title and the potential to host NCAA regional games — Drohan said she wanted her players to take it one pitch at a time. “As much as it’s going to play out in a really fun way for our fans and our community and people in the softball world, this is an opportunity for our team to be better,” she said. “This weekend is not the destination.” sophiascanlan2022@u.northwestern.edu

LACROSSE

Why it’s important to get NU to play Michigan in semis to 12 Big Ten victories By CHARLIE GOLDSMITH

PETER WARREN

DAILY COLUMNIST

For college baseball teams across the nation, the phrase “The Road to Omaha” is spoken with reverence. Omaha is the home of the College World Series, and playing at TD Ameritrade Park in late June is the ultimate goal in the sport. But for Northwestern and other teams in the Big Ten, the phrase can take on a second meaning — Omaha is the host of the Big Ten Tournament. With three conference weekends to go, the Wildcats sit in 11th place in the conference standings. While NU (19-22, 6-9 Big Ten) would be out of the eight-team playoffs if the season ended Thursday, the Cats are still very much in the thick of it all. The difference between NU and the fifth spot in the standings is only two games. Heading into this weekend, Illinois, Maryland and Minnesota are at 8-7, Ohio State and Rutgers stand at 7-8, Purdue clocks in at 6-8 and the Cats is 6-9. Of all the teams, NU is obviously in the least advantageous position at the back of the pack, but that does not mean their season is over. The easiest way for the Cats to reach postseason baseball is to win at least six of their final nine conference games to get to 12 wins. Since the Big Ten expanded to 14 teams for the 2014-15 academic year, 12 wins has almost guaranteed a spot in the tournament. The one exception was 2016, when there were two teams with 12 wins who missed the playoffs. However, the top 10 teams in the conference within 4.5 games of one another that campaign — an extremely uncommon occurrence. In the other three seasons since expansion, the No. 10 team in the standings ended the year, on average, over 10 games

behind first place. The path to get to those 12 wins is not easy for the Cats, but definitely doable. This weekend’s opponent, Nebraska, is third in the conference table and ranked No. 38 nationally in RPI. However, the Cornhuskers have lost their last two weekend series and may be looking past this weekend. Over the next two weeks, Nebraska faces off against a high-powered Arizona State team and conference-leading Michigan. This has the potential makings of a trap weekend for the Cornhuskers. After hosting Nebraska, the Cats travel to the Garden State to play Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights are above NU in the conference standings by a game, but slot in at No. 152 in RPI. Against top-100 ranked RPI teams, Rutgers is 1-14, and the Cats are currently ranked No. 96. For the final weekend, NU gets the Golden Gophers at home. Minnesota is one of the most perplexing teams in the conference. Named by Big Ten coaches as the preseason favorite for the conference title, the Golden Gophers had a horrendous start to the season, starting 2-11. They have played .500 baseball since then, but have not won a weekend series since the calendar turned to April. Without any cancellations, the Cats will have nine games to play their way into the tournament. Six wins is possible for NU, especially if they return to their early April form. But, three straight series losses are also in the cards. It is do-or-die time for the Cats. There multiple different roads NU can take, but not all of them lead to Omaha. Peter Warren is a Medill sophomore. He can be contacted at peterwarren2021@u.northwestern. edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@ dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.

daily senior staffer @2021_charlie

The loss still haunts coach Kelly Amonte Hiller, but it’s not the one that you would think. Over the course of the season, the players have spoken about their long-term goal for a deep postseason tournament run. But nothing snaps them back to reality like their coach reminding them of their 21-16 loss to an unranked Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals last season. The game denied Northwestern an opportunity for a Big Ten championship and a better postseason draw. If the Wildcats had come out on top in that one, they probably would not have been in a position to face No. 2 North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament Quarterfinals two weeks later, with a 19-14 loss that ended their season early and left the team disappointed. “Losing to Penn State really affected our seeding, so we know how important every single game is that we play,” Amonte Hiller said. “Now we know we can’t look ahead, we can’t look back. You only get a limited amount of opportunities.” One year after the miscue against the Nittany Lions, No. 5 NU (12-4, 5-1 Big Ten) is back in the Big Ten Tournament, where it will face No. 7 Michigan (15-2, 4-2) on Friday in Baltimore and likely No. 1 Maryland (17-0, 6-0) in the tournament championship game Sunday. If they win out, the Cats will likely earn a top-four seed in the NCAA Tournament and host the tournament regional finals, but the Wolverines have been the only topic of conversation this week.

Daily file photo by Evan Robinson-Johnson

Izzy Scane celebrates a goal with her teammates. The freshman is second on the team in both goals and points this season.

NU had some long film sessions preparing for Michigan’s strong back line, and the impending matchup against the Terrapins has not been brought up by any coach or any of the players, according to sophomore midfielder Brennan Dwyer. “That’s the only way we can get to where we want to be, by taking on our next opponent,” Dwyer said. “We’re taking it normally, not trying to make a big deal out of it. If we’re all playing our best and doing what we need to do we’ll make a stand there.” The Cats defeated the Wolverines 14-11 on Senior Day in April, but the Wolverines have won six games this season against top-25 teams. Coached by former NU star Hannah Nielsen, Michigan has turned itself around from a sub-.500 squad last year to a top-10 team considered to be one of the fastest risers in the

country. NU set preseason goals to win Big Ten and national championships this season. In addition to the Big Ten Tournament championship on the line this weekend, the Cats’ NCAA Tournament path will be influenced by what happens in Baltimore. But that has not influenced NU’s preparation at all, and freshman midfielder Izzy Scane said the Cats are preparing this week like they are playing a regular-season game. “We have to be able to get past their defense with long slides, and we’re watching the film to find more ways to get past their defense,” she said. “We’ve been working really hard to get that extra step so we can beat the top teams in the country. Hopefully, that will be enough.” charliegoldsmith2021@u.northwestern.edu