The Daily Northwestern Friday, May 10, 2019
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Underrepresented in Greek life space Low-income students share experiences By JOSIAH BONIFANT
daily senior staffer @bonijos_iahfant
Rachel Kwak was invited a birthday dinner for one of her sorority sisters when she explained that she couldn’t afford to join them. One fellow sorority member suggested she not look at her bank account and enjoy the night without being stressed. “It was at a time when I didn’t even have funds for textbooks that week,” Kwak said. “Her intention was obviously wellmeaning but the impact was that she has the privilege to not look at her bank account whereas I don’t.” Being in a fraternity or sorority and coming from a low-income background are not incompatible at Northwestern, but for Kwak, a SESP sophomore, the balance of these often competing identities has proven too much to handle. Kwak has been in Gamma Phi Beta since her first year, but said she is planning to deactivate this spring after she experienced
microaggressions related to her racial and socioeconomic identities. Kwak’s experience is not irregular. Being a racial and socioeconomic minority in an Interfraternity Council fraternity or a Panhellenic Association sorority can be a struggle. Weinberg sophomore Sonali Patel, who recently also joined Gamma Phi Beta, said she noticed how class and race played a part during recruitment. Patel has immigrant parents from India and Zambia, and said she didn’t want to be a “token minority.” Patel said she was also immediately aware of the “socioeconomic hierarchies” between sororities. Coming from a lowincome background, she has decided to work extra hours this quarter at her work-study job to keep up with sorority expenses. She said some students don’t have to consider the price of dues during the recruitment, upholding the clandestine standard of not disclosing prices. “They’re not very transparent when it comes to dues, because scaring a lot of kids off by money is probably not the best way to recruit people,” Patel said. “You’re » See OVERLOOKED, page 6
Brian Meng/Daily Senior Staffer
District 65 Assistant Superintendent of Schools Andalib Khelghati speaks at Kingsley Elementary School. Khelghati said he is confident that the achievement gap between Black, Latinx students and white students can be narrowed.
School examines achievement gap
Kingsley parents, district officials point to teacher evaluation system By AMY LI
daily senior staffer
In response to multiple metrics that indicate lower achievement levels among black and Latinx students in Evanston/Skokie School District 65, parents are pointing toward flaws in teacher and principal evaluation techniques.
Despite better-than-average teacher evaluations, the racial achievement gap has widened in recent years. Parents and district officials pointed to a evaluation system partly controlled by teachers, which doesn’t mandate that they be evaluated on the achievement of students of color. In 2015, 54 percent of white students in District 65 met English
and Language Arts benchmarks on the PARCC test, while 28 and 27 percent of black and Latinx students respectively met those same standards. In 2018, those numbers decreased, with 15 percent of black students and 20 percent of Latinx students meeting ELA benchmarks. “Our teachers are flying high, but our kids aren’t even in the air
yet,” said LaTarsha Green, District 65’s executive director of black student success. The D65 African-American, Black, and Caribbean Parent Community and Evanston Collective hosted the seminar at Kingsley Elementary School Thursday, which sought to better equip » See EVALUATE, page 6
CANNABIS
CBD use popular in city Evanston embraces cannabis Students turn to CBD as a solution to pain, anxiety
Mayor Hagerty looks to follow Springfield’s lead
By ANDREA MICHELSON
By ANDRES CORREA
Jenna Trattner had a migraine and Advil wasn’t cutting it. For the Communication junior, ibuprofen alleviated some of the pain but none of the pressure — not to mention that taking four painkillers every few hours couldn’t be good for her liver. She found smoking weed provided instant relief but made her feel hazy. It was only when she started ordering CBD-infused gummies on Amazon that she felt like she landed on a longterm solution. Trattner is not alone in making this discovery. According to an analysis by Cowen and Company, nearly 7 percent of Americans use cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive cannabis compound hailed for its medicinal properties. The same analysis predicts that the American CBD market will reach $16 billion by 2025. Keri Brennan, co-owner of Botanica CBD in Evanston, said she was inspired to open
Mayor Steve Hagerty said he expects Evanston to be one of the first municipalities to opt into the use of recreational marijuana if Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s legalization plan is adopted by the Democrat-led state House and Senate. Hagerty met with other Illinois mayors and two main sponsors of the bill, state Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) and state Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago), in Springfield last week to discuss the legalization of cannabis. The meetings took place only days before Pritzker announced a 300-page marijuana legalization bill to the public, which would allow Illinois residents over the age of 21 to buy cannabis from licensed dispensaries and legalize possession of up to 30 grams. The bill also aims to promote social equity through measures such as a low-interest loan program for prospective business owners and the expungement of nearly 800,000 low-level drug convictions. In addition, the proposed bill
daily senior staffer @amichelson18
daily senior staffer @aocorrea1
Source: Lisa Brennan
Botanica CBD in Evanston. The store, which opened in June 2018, sells CBD tinctures, vape cartridges, edibles and more.
a CBD store after stumbling across a TEDx Talk about Charlotte Figi, a young girl whose epilepsy symptoms improved dramatically after she was prescribed medical marijuana. Brennan said although her husband and sister got on board as co-owners, other friends and family members weren’t so quick to warm up — some of her friends still
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think she’s a drug dealer. This “mental hurdle” was one of the biggest barriers to starting Botanica CBD, she said, and ultimately played into her decision to open the store in Evanston. “We found that people in Evanston are very educated and they are willing to do their own research,” Brennan said. » See CBD, page 6
Graphic by Roxanne Panas
would give municipalities the choice to allow the sale of recreational marijuana in their communities. If a municipality opts in, it would be able to charge a up to a 3 percent municipality tax on recreational marijuana purchases, according to the bill. “The fact that local governments can choose to opt into it is a strength of the bill,” Hagerty said. Hagerty also said that allocating money toward treatment services, as well as the social equity goals of the bill, are positive factors. The latter measure allows for communities who have been disproportionately affected by
marijuana to get training to receive business licenses. Moving forward, Hagerty said the city will be waiting for the state legislature to do their job to pass the bill, and will then move step by step through the process. “The City Council will likely take it up on an agenda, I’m guessing early next year,” he said. “At that point, we would also have a discussion about what level of taxation we would want to apply, realizing that 3 percent is the highest. And if we were to do that, do we want to direct those funds to a specific need » See MARIJUANA, page 6
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