MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2018 VOL. CXXXIV NO. 43
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
FOUNDED 1885
PENN BRINGS HOME THE BENJAMINS university endowment reaches $13.8 billion
returns [%]
20 15
14.4%
17.5%
14.3%
endowment [$ in billions]
Return on endowment 12.9%
7.4%
10 5
-1.4%
0 -5
‘13
‘14
‘15
‘16
‘17
‘18
VALUE of endowment
15
12.2 12 9 6
The University’s endowment delivered a “phenomenal return” this year of 12.9 percent, Penn Vice President for Finance and Treasurer MaryFrances McCourt told Penn President Amy Gutmann and the rest of Board of Trustees at its meeting Thursday. This high return, McCourt said, is unique among peer institutions that have not experienced such growth.
9.6
10.1
‘14
‘15
10.6
7.7 ‘13
FISCAL YEAR MAX COHEN & MANLU LIU Deputy News Editors
13.8
‘16
‘17
‘18
FISCAL YEAR
The total value of the endowment rose to $13.8 billion, according to data supplied by Bloomberg. This increase came after Penn’s 14.3 percent return from the previous fiscal year. “Especially in this stressed environment for higher education, they’re not seeing that across the industry,” McCourt said. “So we really stick out.” The Board of Trustees meeting revealed the endowment’s distribution: instruction represented 54 percent, financial aid was 22 percent, health care was
16 percent, other academic support was 4 percent, research was 3 percent, and libraries was 1 percent. McCourt said Penn’s undergraduate endowment topped $1 billion this year, which she greeted as “a really great story.” Penn’s returns surpassed the 9.2 percent median return of university endowments larger than $1 billion, according to statistics the Wall Street Journal reported Sept. 28. For comparison, Harvard University gained 10 percent in returns and Dartmouth College gained
12.2 percent. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, however, outcompetes Penn with a 13.5 percent endowment return. Wharton professor Robert Stambaugh said even though Penn’s returns dropped from 14.3 percent last year to 12.9 percent this fiscal year, the difference is not significant since there are often year-to-year variaSEE ENDOWMENT PAGE 9
ANNA LISA LOWENSTEIN | DESIGN ASSOCIATE
NEC clears two candidates of campaign violation charges
Prof. Amy Wax weighs in on Kavanaugh allegations
Both were subsequently elected to their positions
She described the claims as “stale” and “unfair”
JULIA KLAYMAN Staff Reporter
Following a nine-hour hearing, the Nominations and Elections Committee cleared two candidates of all charges relating to alleged campaign violations and were elected to their respective posts. The NEC charged Wharton freshmen Sarah Zhou and Sameer Khan with violating Penn’s Fair Practices Code on Wednesday. After being cleared, the two were announced by the NEC to have won their respective races. Zhou will serve as the Vice President of Finance for Class Board 2022 and Khan will serve as the Wharton Chair. NEC Grievance Officer and College junior Lucas Weiner, also a Daily Pennsylvanian staffer, charged the two candidates with looking at a voter’s ballot and with persuading students to vote a certain way during an election. Both candidates faced identical charges. Zhou and Khan campaigned together for Class Board 2022. Chair of the NEC and College senior Stephen Imburgia, former Daily Pennsylvanian staffer, said most of the trial evidence against the two were the same. The trial was slated to take place in Huntsman Hall with results announced by 5 p.m. Deliberations, however, lasted longer than ex-
MADELEINE NGO Deputy News Editor
SARAH ZHOU
pected, and the NEC moved to the Penn Women’s Center at around 6 p.m. to continue its discussion for another hour. In 2016, the NEC held a a Fair Practice Code hearing for candidates running for Class Board President. While that lasted about seven hours, today’s trial lasted nine hours. “I’m really, really proud of how professional the NEC was throughout our deliberations process,” Imburgia said. “I think that it was really important to stress that the people that we are considering are our peers and that at the end of the day, we’re all Penn students.” The trial included witnesses for the prosecution and the defense, and it largely centered on a video recorded by NEC member and Wharton freshman Connor Gibson. The footage shows Zhou and Khan knocking on a freshman’s dorm door. The two told the room resident that they were running together and Khan instructed the resident on how to vote for Zhou. The video depicts this interaction and continues, showing Zhou
SAMEER KHAN
crossing the hall to be on the other side of the laptop while the student votes. The prosecution argued that Khan, acting as a surrogate for Zhou, illegally looked at the voter’s ballot. Witnesses said during the trial that, after recording the video, Gibson spoke with the resident of that room and College freshman Anthony Rovito — both of whom lived on that same hall — and allegedly asked them if the candidates had looked at their ballots while voting. Both students said yes. Rotivo also said that when Zhou and Khan knocked on his door, they gave him a cookie, asked him to vote, and set up the ballot for him. Weiner argued that Zhou used the cookie to persuade Rovito to vote for her, a move which is not allowed under the FPC. He also noted that if either candidate looked at the ballot, it would be an automatic disqualification under FPC guidelines. Six witnesses spoke on Zhou’s SEE FAIR PRACTICES PAGE 8
OPINION | U. employees need fair wages
“Penn, take the moral reins and pay all Penn employees a minimum wage between $20-$25 an hour.” - Michael A. Keshmiri PAGE 4
SPORTS | A long ride home
Penn football opened Ivy League play with a 37-14 drubbing at the hands of Dartmouth. Despite coming into the game with momentum, the Quakers could not establish a rhythm on either side of the ball. BACKPAGE FOLLOW US @DAILYPENN FOR THE LATEST UPDATES ONLINE AT THEDP.COM
Penn Law professor Amy Wax, notorious for making controversial comments that have attracted national attention, has weighed in on the sexual assault allegations levied against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. In an online video entitled “Affirmative Action, Kavanaugh, and #MeToo,” Wax characterized Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations of sexual assault against the conservative judge as “stale” and “not fair.” “I think it violates principles of basic fair play for her to be bringing this up. I think she should have held her tongue — if I were her, I would have. I think basic dignity and fairness dictates that, you know, it’s too late, Ms. Ford, even if there would have been consequences to bitching about it at the time. So there’s that,” Wax said in a virtual discussion published Thursday on Youtube. That same day Ford and Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a contentious hearing. Ford, a Palo Alto University professor who earned her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, reiterated her claims that
NEWS Photo Gallery The March to End Rape Culture occured this past weekend in Philadelphia. PAGE 2
SON NGUYEN | SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
Wax explained her perspective to Brown University Professor Glenn Loury as a part of his online discussion series “The Glenn Show.”
Kavanaugh attempted to rape her at a high school party in the 1980s. Kavanaugh maintained his unequivocal denial of the allegations. President Donald Trump nominated Kavanuagh after Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement in June. In the past two weeks, three women have come forward levying allegations of sexual assault and misconduct against Kavanaugh. Wax explained her perspective in an digital talk with Brown University professor Glenn Loury as a part of his online discussion series, “The Glenn Show.” Wax also questioned punishing Kavanaugh for a “momentary act of recklessness” that allegedly occurred when he was a teenager and suggested Ford was exaggerating her traumatic
responses in order to disrupt his nomination process. “But even if he did it, 17 years old, we now are saying that a man is going to pay for the rest of his life for a momentary act of, you know, recklessness, which … didn’t create any permanent harm, except through this manufactured idea that this is such a horrible, traumatic thing,” Wax said, adding,”His whole life now is ruined.” “There is no perfect justice,” she continued. Wax criticized the second woman to allege misconduct of any sort, Deborah Ramirez, for coming forward with sexual misconduct accusations against Kavanaugh. Ramirez, who attended Yale University with Kavanaugh, told the New Yorker that the nominee exposed SEE WAX PAGE 3
A NOTE TO OUR READERS: Due to Fall Break, The Daily Pennsylvanian will print only on Monday this week. Our next issue will be published on October 8. SEND NEWS TIPS TO NEWSTIP@THEDP.COM CONTACT US: 215-422-4640
UPenn students, faculty and staff, activate your free WSJ membership:
WSJ.com/DailyPennsylvanian