December 12, 2018

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Wednesday December 12, 2018 vol. CXLII no. 117

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STUDENT LIFE

Bicker week revamped as Street week

By Zack Shevin Contributor

Bicker week may be a thing of the past. The Interclub Council (ICC) is calling this winter’s new process Street week, hoping to “shift the language away from ‘bicker’ and towards a Street-wide admissions process,” according to ICC chair and Cloister Inn president Hannah Paynter ’19.

“This is a time to explore the Street as a whole,” Paynter wrote in an email to The Daily Princetonian.

This winter, eating club admissions will be consolidated into a one-week process for all clubs, in an effort to level the playing field between sign-in and selective clubs. The new process also does away with the first round of sign-ins.

On Jan. 20, sophomores can begin requesting invitations to recruitment events on the ICC website. Sophomores will be required to request information from at least one sign-in club.

Charter Club president Conor O’Brien ’19 said this requirement will have a positive effect on the sign-in clubs.

“You don’t have somebody saying, ‘I only want to bicker this club or these two clubs.’ They’re obliged to also find out a little bit about sign-in clubs and sign-in club culture,” he said. “Charter is sort of uniquely special…. I think that being able to show that in a more prominent way is going to be really positive, not just for Charter but for all of the clubs, to really showcase that there’s not this perceived distinction between bicker clubs and sign-in clubs.”

On Sunday, Feb. 3, the start of Street week, clubs will begin holding recruitment events, which are permitted to go on until Wednesday, Feb. 6.

CHARLOTTE ADAMO :: PRINCETONIAN ASSOCIATE DESIGN EDITOR

The Interclub Council (ICC) hopes to encourage student interest in sign-in clubs.

In an email to the ‘Prince,’ Quadrangle Club president-elect Daniel Bello ’20 explained that recruitment events will seek to enable sophomores to make the most informed decisions possible when deciding between eating clubs.

“This year, there is a stronger push to engage with more clubs before making a final choice. All 11 clubs are going to have events for all sophomores throughout the week,” Bello wrote.

During the preference window, from Tuesday, Feb. 5, to Thursday, Feb. 7, students will rank the clubs. These rankings must include all five sign-in clubs, in addition to any clubs that a sophomore bickers. Though the timeline is still being finalized, Paynter wrote that the ICC has agreed on 8 p.m. Thursday as a deadline, to allow the ICC time to reach out to any sophomores who may have forgotten to fill out their rankings.

“This matching system will guarantee that every sophomore receives an offer on Friday morning,” Paynter wrote.

STUDENT LIFE

Andre Radensky ’21 said that, though he may give a second signin club slightly more thought this winter because of the new ranking system, he does not see the new process dramatically altering how fellow sophomores look at each eating club.

“I think a lot of prior thought goes into how people construct their own internal rankings,” he said. “I think that’s a process that happens for a while, even before actual Street week happens, so I don’t think it’ll change people’s decision-making all that much.”

However, Radensky added, “I don’t see that there’s a huge downside to it, except for slightly forcing people to make a lot of arbitrary distinctions towards the bottom of the list, given the fact that I think people know their top three.”

The clubs will be blind to the prospective members’ rankings on the website when making their admissions decisions. Friday morning, the ICC website’s matching mechanism will run, and offers will be released at 9 a.m. on Feb. 8.

In an email to the Prince, Paynter laid out how the ICC website’s mechanism will work.

“With the open club matching process, the website will match students with the highest possible rank,” she wrote. “The open clubs do not select their memberships.

When the club reaches their membership cap (e.g. limit), the entire pool of students that ranked the club within that ranked category (e.g. ranked as first) will be run through a lottery system.”

For selective clubs, if a student gets accepted into two different clubs that they ranked above all five sign-ins, they will automatically receive an offer from whichever they ranked first. If a student is denied by their first choice, but selected by their second-choice club, the student will automatically receive an offer from their second choice. If not selected by either, they will still be automatically accepted into their highestranked sign-in club, depending on availability.

The new Street week setup also eliminates the first round sign-in period of previous years. Instead,

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

students wanting to join a specific open club will simply rank that club first on their lists during the preference window.

“What I’m excited about this year at sign-in clubs,” wrote Bello, “is that sophomores can join a club at the same time [as their peers] and feel confident that members won’t know or care whether they were offered or denied membership at a different club.”

Radensky said he views the new measures as small, easily enactable changes that may help alleviate some of the psychological pressures of eating club selection.

“People not getting in anywhere sucks, and it feels awful,” he said. “There is definitely value in not saying, ‘Oh you didn’t get in anywhere,’ but instead, ‘You got in somewhere. Maybe this wasn’t your first choice,’ because people generally have a bias against hearing bad news versus good news that just isn’t their optimal good news.’’

“It sounds like a relatively lowcost solution that will probably have some benefits,” Radensky added.

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

Dept. of Education Ressa ’86 plans Title IX changes named Time Staff Writer

COURTESY OF WELLPOWER

Fifty percent of social entrpreneurship efforts fail after two years, according to Noah Schochet ’21.

WellPower founders talk social entrepreneurship

By Shira Moolten Contributor

Last October, the University hosted its first ever iteration of the Hult Prize competition, an international startup challenge with a focus on solving pressing social issues. A group of four students entered the competition an hour before the deadline, simply because the competition needed another team. The team ended up doing so well that this year they

In Opinion

will fly to Kenya to implement their plan.

Noah Schochet ’21, one of the cofounders of the group, joined forces with Todd Baldwin ’20, a fellow entrepreneur who he met early in his first year at the University, Ayushi Sinha ’20, and Victoria Scott ’18. The team won the challenge at Princeton and then proceeded to place in the top three at a Boston regional event and the top six at the Hult Prize Ivy Competiton.

See WELLPOWER page 3

Senior columnist Kaveh Badrei challenges Ta-Nehisi Coates’s distinction between a writer and an activist, and contributing columnist Braden Flax critiques the popular notion of the University’s campus as an “Orange Bubble.” PAGE 4

A few weeks ago, the Department of Education released a long-anticipated proposal for changing the regulations laid out in Title IX that allows lawyers to play a larger role in proceedings, which may deter victims from speaking out.

The proposal could notably impact the legal requirements for colleges’ handling of sexual misconduct. One of the major changes is the proposed right for a lawyer to cross-examine accusers. Some worry this will discourage victims from taking action.

The proposal, which represents the first regulatory changes to Title IX in years, is currently in a 60-day period of public comment.

Title IX is the federal civil rights law passed in 1972 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex within educational programs. However, Title IX is most well-known for creating rules which dictate institutional responses to cases of sexual misconduct.

“There could still be a fairly significant shift during the public comment period,” said Michele Minter, the University’s vice provost for institutional equity and diversity.

Today on Campus

“We’re working to understand what’s in the proposed regulations and think with our counterparts at other schools about what kind of questions or comments we might want to make.”

In handling cases of sexual misconduct, Minter explained that Title IX sets the minimum requirements, and that University policy expands on federal regulations to fit institutional needs.

“We work hard to get the balance right between keeping the campus safe and being able to respond when there’s an allegation of an incident, and doing it in a way that’s very fair and respectful to all the parties,” Minter said.

Some University students are concerned.

“Seventy-seven percent of sexual assaults currently go unreported, and implementing these Title IX changes will only increase that number by creating a more hostile environment for the victims who do choose to report,” said Tamar Willis ’19, one of the presidents of Princeton Students for Reproductive Justice (PSRJ).

The cross-examination model is different from the University’s current system and could make the legal proSee TITLE IX page 2

Noon.: Signed, Sealed, and Undelivered: The Voyage of the Santa Catharina and a Global Microhistory of Trade and Politics in the Indian Ocean, 1739–48 Burr 219

Person of the Year

By Allan Shen Contributor

On Tuesday, Dec. 11, Time Magazine named University alumna Maria Ressa ’86 and other journalists as 2018 Person of the Year.

Time honored the cohort of journalists, collectively named “the Guardians,” who were killed or persecuted in various regions of the world for their dedication to the production of quality journalism and the pursuit of facts during a time of hostility against their profession.

The group also included Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and journalist for The Washington Post who was assassinated in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October; the staff of the Capital Gazette newspaper based in Annapolis, Md., where five staff members were killed in a June shooting; U Wa Lone and U Kyaw Soe Oo, two journalists for Reuters who were incarcerated following their reporting of the massacre of 10 See RESSA page 2

WEATHER

By Julia Ilhardt

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The Daily Princetonian

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Wednesday December 12, 2018

Ressa ’86 turned herself in to Major Title IX changes Philippine authorities last week may deter reporting

COURTESY OF JOSHUA LIM VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Ressa graduated from the University in 1986 with an A.B. in English.

RESSA

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Rohingya Muslim men in Myanmar.

Born in the Philippines, Ressa graduated from the University in 1986 with an A.B. in English. She then returned to her native Phil-

ippines to study at the University of the Philippines under a Fulbright Scholarship. Ressa has since become a journalist working primarily in Asia, having been CNN’s bureau chief in Manila and Jakarta. Ressa is the author of two books: “Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of al-Qaeda’s

Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia” and “From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism.”

Ressa has received numerous honors for her work in journalism, including Golden Pen of Freedom Award from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, the Knight International Journalism Award of the International Center for Journalists, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Ressa co-founded the news organization Rappler in 2011 and became its CEO. She has since become a vocal critic of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and has led efforts to report extensively on his war on drugs as well as the death toll it has caused. In November, the Philippine government moved to charge Ressa and Rappler for tax evasion, a charge that Ressa labeled as a politically motivated attack on journalism.

After a trip to the United States, Ressa was arrested upon her return to the Philippines by the Philippine government, which prepared a warrant for a time that coincided with the date of her return to Manila.

Ressa was granted bail by a Philippine court and posted bail of 60,000 pesos (around $1,148).

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COURTESY OF CREATIVE COMMONS

“We want students to be safe, and we want students to be treated fairly,” Minter said.

TITLE IX

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cedures for reporting sexual misconduct more intimidating.

“It’s already a stressful and challenging process to go through,” Minter said. “I think this would make it more stressful.”

For resources such as Princeton’s Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources and Education (SHARE) office, the impact will be less overt.

“At SHARE we aim to provide a survivor-centered and trauma-informed response to all of our students,” SHARE director Jackie Deitch-Stackhouse said in a statement.

“That aim will not be changed, regardless of any modifications to laws or policies.”

But for people who want to pursue legal action, the system will change.

A significant stipulation of the proposal is the reduced range of incidents that colleges would be required to consider. With the Department of Education’s modifications, only cases that occurred on the college campus would be subject to university investigation.

At the University, Minter said that “we would very likely continue to view scope exactly the same way we do now, which is to say the campus and the local vicinity, including the eating clubs.”

However, this change could have a greater impact at other universities where a majority of students live off-campus.

The handling of sexual misconduct is location-specific, but federal regulations fail to adapt.

“Government oversight is appropriate. It’s just that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work that well, because the institutions are so different,” Minter said.

In light of recent widespread instances of sexual abuse on college campuses and the popular #MeToo movement, Title IX has been caught in the political debate. The Department

of Education’s proposal is part of this ongoing conversation, embedding the current administration’s ideals.

“I think we can all agree we want students to be safe and we want students to be treated fairly, but there are very different points of view, depending on what administration is in power, as to how that should be accomplished, and that’s a challenge on campuses,” Minter said.

The proposal recommends changing the definition of sexual harassment from “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” to “unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to the recipient’s education program or activity.”

Minter said that although the Obama administration made no official changes to Title IX regulations, it issued “guidance” on how to implement the law. Guidance is technically a form of suggestion, but by threatening to withdraw federal funding, it had the force of a mandate.

“The Trump administration is actually following the correct process for issuing regulations,” Minter said.

Still, some view the Department of Education proposal as a step backward in terms of handling sexual misconduct in educational institutions, limiting scope and raising the standard for evidence.

“Instituting such changes would be utterly detrimental to the health and safety of students and would disenfranchise sexual assault survivors, leaving students who report sexual assault without a road map to justice,” Willis said.

The final regulations have not been set in stone, but the current period of public comment has allowed people to read and consider the proposal.

“Students of course should educate themselves about it,” Minter said. “If they have thoughts, public comments are welcomed and sought, and student voices are important.”

A Killer Course Schedule Daniel Te ’21

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Wednesday December 12, 2018

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WellPower to head to Kenya to implement its pilot program WELLPOWER Continued from page 1

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The team’s project centered on a solar powered water purifier made entirely from upcycled solar panels and lithium batteries. Upcycling refers to the process of reusing materials that would otherwise likely become waste.

“We get the solar panels for free from companies or locations where they were previously installed and are now being replaced by more efficient ones, but they still work. So they’re being thrown away but they still have a lot of value left in them,” Schochet explained.

A similar process occurs with lithium batteries, commonly used in electric vehicles like Teslas. When these vehicles leave the market, no one knows what to do with the batteries, which are too expensive to recycle.

This year, the WellPower team plans to make its dream a reality. The team added member Bethwel Kiplimo ’21, who hails from Kenya, where they plan on implementing their pilot project. According to Kiplimo, NGOs that come to Kenya often set up projects that no one actually uses.

“The current systems are broken,” Schochet said, referring to the previous social entrepreneurship efforts that have failed. “Fifty percent of them are broken after two years.”

Currently, the team is working on fund-raising before winter break, when they will head to Kokwa Island, the remote village in Kenya where they plan to implement their pilot program. Kokwa Island is cut off from the national grid, in the middle of a lake, with no clean water. If the program succeeds, the entire community could have access to clean water.

The innovative and environmentally conscious design of this unit is only part of WellPower’s pull; through its implementation, the team wants to redefine social entrepreneurship entirely.

“What we wanted was to make something the opposite of what we’d seen,” Schochet said. “Not a charity, but a company. Not something that was going to break, but something that was going to last.

Not something that was going to lose money, but something that was going to make money.”

“We like to shy away from the social entrepreneurship title,” Baldwin added. “We believe that all companies should be in the best interests of providing for their customers.”

In addition to purifying water, the unit generates electricity; excess electricity from the purifier can then be sold to the local community, something akin to a micro-utility company. In the long term, the students hope that WellPower will not only serve to sustainably purify water, but will also revitalize the economy. People from Kokwa Island have already expressed interest in using the electricity produced by the water purifiers to power sewing machines, which would boost the production of textiles sold in the market, creating more industry and jobs.

“A lot of people ask us, why

Kenya?” Sinha said. “I think this comes back to Princeton’s unofficial motto — of ‘in the service of humanity’ — and its own sort of emphasis on social entrepreneurship, but through a more global lens. I think we embody that.”

Kiplimo’s personal connection to Kenya certainly helps, and one of his main roles involves leading efforts to create partnerships and to reach out to people on the ground. The WellPower team has communicated with Kenya’s minister of water and irrigation in addition to local community members and entrepreneurs. When they arrive, the students will work with a nonprofit through a church in Kokwa, which will help them actually carry out the operation.

Through testing this pilot, the team hopes to diagnose any logistical problems in technology or finances, as well as assess the projects cultural compatibility. According to Sinha, the reason many social entrepreneurship efforts fail often has to do with a lack of compatibility with the communities they are trying to help.

“So many projects are not integrated into the way people naturally work,” she said. From the perspective of a Kenyan citizen, Kiplimo added, “we want to feel like it’s ours, that we can use it.”

Instead of altering how people get water, WellPower will ensure that people do get it, and the water is clean. After installing the unit, the team intends to provide members of the community with proper training so that they can maintain the system themselves.

They want to dismantle people’s misconceptions of Africa as simply a place that “needs aid.”

“Africa is growing, it’s going to be the center of the next technological revolution,” Schochet said.

The WellPower team has taken inspiration from startups in Africa like Andela, which utilizes Africa’s large untapped labor pool to teach people valuable exportable skills such as computer programming, and Zipline, which specializes in medical products in Rwanda.

Although Rwanda has a universal healthcare system that is considered one of the best in Africa, most U.S. investors prefer to invest in U.S. businesses, ignoring the potential for profit elsewhere, and the added possibility of humanitarian benefits.

Raising money for the project has proven difficult because of the aforementioned prejudices as well as a desire among investors to see whether WellPower is actually successful prior to investing. This creates a dilemma for entrepreneurs like the WellPower team, who need funding to test the project in the first place.

However, they have succeeded in raising some funds through their success in competitions and through the University, as well as their GoFundMe. In addition to ever-present obstacles relating to the project itself, all four students must tackle the rigorous University workload on top of extracurricular obligations, all while taking time for themselves, which often involves tough sacrifices.

Sinha, who majors in B.S.E.

computer science, said that she preaches “doing what you love” more than she practices it. But her passion for WellPower has also forced her to set some of her other interests aside, such as working as an assistant residential college advisor (ARCA).

She remains co-president of the Entrepreneurship Club (EClub), but said she participates in club tennis as her “self-care.”

Baldwin, a chemical and biological engineering major, is also a member of E-Club, directs New York Tiger Trek, and said his self-care is club football. His biggest pieces of advice to University students are to set aside time for introspection and to take risks.

“College is the time to take risks,” Baldwin said. “I think we tend to view risk in a negative light, but we’ll never have the opportunity to take these risks again.”

In addition to his work in Kenya through WellPower, Kiplimo, a mechanical and aerospace engineering major, developed an education initiative in Kenya that offers books to kids, as well as a summer program teaching kids to read.

According to Kiplimo, children from his village, Solai, did not have access to books growing up.

“I grew up reading the Bible,” Kiplimo said.

He began these projects out of his own desire. He realized early on that he was involved in too many clubs on campus.

Now, he takes classes that he’s passionate about, avoids procrastinating, and works as a McGraw tutor alongside another campus job.

Schochet, who has been doing entrepreneurship his whole life, said he took six classes as a first-year and, like everyone else, was juggling too many clubs, because he felt that he “was supposed to.” This year, he arrived on campus with a new approach: “Do what makes you happy, nothing more.”

“I don’t have to do things for a résumé,” he said. “I’m only doing what I love. I’m extremely happy, and running on zero hours of sleep.”

Besides WellPower, he participates only in club sailing, and takes four classes despite being an engineer.

All four students have had

to make tough choices between WellPower, their classes, extracurriculars, and general livelihoods. In doing so, however, they evaluated their priorities, and realized what mattered to them the most.

Ultimately, their experience with WellPower has taught them that success requires a great deal of defiance, and that it is possible to think too much.

“Along every step of the way, everyone was trying to tell us why it wouldn’t work,” Schochet said. “Along every step of the way, we incorporate the advice, but we say ‘you’re wrong.’”

Through their efforts, the students hope to inspire future University entrepreneurs.

“As a team we’ve had to grow, we’ve had to go around the system when the system doesn’t work. Our hope is that we’ll pave the way for other people to follow; we want other entrepreneurs at Princeton to see that you can do it too,” Schochet said.

“There’s nothing more important than doing,” Sinha added. “Just get out there and build something.”

Opinion

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Permeable Orange Bubble: Why our world is real Braden Flax

Contributing Columnist

A

cross the United States, the utility

and worth of a college education is being called into question. The tangible gains that it may afford seem increasingly fleeting; as the prospects for sustaining what remains of the relative prosperity that accompanied America’s dominance after World War II fade and recede swiftly into a morass of political nonsense, young people are rendered more dependent on their families for longer periods and denied the opportunities that seemed so abundant to our parents. Some among the older generations blame us for this retrogression, while others recognize, to varying extents, the deeply rooted forces at play.

Still others resent those of us who manage to “make it to the top,” citing (largely correctly) the abuses against the public by a disconnected, technocratic elite that, emboldened to take advantage of the situation, does just that. All of this is to say that the dynamic observed on a college campus reflects and is inseparable from broader processes.

One assumption surrounding college life is that it does not exemplify or contain the hardships and complexities of the outside world; we are assumed to operate solely on a level of abstraction that is as unknowable to the wider public as it is irrelevant to the material world in which they live, thrive, and cope.

As such, we are castigated and belittled for our disengagement from the “real world.” Our institutions are chastised for enabling and even causing the wid-

COURTESY OF TASHI TREADWAY

ening of this chasm. As vacuous and inaccessible as intellectual pursuits may appear on the surface, the trials and tribulations undergone by college students are anything but trivial.

The incessant mockery endured by college students, and young people in general, across the landscape of the mainstream discourse exacts a toll, as reflected in our rampant anxiety and psychological disequilibrium.

Often, even we uncritically accept the veracity of this condescending narrative that, although it seems compelling, is every bit as disconnected from the truth as colleges are claimed to be from the rest of the world. This can be seen in our discussions of an “Orange Bubble,” which envelops us, protecting us from danger and discomfort and obscuring their sources from our understanding.

This bubble, an abstraction in itself, represents simultaneously an awareness of our relative safety and a guilt-ridden attitude in relation to that position. It is not wholly invalid to think of academic matters as overly abstract, nor is it wrong to posit the relative insularity of our campus.

To the extent that this metaphor is useful for our contemplative isolation, we must recognize the manifold forces that easily intrude into the bubble.

When I claim that our campus is a part of the real world, I mean this in a way that goes well

beyond a strict, technical literalism, the basis for which should be self-evident. To expound on this point, it is useful to consider: What, according to the cultural antagonists of the University, is missing from campus life?

First, one might argue, the University caters excessively to the sensibilities of its student body, exacerbating its emotional fragility and reducing its intellectual stature. As in other spheres of life, there is an element of truth underlying this premise; enraged people respond impulsively and immaturely to words and behaviors they find offensive. (If anything, this is an argument for why the University is similar to the real world, since overreaction takes place as much on its outside as within its classrooms.) Any attempt by the University to address a grievance, however symbolic or cosmetic, is then interpreted as a repudiation of its mission: to expose its students to unfriendly perspectives in a ruthless and unceasing quest to more closely approximate the truth.

This encroaching regime of intellectual narrowness leaves students unprepared for the “real world,” where they and their statements will be interrogated and scrutinized without mercy; colleges should apply this mercilessness as a form of preparation.

In summary, the University can be unique in its ruthless pursuit

of truth, but not in its exercising of compassion; such critics rationalize the unsatisfactory present with the fact that things will be bad in the future.

One may further object that, relative to the population at large, college students can hardly claim to have overwhelming concerns. Like the rest of the world, though, such considerations are distributed unevenly; people on campus have access to very different resources, for instance. In addition, just because such worries and challenges are of a different sort, this does not imply that they are lesser. The differentiation of such difficulties within campus, and from other sorts of rigors, testifies to just how natural they are; distinguished by their own peculiarities, they are also intertwined with their offcampus counterparts.

To solidify this point, we need only observe the stated purposes of education, such as to help people realize their potential and to integrate them into a swiftly changing workforce. College students must deal with not only the composition of the wider society, but also with the specific trials assigned by the culture of college life.

Institutional entanglements are necessarily characteristic of higher education. The very abstractions that are dismissed in popular culture benefit the governments, industries, and other entities with which our campus community sustains relationships. These relationships puncture the bubble that supposedly exempts us from their pressures.

To deny this is to disempower and invalidate the struggles of college students, the dismissal of whose hardships only serves to disillusion, atomize, and diminish us.

Braden Flax is a sophomore from Merrick, N.Y. He can be reached at bflax@princeton.edu.

Write dangerously Kaveh Badrei

Senior Columnist

I

n his recent conversation with Professor

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor of the African-American Studies department, Ta-Nehisi Coates, an author and former national correspondent for The Atlantic, made a strong distinction between writing and activism.

While Coates emphasized that he shared the same goals and assessments of society as Black Lives Matter — an organization for racial justice — he said he could never claim to be a member of the activist movement.

Instead, Coates maintained he valued the separation of the writer from the activist. A writer, he said, stands resolutely at a distance, thinking freely and developing a consciousness independent from external socio-political movements. As a writer, according to Coates, one is only obligated to think for oneself and robustly communicate those convictions.

Coates has established himself as one of the most prolific writers of our time, but I must push back on his separation of the writer from the activist. Coates’s engagement with the world, his willingness throughout his career as a writer to grapple deeply with the problems of our time, and his powerful critiques of our society are wholeheartedly and forcefully the work of an activist.

Activism represents the struggle for truth, justice, and authenticity. It is the persistent searching in the void of darkness for

the light of progress, change, and equality. In this sense, the work of the writer — a writer much in the vein of Coates — is one of the most meditative and profound works of activism.

While Coates himself defined activism — through references to Black Lives Matter and the Black Panther Party — as the conventional and professional struggle for power and policy-change in society, I would urge for a more universal understanding.

I hope to go beyond Coates’s view and convey the importance of the writer as an activist.

I am not simply concerned with showing my disagreement with Coates’s view but rather about demonstrating the deeply pertinent and essential idea of activism at the core of works of art and writing.

Activism is the quest for progress within a system that seeks to prevent this forward movement.

Historically, writers have worked alongside activists — fostering change, advocating for justice, and championing progress toward something better, something more inclusive, and something aspiring to the heights of human ideals. More than the beauty of words and ideas, writing is powerful — it provokes, inspires, and effects change. To write and create today is an inherently political undertaking — an undertaking that stands up for humanity in the face of a discouraging reality that works to strip the human of individuality and creative agency.

Albert Camus, the 20th-century Algerian writer and philosopher, exemplified the ideals of this sort of engaged writer. Through his writing, Camus demonstrated his understanding of the essential

nature of dealing with the most important questions and most pressing causes of the time. More deeply, though, he realized the role of the artist is “to create dangerously” in the face of inequality, evil, and injustice. In 1957, Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his important literary production, which with clearsighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times.”

In Camus’s view, “The artist can neither turn away from his time nor lose himself in it.”

For Camus, it was the scourge of a nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, the chaos of a postwar world, and the Algerian war for independence — along with other postcolonial independence movements across the world — that demanded the power of the writer.

Today, a long list of worldwide crises has replaced those of the 20th century: the current backsliding of democracy; increased authoritarianism, hatred, and exclusion; and the ongoing scourges of violence and atrocity in Syria and Yemen. While some may ideologically disagree with Camus, he undeniably engaged with the world around him and advocated for the causes he believed in.

All in all, my disagreement with Coates stems from an appreciation of the engaged writer’s craft as a form of activism.

I see the writer’s role in society as a truth-teller, advocate, and, in turn, an activist. Especially in times much like today when not only the United States but also the entire world is rocked by waves of hatred, bigotry, backlashes to liberal democracy, endless warfare, and a breakdown of basic ideas of cooperation, the writer’s role is as

grave and as fundamental as ever.

In many ways, I see Coates as a writer in this vein, one who stands up to the most egregious realities of our American experience and the most harrowing inequalities felt by black Americans — not only now but since the founding of this country. Therefore, I value his voice as one engaged with the most pressing realities of our moment, and I value his role within our current world as an activist.

I respectfully disagree with his distinction between writers and activists because I believe many — myself included — hail Coates (and other scholars like him) as a writer who advocates for the causes and ideas most impactful to American life.

Writers such as Coates are involved in the tides of activism felt in our country and throughout the world.

To speak up, to engage, and to grapple directly with the evils of society are more pressing now than ever before, and it lies with those who choose to write, create, imagine, and produce in troubled times to encourage a belief in a changed world that is more human and inspiring.

The writer is one who refuses to be silenced, who continues to carry the powerful and illuminating justice of the written word forward in the face of opposition.

To create today is to create dangerously. Any publication is an act, and that act exposes one to the passions of an age that forgives nothing.

- Albert Camus

Kaveh Badrei is a junior Wilson School concentrator from Houston, Texas. He can be reached at kbadrei@princeton.edu.

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Sports

Wednesday December 12, 2018

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } SWIMMING

Men’s swim remains undefeated, women drop season’s first meet against Columbia

By Mark Dodici

Sports Contributor

In a split weekend for the swimming and diving program, both the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams traveled to New York for meets with the Columbia Lions.

The Princeton women narrowly lost in Percy Uris Natatorium on Friday, dropping to 6–1 on the season (4–1 Ivy), and the men continued their unbeaten run on Saturday to climb to 6–0 (4–0 Ivy).

From the onset, the women struggled to top the field in individual events. Sophomore Lauren McGrath, first-year Julia Brazeau, and first-year Cathy Teng placed second in the 1000yard freestyle, 100-yard breaststroke, and 200-yard butterfly, respectively. However, no Tiger finished first until the ninth event. By the time sophomore Sophia Peifer won the 1-meter diving event with a score of 282.98, Columbia (3–2, 2–2) had opened up a 46-point lead.

Peifer’s win sparked a run for the Tigers. Immediately after, Teng won the 100-yard freestyle in 51.27. Her performance was followed by first-place finishes from sophomore Stephanie Nelson in the 200-yard backstroke (2:02.06) and junior Shaelyn Choi in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:21.10), capping a stretch of four events that brought Princeton back within 20 points.

Despite a narrow first-place finish by junior Elaine Zhou in the 100-yard butterfly (57.07) and strong second-place performances from sophomore Courtney Tseng in the 500-yard

freestyle and Joanna Curry in the 200-yard individual medley, the Princeton women were unable to complete the comeback.

Columbia beat out the Tigers’ A-team of Teng, Zhao, first-year Vivian Wang, and senior Izzy Reis in the 200-yard freestyle relay by 0.19 seconds to close out the day, building on the Lions’ lead to bring the final score to 160–140.

Princeton’s underclassmen once again showed their promise, with Teng, Peifer, and Nelson each finishing first in one of their events and in the top four for their other event.

The Tigers’ fight and persistence in the second half of the meet were lauded by head coach Bret Lundgaard following the loss, according to GoPrincetonTigers.com. Lundgaard did not respond to a request for comment.

The next day, the men’s meet with Columbia (1–4, 0–4) saw Princeton swimmers atop the podium early and often. The first victory for the Tigers came three events in, when sophomore Levy Nathan scorched the field for a five-second victory in the 1000-yard freestyle (9:23.46).

Senior Murphy McQuet followed this with a come-frombehind win of his own in the 200-yard freestyle (1:37.73), and fellow senior Cole Buese took second in the 100-yard backstroke. Senior Tyler Lin kept the streak of strong performances going with a 56.79 in the 100yard breaststroke, good for another first-place finish.

First-year Raunak Khosla continued his strong first season in the 200-yard butterfly,

COURTESY OF GOPRINCETONTIGERS.COM

First-year Raunak Khosla continued his impressive season with individual wins in the 200 fly and 200 IM.

leading the lot with a time of 1:49.09. Senior Christian Feiler led first-year Nathan Yates in a 2–3 finish in the 50-yard freestyle, and McQuet and Feiler did the same in the 100-yard freestyle. Lin continued a stellar individual performance with his second victory of the day, winning the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:05.05, and Nathan followed suit, topping the heap in the 500-yard freestyle (4:33.61).

Khosla added another win to the team total, taking the 200-yard individual medley in 1:51.10, before the team of sophomore Joshua Brown, Feiler, Lin, and McQuet closed out the meet with a winning time of

3:01.74 in the 400-yard freestyle relay.

Princeton’s 161.5–138.5 victory was largely the result of the resilience of a “far from perfect” team, assistant coach Doug Lennox ’09 said in an email on Tuesday.

“We have a lot of guys who are willing and able to step up for the team. This gives us strong depth and allows us to compete with teams that have some really impressive top-end talent,” Lennox wrote on behalf of head coach Rob Orr. This seems to have been effective thus far, as the men will take a perfect record into the New Year. However, Ivy League

rivals Harvard (4–0, 3–0) and Yale (2–0, 1–0) boast the same winning percentage at this point in the season. The three teams will square off in the annual HYP meet in Cambridge, Mass., in February.

“Quite frankly, we are underdogs on paper, and we need to bring a lot of grit, passion and joy to Cambridge if we expect to challenge them in the pool,” Lennox said of the meet against the conference foes.

Before then, the men swim next against Navy (9–1) in DeNunzio Pool on Jan. 5. The women enjoy a slightly longer hiatus, with their next meet falling on Jan. 11 at Rutgers (5–0).

MEN’S HOCKEY

Men’s hockey swept by Arizona State Sun Devils as losing streak climbs to 7

By Samuel Lee Sports Contributor

Men’s hockey (3–8–1 overall, 3–4–1 ECAC Hockey) was defeated by Arizona State (12–6) twice this weekend, losing by a score of 4–0 on Friday and 3–2 on Saturday. The losses this weekend extended the Tigers’ losing streak to seven, lowering their overall win percentage to .292.

The 4–0 loss on Friday was just the second time this season that the Tigers have been held scoreless, the first coming in a 3–0 loss to Quinnipiac on Nov. 30. The Tigers conceded twice in the first period, but outplayed the Sun Devils in the second period, winning the shots-on-goal battle 21–8.

Despite their offensive dominance, the Tigers were unable to find the net, and the Sun Devils’ third goal put the game out of reach.

The Tigers showed more promise in Saturday’s game.

After going down 2–0 in the first period, Princeton rallied and leveled the score in the second period. The first goal came just seconds into the second period, as senior for-

ward Ryan Kuffner chased the puck into the offensive zone and beat goalkeeper Joey Daccord for his ninth goal of the season. Two minutes later, senior forward Max Véronneau scored on the power play to level the score. After receiving the puck in the neutral zone, junior forward Jackson Cressey sent the puck across the ice to Véronneau, who raced past the Sun Devils’ defenders before finding the net from a difficult angle.

After a scoreless third period, the Tigers came close to ending the game in the second minute of overtime, when sophomore defenseman Mark Paolini’s shot hit the crossbar.

However, just seconds later the Sun Devils secured the win, with forward Jake Clifford scoring the winning goal off a rebound.

With his goal on Saturday, Véronneau moved up to seventh on the Tigers’ all-time points list, with 122, and his 80 career assists place him fourth all time, just one away from tying Jeff Halpern ’99.

Kuffner, who sits right in front of Véronneau with 125 career points, has 62 goals in his ca-

COURTESY OF SHELLEY SZWAST

Senior Max Véronneau moved into seventh place on Princeton’s all-time points list after scoring a goal in Saturday’s contest.

reer, good for fourth on Princeton’s all-time list. Kuffner will likely have a shot at taking over the top spot on that list, as he is only five goals behind the leader, John Cook ’63.

The Tigers will look to bounce back this Saturday, Dec. 15, as they face No. 9 Penn State at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Penn State is 11–5–1 overall, and defeated the

Tigers earlier this season. After that game, the Tigers will return to Hobey Baker Rink for a doubleheader against Maine on Friday, Dec. 28, and Saturday, Dec. 29.

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With his goal on Saturday, senior Max Véronneau is now tied for seventh on Princeton’s all-time career points list.