December 14, 2015

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Monday december 14, 2015 vol. cxxxix no. 121

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U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S

U. recognizes BJL demands, but no decisions

By Andie Ayala staff writer

HEATHER GRACE :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The Princeton Student Events Committee hosted Winterfest in Frist Campus Center on Friday.

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

Protests highlight racial issues

By Caroline Lippman staff writer

The protests of the University’s Black Justice League in late November have received national attention, including discussions of renaming campus buildings and speculation on the possibility that the protests may impact a future Supreme Court decision.

Michael Dorf, law professor at Cornell University, noted that campus protests across the nation have sparked a conversation about race and rights.

“To my mind, the protests are

effective from the perspective of a university committed to the freedom of speech, even if the protestors don’t get what they want,” he said.

He added that if people are chanting or occupying an office, that is free speech, but it is also a way of sparking free speech.

Students on college campuses across the country have engaged in similar protests to remove the names of racist benefactors from school institutions, noted Evan Draim ’16, a member of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition.

STUDENT LIFE

Colloquium examines discrimination at U.

By Linda Song staff writer

While the University has come a long way since its beginning in terms of addressing issues of discrimination on campus, the initial bar was very low and it still has a long way to go, panelists and members of the community said in a public colloquium Saturday hosted by the Black Justice League.

The event featured panels and presentations by African American studies professors Joshua Guild, Eddie Glaude, Ruha Benjamin, Tera Hunter and Cornel West GS ’80.

Guild and Wilglory Tanjong ’18 began with a joint presentation, titled “Why Here? Why Now?: BJL Demands and Black Student Activism at Princeton,” looking at the BJL’s demands and where they fall in the history of black student activism at Princeton.

Tanjong noted that the Uni-

versity’s first two black students graduated in 1947, even though Harvard and Yale had offered their first degrees to black students in the 1870s. She also noted that many of the demands by the BJL are the same demands asked by black students at other institutions in the past.

Guild explained that in the 1960s and 1970s there was a demand for moving away from an entirely western Eurocentric canon in University courses. He added that many of the battles African-Americans fought for in those eras are still being fought for today, noting the recent affirmative action debates in the Supreme Court this past week.

“Part of what we want to think about is the continuities between that earlier moment and today and why is that black students in many respects are still fighting the same battles and are still asking many of the same See TEACH IN page 2

University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto decided to cover a mural depicting scenes of African-American laborers working in a tobacco field, explaining that the mural inaccurately conveyed the nation’s past with respect to race and equality, and University of Oregon President Michael Schill ’80 agreed on Nov. 21 to discuss potential changes to the names of buildings on campus named after benefactors with reputations for racism.

Draim also noted that the formation of the POCC was met See NATIONAL page 2

Although several actions were taken by the administrators in order to address the agreement between University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 and the Black Justice League, there is no set deadline for final decisions regarding the demands of the BJL, Eisgruber said.

According to Eisgruber, the modified demands of the BJL have been delegated to key administrators and departments who will ultimately assess the issues at hand and consult the greater University community to determine a concrete course of action.

He added that the administration has established multiple platforms intended to facilitate conversation between University members representing different interests, including open meetings with the Task Force on General Education, a committee on the legacy of Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, and meetings between him and student groups.

Members of the BJL declined or did not respond to requests for comment.

Eisgruber explained that

QUIPFIRE!

he wrote to Chair of the University Board of Trustees Katie Hall ’80, Head of Wilson College Eduardo Cadava and Dean of Faculty Deborah Prentice the evening that the protests ended.

“What we have done in response to the protests is to take the requests and proposals that the BJL wanted to discuss and put them in processes where the community has the chance to deliberate about them and decide fairly, and that’s what we’re going to do with these requests and requests coming from other groups,” Eisgruber said.

According to Associate Dean and the Director of Programs for Access and Inclusion Khristina Gonzalez, the Office of the Dean of the College has invited members of the BJL, Latinx, the Princeton Open Campus Coalition and other student groups to participate in a Task Force on General Education meeting that discussed the value of a diversity requirement.

She added that three different curricular conversations have been held in each of the residential colleges during which all students were invited to discuss the goals and See LOCAL page 3 LOCAL NEWS

Princeton files plan for affordable housing

By Hannah Waxman staff writer

NOSHIN KAHN :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Quipfire performed their winter formals shows on Saturday and Sunday.

Princeton filed a plan this week for affordable housing, after a New Jersey State Supreme Court ruling in March dictated that municipalities provide housing opportunities for people earning moderate to low incomes, according to the New Jersey State League of Municipalities.

The ruling instructed that Princeton and other towns in New Jersey present their plans for approval by judges. A judge will present a ruling on the plan sometime within the next year, Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert said.

The plan allots 446 units of affordable housing, according to an affordable housing litigation See HOUSING page 2

STUDENT LIFE

USG discusses ways to increase student voter turnout during elections senior writer

The Undergraduate Student Government will be implementing efforts to increase student turnout at USG elections, chief elections manager Sung Won Chang ’18 said at the senate meeting on Sunday.

Chang said that he would be setting up tables before future

elections to encourage students to vote and might also look into implementing a single transferable vote system which would eliminate the need for runoff elections.

“We could do much better in increasing the turnout, including increasing publicity,” Chang added. “Something I could work on in the future is reaching out more to candi-

dates. Next will be spring elections.”

Chang noted that in the winter USG elections that ended Dec. 1, 1,727 students cast ballots in the first stage of the elections for a fairly standard turnout of 33 percent. The turnout dropped somewhat for the presidential runoff election, with 28 percent participation, he said. Chang added that mem-

bers of the Class of 2017 and the Class of 2018 voted in larger numbers than other classes.

“This does seem natural given that people that know candidates are more likely to vote,” Chang explained, adding that the freshman turnout was unusually low compared to other years.

U-councilor Ethan Marcus ’18 said that he, USG president

In Opinion

Today on Campus

The Editorial Board discusses USG referendum reform and the Alliance of Jewish Progressives argues for accepting Syrian refugees. PAGE 6

7:30 p.m.: A performance of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos by the Chamber Music Society of the Lincoln Center. Richardson Auditorium.

Ella Cheng ’16 and Class of 2018 senator Paul Draper ’18 met this past week to discuss the referendum handbook changes.

Cheng is a former staff writer for The Daily Princetonian.

Marcus explained that the proposed changes require potential referenda sponsors to be in touch with the elections manager at least five weeks in See USG page 3

WEATHER

By Katherine Oh

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66˚

LOW

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Clouds with period of rain. chance of rain:

70 percent

The Daily Princetonian

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Monday december 14, 2015

Students consider effect of campus Speakers discuss politics of protests on Supreme court decision respectability, tone policing NATIONAL Continued from page 1

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with positive feedback from other schools that are interested in starting their own Open Campus Coalition chapters using the model of Princeton’s group.

Several BJL members either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

A Dec. 1 article in The New York Times suggested that the student protests on college campuses across the country may affect an upcoming Supreme Court decision on affirmative action in admissions for higher education.

Wilson School professor Stanley Katz said he believes that the protests on campus will have little effect on the Supreme Court decision.

“I don’t think [the members of the Supreme Court] are moved by this sort of thing,” he explained. “They have well-developed views on all of these subjects. I can’t imagine that any man or woman on the court will have changed [his or] her position as a result of this.”

Josh Freeman ’18, a member of the POCC, said that he believes that the campus protests and the issue of affirmative action are two independent issues that should not be correlated together.

“While they’re both issues on race, one is an issue of free speech in education and academic freedom versus affirmative action,” he said.

He noted that affirmative action policies affect students before they even enter college, whereas the recent protests at the University have to do with the racial climate for students already on campus.

However, Dorf said he thinks the issue of affirmative action is still connected to the demands of campus protesters and that the Supreme Court justices who are going to decide the Fisher case will nonetheless see the campus protests as relevant to what they are doing.

He noted that on some college campuses, protesters raised concerns that the schools’ faculties were not diverse enough and called for a greater commitment to hiring diverse faculty.

“Affirmative action in faculty hiring is going to be judged by similar constitutional standards, and so the Supreme Court’s understanding of what is permissible with respect to student body diversity will be related to what is acceptable for faculty diversity,” Dorf said with regard to the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action for student admissions.

Dorf also said that one could view the campus protests as proof that affirmative action is making a positive impact in colleges by promoting a more diverse student body and greater diversity of viewpoints.

“People weren’t protesting Woodrow Wilson 40 years ago.

They are now,” he said.

However, he also noted that others may counter that student body diversity is not leading to greater diversity of viewpoints, but rather political correctness and self-censorship, a concern raised during the protests at Yale in November.

Dorf said that in order to frame an appropriate policy response, institutions should think about the problem of the legacies of racism from the perspective of a “reasonable outsider” — somebody who is not a member of the relevant out-group but still maintains a

degree of care and interest in the issue.

Katz noted that he thought the issue of renaming certain institutions is a diversion from the real issues concerning race that students and faculty ought to be discussing. He said that he thought the controversy at Brown regarding its ties to slave history was met with an enlightened response from the university’s president Ruth Simmons.

According to Katz, Simmons acknowledged the historical complexity of the issue, formed a committee to pose inquiry into the university’s founding and published the committee’s results and research to promote knowledge and understanding of the institution’s past.

However, Katz explained that while he understands why members of college campuses are troubled by the misdeeds of influential figures from their pasts, this concern can also be naïve.

“Does one stop admiring John F. Kennedy because he was a sexual predator? You could, but he did other things. He’s famous mainly for other reasons,” Katz said.

He added that he thinks most famous figures in history cannot withstand such extreme scrutiny.

Katz said that as a historian, he does not look upon Wilson’s legacy any differently in the context of the protests.

“In general, I’m against what I would call nominalism. I think it’s possible to attach too much importance to names,” he said.

He added that he thinks it is more important for the protesters to outline and specify the current policies they find problematic and make those issues the subject of controversy.

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things from these institutions, demanding many of the same things from these institutions,” Guild said.

Yina Moore ’79, former mayor of Princeton Borough, said that the Fields Center has lost its place as the cultural center for AfricanAmerican students.

Another portion of the colloquium, entitled “Unity and Community: Significance of Community Organizing,” featured West, Glaude, Martina Fouquet ’16 and Destiny Crockett ’17 in exploring the significance of community in community organizing amid disagreement.

West said that the freedom movement could only be enhanced with love, respect and appreciation for freedom, dignity and integrity.

“In the end, the fundamental question is what you’re willing to live and die for,” West said.

“I’m not willing to die for identity politics, I’m willing to die for freedom, I’m willing to die for truth, I’m willing to die for integrity, I’m willing to die for honesty and dignity.”

Glaude added that he does not have to get into arguments about whether or not African-American studies is a justifiable field or to justify the black presence at the University.

Crockett said that it is easy to

ignore some people but there are times when you have to explain yourself, and that these times often come when one is in conversation with “power” or has to explain the truth to authority figures.

“When the president of the University says to us when we’re in his office ‘Actually I think you all owe Woodrow Wilson something’ … we still have to explain to President Eisgruber that actually we don’t owe Woodrow Wilson anything,” she said.

The next presentation, entitled “Lift Up Thy Self: Respectability and Tone Policing” featured a discussion led by Hunter and Olamide Akin-Olugbade ’16 on the politics of respectability and tone policing.

Hunter said that while the politics of respectability is a response to and critique of racism, it often reinforces racial stereotypes.

“We also want to spend as much time and attention and energy in imagining and creating something that we might call institutional anti-racism,” Benjamin said. “What is the alternative? What new forms of organization and relationships and institutions are we pouring our energy in? We can’t simply tear down without building up.”

The event, entitled “Reach in, Teach in: Black Activism and Consciousness at Princeton,” took place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday in the Frist Campus Center.

Plan allots 446 units of affordable housing HOUSING Continued from page 1

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update presented at a town council meeting on Nov. 24.

Lempert said that one new opportunity for housing is the Merwick/Stanworth apartment complex, which will contain 56 units of affordable housing for graduate students. The AvalonBay apartments being constructed on Witherspoon Street will contain another 56 affordable housing units, she added.

The original plan for municipal affordable housing in New Jersey was the Mount Laurel Doctrine in 1975, according to the New Jersey Housing and Community Development’s Municipal Housing Plans. The plan for affordable housing has undergone two revisions since then. However, Lempert said that as the legislature of Princeton’s municipality was not able to come to a decision consistent with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration on the most recent version of the plan, the State Supreme Court had to take over and mandate that each municipality present their plan to a judge for approval.

The affordable housing process, having been taken over by the court, is now under a litigation process as opposed to an open planning process, according to Lempert.

Princeton Councilmember Jo Butler noted that the court’s litigation made it difficult for municipalities in New Jersey to develop plans for affordable housing.

“When we’re planning as a community, we like to have a lot of community input,” Butler said.

“What’s difficult about this is that because it is litigation, we haven’t been able to have the kind of community input and public process that certainly we in Princeton like to have when we’re talking about planning for our future.”

However, both Butler and Lempert noted that a positive consequence of the litigation was that the court would protect Princeton against builder’s remedy lawsuits, which could allow contractors to build their own affordable housing units while bypassing zoning ordinances.

“Zoning ordinances are the rules that keep the town developing in a sensible way, keep our neighborhood character and help direct growth to where it makes sense,” Lempert said.

Butler explained that in devel-

oping its affordable housing plan the town expects to go along with growth in the University, not only with prospective increases in the student body but also increases in the numbers of faculty and staff members. She added that the University has been receptive to the developments regarding the litigation.

In addition to these proposals, the Fair Share Housing Center, a private developer company, also released suggested numbers for affordable housing requirements for New Jersey municipalities, increasing the number of affordable units in Princeton from 600 to 1,000, according to Planet Princeton.

“It’s been the nonprofit housing advocate since its founding in 1975, most active in promoting, defending, advancing the Mount Laurel doctrine,” David Kinsey, Princeton resident and visiting lecturer at the Wilson School, said of Fair Share Housing.

Kinsey said he has been working with Fair Share Housing since the summer of 2013 to calculate fair share obligations for affordable housing using the methodology which the Supreme Court ultimately dismissed.

The Mount Laurel decision created a process by which municipalities could submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the trial courts by filing a declaratory judgment action under the notice of Fair Share Housing, Kinsey added.

A declaratory judgment action is the legal determination of a court to resolve legal uncertainties for people involved in lawsuits.

“The March [Supreme Court] decision was a long time in coming, so it’s very good news that the court at least spelled out a process to revive implementation of the Mount Laurel doctrine,” Kinsey said.

Both Lempert and Butler noted that despite complications regarding the plans and litigation, Princeton has been continuing to make progress on building affordable housing.

“We have a long history of commitment to affordable housing, we’ve started early, and we’ve complied, and this process is frustrating because it hasn’t been as public as we would have liked,” she added.

Lempert explained that Princeton’s good-faith effort to provide affordable housing includes helping the community stay economically diverse, which she said Princeton has had a long tradition of doing and which is the right thing to do.

The Daily Princetonian

Monday december 14, 2015

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Eisgruber ’83 encourages waiting for Fields Center plans for decision before removing Wilson mural rebranding process LOCAL

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values of the proposed diversity requirement and what the requirement would look like.

Gonzalez noted that the three open conversations saw a full house of a diverse array of students, who appeared to be taking advantage of the provided resources to express their opinions.

She explained that the Office of the Dean of the College will continue holding conversations on campus climate through the next semester.

Ultimately, the Task Force will write a report and make recommendations on the curriculum at the end of next semester, she explained.

Eisgruber said a committee of members of the University’s Board of Trustees has been created to consider Wilson’s legacy at the university and to determine what changes should be made in reaction to these findings.

The committee has created a website to collect observations and opinions about Wilson and share these findings with the greater Princeton community.

Eisgruber added that he sent a letter to Cadava, encouraging him to wait until the committee collects all of this information before deciding whether to remove the mural of Wilson from the Wilcox dining hall.

“In my own personal view, the mural’s current location is problematic because it dominates a space that is intended to be a site of community for all students in the College,” Eisgruber wrote in his email to Cadava. “If there are students who find the mural offensive because of Wilson’s views about race, that objection is, in my opinion, a good reason to change the decoration of the dining hall to make it feel more inclusive.”

However, Eisgruber noted that Cadava has not replied yet.

Prentice said that she has arranged a meeting to talk to representatives of the BJL about cultural competency training, but has not taken any other actions.

Prentice declined to provide further comments.

Director of Counseling and Psychological Services Calvin Chin noted that Executive Director of University Health Services John Kolligian has spoken to Vice President W. Rochelle Calhoun about enhancing cultural competency training for CPS staff members.

Kolligian deferred comment to Chin.

Chin noted that CPS staff has already received Cultural Competency training for the

past three years, as a focal point of the CPS annual retreats that have discussed the institutional causes of racism and understanding privilege.

Chin added that he expects anybody who works in on-campus counseling to be skilled in handling patients of different backgrounds.

“You won’t be able to get a job here unless you have some training in cultural competency, diversity and inclusion,” he explained.

In terms of responding directly to the protesters, Chin said that he has tried to get in contact with members of the BJL through Gonzalez to see if he could support them through the issues that they have been going through and to hear their concerns about what can be further done.

However, he noted that nobody from the BJL has reached out to him to discuss how CPS resources could be available for students facing cases of microaggressions and institutionalized racism.

In addition to sparking changes on campus, the discussion on the BJL protests has also brought in a number of different voices, including Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz ’92, Wilson School alumna and writer for the Washington Post Christine Emba ’10 and members of student groups from other institutions such as Harvard.

A number of University groups have come together to express their opinions. The African American studies department has written a support letter championing the demands of the BJL. In contrast, Josh Zuckerman ’16 and Evan Draim ’16 have released a student petition opposing these very same demands, and Darren Geist ’05 has similarly written an alumni petition expressing concerns about the negotiations.

One such voice is the newly formed Princeton Open Campus Coalition that wrote a letter to Eisgruber denouncing the actions taken by the Black Justice League, stressing “the importance of preserving an intellectual culture in which all members of the Princeton community feel free to engage in civil discussion and to express their convictions without fear of being subjected to intimidation or abuse.”

POCC member Andy Loo ’16 said that the group of 10 students gathered in response to the protests and wrote the letter asking to meet with Eisgruber because they collectively believed that many students did not speak out against the protests for fear they would be criticized for their opinions.

“We had a fruitful meeting and I’m confident that Princeton will uphold aca-

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demic freedom and freedom of speech,” he noted.

However, Loo said that he cannot share the exact details of the meeting with Eisgruber since both parties agreed that the conversation would stay off-the-record.

According to Loo, many currently supported ideas — such as the earth’s roundness, gender equality and the abolition of slavery — used to be politically incorrect, so politically incorrect thoughts must be expressed to continue the advancement of society.

POCC member Allie Burton ’17 said POCC members come from diverse backgrounds, including Jewish, black, Hispanic and LGBT ones. They are not what some people have accused them of being, namely “a bunch of privileged white kids,” speaking out because they feel threatened, she said.

She explained that while no formal conversation between the BJL and the POCC has been facilitated, the two groups have come to direct confrontation during a discussion in philosophy professor Peter Singer’s Practical Ethics class on Dec. 9.

“When I was up there [during Peter Singer’s class] talking, they accused me of having internalized oppression, and that’s why I was disagreeing,” Burton said. “I feel like those kind of comments are not constructive to finding a solution that’s best for the campus.”

When asked about the tension between the perspectives of the student groups presented, Eisgruber noted, “You have a lot of people expressing views back and forth, and that is what should happen on a college campus.”

USG

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advance of the elections cycle and that there would be a week allotted for both sides of the issue being discussed to present their arguments and collect signatures.

“We basically want to make a schedule that would work for a substantial, controversial referendum. We also need time for the opposing party to form,” Cheng said. “We hope this will foster a mutual debate between all parties.”

Cheng added that this also gives enough time for the elections manager to advertise the referenda separately from the regular candidate announcements, and that the one-week consolidation would allow the chief elections manager to effectively police the parties. The Senate voted to approve these discussed changes to the referenda handbook.

Director of the Fields Center Tennille Haynes spoke to the senate members about the Center’s mission going forward.

Haynes noted that the Fields Center hopes to discuss race, class and privilege at the University and beyond and wants to be as open and inclusive as possible.

“We represent about 42 per-

cent of the population,” Haynes said. “It’s hard to capture all those communities under one slogan.”

Haynes noted that the Fields Center is planning to hold a photo campaign on campus to express its goals. In addition, she said, the Center is going through a comprehensive rebranding and revamping process that includes diversity peer educators, new programs and new events.

“The first thing I felt when I walked in was, this doesn’t really feel like a cultural center, it’s kind of sterile,” Haynes said, explaining that the Fields Center will probably be undergoing physical changes to accommodate student needs better.

The new programs will start by the spring or fall 2016, according to Haynes. She added that the Fields Center wants to keep its historic name, as Carl A. Fields, the first African-American dean in the Ivy League, began his administrative career at the University. Haynes also introduced some ideas for a new logo for the Fields Center, including making the font for the word “Equality” larger than the other words.

“We really wanted to highlight what we stand for,” Haynes said.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Daily Princetonian is published daily except Saturday and Sunday from September through May and three times a week during January and May by The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc., 48 University Place, Princeton, N.J. 08540. Mailing address: P.O. Box 469, Princeton, N.J. 08542. Subscription rates: Mailed in the United States $175.00 per year, $90.00 per semester. Office hours: Sunday through Friday, 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Telephones: Business: 609-375-8553; News and Editorial: 609-258-3632. For tips, email news@dailyprincetonian.com. Reproduction of any material in this newspaper without expressed permission of The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc., is strictly prohibited. Copyright 2014, The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Daily Princetonian, P.O. Box 469, Princeton, N.J. 08542.

Opinion

Monday december 14, 2015

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EDITORIAL

USG Referendum Reform

C

urrently, the Undergraduate Student Government is considering a series of changes to the rules governing student referenda.

Among the proposed changes is the creation of a $500 cap on campaign expenditures by groups supporting or opposing a referendum. Following the Divestment Referendum last spring, the Editorial Board argued that USG should reform referendum spending by requiring the disclosure of donations and expenditures by student groups involved in a referendum campaign.

The Board believes that the current USG proposal is misguided, and we again urge the USG to require student groups involved in referendum campaigns to disclose donation amounts and expenditures.

USG’s proposal fails to recognize the diverse nature of the parties with a stake in a given referendum. Because the $500 cap for campaign expenditures is applied to the official sponsor and opposition groups for the referendum, there are two possible ways this could work in practice. If USG uses this rule to forbid non-sponsor student groups from participating in referendum campaigns, then it will prevent perspectives other than those articulated by the official groups from being adequately expressed on campus. However, if the spending cap applies only to the officially recognized support and opposition groups, it is easily bypassed when there are multiple groups on each side of the issue. In this scenario, only one group on each side of the issue must register with USG and, consequently, be restricted by the cap. All other groups would be free to spend without restrictions. Due to this loophole, the USG policy has no real im-

pact on campaign spending.

Despite its flaws, USG’s attempt to limit spending is motivated by a legitimate concern. Given Princeton’s recognition as a top education and research institution, it is possible that outside groups could donate large amounts of money to student groups in order to influence referenda relating to national issues. A large influx of outside donations can lead to the appearance of one side having broad support from the student body simply due to a large amount of campaign expenditures. In order to address this issue without unduly harming free and open discourse, USG should require student groups participating in the campaign to disclose donation amounts and expenditures. This would increase transparency and allow students to be fully informed about the amounts being spent by both sides and the size of donations.

Students have an interest in knowing how much is being spent to influence their vote on a referendum. While the USG proposal tries to implement a cap that either will stifle discourse or be completely ineffective, this proposal equips students with valuable information that allows them to hold student groups accountable during a referendum campaign.

As we saw last year, referendum campaigns can be incredibly contentious. USG is making a good-faith effort to reform referendum campaign rules in response to feedback from last year’s campaigns. However, this part of their proposal is flawed, and it should be replaced by a system that encourages transparency. By doing this, the integrity of referendum campaigns can be protected without restricting the ability of student groups to participate in

vol. cxxxix

campus discourse.

Paul Draper recused himself from the writing of this editorial.

While I too oppose USG’s proposed changes to referendum procedure, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s alternative of requiring student groups to disclose campaign donations and expenditures for two reasons.

First, money is a form of speech that should be left unrestricted. Money is intimately related to political speech since it funds activities that promote broader awareness of issues. Yet the majority suggests this is inherently negative, describing what it terms “a legitimate concern” of outside groups donating to referenda campaigns. Insofar as requiring groups to disclose expenditures will create a disincentive for groups to spend money so they can avoid the negative bias to which the Board alludes, this limits campus debate in a pernicious way. Second, debate over referenda should focus on the real issues and not be misdirected by which side spends more money. It would be unfortunate if students were more focused on parsing through donation amounts rather than learning about each side’s arguments. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

Anna Mazarakis ’16 editor-in-chief

Matteo Kruijssen ’16 business manager

EDITORIAL BOARD chair Jeffrey Leibenhaut ’16 Allison Berger ’18 Elly Brown ’18 Thomas Clark ’18 Paul Draper ’18 Daniel Elkind ’17 Theodore Furchgott ’18 James Haynes ’18 Wynne Kerridge ’16 Cydney Kim ’17 Sergio Leos ’17 Carolyn Liziewski ’18 Sam Mathews ’17 Connor Pfeiffer ’18 Ashley Reed ’18 Aditya Trivedi ’16 Kevin Wong ’17

Signed, Allison Berger ’18 The Editorial Board is an independent body and decides its opinions separately from the regular staff and editors of The Daily Princetonian. The Board answers only to its Chair, the Opinion Editor and the Editor-in-Chief.

139TH BUSINESS BOARD head of outreach Justine Mauro ’17 director of client management Vineeta Reddy ’18

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NIGHT STAFF 12.14.15 senior copy editor Winny Myat ’18 Omkar Shende ’18 news Christina Vosbikian ’18 design Crystal Wang ’18

Quintessentially American The Alliance of Jewish Progressives guest contributor

F

or most of us living on a university campus, the plight of Syrian refugees feels far away.

We can read chilling statistics and click through photo series, but ultimately, this is a crisis to which we can close our eyes.

After President Barack Obama announced his plan to resettle 10,000 refugees this year, more than half of American governors coolly replied they will not allow refugees into their states. Notably, even our own New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Radio host Hugh Hewitt asked the governor, “What if they were orphans under the age of five?” Christie stood his ground under the pretense that the United States lacked “appropriate vetting.”

There are many reasons for accepting Syrian refugees into United States.

First, there are important historical reasons for continuing a bold tradition of cooperation. We can pull from America’s proud history of acceptance, tolerance and freedom of religion — that our country was founded upon these principles should not be forgotten. Conversely, we can also pull from America’s darkest chapters, when we

interned Japanese-American citizens or refused to harbor refugees from our war in Vietnam.

Second, there are important present reasons for holding powerful nations to a high standard of compassion. It is not only in our moral interest, but also our political interest, to accept refugees. Currently, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 4.4 million Syrian people have been displaced. Ninety-five percent of the refugees have f led to five countries: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. This inf lux of people has made it much harder for these countries to meet the basic needs of their people, threatening instability.

The United States has the capacity to meet their needs and our own, and we especially have the capacity to host more than 10,000 refugees. A plan to help stabilize that region must not focus only on aid, but also on resettlement assistance. Even if the United States accepted 100,000 refugees, it would still only be a fraction of the necessary assistance. But it would be a step in the right direction.

As members of the Alliance of Jewish Progressives, our past history of oppression compels us to support the Syrian refugees. In 1942, the St. Louis came to America’s shores with Jewish refugees

fleeing the Nazi horrors in Europe. It was turned away, and most of those refugees met their death. We have a responsibility to speak out as history threatens to repeat itself, both as descendants of a people who recently were refugees and as Americans who now have the privilege of being safe on shore.

We fear that history is repeating itself. We feel our state, our country and our world turning away from the innocent, shielded by the umbrella rhetoric of “us” and “them.”

For the claim that these refugees are dangerous and our country cannot accept them because of security concerns, we point to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, a State Department initiative. This program would most likely be the primary means of entrance for Syrian refugees and through it all refugees undergo intense security screenings. This vetting process includes multiple identity investigations and in-depth interviews by specialized Department of Homeland Security officers. We must refuse to let our fear overcome our trust in the American government’s ability to distinguish between victims desperately in need of refuge and potential terrorists.

Abdul Ali, in his poem “On Meeting Robert Hayden in a Dream,” reminds us of our country: “Exiled from their vil-

lages, learning to say hello with accents thick with nostalgia … border crossing is quintessentially American.”

Being an immigrant is quintessentially American, even if that immigration is spurred by the violence and harsh situations that create refugee crises. As Jews, we were accepted as Americans, but our numbers were restricted, and we were often discriminated against. Now we are, in this generation, truly accepted as Americans, and we owe it forward to this current generation of refugees.

Join us this week as we table in the Frist Campus Center, in partnership with Muslim Advocates for Social Justice and Individual Dignity and the Center for Jewish Life, providing information to learn more about the crisis, as well as opportunities to get involved in supporting Syrian refugees. We will provide email templates to send to your Congressperson in support of accepting refugees, collecting money for care packages for refugees who arrive and hosting a petition advocating for acceptance of additional refugees who have moved to New Jersey. Join us as we stand against prejudice; join us in welcoming refugees.

The Alliance of Jewish Progressives can be contacted at accohen@princeton.edu.

The Daily Princetonian

Monday december 14, 2015

page 5

Following winter break, 3 players pick up double-doubles as Tigers to take on fellow Tigers wrap up 3-game road trip M. B-BALL Ivies at Baker Rink Continued from page 6

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W. HOCKEY Continued from page 6

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performer on the season as she leads the team in total points, with seven goals and nine assists so far.

Princeton would take their first lead of the game off a shot five-and-a-half minutes into the third, courtesy of junior forward Morgan Sly. The Tigers, moreover, would not relinquish their lead for the rest of the game, as senior for-

ward Jamie McDonnell scored with just under a minute to go to seal the Tigers victory.

A late score from Penn State would not be enough to upend a Tiger victory, and the Tigers now go into winter break with a victory.

Following winter break, the Tigers will open up 2016 by taking on more Ivy League foes. They will play the last two games of their homestand on Jan. 1 and 2, taking on fellow Ivies Brown and Yale, respectively.

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on the day.

Caruso would come out strong in this one as well, lighting the Bisons (4-9) for 15 in the first half. The Tigers as a whole raced out to a healthy lead in the first 20 minutes, as they went up by as many as 13 points. Lipscomb, however, responded valiantly to the Tigers’ push, and was able to bring a menacing Tigers advantage down to just six points before both teams entered the locker rooms after the first half. Their surge was the result of strong play from the Bisons’ J.C. Hampton, who scored the final five points for Lipscomb (including a three-pointer just before the buzzer sounded to end the first half) to bring the score to 40-34.

Come the second half, however, the men of the Orange and Black began to pull away from their opponents. While the Bisons continued to rely heavily on the play of Hampton, the Tigers would receive strong contributions from multiple outlets. While Caruso continued his strong offensive

performance on the day, junior guard Spencer Weisz and junior forward Pete Miller would also step up to lead the Tiger charge.

The trio would combine to score all but four of the Tigers’ field goals in the second half.

Indeed, the Tigers opened up

“We needed to get back in the winning column, and we came out aggressive and hungry against Lipscomb” henry caruso

junior forward

the second half on a 10-2 run, as the lead ballooned to 14. While the Bisons would go on a 7-0 run to cut the lead in half, they would get no closer than that throughout the game. The Tigers would push their lead to as much as 18 points as the game drew nearer to its closing stages and ultimately came away from Nashville with a 78-64 victory.

The victory is particularly impressive as one observes that the Tigers held Lipscomb to their lowest scoring total in the season so far.

“We needed to get back in the winning column, and we came out aggressive and hungry against Lipscomb,” Caruso said. “We knew they could shoot the three-ball really well, and we made an emphasis to take away their perimeter shooting by contesting every shot.”

With his hot performance, Caruso was one of the Tigers who stuffed the stat sheet Saturday night. He finished with a mightily impressive doubledouble: 24 points and 12 boards.

Miller and Weisz would follow suit, getting 12 points and 10 boards and 21 points and 11 boards, respectively.

“Rebounding was another big key, and we had a strong collective effort cleaning up the glass,” Caruso said.

With this victory in the books, the Tigers will compete in one final game before winter break: a battle at their own Jadwin Gymnasium against Liberty University. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. and the game can be viewed via the Ivy League Digital Network.

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Monday december 14, 2015

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Sports

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

Weisz, Miller, Caruso shine in victory

By Miles Hinson sports editor

MIKKEY CLARKE :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

After falling in their last two games, the Tigers had multiple standout performances in this weekend’s win.

At the end of back-to-back-toback weekends on the road, the men’s basketball team found success in their second-to-last road trip before winter break.

Traveling to the Music City of Nashville, Tenn., they took down Lipscomb University 7864.

The Tigers (5-2) came into this contest looking to bounce back after dropping their last two games against Stony

Brook and St. Joseph’s. It had been rough shooting-wise both times for the Tigers — they shot just 36.5 percent in their battle against the Seawolves and 28.8 percent in the contest against the Hawks.

However, these losses were not without bright spots, on which the Tigers could improve in later games. In particular, junior forward Henry Caruso and freshman forward Devin Cannady both shone against Stony Brook — each put up 16 points See M. B-BALL page 5

GYMNASTICS

Gymnastics becomes ODUS-approved club

By David Liu senior writer

Despite over a decade of practicing gy mnastics, then-sophomore TJ Smith arrived on campus last year without any means to continue the sport. Men’s gymnastics had been a varsity sport throughout the 1900s, with a women’s team formed in 1974, but both teams were eventually defunded. Currently, Yale, Cornell, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania are the only Ivy League schools with gymnastics teams.

Hence, last year, Smith and then-sophomore Leah Wallace initiated efforts to revive gymnastics as a coed club sport, but without a detailed budget or prospect for funding, plans quickly fell apart.

This year, with the help of sophomores Paulita Lara Mejia and Matthew Allen, Smith and Wallace suc-

cessfully obtained recognition through the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students. The Daily Princetonian interviewed Smith to better understand the club’s history and vision: Daily Princetonian: Could you give a brief overview of the history of gymnastics at Princeton? Why does Princeton no longer have a program?

TJ Smith: Princeton did used to have an NCAA gymnastics team. The general trend in men’s gymnastics has been away from NCAA. This started with Title IX since gymnastics is an expensive sport and universities were reluctant to drop funding for other sports.

Currently, in men’s gymnastics I believe there are only around 20 NCAA teams.

Even Olympic-level gymnasts are coming from club programs.

DP: Can you describe the financial hurdles that have faced the current gymnastics club?

TS: Originally, the two people were myself and Leah Wallace. We were attempting to start the team as a club sport through the club sports department. The reason that never really gained momentum was because you need to file a detailed budget.

This semester, we decided to start it as an [Office of the Dean of Undergraduates] club without a formal budget so that we can send out fundraising letters. Now that we have been accepted as a club, we will probably immediately start asking alumni for donations and see how much money we can raise.

DP: How strong is interest for gymnastics on campus?

TS: We have roughly 20-30 people on our interest list.

Since we have not held any practices the precise number is unsure.

Of the people who have competed at a high level, we have about 10 people that are interested. A high level is defined to be the equivalent of high school varsity. About five people with intermediate experience and 15 of little or none. I was expecting people with previous experience to be interested.

DP: Without facilities how does the club plan to practice?

TS: Again this is somewhat uncertain, now that we are an ODUS club we should be able to reserve space in the Martial Arts Room [in Dillon Gymnasium]. What that would hopefully allow us to do is hold practices for strength conditioning, which does not need equipment. We can begin basic, student-run skills training – starting teaching hand-

stands, rolls and back f lips.

In the long term, we would hope to use an off-campus gym. They would provide coaches and we would practice there. Ideally we would even be able to form our own meet.

DP: How does the proposed Princeton gymnastics club compare with the programs already in place at Yale, Brown, Penn and Cornell?

TS: We have modeled our gymnastics club most similarly to that of Yale, which began two years ago with a similarly small budget. Ideally, as soon as we can start practices off campus, we would put together a team of gymnasts ready to compete. The National Association of Collegiate Gymnastic Coaches is the main body that organizes competitions and sets the rules for club gymnastics. We do hope to compete against Ivy League schools.

WOMEN’S HOCKEY

Women’s hockey defeats Penn State twice, pushes win streak to 6

By Miles Hinson sports editor

The women’s ice hockey team continues to impress during this season, as they finished 2015 by extending their current win streak to six games. Defending their home turf of Baker Rink on the weekend, they came out on top in a double-header as they defeated the Penn State Nittany Lions to the tune of 4-0 on Friday and 3-2 on Saturday.

The Tigers (11-4-1 overall, 5-4-1 Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference) have found their groove the last few weeks and stand right behind the Harvard Crimson (whom they defeated last weekend) in third place in the ECAC standings. However, while holding the third spot in the ECAC standings, Princeton has been the top team so far when looking at inter-Ivy contests — the Tigers are 4-1 so far against other Ivies, with the lone loss coming against Cornell back in November.

Against the Nittany Lions (4-12-4, 1-3-4 College Hockey America), the Tigers could not have started out the weekend on a better note, as they shut out the visitors en route to a 4-0 victory. Indeed, the Tigers handed Penn State its largest margin of defeat this season. Goals from junior forward Molly Contini, junior forward Cassidy Tucker, junior defender Kelsey Koelzer and junior forward Fiona McKenna received credit on the day for the Tigers’ onslaught, scoring a goal apiece in the victory.

The following day was witness to a far closer struggle.

Eleven minutes into the second period, Penn State’s Hannah Bramm was the first from her team to score on senior goalie Kimberly Newell in the weekend. The Tigers, however, were quick to respond: Koelzer would find the back of the net just 84 seconds later, with the assist from freshman forward Karlie Lund. The freshman has been a standout See W. HOCKEY page 5

Tweet of the Day

JASPER GEBHARDT :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The Tigers’ weekend featured a shutout and a tight victory over the visiting Penn State Nittany Lions.

Stat of the Day

24 and 12

“So it’s December 13th and 71 degrees in New Jersey today... Don’t know if I should be concerened or Henry Caruso put up 24 points and 12 boards in the men’s basketball thankful for global warming” AJ Glass (@ AJ_GLASS), junior running back, football

team’s victory over Lipscomb.

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