December 15, 2016

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Thursday December 15, 2016 vol. cxl no. 119

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } STUDENT LIFE

USG pilots program for free menstrual products in nine Frist bathrooms

By Katie Petersen staff writer

The Undergraduate Student Government launched a free menstrual product pilot program on Dec. 4 in Frist Campus Center. The program will run until Dec. 16 and aims to address issues of accessibility and financial hardships associated with menstrual products.

The program has involved placing one basket of courtesy tampons and pads in each of the nine bathrooms in Frist: four women’s, four men’s, and one gender-neutral.

“USG works on different projects every year, and we choose those projects based on feedback from students,” Cailin Hong ’17 said. Hong, a Class of 2017 sena-

tor, is leading the initiative with U-Councilor Wendy Zhao ’19.

As Hong explained, USG launched the program to “get the conversation [regarding freeing menstrual products] started.” Hong added that USG hopes this program is taken up by the University administration.

“It’s also a conversation that’s happening on a lot of other campuses,” Zhao added.

Zhao and Hong spoke with student government leaders from other universities who have been successful in implementing similar projects on campuses including Brown, Cornell, and Columbia. Response data from pilot programs appeared to be what prompted administrative support at those

other institutions, Zhao noted.

Hong added that multiple conversations conducted with Vice President for Campus Life W. Rochelle Calhoun, University Health Services, University Facilities, and others who would be responsible for continuing a long-term, free menstrual products project reinforced the need for this pilot program. “We will take the data to the Office of Campus Life and Vice President Calhoun in the next semester,” Hong explained .

That data will include feedback from a USG anonymous survey as well as information about how many products students actually use, based on numbers collected at the end of each day by USG members.

See USG page 2

F E AT U R E

KATIE PETERSEN :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

News & Notes U. to participate in ATI to expand collegiate access to low-income students

By Sarah Hirschfield staff writer

PHOTO BY WILLIAM F. BURROW JR. DAILY PRINCETONIAN ARCHIVES

U. professors reflect on Castro’s legacy

By Rose Gilbert staff writer

In a 1959 letter sent from the Mudd Manuscript Library, the University’s chapter of the American Whig-Cliosophic Society invited Fidel Castro to speak at the University during his upcoming visit to the United States.

Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary who governed Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President until 2008, while simultaneously serving as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba between 19612011, died on Nov. 25, 2016.

Jack A. Ossorio from the American Affairs office quickly replied by telegram, “gratefully

FIRESTONE

acknowledge[ing]” the invitation and adding that he hopes Castro will be able to accept despite his “extremely busy schedule.”

Ultimately, Castro accepted the invitation and spoke at Wilson (now Corwin) Hall on April 20, 1959. His speech was strictly invitation-only. In his speech, See CASTRO page 2

The University will partner with 30 other colleges and universities in the American Talent Initiative, which aims to expand collegiate access to talented lowincome students, according to a University press release.

Members of the ATI “are enhancing their own efforts to recruit and support lower-income students, learn from each other, and contribute to research that will help other colleges and universities expand opportunity,” according to the program’s website.

The University plans on reaching its goal by increasing outreach to students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, retaining low-income admits, prioritizing need-based financial aid, and eliminating discrepancies between graduation rates among students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, according to the press

release.

“We have made it a priority to increase the socioeconomic diversity of our students,” President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said in a statement, noting that the University has tripled the number of Pell Grant eligible freshmen since 2008.

The ATI plans on graduating 50,000 lower-income students from the top 270 colleges in the country over the next eight years, according to the press release. The “top” universities are defined as those having graduation rates above 70 percent.

Eisgruber serves on the Initiative’s Steering Committee along with President Ana Mari Cauce of University of Washington, President Michael Drake of Ohio State University, and President Dan Porterfield of Franklin & Marshall College, among others.

The participating institutions alongside the University include Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.

LOCAL NEWS

Rider U. to sell Westminster campus associate news editor

MARIACHIARA FICARELLI :: ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR

Rider University’s decision to consolidate the Westminster Choir College’s Princeton campus with its main Lawrence campus has been met with significant backlash from Rider students and faculty.

Last week, Rider University President Gregory Dell’Omo came out with a statement addressing the members of the Rider community on the need to sell the Princeton campus and consolidate all students, faculty, and staff onto the Lawrence campus.

Rider is projected to have a $13.1 million deficit by the year 2019, and is in a position where the New Jersey university would have to increase enrollment by 114 students by next fall, and another 46 by Fall 2018, according to Princeton Patch.

This statement follows a budget cut announcement last October in which the university proposed to cut 13 majors and one minor as well as 20 jobs, including 14 full-faculty members, from the school. This motion was denied after students rallied against administrators, offering up a petition with 4,100 signatures, which amounts to a quarter of the school. The proposal would have forced over 300 students to change academic paths.

Thousands of university members have signed an online petition and joined a Facebook group protesting the selling of the Westminster Choir College campus.

The petition states that selling the campus would be “eliminating the history and musicality that Westminster has provided for generations and continues to provide for us, the current stu-

In Opinion

Today on Campus

Columnist Maha Al Fahim reflects on the vehicle of time as the new year approaches, and Columnist Liam O’Connor offers a critique of pushing for sanctuary campus status. PAGE 4

4 p.m.: Christopher Monroe, professor of physics at the University of Maryland, will present new approaches to quantum computing in a lecture titled “Building a Quantum Computer, Atom by Atom.” Jadwin Hall, Room A10.

dents.” As of 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 14, the petition has 2,515 signatures, and the Facebook group titled “Keep Westminster Choir College In Princeton” has 2,086 members.

Other members of the university expressed separate concerns, claiming that the removal of the Westminster Choir College would significantly hurt the university’s image in terms of attracting students to the school.

The teacher’s union of Rider University has offered to take concessions in their compensation that would allow the school to save $5.5 million annually until 2020, but officials claimed that the amount was insufficient.

The decision to consolidate campuses and sell the Princeton campus is still under consideration, according University officials. The final decision is likely to be made in early 2017.

WEATHER

By Charles Min

HIGH

25˚

LOW

15˚

Windy. chance of rain:

0 percent

The Daily Princetonian

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Thursday December 15, 2016

López-Denis: Reducing Cuba’s history to Castro needs to stop CASTRO Continued from page 1

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Castro aimed to debunk what he characterized as “conventional lies” about revolution using examples from the Cuban Revolution that had ended earlier that year: “Many people believed that revolution was impossible unless people were hungry. Many people believe revolution impossible against modern armies which had tanks and guns.” He described the Cuban Revolution as “a revolution for social justice” for all classes and distinguished it from the Russian Revolution by claiming that unlike the Bolsheviks, the Cuban revolutionaries had the support of the majority of the population, and would have no need to shore up their rule with “force and terror.” He also reassured his audience that Cuba would soon hold free and fair elections.

In a lecture on Bomb Power and Containment during the Cold War, history professor Joseph Fronczak said that the University’s students received Castro enthusiastically: witnesses claimed that the campus was like a “circus” during Castro’s visit. He added that students “took to the streets” upon Castro’s arrival on campus, creating a “parade-like” atmosphere. Some students even set off cherry-bombs in the streets to commemorate the event.

After Castro’s 1959 visit, he largely fell out of contact with the University, leaving faculty and students alike to study his actions and his legacy. Adrián López-Denis, a lecturer in the University’s Latin American Studies and Resident Director of the Princeton in Cuba study abroad program, said that Castro’s relationship with the University, and indeed with America, is mired in a “misplaced obsession” with his legacy, and particularly his involvement in the Cuban Revolution. He added that Castro’s death is a “nonevent,” and that the fact that people are worried about what its impact will be is an example of the disproportionate focus on Castro’s influence: “a very old, sick man died in Cuba.

Nothing was built or destroyed, nothing was created, nothing really happened. We can characterize a lot of the emphasis placed on Fidel Castro as part of an obsession that is a little bit misplaced. We should concern ourselves with events that actually affect people’s’ lives as opposed to this emphasis, which could potentially become a smokescreen rather than a framework for useful discussion on what to do in Cuba or how to move forward in CubaUnited States relations. It’s not that I love him or I hate him; I’m not taking a side. I think it’s a good idea to focus on other issues that really matter and free ourselves from this obsession.”

López-Denis said that in his classes on Cuba, he tries to discuss Cuban foreign policy without “judging” Castro or “revising history” to place his at its center. He added that overemphasizing Castro’s role in Cuban history distorts that history and diminishes actions of other Cubans: “The main thing is to remove ourselves from all the metaphors that exaggerate the relative importance of Fidel Castro and, by doing that, minimize the contributions of hundred and thousands and millions of other Cubans. We have an obsession with great men and leaders, and epic histories, we have this obsession with figures as symbols.

Fidel Castro said that history will judge him, and that is not something that we need to do.

We don’t need to judge him, he’s not that important, he’s not what history should be about. Even judging his work is perhaps giving him too much importance. We need to study what is going on without putting him at the center of it of a story that he is not the center of . . . It’s not about his legacy, it’s about a bunch of Cubans doing things for better or worse. He didn’t cut the sugar canes he didn’t build the hospitals. This is a part of history that cannot be used to discuss whether he was a good guy or whether he was evil. Reducing the history of Cuba to the history of its revolution, and then reducing

the history of its revolution to the history of Fidel Castro is a mistake that we need to stop perpetuating.”

López-Denis asserted that part of the “obsession” with Castro’s legacy comes from an ideological urge to judge his actions: “My advice would be that if you want to understand the Cuban Revolution don’t do it by passing judgement on Fidel Castro, stop this obsession with his legacy . . . The revolution is a very polarizing historical process with very polarizing positions and I think that the polarization is one of the big obstacles to thorough understanding, defend or attack an ideological position that has nothing to do with Cuba in particular. People who don’t like socialism can say “Look at what happened in the Cuban Revolution, it failed!” and people who like socialism can say “It’s great! Look at how good the education and health is!” In order to get that kind of easy ideological takeaway, you have to simplify history. Understanding the revolution is further complicated by the fact that Fidel Castro was a polarizing figure, so not only is he leading the extremely polarizing historical process of the revolution, but within that, he’s an extremely polarizing figure. You need to move away from the polarizing elements to understand the revolution’s complexity.”

López-Denis described the

Princeton in Cuba study abroad program as way for students to study Cuba through a new lense and challenge some of their preconceptions about its history: “When my students and I got to Cuba to study abroad we definitely don’t go there to try to understand Fidel Castro.

The issue here is that there’ a particular American brand of obsession with Fidel which comes from the U.S.’s proximity to Cuba.” He said that this “brand of obsession” always generates the same set of “big questions” about Cuba: “What about Hemingway? What about the nuclear crisis? And of course, what about Fidel Castro?” López-Denis added that these aren’t pressing issues for the common Cuban person, but rather the curiosity of a “political tourist” that “forces Cubans to reenact, over and over again, the past for the consumption of foreigners, even if it’s not necessarily what Cuban want them to know about Cuba in order to become participants in constructing a new country.”

López-Denis said that ultimately, that University students trying to predict Cuba’s future should avoid dwelling on Castro’s legacy, and instead try to gain a better understanding of the current issues considered most important by the Cuban people.

Baskets in men’s bathrooms are inclusive of all who may menstruate USG

Continued from page 1

.............

“I’m thrilled that USG is moving in the right direction with the tampons and pads in Frist and I hope that this test run gets the positive feedback necessary to further such access elsewhere on campus,” Nate Lambert ’20 said.

Lambert is a recently elected Class of 2020 senator with a call

for free menstrual products as part of his campaign platform.

Hong explained that the pilot program has so far received positive feedback.

“We’ve already gotten close to 700 responses, mostly good,” she said.

However, Hong shared that conflicting evidence has turned up in the form of some tampering with the products in the men’s restroom.

“After the first week we real-

ized that these baskets in the [men’s] restrooms were being taken or thrown out,” Hong explained.

Initially, USG members thought that there was some confusion about why the products were in the men’s restroom, according to Hong. She noted that USG received reports that it wasn’t the Frist custodial staff who removed the products from the men’s bathroom. They added a poster to the baskets in those

restrooms clarifying the project committee’s desire to be inclusive of all people on Princeton’s campus who menstruate.

“But even that is being removed,” Hong said. “We want people to be comfortable having a period, and if seeing tampons in a men’s restroom makes you that uncomfortable, then we’re not doing that. Or we’re not in the time we thought we were...

If it’s a political act, we’re not sure how to interpret or engage

with it.”

Moving forward, the committee will compile the survey and usage data for the appropriate administration officials. In the meantime, the remaining project funds will be used to keep a supply of menstrual products available in the USG office, located on the second floor of Frist.

Ivy League schools begin releasing Class of 2021 early acceptance results

By Charles Min associate news editor

The majority of the Ivy League colleges and universities have released their early acceptance results for the Class of 2021.

Harvard College admitted 938 early applicants to the Class of 2021 among its 6,473 applicants, representing a 14.5 percent acceptance rate, a five percent increase in early applicants compared to the Class of 2020.

This represents the lowest acceptance rate for early applicants since the College reinstated its single-choice early action admissions program in 2011.

Brown University received 3,170 applications for its early admission program, the largest since the university adopted its admission program 15 years ago, and admitted 695 students, reflecting a 21.9 percent acceptance rate.

Dartmouth College had a 27.8 percent early acceptance rate, receiving 1,999 early-decision applicants, up 3.7 percent from the previous year, and accepting 555 students.

The students accepted through early-decision will make up roughly 47 percent of the incoming class, according to

Lee Coffin, vice provost of enrollment and dean of admissions and financial aid.

The University of Pennsylvania had a record-breaking 6,147 applicants, a 7 percent increase from last year. 1,335 students were accepted, a 22 percent acceptance rate, versus 23.2 percent from the previous admission cycle.

Cornell University found the number of early-decision applications for the Class of 2021 increase 10 percent from last year, with 5,384 applicants. This reflects a 78 percent increase over the past decade. 25.6 percent of applicants were accepted, 23.3 percent of those students being legacy students and 13.4 percent being athletes, according to the Cornell Daily Sun. Yale and Columbia have not reported the percentage of students accepted through the early admission program, but both universities have recorded a significant increase from last year.

Yale received 5,086 applicants, a nine percent increase from the previous year, and Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences received 4,086 applicants, a 16 percent increase from last year.

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The Daily Princetonian

Thursday December 15, 2016

The Daily Princetonian

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Thursday December 15, 2016

Opinion

Thursday December 15, 2016

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

LETTER TO THE EDITOR vol. cxl

Liberalism in the Orange Bubble

Do-Hyeong Myeong ’17

Paul Phillips

editor-in-chief

guest columnist

M

Daniel Kim ’17

business manager

y mother, Class of 1984, told me that in her day Princeton was a largely apolitical place. I graduated with the Class of 2016, but during my four years here, I didn’t think that was true. We had the Praxis Axis protests sophomore year, the Michael Brown protests junior year, the Big Sean and Urban Congo protests junior year, and the Black Justice League sit-in senior year.

There have been campus debates on racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and freedom of speech, to name a few.

One thing that hit me after I graduated, though, was that economic issues were almost entirely absent from the discussions. The top one percent owned 21.2 percent of income in 2013, and while worker productivity increased consistently since 1973, hourly compensation has f latlined. Meanwhile, just eleven percent of workers today belong to a union, compared with about one-third in the 1950s. Princeton graduate students have been trying to unionize for some time, with some opposition from the University. How many of those topics do students know about, and how many do they talk about?

When people say that Princeton is “liberal,” they’re referring to social issues. And while college students may not generally care about economics as much as their wage-earning elders do, University of California students still turned out in large-scale protest against tuition hikes when I was in high school and again a month ago when the Board of Regents increased tuition after a six-year freeze. As far as I know, Princeton has never had tuition protests, and the Occupy movement never gained much traction on campus.

Why are economics not a factor here? The obvious reason is that Princeton students are a wealthy group, and therefore removed from inequality or poverty. Still, about 60 percent of Princeton students in 201415 were on financial aid. And some white students were present at the

Michael Brown vigil in Palmer Square during my junior year, presumably because they cared even though the issues didn’t affect them directly.

If Princeton students unaffected by racial issues care about their classmates who are, why don’t Princeton students unaffected by economic issues care about their classmates who are?

The real reason is related; even if some students are low-income, there is an expectation that everyone at Princeton (unlike those at many universities) will eventually be successful and overcome any temporary financial disadvantages. This is not the case for other disadvantages, because the sad reality of America is that no matter how many degrees you might have or how successful you are, some people will always judge you on the color of your skin or your gender or your sexual orientation. Therefore, those inequalities are more common topics of discussion, while economic inequality receives less attention because we are taught that it can be surmounted.

So if we’re all going to become investment bankers anyway, why should we care?

The first reason has to do with current politics, and everyone’s favorite orange elephant in the room. Trump rose to the top by tapping into inert racism, but he also tapped into a sentiment of economic malaise. You can say that people who voted for the Trumpinator are stupid, racist, and undeserving of sympathy, but calling them idiots isn’t going to stop them from voting for future Trumps. Future politicians, some of whom will no doubt be Princeton grads, need to make economic overtures if they want to prevent a repeat of Trump.

And the irony of progressivism that is exclusively social is that such progressives can end up unconsciously echoing Republican talking points. The idea that lower-income white people deserve their falling standards of living because they’re ignorant and lazy is similar to rhetoric that Republicans have been using

for years, with the difference being that these “welfare queens” are white and not homeless.

The second reason that the economy matters is local. Apart from the Hidden Minority Council and Yik Yak posts about low-income students being made fun of, there was very little discussion of income inequality on campus when I was there. In writing this, I realized that I have very little idea what kind of struggles low-income students might face on campus, which is kind of the point: we should be talking about it more.

And just as we need to understand the present of Trump, we need to understand the past. During the 1960s there was a schism in the Democratic Party between older workingclass voters who largely supported the Vietnam War and antiwar, culturally progressive “Baby Boomers” who did not really care about economic matters. Social progressivism has made some advances since the 1960s, such as the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and the 2015 Obergefell v.

Hodges decision. Meanwhile unions, derided by young people in the 1960s as establishment fossils, lost ground, inequality rose, and just over half of thirty-year-olds earn more than their parents did compared with 92 percent of thirty-year-olds in the 1970s.

Even if you think unions are harmful for growth, they provide working people a platform to air their grievances, inf luence policy, and have a ‘check’ on the power of business. Even if you think income inequality is a natural result of the free market, it can distort the free market by enabling those at the top to rig the system in their favor and deny opportunities to everyone else. I would like to see the ‘Millennial’ generation avoid the mistakes Baby Boomers made when they turned their backs on economics.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but (hopefully) I’m not the only one.

Paul Phillips ’16 is a News Editor Emeritus for the Daily Princetonian. He could be reached at pauldp1994@gmail.com.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

The power of bicker

140TH MANAGING BOARD news editors Shriya Sekhsaria ’18 opinion editor Jason Choe ’17 sports editor David Liu ’18 street editors Andie Ayala ‘19 Catherine Wang ‘19 photography editor Rachel Spady ’18 video editor Elaine Romano ’19 web editor David Liu ‘18 chief copy editors Omkar Shende ’18 Maya Wesby ’18 design editor Crystal Wang ’18 associate news editors Charles Min ’17 Marcia Brown ‘19 Claire Lee ‘19 associate opinion editors Newby Parton ’18 Sarah Sakha ’18 associate sports editors Nolan Liu ’19 David Xin ’19 associate photography editors Ahmed Akhtar ’17 Atakan Baltaci ’19 Mariachiara Ficarelli ’19 associate chief copy editors Megan Laubach ’18 Samuel Garfinkle ‘19 associate design editor Jessica Zhou ’19 editorial board chair Cydney Kim ’17 cartoons editor Rita Fang ’17 Blog editor Michael Zhang ’17

NIGHT STAFF 12.14.16 staff copy editors Daphne Mandell ’19 Katie Petersen ‘19 staff copy editors Emily Spalding ‘20 Michael Li ‘20 Douglas Corzine ‘20

Isabel Cleff

guest columnist

N

ationwide, the risk of an undergraduate women experiencing sexual assault decreases from her freshman to senior year, with freshmen being about 50 percent more likely than seniors to experience such conduct. But the We Speak survey results released last month showed that at Princeton, sophomores are almost twice as likely to experience nonconsensual sexual contact as seniors, and this was the only significant difference among class years.

What distinguishes sophomore year at Princeton? Psychological theory suggests that situational power differentials facilitate sexual assault on college campuses.

As sophomores across campus begin attending recruiting events at various eating clubs in the coming weeks, bicker becomes an increasingly obvious generator of such dynamics.

Psychological researcher Dacher Keltner defines “power” as “an individual’s relative capacity to modify others’ states by providing or withholding resources or administering punishments.” These resources can be material, like food, or social, like knowledge, affection, or member-

ship in a selective eating club. High power tends to lower inhibitions and increase goal-oriented behavior, while low-power people tend to view themselves through the lens of how they can be used by others.

It is not difficult to imagine how such a power differential could be conducive to sexual misconduct, especially in the context of a hookup culture where sexual “success” can increase status.

And indeed, a study showed that at fraternity parties, such power differentials between men and women facilitate sexual assault.

The gender dynamics studied in the paper sound remarkably similar to those that exist between eating club members and bickerees: in these cultures “organized around status, belonging, and popularity,” rates of sexual assault are likely to be highest in situations where the dominant party (in their research, men) “have a home turf advantage, know each other better than the women present know each other… and control desired resources (such as alcohol or drugs),” and where “[s]ocial pressures to ‘have fun’ [or] prove one’s social competency” exist.

While all of these factors exist on any party night on Prospect Avenue, they f loat closer to the surface dur-

ing bicker — especially since many sophomores have just rushed fraternities or sororities (with mixed outcomes), another process that highlights social status and group belonging.

The We Speak survey found that for 45 percent of undergraduates who had experienced unwanted sexual contact, the worst incident occurred in an eating club — more than twice the next-most frequent location, a residential college — but only one percent of students reported that such an incident was associated with bicker. Why so few, if bicker is such a fertile ground for sexual misconduct?

Most students would be unlikely to intentionally take advantage of others when the power differential is so explicit as during the nights of bicker — such clear power abuse is widely regarded as unacceptable. What seems more probable is that incidents would peak in the weeks surrounding bicker, when the power dynamics are less salient, but still present. And indeed, February (when spring bicker occurs) is among the months with the highest frequencies of sexual assault as reported in the We Speak survey.

A student referendum to “hose bicker” failed to pass several years

ago, making it clear that bicker is here to stay, at least for now. So if we can’t remove the generator of power differentials conducive to sexual misconduct, what can we do to reduce the risk for sophomores?

If people are less likely to exploit an obvious advantage immediately during bicker itself (as suggested by the one percent statistic), actively pointing out those power dynamics might be a good start. Perhaps the University should target the weeks surrounding bicker as a time for a refresher on sexual assault (as with the “Clarifying Consent” program sent out to juniors several weeks ago). Possibly even more effective: a message from the eating clubs to their members reminding them of the value of affirmative consent.

Which specific interventions we take as a University community should be an ongoing conversation, but it certainly seems that targeting the power dynamics of bicker could have great impact in decreasing the prevalence of sexual assault at Princeton.

Isabel Cleff is a Mechanical and Aerospace engineering major from Doylestown, PA. She can be reached at icleff@princeton.edu.

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end of term emily fockler ’17

If time were a teacher Maha Al Fahim columnist

Y

ou can chase me, but you cannot catch me; I am always running Rustling through the trees, looking into the leaves, I find my mirrors; they reflect my changing seasons I enter indoors, and on your wrists and walls, I hear it — tick, tick, tick — this ticking is my tempo With rhythm in my core, I rush out the door, and I see you — an internal clock, a walking hourglass In you, every grain of sand is a magical clay with which you can create Yet you let it flee, you’re killing me, as you procrastinate I may be eternal but you are not While you wrinkle and gray, I am born everyday I rise with the sun, and sink with the moon I am life’s rhythm, giving you a shout I am Time And I’m running out When we read this riddle and realize that time is running out, we become stressed. That is because we value time. There is virtue in its versatility; if I valued friendships, then I could invest

my time in building meaningful relationships. If I valued wealth, I could see time as a means of accumulating money. And if I valued knowledge, I could spend my time learning. Time, it seems, is the fabric of all values. However, as the riddle shows, although time could be measured in multiple ways, it is not tangible, making it difficult to define.

As students, we think of time as exam dates and deadlines, the f lipping pages of our calendars, and the ticking of our clocks. We live our lives in constant anticipation for the future, never to enjoy the journey to get there. If we open our eyes to the other dimensions of time, we will be surprised by the insights they give us on life.

Does time provide the energy of life or drain it away? Time could be a thief, stealing the sunset, absorbing color from a f lower’s petals, making my mother’s hair turn gray. However, if not for time, the sun would never set in the first place and we would never see the stars. Time puts an ephemeral nature to everything it touches, forcing us to enjoy it while it lasts.

Time could be a vehicle carrying us through the road trip of life.

Over numerous years, it gives us

everything we own, but in a single moment, it takes it all away; the only thing that we take with us is our memories and the only thing we leave behind is our legacy.

Time could be a river of the universe, always f lowing forward but never in reverse. It is like any other current in nature, like the winds or the waves, obliging everything in its way to move with it. Thus, there is no point to worrying about the past or being anxious over the future as neither is within our control. All we can do is surf the wave so when it eventually washes over us we can say we enjoyed the ride.

In every form it takes, time seems to teach us a lesson. As a robber, it teaches us to appreciate the ephemeral things in life. As a vehicle taking us through a trip, it teaches us not to make the accumulation of material goods our priority as these will not follow us to the grave, but it makes treating others kindly a worthy goal as the impression we leave on others and our imprint on history are here to stay.

It teaches us to enjoy our experiences. Life is a board game, it says; after you play the game, you put the pieces back in the box for others to play. The only thing you take with you is the experience of the

game. Finally, as a forward-moving current, it places the past behind us and the future out of reach, forcing us to enjoy the present.

On New Year’s Eve, we will be at a crossroads of time, between the year that has passed and the year that has yet to come. In Times Square, people will stand amid the crowd, shoulder to shoulder. In unison, they will watch the ball drop and they will count down with the clock, “Five, four, three, two, one, …” Fireworks will crackle and confetti will fill up the sky and so will the laughs and cheers of the people. People will hug each other. As they share in the celebration, life is as bright and colorful as the sky above them. The lessons of time will enter their hearts, and brief ly, they will forget about the minutes and seconds because they will be living in the moment.

Maha Al Fahim is a sophomore from Vancouver, BC Canada. She can be reached at mfahim@princeton.edu.

Clipping the wings of Trump Liam O’Connor columnist

I

am against the sanctuary campus movement. My opinion is not bigoted; I believe that Princeton should be a safe haven for all students to receive an education regardless of their immigration status. However, I also believe that making Princeton a “sanctuary campus” would do more harm than good and would not actually protect undocumented immigrants. Instead, I urge students to challenge Trump’s policies by becoming engaged with the government rather than by creating a title that nominally declares Princeton to be above the law.

I oppose the sanctuary campus movement because it is nothing more than a publicity stunt. Columbia University Provost John Coatsworth made his school a sanctuary campus when he wrote in an email that, “the University will neither allow immigration officials on our campuses without a warrant, nor share information on the immigration status of students with those officials unless required by subpoena or court order.”

His statement highlights the problem of a sanctuary campus: it protects undocumented students until the executive branch receives a warrant or subpoena that forces a university to comply. While neither are easy to obtain, little will prevent Trump from doggedly pursuing them once he wields the full power of the presidency.

As President Eisgruber explained in his email to students, “every person and every official, no matter what office he or she may hold,

is subject to the law.” Harvard University’s President Drew Faust concurred by stating that, “Sanctuary campus status has no legal significance or even clear definition. It offers no actual protection to our students.” In other words, a sanctuary campus does nothing more than delay the inevitable deportation of undocumented students should Trump keep his campaign promises.

In response, sanctuary campus proponents have argued that the law should be defied when it is morally wrong. Although their intentions are noble, they ignore the fact that we live in a democratic republic. When one branch gains too much power or acts against the will of the people, there is another branch to check it. I believe that there are still ways that we can defy Trump’s proposed plans without acting against the law. In order to do so, we must look to Congress and government officials with ties to the University.

Congress has the power to check Trump. He may repeal DACA, but a number of Republicans in Congress — such as Speaker of the House Paul Ryan — are opposed to this. Currently, Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have introduced the Bridge Act. If passed, it would effectively extend the DACA protections of undocumented students regardless of Trump’s actions. A 2/3 vote in both houses would overrule a veto.

Additionally, Trump has threatened to withdraw sanctuary cit-

ies’ federal funding. This act could conceivably be expanded to deny sanctuary campuses federal grants. Again, Congress — which controls the federal budget — has the ability to check Trump by denying his requests to cut funding to those institutions.

After the recent election, the University has two alumni in the Senate and eight in the House of Representatives, three of whom are in the Republican majority. Students should be expressing their concerns about the repeal of DACA to these alumni as well as their own state’s officials in Congress.

The President is elected by the Electoral College, but Congress is elected by the people. A group of angry phone calls from constituents is more likely to sway the opinion of a local representative than the Chief Executive of the United States.

Such action has precedence.

Chris Christie — as a student at the University of Delaware in 1981 — worked with the student government to create a phone bank for people to call their elected officials and ask them to oppose President Reagan’s proposed cuts to the student loan program. USG could create a similar campaign against the repeal of DACA. Doing this would be much easier to organize with cell phones than it was with landlines in the 1980s.

Students could also try to inf luence the opinions of key individuals in Trump’s administration who have University connections. Three University affiliates have been

identified within the Trump transition team. Additionally, Betsy DeVos P07 was nominated to be the Secretary of Education. I see great potential in using our school’s inf luence to lobby these individuals to oppose Trump’s repeal of DACA. They could moderate his agenda.

Class of 1771 Princeton graduate James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper No. 51, “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary” in respect to the system of checks and balances in the Constitution. Senator Ted Cruz ’92 based the title of his senior thesis — “Clipping the Wings of Angels” — on this quote. In it, he discussed the role of citizens in containing the power of the government.

We can all agree that Presidentelect Trump is not an angel, and it is our duty as citizens to contain his power. This is made possible by our government’s system of checks and balances.

The sanctuary campus movement is a passive way of protesting the President-elect’s immigration policies. I believe that students can clip Trump’s wings — and help undocumented students — only if they roll up their sleeves, call their Congresspersons, and become civically engaged in our representative republic.

Liam O’Connor is a freshman from Wyoming, DE. He can be reached at loo@princeton.edu.

Sports

Thursday December 15, 2016

page 6

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Princeton swimming concludes 2016 with mixed results Photos courtesy of GoPrincetonTigers Captions by David Liu, Sports Editor

Princeton swimming concludes 2016 with mixed results Following respective matches against Columbia last Friday, Princeton swimming and diving will be on break until 2017, when the Tigers will take on powerhouses such as Yale and Harvard.

Looking back on their performances these past few weeks, though, the Tigers have produced balanced results. On the men’s side, the Tigers (2-3 overall) finished in second place twice at separate dual meets, stifling Cornell and Dartmouth but not Penn and Brown. Turning to the women’s side, Princeton maintains a more impressive 4-2 start, featuring a 4-1 conference record.

Looking ahead, the Tigers will embattle challenging foes in Navy, Harvard, and Yale before the Ivy Championships in late February.

Tweet of the Day “January can’t come fast enough” Dorian Williams (@DWilliamsPU) Co-Captain, Football

Stat of the Day

690 points Senior forward Henry Caruso will finish with 690 career points following a season-ending toe injury.

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