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Thursday December 8, 2016 vol. cxl no. 114
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } LECTURE
Younger talks feminism, causes for equality By Samvida Venkatesh senior writer
Challenging and changing the narrative around the word “feminism” is key to moving toward an equitable society, said activist Teresa C. Younger in a lecture on gender, power, and equality. Younger, who is the president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, said that a poll conducted by her organization revealed that only 16 percent of people labeled themselves as feminist, yet 94 percent of people believed that everyone had the right to equal opportunities. “Nearly every group I spoke to — black women, lesbian women, men — didn’t want to label themselves feminist, because they weren’t being invited to the table,” she explained. She noted that seeing this made the Ms. Foundation for Women define feminism as the “social, politi-
cal, and economical equality of all genders.” Younger added that moving toward a post-feminist society first required moving away from a post-patriarchal era. Again, she explained that she used caution to define patriarchy before dismantling it, claiming that it was a vague and misunderstood word. “The textbook defines patriarchy as the systematic consolidation of the majority of power in the world by white men, and exclusion from power is based on identities of race, sexual orientation, religion, and often immigration status,” she said. Claiming to be an activist rather than an academic, Younger urged students to devote themselves to public service. “Students ask what they can do, and I tell them to get involved in municipal, county, and state level See FEMINISM page 2
RAINY DAY
U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S
KIRSTEN TRAUDT :: CONTIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Facutly and staff will start moving into the complex on Thursday, Dec. 15.
U. finishes renovation of 20 Washington Road By Kirsten Traudt staff writer
The University completed an extensive renovation of the 20 Washington Road, which will provide a new home to ten academic departments and five international programs. The building was formerly used to house the Frick Chemistry Laboratory. The building will bring the whole economics department, which has long been housed in separate buildings, under one roof. It will also house a number of learning and research centers for
many departments, including the Wilson School, the Bendheim Center for Finance, the International Economics Section, the Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies, the Industrial Relations Section, the Education Research Section, the Center for Health and Wellbeing, the JulisRabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance, and the Center for Behavioral Science and Public Policy. The international programs moving into the building are the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, the Davis International Center,
the Office of International Programs, the Council for International Teaching and Research, and the Princeton in Asia, Princeton in Africa, and Princeton in Latin America programs. Faculty and staff affiliated with these departments will begin moving into the 200,000 square foot complex, which includes the Louis A. Simpson International Building and the Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, between Thursday, Dec. 15, and Wednesday, Dec. 21. The buildings, located just off Nassau Street, augment See BUILDING page 2
LECTURE
News & Notes Argue receives nomination for Grammy award By Charles Min associate news editor
Darcy James Argue, conductor of the Princeton University Creative Large Ensemble, was nominated for a Grammy award. His album, tilted “Real Enemies,” was named a finalist in the “Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album” category. Argue is a Canadian-native jazz composer who attended McGill University and later attended the New England Conservatory to study composition. He currently resides in Brookyln, NY. His album “Real Enemies” was recorded by his ensemble Secret Society, which he started in 2005
and whose first album “Infernal Machines” was nominated both for the Grammy award for “Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album” in 2011 and the Juno award for “Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year” in 2010. “Real Enemies” has received critical acclaim, being called “an oddball masterpiece” and “creepy fun soulful shiversome stuff” by critic Fred Kaplan. At the University, Argue leads the Creative Large Ensemble, which made its debut last Saturday at Richard Auditorium, where they performed music by Duke Ellington, Benny Carter, Mary Lou Williams, and other modern artists.
Leonard, Rosen, Schambra talk on illiberalism, the progressive era By Sarah Hirschfield staff writer
Thomas Leonard, a research scholar at the The Council of the Humanities and a lecturer in economics, led a discussion on his new book on illiberalism during the Progressive Era, eugenics, and the presidential election. The discussion was held in conjunction with Christine Rosen, senior editor at The New Atlantis, and William Schambra, senior fellow at Hudson Institute. Leonard began by setting the historical stage, noting that the progressives permanently altered the course of American economic and public life. From the late 19th century through World War I, there was a vigorous national debate on where and how the government should respond to economic crises, according to Leonard, and the progressives were able to institutionalize their views, even on race and heredity. He moved on to discuss why he characterizes the progressives as “illiberal reformers” in his book. In contrast to liberals
in the late 19th Century, who were “committed to individual freedom... free soil, free labor, free trade,” progressives were “close-minded, intolerant, and bigoted,” Leonard said. “Progressives called this laissez-faire, said it was unjust, and led a crusade to dismantle it,” he said, adding that they were dismissive of individual liberty in the process. The progressives promoted racial science and eugenics, he said. Woodrow Wilson himself advocated the reestablishment of Jim Crow and segregation. “They portrayed themselves as unbiased technocratic elite that served the public,” Leonard explained, “but they were public moralists. They preached... a social gospel.” Leonard noted that we find some of the progressives’ ideas repugnant, but not all were. Even the bad ideas are significant because they were most likely considered good ideas at one point. “We will look barbarous in our views 100 years from now, I promise. Progressives thought they had it right, and they thought they were the best and
In Opinion
Today on Campus
Columnist Daehee Lee reflects on a shared feeling of community among international students in the wake of political crises, and Senior Columnist Beni Snow offers a critique of the current USG voting system.. PAGE 5
8 p.m.: Princeton University Rock Ensemble will present its winter show “The Way Home. Frist Campus Center Performance Theatre.
the brightest.” The progressives made the world we live in, he said, not metaphorically, but literally. They turned economics and other social sciences into academic institutions, invented think tanks, and created new professions such as muckrakers, social workers, and management consultants. “Americans can’t understand ourselves and our place in the world without understanding its authors,” he said. These authors were mostly white, middle class, and Protestant, and wanted to redeem America and the world through economic and social reform. “There was a moral and intellectual dissatisfaction of the suffering of others,” Leonard said, but progressives “romanticized a brotherhood they would never consider joining.” He went on to explain what the progressives looked like in practice. “Progressives got their economics from Germany,” he said, “and that was historicism. The way the world works See ILLIBERAL page 3
WEATHER
IRIS SAMUELS :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
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The Daily Princetonian
Thursday December 8, 2016
New building to bring together Economics Department under one roof BUILDING Continued from page 1
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the old laboratory’s ivy-covered edifice with modern glass and metal additions towards the back of the complex, which will also provide easy access to the nearby Fountain of Freedom, next to Robertson Hall, and other neighboring buildings. The interior will include ten classrooms, thirteen meeting rooms, and many offices for the fifteen departments and programs housed in the buildings, said Lorine Murray-Mechini, senior project manager for the renovation project. The building will also fuse the classic with the modern. Classrooms and conference areas blend original design elements, including stone fireplaces, with furnishings designs to augment learning in the digital age. According to the University website, the building’s second-floor library was also preserved. Murray-Mechini expressed excitement regarding the renovations, remarking in
the email that the building will feature rooftop pavilions, two atria, and a suspended meeting room. She added that architect Kuwabara Payne McKenna focused on “opening up the building,” both through its numerous entrances and the harnessing of natural light. The new buildings will also reinforce the University’s commitment to sustainability with features such as low-flow plumbing fixtures, energy-efficient lighting, HVAC systems, high performance exteriors, and the use of sustainable materials throughout. Although the buildings are not yet open and the interiors are still under construction, Murray-Mechini anticipates that they will open on time for the transition next week, which will allow the complex to be put to its first test once the University reopens after winter break. Michael Denchak, program manager for the Office of Design and Construction, did not respond to request for comment.
Younger: Get involved in municipal, county politics FEMINISM Continued from page 1
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politics; challenge the status quo; and push to make those around them uncomfortable,” she added. She also praised the various campus initiatives like Princeton Students for Gender Equality, which ran a #MyFeminismIs photo campaign last spring. The Ms. Foundation for Women started their campaign with a similar initiative, as well as other movements like “Let’s Talk Feminism” and ended up reaching out to over 135 million people with videos featuring feminists of all races, colors, genders, etc. to emphasize intersectionality. Younger revealed that only 7 percent of philanthropic dollars go to women, of which the majority goes to research and awareness on breast cancer. “We need to hold philanthropic organizations responsible,” she explained, adding that while women held close to half of all non-profit board positions, non-profits worth over $25 million had mostly men on their boards, while those worth less than $1 million had more women. Younger was named one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Philanthropy by Insider Philanthropy,
She raised the question of what “women’s issues” meant, saying that most people named abortion and pay equity as “women’s issues.” “Yet when we ask people about the issues that affect women, we receive at least fifteen answers, ranging from healthcare to transportation to education. We work on these at the Ms. Foundation,” she explained. Ms. Foundation for Women applies the lens of race and gender to several issues, including working with Native American women living in reservations on issues related to rape, promoting conversation and dialogue on young parenting and teenage pregnancy with young Mexican women, and running workshops to teach women of color to write op-eds that have been published by news outlets including TIME Magazine and The Huffington Post. She added that the organization had already committed $29 million to women of color, money that came from women for women in their communities. The lecture, titled “Dismantling the P-word: Moving Toward a Post-Feminist Society,” had about 40 people in attendance, only four of whom were men. It took place in Robertson Hall at 4:30 p.m., and was sponsored by the Wilson School.
T HE DA ILY
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Thursday December 8, 2016
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Leonard notes on book as ‘cautionary tale of intellectual arrogance’ ILLIBERAL Continued from page 1
............. is specific to time and place.” Back in the United States, progressives convinced Americans that free markets needed to be regulated by the visible hand of an activist state. Progressives believed in scientific management, believing they could make humans more efficient, but they possessed more of a technocratic attitude on how to achieve their goals than a coherent agenda. “They believed the chief task of government was to settle unruly economic life,” he said, “They wanted to uplift immigrants, women, and AfricanAmericans.” But they were also disciples of eugenics, racial science, and evolutionary science, he said, describing how the progressives revived the notion of “race suicide.” Progressives proposed the minimum wage in response to their eugenic beliefs, according to Leonard. “Inferior races” like the Chinese, the progressives thought, could live inexpensively and would also take lower-paying jobs. This would keep white men out of work, who in turn would have fewer children. Without a minimum wage that allowed the deserving superiors to make money, the progressives reasoned, the inferior groups would outbreed them. Leonard went on to describe the progressives’ racism towards blacks, citing Wilson’s
resegregating the federal government once in office. He closed his talk by discussing the progressives’ deep ambivalence about the poor. “The deserving poor were seen as victims,” he said, “but poor immigrants, blacks, and women were not seen as victims, but as threats. In the name of progress, they uplifted and excluded.” Rosen took the podium to respond. “His book has nuance,” she said, “it’s not so simple.” She went on to highlight themes she found compelling in his book. First, she noted that Americans love the sheen of science. “The road to hell is paved by good policy intentions. The history of progressivism is the history of unintended consequences,” she noted. Another compelling motif, she said, was how public policy becomes a vehicle for morality. “If you have science on your side and the benefit of all in mind, of course you’ll do some things that are illiberal,” she said. Rosen noted that the computer engineers in the Silicon Valley are the progressives’ modern-day counterparts. “We aren’t confronting anything new when we confront the idea of solving the world’s problems,” she said. She ended her remarks by commenting that we still have a deficit in our civic education. “You don’t learn about the history of eugenics and forcible sterilization,” she said, noting
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that the US had forcible sterilization before Germany did and that some states continue to have these laws. “We haven’t reckoned with the history [Leonard] lays out in his book,” she said. Next, Schambra took the podium, announcing he intended to be fully presentist in his discussion. “Leonard undersells his own book as a way for understanding this past election,” he said. “The world consists of two classes — the educated and the ignorant — and it is essential for progress that the former should be allowed to dominate the latter,” said Schambra, quoting progressivist Irving Fisher. Schambra then asked if Fisher’s distinction has vanished in modern thought? No, he said. “Illiberal educational elitism has become more pervasive,” he said. Think tanks formulate, advocate, and implement public
policy that enforces the divide, according to Schambra. “Progressives are ever more convinced of their monopoly on science, more disdainful and contemptuous of the untutored masses,” he said. He went on to discuss how the election brought this distinction to light. “Educated supporters couldn’t understand how Trump won,” he said, “so they fell back upon Fisher’s dichotomy.” Schambra said he could identify eugenic echoes in the elite contempt, pointing to liberals who tried to find “mental deficiencies” to explain Trump supporters. Leonard “provides an easy out for modern progressives by focusing on women, blacks, and immigrants,” Schambra said, instead of “white trash.” Leonard took the podium to respond, noting that his book, a “cautionary tale of intellectual arrogance,” as a review de-
scribed it, is cautionary in both directions. “The irony of this election is it reminds us of the influence of white protestants in the small town,” he said, “This time in a different garb.” Leonard noted that the discourse of inferiority includes both race and class. “It’s very revealing that they’re all white people,” he said, referring to Trump supporters. Leonard closed by addressing “a deep tension in our history” between civic nationalism, which can be inclusive, and racial nationalism, which is necessarily exclusive. The panel, entitled “Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era,” took place on Dec. 7, 2016 in Lewis Library, room 120. The event was sponsored by the James Madison Program as part of America’s Founding and Future lecture series.
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The Daily Princetonian
Thursday December 8, 2016
Thursday December 8, 2016
Opinion { www.dailyprincetonian.com }
Change doesn’t start at the national level
vol. cxl
Beni Snow
senior columnist
W
hile everyone was paying attention to the presidential election, Maine quietly made history — not when it joined three states in legalizing marijuana, but when it became the first state to adopt ranked choice voting for all elections.
Ranked choice voting, or RCV, is a system where voters rank their candidates, starting with their first pick and working down. If any candidate has over 50 percent of the first choice vote, they immediately win. But if no one wins a majority, then the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated, and every vote cast for them is transferred to the candidate ranked second on each ballot. This process continues until a candidate has a majority. It’s a superior system — and Princ-
Do-Hyeong Myeong ’17 eton should adopt it, too. Under current USG rules, we use the more familiar “one vote per race” format for most positions. In 2014, this necessitated a runoff procedure, which created a lot of additional hassle for the student government. Not only would RCV prevent this in the future, but it would also force voters to learn about more of the candidates and not just find one they like enough. Here’s an example of the process: imagine a USG election where the frontrunner wins 45 percent of the vote, the next candidate wins 35 percent, and a third wins 20 percent. There is no majority winner, so the third-place candidate would be eliminated. If the voters for the third place candidate had all given a second choice split 50-50 among the other two, the original frontrunner would
win with 55 percent of the vote. This splitting of the vote is the “instant runoff.” Among other benefits, that majority helps give the candidate an effective mandate. We’re seeing problems with that now on the national stage, after Trump won the election without even a plurality of the popular vote. In fact, in four of the last seven presidential elections, the winner had less than 50 percent of the vote. The lack of an instant runoff also creates a system in which parties must choose a single candidate. If the US ran on RCV, Bernie could have run in the general election and asked his supporters to list Clinton as their second choice. Any number of Republicans could have done something similar. There was frustration this year with the candidates picked by both
major parties. RCV solves this problem, eliminating the need to pick a single candidate for a party. Of course, this is one of the reasons that RCV is unpopular in Washington: it weakens political parties. Here at Princeton, however, we don’t have political parties, so I see no reason not to implement RCV for every elected position. Some clubs and teams already use it, to great effect. Change doesn’t start at the national level. It starts at the smallest of local elections. If Princeton wants its students to be civically engaged, switching to a system of voting that encourages that is a good place to start. Beni Snow is a sophomore from Newton, Mass. He can be reached at bsnow@princeton. edu.
Korean crisis reflects unity for internationals Daehee Lee columnist
B
eing a Korean citizen has always been a great source of pride for me. I consider South Korea as my mother nation, even after having lived in the United States for more than ten years. Yet over the last few weeks, I have watched a scandal unfold in the country: Choi Sun Shil, a mere citizen not previously known by the public, secretly took control of the Korean government and even influenced the president. Even worse, the bureaucrats and officials who did know of Choi’s sway — who were entrusted to serve the people — turned a blind eye to the corruption. Even now, as public outcry and disapproval of the government reaches levels unseen since the democratization of South Korea in the 1980s, the people’s representatives care more about political advantages than in seeing the president removed for her
crimes. As more dirty deeds and underhanded deals are revealed, I, with my compatriots in Korea and in Princeton, feel keenly the impact of this monstrous betrayal of public trust. But when the Korean community had a chance to digest the news in late October, I saw — and still do see — unity among Korean and Korean-American students I have never seen before. I hear discussion about the scandal and how it came to affect our lives; I see new bonds form between people who had never spoken to each other. The collective love and concern we have for Korea spur us to band closer together as international students to speak out against the perpetrators of the scandal, as we did on Nov. 18 when a group of Korean students in the Korean American Student Association held a public demonstration in front of Nassau Hall to decry the heinous political crimes being committed in Korea. As I live alongside other Princetonians, I realize that
this feeling of treachery from the government is not unique to Korean students. Many of our more than 1,800 international students come from nations that are not politically upright. There are scandals and corruptions that can make these students feel disconnected from and even ashamed of their mother nations. But we international students cannot abandon our homes simply because of what our governments or peoples may do. We must remain proud of our nations even while living here in Princeton. We as Koreans are able to unite in concern for Korea, because we are proud, and because we know our families and our friends still residing in Korea. We realize that they are the ones suffering the most from this scandal, and we strive to support them and their efforts to rid themselves of corruption. We accept that this disgrace will affect us, because we acknowledge that we will always be connected to the land of our forefathers.
These feelings of empathy and love for fellow international students are not unique to Korean students or to this scandal alone. As international students, we all have a bond to our home nations. Whether we are Korean, Turkish, Chinese, or any other nationality, we share pride in our countries, because they are full of people we know and love. That is why our hearts break when we hear of disasters back at home — like when a friend from Haiti cried when Hurricane Matthew destroyed the island country only two months ago. But even as our hearts break — even as we wonder how disasters could have occurred — we perennially move forward, hoping that our small actions can better our motherlands. We learn, we connect, and we band together to improve ourselves and our friends and families back home. Daehee Lee is a freshman from Palisades Park, NJ. She can be reached at daeheel@ princeton.edu.
Just a few more days rita fang ’17
editor-in-chief
Daniel Kim ’17
business manager
BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Betsy J. Minkin ’77 treasurer Douglas Widmann ’90 Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Richard P. Dzina, Jr. ’85 William R. Elfers ’71 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 John G. Horan ’74 Joshua Katz Rick Klein ’98 Kathleen Kiely ’77 James T. MacGregor ’66 Alexia Quadrani Michael E. Seger ’71 Annalyn Swan ’73 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73
140TH MANAGING BOARD news editors Jessica Li ’18 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 12.8.16 senior copyeditors Katie Petersen ‘19 Daphne Mandell ‘19 staff copyeditors Todd Gilman ‘20 Douglas Corzine ‘20 Michael Li ‘20
Thursday December 8, 2016
Sports
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Tigers grab first conference win in over time thriller The men’s ice hockey team grabbed their first conference win this past weekend, Dec. 3. The Princeton squad, which had previously struggled in the ECAC, did not let their past performances effect them as they clinched a win over conference rivals Rensselaer.
Photos courtesy of Rachel Spady Captions by David Xin, Associate Sports Editor
Although the match proved to be a thriller, Rensselaer started the match in a strong fashion, outscoring the Tigers 3-1. However, the Orange and Black would show their resilience as they held on to keep the match close. Eventually, the Princeton squad would tie the game with just under a minute left to play. The Tigers would take full advantage of this opportunity, scoring at 3:03 in overtime. This proved to be enough as the Princeton squad edged out Rensselaer, 6-5, for their conference win. While the Tigers have had a rough spell this year, the Tiger’s season may be looking up. Indeed, Princeton has won three of their last four games, including all three wins they had this season.The team will undoubtedly be looking to build on their current momentum as they look forward. The Tigers will face conference rivals Quinnipiac next weekend.
Tweet of the Day “Life, uh, finds a way” Samuel Huffman (@ HamSuffman), senior defensive back, football
Stat of the Day
65-27 The 65-27 victory over Lafayetter marks the second time the Tigers have held an opponent under 30 points.
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