March 15, 2017

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Wednesday March 15, 2017 vol. CXLI no. 27

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } U . A F FA I R S

MARCIA BROWN :: HEAD NEWS EDITOR

The University was closed on March 14 for non-essential personnel until 5 p.m.

Dining hall staff stay overnight on campus Head News Editor

University dining staff slept in the multipurpose room of Frist Campus Center in preparation for the blizzard expected to strike campus the morning of March 14, named “Winter Storm Stella” by the Weather Channel.

To protect dining hall staff, the ‘Prince’ will not reveal workers’ identities.

Members of the dining staff of all six residential colleges used cots brought over from Dillon Gymnasium to sleep.

According to one staff member, this is not the first time dining hall staffers have slept on campus in preparation for a storm or other inclement weather event. In previous instances, a staff member said, workers have slept in Dillon

Gym. Other workers preparing meals in Forbes College explained that accommodations for them overnight were not all in Frist. One woman stayed in the Graduate College overnight.

The University was closed on March 14 for non-essential personnel until 5 p.m. According to a University press release, classes and exams scheduled to begin after noon were to be held as planned.

“I was nervous to drive through the snow, so when they asked me to stay over here I said, ‘Definitely, yes,’ because it’s safer to stay here than to drive through the snow. We have to be here for the students. I didn’t stay in Forbes — they put me up at another college,” said another worker.

STUDENT LIFE

Director of Media Relations John Cramer explained in an email statement that this has happened in previous storms, but that this is the first time Frist has been used as an “overnight shelter for employees, although it was previously used to shelter graduate students whose homes lost power.” Both hurricanes Irene and Sandy were events where staff members stayed on campus overnight. He explained that different weather events require different responses.

“Our emergency preparedness and response plans include setting up shelters for essential staff who need to stay overnight in order to provide necessary services or emergency response,” Cramer wrote in an email. “Staff shelters have been occasionally set up in STUDENT LIFE

Committee proposes changes to Block 95

By Emily Spalding contributor

ROSE GILBERT :: NEWS CONTRIBUTOR

Graduate students from surrounding colleges discuss unionization.

Panel updates graduate students on unionization

By Rose Gilbert contributor

On Monday night, four panelists from NYU and Rutgers shared their experience with higher education unions and encouraged University graduate students to unionize.

Last October, graduate students voted to affiliate their union, Princeton Graduate Students United (PGSU), with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Now, PGSU organizers are holding meetings and events to gather feedback on the union’s potential future. This will in-

Frist or Dillon to accommodate staff from Campus Dining, Facilities, Public Safety and other departments.”

“It’s routine or not unusual to ask people to sleep in Dillon or various offices,” Cramer said in a phone interview.

Additionally, Cramer said that managers stayed in hotels two to a room on Route 1. There were no hotel accommodations left in the town.

In the past, he said, managers and staff have stayed at Nassau Inn and Palmer House during emergencies.

According to the Services Employees’ International Union Local 175 contract, employees designated as “essential services employees” are notified by Nov. 15 of each year.

Their jobs “are necessary to keep the University open and

volve whether they continue with the process of unionization by holding elections for representatives, gaining recognition from the University, and negotiating a contract.

Disha Karnad Jani, a first year history graduate student, gave a brief opening speech on the purpose of PGSU. She emphasized that the union would give students the power to “negotiate as equals” and “build solidarity,” rather than impose an immutable “one-size-fits-all contract,” addressing fears that the union would See UNIONS page 3

Recommendations from the University Board Plan Committee proposed several changes to the undergraduate dining experience to be enacted in the fall of 2017 as part of a one-year pilot program, according to an official University statement.

These modifications to the current meal plan system come as a response to the Board Plan Committee’s initiative that started in Oct. 2016 to receive feedback from undergraduate students on the overall undergraduate dining experience at the University by way of focus groups and an interactive website.

One of the most notable changes under the new plan includes alterations to the Block 95 meal plan, which is offered to juniors, seniors, and graduate students. The new version of the plan will feature an additional 250 dining points, builtin at no extra cost, that can be used at the nine campus cafés: Frist Food Gallery, Café Vivian, Witherspoon Café, Woodrow Wilson School Café, E-Quad Café, Frick Chemistry Café, Genomics Café, Chancellor Green Café, and the Atrium Café. Furthermore, these points can be used during school breaks, a new concept that deviates from the current system in which students have to purchase ad-

ditional plans exclusive to break weeks.

Dean of Rockefeller College Oliver Avens, co-chair of the Board Plan Committee, noted, “We’ve never had dining points at Princeton and many other universities and colleges do, so this is our first pilot-program to do that and also to sort of expand the number of venues.”

He also spoke to the flexibility of the points, stating that “the points will be a new way also for students to … apportion their dining options through the semesters.”

The undergraduate dining system was last reviewed in 2005, with full changes going into effect in 2007.

Smitha Haneef, Executive Director of Campus Dining and a Board Plan Committee co-chair, explained “flexibility and access to a meal” as “a big driving factor” to the new system.

Avens explained that the most recent review of the system was prompted in part because of a “want to have the Board Plan reflect our student population and the needs and wants of that population.”

In order to reflect such needs, focus groups comprised of students across classes and meal plans were assembled in the fall of 2016 to discuss the current dining experience on See DINING page 2

In Opinion 30 student groups send a letter to President Eisgruber about the new travel ban, Contributing Columnist Jan Alsina defends the Princeton Charter School, Contributing Columnist Sarah Dinovelli blasts the Princeton Public Schools’ proposed tax increase, the Graduate Student Government encourages a stronger graduate student community, and Columnist Jared Shulkin comments on the Ivy Madness selection process.

running when emergency conditions exist.” This agreement between the University and the Local 175 is valid from July 22, 2013 to July 1, 2018 and covers dining hall staff.

The contract further states in Article 33, Section 1A, that “Essential services employees are expected to work hours outside their regular schedules when notified of the necessity by their departments.” When working in these conditions, “these staff members will be paid premium rates.”

The University later added clarifications regarding the accommodations to their statement.

According to Cramer, dining staff who slept in Frist and the Graduate College did so voluntarily.

See BLIZZARD page 5

U . A F FA I R S

Profile: U. President Emerita Shirley Tilghman

By Samvida Venkatesh

senior science contributor

As part of a series for Women’s History Month, The Daily Princetonian sat down with Professor Shirley Tilghman, President Emerita of Princeton University.

The ‘Prince’ interviewed Tilghman about her journey through science, her time as President of the University, and advice she has for young students entering careers in science.

DP: What was it like being one of the first women in the role of President of a major US university, and the first woman President of Princeton?

Tilghman: This is an area where the Ivy League actually led rather than bringing up the rear. When I was appointed President, there were relatively few women leading major US universities, but by the time I left 12 years later, half the Presidents in the Ivy League were women.

When I was first appointed, it took about six See TILGHMAN page 4

WEATHER

By Marcia Brown

HIGH

29˚

LOW

20˚

Cloudy, windy chance of snow:

70 percent

page 2

The Daily Princetonian

Wednesday March 15, 2017

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

University math professor graces box offices across nation

By Kirsten Traudt contributor

A critical and box office success, “Hidden Figures” is hot off of an impressive awards season — during which it won 28 out of its 72 total nominations — and a run at Princeton Garden Theatre, where it was a USG “Movie of the Week,” in addition to being screened by the computer science department and the Carl A. Fields Center.

“Hidden Figures” details the story of African-American female mathematicians, particularly Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, who worked at NASA during the ‘60s. The movie features the contributions these women made to the space program, especially their work in making John Glenn the first American to orbit the United States in space.

However, the film’s Princeton connection runs much deeper. Blogger Steve Hiltner found out that former University mathematics professor Oswald Veblen played an important role in the mathematical lineage of the main character of “Hidden Figures,” Katherine Johnson. Veblen served as a mentor or advisor to individuals whose work would eventually inf luence Johnson’s doctoral work.

Although not a household name today, Veblen is perhaps one of the most significant figures in the history of the University’s mathematics department.

The son of a mathematics and physics professor, Veblen was born in Iowa and received bachelor’s degrees from the University of Iowa and Harvard University before completing his Ph.D. at the University of Chi-

cago. At the suggestion of Dean of the Faculty Henry Burchard Fine, Class of 1880, University President Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, brought Veblen to the University, where he served as one of the very first preceptors.

Veblen boasted an impressive career in the fields of geometry and topology, which provided insight both into the theory of relativity and the early computers used by Johnson and her colleagues. He also had a leadership role in the University’s department and in the wider mathematics community. He served as president of the American Mathematical Society from 1923 to 1924 and created a community-centered design for Fine Hall, which is now Jones Hall. As the first professor in the Institute for Advanced Study, founded in 1932, he recruit-

ed many Jewish academics — including Albert Einstein — who were f leeing Nazi Germany.

He also made early attempts to bring black professors to the University, one of many ways in which his story intersected with Johnson’s. Johnson was educated at West Virginia State College by Professor William Waldron Schieffelin Claytor, who is notable for being the third AfricanAmerican to ever receive a Ph.D. in mathematics.

While Claytor was not taught by Veblen, Veblen did offer him a post at the University in the 1930s before being thwarted by the University’s policy of segregation. Later, Veblen offered Claytor a position at the Institute for Advanced Study, which did not exclude people of color, but Claytor declined.

Despite the fact that

they did not work together, however, Claytor may still have been inf luenced by some of Veblen’s ideas and practices. According to the Mathematics Genealogy Project, which uses the abstracts of mathematics papers to determine the links of mentorship between mathematicians, Claytor’s mentor was John Robert Kline, who was advised by Robert Lee Moore, who, as a student at the University of Chicago, was mentored

by Veblen.

Veblen’s work had farreaching consequences both on modern physics and early computing; he was a supporter of the World War II-era ENIAC electronic digital computer, which was initially operated and programmed by women, such as character Dorothy Vaughan from “Hidden Figures.”

Pilot program tests more diverse menus DINING

Continued from page 1

campus. Avens stated that the issues repeatedly brought up in the focus groups primarily centered around flexibility, access to dining halls, hours in which dining halls are open, location of dining halls in relationship to classes (especially on the east side of campus), the diversity of menu options, and the effectiveness of communication to students with regards to important dining information.

With this in mind, other proposed changes include Saturday and Sunday breakfast hours at one dining hall in addition to regular brunch hours, an enhanced web-based platform for campus dining to better communicate about programs such as “Lunch-to-Go,” healthier options at Late Meal, standardized late night snack menus in the residential colleges, and a new online Meal Exchange Program for students on meal plans who wish to dine at eating clubs, the University statement reports.

Haneef also added that the focus groups brought into discussion the relationship between eating clubs and dining halls. She noted that “the historic claim always had dining plans from Campus Dining and eating club plans, but we found that there are more and more students that were looking for choices.” She added that “as a University, we did want to reach out to the students in understanding what those choices could look like,” in order to “design some options that could best suit their needs.”

While the pilot program focuses primarily on the structure of meal plans as opposed to the meals themselves, Haneef noted that the requests for more diverse menus in the focus groups are being considered.

“We will be taking a closer look at where we are currently and where we might need to look into bringing more options,” she said. “Especially in the context of Princeton being the most diverse that it has ever been, we think that it is an appropriate time to think about food and engagement through food in that way.”

Throughout the 2017-2018 academic year, the committee will continue to seek feedback from students and make adjustments to the pilot program which may later be enacted in the fall of 2018.

Wednesday March 15, 2017

Panelists discuss unionization benefits

The Daily Princetonian

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T HE DA ILY

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ROSE GILBERT :: NEWS CONTRIBUTOR

Graduate students: unions let us meet people outside our bubbles

UNIONS

Continued from page 1

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not accurately represent all interests of graduate students.

Jani then asked the four panelists present to introduce themselves and summarize their experiences with unionization. Lauren Frazee, an ecology and evolution student at Rutgers University, said that she has had an “overwhelmingly positive experience” with her union, which she got involved in over her concern about distribution of funding.

She said that though “not everything was a happy, rosy experience,” the union provided her with a process to address her grievances and a community to support her. Frazee added that the union gave her a chance to meet people outside of her “academic bubble” and gave her new insight into politics and social justice, which she called a “great complement” to her study of science.

Two of the other panelists from Rutgers University, Wei-Chieh Hung and Dr. Adrienne Eaton, explained that Rutgers, which is also affiliated with the AFT, has a somewhat unusual unionization arrangement.

Hung is a third year geography graduate student from Taiwan, and Eaton is currently the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the School of Management and Labor Relations.

They both explained that graduate students and professors are represented by the same union, a fact that all three panelists identified as a cause of greater solidarity between advisors and students.

Hung noted that graduate students occupy an “in-between position” between employees and students, adding that it was difficult to define the “boundary between [their] lives and the job.”

For example, Hung said that he enjoyed working with undergraduates, but that advising and teaching were also forms of labor that benefitted the institution that he worked for, and that he should therefore be compensated for them. Hung credited unionization with giving graduate students a “more democratic and transparent way” to discuss their needs and concerns with administration.

Eaton once served as the president of the faculty union and was involved in the union when she was a graduate student. Having experienced graduate student unionization from several perspectives, she has also conducted a study surveying graduate students at both unionized and non-unionized public universities, which was then used by the National Labor Relations Board.

The study found that graduate students at institutions with unions tended to report better relationships with their faculty advisors, lower levels of grievance filing, and more positive feelings about their compensation, even though their actual compensation was either the same or slightly better than their counterparts at non-unionized institutions.

The study also found that unionized graduate students reported having a greater or equal degree of academic freedom compared to their nonunionized counterparts.

Shelly Ronen, a sixth year sociology graduate student at New York University, had a slightly different experience with unionization than the other panelists. NYU was the first private university with a graduate student union, which lost and regained recognition before negotiating its

current contract. Ronen, who played a key role in regaining recognition for the union, said that the unionization process “may not always be easy.” Though she urged students to get involved in their union, she added that unionization “has caveats” and “requires being organized . . . especially to evaluate the diverse need of graduate students.”

Ronen said that despite the obstacles that she and her fellow organizers encountered, her union has had a significant impact on the lives of its constituents, including providing better compensation for international engineering students whose earning hours were capped, establishing a childcare fund, and increasing health care and dental coverage.

She added that improvements can be made after the initial contract is negotiated, noting that NYU students were able to remove fees for “ghost courses,” which had no standardized instruction or did not exist, in all departments through a formal grievance procedure. Ronen stressed that students should also be careful to maintain the benefits they already had rather than assuming they were “safe.”

The panelists responded to two pre-written questions, selected by the PGSU organizers based on the concerns that they had heard voiced most frequently during Graduate Student Government meetings.

The first question asked the panelists about their experience with union dues. Rutgers has a “closed shop” union, meaning that all graduate students are required to pay dues because they all benefit from the union’s collective action whether or not they are actively involved. Eaton, Hung and Frazee all mentioned that paying dues had never been a very controversial aspect of their own experiences with unionization. Eaton added that graduate students should “keep in mind” that dues are “democratically-determined,” and that those with concerns should become more involved in order to have a say in the kinds of fees they would be required to pay.

The second question asked the panelists to describe how unionization changes the relationship between graduate students and their advisors. Ronen acknowledged that some students may be “reticent” to discuss unionization with their advisors, but asserted that unions “take care of the discomfort” of directly asking an advisor for a raise or a change in working conditions, adding that unionized graduate students can file grievances without directly confronting “someone who has power over you.”

Eaton agreed, adding that unionization “depersonalizes and professionalizes” the material aspects of student-advisor relationships “in the most positive way.”

The panelists also discussed the benefits of graduate student unionization outside of compensation, noting benefits like improved health care with lower copays, subsidized childcare, and collectivized access to the national discourse on higher education policy. The panelists all agreed that unionization was the most effective way to negotiate with higher-level management, which all four people referred to as the people “behind the curtain.”

Ronen said that it was important that University students felt connected to PGSU. “You are the union. We are the union. The union is not an ‘it’,” she said.

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The Daily Princetonian

Wednesday March 15, 2017

Tilghman discusses stereotype threat, underrepresentation

IMAGE COURTESY OF FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS

Tilghman contends the most important role she fills is that of teacher.

TILGHMAN Continued from page 1

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

months for some individuals on campus to get used to the idea that a woman would be leading Princeton, but it soon stopped being a question I was asked. I don’t think I was thought about or treated differently than any other President.

DP: Did you ever feel stereotype threat?

Tilghman: I didn’t feel stereotype threat. As a scientist, I am in a profession where females have traditionally been underrepresented so I learnt relatively early to navigate a world in which I was an underrepresented minority. When I was entering the field in the 1960s, there were relatively few women in science, right until I was heading my own big lab at a major university.

DP: What guided your entry into science, particularly molecular biology?

Tilghman: From a very young age I had loved mathematics, so my entry into science came from my love of puzzles. My father was an important mentor because it never occurred to him that a girl should not be doing math puzzles as opposed to playing with dolls.

When I entered college, I was thinking of studying either mathematics or chemistry, but I realized by my third year that neither of those subjects really engaged me.

That was when I discovered molecular biology through the Meselson-Stahl experiment. I think it’s one of the greatest experiments of the twentieth century and I still teach it today in my freshman seminar.

DP: Did you feel like you wanted to give up at any point in your career?

Tilghman: I never felt that I wanted to give up. I gained confidence that I could actually function as an independent scientist during graduate school. I had an advisor who let me be independent and treated me as a colleague as opposed to a student. Because I was designing my own experiments rather than having someone constantly telling me what to do, by the time I finished graduate school I knew I could do science.

DP: Do you think that mentorship is necessary for good science? What advice would you give to students who are picking a mentor?

Tilghman: I believe mentorship is essential for success in science. I had an excellent mentor in graduate school, and as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institutes of Health, I had a fantastic mentor. He was supportive and encouraging, always directing me to think bold and aim high. It had a tremendous impact on my self-confidence as a scientist. As a faculty member

leading a lab, I tried very hard to mentor my own students similarly and encourage them to do the best they possibly could.

I always say that the best way to pick a mentor is to talk to others who have been mentored by them, more so even than the person themselves. That’s how you will learn whether their mentees feel supported and encouraged.

DP: In what ways are you still involved with the Princeton community after your retirement from presidency?

Tilghman: The most important thing I do is teach.

I teach a freshman seminar, and I have a joint appointment in the Woodrow Wilson School where I teach a fall course on genetics and public policy. Additionally, I advise two to three students a year on their JPs and senior thesis – lately, in addition to students from molecular biology, I have also been advising those from the Wilson School.

I have also been working, with some colleagues, to reform the biomedical enterprise so that it is more welcoming toward young scientists trying to get into the profession. There has been a truly dramatic change in the past few decades with a significant shift in the age of the biomedical workforce to an older average. Individuals of my generation are not retiring so there are many fewer positions for the generation that has just finished training and is training right now. This is a problem both for individuals and for science as a whole.

If you look at the history of science, most scientists did their major work early in their career. By delaying their independence to the later 30s, 40s even, we are missing that period of important work. And it takes a toll on individuals as well – many of them are reaching ages where they want to settle down and build families, but are still stuck on their second or third postdocs, which I think is inhumane!

DP: What sort of advocacy do you do to improve the field for young scientists?

Tilghman: We advocate good public policy and practices both in government and universities so that their careers are as fulfilling as they can be. Historically the work in biomedical research is done by trainees.

The structure of labs is such that there is one principal investigator and maybe one or two technicians, but everyone else is a trainee on their way to positions that don’t exist. We are trying to move to a lab structure where a greater percentage of work is done by people for whom this is their job, a well-paid one that is a career in its own right.

DP: The molecular biology department at Princ-

eton is lauded for having almost negated the gender gap through years of consistent effort. Do you think the problem has been solved or do you believe there is still more work to be done?

Tilghman: I think we’ve come a long way since when I began my career. Today at least 50 percent of all Ph.D.s in biological research are being awarded to women, so there is parity in training. We’ve also been at this number long enough that there should be parity even 5-10 years later in their careers. However, women are less likely to be at Research 1 Universities, and if they are at R1 Universities, they are less likely to be at the level of full professors and more likely to be in dependent positions where they are research scientists but not faculty members. They are also less likely to be in industry. So I wonder to what degree these choices made by women with Ph.D.s are being determined by them, and what fraction of those choices are being determined by unconscious biases. I don’t think there are conscious biases anymore – or at least no one will admit to having them – but unconscious biases still exist. Even at Princeton, the molecular biology department has fewer female professors than male. Don’t get me wrong, we are doing better than most, but nationally the numbers do not suggest that the problem is solved.

DP: Do you have any last words of advice for undergraduates looking to enter science?

Tilghman: On the one hand, being a scientist is an extraordinarily wonderful way to spend your life.

On the other hand, if you don’t love it you shouldn’t do it, because the sacrifices you make are not rewarded enough. People don’t usually talk about the economic sacrifice that you make if you are on the path to becoming a scientist, because you will forego an income that you will never make up for the rest of your life.

It’s tough being poor for six years of grad school and then six years of a postdoc.

Additionally, if your goal is to run your own research lab, your odds of reaching that goal are not very good.

Ironically, my odds when I started my career were much better than they are today.

Wednesday March 15, 2017

The Daily Princetonian

Snowy weather hits home: how U. workers were affected by Stella

page 5 T HE DA ILY

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MARCIA BROWN :: HEAD NEWS EDITOR

Students gather in Frist Gallery on eve of winter storm Stella to stock up on food.

BLIZZARD Continued from page 1

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“Several team members went home last night,” he wrote in a second emailed statement.

“The emergency shelter was set up at Frist MPR as a venue for employees who made the decision to stay here.”

Cramer explained in an email that, in agreement with their contract, the 35 employees who slept in Frist MPR and the Graduate College received an overtime pay rate, or “sleep pay,” specified as one and half times their usual pay rate.

Additionally, “because the University closed as of 5 a.m. ... the employees receive double time pay between 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. when the University will reopen,” he wrote.

Students walking out of Frist said that they were shocked that dining hall staff were sleeping there. They explained that they saw a staff member they knew in Frist wearing pajama pants.

“I can’t believe they’re sleeping here,” one student said.

“They have families.”

When asked how they felt about sleeping at Frist, dining

hall staff members said that they felt fine.

“If we go, we’re not going to come back,” one worker said.

“You have to take care of the students. That’s why we do it.”

Some of the workers said that they drive to campus every day and that they live around 15 to 25 minutes away. One worker said that they had been told Monday afternoon that they would be sleeping in Frist. Another worker, who explained that he was hired recently, said that he didn’t know if he was being paid overtime.

“I ain’t used to this,” he said, adding that he “wouldn’t know” if he was being paid overtime. “I just know I’m getting paid.”

He said he thought that it was mandatory to sleep on campus.

“They told me I had to show up and I showed up,” he said. “I know we’re getting paid, don’t know if it’s overtime.”

Another worker said that University staff came around to the residential college dining halls on Monday afternoon to ask them if they wanted to stay on campus.

“They just came around and asked if we wanted to stay,” he

said.

Workers said that they plan to wake up at 5:30 a.m. in order to be in the dining halls by 6 a.m.

“We have to prepare for lunch and dinner, too,” a worker explained.

A facilities worker explained that because he had a fourwheel drive vehicle, he was able to drive to campus at 3 a.m. this morning.

“They let me drive in early, those who didn’t just slept here overnight. Especially the cooks because they gotta cook for y’all,” he explained. “But they’re paying me extra, so it ain’t like I’m coming in for free.”

Deputy Director of Campus Venue Services Marguerite Vera has not yet responded to requests for comment.

This story has been updated with added information regarding where staff members were staying and information regarding the workers’ contracts. This story has further been updated with a second emailed statement from Director of Media Relations John Cramer.

Science Senior Writer Samvida Venkatesh contributed reporting.

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Wednesday March 15, 2017

Opinion

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

Letter to the editor: Oppose Trump’s ban Guest Contributor

Dear President Eisgruber, We believe that the University, as an internationally-renowned liberal arts institution, has an obligation to fight for the interests of its students, faculty, and the larger community. Thus, we, the undersigned, join together in asking you to oppose President Donald Trump’s newest executive order barring entry to citizens of six countries and limiting entry of refugees to the United States. President Trump’s executive orders on immigration targeted explicitly or implicitly at Muslim populations are illiberal, discriminatory, and hurtful to the missions of our university community. A federal judge blocked the previous executive order in part due to the unconstitutionality of its religious discrimination.

The travel ban, both in its previous iteration and current form, represents a threat to our ability to operate as an institution of higher education in an internationalized world. We stand alongside Princetonians who remain unable to visit family members overseas or continue to live in fear of deportation.

As was made clear by the first ban, President Trump’s actions are rooted in Islamophobia, rather than any national security inter-

ests; no citizen from any of the six countries in the travel ban has contributed to a fatal attack in the United States. Moreover, refugees undergo some of the most rigorous vetting procedures of anyone admitted to this country. Thousands of people who were promised safe haven from persecution found themselves turned away as alleged security threats. While the revised order makes the religious discrimination less legally blatant, we believe it still serves no serious purpose beyond ethnic and religious discrimination.

On Feb. 8, you led 47 other university presidents in sending a letter in response to President Trump’s first executive orders on Muslim immigration. Our University later filed an amicus brief in opposition to the executive orders.

We are thankful for your leadership on this important issue and urge you to take similar actions with regards to the new executive order. It is even more important for the University to get involved now, given our position as one of the top-ranked research institutions in the world.

Additionally, as a firm and tangible commitment to refugees, we call on Princeton to provide on-campus housing for a refugee family as a member of the Every Campus A Refuge network. Princ-

Ivy Madness is fair Jared Shulkin

contributing Columnist

For the first year, every Division I basketball conference hosted a tournament for an automatic bid to the NCAA Division I Basketball Championships. In years past, the Ivy League team with the best conference record made an appearance in the national tournament, but the League’s Council of Presidents recently approved a four-team conference tournament for rights to the automatic bid. Every other NCAA Division I conference has previously hosted its own high-stakes tournament for a guaranteed trip to March Madness.

Despite the opinions of several Princeton fans, I believe the method of selection for the Ivy League’s March Madness bid is fair.

Just like all other conference champions, Princeton had to win a tournament for its automatic bid.

As we witness year after year, tournament-style play differs significantly from that of the regular season.

The “win-or-go-home” atmosphere pushes teams to give it their all for a shot at the title. March Madness gets its name from the amalgamation of excitement, heartbreak, and energy associated with these high-stakes games. We can think of the Ivy League tournament as an extension of the NCAA Division I Tournament as a whole — for Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Penn this year, winning games in the Ivy League tournament was the only way to advance along the road to a national championship. Had Princeton lost this weekend, the strongest Ivy League team under pressure of tournament style play would have advanced, rightfully so.

Much of the rationale behind the adoption of a conference tournament included national recognition of the Ivy League as a basketball conference. Over the past couple weeks, all Division I conferences hosted their individual conference tournaments.

Watched carefully by basketball fans across the country and re-

ported on throughout by sports broadcasting and news organizations, these tournaments showcase the best talent each conference has to offer. For teams seeking national recognition outside of March Madness play, these conference tournaments allow for just that.

Ivy Madness games were streamed live on ESPNU and ESPN2, an opportunity which rarely happens for these teams during the regular season.

Some may argue that the regular season is pointless for Ivy League teams if all it takes to make the NCAA tournament is two Ivy Madness wins, but I contend that the regular season allows for critical team development in preparation for both the Ivy League tournament and ultimately the NCAA tournament.

Further, Ivy Madness only features the top four seeds in the conference, so mediocrity in the regular season will not be rewarded with postseason play and the accompanying national recognition. Lastly, the “Ivy League Champion” honors still go to the team with the best regular season conference record, regardless of its performance in the Ivy League tournament.

For Princeton this year, the best team in the conference ended up with a trip to the tournament — however, some mid-major conference champions were upset in their respective conference tournaments and were not granted automatic bids to March Madness.

With Princeton’s historic wins over Penn and Yale in two very exciting games this weekend, the Tigers earned their trip to the NCAA Division I Basketball Championships for the first time since 2011.

No. 12 Princeton has its first matchup against no. 5 Notre Dame — runners-up in the ACC Conference — on Thursday, Mar. 16. Best of luck to the Tigers as they fight for a national championship!

Jared Shulkin is a freshman from Weston, FL. He can be reached at jshulkin@princeton.edu.

eton would declare itself willing to sponsor a refugee family by partnering with a local resettlement agency. Through a communitywide effort, Princeton will give housing and assistance in the resettlement process. In doing so, the University administration would be asserting its leadership both nationally and locally as a supporter of refugee resettlement.

The new travel ban affects our entire University community, and we need to stand in solidarity with our peers and friends. Students who have been admitted may not be able to join our community in the fall, and others may not be able to return for classes or work. The 30 student groups and the over 500 members of the University community who have signed this letter strongly urge you to take a stand for our peers, friends, and family.

Respectfully, The Princeton Advocates for Justice (PAJ) Asian American Students Association (AASA) Princeton Latinos y Amigos (PLA) Princeton DREAM Team Princeton Muslim Advocates for Social Justice and Individual Dignity (MASJID) Princeton College Democrats Latin American Students Organization (LASO)

Latino Graduate Student Association (LGSA) Princeton Caribbean Connection (PCC) Princeton Students for Reproductive Justice (PSRJ) Princeton Students for Gender Equality (PSGE) Young Democratic Socialists of Princeton (YDSP) Sigma Chi Sigma Princeton Chapter Taiwanese American Students Association (TASA) Mental Health Initiative International Students Association at Princeton (ISAP) Princeton South Asian Theatrics (PSAT) Women’s Mentorship Program (WMP) Alliance of Jewish Progressives (AJP) Students for Prison Education and Reform (SPEAR) Canadian Club Princeton Citizen Scientists (PCS) Princeton Clay Project Princeton Hidden Minority Council (PHMC) Princeton Progressives (PPro) Princeton Refugee Project Princeton University College Republicans Center for Jewish Life Social Justice Committee Chinese Students Association (CSA) Princeton Korean American Student Association (KASA)

Guest Contributor

Outside of our campus, the education of this town’s children is at stake. Toward the end of last year, Princeton Charter School requested that the state expand its class size by 76 students — draining $1.2 million per year from the Princeton Public School district in the process. In retaliation, PPS sued the Charter School in early January, claiming that the new financial burden would have devastating effects. Then, on Mar. 2, NJ Department of Education Commissioner Kimberley Harrington approved the PCS expansion.

I was raised in Princeton for most of my life, attending the PPS system for eight years and the Charter School for my last two years of middle school. I’ve seen both the good and bad each has to offer, and I have to side with Charter on this issue. Here’s why.

Opponents of the Charter school paint it as an elitist institution that few belong to. They then accuse the school of stealing taxpayer money. But make no mistake — the Princeton Charter School is a public school, and that’s the end of it. Students pay no tuition. Not everyone who applies “gets in” simply because the waiting list, of about 100 families, is large for the school’s size of 348 students.

This in turn raises the question — why is demand so high? The PPS district has four elementary schools and one middle school, yet each year Charter has a waiting list that forces it to choose students with a random lottery.

It’s because Charter simply provides a better education. This is reflected each year by both test scores and the preparedness of students coming into Princeton High School. And what is most incredible is that Charter achieves this while spending less money per student than PPS.

Sarah Sakha ’18

editor-in-chief

Matthew McKinlay ’18 business manager

BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Betsy L. Minkin ’77 treasurer Douglas J. Widmann ’90 Gregory L. Diskant ’70 William R. Elfers ’71 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 Joshua Katz Kathleen Kiely ’77 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Alexia Quadrani Randall Rothenberg ’78 Annalyn Swan ’73 Michael E. Seger ’71 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73

141ST MANAGING BOARD

Princeton and its Charter School dilemma Jan Alsina

vol. cxli

That’s why the Charter School was established in 1997: discontent for what the PPS system had to offer. It has proven its worth to the Princeton community over the years. I myself can say that, for the years of middle school that I attended, the Charter School provided a more focused and individualized education.

Furthermore, Princeton families should have the right to choose when it comes to their children’s education. There’s no reason the community should allocate all of its money into one school system if the other has proven to do a better — and more efficient — job.

Other criticisms are even less compelling. The Latino Coalition of NJ sued the Charter School as well — on grounds of segregation when it came to their acceptance process. They even claimed that the school should be shut down. But these claims are misleading because fewer non-English speaking families apply to Charter in the first place.

For those who have applied, admission is determined by the lottery.

Charter has also specifically said that it will use the expansion to further diversify its body and weigh admission in favor of unprivileged students.

The biggest irony is that PPS Superintendent Steve Cochrane claims to be willing to “work together” with the Charter School immediately after suing the school with taxpayer money. (This is after he complained about budget deficits.)

Both of these school systems offered me a fantastic education that I will forever be thankful for. But every parent should have the right to choose the best education they want for their child, as my parents did. If the Charter School offers it in some way, then I see no crime in their wishes to expand.

Jan Alsina is a freshman from Princeton, NJ. He can be reached atjalsina@princeton. edu.

managing editors Megan Laubach ’18 Grace Rehaut ’18 Christina Vosbikian ’18 Head news editor Marcia Brown ’19 news editors Abhiram Karuppur ’19 opinion editor Newby Parton ‘18 sports editor David Xin ‘19 street editor Jianing Zhao ‘20 photography editor Rachel Spady ‘18 web editor David Liu ‘18 chief copy editors Isabel Hsu ‘19 Samuel Garfinkle ‘19 design editor Rachel Brill ‘19 associate opinion editors Samuel Parsons ’19 Nicholas Wu ’18 associate sports editors Miranda Hasty ’19 Claire Coughlin ’19 associate street editor Andie Ayala ‘19 Catherine Wang ’19 associate chief copy editors Caroline Lippman ’19 Omkar Shende ‘18 editorial board co-chairs Ashley Reed ‘18 Connor Pfeiffer ’18 cartoons editor Tashi Treadway ‘19

NIGHT STAFF 03.14.17 copy Hannah Waxman ’19 Catherine Benedict ’20