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Thursday March 30, 2017 vol. CXLI no. 32
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } ON CAMPUS
U. scholar Blair works to reduce nuclear weapons By Jackson Artis contributor
It only takes the President six minutes to decide if nuclear missiles will be launched, so his decision is all that counts. University research scholar Bruce Blair thinks this is a poor structure. “We want more democracy built into the decision for the use of nuclear weapons than that exists,” Blair said. “Right now it’s a monarchy.” Blair has been a research scholar in the Program on Science and Global Security since 2013. Prior to joining the University, he founded the World Security Institute and he helped establish the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting there. Blair is also the founding board chairman of the Center on Global Interests, which is a nonprofit focusing on United States-Russia relations. In addition, he currently serves as a member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board. From 1987 to 2000, Blair served as a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, and in 1999 he received a MacArthur Fellowship for his work on nuclear arms control. At the University, Blair is currently working to let people know the truth about nuclear warfare. Among other things, Blair said that nuclear warfare needs to be removed from the world’s repertoire of warfare, a movement known as “global zero.” He explained that the
lack of safeguards preventing accidental launching and the lack of chain of command regarding the usage of these means are terrifying, and they are all evidence of the fact that there needs to be a change. “Nothing in my childhood set me up for the future that I would eventually have,” Blair noted. He said that his journey to his current profession was more of a random walk than a deliberate path. Born and raised in Illinois, he spent his summers on his grandfather’s farm and lived a fairly average life through college, calling himself an “ordinary Midwestern boy.” After graduating from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1970, Blair said he found himself with a low lottery number for the draft and wound up working for the U.S. Air Force, where he was assigned to the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command’s Airborne Command Post in Omaha, Neb. The Strategic Air Command was responsible for Cold War command and control of two out of the three components of the U.S. military’s strategic nuclear strike forces, often referred to as the “Nuclear Triad.” The SAC controlled land-based strategic bomber aircraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). From 1970 to 1974, Blair served as a Minuteman ICBM launch control officer at the SAC, where he operated the missile systems from the SAC headquarters in Omaha. See BLAIR page 2
COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Princeton scholar Bruce Blair studies nuclear weaponry and he is working to tell people the truth about nuclear warfare.
ON CAMPUS
New initiative collects activism materials By Allie Spensley staff writer
The First 100 Days: Collection & Creation Events, a nonpartisan initiative aimed at collecting, archiving, and exhibiting activism-related materials created after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, was held in the Women*s Center from 3 to 6 p.m. on Wednesday. The event was a collaboration with the Pace Center for Civic Engagement, the Women*s Center, the Princeton University Library, and The Princeton Progressive. Student activists contributed their flyers, posters,
and photographs from events such as the Women’s March on January 21, the Princeton Citizen Scientist’s March 6 Day of Action, and the Princeton Clay Project’s #WithRefugees campaign. These materials, along with others to be collected in a similar event held in the Pace Center from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on April 25, will be assembled in an exhibition depicting this year’s activism landscape. After the exhibit, which is scheduled to be shown in May, many of the materials will be archived in the University library system. “We’re hoping to not only create this research col-
IMAGE BY GWEN MCNAMARA, COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR, PACE CENTER
The First 100 Days initiative has collected activism materials such as flyers, posters, and photographs.
lection online through the University library, but also to create an exhibit where people can examine, experience, and take in the many ways people have become involved,” Gwen McNamara, the Pace Center Communications Coordinator, said. “We want to celebrate that there are many ways to engage on campus, recognize this spirit, and also preserve it.” McNamara said that the exhibition’s design was “still in the works” and encouraged input from students who are interested in making “an interactive, respectful, engaging exhibit to honor the many voices here on campus.” In addition to the exhibit, McNamara and her colleagues plan to create an archive of the collected activist materials, in part to inspire future activists and provide a framework for continued political engagement. Jordan Dixon, Program Coordinator at the Women*s Center, used the Princeton Citizen Scientists’ Day of Action as an example — the idea for that event was inspired by a Day of Concern held on MIT’s campus in the 1970s to protest the Vietnam War. Sara Howard, women and gender studies librarian, said that the goal of the event was to “have this moment archived not just for future research but for the memory See ACTIVISM page 6
S T U D E N T A F FA I R S
USG creates first-generation task force By Jason Fu
staff writer
Undergraduate Student Government is currently seeking applicants for its First-Generation Low-Income Student Task Force. The task force, created March 29, seeks to address the concerns of low-income and first-generation students. The goal of the initiative is to bring together a group of students to discuss the challenges that low-income and first-generation students face on campus and develop recommendations for addressing them. According to FGLI task force member Soraya Morales Nuñez ’18, the task force is part of a larger initiative by USG to get in touch with student groups on campus with which USG has historically not been in contact. Morales Nuñez also said that she hopes the task force will continue the momentum of current campus movements that seek to improve the conditions of low-
income and first-generation college students. “We want to bring an important part of the Princeton community into the USG, and understand how USG can serve as a platform for these students,” Morales Nuñez said. The FGLI task force would meet two to three times a semester to discuss the current campus environment as well as possible solutions to issues affecting first-generation, lowincome students. Additionally, the task force will work with established student groups for first-generation and low-income students, such as QuestBridge, as well as campus administrators regarding campus policy changes. FGLI task force head Ruby Guo ’19 said that the task force was hoping to aid in the implementation of campus policies that reduce the burden of being low-income or first-generation, as well as provide a forum of discussion for students who did
not participate in other related programs such as the Scholars Institute Fellows Program or the Princeton Hidden Minority Council. Particular issues of interest for the task force include eating club accessibility, access to facilities for independents, and the affordability of study abroad programs. The task force will also be reaching out to peer institutions to further develop recommendations for new initiatives, according to Morales Nuñez. Task force members June Philippe ’20 and Michael Asparrin ’19 were not available for comment at the time of publication. The task force is currently looking to take 10 members. However, Guo indicated that, due to greater than expected interest, the task force was considering the possibility of accepting more members. The FGLI task force will be accepting applications through Friday, March 31.
U . A F FA I R S
McGraw Center experiences surge in visits senior writer and staff writer
Every tutor searches for that “magic moment” — the opportunity to witness a student suddenly see the light through a murky question or concept and grow a deeper understanding and a greater enthusiasm for learning right before the tutor’s eyes. Colin Yost ’19 expressed his satisfaction with these favorite moments that come with being a tutor at the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning,
describing the immediate reward of helping students grow into better thinkers and then watching them aid their peers to solve difficult questions in group tutoring sessions. “It is more about fostering mentality in students and problem-solving strategies with them so that they can eventually work independently and can even serve as a tutor to their own peers,” Yost explained. Established in 1999-2000 with the help of Harold W. McGraw, Jr. ’40, the McGraw Cen-
ter was envisioned under the leadership of former University President Harold T. Shapiro. On March 2, 1998, Shapiro gave a speech in reference to the center’s namesake, who was president of the McGraw-Hill Book Company for 20 years. “Harold McGraw has had a long devotion to literacy and education, and with this generous gift to Princeton he is helping us redefine teaching and learning for future generations,” Shapiro said in the speech. Since it was founded, the
McGraw Center has grown tremendously. During the fall semester of 2014, McGraw received over 3,800 visits during the fall semester in 2014 and was expecting to receive over 7,600 visits by the end of the year. Just two years later in the fall of 2016, the Center received 5,272 visits to study hall and individual tutoring sessions from 990 unique students — approximately 15 percent of the total undergraduate population, according to Nic Voge, Associate Director of the Center’s
In Opinion
Today on Campus
Senior columnist Beni Snow questions the value of privacy in modern society, Ryan Chavez responds to Jackie Thorbjornson’s argument on Rockville and media bias, and the Princeton Asian American Students Association defend affirmation action. PAGE 4
4:30 p.m.: Cecilia Muñoz, former director of the Domestic Policy Council in the Obama White House, will deliver a public talk titled “Governing for Hope and Change: Some Lessons” at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 30, in Robertson Hall.
Undergraduate Learning Program, and Geneva Stein, the assistant director of the program. That total surpasses the Center’s 5,800 visits during the entire 2012-2013 academic year. “We estimate well over half of Princeton Students visit McGraw at some point during their academic careers,” Voge and Stein reported. According to statistics provided by Voge and Stein, of these students who took advantage of McGraw Center tutoring in the Fall of 2016, 22 perSee MCGRAW page 3
WEATHER
By Kevin Agostinelli and Jeff Zymeri
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Partly cloudy. chance of rain:
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The Daily Princetonian
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Thursday March 30, 2017
Blair: We need to formulate a path to make the country safe BLAIR
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After spending time at the command center, Blair went on to pursue a Ph.D. in operations research at Yale University and graduated in 1984. He also served as a project director at the U.S. Congressional Office of Technological Assessment from 1982 to 1985. Blair said that while he was studying at Yale, he began to notice serious discrepancies between what he knew to be true about nuclear warfare and what society thought to be true. “There was a notion that America would be able to absorb the worst attack from the enemy and then respond with so much power that it would deter the attack in the first place,” he said. Blair explained that today’s prevalent ideology of American power as a deterrent is actually a myth. He said that America wouldn’t be able to survive a nuclear attack in the first place due to the collapse of leadership in the United States. Furthermore, this idea — that America would be able to survive
the first hit and retaliate — led people to believe that America took on a “Second Strike Policy,” whereby U.S. weapons were only meant for retaliation, not instigation. That idea, Blair said, couldn’t be more wrong. He explained that during the Cold War, America had everything in place to ensure that America would strike first. From the time a threat is perceived, the President has six minutes to decide whether or not to utilize nuclear force. Those men in charge of actually pressing the button, dubbed “minutemen,” had exactly a minute to execute their task. Blair, who was one of these minutemen, also remarked at the fact that this entire process did not really involve much rationale, rather it was effectively a checklist. Unfortunately, according to Blair, Americans cannot even rest easy despite the fact that there were many safeguards put in place to make sure that no mistakes were made with these devastating weapons. In Blair’s eyes, we all live in this “hairpin” state whereby we are one mistake, one false alarm, or
one wrong assessment away from nuclear devastation. “[We need] to creatively formulate changes in our nuclear policy,” he explained. “[We need] to formulate a path forward to make the country safe.” Blair explained how his work currently in the University’s Program on Science and Global Security is focused on truly educating the masses and our government about the question of nuclear warfare. Calling the current American system a “nuclear monarchy,” Blair lamented that even today, we still have these archaic rules and regulations put in place surrounding our use of nuclear bombs. “Under the Constitution, under Article II, there is no limitation on [President Trump’s] authority to use nuclear weapons,” he said. Prior to the 2016 presidential election, Blair held talks explaining just how much unilateral power the President has with regards to the usage of these weapons. Blair is calling for more checks and balances surrounding the decision to launch nuclear weapons in order to
bring the debate back into the realm of democratic discussion. With regards to tangible goals, Blair said that in order for there to be hope, the nuclear warheads and ideology of nuclear warfare needs to be eradicated by millennials within the next 20 to 30 years, otherwise these warheads will be used. In order to accomplish these goals, Blair is working with his colleagues at the Program on Science and Global Security. He explained that he finds the program here at the University impactful, prolific, and productive. “It’s great to come to Princeton it has a wonderful program right here in global security,” Blair said. “I also wanted to be around young people because I think the future lies in the next generation.” Blair and his colleagues are working to create a safer, more aware America. His colleague and long-time friend Frank Von Hippel cites Blair as the one who alerted him to the issue in the first place. “I learned a lot, [Blair] knows huge amounts about
the U.S. nuclear forces and posture” von Hippel said. “I guess I would say that I’m his student.” Von Hippel is co-director of the University’s Program on Science and Global Security. Blair said the public needs to wake up and learn about the dangers directly around them. That is why he cofounded the organization Global Zero, which works to remove nuclear weapons from the equation of warfare worldwide. According to Blair, the organization has a strong grassroots and activist component to it. Blair emphasized how pivotal it is that young adults and students take up this issue. He said he would love to hear from interested students and would be excited to start a chapter of Global Zero here at the University. In order to have a lasting impact, Blair advised students to get involved now. He explained that it’s necessary for today’s generation to clear up the mess of their parents and grandparents’ generations or else it will be too late and nuclear fallout could be imminent.
The Daily Princetonian
Thursday March 30, 2017
15 percent of undergraduates use McGraw programs MCGRAW Continued from page 1
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cent were juniors and seniors, 28 percent were sophomores, and 50 percent were freshmen. 25 percent were candidates for a Bachelor of Science in Engineering while 75 percent were candidates for a Bachelor of Arts. “Use of our tutoring has increased as compared to last year,” Voge and Stein wrote in an email. “While there could be many factors behind fluctuations in usage in particular courses, one reliable predictor of change is size of enrollment in a course. More generally, as with almost all units on campus, we always have fewer students attend our programming in the spring.” According to Clay Byers GS, graduate coordinator for the McGraw Center, this growth in student visits speaks to the professionalism of the tutors in dealing with that volume of so many people at once as well as to the success of the program in aiding students — especially freshmen — who need help adjusting to the difficulty of various courses. “Seeing the attendance numbers increase makes me hopeful that more people are aware of our invaluable resource, and that any negative stigma of seeking help is going away,” Byers said. The Center’s three Graduate Coordinators — Clay Byers, Sabrina Carletti, and Elizabeth Davison — are responsible for interviewing and hiring new tutors, providing access to the McGraw Center after regular business hours, tracking attendance, providing feedback, and developing training programs for professional and personal growth. Carletti and Davison did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication. Voge said in an email that in regard to staffing, McGraw has 160 undergraduate tutors, administrators, and substitute tutors that work in the program as well as three graduate student coordinators who run the program at night. “We occasionally hire freshmen in the spring, but our tutors are usually sophomores, juniors, and seniors,” Voge added. McGraw’s establishment of head tutors has also allowed the center to achieve its goal of greater organization between course instructors and tutors, said Patrick Flanigan ’18, a former head tutor for the Introduction to Macroeconomics course (ECO 101) and a current substitute tutor. As a head tutor, Flanigan said he attended weekly meetings with the professor and preceptors to go over the challenging course material and then coordinate with tutors to plan out the week. Head tutors are also tasked with leading training sessions for tutors, who are required to have two trainings per semester. Christie Chong ’20 said she benefitted both academically and socially as a pupil in the study halls and group tutoring sessions at the McGraw Center for her chemistry and microeconomics courses. “It has been really nice to be able to meet people at the McGraw Center who are in my class so that we are able to study together for quizzes and tests,” Chong said. Chong noted that what impressed her the most was the supportive environment created by the tutors, who she felt take time and effort to help students work through difficult questions and solve them on their own. Chong also took full advantage of the Center’s extensive individual tutoring program.
During her fall semester, she managed to set up weekly private tutoring through her residential college Director of Student Life for her General Chemistry (CHM 201) course. In order to address common misconceptions about the McGraw Center, Flanigan stressed that it is vitally important for faculty members who teach courses offered at McGraw to understand that McGraw is not an answer-giving service. “This is not what we are — we are for providing study spaces where students interact with each other and are thinking about ways to solve problems,” Flanigan said. Eliminating this misconception will allow for better communication between professors and head tutors and for more helpful information to be passed to study hall tutors to improve the program as a whole, he added. Voge said that McGraw has implemented a robust feedback system to constantly improve its services. “In addition to the once-asemester survey that we send out to students, we have shorter feedback forms that students can fill out after their tutoring appointments. Our tutors also fill our weekly reflections, giving us additional feedback about their work,” Voge wrote. Apart from the center’s tutoring services, Yost believes that McGraw should work to better promote its learning strategies consultations — oneon-one appointments in which Yost received helpful tools to strengthen his approach to learning at the University prior to becoming a tutor. “Learning strategies consultants are undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of disciplines who are trained to collaborate with students to develop an individualized approach to learning which draws upon their unique profile of strengths and is tailored to the specific demands of each of your courses,” the McGraw Center website reads. As part of its Inclusive Teaching at Princeton series, the Center recently kick started the Classroom (IN)Sight Juried Student Photography Competition. Students are encouraged to convey their special learning experiences and stories at the University by producing vivid photographic art of University classrooms, laboratories, and learning spaces. “The configurations of these spaces and their histories, evident in the color of the wood, the creaking of the floors, and the changing identities of those welcomed between their walls, influence the experience of all who enter, teachers and learners alike,” the Center posted. Although the McGraw Center has come a long way since its founding, Voge and Stein mentioned that there is still plenty of room for progress. Several future initiatives include responding to new challenges in the curriculum (i.e. the proliferation of R programming in various courses), as well as greater support for students completing Junior Papers and other independent work. Most importantly, the directors emphasized that the aim of the McGraw Center cannot be summarized by educational support alone; rather, it aims to help students improve as human beings. “Our aim is not only to help students thrive by enhancing their academic and learning methods and processes but help them focus on developing new strategies for thriving throughout their lives. We already think about students, their learning and success holistically, but we plan to use insights from the relatively new field of positive psychology research to increase this focus,” explained the directors.
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Opinion
Thursday March 30, 2017
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{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }
Beni Snow
“
Privacy should still matter
senior columnist
If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got no reason to hide.” That adage needs some serious rethinking in a world where the word “wrong” can mean something different to every person. There are plenty of reasons to want privacy. Maybe you don’t share the same definition of “wrong” as the people in charge. Maybe you just like the principle of privacy. Or maybe you don’t have any reason at all. You want privacy just because. Think about the way information is passed around on campus. As a community, we do not treat information as something personal that should not be shared without a good reason. We are fine with the University knowing which doors we open. Tigerbook reveals all students’ dorm rooms, roommates, majors, and hometowns. The right to privacy, which I define as the right to have one’s private information stay
private, is far from a Princeton-specific issue. In fact, I believe that the lack of respect for students’ privacy is a result of the way privacy is treated in American culture as a whole. The U.S. Senate just voted to allow private internet service providers to sell users’ search history without their knowledge or consent. If the bill passes through the House of Representatives and is signed by the President, we potentially face a world where Googling “suicide help” could raise your life insurance rates. Sidd Bikkannavar, an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was forced to unlock his phone for U.S. customs agents when returning from Chile. Privacy rights should not be totally waived just because someone wants to cross the border. Closer to home, the University tracks every time a student uses their prox. That means that the school knows which buildings you go into, when you are in your room, and where you eat your meals. We wouldn’t be comfortable with the
University’s having the right to seize our possessions with no notice. We should be equally concerned about the University seizing our information. People have a tendency to dismiss a lack of privacy as irrelevant if the person with all the information has no ill will, or if the person exposed is not doing anything wrong. But who decides what constitutes “wrong?” If the University decides that too many students are propping their doors, they could analyze the data to find students that haven’t proxed into their rooms for a while and then send inspectors to check those doors. If the government decides that not just Muslims should be banned from the country, but anyone who dares to befriend them, then a customs agent could scroll through your Facebook pictures to make sure you aren’t friends with any “bad dudes.” The modern era is sometimes called the Information Age as an acknowledgment that, while physical goods still have value, infor-
mation is the new currency. Think about the number of tech startups that don’t make tangible goods, but just trade in information of one kind of another. No one would say that you shouldn’t lock away your stuff if it isn’t worth stealing. Yes, it is unlikely that someone wants to steal my old chair out of my dorm room. But I’m still allowed to lock my front door. Information is the same. Even if it’s worthless, it’s still personal. Having someone else know your information is the same as someone else using my chair when I’m not around. It doesn’t hurt me in any way, but a reasonable person should still take issue with it. Most of us don’t have anything to hide. Even though I also don’t have much worth stealing, I’m still allowed to lock my door. We should treat information privacy the same way. Beni Snow is a mechanical and aerospace engineering major from Newton Center, Mass. He can be reached at bsnow@ princeton.edu.
Becky with the bad bias Ryan Chavez columnist
I
n her op-ed “Outrage,” columnist Jacquelyn Thorbjornson ’19 took the mainstream media to task for not covering a rape allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants at a high school in Rockville, Md. Thorbjornson alleges that the Rockville case should have been reported by mainstream media outlets. She conf lates the Rockville case with that of Brock Turner, the Stanford athlete whose sexual assault conviction was covered in the national news. She claims that “the only significant difference between the two cases is the immigration status of the alleged attackers.” This is blatantly false. The case of Brock Turner became national news not only because it was disturbing but also because Turner faced such a small punish-
ment. It was a case of local news until the ruling. The sentence was three-month’s incarceration when it could have been 14 years — that’s what caused outrage. The published testimony of the victim under oath — that’s what caused outrage. The portrayal of Brock Turner as a boy deserving of a second chance when he was really a straight, white adult male— that’s what caused outrage. There was outrage not only because of the rape but also because of the preferential treatment of his sentencing because he is a straight white male. These are concerns that that transcend local news. The fairness of the justice system is of critical importance to a democracy at the national level. A single crime is not. Notably, Brock Turner’s story became national news only after the case had been heard and decided. So no, the immigration status
of the alleged rapist is not the “only significant difference.” I do not intend to diminish the claim of the student victim. The crime, if it occurred, deserves outrage. But it is highly suspect to blame the alleged perpetrator’s immigration status for the lack of coverage in this case. This is clearly local news. Crimes like rape unfortunately happen every day. To cover every single one on the national level would not only be impossible, but imprudent when terrorists are attacking London and Republican health care bills are dying. The “liberal media” is not the outlier in this situation. The only groups who have pushed this story to the national level are Fox News, Breitbart News Network, and the White House. Why this incident? Why make national news of a case that has not been tried? Why allege guilt when facts
have not been settled? Thorbjornson’s call to spread information about this incomplete case may have less to do with the alleged crime itself and more to do with the identities of the accused. There is no justice in this appeal. The bias to be highlighted here, if any, is why the case in Rockville is important for issues of sexual assault when so many other cases that remain in local news are not. When national outlets waited to report on this case, it wasn’t biased headline selection. It was a case of good national reporting — reporting that finds facts, tells complete stories, is relevant to the nation, and does not rely on the basest of fears and emotions to get to the truth of a matter. Ryan Chavez is a sophomore at Princeton University and can be reached at rdchavez@ princeton.edu.
vol. cxli
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 managing editors Samuel Garfinkle ’19 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 web editor David Liu ’18 chief copy editors Isabel Hsu ’19 Omkar Shende ’18 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 Megan Laubach ’18 editorial board co-chairs Ashley Reed ’18 Connor Pfeiffer ’18 cartoons editor Tashi Treadway ’19
NIGHT STAFF 3.29.17 copy Morgan Bell ’19 Daphne Mandell ’19 Stuti Mishra ’20 Clarissa Carson-Rose ’20
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Thursday March 30, 2017
An open letter to Asians who oppose affirmative action
T
Guest Contributor
wo weeks ago, the University became embroiled in a dispute regarding the confidentiality of using affirmative action in the admissions process, a practice that a conservative interest group, Students for Fair Admissions, is portraying as a civil rights violation against Asian applicants. The University filed a lawsuit in order to block the release of documents relating to a civil rights complaint that SFA filed a year ago with the Department of Justice, alleging anti-Asian bias in the University’s college admissions process. SFA argued that the University was depressing Asian admission rates. In its view, even though the number of Asian applicants had increased, the percentage of Asian undergraduates at Princeton remained constant. Animosity towards affirmative action is nothing new to our Asian and Asian-American communities, though Asians may not feel comfortable expressing that in front of other minority groups. Our Asian communities put hard work on a pedestal, as if anything but automatic gratification is an injustice. It might seem like it is “easier” for other minority groups to get into a university, while Asians might have to put in more effort for the same acceptance. In fact, it seems like Black, Latinx, and Native American students “steal” spots from equally or more qualified Asians. Maybe you don’t mean to harbor so much animosity, but you feel pushed to do so because you just want your shot at the American Dream: a secure future and better life through a college education. AASA sees why affirmative action can seem like an indirect attack on the Asian community or a race quota in college admissions. But affirmative action is the wrong target for your anger. There is a pervasive, pernicious media narrative that affirmative action harms Asians. But that’s simply not the case. We need to dispel the idea that universities that consider affirmative action in their admissions policies harm Asians. The policy is not to exclude Asians from getting a Princeton education, as was the case with the explicit quota that Princeton used to keep the Jewish student population under 4 percent in the early 20th century. The Jewish quota was a negative action, intending to keep Jewish students out. Affirmative action is a positive policy, meant to include minority groups who historically have not had the same educational opportunities due to socioeconomic disadvantages, among other issues. We also need to recognize that affirmative action, though it
The Daily Princetonian
may be unfair, is definitely not a civil rights violation. A rejection from Princeton University is not the same as disenfranchisement, so let us not conflate the two. It is far too easy to scapegoat affirmative action for the capriciousness of college admissions. The University’s goal of creating a well-rounded community does not correspond with the applicant’s notion that hard work and accomplishment will automatically lead to admission. Those who oppose affirmative action on the basis of anti-Asian bias should consider that Princeton does not owe admission to the smart people of the world, but it does have a duty to its current student body to provide the most informative educational experience. We would argue that being exposed to diverse worldviews is important to the student body’s intellectual growth outside of the classroom. Affirmative action benefits Asians too, especially when we consider the broader Asian-American and Pacific Islander community. Contrary to many narratives, affirmative action can actually help Asians from traditionally disadvantaged subgroups. The anti-Asian bias falls apart when we consider that the Asian experience is not uniform: the Asian Law Caucus’s amicus brief on Fisher v. Texas finds that there are “large disparities in educational attainment among Asian-American ethnic groups. Based on U.S. Census Bureau data, the educational attainment of Hmong, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese Americans is the lowest among AsianAmerican ethnic groups and similar to those of Latinos and African Americans.” The assumption that affirmative action is unilaterally anti-Asian perpetuates the neglect that some Asian ethnic groups face when they really need assistance. The most difficult step is seeing past how much it seems we stand to lose and consider how much affirmative action benefits our fellow people of color. In an issue as personal and important to the Asian community as education, the stakes are high and rejection seems hard to justify when you have worked so hard. We need to move beyond assigning an agenda to Black, Latinx, and Native American students who have worked hard and are applying to colleges just like us. They are not stealing spots; they are not the culprit. The continuous dispute over affirmative action should compel us to reflect on who we are pointing our animosity toward in our casual conversations and how we position ourselves among other ethnicities. Signed,
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oh, crop.
Join the ‘Prince’ design team. Email join@dailyprincetonian.com
The Princeton Asian American Students Association
making the cut Nathan Phan ’19
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Sports
Thursday March 30, 2017
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{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } WOMEN’S TENNIS
Women’s tennis seeks Ivy title
By Audrey Spensely staff writer
The Princeton women’s tennis team (9-6) will begin a run for its fourth consecutive Ivy League title this weekend when they compete against the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The match marks the first of seven in Ivy League play. The team is coming off a sweep of their trip to southern California over spring break, where they achieved wins over San Diego State, California State Northridge, and San Diego. Last Monday, the Tigers opened their California tour with a 6-1 win over Cal State Northridge (7-8). The team won the first two doubles matches and secured straight-set wins by freshman Gaby Pollner, senior Sivan Krems, sophomore Nicole Kalhorn, freshman Clare McKee and junior Katrine Steffensen. They followed up on Thursday with a 4-1 win over San Diego. The Tigers scored doubles wins by Kalhorn and senior Caroline Joyce and
McKee and Steffensen. The team also came back from a defeat in fourth singles with Krems, McKee, and Joyce, all winning in straight sets. On Friday, the team completed their sweep with doubles wins by Krems and Pollner as well as McKee and Steffensen, with McKee, Joyce, and Kalhorn winning the first three singles matches. An additional victory by Steffensen added a point to the 5-2 final score. Prior to the California trip, the team competed at the Eastern College Athletic Conference from Feb. 10-12, where it was awarded the top seed. Its Friday match against No. 5 Brown was cancelled due to snow, and they defeated Columbia 4-2 on Saturday before falling 2-4 to Cornell on Sunday despite winning in doubles. The Tigers followed with a strong 7-0 victory in a home match against Rutgers on Feb. 15, then travelled to Ohio for a 5-2 win against Xavier. However, their momentum going into spring break was countered by losses against University of Kentucky on Feb. 26 and
University of Maryland on March 5. Ultimately buoyed by its success over spring break, the team is poised for a strong showing in the Ivy League. Led by Kalhorn and McKee, who are together ranked No. 71 in the country by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, the Tigers are also benefiting from a strong freshman showing. Krems has demonstrated exceptional performance throughout the season, pri-
marily playing at second singles, and will represent the United States in Israel this summer at the Maccabiah Games, a celebration of Jewish pride through sports. Princeton has won its last eight consecutive games against Penn, not suffering a loss since 2008. This year, the team will have to watch out for Penn’s Kana Daniel, who is nationally ranked No. 64 in singles. Following the Penn match, the Tigers will face
Cornell (10-4) at Princeton next Friday, and Columbia (4-10) the following Sunday. They will compete against Yale and Brown on April 14 and 15, respectively, before finishing out league play against Harvard on April 22 and Dartmouth on April 23. With a solid record, the women’s tennis team is looking for its fourth consecutive Ivy League title and a shot at NCAA Regionals and the National Championship.
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The women’s tennis team is hoping to win its fourth consecutive Ivy League title this weekend.
Dixon: Archive is a display of students’ moral ideals ACTIVISM Continued from page 1
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of this time to not be erased from campus.” The archives are also aimed at characterizing a political moment, which could be utilized by researchers in the future and serve as a useful resource for activists in the present. “We talked about the power of future research, but archives are living and breathing in the moment as well. It’s an active archive about activism,” McNamara said. The event was nonpartisan and activists from both sides of the political spectrum were encouraged to share the ways they have engaged with current events in the past few months. “The Princeton Progressive wanted to be involved partly because of our ideological stance, but aside from that, one thing we stand for is combating this perception, from
outside and within the campus, that the general political sentiment is something along the lines of apathy or indifference,” The Princeton Progressive executive editor Nora Schultz ’19 said. Another purpose of the event was to emphasize “how the university is developing and honoring students as whole people,” Dixon said. “Oftentimes when you think of Princeton, you think of rigorous academics and career plans, but the Women*s Center helps develop the person outside of academics: your values, what you would fight for,” Dixon said. “Our archive is a really important display of where the students’ moral compasses are right now.” Students and community members who are interested in submitting their own activism-related materials or contributing ideas for the future exhibit can contact first100dayspu@gmail.com to learn more about the project.
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Stat of the Day
3 Titles The number of consecutive Ivy League Titles the Princeton Women’s Tennis team has won.
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