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Monday September 30, 2019 vol. CXLIII no. 78
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Trevor Noah and Brad Smith ‘81 converse on the stage of Richardson Auditorium.
‘The Daily Show’ host Trevor Noah, Microsoft president Brad Smith ’81 discuss technology By Linh Nguyen Associate News Editor
Hours before the Frist Campus Center ticket office opened on Tues., Sept. 24, a line of students surrounded by laptops, notebooks, and coffee cups began to form on the Frist first floor. By noon — the official beginning of ticket distribution — the line had extended to the third floor. Tickets were gone by 12:15 p.m. The event that caused such hustle and bustle in Frist was none other than the highlyanticipated conversation be-
tween “The Daily Show” host and comedian Trevor Noah and Microsoft president and University trustee Brad Smith ’81. The conversation oriented itself around Smith’s 2019 book, “Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age,” as well as Noah’s 2017 memoir, “Born a Crime.” At the event’s start, University president Christopher Eisgruber ’83 gave a brief introduction to the duo, praising their “shared interest in how technology is changing the world.” This shared interest, Eisgr-
uber explained, brought the two together, despite widely varying backgrounds and upbringings. “Each generation has been on a journey that the previous generation hadn’t been on,” Noah said about his South African family. “For me, I didn’t dream about [this future]. But I’m eternally grateful to my mother because she had the ability to think about what was possible at the time, and she lived in a state of thinking about what could be possible in the future,” Noah elaborated. “So, being someone
who thinks about the future is something that I inherited from my mother.” Noah and Smith focused a significant part of the conversation on discussing the digital divide that has affected “populism, income inequality, and immigration” throughout the world and within the United States. “People in rural America feel left behind because they are being left behind,” Smith asserted after discussing an eastern Washington community particularly affected by a lack of internet access. “If you can’t bring broadband to
these communities, you can’t bring jobs. And if you can’t bring jobs, you can’t bring hope.” On the topic of accessibility, Noah recounted his difficult experiences growing up in South African apartheid, particularly the ways in which systematic and systemic discrimination affected his family’s prospects at success and social acceptance. Noah used his personal story to explain the importance of standardizing opportunities and access for marginalized groups within See NOAH page 2
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
STUDENT LIFE
Gilbert ’09 sentenced to life with possible parole for murdering his father
Allen Liu ‘22.
USG reviews newly approved clubs, positions By Benjamin Ball Head News Editor
At their weekly meeting on Sunday, Sept. 29, the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Senate gathered to review Monday’s Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) meeting, approve new positions, and discuss newly approved clubs. Allen Liu ’22 gave a fiveminute presentation sum-
In Opinion
marizing the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) meeting on Monday, reviewing the implementation of calendar reform, the new dean of admissions, and CPUC requiring questions be submitted in advance of CPUC meetings. The USG Senate also confirmed a number of new positions. Those new positions were Graphic Designer Victoria Pan ’21, Movie Committees See USG page 3
Senior columnist Leora Eisenberg discusses the downsides of social groups on campus, and contributing columnist Anna McGee explains the importance of normalizing gender neutrality in restrooms. PAGE 3
PHOTO COURTESY OF WALLY GOBETZ / FLICKR
A jury of the New York State Supreme Court found Gilbert guilty of second-degree murder and related gun charges.
By David Veldran staff writer
In late June, a jury found Thomas Gilbert, Jr., ’09 guilty of second-degree murder and gun charges. A judge sentenced him on Friday to life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 30 years. According to The New York Times, Gilbert fatally shot his father with a semiautomatic pistol in his parents’ Midtown Manhattan apartment, in 2015. Several
hours before the murder, Gilbert’s father had reduced his son’s weekly allowance of $1,000 to $300. Gilbert attempted to stage the murder as a suicide by placing the gun in his father’s hand. The elder Thomas Gilbert, a wealthy Wall Street hedge-fund banker, graduated from the University in 1966. He died at the age of 70. His son had long struggled with mental illness.
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After graduating from the University with a degree in economics, he was unable to keep a steady job and relied on assistance from his parents. According to CNN, emails between Gilbert and his parents that were shown in court depicted a “tumultuous” relationship. Gilbert constantly asked for money, “sometimes forwarding past-due bills from an exclusive athletic and social club for thousands of dollars to his mother.” In 2015, a psychologist deemed the younger Gilbert fit to stand trial, finding no evidence of psychosis or any symptoms of “a mental disorder that would impact on his ability to proceed to trial.” During the trial, the jury rejected the insanity defense Gilbert’s lawyers put forth. Instead, they were swayed by the picture the prosecution painted of Gilbert as a calculating sociopath. Gilbert’s lawyers, as well as his own mother, unsuccessfully tried to reduce Gilbert’s sentence or commit him to a mental institution in lieu of prison.
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