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Friday Feburary 11, 2022 vol. CXLVI no. 3
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RESEARCH
As pandemic-era eviction moratoria expire, Princeton’s Eviction Lab highlights surprising trends
U. AFFIARS
By Amy Ciceu
Staff News Writer
COURTESY OF HUA QU FOR THE OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS
Xiyue Wang GS with his wife Hua Qu GS ‘21 and their son.
U. responds to Xiyue Wang’s lawsuit relating to his Iranian imprisonment By Sam Kagan
Head Data Editor
Princeton University filed its response to a lawsuit from Xiyue Wang GS on Jan. 24. Along with his wife, Hua Qu GS ’21, the doctoral student is suing the University for “severe personal injuries and other irreparable harm” through “grossly negligent acts” following over three years in an Iranian prison. While in Iran, local authorities charged Wang with
espionage. At the time of his arrest, the scholar was overseas completing academic research in pursuit of a doctorate in Eurasian history from the University. In its response, formally a “motion to dismiss,” the University requested that Judge Douglas Hurd dismiss the case “without prejudice,” a legal mechanism which allows for a plaintiff to revise and refile their lawsuit. The University’s motion argues that the complaint
On Jan. 15, New York’s moratorium on evictions officially expired, ending a pandemic-era policy that allowed tenants to continue living in their leased residences even when they could not afford to pay rent. Despite the end of these protections, the number of evictions in the state remained relatively low, according to findings from The Eviction Lab, a University-based group of researchers. In fact, 231 eviction filings were submitted in the state in the week following the moratorium’s expiration — one-tenth the number submitted before the moratorium began in March 2020. Its findings were cited by multiple news sources, including the Wall Street Journal and Reuters. Throughout the pandemic, researchers at Princeton’s Eviction Lab
initially filed by the plaintiffs’ lawyers is unclear, and that deficiencies in the lawsuit hamper its ability to raise legal defenses, noting that “[t]heir approach unfairly hampers the University’s efforts to frame responsive pleadings and the Court’s ability to assess whether the Complaint, in fact, pleads cognizable causes of action.” This motion comes after several months of extensions for the University, which was
have been poring through formal eviction court records and compiling the data to analyze eviction trends in states and cities across the nation. New York’s eviction moratorium began on March 7, 2020 and ended Jan. 15, 2022. Now that the moratorium has officially ended, the team of researchers at The Eviction Lab has been providing updates and in-depth analyses of eviction filing trends. Founded in 2017 by sociology professor Matthew Desmond, The Eviction Lab examines the causes, implications, and prevalence of evictions in the United States. Since 2017, the lab’s findings and reports have been widely cited, including by the White House, to inform policy solutions geared toward mitigating evictions and their impacts. Desmond’s book, “Evicted: PovSee EVICTION page 3
COURTESY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
See WANG page 3
Wallace Hall, home of the sociology department.
Vote100 and Hasan Republican lawsuit that implicated Princeton Minhaj are not for Gerrymandering Project dismissed in court brown students like me BEYOND THE BUBBLE
By Sandeep Mangat
from The PROSPECT Mollika Jai Singh
Associate Opinion Editor
This essay reflects the author’s views alone. A student asked Hasan Minhaj, at a Vote100-sponsored event in Richardson Auditorium on Tuesday, about the way caste affects South Asian immigrants in the United States, especially in California. My first thought was that he probably wasn’t qualified to answer. I thought that, being a secondgeneration immigrant like me, he probably doesn’t have too much familiarity with the caste system, but I wanted to hear what he had to say. In his response, Minhaj called the caste system and Indo-Pakistani conflict a thing of the 1940s and 50s. Speaking primarily to the Desi contingent of the audience, he asked, when there’s a cricket game going on between India and Pakistan, have you ever noticed that it’s
not really about the game? “The game is boring,” he said. Putting on a stereotypically South Asian accent, he shouted, “India! Pakistan!” ostensibly representing the supposed two sides of the divide. He said that if that is what we are concerned with, the British have won. This made plain that he is not speaking for an audience from South Asia or deeply ingrained in South Asian culture. I wouldn’t say I’m either of those things particularly — though I’m working on connecting with a cultural tradition that my Indian (born and raised) parents and their families have been a part of for as long as anyone can trace back. I know that my place at Princeton exists partially due to caste privilege. Both my parents are from higher castes. Although caste-based
Associate News Editor
The Princeton Gerrymandering Project was listed as a defendant in a recently dismissed lawsuit filed by New Jersey Republicans over the congressional map passed in a 7–6 vote by the bipartisan New Jersey Redistricting Commission (NJRC) in December. The State Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 3 to dismiss the suit in a 5–0 vote. The Commission’s Republican members, chaired by Douglas Steinhardt and plaintiffs in the suit, accused the NJRC’s tiebreaker vote John Wallace Jr., a former Associate Justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court, of being biased against
This Week on Campus
making process,” he said. Wang declined to comment while the suit was being litigated and declined a request for an interview after the case was dismissed. In explaining his decision, Wallace initially told the commission that “in the end, I decided to vote with the Democratic map simply because in the last redistricting, the map was drawn by Republicans.” Republicans claimed this reasoning was not sufficient to justify Wallace’s vote and on Jan. 5, filed a complaint to the New Jersey Supreme Court asking that “the NJRC’s establishment of Congressional districts on December 22, 2021, be vacated.” See PGP page 4
T H I S W E E K I N F E AT U R E S | PAG E 1 4
Bridging the gap: Graduate student life in the Orange Bubble With limited and often arbitrarily assigned residential spaces, meager options for socializing, and a narrow dating pool, some graduate students feel alienated from University life, while others have found pockets of community and exciting ways to engage.
See MINHAJ page 12
ACADEMICS
the map submitted by Republicans. In making his decision, Wallace received advice from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, which was founded and is directed by University neuroscience professor Samuel Wang. Steinhardt specifically criticized Wang in a statement to POLITICO. “The moment hyper-partisan, Democrat Professor Sam Wang and his Princeton Gerrymandering Project were hired as advisers by the Democrat thirteenth member, Republicans and, more importantly, the millions of New Jerseyans who wanted influence in the state’s federal elections, were unceremoniously boxed out of the decision-
| An Independent Publisher Turns 100, featuring W. Drake McFeely — Sunday, Feb. 13, 3 p.m., Zoom W. Drake McFeely, former chairman of W.W. Norton & Company, will speak about the centennial history of the publishing company in an event hosted by the Friends of the Princeton University Library.
SPORTS
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ARTS
| “Power Play” — Friday, Feb. 11, 2 p.m. & Saturday, Feb. 12, 8:20 p.m. Hearst Dance Theater, Lewis Arts complex Senior Julie Shin’s dance show features a cast of six student dancers and examines gender and power dynamics, and is free to students.
Men’s Basketball vs. Dartmouth — Saturday, Feb. 12, 4 p.m., Jadwin Gymnasium Princeton Men’s Basketball (6–2) takes on Dartmouth (2–6).
