May 9, 2018

Page 1

Founded 1876 daily since 1892 online since 1998

Wednesday May 9, 2018 vol. CXLII no. 59

Twitter: @princetonian Facebook: The Daily Princetonian YouTube: The Daily Princetonian Instagram: @dailyprincetonian

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

U . A F FA I R S

U . A F FA I R S

U. workers’ rights to be CPUC discusses discussed at town hall divestment process By Linh Nguyen

By Linh Nguyen

Staff Writer

Staff Writer

After having private conversations with University employees and the labor union, Service Employees International Union Local 175 and Young Democratic Socialists organized a town hall for campus workers to share their concerns about low wages, temporary work status, and job uncertainty with the student body. A Frist Campus Center employee Marie, affectionately nicknamed “Momma Marie” by students, made sure to put the town hall on her agenda. “I’ve been working here since 1994,” said Marie. “I used to work at another job, but I had to cut it because my health is not too good. For 20 years, I would work at a second job.” See WORKERS page 2

COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The town hall will take place at Frist North Lawn.

During the final Council of the Princeton University Committee meeting of the academic year, representatives from the Resources Committee, the Committee on Naming, the Campus Iconography Committee, and the Graduate Student Government addressed University divestment from private prisons, initiatives to honor diverse individuals from the University’s history, and plans to improve graduate student life on campus. The meeting took place in the Neuroscience Institute A32 lecture hall and began with roll call and an approval of the minutes from the March 26 meeting. President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 deferred to Assistant Vice President for Human Resources Linda Nilsen the single question submitted in an opening question-and-answer session, which asked about socially re-

sponsible investment accounts for the University’s retirement program. “We do have a socially responsible account available in our retirement and our savings plan,” Nilsen said. “It is offered by TIAA-CREF and it is called the CREF Social Choice Account.” Resources Committee chair Blair Schoene then introduced the committee and its history. “The Resources Committee was set up not long after the CPUC in 1970, with the basic charge of asking and deliberating on questions regarding the investment of the University’s endowment,” Schoene explained. “We are charged with determining whether and when to recommend that the Board of Trustees divest and dissociate from a particular company or set of companies.” According to Schoene, the University wants “to maintain an apolitical position regarding its decision-making, especially See CPUC page 3

ACADEMICS

Potowski debunks myths about Spanish language in US By Sarah Warman Hirschfield Associate News and Video Editor

Kim Potowski, professor of Hispanic linguistics in the Hispanic and Italian studies department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, inspired laughter in of a crowd of Spanish-language students and linguists as she captured their attention with her myth-busting talk on Spanish in the United States. “We’re going to chismear,”

she began her lecture. “Let’s get some gossip going.” In addition to her research on Spanish in the United States, Potowski studies heritage language development, language and identity, and dual immersion education. She also has written Spanish language textbooks. Presenting five statements about Spanish in the United States, she asked the audience: “¿chisme o verdad?” True or false?

The statements were: the U.S. is the fifth largest Spanishspeaking nation in the world; “U.S. Spanish” is not recognized in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española; some things that people say in U.S. Spanish are ungrammatical; “Spanglish” is a random mishmash of Spanish and English and is damaging to Spanish; and finally Spanish teachers should aim to eliminate Spanglish and have students pass for monolingual Spanish speakers.

“I hope to convince you that all five are chismes, false, and that they have important implications for working in classrooms with U.S.-raised Spanish speakers,” she said. Beginning with the first myth, that the United States is the fifth largest Spanishspeaking nation in the world, she asked the audience to name countries with the largest Spanish-speaking population. People yelled out Mexico, Colombia, Spain, and Argentina.

Potowski displayed a graph showing the highest rates. The United States was number five on the list, with 34.8 million Spanish speakers. This number is wrong, Potowski said. “This 34.8 million does not include 11 million undocumented Latin Americans residing in the U.S., nor does this include the 2.8 million non-Latinos, like me, who speak Spanish,” she said. See POTOWSKI page 5

S T U D E N T A F FA I R S

Students gather at town hall to demand ‘banning the box’

By Isabel Ting Assistant News Editor

On Tuesday, student organizations hosted the “Ban the Box” town hall to encourage student discussion and awareness about the University’s inquiry into applicants’ conviction history in the undergraduate application process. Academics Chair of Undergraduate Student Government Olivia Ott ’20 first gave a background presentation that explained the mission and rationale for the campaign. According to Ott, on both the Common Application and the Universal College Application, stu-

In Opinion

dents are asked to answer: “Have you ever been adjudicated guilty or convicted of a misdemeanor or felony?” If the student’s conviction has been “expunged, sealed, annulled, pardoned, destroyed, erased, impounded, or otherwise required by law or ordered by a court to be kept confidential,” the student does not have to answer “yes.” According to Alice Mar-Abe ’18, one of the key organizers of the event, the “Ban the Box” movement began in 2014, and the proposal for the town hall meeting was presented to the Committee on Undergraduate Admission and Financial Aid in February. Amanda Eisenhour ’21,

Editor-in-Chief Emerita Sarah Sakha reflects on her recent discussion with reporter Kate Fagan and guest contributor Jack Tait discusses possible changes to make the University meal plan better for firstgeneration, low-income students. PAGE 6

another key organizer of the event, explained that the goal of the town hall was to create an open forum where students could engage in discourse and show administration that they care about this issue. Although the box exists for the University’s undergraduate application, the University’s graduate program and the transfer admission process for fall 2018 reentry do not have the box. “The box is not a metric of criminality,” said Micah Herskind ’19, a member of Students for Prison Education and Reform. “It is a proxy for asking ‘Are you a person of color? Are you poor?’”

Today on Campus 7:30 p.m.: The Princeton University Wind Ensemble will perform a selection of music. Alexander Hall / Richardson Auditorium

rates for schools with and without the box, and about 97 percent of students who commit misconduct on campuses have no prior criminal record. After the presentation, the approximately 100 students present were then asked to break into small groups to discuss what the University’s policy regarding conviction history should be on its undergraduate application. The floot was then opened to public comment. One student added, that regarding public safety, in addition to the statistics that Ott presented, if the University cared about sexual assault on campus, the University would shut down the eating clubs. Maya Silverberg ’21 said that the University’s rate of sexual misconduct in the most recent reporting period, 2014–2017, was overwhelmingly higher than that of the entire UC system, which has banned the box, in its most recent reporting period (2013–2016), which she said disproves the claim that the question about conviction history on the undergraduate application makes the campus safer. Other students mentioned how receiving access to education is the biggest prevention for recidivism and how the box does not make the University more selective but more unfair. The box’s connection to the racist criminal justice system was also referenced multiple times. “Racism is very self-evident in [the U.S.] criminal justice system,” Leopoldo Solis ’21 said in the public comment section. “[There is a] See BOX page 4

WEATHER

ISABEL TING :: THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Students at the “Ban the Box” event discussed the issue of asking for U. applicant conviction history.

For instance, Eisenhour said that her brother expunged his misdemeanor record by paying legal fees because of her “family’s privilege.” His friends that were convicted of similar misdemeanors were unable to expunge their records due to their inability to pay the fees. The precedent to remove the box has already been established in multiple institutions nationwide. Ott said that over 50 schools have removed the question, including the University of California system, the State University of New York system, Louisiana public universities, and Maryland public universities. In addition, the U.S. Department of Education called on universities to reconsider the box in 2016, and the American Association of Colleges and Universities called on its members to reconsider these questions in May, Ott said. No Ivy League universities have yet banned the box. New Jersey job applications have banned the box by law. Ott pointed out that banning the box would be in line with a University statement on diversity and inclusion that states, “Only by including people with a broad range of experiences and perspectives are we able to realize our potential.” Mar-Abe acknowledged that University’s administration is “concerned about perception,” issues that include parents’ potential worries about student safety. In regard to one of the more popular counterarguments — the threat that banning the box poses to public safety — Ott said that there is no statistically significant difference in crime

HIGH

76˚

LOW

49˚

Sunny. chance of rain:

10 percent


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
May 9, 2018 by The Daily Princetonian - Issuu