The Daily Princetonian: November 12, 2019

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Wednesday November 12, 2019 vol. CXLIII no. 102

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U . A F FA I R S

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CPUC discusses new committee on sexual misconduct, Title IX reports released Oct. 24

By Caitlin Limestahl Contributor

JON ORT / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Provost Deborah Prentice (left) and Vice President for Campus Life W. Rochelle Calhoun (second from left) at the CPUC meeting.

ON CAMPUS

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

During its Nov. 11 meeting, the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) discussed both the external review and joint committee’s reports on the University’s Title IX policy, which were released on Oct. 24. Furthermore, the Council addressed the creation of the new ad hoc CPUC Committee on Sexual Climate, Culture and Conduct, which will replace the Faculty-Student Sexual Misconduct Committee.

This month’s meeting also featured many of the student activists who led the Princeton IX Now protest last May. At the meeting, the activists held up signs and participated during the post-presentation question.

The new committee will include representatives from nearly all facets of the University community, including undergraduate and graduate

students, faculty members, and postdocs. Community members not on the committee were encouraged to bring issues forward for review.

“This group will take input from the community and review and provide input on the effectiveness of the University’s procedures, support services, and resources available to address instances of sex discrimination and sexual misconduct,” University Provost Deborah Prentice said.

One of the committee’s cochairs, Associate Dean for Student Life of the Graduate School Lisa Schryer, said the committee’s “goal is to prepare an initial report by the end of the [calendar] year.”

This committee will be formally proposed in the December CPUC meeting.

The question of faculty punishment for sexual misconduct was raised, with Assistant Professor of Electrical See CPUC page 5

ON CAMPUS

Small fire starts at Cottage U.S. Senate honors U. professor emeritus, Toni Morrison Contributor

A small fire broke out at University Cottage Club around 8 p.m. on Monday evening. The situation has been resolved and no injuries have been reported.

By 8:15 p.m., at least four fire engines and several police cars crowded Prospect Avenue, as firefighters operated a crane extended over the roof of the mansion. A fire hose, unrolled onto the ground, pointed through the open door of Cottage.

Several Cottage members stood together on the sidewalk and waited for the all clear.

Firefighters told The Daily Princetonian that they were first alerted by the Cottage fire alarm and that additional responders were notified after smoke was reported at the scene.

“As soon as they found out there was a smoke condition, they upgraded the call,” said a firefighter.

“It’s always better to be safe than sorry.”

Responders included firefighters from Princeton, Plainsboro, and

Kendall Park, as well as members of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) Fire Department and the Princeton Police Department. A sole Princeton police car, positioned at the intersection with Washington Road, blocked traffic from entering Prospect Ave. “Everybody here but them,” said the firefighter, gesturing at the PPPL fire engine, “we’re all volunteers.” He explained that the volunteer departments regularly respond to calls in the local area, not just those in their own municipality.

The source of the fire remains unclear. One first responder stated that he heard “a fireplace” was involved in the blaze, but admitted that he “[didn’t] know the full story.”

Following the incident, Cottage President Jamie Denham ’20 had a different explanation, as well as a positive message for his fellow members.

“A couple wires caught fire in the basement, but all is good,” Denham said. “The house did not burn down.”

ON CAMPUS

Q&A with ThirdWay CEO Cami Anderson

By Ngan Chiem contributor

Former Newark Schools Superintendent Cami Anderson is now CEO of ThirdWay, an organization focused on solving problems of equity, specifically in regards to the treatment of marginalized students in school systems.

Discipline Revolution, one of her initiatives within ThirdWay, seeks to redefine the role discipline plays in the classroom, particularly in regards to the system’s disproportionately harsh punishments towards students of color, students with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ students. On Nov. 11, she sat down for an interview with The Daily Princetonian.

The Daily Princetonian: What made you become interested in education develop-

In Opinion

ment?

Cami Anderson: I have 11 siblings — my parents had three and adopted nine. Most of my siblings joined our family because [of] some significant challenges, and I just saw at [a] really young age how school was different for me, who was able-bodied, heterosexual, not housing insecure, than my siblings, who did not have those privileges.

Just also seeing my siblings, some of them court-involved, kids of color, LGBTQ , just [seeing] all the ways in which schools made those labels worse instead of better. I’m just driven by this question of what ... a better school system would look like, where all of my siblings could thrive … It’s been a burning thing for me since I was a kid, and it’s kind of what has See ANDERSON page 3

Columnist Zachariah Sippy encourages students to skip an upcoming guest speaker, and guest contributor Tyler Eddy proposes the benefits of inviting more student-nominated speakers at Princeton.

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By Danielle Ranucci Contributor

The U.S. Senate passed a resolution on Oct. 31 honoring the late Toni Morrison — renowned author, Nobel laureate, and the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities, Emerita, at the University.

The resolution recognizes Morrison as “a writer of the stature of other great literary figures of the United States, such as — (i) Nathaniel Hawthorne; (ii) Ralph Waldo Emerson; (iii) Herman Melville; (iv) Walt Whitman; (v) Mark Twain; and (vi) William Faulkner.”

The resolution was proposed by Ohio senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman.

According to Morrison’s son, Ford, the senators sent him a two-page draft of the resolution. He and his mother’s assistants sent back 13 pages.

“We worked on that resolution honoring my mother for over a week,” wrote Ford in an email to The Daily Princetonian.

Morrison was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio.

She obtained her bachelors’ degree from Howard University and studied at Cornell University for her Masters’ degree. After teaching at Texas Southern University, Morrison became a faculty member at Howard University. She also became part of a group of writers who had monthly lunches, during which they read their work. At first, Morrison read See MORRISON page 2

ALBERT JIANG / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Jeremy Denk (left) and Stefan Jackiw stand on stage at Richardson Auditorium.

Violinist Stefan Jackiw, Pianist Jeremy Denk offer musical insights, performances

By Julia Ilhardt Senior Writer

On Thursday afternoon, violinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist Jeremy Denk walked silently onto the stage of Richardson Auditorium, weaving between folding chairs and close-eyed patrons already deep in a meditative state. Eight hours later, the pair would enter the same stage to thunderous applause, Jackiw’s gray sweater and tousled hair traded for concert black, audience shifted to the balcony and ground.

Jackiw and Denk came as part of Princeton University Concerts’ 126th season, offering two unique performances. On Thursday night, the longtime duo revived a program of Charles Ives’ four rarely performed violin sonatas, a concert that has attracted acclaim across the country. Ives is perhaps best known for his sometimes polarizing unorthodoxy, for pieces that challenge both musician and audience, and for frequent associations with the words “daring” and

Today on Campus 6:00 p.m.: Renowned photographer, documentarian, and activist Steve Shapiro discusses the illustrated version of Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time.”

Labyrinth Books, 122 Nassau Street

“raucous.”

In the middle of the day, the hall was transfixed in a calm, which betrayed little of the impending raucousness. Jackiw and Denk bowed their heads for several minutes of saturating quiet, curating an intimacy and intentionality.

In an interview with The Daily Princetonian, Jackiw described performance as an opportunity to “come together in some quasi-religious way, [to] take communion together through this piece.”

With the live music meditation — part of a series of University concerts — Jackiw and Denk sought to capture this cathartic spirituality of performance. A work by Clara Schumann flowed with meditative composure, but the performers also borrowed from Ives from the later program in a way that alluded to his work’s complex and, at times, arresting allure. Jackiw reflected on the incorporation of dissonance into meditation, highlighting the nuanced coexistence of beauty and serenity with tension.

See JACKIW, DENK page 2

WEATHER

By Ngan Chiem

HIGH

49˚

LOW

19˚

Rain and snow chance of rain:

90 percent

The Daily Princetonian

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Wednesday November 12, 2019

Pinto: It felt like he was expressing Morrison: Teaching is his emotions through the violin the second-best thing to JACKIW, DENK writing for me Continued from page 1

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A half hour later, the music faded back to silence and to the grips of reality, broken only by the ringing of a bell and an announcement that “you have permission to clap.”

If not a violinist, Jackiw might become an actor, which he views similarly to an instrumentalist.

“You’re taking someone else’s — whether the composer or the playwright — written work and bringing it to life on stage,” Jackiw said.

“Filling it with your own personality and your own take on the work.”

To Jackiw, embodying this “emotional world” of a piece is the core and content of performance, transforming a beautiful but empty portrayal into a vulnerable retelling of the composer’s story. If not acting, Jackiw might also pick psychiatry as a secondary career.

“I’m really interested in why we are the way we are. The emotional baggage, and the emotional influences that we carry with us,” Jackiw said. “Music is an exploration of the human condition as is studying about the human mind.”

In performing the Ives sonatas, Denk and Jackiw sought to inhabit a deeply emotional journey fraught with complicated technique and disparate melodic musings.

“Pretend you’re a madman genius riffing on a hymn or a ragtime,” Denk wrote in the program.

“Then, hopefully, maybe, you as the audience can understand the whole thing, too, the way the hymns are constantly being changed, made funnier or more solemn, shifted into various personalities and styles — all setting up a final epiphany.”

The musicians played Ives’ four sonatas from last to first, broadly in order of complexity. Interspersed with Ives’ works were the childhood hymns and tunes that inspired and shaped his compositions, performed by student members of the Glee Club.

“For the audience members and also for me as a performer, having

these hymns sung sort of sets a tone, brings us back to that early20th-century New England setting that Ives was in and grew up in,” Jackiw said. “It sets an ambiance for the concert which I think is really nice.”

From the first notes of the performance, from Jackiw’s bobbing head in the breaths before his entrance, the musicians acted in unison. Jackiw described the partnership as operating on a single wavelength, avoiding the pitfalls of overly didactic playing.

“Each time I come back to these pieces, the denseness and thorniness of them seems less daunting and I discover new depth of nostalgia and remembrance,” Jackiw said.

“I love the pieces more and more every time I play them, I find them more and more touching and kind of universal.”

Lou Chen ’19, director of the Trenton Youth Orchestra and the Princeton Department of Music’s Program Manager for Arts Outreach, was hearing the sonatas for the first time.

“It was a very, I think, ambitious and unique program — you don’t often hear Ives performed at all, let alone his violin sonatas,” Chen said. “They were the perfect duo to pull it off.”

Throughout the performance, Denk took moments to lean back slightly and look over his shoulder at Jackiw, sometimes for less than a beat. These connections occurred even when Jackiw’s back was to the piano, when his eyes were closed, when he stood quietly during a rest.

For Jackiw, much emotional burden was carried in his eyebrows. Even without listening, audience members could track the ideological progress of the third sonata’s final movement through Jackiw’s furrowed brow, lifting into a somber expression with the final arrival of the heartbreakingly sweet hymn.

In his narration during the concert, Denk asked the audience to consider Ives’ sonatas in the context of what it means to be an American, as a “portrait of the composer” quoting from the music

of his youth. The energetic and passionate performance animated Ives’ story and compositions, likely imparting a newfound appreciation amongst much of the audience.

“When I saw Jackiw play at the concert it felt like he was telling us a story,” said Jennifer Pinto, a first-year violinist at Trenton Community High School who attended the Ives concert. “It felt like he was expressing his emotions through the violin.”

As part of the Princeton University Concerts new outreach program, Jackiw also took time to visit students from the TCHS orchestra.

The outreach program grew out of last year’s residency with Maestro Gustavo Dudamel and the support of the Gustavo Dudamel Foundation. The program will continue sending guest artists to work with Trenton students over the course of the year.

“For developing young musicians, to see someone like Stefan perform is I think both intimidating in that they think to themselves, ‘I could never get that good,’ but also, in a paradoxical way, truly invigorating,” Chen said.

Jackiw played for and performed with the orchestra, answered questions, and talked about his own experiences. Shorn of the stage and applause, Chen said Jackiw’s casual presence helped to allay the sometimes isolating professionalism of classical music.

“I loved both days I saw him,” said Perla Diaz, also a freshman violinist at TCHS. “It helped me to see him perform because the more I see, the more I learn and the more inspired I get — I hope someday I’ll get to be just like him, or even better.”

During Jackiw and Denk’s live music meditation, Jackiw talked about the relationship between calm and tension, between beauty and dissonance. In the quiet, communal hall on a Thursday afternoon, detached from the bustle of work and class, both the message and the catharsis of the music proved resonant.

ANGELA RADULESCU / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Toni Morrison’s first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” was published by Holt, Rhinehart, and Winston in 1970.

MORRISON Continued from page 1

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pieces she had written as an undergraduate.

“They wouldn’t let you continue to come if you were just reading old stuff,” Morrison said in a 2017 interview with National Public Radio.

“So I had to think up something new if I was going to continue to have this really good food and really good company … So I started writing....”

In 1968, she joined Random House, Inc., where she became the first female African-American senior editor in the publishing company’s history. During her time at Random House, she published books by boxer Muhammad Ali, and activists Huey Newton and Angela Davis.

“Angela stayed with us after she got out of jail, and she lived with us while she finished her book,” Ford wrote.

“Angela said, ‘No one writes an autobiography at 28,’ but she didn’t know at the time she needed to write that autobiography at the time, according to my mother. So she convinced [Davis] to do it.”

In 1970, Morrison’s first novel, “The Bluest Eye,“ was published by Holt, Rhinehart and Winston. After three more of her books were published (“Sula,” “Song of Solomon,” and “Tar Baby”), she left Random House in 1983 to pursue writing fulltime.

At that time, Morrison was a single mother who was sending both of her children to private school.

“When I was 13 or 14, [she told me] that she was going to stop being an editor and start writing [and] I thought, ‘So she won’t have a job anymore,’” Ford wrote. “But it turned out okay.”

In 1987, Morrison published “Beloved” — widely considered her masterpiece.

The novel went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. “‘Beloved’ is a work of assured, immense distinction, destined to become an American classic,” the Pulitzer Prize jurors wrote in an evaluative report.

In 1989, Morrison became the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities at the University, where she taught African American Studies and Creative Writing.

A statement by Morrison in 2012 said, “Teaching is the second-best thing to writing for me.”

Teaching did not slow Morrison’s momentum when it came to obtaining accolades.

She became the first black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, for work that “delves into the language itself, a language she wants to liberate from the fetters of race,” according

to the Nobel Prize committee’s statement on her work.

According to Ford, Morrison’s work changed the language of politics and race.

“As far as her changing the dynamics of the language, she brought in a different perspective based not on victimhood[,] but on humanity,” Ford wrote. “She did have an idea about why race as an abstract construct really doesn’t exist. That was the first time I’d understood that, and I think other people are starting to understand that as well.”

Morrison learned that she had won the Nobel Prize when she was teaching a class.

“Others might have dropped the class and gone straight to meeting the press. She taught her class and had the press wait. That says it all!” wrote Professor Paul Muldoon in an email to the ‘Prince.’

Around this time, Morrison spearheaded the University’s Atelier program.

At first, she had difficulty finding funding, according to Ford, but she was able to raise money from private donors.

She created the Atelier because she believed that artists tended to create in multiple forms of media, and she wanted to give students the chance to experiment with new genres, according to Muldoon.

Morrison’s career at the University and her work on the Atelier helped lay the foundation for the Lewis Arts program, inaugurated in 2007, according to the Lewis Center for the Arts website.

Although Morrison retired in 2002, she remained involved with the University until her death.

“Toni Morrison is my favorite writer, who was one of my very best teachers, and I feel so indescribably lucky to have had the opportunity to study under her,” wrote Elena Sheppard ’09 in an email to the ‘Prince.’

Morrison also taught her son lessons, such as not being sidetracked by notions of race and to focus on the work he was doing.

“The work is the most important thing. You only have a short time between the time you’re born and the time you die, and the question is what are you gonna do in the meantime?” Ford said. “And if you want to lament over the past or previous situations, that’s good for context, but it doesn’t really help what you’re doing at the moment.”

According to the Senate resolution, Morrison’s career spanned more than five decades, during which she penned 11 novels in total. She died on Aug. 5, 2019, at the age of 88.

The Daily Princetonian

Wednesday November 12, 2019

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Anderson: For us, the ultimate measure of success is closing the opportunity gap ANDERSON Continued from page 1

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driven my whole career.

DP: How does [Discipline Revolution] measure its success?

CA: We don’t just look at suspension, because if you do that, [you can] reduce suspensions [but] increase expulsion, or reduce suspensions and increase transfers or school-based arrests. For us, the ultimate measure of success is closing the opportunity gap.

We still have most school systems’ black students underperform[ing] as compared to their peers, even when we control for poverty, students with disabilities who underperform as compared to their peers. In the end, we believe that all the things we’re doing close opportunity gaps, and you can see things like decrease in chronic absenteeism … [and] better achievement among groups of folks who have been underserved.

DP: What are some solutions or alternatives to punishments?

CA: We do a lot around creat[ing] the conditions in classrooms and in schools where students feel seen and heard and whether their identities are affirmed and they’re busy doing meaningful work. So lots of stuff on prevention, high quality relationships between teachers and students, culturally responsive teaching so that students feel like they see their own culture and their own identity affirmed, de-escalation conflicts so that when young people inevitably challenge [the system], which is kind of their job, that the adults know how to meet them … We start with the premise that we shouldn’t think about discipline as a thing to do to punish kids, but rather as a set of things that adults can do to create the conditions where harsh discipline isn’t necessary.

DP: I want to talk about your

departure from your position as Newark’s schools superintendent. What was the reason behind that?

CA: [My team and I] felt like the building blocks of the plan were in place. We had done a ton of great work to seed the longterm strategy, and that was just a good time to have a different and new voice.

DP: Talk to me about this plan.

CA: It’s called One Newark.

We basically said, “10 years from now, what needs to be true in order for every kid in Newark to have a neighborhood school that is excellent?” Newark is a city that was built for three times the population it currently has. We looked at building quality — literally, there are some buildings in Newark that Abraham Lincoln visited. So, there’s just a lot of underinvestment buildings, too many schools for the [number] of folks living there now, and in the charter sector, there were thousands [forming], but no coordination.

So, what we did was, we sat back, and we really did look at the long goal, looked at how many families were on the waiting lists [for charter schools], what the characteristics of those families were in terms of special-ed status, ELL status, and created a whole plan. And it had all those tenets that I walked through: unify[ing] the enrollment system so that we didn’t disadvantage families who couldn’t navigate 10 lotteries, [creating] a plan for every building — so before I got there, folks would just go to school and they’d just sit there, which is just not good for communities.

So [we figured out] how many schools we actually needed and which schools were inhabitable.

[We did some] portfolio planning, built a bunch of new secondary schools because we felt we just didn’t have enough diversity of options for kids in high school, [created] a plan to help

Protesters urge further action on Title IX reform CPUC

Continued from page 1

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Engineering Nathalie de Leon referring to the 2018 dismissal of then professor Sergio Verdú for sexual misconduct and harassment.

“The world is shifting under our feet in terms of what punishments we think are appropriate for various types of infractions, so to what extent is the University reevaluating whether or not precedent should be reconsidered?” de Leon asked.

Prentice responded that the University has recently taken actions to set “a new standard for punishment,” with Dean of the Faculty Sanjeev Kulkarni citing a 2018 policy change that mandates members found responsible for sexual harassment face a presumptive minimum penalty of a one-year, unpaid suspension.

The signs held by student activists included messages such as, “U. admins — believe survivors” and “value our voices.”

Those sentiments motivated the spring 2019 protests, which led the University to commission the reports.

One of the activists, Aisha Tahir ’21, noted a diversity issue in institutions that handle potentially sensitive situations, such as the Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources and Education (SHARE) office. She said that,

as a result of the faces most in view at such organizations, essential conversations are portrayed in “monolithic” and “white-centered” terms.

In response, SHARE director Jackie Deitch-Stackhouse said the program maintains recruitment efforts “to make sure that we have folks who are representative of a variety of spaces and identities across our campus.”

Tori Gorton ’21 asked what tangible commitments the University would be making to ensure transparency surrounding the implementation of the recommendations.

“How will we be able to hold the University accountable to making sure these recommendations are implemented, and that they do have some student input?” she asked. “And in what ways would you be making meetings public, or will you be releasing updates about how things are continuing?”

Prentice answered by explaining how the new CPUC committee will be responsible for overlooking all facets of the implementation process.

“Through the CPUC process, which is the way we sort of engage the community in community-wide issues,” she said.

“That would be the group that will be responsible for keeping the community both engaged and informed about this set of issues.”

The next CPUC meeting will be held on Dec. 9.

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retrain folks who are laid off or impacted by the right sizing of the district … We had a whole thing on talent. We had a whole recruiting thing called Teach Newark.

So it was a nine point soup to nuts, from enrollment to talent, and it was a five-year plan with lots of milestones and lots of input. It was a good high quality plan, and it continued to be executed after I left. I just felt like it was time to have a different person for that phase of the work.

DP: Can you talk about some of the findings that suggested the plan caused massive layoffs among teachers?

CA: It didn’t. There’s a lot of misreporting about what was and wasn’t in that plan. So there’s about a hundred schools in Newark and because the charter growth was profound, they were going to end up running around forty percent of the schools based on the growth and that’s partly because of community demand — I think there’s something like 5,000 people on [the] charter school waiting list — which meant that the traditional system was shrinking. So it is true that there were fewer jobs available as a result.

The vast majority of those right-sizing, we were able to rely just through natural attrition because every year, when you have a system that big, x number of people retire, and we had an older teacher population to begin with. So I would say the vast majority of the right-sizing, we were able to realize just through natural attrition. So we had 100 jobs one year, 20 people left, and we just closed those positions.

The reported massive layoffs are not accurate.

DP: I wonder if you could tell me a little bit more about why people are investing in charter schools as opposed to fixing public schools.

CA: Yeah, I see it as a “both and,” and we did in Newark, too.

Charters have a lot of flexibility,

COURTESY OF CAMI ANDERSON

In addition to being the CEO of ThirdWay, Cami Anderson is a former superintendent of Newark Schools.

[and some use it] to do many innovative, kid-centric things.

With traditional schools, you have a lot more constraints …

Meanwhile, the school itself is not good and families are frustrated. That’s what families in Newark would say all the time, like, ‘we want things fixed now.

Don’t tell me that you have to negotiate with four unions to make it happen. I don’t care, my kid can’t read.’

Having said that, we also believe that there are things you can do from the traditional side, and we did them. In a bigger system, you can buy the best stuff, because you have the power of the purse. [You have] innovative collective bargaining agreements that allow you to retain the best folks and give flexibility

to schools that are doing well.

DP: Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

CA: It’s good to be here, at Princeton. I’ve already met students ... in the public policy space and beyond who are really thinking deeply about wanting to contribute to serving in a public policy type of role and trying to solve public policy issues. I think that’s great and the only thing I would say is that it’s not easy …

We have massive racial inequality as an example, and changing that’s going to be uncomfortable. So I’m glad to see there are people who want to be a part of the solution. I’m lucky that I’ve been at it all these years, and I plan to be at it for many more.

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The Daily Princetonian

Wednesday November 12, 2019

FIRE AT COTTAGE

photos courtesy of Jon Ort

CPUC MEETING, NOV. 11 photos courtesy of Jon Ort

Wednesday November 12, 2019

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Why you should skip Hazony and Stephens Zachariah Sippy Columnist

T

his afternoon, College Republicans will host a con-

versation between New York Times columnist Bret Stephens and author Yoram Hazony ’86 regarding the future of conservatism, nationalism, and the Republican Party. It is disappointing that a conversation this interesting is being conducted by two men who share disturbing records of racist remarks.

Earlier this semester, when racist Professor Amy Wax of the University of Pennsylvania came to campus, student leaders of Whig-Clio and The Daily Princetonian Editorial Board denounced the event as “myopic” and “dangerous.” They were right to do so, and this same denunciation should be ex-

tended to Hazony, one of Wax’s staunchest defenders, who has provided her a platform to share, among other things, that the United States would “be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites.”

Hazony’s defense of racist characters extends beyond Wax. He has praised far-right Jewish-extremist Meir Kahane as being “willing to say what needed to be said,” and as someone who “changed” the lives of himself and his peers, “help[ing] us grow up into strong Jewish men and women.” Kahane was convicted of acts of domestic terrorism in the US. He then immigrated to Israel, where he was elected to the Israeli Parliament and was so vitriolic that fellow parliamentary members would leave the chamber en masse whenever he spoke until they

banned his political party in 1988 (the US government considers Kach, Kahane’s party, as a terrorist organization). While Hazony claims to have rejected Kahane’s violent politics, he boasted of finding “other ways of doing what he [Kahane] asked.”

Similarly, Bret Stephens has written of the “disease of the Arab mind” and claimed that the Arab world lacks a “great university,” an “indigenous scientific base,” and possesses a “stunted literary culture,” in comparison to that of Israel. Additionally, he has described Black Lives Matter as possessing a “thuggish” mentality. I am not scared of his right-of-center political analysis, but I am fearful of the message we send by welcoming him despite these comments.

Many on this campus, myself included, have ex-

pressed concerns about the invocation of anti-Semitic and other hateful tropes by Norman Finkelstein GS ’87 in recent weeks. It would be hypocritical were we not to be as vocal in our opposition to Stephens’ and Hazony’s racism and Islamophobia.

I do not wish to silence Stephens or Hazony, but I do wish that they had not been invited to campus. They have more than ample platforms to promote their messages. As the ‘Prince’ Editorial Board aptly argued, respecting free speech is not the same as awarding free pulpits.

Princeton students need not give one to Stephens and Hazony.

Zachariah Sippy is a sophomore from Lexington, Kentucky. He can be reached at zsippy@princeton.edu.

Our need for a student speaker series Tyler Eddy

Guest contributor

O

ver the past few

weeks, I’ve created a program that has allowed students to nominate and then elect speakers to become candidates for the university to host on our behalf When I first posted the nomination form that began the trial program for the Students’ Speaker Initiative, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was surprised when the first nomination came after just a few seconds: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Being completely truthful, between my ignorance of contemporary literary works and the lack of capital letters, I was fairly certain that I had just been trolled. But after a quick Google search I found myself enthralled by the biography of an award-winning fiction writer born a continent and an ocean away with a life filled with experiences so very much different than my own.

It was at that moment that all my doubts vanished, and I no longer questioned that the students’ speaker series was precisely what we needed.

Fast forward three weeks with over three hundred additional submissions, and I was excited to be administering an electoral process that would determine which two of the top five speakers that received the most submissions I would present to the University as potential speakers to host.

I had high hopes after the nomination process.

I had just run the gambit from surprise, to understanding, to belief after seeing the wide range of speaker suggested. There were artists, politicians, tech moguls, and presidential candidates – Danny DeVito received the most nominations.

What I wasn’t ready for was the seven hundred votes the program garnered in less than twenty-four hours. Now, with nearly twelve hundred votes received the potential has surpassed the expectations, and we stand on the cusp of making an indelible change to the university for the better.

Princeton students like myself have been waiting

for an opportunity to voice their opinions on which speakers should be brought to campus. The desire for a student speaker series is apparent; but what is even more important is the need for such a program.

I have learned one thing for certain during my time here, and that is the wealth of Princeton University is undoubtedly contained within the people who comprise it. Time and again I have put myself out there only to be continuously rewarded by rich friendships with people who live half a world away. I have witnessed firsthand that the paths already travelled by others can inexorably change the direction that your own will take you.

Together, the diversity and brilliance to be found in our student body represent an untapped resource of knowledge and understanding the University can no longer afford to leave unrecognized. Once you’ve opened yourself up to the idea of a students’ speaker initiative, the realization that one hasn’t existed until now becomes truly shocking.

The vast majority of the unquestionably gifted students here aren’t to be found in the incredibly few positions that exist in student organizations which offer an opportunity to bring a speaker to campus. Not only that, but those already limited positions require an immense amount of effort to fill and maintain at a school that demands a lot from its students.

On countless occasions now I’ve found myself sitting in a small classroom or nearly empty auditorium listening to a speaker hosted by a student group whose advertisement for the event I was just barely lucky enough to have caught on my residential college listserv. The students work tirelessly for the rare opportunity to bring a speaker on campus while surrounded by enough resources to host 25,000 alumni every summer and heads of states with ease. What about the vast majority who aren’t leaders of student organizations?

This is a barrier that should not exist and only seeks to discourage the students from engaging

with the speakers on campus. We go to lecture for the same reason that we go to hear a speaker give a talk: to learn. Choosing a speaker should be as easy as enrolling in your classes.

I’m proposing a permanent, web-based, semesterly program in which undergraduates will be able to elect the speakers they would most like to see on campus. Understanding that these events don’t happen overnight, the program would be administered for the following semester in order to provide sufficient time to both design and plan the event as well as find a date that works with the speaker’s schedule.

The students’ speaker series must be able to not only capture the drive students have to see a particular speaker, but also ensure that even the smallest voices on campus can become empowered. That is why we have proposed a tenvote system so that every student can quantify their desire to see a given speaker. In addition, votes must roll over between semesters so that given enough time even small groups of friends have the chance to host someone.

Furthermore, it is essential that the program strives to create a conversation component right from its inception. Students should be able to pair two or more speakers in order to create the dialogues that don’t exist but which we truly need. Learning occurs through synthesis; lasting progress occurs through compromise. The limitless possibilities of a “Create a Conversation” component make the Student Speaker Initiative it simply too great an asset to campus for it to be left out of the program.

Moreover, the current model for the program does not request additional resources or funding from the University. We only ask that the many speaker series, faculty, and administrative departments on campus that host numerous speakers throughout the year offer to host a small number of speakers each semester selected by the student body. The program will even help locate and pair those speakers selected with the department

or series that provide the most appropriate fit.

The path forward is surprisingly easy. We only need a small board comprised of mostly of students with a few volunteers drawn from the many administrators on campus that have experience in event management and inviting speakers to campus, many of whom I know would be excited to support such a program.

With a motivated group of computer science majors willing to make the website for their COS 333 assignment (message me if you’re interested), we will have nearly everything in place that we would need.

With just a small commitment towards empowering students’ perspectives, we are ready to create a new tradition at Princeton that will be enjoyed by the many generations of students to come.

After receiving the submission nominating Adichie, I watched one of her particular poignant speeches, “The Danger of a Single Story,” The speech is a nineteen-minute-long argument for the students’ speaker series that is greater than any defense that I could provide. I found myself emboldened by her words: “I’ve always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and person.”

For the nearly three centuries of its existence, no one has yet properly engaged with Princeton University.

It’s high time that the university provides the opportunity for its students to select speakers for themselves. Not simply because we want it, but also because we need it. Because you need it.

After everything is said and done, I can be sure of one thing at least. On top of that endless stack of books that, like many of us, I swear I’ll get through this upcoming summer, sits Half a Yellow Sun. Had it not been for the suggestion of my fellow undergrad, I wouldn’t even be aware of what I was missing.

Tyler Eddy is a junior astrophysics major from Ontario, CAN. He can be reached at tjeddy@princeton.edu.

vol. cxliii

editor-in-chief

Chris Murphy ’20 business manager

Taylor Jean-Jacques’20 BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Betsy L. Minkin ’77 treasurer Douglas J. Widmann ’90 trustees Francesca Barber David Baumgarten ’06 Kathleen Crown Gabriel Debenedetti ’12 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 Michael Grabell ’03 John Horan ’74 Joshua Katz Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Alexia Quadrani Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 Kavita Saini ’09 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 Abigail Williams ’14 trustees emeriti Gregory L. Diskant ’70 William R. Elfers ’71 Kathleen Kiely ’77 Jerry Raymond ’73 Michael E. Seger ’71 Annalyn Swan ’73 trustees ex officio Chris Murphy ’20 Taylor Jean-Jacques’20

143RD MANAGING BOARD managing editors Samuel Aftel ’20 Ariel Chen ’20 Jon Ort ’21 head news editors Benjamin Ball ’21 Ivy Truong ’21 associate news editors Linh Nguyen ’21 Claire Silberman ’22 Katja Stroke-Adolphe ’20 head opinion editor Cy Watsky ’21 associate opinion editors Rachel Kennedy ’21 Ethan Li ’22 head sports editor Jack Graham ’20 associate sports editors Tom Salotti ’21 Alissa Selover ’21 features editors Samantha Shapiro ’21 Jo de la Bruyere ’22 head prospect editor Dora Zhao ’21 associate prospect editor Noa Wollstein ’21 chief copy editors Lydia Choi ’21 Elizabeth Parker ’21 associate copy editors Jade Olurin ’21 Christian Flores ’21 head design editor Charlotte Adamo ’21 associate design editor Harsimran Makkad ’22 head video editor Sarah Warman Hirschfield ’20 associate video editor Mark Dodici ’22 digital operations manager Sarah Bowen ’20

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Sports

Wednesday November 12, 2019

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{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

Women’s volleyball defeats Dartmouth and Harvard in straight sets at Dillon

By Nancy Tran Sports Writer

This past weekend, the Princeton Women’s Volleyball Team (15–6 overall, 11–1 Ivy League) beat Harvard (5–16, 3–9 Ivy) and Dartmouth (7–15, 2–10 Ivy) 3–0 in their second meeting of the year.

Like the first matchups, the Tigers shut out the Crimson and Big Green in straight sets, as their win streak climbs to nine in a row.

On Friday evening, against Dartmouth, Princeton overwhelmed the Big Green out of the gate, winning 25–11 in the first set. The team’s total of 16 kills and Dartmouth’s inability to protect their court defensively gave Princeton a convincing start to the match. The following sets were much closer. Dartmouth fell to Princeton 25–20 in the second and 25–23 in the third.

Senior setter Jessie Harris led the Tigers with 40 assists and six kills. Senior outside hitter Devon Peterkin managed 18 kills, two assists, and a block. Senior outside hitter Natasha Skov had 11 kills, followed by junior middle Clare Lenihan with 10 kills.

On Saturday, Princeton faced off against Harvard. Riding on the win against Dartmouth, the Tigers closed the game against the Crimson in three sets. In the first set, Princeton faced an early 14–8 deficit. It wasn’t until a string of kills from Lenihan and Peterkin

NOEL VALERO / GOPRINCETONTIGERS.COM

Jessie Harris, Maggie O’Connell, Devon Peterkin and Natasha Skov during Saturday’s celebration for the team’s seniors.

The quad has won two Ivy League titles together.

that the score flipped in favor of the Tigers, as they took nine of the next ten points to grab 19–16 lead.

By the end of the set, Princeton prevailed 25–22. In the second set, Harvard never led, and the Tigers won 25–11. Then, 18 kills by the Tigers ended the third set 25–22 and

the match 3–0.

Harris led the Tigers with 43 assists. After this weekend, Harris was named Ivy Player of the Week.

Also helping Princeton secure the win was Lenihan with 12 kills, senior right-side hitter Maggie O’Connell with 11 kills, and Peter-

kin with 10 kills.

With the season coming to a close, the Tigers still have two games to go in Ivy play. Princeton will travel to Brown next Friday for a match at 7 p.m., and they’ll make their way to Connecticut for a match against Yale on Saturday

at 5 p.m. As of now, the Tigers stand 11–1 in the Ivy League conference. A win against Brown and Yale, two teams they have already beaten this season, would keep Princeton in first place for the Ivy Tournament and give the Tigers a well-earned bid to the NCAAs.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Men’s basketball falls to University of San Francisco in first college game at Chase Center

By Andy He Contributor

This weekend, the Princeton men’s basketball team (0–2, 0–0 Ivy) boarded a plane and flew across the country, where they were defeated by the University of San Francisco (2–0) 82–72 at the new Chase Center in downtown San Francisco, home of the Golden State Warriors. It was the first men’s college basketball game played at the Warriors’ new arena.

USF led 41–35 at halftime and raced out to a 51–39 lead early in the second half, but the Tigers kept it close and cut the lead to six with 9:21 left to play. The Dons held on, however, outscoring the Tigers 41–37 in the second half for the 82–72 win. Guard Charles Minlend scored 16 for USF, while guard Jamaree Bouyea added seven rebounds and three assists.

Seven-foot center Jimbo Lull and guard Jordan Ratinho scored 15 each for the Dons.

Sophomore guard Jaelin Llewellyn scored a career-high 24 points to lead Princeton.

Sophomore guard Drew Friberg grabbed nine rebounds, another career high. As a team, the Tigers hit 39 percent from beyond the 3-point line, whereas USF made seven of 23 (30 percent) from outside the arc.

“It was awesome,” said associate head coach Brett MacConnell.

“We’ve played at world-famous arenas like Madison Square Garden in the past, but this was just an incredible arena. The feel when you walk in the building where Steph Curry and Klay Thomson

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Sophomore Jaellin Llewellyn in action against USF.

play, to see the blue and gold colors on the court … just being there for that was incredible.”

Highlights of this trip included a four and a half hour flight to the West Coast, visiting the Olympic Club in San Francisco, and even a short excursion to Alcatraz.

“We were in front of a lot of different alumni at the Olympic

Tweet of the Day “To all who have served we say thank you, today and every day! #SaluteToService | #VeteransDay” Princeton Football (@ PrincetonFTBL), Football

Club, and just being able to showcase just how talented and motivated our players and coaches are, how they put in work every single day, was an honor,” said longtime team manager Mark Agostinelli, who traveled with the team.

When asked about takeaways from the first slate of games, MacConnell and Llewellyn had similar comments.

“I thought we’ve had flashes where we have been great. We led for the first half against Duquesne and most of the first half against USF. As we mature and grow — we’ve played for a lot of young guys — it’s about keeping that mental focus for the whole forty minutes,” said MacConnell.

“I’d say a takeaway for this trip

is that we definitely have areas to work on, especially defensively.

Outside of the game itself, being at the Warriors arena was definitely such a humbling experience,” Llewellyn said afterward.

The Tigers will host Lafayette College (1–1) in their home opener this Wednesday, Nov. 13, at Jadwin Gymnasium at 7 p.m.

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Jesse Harris ‘20 of women’s volleyball was named Ivy League Player of the Week for the sport, in part for her 83 assists last week for the Tigers.