The Daily Princetonian: October 11, 2019

Founded 1876 daily since 1892 online since 1998

Friday October 11, 2019 vol. CXLIII no. 87

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

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

U . A F FA I R S

U. announces Blackboard replacement

By Benjamin Ball Head News Editor

The University is set to introduce Canvas, a learning management system that will gradually replace Blackboard, according to a press release from the Office of Communications.

The Office of Communications described Canvas as “a flexible and interactive web platform where faculty can post the syllabus, announcements, course [activities] and assignments.”

In addition, students will be able to use the platform to “collaborate, submit work, check grades, schedule meetings with instructors and more.”

The process of replacement will begin in spring of 2020 with a “small group of pilot faculty.” Then, through the spring of 2022, around 300 faculty will move from Blackboard to Canvas each semester.

A schedule for when particular departments will move to Canvas will be released in the coming spring semester.

Canvas will feature a mobile app and other tools to facilitate conversations between faculty and students, a scheduler tool to set appointments with faculty, a calendar tool that highlights deadlines for students, and a “grade center” where students can see their grades and feedback from professors.

The transition to Canvas will be overseen by The McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning. The Canvas Implementation Team, led by the McGraw center with technical and administrative support from the Office of Information Technology, will help faculty transfer their content from Blackboard to Canvas. The University will also archive Blackboard courses to ensure that no content is lost.

ON CAMPUS

ON CAMPUS

Finkelstein GS ’87 delivers anti-Semitic remarks at panel

By Caitlin Limestahl and MarieRose Sheinerman Contributor

Guest speaker and political scientist Norman Finkelstein GS ’87 addressed Jacob Katz ’23, a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and grandson of Holocaust survivors, saying he should “feel shame” for his role as a “concentration camp guard,” in the Q&A portion of a panel discussion on Thursday, Oct. 10, called “Fighting for Justice: From Gaza to Ferguson.”

According to the panel’s flyer, this event on “Black and Palestinian Solidarity” was organized by the student group Princeton Committee on Palestine, and co-sponsored by the African American Studies Department, Alliance for Jewish Progressives, Campus Conversations, Carl A. Fields Center, Diversity and Dialogue, Near Eastern Studies Department, Princeton Young Democratic Socialists, and the USG Projects Board.

The panel was moderated by Joshua Guild, associate professor of history and African American studies, and included three panelists: Finkelstein, an independent scholar and author of “Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom and The Holocaust Industry”; Lawrence Hamm ’78, the chairman

of People’s Organization for Progress who is known for his time leading the South African apartheid divestment sit-in as an undergraduate at the University; and Edith Garwood, the country specialist for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at Amnesty International.

The purpose of the talk, according to Leopoldo Solis ’21, one of the panel organizers, was to “explore the solidarity between black Americans and Palestinians — not only historical solidarity but also solidarity in the present day.”

During the talk, Finkelstein referenced an anti-Semitic trope, saying that “They [the Israelis] are biped bloodhounds drinking the blood of one million [Palestinian] children.”

Finkelstein, the son of two Holocaust survivors, later likened Gaza to a concentration camp, saying that any refugees’ attempts to leave result in death, regardless of age or ability.

“They just want to breathe and to live,” Finkelstein said repeatedly.

Edith Garwood spoke extensively about the ways in which Israel has violated international law with the occupation of Gaza and compared the method by which Israel oppresses Palestinians to “money-laun-

dering.”

Garwood at first expressed “solidarity with both Israelis and Palestianians.” However, after Finkelstein said he “will never” stand in “solidarity with Israelis,” quoting Frederick Douglass’s desire to “shoot [white slave-owners during the Civil War] dead,” Garwood corrected herself and said she is simply in support of “everyone’s human rights.”

Near the official end of the panel, Lawrence Hamm ’78 stated, “Criticism of Israel’s actions is not anti-Semitism,” garnering loud applause from the full auditorium.

Finkelstein declined to condemn Hezbollah and Hamas, two internationally recognized terrorist organizations, stating, “I will not condemn any of them if they’re fighting for their basic rights,” when asked a direct question after the panel by an undergraduate student who preferred to remain unnamed.

Finkelstein has faced many charges of anti-Semitism throughout his career, and was denied tenure at DePaul University in 2007 before agreeing to resign, in part for “accusing Jews of exploiting the Holocaust for monetary gain,” among other statements. He has shown support for HeSee PANEL page 3

STUDENT LIFE

EMILY PEREZ / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Dudley, currently a researcher at Princeton’s Griswold Center for Economic policy studies, spoke Thursday.

Former Fed President William Dudley discusses economic expansion Contributor

In a lecture centered around economic expansion, former Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley addressed the question of whether or not the United States can keep the longest period of economic expansion in its history going.

In short, he asserted, it can.

On Thursday, Oct. 10, Dudley spoke in the JulisRomo Rabinowitz Building about both the reasoning behind his optimism and the sources of any uncertainty.

Dudley, presently a senior research scholar at the University’s Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies, discussed past eras of economic expansion, the possible effects of ongoing trade disputes, and his views on the Fed’s current monetary policies.

In recent history, economic expansions have been getting longer, he explained.

Dudley attributes this trend to an economy that is no

In Opinion

longer a goods economy, but rather a service sector economy. The United States is now part of a global economy — meaning that there is more stability because another country can bear some of the weight of the United States’s economy faltering.

Dudley believes another reason for such long economic expansion is the depth of the previous recession.

“The deeper the recession, the higher the unemployment rate, meaning there’s more room to expand and grow,” Dudley said.

Additionally, a long economic expansion is possible because the unemployment rate can drop surprisingly low without inflation. While a few years ago, the Fed hypothesized that the lowest possible unemployment rate would be about 5 to 5.5 percent, the unemployment rate today is about 3 percent without any inflation problem.

“I think the outlook for expansion is still quite good,” Dudley said.

The financial and houseSee FED page 2

Senior columnist Liam O’Connor argues that his research on geography and Princeton students shows a lack of economic diversity among British students, while Managing Editor Jon Ort compares Whig-Clio’s hosting of Amy Wax with the institution’s invitation to eugenicist William Shockley in 1973. PAGE 6

NGAN CHIEM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Students organizing on-campus candidate support groups pose in Frist Campus Center.

Student activism groups form ahead of 2020 primaries

By Ngan Chiem Contributor

As the 2020 Democratic presidential primary nears, only two official student groups rallying around specific candidates have formed: Princeton for Warren and Tigers for Julian.

Princeton for Warren was initially formed at the end of the 2018–19 academic year by Harshini Abbaraju ’22 after many students expressed interest in the candidate. The lead co-organizers are now Abbaraju and Eric Periman ’22, who joined at the end of the summer.

“If we had to count it all up,” Abbaraju said, thinking back to the students who got in touch

with her either in person or online, “probably over a hundred students” initially expressed interest in the group.

As of last week, Periman said their listserv had around 60 people.

When asked about their favorite Warren policies, Periman didn’t think twice.

“Medicare for All,” he said, citing how it exemplifies Warren’s campaign as being that of empowering the working and middle class instead of corporate interests.

Abbaraju highlighted Senator Warren’s call for Congress to enact permanent protections of reproductive rights from state intervention at a perilous time

Today on Campus 10:30 a.m.: A showcase of the Library’s resources. Donuts and cider to be served.

Firestone Library / 1st Floor

for women’s rights, given the traditionalist Supreme Court.

Neither Abbaraju nor Periman are concerned about Warren’s appeal to moderates.

“Frankly, I think the Democratic party thinks too much about appealing to moderates,” Periman said, explaining that believed the party should not compromise on crucial values.

Abbaraju spoke about Warren’s upbringing in a working class family from Oklahoma, stating that “she knows how to appeal to folks who are not traditionally into a pluralistic, racial justice-oriented ... campaign.”

Periman tells the story of his grandmother, who was a “hard See POLITICAL page 3

WEATHER

By Emily Perez

HIGH

63˚

LOW

50˚

Mostly Cloudy chance of rain:

20 percent

The Daily Princetonian

page 2

Friday October 11, 2019

Katz: I don’t care that he’s Jewish, he’s anti-Semitic; that’s just a fact PANEL

Continued from page 1

.............

CAITLIN LIMESTAHL / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Moderater Joshua Guild, associate professor of history and African American studies, sits with the three panelists during an event on “Black and Palestinian solidarity.”

zbollah, a political party and militant group that the United States designated a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. He has also said “Israel has come out of the boils of hell,” is “a satanic state,” and compared its actions to those of “Genghis Khan,” an analogy he reiterated during the talk.

In response to some of these criticisms, Solis wrote in an email statement to The Daily Princetonian prior to the panel, “When evaluating the claims and the purported evidence backing them, we have found that either his comments have

been a) taken out of context, thus altering their original meaning or b) are purported without any evidence or basis (such as the claim of anti-Semitism by the Anti-Defamation League, which falsely equates criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism).”

After the talk, Solis stated that, “Unfortunately, some of Norman Finkelstein’s behavior derailed the conversation and distracted from our main goal.

We do not condone how these words changed the conversation to a less-productive space.”

As the audience was clearing

out, Katz asked repeatedly to be allowed to ask a question, and after some time was allowed to. He explained that he is a first-year student who recently served in the IDF, including serving for five months in Gaza.

He said that in his firsthand experience, he did witness violence from the Palestnian side, contrary to Finkelstein’s claim that Palestinian peace efforts are entirely nonviolent.

In response, Finkelstein said, “You have to deal with the fact that you come here and you announce that you were on the border. You are a concentration camp guard. That’s a hard thing for a Jew to have to swallow. But that is [a] fact.”

“No shame,” Finkelstein went on. “Most concentration camps guards don’t go around now broadcasting that fact.

There should be a lot of shame at what you are doing.”

After the panel, in an interview with the ‘Prince,’ Katz said, “It’s almost unbelievable that that was really said. You don’t even know where to start responding to something so outrageous.”

Katz went on to say that

Finkelstein’s repetition of the “shoot them dead” phrase was “extremely inappropriate” and also “hate speech.”

“I don’t care that he’s Jewish.

He’s anti-Semitic,” Katz added.

“That’s just a fact.”

“I would definitely expect some sort of statement [from the University] that would condemn Finkelstein’s statements,” Katz said. “I think that would extremely understandable and expected. I think it’s called for.”

“The belief of violence against innocent civilians as a valid form of political protest is completely deplorable,” Clem Brown ’21 said prior to the panel. “Because of that, I feel unsafe as a Jew on campus knowing that people harbor that view in light of basically a synagogue shooting somewhere in the world every week.

I’m disappointed that the University would bring in a speaker that advocates for this kind of violence, and I think that hate speech shouldn’t be tolerated from the right or the left.”

Many students objected to the premise of the panel as a whole regarding the comparison of struggles in Palestine and Ferguson.

“I find it disturbing for Jews or for Israel to be placed

in comparison with white supremacists, particularly because Jews are so often victims of white supremacist violence,” said Esther Levy ’22.

Rafi Lehmann ’20, one of the presidents of the Alliance of Jewish Progressives, wrote in an email to the ‘Prince’ prior to the event that “We are cosponsoring the event and are really excited. We’ve been trying to organize an event like this — talking about the intersection of the black liberation struggle in the U.S. and the Palestinian liberation struggle — for a long time, so we are very excited to hear what panelists have to say.”

“One thing I might want to add is for us, cosponsorship doesn’t mean that we agree with everything the panelists say or have said, but it means that we think this is an important conversation for our campus to be having,” Lehmann added.

The panel was scheduled to include Q&A sessions with student-submitted questions and live audience questions, but the official panel ran over, and the audience only asked two questions during the official panel.

The panel was held in McCosh 46 at 5 p.m.

Dudley: I think the outlook for expansion is still quite good FED

Continued from page 1

.............

hold sectors are thriving, there is solid job growth, wages are rising, and the housing market is recovering, according to Dudley.

He admitted, however, that there is still uncertainty.

Dudley cites trade as the biggest source of economic uncertainty, which leads businesses to hesitate on making big investments.

A second major source of uncertainty is the question of how high tariffs will rise, with the Trump administration recently threatening to raise tariffs on all Chinese imports.

“The December tariff run is the most important one, because that’s when the Trump administration is

threatening to put the tariffs on consumer goods, and those consumer goods cannot be relocated very easily … it would take them years to do that,” Dudley said.

Dudley said President Trump has strong incentives to remove the trade uncertainty, as it would benefit his campaign. He believes, however, that the Chinese government’s incentives have changed toward driving a harder bargain.

“I feel the incentives are to reach some sort of accommodation, but I thought that six months ago, and we haven’t gotten to that place,” said Dudley.

However, Dudley reasserted that the economic outlook is positive. After this discussion of tariffs, he spoke on what leads to economic recessions.

There are two main reasons economic expansions end, he said. The first occurs when the U.S. Federal Reserve strengthens monetary policy; the second is a sudden jolt to the economy. This first issue is not a problem right now, but the second may remain a possibility.

Many people cite the current flat yield curve as a bad omen, since a flat or inverted yield curve is historically a reliable sign of an economic recession. Based on the yield curve, the Fed estimates there is a 35 percent chance of recession in the next 12 months. We have no need to worry though, Dudley said.

“I don’t think the yield curve is flat because monetary policy is tight, I think the yield curve is flat because people are worried about recession, and they want to

hold long-term treasury bonds,” he explained.

While people used to buy bonds because they were worried about inflation, people now buy bonds because they are worried about recession.

Thus, the yield curve does not represent what it has in years past.

Another reason people worry about recession is the “turbulence” in the U.S. money market. The current upward pressure on money market rates mirrors the similar upward pressure in 2007, which foreshadowed the 2008 crisis.

“This time is different,” Dudley said. To avoid pressure, the supply and demand for reserves must simply be equal, and the Fed is implementing strategies to ensure this equality.

Dudley went on to defend

the Fed’s current monetary policy, and to explain the split between those who want to tighten monetary policy, and those who want to keep it as is.

Dudley ended his speech by telling the audience to keep an eye on unemployment rates as well as foreign trade policy. “If the economy grows slow enough to cause the unemployment rate to rise a bit, the next thing is always recession,” he said.

Following the lecture was a Q&A session, where Dudley responded to questions about the national debt, the possibility of interest rates entering negative territory, the possibility of a banking crisis in China, and the difficulties posed by an aging population. The audience was then invited to a reception.

Write for ‘Prince’ Opinion.

News - Sports - Street - Opinion - Business - Copy - Design Web - Blogs - Multimedia - Photo

Friday October 11, 2019

The Daily Princetonian

page 3

Activist groups have been formed in support of Warren, Castro POLITICAL Continued from page 1

.............

Joe Biden moderate voter.” After briefly reading up on other candidates, however, she immediately took a liking to Warren.

“And [my grandmother] is one of those voters who’s, like, ‘I’m only gonna vote for someone who’ll beat Donald Trump,’” Periman added.

“She’s the easter egg of the primary,” Periman said. “I think it just comes down to how willing people are to open their minds to

new ideas.”

The duo hopes that by 2020, they’ll be able to organize University students to visit phone banks and engage in other grassroots activities to support Senator Warren.

Until then, “we’re not trying to treat this nomination like a foregone conclusion,” Abbaraju said.

Tigers for Julian organizer Josiah A. Gouker ’22 was struck by Castro’s “people first” approach.

“It’s about approaching all of the issues with a certain level of humanity and compassion,” Gouker said.

Though he notes Castro has released an abundance of policies from housing to police brutality, the Democratic candidate has been particularly vocal about his stance on immigration. Gouker credits Castro for moving the needle on the immigration issue by being the first candidate to release a comprehensive plan back in April of this year.

In a CBS debate last month, Castro enthusiastically promised to execute sweeping changes to the immigration policies of the current administration “within the 100 days” of his presidency.

Castro is currently trailing behind in the polls and has not yet met the voter threshold needed to participate in the next Democratic primary presidential debate on Nov. 20 at the time of writing, but Gouker was unfazed by this.

When asked why Castro stands out to him among a crowd of likeminded progressive candidates, Gouker said, “He grew up in a life similar to mine.” He described Castro as a once-low-incomestudent who credits affirmative action for its role in elevating him to Stanford University.

“Julian has lived experiences

that many of the other candidates don’t,” Gouker added.

For his part, Gouker hopes to be a resource for members of the student body interested in learning more about Julian Castro. The Tigers for Julian group remains small, with only two organizers, but Gouker said they’ll be present for any debate launch parties on campus.

According to the University’s College Democrats co-president Sullivan Hughes ’21, there have been talks of forming a support group for Andrew Yang, “but no substantive effort so far.”

Opinion

Friday October 11, 2019

page 4

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

What 1973 tells us about Amy Wax’s visit tomorrow Jon Ort

Managing Editor

When Amy Wax, a discredited professor who proclaims the alleged superiority of white culture, speaks at Whig-Clio tomorrow, it will be over the objections of many students, myself included. I believe that Whig-Clio, an institution that serves all Princetonians, should not host a speaker whose racial prejudice offends many students and precludes meaningful conversation.

Forty-six years ago, students wrestled with a similar, though far more incendiary, quandary after Whig-Clio agreed to host a debate between Roy Innis, thendirector of the national Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and William Shockley, a eugenicist who believed that race determined intelligence and a 1956 Nobel laureate in physics. WhigClio invited both men after their previous debate, to be held at Harvard, was canceled for fear of student outrage.

Wax and Shockley’s pseudoscientific philosophies — socalled “cultural-distance nationalism” and “retrogressive evolution,” respectively — are not equivalent, racist and repugnant though both are. In fact, Wax has cited her criticism of cultural, rather than biological, difference, as a defense against charges of racism.

Nonetheless, examining how students reacted to the InnisShockley debate, which roiled

campus for weeks, should inform our ethical assessment and collective response to WhigClio’s invitation to Wax today.

Shockley’s racist and eugenicist views were undeniable.

Among other heinous measures, he endorsed voluntary sterilization for individuals with an IQ below 100. He repeatedly declared, “the major cause of American Negroes’ intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and is racially genetic in origin.”

Several days before the debate, six black faculty members urged students to boycott Shockley’s event. On Dec. 4, the day of the debate, the Association of Black Collegians (ABC), the dynamic campus group that occupied New South in 1969, published a letter, “Un-thinking exercises,” in The Daily Princetonian. The ABC wrote, “The confrontation between Roy Innis and William Shockley sponsored by WhigClio and Princeton University is nothing more than an explicitly parochial perversion of the term academic freedom.

“The intelligence, humanity and creative essence of black people is a fact. The issue is not debatable because there is no question to be answered. Realizing these facts, one must question the motives of the university and Whig-Clio for sponsoring the event.”

Substitute “Wax” for “Shockley,” and the argument remains remarkably watertight.

At 11:52 a.m., four hours before the debate, Innis backed out, no-

tifying Whig-Clio via telegram that the University’s “social elitism and dangerous intellectual isolationism” precluded his participation in the debate. That night, the debate proceeded, with University anthropologist Ashley Montagu taking Innis’s place.

As 403 people trickled into the auditorium, an equal number of protestors, convened by the ABC, the University Action Group, the Asian American Students Association, and the independent Attica Brigade, chanted and marched in the McCosh courtyard. In front of television cameras, they burned an effigy of Shockley.

Last Saturday, at the protest against “Double Sights,” a sculptural installation meant to reflect Woodrow Wilson’s complicated legacy, Larry Adams ’74 reminded us of the conviction that drove him and his peers.

He declared, “I am proud, as an individual, as a representative of the Class of ’74, [to have] stood against William Shockley’s denunciation of our humanity — right over there — when I was here.”

Anticipating unrest, Nassau Hall deployed more than 50 security officers for the debate. When thirty Attica Brigade protestors attempted to storm the entrance, a physical scuffle erupted; and the University received a bomb threat. These incidents notwithstanding, the vast majority of students demonstrated peacefully.

In a letter that condemned the invitation to Shockley as a “publicity stunt,” M. Krishnan, then a graduate student, observed, “Whig-Clio has a tradition of never once having called a debate because of objections from any group.” As Krishnan correctly noted, the Whig-Clio leaders did not forbear the prospect of disinviting Shockley.

The decision of two Whig-Clio leaders to belatedly disinvite Wax from an event last semester drew the ire of some conservative Princetonians, who felt that her disinvitation violated WhigClio’s tradition of free and open ideological discourse. Yet, by insisting that Wax return, such students pledged the same blind allegiance to Whig-Clio’s archaic custom of refusing to renege on speakers, no matter how abhorrent their views.

In defense of Shockley’s invitation, then-University President William Bowen GS ’58 wrote, “Whatever the circumstances, the university must remain a place where even the most heretical ideas can be discussed.”

Forty-six years later, it seems that Whig-Clio has yet to entertain the most heretical idea of all: listening to all students, particularly those of color, as the institution determines who deserves its vaunted podium.

Jon Ort is a Managing Editor of The Daily Princetonian. This piece represents the views of the Managing Editor only. He can be reached at jaort@princeton.edu.

Work for the most respected news source on campus.

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

NIGHT STAFF copy Jeremy Nelson ’20 Jordan Allen ’20 Catie Parker ’23 Auhjanae McGee ’23 design Ashley Chung ’23 Eric Lin ’23

join@dailyprincetonian.com

Recycle your ‘Prince’!

Friday October 11, 2019

Opinion

page 5

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

Princeton’s Great British Divide Liam O’Connor

Senior Columnist

Elliot Davies ’20 was the only person at his state-funded secondary school who applied to American universities. In fact, no one in his family had ever applied to any university before.

He grew up with his single mother in Wrexham, United Kingdom, a Welsh workingclass town whose industrial heyday is long behind it. Unlike the swanky London neighborhoods that tourists see, his corner of Great Britain doesn’t exude wealth.

Very few students from his town attend Oxford or Cambridge, and the feat is so uncommon that local newspapers write about those who do. Princeton would have been a pie-in-the-sky dream for Davies, too, were it not for the Sutton Trust, a charity dedicated to improving social mobility. Its U.S. Programme sends low to middle income British students on a summer tour of colleges in the United States and guides them through the application process.

“Myself and the other Sutton Trust students represent a very different type of Brit that Princeton probably hasn’t been used to in the past,” Davies said in an interview. “We’re not the wealthy British kids who have their families pay full Ivy League tuition.”

Princeton has developed a reputation for taking the most Sutton Trust participants because of its financial aid policies, Davies said. Despite this generosity, data that I compiled from various online sources — including the Residential College Facebook — imply that the British contingent here is still quite wealthy.

Statistics from the Davis International Center show that the number of U.K. undergraduates has tripled since 2012. Like their American peers, they overwhelmingly hail from their country’s most prosperous regions, and many of them attended just a handful of prestigious private schools. The University’s geographic concentration isn’t limited to the United States. It also extends abroad.

Few countries intertwine geography with class, identity, politics, and economics to the same degree as the United Kingdom. A north-south divide has cleaved its national culture for centuries.

In broad terms, the greater north — the Midlands, Wales, North East, North West, Scot-

land, Northern Ireland, and Yorkshire and the Humber — is plagued by unemployment due to post-industrial decline. The East, South West, South East, and Greater London are booming thanks to the growth of finance.

Like anything in geography, every rule has exceptions. Some data shows that South West England has problems comparable to the north.

University of Sheffield professor Danny Dorling explained the divide best when he told The Economist that the North has “islands of affluence in a sea of poverty” while the South is a sea of affluence.

Southern cities have the highest wages, and the north has the lowest. Whilst males in South East England on average lived 80.3 years in 2010, their Scottish compatriots lived merely 76.6 years, the Office for National Statistics reported.

The British Broadcasting Service (BBC) found that houses in the South East on average cost $167,192 more than houses in the North East. Secondary school students in the South have the greatest chance of earning top marks on national exams regardless of socioeconomic disadvantage, according to The Independent.

Jack Tait ’20 — a Sutton Trust beneficiary from the edge of London — remembered feeling “isolated” after going to a Princeton welcome dinner because he realized that the other attendees’ demographics were quite different from his own.

“The classic question you get is, ‘What school do you go to?’” he said in an interview. A few notorious private schools are reputed for sending a lot of students to the United States. “It just kind of reaffirmed that I wasn’t in a place where people like me normally are,” he said.

The data suggests that his impression was correct.

Over the Classes of 2019–2023, more students came from Greater London than the rest of the United Kingdom, combined. Greater London and South East England together accounted for three quarters of Princeton’s British students, but three quarters of the country’s overall population lives outside of these areas.

Yorkshire and the Humber sent the least — two students in five years. Other regions had five or fewer.

“I’m not surprised by any of it,” Tait said. “Wealth is very heavily concentrated in and around London.”

About two dozen of Princeton’s U.K. students have received the Sutton Trust’s help, accord-

LIAM O’CONNOR / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Per student density of SAT/ACT testing centers in the United Kingdom

ing to press releases. They represented only 17 percent of the total contingent but 42 percent of those who live outside of Greater London and South East England.

The meal exchange website indicated that three in 10 British upperclass students last fall were members of the Ivy Club, the Street’s most expensive eating club. All except two lived in London or South East England.

None were in the Sutton Trust’s program, though Tait recalled a southwesterner from the Class of 2018 who was.

The Ivy League’s roughly 160 British athletes are partly to blame for this skew.

Four out of every five of the Ivy League’s British athletes lived in Greater London, South East England, or South West England. Wales, Scotland, North East England, and the West Midlands had just two athletes each in the four-year period that the rosters covered.

Slightly less than half of them were rowers, and 71 percent attended private secondary schools. In 2018, British athletes composed a full third of U.K. students at Princeton and approximately half at Harvard and Yale.

One in five athletes came from three prestigious boarding schools with annual fees exceeding $47,000: Eton College, St. Paul’s School, and Westminster School.

Eton’s headmaster declined to comment.

Testing centres’ unequal spread also fuels regional disparities.

Thirty-four of the 40 Student Aptitude Test’s (SAT) U.K. administration centers are private schools, excluding the Isle of Man and Channel Islands. In contrast, eight of the American College Test’s (ACT) 28 centers follow suit. It relies upon adult education facilities.

South West England has one testing centre for every 34,000 secondary school students, followed by approximately one for every 46,000 in Greater London and South East England. They were the only three regions below the U.K.- wide ratio of one per 67,000.

In Yorkshire and the Humber, testing centers are shared among 107,000 students, and in the East Midlands, that number climbs to 139,000.

A single testing center — located in a medieval castleturned-boarding-school — serves all of Wales’s 162,000 students. It doesn’t offer the SAT on every available date. Residents from some Welsh towns must drive at least two hours to the next-closest location if they can’t sit for the test date in their own region.

College Board — the non-profit that owns the SAT — didn’t respond to my request for comment.

Politicians and the media have blasted Princeton’s British peers — Oxford and Cambridge, commonly called “Oxbridge” — for disproportionately admitting students from London and the South East.

“Oxbridge uncovered: More elitist than we thought,” the BBC declared. Member of Parliament David Lammy wrote in The Guardian that these universities are “wholly unrepresentative of the country at large” and takes “the overwhelming majority of their students from a small, privileged minority in the south of England.”

Although the children of the country’s rulers have long flocked to England’s ancient universities, rising competition is making it harder for everyone to win a seat at them. Many students are looking for better financial aid policies or to explore a liberal arts curriculum.

The number of students from British private secondary schools heading off to American universities rose by a fifth in three

LIAM O’CONNOR / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Distribution of hometowns of Princeton’s British students (classes of 2019–2023)

years, The Daily Mail reported.

The Telegraph found that up to half of students at Westminster and St Paul’s boarding schools applied to universities on the far side of the Atlantic in 2017. Demand to go west is so high that some counselling firms in London charge $24,000 per student.

“Traditionally, British students studying at leading U.S. universities have been drawn from independent schools and more affluent areas,” the Sutton Trust’s Head of Innovation Binda Patel wrote in an e-mail. She thinks that superior guidance counselling helps them navigate the complex admissions process.

“Many young people in the U.K. just don’t know that studying in the US [is] an option for them,” she said.

Whilst the public overseas lambasts Oxbridge’s so-called “southern obsession,” Princeton and the Ivy League also take mostly U.K. students from the South but escape free of criticism.

Oxbridge admits candidates based on their academic qualifications, performance in interviews with professors, and occasionally standardized subject tests.

Its student geographic concentration arises from a combination of complex factors — not all of which are within its control — such as a lack of outreach, unequal application rates, underfunded state schools, teachers discouraging students from applying, and private schools giving better preparation.

Top American universities suffer from similar problems, but they also create their own through admissions preferences.

The huge advantages of athletic recruiting are conferred almost exclusively on privately educated southerners.

Oxford students looked at me as if I had a third eye when I told them that the Ivy League goes to the United Kingdom to recruit rowers. During one of these conversations, a professor chimed in, “It’s part of their diversity program. Instead of taking more posh Americans, they take posh British people.”

He certainly has a point.

What’s considered the quintessence of elitism in the United Kingdom is being touted as the pinnacle of diversity in the United States.

Fortunately, Princeton is well positioned to overcome these challenges. Educational Testing Service (ETS) — the non-profit that runs the SAT — is headquartered on the other side of town, and administrators spent $425,000 on lobbying in 2016, according to tax returns.

If the University puts that much effort into influencing governments, surely it can use its clout to persuade ETS to expand the range of U.K. SAT centers or have them in more neutral locations like the ACT. The US-UK Fulbright Commission already holds an annual American college fair in London.

Floor plans show that all of the Ivy League universities were represented at this fair last year.

Jack Tait said that information sessions like this one are “a big deal.” Princeton could encourage the Commission to hold additional fairs in the northern United Kingdom and be the first to volunteer.

“Many think that studying in the U.S. will be unaffordable,” Patel wrote. She recommended that universities better promote their financial aid policies to assuage this fear.

Old Nassau will soon have dozens of Sutton Trust alumni who live outside of the South.

Some of them would probably be enthusiastic to return to their schools and urge students to apply if the Alumni Association asked.

Establishing regional endowed scholarships would be even better. Canada’s alumni association has six of these. Tying funds to specific regions would incentivize admissions officers to visit them so that they don’t go unused.

Princeton stands to gain in the long term for diversifying its U.K. students. Two decades ago, Harvard sparked a national row when it accepted a talented northern pupil whom Oxford had rejected. The “Laura Spence Affair” convinced many in the public that its admissions weren’t blind to regional biases — a problem that the university has tried to fix.

Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government pounced on this moment to advance its higher education agenda, and Harvard emerged with a stellar international reputation. Laura Spence eventually returned to the United Kingdom to earn a doctorate at Cambridge, where she encouraged others to study in the United States.

Dozens of talented students outside of London and the South East are passed over by their country’s elite universities.

Here’s an opportunity for Princeton to be in the service of all nations.

This is the final article in a series investigating the geography of Princeton’s student body.

Liam O’Connor is a senior from Wyoming, Del. He can be reached at lpo@princeton.edu.

Sports

Friday October 11, 2019

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } FOOTBALL

From the Archives: Tigers take Ivy League with 59–23 victory over Yale

By Hillary Dodyk Former Writer

Editor’s Note: In honor of the 150th season of Princeton Football, The Daily Princetonian will be re-publishing football articles from our archives. This article was originally published on Nov. 18, 2013, after Princeton beat Yale to earn its first Ivy League championship since 2006, the first of head coach Bob Surace ’90’s tenure.

The football team clinched a share of the Ivy League title and brought Princeton its second consecutive bonfire with a 59–23 victory over Yale Saturday.

A warm, sunny fall day brought with it the largest crowd Powers Field has seen in years, which started the day by honoring the members of the Class of 2014, who would be playing their last game at Princeton Stadium.

“The support was fantastic today, definitely the biggest crowd I’ve ever played in front of, which was awesome,” senior linebacker Phillip Bhaya said. “Even having both sides filled with orange and black was great, and, as players, we feed off of that.”

The Tiger (8-1 overall, 6-0 Ivy League) offense struggled early, going three-and-

out on the first two drives of the game. Junior quarterback Quinn Epperly did not complete a pass until the third drive of the game, midway through the first quarter.

Yale (5-4, 3-3) scored first, finding the end zone to take a 6-0 lead, but sophomore running back Dre Nelson broke a 42-yard run for the first of his two touchdowns on the day on the next drive, giving the Tigers a 7-6 lead.

They would never again trail in the game.

“I thought there were some really good adjustments throughout the season,” head coach Bob Surace ’90 said. “We’re going to pick on every mistake so we correct them.”

The contest was even early on. Epperly found junior wideout Connor Kelley in the end zone on the next drive to give the Tigers a 14-6 advantage, but the Bulldogs quickly cut the lead back to one point with a touchdown of their own.

The Tigers only began to pull away after a botched onside kick by Yale was fielded and returned 46 yards for a touchdown by junior cornerback Jakobi Johnson for a dramatic special teams contribution to the Tiger offensive effort.

“Just had to be ready for

it,” Johnson said. “[The] ball popped up, and I saw an opportunity so I took it.”

Another Epperly touchdown a short pass to sophomore running back DiAndre Atwater followed by a nice run and a dive into the end zone and a field goal from sophomore kicker Nolan Bieck gave the Tigers a 31–16 lead going into halftime.

The field goal came after the Bulldogs blocked Bieck’s first attempt, but the play was nullified because Yale had called a timeout prior to the snap.

Senior defensive back Phillip Bhaya also contributed to the scoring effort with a pick-six in his last game on Powers Field. The score broke the Ivy League singleseason scoring record set by Harvard in 2012, making this the highest-scoring offense in Tiger history. Epperly’s final touchdown of the day, a completion to senior wideout Roman Wilson, put the Tigers over the 400-point mark for the season.

“Obviously we didn’t have too much success in the beginning [four years ago], but we’ve come a long way. We stayed together as a group, and I’m so proud of my teammates, so humbled to be a part of this class,” Bhaya said. “To go out like this re-

ally is something special.”

Senior defensive lineman Greg Sotereanos, senior defensive back Elijah Mitchell and junior linebacker Mike Zeuli each added a sack.

Freshman defensive back Dorian Williams led the team with 12 tackles.

The Tigers will finish their season at Dartmouth next Saturday at 1:30 p.m. in Hanover. A win would earn them sole possession of the Ivy League title, as would a Harvard loss to Yale.

“We do not want to share this title in any way or form,”

Epperly said after the game.

“I think there’d be no better way to send these seniors out of a season like this, but that’s been the goal since day one —to win a championship and I think it would leave a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth if we had to share that. So we’re going to enjoy tonight, but tomorrow we’re going to come ready to work and prepare to win.”

The 26th “Big Three” bonfire celebrating the sweep of both Harvard and Yale will take place Sunday night on Cannon Green.

ERIC SHI / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN NOVEMBER 18,2013

Then-junior linebacker Mike Zeulie (left) and then-sophomore defensive back Matt Arends (right) disrupt a play .

FOOTBALL

Football gears up to host Lafayette

By Owen Tedford Senior Staff Writer

Tonight, No. 19 Princeton football (3–0) will host Lafayette (0–5), where the Leopards will look to bounce back from a tough loss at home to Penn. The Tigers will look to continue their early season dominance and continue dominating their non-conference schedule, in which their record is 13–1 since 2015.

In that stretch, Princeton has played Lafayette three times and won all three, scoring at

least 35 points in all of those games. Princeton’s win last week continued its winning streak dating back to last season to 13 straight, the longest in program history since 17 between 1964 and 1965.

Princeton’s game last week against Columbia saw the offense cool down a bit, scoring only seven points in the first half but taking the lead in the fourth quarter with a touchdown from junior running back Collin Eaddy and then securing the victory with a touchdown from

senior running back Ryan Quigley. Senior quarterback Kevin Davidson had another strong day, completing 22 of 35 passes for 271 yards and one touchdown. The running back tandem of Eaddy and Quigley helped Princeton’s offense keep moving as they carried the ball collectively 30 times for 111 yards.

For the Leopards, this is their third season under Head Coach John Garrett ’88, who played at Princeton alongside Princeton Head Coach Bob Surace ’90. Garrett

and Surace were formerly coworkers with the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2000s. Garrett has been able to help revive the Lafayette offense so far this season compared with last year.

Through five games, the Leopards are averaging 21.8 points, 283 passing yards, and 100.4 rushing yards. In 2018, those numbers respectively were 11.4, 203, and 54.

Most importantly in this turnaround has been firstyear quarterback Keegan Shoemaker, who most re-

COURTESY OF GOPRINCETONTIGERS.COM

Senior Zach Keller after a play against Columbia last Saturday.

Tweet of the Day “Seggerman and Holden rally from 4-7 in the 3rd set tiebreak to win 11-9 over South Alabama. They advance to the quarterfinals tomorrow of the ITA All Americans in Tulsa!”

Princeton Men’s Tennis (@ ptonmenstennis), Tennis

cently completed 22 of 33 passes for 287 yards and three touchdowns against Penn.

This revamped Lafayette offense will take on what has been a very stout Princeton defense so far this year. The Tigers are allowing an average of 13.3 points, 211.3 passing yards, and 90 rushing yards per game. Most importantly, Princeton has been able to generate turnovers with four interceptions so far this season. This strong defensive backfield has helped the Princeton defensive line get home, which has six sacks so far this season, led by junior Samuel Wright with four. The Tigers have not allowed more than seven points in one quarter so far this year.

The Tigers’ results so far this season have helped them continue to climb in the FCS Coaches Poll, reaching No. 19 this week — the highestranked Ivy League team. Yale and Dartmouth are both receiving votes in the most recent poll from Oct. 7. The Tigers, Bulldogs, and Big Green are the only three remaining undefeated teams in the Ivy League. Princeton reached a high point of No. 10 last season after its final game.

The Tigers’ game against Lafayette will be available to watch on ESPNU. Radio coverage is available on 103.3 WPRB, which can be accessed through TuneIn.com. The game is scheduled to kickoff at 7 p.m. under the lights at Powers Field at Princeton Stadium.

Stat of the Day

Follow us

30 shutouts

Check us out on Twitter @princesports for live news and reports, and on Instagram @princetoniansports for photos!

Senior soccer player Natalie Grossi has 30 career shutouts.