TUESDAY • APRIL 17, 2012
ISSUE 38 • VOLUME 123
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892
CHICAGOMAROON.COM
Community workers protest lack of diversity in campus construction hires Rebecca Guterman News Editor
After three-year hiatus, OLAS gets back into the groove From left to right, fourth-year Ricardo Jose Alvarez Pimentel, first-year Christian Sanchez, fourth-year Yury Elena Bencomo, and fourth-year Marco Villanueva perform at the Organization of Latin American Students Cultural Show Saturday at Mandel Hall. DARREN LEOW | THE CHICAGO MAROON
U of C tweets its way to the online top John Catlin News Staff The U of C came in third place earlier this month for the most-buzzed American universities behind only MIT and Harvard. The Global Language Monitor’s Trend Topper MediaBuzz rankings, compiled every nine months, measures the “Internet brand equity” of colleges and universities using data from social media sites, the blogosphere, and more than 175,000 print and electronic media outlets. U of C spokesperson Jeremy Manier said that the ranking did not surprise him, given the University’s influential faculty and alumni, robust outreach from the Admissions Office, and a historically strong media presence. “University faculty members help shape the public conversation through the impact of their scholarship and more directly as public intellectuals. Many of our faculty members and students write columns and op-eds, run blogs, and are active in any number of online conversations,” Manier wrote in an e-mail.
National coverage of new campus buildings like the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library and the Reva and David Logan Center has also increased the University’s online presence. University media sources also contribute to the buzz. The University News Office, for instance, manages UChicago Live, which streams videos of prominent speakers and events on campus to the University’s 59,000 Facebook fans and allows viewers to comment in real time. “We think this combination of online discussion and in-person events is really exciting, and it’s something we’ll be pursuing more in the future,” Manier said. Hub.uchicago.edu, a new effort to map the University’s Internet presence, compiles the social media pages of all the University programs and divisions—including student and faculty blogs, RSS Feeds, Flickr, YouTube, and Facebook pages—into one online U of C “hub.” The top five in the MediaBuzz rankings were rounded out by Columbia University and University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Specialist advocates Cold War tactics against Iranian nuclear threat Ash Mayo News Contributor Michael Ledeen, long-time foreign policy specialist, argued that a return to Cold War tactics could combat Iran’s enduring hostility at a lecture sponsored by Friends of Israel last night in Harper Memorial. “Iran has killed thousands of Americans, and nobody cares,” Ledeen said, claiming that Iran had been taking those lives since 1979 and is at the center of violence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ledeen, who worked under the Reagan administration as an adviser to the State and Defense Departments, was not partisan in his criticism of American naivety about Iran. “[Every president] thought they could make a deal
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with Iran—every one of them,” Ledeen said. He attributed their mistakes to an American misconception of human nature. “Americans believe all men are basically equal and that all men are basically good. And not just equal but basically the same…but that’s not true,” Ledeen said. That difference marks a larger divide between the U.S. and Iran when it comes to diplomatic relations, he pointed out. “[Iranians] think it is their religious obligation to destroy us,” he said. However, he does not believe that the situation needs to devolve into violence. “We brought down the Soviet empire without firing a shot. We can certainly bring IRAN continued on page 2
Neighborhood residents and leaders of the Save Our Communities Coalition marched onto campus yesterday morning, demanding University jobs for local residents in compliance with the University’s Memorandum of Understanding. The protesters began at East 58th Street and South Stony Island Avenue around 8 a.m. and continued to march until they stopped outside the Administration building at 10:00 a.m., chanting “UChicago hates black people.” According to the coalition, which prefers to speak with one voice, the group began with about 35 people and shrunk to around 10 by the time they arrived in front of the Administration building. The U of C, in conjunction with the City of Chicago, agreed to the memorandum last summer, stipulating that it will increase employment opportunities for the community as much as possible to facilitate a positive relationship with the South Side. Though the University has continued to construct and renovate buildings around campus, it
has not hired any coalition-affiliated residents in months, said the group, despite the submission of 40 to 50 community member applications in February. Facilities Services Business Diversity Manager Victor Alvarez encouraged them to submit those applications but is no longer responding to their inquiries about hiring status, according to the coalition. Currently, minority and local worker hours must constitute at least 30 percent of total employee hours, quotas that the University has exceeded, according to U of C spokesperson Jeremy Manier. As of December 31, 43.72 percent of construction hours were by minority and female workers, totaling to over $8.8 million in wages, Manier wrote in an e-mail. He also said that more than half of wages on these projects were earned by Chicago residents. Minority and female-owned businesses also held 32.83 percent of these major capital projects contracts, which surpasses the 30 percent minimum for that as well. These statistics comprise seven major capital projects on campus, from the completed Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts and Joe and Rika Mansueto Library to the in-progress WilPROTEST continued on page 2
Journalist disputes international perceptions of Israeli democracy Jon Catlin News Staff Max Blumenthal, an award-winning journalist and author, spoke out against Israeli claims to legitimate democracy in a talk entitled “Myth, Illusion, and Israel’s Democracy” last night in Stuart Hall. The talk comes just two weeks after U.S. ambassador to Israel Michael Oren touted Israel as the strongest and only democratic U.S. ally in the Middle East. Blumenthal referenced Israel’s unfortunate reaction to Gunther Grass, a Nobel winning German poet, who recently denounced the Israeli nuclear mobilization toward Iran in a poem. “This 84-year-old man has now been barred from entering Israel. Other Palestinian poets have been assassinated by Mossad. That’s what you get for speaking up,” he said. An American-born Jew, Blumenthal is best known for his viral YouTube videos exposing Israeli military brutality, hostile Israeli youth, and seemingly undemocratic laws. “The Western media never receives this footage because nobody ever bothers to translate it from Hebrew or Arabic media outlets,” he said. “One of my goals is to equalize the gap in media coverage to the West.” Blumenthal criticized Israeli laws since the state’s founding for being “demographically,” rather than “democratically,” justified. Numerous laws prohibit non-Jews from marrying, living in certain areas, reclaiming property, and attaining Israeli citizenship. “These laws are oppressive to anyone who isn’t Jpositive–that is, ethnically Jewish,” he said. Blumenthal doesn’t see a solution to the conflict arising from Israel in the near future. “The oppressed are in no position for action. The international community is the only means to change the status quo. The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is the only path I see to change,” he said.
The talk was sponsored by the RSO Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Blumenthal is former senior writer at The Daily Beast and author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party (Nation, 2009) on the rise of radical conservatism in American politics.
Award-winning journalist and best-selling author Max Blumenthal discusses the nature of Israel’s democracy and the realities of its policies toward both its Arab citizens and the Palestinians living under its occupation during a talk in Stuart Hall Monday evening. JULIA REINITZ | THE CHICAGO MAROON
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