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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2010 • VOLUME 122, ISSUE 11 • CHICAGOMAROON.COM
POLITICS
ADMINISTRATION
OBAMA RALLIES ON MIDWAY
Revised sexual offense policy diversifies committees By Haru Coryne News Staff
ups and compromises on issues like economic reform and education. “It’s up to you to remember that this election is a choice between the policies that got us into this mess and the policies that are going to get us out of this mess,” Obama said to a supportive crowd that included many U of C students. Obama said the policies enacted over the past two years, including increased education funding, health care reform, and an economic stimulus package, are just the first steps to put America back on the right track. “We’ve still got a long way to go,” Obama said. Incumbent governor Pat Quinn, battling to hold his seat against Republican candidate Bill Brady, applauded Obama for passing the stimulus package, which
In October, the University announced a series of changes to disciplinary procedure regarding sexual offense cases in response to suggestions from a committee formed last spring to review the existing policy. Announced in an e-mail last month, the changes work toward clarifying the process for complainants to bring forth sexual assault cases, as well as improving sensitivity and clarifying rights once the cases have begun. The changes, instituted over the summer, are the first modification to the sexual violation policy since 2007, when student complaints compelled the University to establish an official sexual assault policy offering avenues through which students can find help. The revised policy states that disciplinary committees must consist of students and faculty members from several departments and schools. This measure addresses the concerns of the Working Group on Sexual Assault Policy (WGSAP), which advocated for the past two years that the administration address problems of bias and inefficiency in sexual assault disciplinary committees. “The fact that [cases are] not 100 percent exclusively within the unit [of the accused] anymore was probably most indicative of big change,” said Kevin Cherry, WGSAP’s student representative on the committee that drafted and submitted the final recommendations to University Provost Thomas Rosenbaum. Another important change is in tone. While the previous policy focused on the rights and responsibilities of the accused, the new policy explicitly acknowledges that, like the accused, the accuser also has rights and responsibilities. The accuser is now entitled to see the written testimony of the accused and witnesses, permitting that the author gives consent. Nevertheless, Vice President of Campus Life Kimberly Goff-Crews added that the
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POLICY continued on page 3
President Obama urged attendees to vote for Illinois Democrats at Saturday's rally, part of the party's final push to win seats in a number of close elections. MATT BOGEN/MAROON
By Ella Christoph News Editor & Adam Janofsky Associate News Editor President Barack Obama rallied in Hyde Park for the first time Saturday, in an effort to win votes for Illinois Democrats in today’s elections. “It is good to be home,” said Obama at his largest Chicago event since election night in 2008 in Grant Park. The rally on the Midway Plaisance was one of the Democratic Party’s final efforts to get out the vote for the lagging campaigns of Governor Pat Quinn and U.S. Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias (X ‘98), both of whom trailed their Republican rivals by a couple of points heading into today's elections.
Senator Dick Durbin, Mayor Richard M. Daley, Fourth Ward Alderman and candidate for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle (A.B. ‘69, M.A.T. ‘77), and hip-hop artist Common also joined Obama in rallying his voter base from the 2008 presidential election. The Democratic National Convention (DNC), which organized the “Moving America Forward” rally, estimated about 35,000 turned out for the rally, filling the fenced-off section of the Midway between South Woodlawn and South Dorchester Avenues, although the Chicago Sun-Times reported 20,000 attended the event. Before Saturday’s rally, Obama’s closest involvement with the University of Chicago as president had been play-
ing basketball at the Lab Schools’ gym when staying in Hyde Park. But the U of C, where Obama taught law, played a number of roles in getting the rally off the ground. Administrators helped coordinate security for the event; students from UCDems, the University’s Democrat RSO, volunteered before and during the event, helping to set up and direct rally-goers. Lab Schools students recited the Pledge of Allegiance before the rally and the campus a capella group Ransom Notes sang the national anthem. Obama and the other politicians reminded attendees about legislation Democrats had enacted since Obama took office—most notably the stimulus package and health care reform—and held Republicans responsible for hold-
DISCOURSE
Seven score & seven years later, Obama takes cue from Lincoln, prof says By William Wilcox News Contributor Honest Abe and President Obama have more in common than their Illinois roots, said Eric Foner, a political historian at Columbia University, in a lecture in the Social Sciences Building Thursday. The rhetoric of both men helped win them the hearts of citizens and eventually the presidency, said Foner, author of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.
“Both Lincoln and Obama came to prominence through oratory with speeches of elegance and power,” he said. Obama may have taken a lesson or two from the Great Emancipator when he started his campaign for change, since Lincoln’s abolition movement has been a model for political change for the past century, Foner said. “A social movement and an enlightened leader together produce change,” he explained. But the common perception of Lincoln as a fighter against racism is
misguided, according to Foner, because Lincoln did not see the “fight against slavery as the fight against racism.” “Lincoln saw blacks as an alien group that had been uprooted from their native land and were not really part of society,” Foner said, noting that Lincoln advocated for black colonization in Africa or Haiti instead of integration. Foner described Lincoln not as part of the abolitionist movement exclusively, but as part of a broader set of ideas. “Lincoln saw himself as part of
the broad historical movement toward abolition,” said Foner, who was the president of the American Historical Association in 2000. “On issue after issue, Lincoln came to support positions that had been staked out by abolitionists.” About 80 people attended the lecture, which was hosted by University history professor Tom Holt, and many students said they were happy to hear a truly honest depiction of Honest Abe. “Professor Foner did a really compelling thing by putting Lincoln in histori-
cal context and looking at the evolution of his views instead of making him out to a be a perfect saint,” third-year Zach Conn said. Melanie Cloghessy, project assistant at the Music Department, was encouraged by the fact that conversation on slavery and racism still continues. “I’m 60 years old and I’m deeply discouraged to see over the course of my lifetime the unwillingness of white people to see the realities of slavery,” Cloghessy said. “So when people gather like this, it means a lot to me.”