CHICAGO
M AROON The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892
Going South Track and field heads to Atlanta this weekend for the UAA Outdoor Championship.
Sports, page 8
FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2011 • VOLUME 122, ISSUE 41 • CHICAGOMAROON.COM
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
FACULTY
LIVEChicago wins SG election
U of C ranks third highest in national survey of prof salaries
Kalad to be president, Singh voted undergrad liaison, SRIC referendum passes By Giovanni Wrobel Senior News Staff
Members of LIVEChicago–first-year Forrest Scofield, third-year Youssef Kalad, and second-year Meher Kairon (left to right)–cut the celebratory cake after the announcement of their victory at the SG slate elections Thursday evening at the C-Shop. DARREN LEOW/MAROON
ALUMNI
By Rebecca Guterman News Staff
LIVEChicago took the cake last night, beating out nearest competitor UNITED Students Alliance by 291 votes, to become the 20112012 SG executive slate. ORCSA also announced thirdyear Nakul Singh and first-year A n g e l a Wa n g t o b e t h e n e x t undergraduate liaison to the Board of Trustees and Community and Government Liaison respectively. They also announced the twelve winners of the College Council race, as well as the overwhelmingly high number of votes in favor of the Socially Responsible Investment Committee (SRIC) referendum at C-Shop last night. The elections maintained last year’s level of involvement, with 2354 total votes–2096 undergraduates and 258 graduates–despite an unopposed slate in 2010 and fewer undergraduate students at
Despite the recession, U of C professors need not worry about their compensation. The American Association of University Professors (A AU P) reported that the University’s 2010–2011 professorial salaries were the third highest in the country. Although the ranking has not changed since last year, full-time U of C professors saw the highest salary increase by an average of about $6,000. These numbers come from an annual report published in March by the AAUP titled “It’s Not Over.” U of C full-time professors received an average s alary of $190,400 last year. Harvard and Columbia Universities were the only schools that reported higher salary payments for professors, at $193,800 and $191,400, respectively.
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DISCOURSE
Alum journalist captured PETA picks a bone with U of C debaters in Libya calls home By Jonathan Lai Associate News Editor More than two weeks after Clare Morgana Gillis (A.B. ’9 8) was captured in Libya while reporting for The Atlantic and USA Today, she was able to call her parents yesterday and tell them she’s alive and well. Gillis, a freelance reporter who had been reporting on the situation in Libya, was detained April 5 with two other journalists outside of Brega, in eastern Libya, according to eyewitness reports. For 16 days, there was no official word on Gillis’s condition. According to news reports, Gillis, American citizen James Foley of GlobalPost, and Spanish citizen Manuel Bravo of the European Pressphoto Agency, were last seen on April 7 at a government detention center in Tripoli. Libyan officials continually declined to confirm their detention. Tanya Powell, a spokesperson for the State Department, would not comment on Gillis’s case due to privacy and diplomacy concerns. Powell acknowledged that multiple U.S. citizens, including two journalists, are believed to be detained in Libya. “Senior State Department officials have reached out to Libyan officials about the citizens who are believed to be detained, including two journalists,” Powell said. “Although we
do not currently have a diplomatic presence in Libya…Turkey has agreed to be our protecting power to obtain information and provide assistance.” Gillis’s phone call to her parents, which lasted approximately 15 minutes, was the first direct contact Gillis made since her capture. According to a spokesperson for The Atlantic, the call was a promising development, but more action is needed from the Libyan government. “Today's phone call is a positive step; however, we continue to urge the Libyan government to let the journalists go as soon as possible and, in the meantime, to let foreign diplomats or humanitarian workers visit them,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. A fourth journalist, photographer Anton Lazarus Hammerl, was reportedly traveling with the group, according to the April 21 TheAtlantic.com article “Detained Reporter Clare Gillis Says She is Alive and Well.” However, according to the article, Gillis told her parents that Hammerl, a dual South African and Austrian citizen, had not been with them when they were detained. Hammerl’s current status and location are unknown. After graduating from the U of C with a degree in English Language and Literature, Gillis spent three years in Iceland, one year of
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Bruce Friedrich, PETA's Vice President of Policy and Government Affairs, argues for the concern for all animals during the Chicago Debate Society's tournament, "Is Eating Meat Ethical?" Wednesday night at Kent. MONIKA LAGAARD/MAROON
By Linda Qiu News Staff Can you have your steak and eat it too ? People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Vice President Bruce Friedrich and the U of C Debate Society disputed the ethics of eating meat Wednesday night in Kent. Third-years Paul Wyatt and Ryan O’Holleran represented U of C Debate. The debate is a part of a campaign by PETA2–the youth oriented branch of PETA–to raise awareness about meat production across university campuses. Friedrich, a veteran debater who has sparred on CNN and MSNBC over issues like the use of animals in circuses and biomedical testing, has visited Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and most
recently NYU to persuade students–and campus policy-makers–to question their meat-eating habits. Friedrich and the U of C debaters agreed upon the flaws and lamentable conditions of meat production, disagreeing rather on the morality of consumption in general. “Most people haven’t thought about the fact that they’re supporting cruelty that would warrant felony cruelty were these dogs or cats being similarly abused,” Friedrich said. “Most people haven’t thought about the mass inefficiency and the pollution that we’re supporting when we eat meat.” Fredrich considers the ecological and animal welfare benefits of meatless consumption to constitute “categorical and ethical imperatives to side with the
non-meat eaters.” Wyatt and O’Holleran argued for legislative reform of current industrial standards, but defended people’s ability to consume meat with a clean conscience. The carnivores likened going meatless because of animal cruelty to going naked because of sweatshop conditions. They said eating animals can be done in an ethically sound manner and is morally acceptable if the animals are treated well in life. “We challenge the assumption that death is inherently bad. Existence is better than nonexistence,” Wyatt said. Friedrich countered that “the best of the best” of humane farms, like Virginiabased organic producer Polyface, are still inadequate, where he said that conditions are drastically better than in industrial farms, but where slaughtering remains painful and cruel. “The question is, would you want to spend an afternoon slicing animal’s throats open?” he said. “If you found that hard to watch, then you ask yourself, where is the integrity in paying someone to do that sort of thing on your behalf?” His PowerPoint included videos of factory farm and slaughtering conditions that depicted de-beaking and castration, as well as statistics, quotes from Socrates and Paul McCartney, and pictures of his own pets. Deeming these tactics as “pathosladen,” O’Holleran instead focused on the “principle of whether or not it is ethical to eat meat,” rather than the process that goes into it, considering Friederich’s speeches “observations, not arguments.” “Just because [humane conditions] don’t exist today, just because the
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