FEBRUARY 17, 2017
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892
VOL. 128, ISSUE 28
SEMINARY CO-OP PLANS RECOVERY BY TYRONE LOMAX STAFF REPORTER
Feng Ye Outside the Quad Club on Wednesday afternoon, a crowd of protestors gathered where Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was giving a talk. Many of the demonstrators were associated with campus organizations including UofC Resists, Fascism Now, and Graduate Students United. In this picture, a child takes aim at a piñata effigy of Donald Trump that was roped over a tree.
“Combative” Questions for Corey Lewandowski at IOP This article is by ALEX WARD, LEE HARRIS, and FENG YE. Protesters gathered outside the Quadrangle Club on Wednesday to protest Corey Lewandowski, former campaign manager for President Donald Trump. Institute of Politics (IOP) Fellow Robert Costa of the Washington Post hosted the conversation with Lewandowski, which was closed to press, as are all IOP Fellows seminars. An hour before the seminar was set to start, a crowd of students, faculty, and demonstrators associated with various organizations including UofC Resists, Fascism Now, and Graduate Students United (GSU) assembled in yard of University Church, across the street from the Quadrangle Club. Although the event was closed to press, several students spoke about the conversation as they left. After attending the event, third-year Calvin Cottrell told THE M AROON that Lewandowski’s most interesting comment was his
description of White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon’s relationship with President Trump. “Bannon will have two-second comments, he’ll just be like, ‘Oh, maybe think about this,’ and kind of lead Trump down a different path. And apparently Trump has a very one-track mind about how he’s thinking about policy, and Bannon will slightly tweak the direction or framing of questions, and apparently that’s very helpful for Bannon,” Cottrell paraphrased Lewandowski saying. Third-year Samuel Leiter was impressed by the questions audience members asked Lewandowski. “I think people were generally pretty combative with Corey Lewandowski, which was good,” he said. A student who spoke on the condition of anonymity said he was surprised at how much Lewandowski was willing to share about his time as campaign manager. “He admitted that Trump doesn’t understand how his tweet-
ing has global impacts. He said that. I thought another remarkable moment was when he said he had absolutely zero communication with Russian officials, anybody in Russia, at that time,” the student said. First-year Ridgley Knapp said that it was unnecessary to make the event closed to press. “It wasn’t really anything I haven’t heard before, frankly. It probably could have been on the record,” he said. Outside the event, demonstrators held signs with messages including “Students against bigotry” and “Go home Pooandowski.” A group of children broke apart a piñata made to look like Donald Trump. Veronica Vegna, a senior lecturer of Italian language and literature, was one among several faculty members present. Comparing Trump to former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, she said it was important to her as both an American and Italian citizen to oppose Trump’s administration.
Annual Music Festival Brings in Familiar Folks
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Feng Ye A sole counter-protester, second-year Paul Alves, wore a “Make America Great Again” cap. He stood in front of the Quadrangle Club and waved a sign that said “Cucks go home” at the protesters across the street.
Maroons Head East Page 8 The women’s basketball team looks to finish its road season strong to set up a final game at home for fi rst place of the UAA conference.
Page 5 Last weekend’s Chicago Folk Festival welcomed musicians from around the world to play in Mandel.
The Div School Page 4 Betsy DeVos’s religious agenda in schools is a violation of free speech.
Daniel Hirschfeldt, a professor in the math department, said that it was wrong of the University to invite speakers like Lewandowski for an off-the-record conversation without giving people the opportunity to publicly challenge them.
MANUAL OF STYLE Page 6
The Seminary Cooperative Bookstore (Co-Op) is conducting internal changes in partnership with other bookstores in order to strengthen its business, according to an e-mail sent to members on Tuesday. These changes include buying directly from publishers instead of wholesalers, prioritizing events to be both culturally diverse and financially profitable, shifting toward a fundraising business model, developing a blog, and launching a podcast in the spring. Last summer, the Co-Op sent a letter to members asking for help, explaining that the bookstore had a deficit of $200,000. The letter encouraged members to buy an additional book, and to convince a friend to do the same. According to Jeff Deutsch, the current Co-Op director, the Co-Op received an overwhelmingly positive response, in addition to receiving support that offset the entire deficit through fundraising. Deutsch emphasized the importance of the bookstore’s dedication to carrying books for their introspective qualities rather than for their popularity. “We believe deeply in extra-economic values, but we also acknowledge that we’re a business and we want to be a good business, but that’s our secondary approach,” Deutsch said. Shelving bestsellers for their financial profit would compromise that introspective integrity. The Co-Op partners with University presses and like-minded presses and publishers to obtain idiosyncratic, thought-provoking scholarly texts. Deutsch argued that, through these partnerships and the inventory they provide, the Seminary Co-Op has been able to foster the intellectual climate Hyde Park has appreciated since the Co-Op’s inception in 1961. According to Deutsch, the Seminary Co-Op is more than a bookstore; it is a “cultural institution” that attracts UChicago staff, community members, as well as graduate and unContinued on page 2
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Excerpts from articles and comments published in T he Chicago Maroon may be duplicated and redistributed in other media and non-commercial publications without the prior consent of The Chicago Maroon so long as the redistributed article is not altered from the original without the consent of the Editorial Team. Commercial republication of material in The Chicago Maroon is prohibited without the consent of the Editorial Team or, in the case of reader comments, the author. All rights reserved. © The Chicago Maroon 2017
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 17, 2017
Sem Co-Op Runs Deficit
Cook County Sheriff Speaks on Criminal Justice Reform at University Gleacher Center BY DEEPTI SAILAPPAN STAFF REPORTER
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart spoke on criminal justice reform at the University of Chicago Gleacher Center downtown on Monday evening as part of the Social Impact Leadership Series, hosted by the Booth School of Business’s Social Enterprise Initiative. Dart, a former state prosecutor and Illinois state senator, has served as Cook County sheriff since 2007 and oversees the second-largest sheriff’s department in the United States. He was named to Time magazine’s list of 100 Most Influential People in 2009. Dart said that he sees his job as advocating for people trapped within the criminal justice system, which he described as “targeting, not by design, large swaths of our community.â€? He added that although “the sheriff’s traditional job is quite proscribed and very narrow‌you really do have this incredible mandate if you choose to do it.â€? Dart’s tenure as sheriff has included several projects that use data to reduce violent crime and improve transparency within Cook County’s criminal justice system. Among the most recent of these projects is the Sheriff’s Anti-Violence Effort (SAVE), launched in June 2016. SAVE identifies 18to 24-year-old men from the top fifteen most violent zip codes in Cook County. The identified men then participate in a program that lasts eight hours per day, four days per week program incorporating lessons in cognitive development, life skills, anger management,
and parenting. According to Dart, of the 80 participants who have so far completed the program, only one has since been charged with a crime, an unarmed robbery—results Dart called “ridiculous� given crime statistics from violent neighborhoods. The program has also sparked an initiative for daycare centers operated by outside organizations at Cook County jails. While it has yet to be implemented, Dart said that he was inspired with this idea after almost all of the SAVE participants said that their first experiences with the criminal justice system constituted visiting jails as children, usually to see an incarcerated parent. Dart explained that a daycare program would allow inmates to maintain positive relationships with family while lessening children’s exposure to the dangerous environment of jails. Dart also spoke at length about efforts to solve problems faced by mentally ill people in Cook County. Twenty-five to thirty percent of Cook County jail inmates are people with serious mental illnesses, of whom the vast majority are involved in nonviolent cases, he said. Under Dart, the sheriff’s department has worked to identify inmates with histories of mental health issues almost immediately upon their arrival at jails and then treat them as patients rather than detainees. This has involved reopening one of the six mental health clinics recently closed by the City of Chicago, as well as implementing stabilization programs, preparing personalized discharge programs for inmates, and working closely with their families. However, efforts to keep mentally ill in-
The University of Chicago Law School Presents The 2017 Coase Lecture
The SHORT
HAPPY LIFE of RULES and STANDARDS Anthony J. Casey
Professor of Law and Mark Claster Mamolen Teaching Scholar
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21 3:30 P.M. Weymouth Kirkland Courtroom University of Chicago Law School 1111 E. 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Reception Follows This lecture is in honor of Ronald Coase. Coase, who spent most of his academic career DW WKH 8QLYHUVLW\ RI &KLFDJR /DZ 6FKRRO KHOSHG FUHDWH WKH ÀHOG RI ODZ DQG HFRQRPLFV through groundbreaking scholarship that earned him the 1991 Nobel Memorial Prize LQ (FRQRPLF 6FLHQFHV DQG WKURXJK KLV IDU UHDFKLQJ LQà XHQFH DV D MRXUQDO HGLWRU
mates out of the criminal justice system have been unsuccessful, Dart said. He described examples of local judges penalizing defendants for their mental health issues despite the Cook County Public Defender’s request for them to be placed in mental hospitals instead of prisons. Dart concluded his talk by detailing the factors contributing to high rates of violent crime in Chicago: factionalized, constantly changing gang structures and high rates of gun ownership, often illegal, in neighborhoods perceived as dangerous. He also stressed the importance of more transparent data and more urgency in repairing the “devolved� criminal justice system, which requires, Dart said, less “indifference� on the part of judges. “I have a very contentious relationship with the judiciary. We do not get along well,� he said.
EVENTS Coalition For Equitable Community Development 2017 Annual Meeting Augustana Lutheran Church, 1 p.m. The Coalition For Equitable Community Development will review the progress it has made over the past year, and discuss plans for the future of the organization. Major Hyde Park developers, including Map and Vue53, will be represented at the meeting. SEE MORE EVENTS ONLINE AT CHICAGOMAROON.COM.
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dergraduate students alike. In addition to changes in business practices, the Co-Op leadership has also focused on changing shareholder governance policies. Before September 2016, customers gained the membership perk of a 10 percent monthly rebate only by paying a fee, which also made the members shareholders. This produced an abundance of student shareholders who would not participate in shareholder meetings. In order to limit governance to those who are more active, the Customer Loyalty program no longer considers newfound members to be shareholders based solely on Co-Op membership. In order to become a shareholder, a member must now invest a stock purchase in addition to signing up as a Co-Op member. According to a recently released e-mail, old shareholders will be split into two categories: Charter Members and Active Shareholders. Charter Members relinquish their ability to cast votes regarding Co-Op policies, while retaining the monthly rebate membership perk. Active Shareholders will be able to govern, while maintaining their membership discount. The Co-Op still faces an operating deficit. However, citing a sales growth of 4 percent, Deutsch expressed optimism for the coming year. “We do this because it’s a calling. Our responsibility to bring these bookstores to the future and have it outlive us‌ [it is] one we don’t take lightly,â€? Deutsch said.
EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY AND
THEO-DRAMA A lecture by
CELIA DEANE DRUMMOND University of Notre Dame
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 4:30PM Social Sciences 122 Presented by the Lumen Christi Institute Cosponsored by the Theology and Religious Ethics Workshop Free and open to the public
This lecture is free and open to the public, but seating may be limited. For special assistance or needs, please contact Curtrice Scott at 773.702.0654 or curtrice@uchicago.edu.
WWW.LUMENCHRISTI.ORG
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 17, 2017
U of C Community Protests Outside Lewandowski Event Continued from front
According to Hirschfeldt, “If we’re going to bring these people here to really challenge and to really bring them to account for all of these outrages that this regime has been committing, then okay, that may make sense,” he said, referring to open meetings. “But this kind of cozy conversation just says, ‘Oh, no, these people’s opinions are just another one in this big buffet of available opinions’ and, you know, I don’t really think it should be.” A group of demonstrators wore masks and played rap music on a large speaker. At one point, a member of the masked group spoke over the microphone and encouraged the protesters to do more to support undocumented students and others who have to conceal their identities at protests because of deportation or other potential consequences. “If you’re part of this campus, if you’re part of the resources here, if you can get away with more actions, we need more bold actions.” Asked whether he is affiliated with the University, a member of the masked group responded, “Some of us are. We’re everywhere.” He said that the group was associated with more than 200 anti-fascist protesters arrested in D.C. at Trump’s inauguration. “We aren’t here to talk about it, to kindly voice our opposition, we want to shut it down, we want to disrupt,” he said. The demonstrators chanted slogans including “No CPD, no KKK, no fascist U.S.A.,” “Fuck Corey Lewandowski, fuck white supremacy, fuck the bourgeoisie,” and “Shame on U of C, sold out for publicity.” Shortly after the event began, second-year JT Johnson encouraged the crowd to enter the building and stop the event. Demonstrators approached the entrance of the building en masse, but Chicago Police Department (CPD) and University of Chicago police blocked the doors. Seven students entered the event with concealed posters, and were asked to leave after holding up the signs minutes into the talk. Third-year Ryn Seidewitz held a pink poster that read “Hate Speech ≠ Free Speech,” and was asked to leave after holding up the sign. After she came out, she spoke to the crowd, saying that the people in the event could hear the protesters outside. “They keep patting themselves on the back for how great they are at free and open discourse, but they just kicked us out of the meeting,” she said. “This kind of event makes it clear where the University stands on Trump, and we wanted to show them that they can’t hide behind this idea of free and open discourse
and neutrality, because in times like these there’s no such thing as neutrality,” Seidewitz told THE MAROON. IOP Executive Director Steve Edwards addressed the walk-out in an official statement. “[The event] offered our students the chance for a vigorous and constructive exchange. A few chose to protest by leaving the event a few minutes in. The vast majority stayed and had the opportunity to hear from Lewandowski and Costa and ask tough and insightful questions, in the best spirit of our democracy. We are grateful to all for their participation,” Edwards said. Other students also expressed frustration with the IOP’s platform of nonpartisan neutrality. “It’s time that the University get rid of its neutral bullshit dedication to free speech and neutrality, when in reality there’s nothing neutral about inviting a speaker to your campus that represents hate,” second-year Mary Blair said. “It’s a dangerous normalization of Trump and his ideas to extend an official platform to someone like this,” first-year Philip O’Sullivan said. Fourth-year Jake Bittle held a sign crossing out white nationalist symbol Pepe the Frog, and told the crowd that “the IOP is garbage.” Many students did not take issue with Lewandowski’s being invited to campus, but were concerned that the event was closed to press. The IOP told THE M AROON that the event’s being off the record should not be considered a “decision” on their part, but has been standard for all Fellows seminars since the founding of the program. Asked about the implications of an offthe-record conversation, Costa, who interviewed Lewandowski, told THE M AROON he was simply following IOP convention, and that there are benefits to both on-and offthe-record talks. “I think a lot of this is imperfect because it’s healthier to have public discussions on the record. But I do see the value in having controversial figures have candid discussions with students as well. And so it’s something everyone has to grapple with. The more the merrier in terms of public discussion. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have discussions…that are a little more private and personal,” Costa said. Costa emphasized that his participation in a conversation closed to press was informed by his career as a journalist, and that he treated the conversation the same way he would an on record event. “As a reporter I
Feng Ye Anton Ford, a philosophy professor associated with UofC Resists, led the chants. Ford shouted to the crowd of protesters, “What do we do?” and the crowd shouted back, “Resist!”
had no expectation that it was off the record. I assume everything’s recorded,” he said. Not all students outside the event were protesting Lewandowski’s presence. Paul Alves, a second-year, wore a “Make America Great Again” hat and held a sign that read “Cucks go home.” “All of this is manufactured. All the ‘no fascism’ signs, that’s manufactured,” Alves said, suggesting that the crowd of protesters—many of whom were, in fact, students— came as an organized group intended to fake organic opposition. Alves described the group of masked protesters as a “black bloc,” a term used for groups of demonstrators who wear dark clothes and cover their faces to prevent identification. He said he thought they resembled the group that sparked violence at a protest at UC Berkeley on February 1. “People wear all-black clothing and go and commit crimes and cause havoc. Why is the university not investigating this?” Alves said. Second-year Patrick Mulkerrin held a sign directed at the protesters that read “We don’t want to hear your nonsense,” and told THE MAROON he worries about the anti-police rhetoric of the protesters, as his father is a police officer. “I definitely encourage people to force their political beliefs, but when you start preaching violence to combat violence, you’ve reached a pretty destructive point,” he said. Anton Ford, a philosophy professor and one of the demonstration’s organizers with UofC Resists, said that the event was intended to be a protest that people from all elements of the local community could attend. “This is the first of many, many protests that
Feng Ye Protesters gathered on the lawn across the street from the Quadrangle Club, where Corey Lewandowski, former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, was giving a talk.
there are going to be in the coming years, and so we’re figuring it out.” Ford also referred to a letter he and other members of UofC Resists had sent to the IOP staff who had invited Lewandowski, asking them to uninvite Lewandowski and stop inviting Trump-affiliated speakers. Ford said that the IOP’s response unfairly portrayed the letter and other opposition to the seminar as censorship. “There is nothing censorious about asking somebody to not invite people. It’s a request. We did not ask the University to prevent these people from coming, we did not appeal to any higher authority over the IOP or over the specific people who invited [Lewandowski]. We asked the people directly, we appealed to their reason, we made an argument, they ignored it, as is their right, and fine. But there’s nothing here that could be construed as banning speakers or coercing anyone or limiting free expression.” Third-year Matthew Foldi, president of the College Republicans club at the University of Chicago, stood at a distance from the protesters throughout the protest, wearing a blazer with an American flag pattern and a T-shirt showing the cartoon character Snoopy holding an American flag. “There is a lot that can be learned from the Trump campaign.... To say that Corey can’t speak here to me is absolutely crazy,” Foldi said. “I think most students at UChicago agree with me that people should be able to speak here .… I see very few students here at this protest, this is very much a lot of outside groups coming here to a relatively small protest anyway.... Almost every first-year supports Dean Ellison’s letter...It’s just a small contingent lot of people trying to make you think otherwise,” Foldi said. “Last year, for example, we had Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager from her 2008 campaign, Patti Solis Doyle, meet with College Republicans and we didn’t protest that.... It was a fantastic conversation.... I don’t think these people are interested in learning from someone with whom they disagree.... As a matter of fact, I know they aren’t interested, as we can see,” Foldi said. Yang Xiang, an international graduate student studying sociology at the University, told THE M AROON that he did not find Lewandowski’s answers to students surprising. “I think he’s trying to be very candid,” Xiang said. Xiang told THE MAROON that at a former IOP event, he witnessed students shouting at the speaker for about five minutes. “Students, young people [in the United States] tend to have too much antagonism towards the speaker… Democracy needs a full level of communication, but if people shout down speakers, people have too much emotion and don’t have this coolheadedness…. I think that’s the worst thing that America has at the moment.”
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VIEWPOINTS The Div School Betsy DeVos’s Religious Agenda in Schools Is a Violation of Free Speech
Felipe Bomeny A mid the l itera l firestorm that accompanied Milo Yiannopoulos’s canceled Berkeley visit, campuses all over the country have erupted in defiant protest against the normalization of bigotry. Yiannopoulos, a self-styled “free speech fundamentalist,” and his acolytes have gleefully looked to Berkeley and other incidents over controversial speakers at universities as examples of angry, coddled college students unwilling to listen to other viewpoints—a common conservative narrative. But while controversial campus speakers have largely dominated media coverage of free speech issues in the Trump era, the President’s current cabinet points to an overshadowed aspect of the First Amendment that conservatives seem less willing to defend: the separation of church and state. Even beyond the role of religion in government, Trump’s cabinet is already packed with unqualified politicians boasting embarrassingly meager résumés when compared to their counterparts in previous administrations. Take Secretary of Energy nominee Rick Perry. The former Texas governor, who attended Texas A&M University, graduated with a transcript riddled with Cs, including a D in a class called “Meats.” One of his predecessors won the Nobel Prize for Physics; the other was a professor at MIT. But perhaps the most glaring
publicized example is Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the scion of a Republican mega-donor family with little previous background in education. Her close confirmation, which passed by one vote, endured extensive scrutiny of her family background. DeVos, however, has claimed to be a longstanding proponent of education reform: in fairness, as far back as 2001, DeVos outlined her vision of using the American school system to “advance God’s Kingdom.” To the DeVos family, “the church has been displaced by the public school as the center for activity” and, as Dick DeVos notes, “it is certainly our hope that more and more churches will get more and more active and engaged in education.” The main way they are trying to do this is through gutting the public school system and instead privatizing the industry with taxpayer funded charter schools and voucher programs. While it is easy to dismiss the push toward charter schools as a billionaire pet project, the fact remains that charter schools do not perform significantly better than public schools. Stephen Henderson, a reporter with the Free Press in Michigan who has followed the DeVos’s education experiments, points to the abundance of failed charter schools in the Great Lake State, which leads the nation in for-profit schools. DeVos harps on private and charter schools not because she thinks that this
Maggie Loughran, Editor-in-Chief Forrest Sill, Editor-in-Chief Annie Cantara, Managing Editor Adam Thorp, Editor-in-Chief-Elect Hannah Edgar, Deputy Editor-in-Chief-Elect Euirim Choi, Managing Editor-Elect Stephanie Liu, Managing Editor-Elect
new system will lead to better-educated students, but because she wants to redirect taxpayer money from the public school system to specifically Christian charter schools. Trump already plans to dedicate $20 billion in federal money away from public schools and toward charter, private, or clearly religious schools. The combination of increased privatization and vouchers for Christian schools from a billionaire intent on “advancing God’s Kingdom” is clearly worrisome. If DeVos’s plans succeed, then students will have no choice but to attend private religious schools because there are no viable public alternatives. This is a clear violation of the First Amendment. As Trump proposes building a border wall, the constitutional wall dividing church and state is at risk of demolition. Even if DeVos’s confirmation tanked, there was an inevitability that any alternate pick would have belonged to the religious far-right. After all, Trump appointed Jerry Falwell Jr.—the president of “the world’s largest Christian university,” which teaches creationism under its biology department—to spearhead an education task force for higher learning. Those in the public school system, then, are not the only ones who should worry. Yet Trump’s worrying refusal to commit to the separation of church from state is not only evident in his education reform. Trump, acknowledging his ardent base of evangelical supporters, pledged to repeal the (admittedly oft-unenforced) Johnson
Amendment, which prohibits tax-exempt institutions such as churches from endorsing candidates. In another nod to Christian conservatives, a leaked draft proposal from the White House advanced “religious freedom” considerations based on “moral” objections—a euphemistic way to discriminate against LGBTQ+ individuals, among others. Combine this with the thinly-veiled Islamophobia of Trump’s immigration ban and Steve Bannon’s sinister vision of a Judeo-Chris-
tian capitalist West wrangling with the Islamic East—in itself an extremely medieval viewpoint in an increasingly medieval administration—and it’s clear that Trump’s supporters, in picking and nitpicking only certain elements of free speech to uphold, are not the First Amendment defenders they make themselves out to be. Felipe Bomeny is a second-year in the College majoring in history.
Sofia Garcia
Here’s a Tip Workers in the Service Industry Deserve the Federal Minimum Wage
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Over the past summer, I spent a few weeks in London. A fter spending an hour in a black cab from Heathrow to Cana r y W ha r f, I was su rprised that my cab driver refused to take any tips. It was such a pleasant contrast to New York’s rude taxi drivers, who drive like there’s no tomorrow and give you the evil eye if they deem your tip to be too small. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FSL A) mandates that “an employer of a tipped employee is only required to pay $2.13 an hour in direct
wages if that amount plus the tips received equals at least the Federal minimum wage.” There is no reason why the customer should be forced to pay for an employee’s wage. In every other industry, it’s the employer’s sole responsibility to cover its employees’ wages, so why is the service industry exempt from this? This arbitrary law makes life very diff icult for many wa it er s . A c c or d i n g t o t he Economic Policy Institute, 18 percent of tipped workers in states where restaurants just
pay the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13 an hour are in poverty compared to 7 percent of non-tipped workers who receive at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25. However, in states where restaurants must pay more than the federal tipped minimum wage, 14.4 percent of tipped workers fall below the pover ty line versus 6 percent of non-tipped workers. Additionally, because tips comprise the majority of a waiter’s salary, the pay is entirely dependent on the f low of business. When few people come in to eat and menu prices are low, pay can suffer dramatically. In other words, waiters can Continued on page 5
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“It is only fair that people in tipped industries are given the same legal treatment as those in other industries.” Continued from page 4 be unfairly punished for their employer’s lack of business acumen. No matter how good a waiter is, he won’t be able to bring in more customers because of his serving skills. People come to restaurants for the food, price, and reputation—factors which are outside of waiters’ control. This is a double standard in the industry; the cashiers in the same restaurant make the same amount per hour regardless of the number of customers. In non-sit-down establishments (such as fast food restaurants), employees are also paid a constant rate. There is no good reason why waiters should be punished for the owner’s lack of ability to generate revenue, as that is not their role. For these reasons, the federal tipped minimum wage should be abolished. It unfairly favors restaurant owners by making customers pay for waiters’ wages, a policy that pushes many waiters into poverty. It is only fair that people in tipped industries are given the same legal treatment as those in other industries. On a cultural level, I have never understood why customers give tips to people for doing their jobs. People don’t Venmo their stockbrokers a $5 tip for buying 20,000 shares of Apple’s stock; nor do they tip cashiers, janitors, or even the construction workers who built the roof that is over their heads. Instead, tips are primarily given to people in the service industry. The work be-
tween service and non-service workers is different, but the similarity is that they are both paid for doing their jobs. Federal law aside, there really isn’t anything that makes service workers worthy of receiving the extra cash. We are socialized to believe that the workers we interact with deserve tips, even if they don’t receive a tipped wage. Over the winter holidays, I noticed that only the doormen and concierge in my building, who saw residents on a daily basis, received Christmas tips from residents. T he por ters, handymen, and janitors, who largely remained out of sight, were left empty-pocketed. Spending hours in a hot boiler room fixing broken water pipes and lugging 30 -pound vacuums across long hallways is much more physically taxing than opening the door for someone in an air-conditioned room, yet the person who has the easiest job gets the tips. Similarly, the cooks in restaurants, who toil away at long shifts in a hot and hectic kitchen, hardly even get thanked for their work, let alone receive tips. If tips are supposedly given to express gratitude, shouldn’t the people who work behind the scenes get some too? I don’t mean to single out waiters and doormen, but it seems arbitrary that they only receive tips because they interact more with customers. Furthermore, the pervasiveness of tipping in American culture has eroded much of its original intent as a sign of gratitude. People who don’t tip waiters
generally get the evil eye, hear whispers behind their backs, and occasionally are confronted by an angry waiter. They are guilt tripped for supposedly being cheap, even though tips are technically optional in most establishments. Tipping in America is not a small token of appreciation; rather it is a necessity and the only way waiters can make a living wage. The U.S. is infamous for being one of the few countries where tipping is mandatory. In other countries, tip-
ping is seen as condescending toward workers in the service industry, and the practice either doesn’t exist or is replaced by a f ixed service charge. There are many unique things about this country that should be kept, but our egregious tipping culture is not one of them. Brian Dong is a first-year in the College majoring in political science.
ARTS Annual Festival Brings in Familiar Folks BY BROOKE NAGLER ARTS STAFF
The annual Chicago Folk Festival kicked off last Friday night in Mandel Hall to continue a much-loved 57-year tradition. The three-day event included evening performances and workshops featuring performers from all over the world. T’Monde, a band that plays a blend of French, country, and Cajun music, took the stage Friday night. This trio interspersed energetic instrumentals with delicate a cappella harmonization, bringing the French language to the forefront. Other performers evoked the half-century of festival history by reviving music from the folk canon. The Bucking Mules, a folk and bluegrass string quartet, draw from old recordings of Southern sounds. “We are treating it as a living art, not as a museum piece. We are bringing our own personalities to the forefront,” Bucking Mules banjoist Luke Richardson said. Some of the performances highlighted Chicago music. With electric guitar riffs and fired-up vocals, Oscar Wilson, Joel Paterson, and their blues ensemble flexed their native Chicago roots, performing songs from artists like Muddy Waters, the man
known as the father of Chicago blues. Paterson and Wilson are members of a larger band called The Cash Box Kings, which has a recently recorded third album coming soon. But this group is just one of Wilson and Paterson’s many gigs: They play blues and jazz clubs, perform at festivals, and belong to various ensembles. “You’ve got to be in five, 10 bands these days to stay alive,” Paterson said. “It’s all about survival,” Wilson added. “The people who are really making the money at the top— it’s not even about [blues]—this new blues is something else, you know, but they’re getting the credit,” Wilson said. Wilson calls their music “bull-corn.” The commitment that Wilson and Paterson show to genuine blues music echoes the aim of the organizers of the original Chicago Folk Festival. Ever since the event’s founding in 1961, its organizers have underscored that their festival is unique: It presents only authentic musicians. * * * The University of Chicago Folklore Society, a group started in 1953, runs the festival. From the start, the event has had an impressive line-up; the inaugural festival in 1961 brought performers like legendary blues
musician and Grammy winner Willie Dixon and folk musician Frank Hamilton. According to historian Ronald D. Cohen, the University of Chicago festival started a trend, and many other universities soon followed with their own events. Expanding beyond college campuses, folk festivals spread throughout the country: There was one in Ann Arbor, another in Montana, and a third in the Catskills. As the founding of the festival paralleled the folk music revival of the ’60s, its fi rst few years were exceptionally popular. Volunteers who have helped out since its founding said that people used to come from all over the country. One event attendee, Nina Helstein (X ’64), has attended every single festival since its beginning, when she was a student. She remembers the wildness of those first years. “There were people climbing the walls,” Helstein said. Robert Shelton’s 1961 New York Times review of the first festival confirms Helstein’s memories. “The music of the festival was as pure and refreshing as a swig of spring water,” he wrote. “The keywords were taproots, tradition, authenticity, and non-commercial.” But his article also unintentionally identifies the racial
divide at the time: He specifies that “the bulk [of the music was] representing the white Southern mountain tradition.” Helstein seems to have had a different memory of the racial component of the original festivals, emphasizing that it helped unify a racial divide during a tense time. “There were blacks from the rural south, and whites from the rural south…. What they had in common was that they were great musicians,” Helstein said. The performers would hold informal jam sessions before shows, often prompting them to invite each other on stage for their official performances. Helstein attended the University during the same years as Bernie Sanders. She knew him informally. When asked if Sanders attended the festival, she did not have a definitive answer, but commented, “I thought everyone was there.” Unfortunately, the festival coordinators and long-time at-
tendees agree that its popular ity has since decreased. With a primarily older audience, the festival is in danger of contin ued decline. The event used to feature three evening shows and a matinee; now it only hosts two evening performances, and this year, neither was full. On Fri day night, the room had a fair number of empty seats, while on Saturday it was nearly sold out At 786 attendees, almost 200 more people came to the Sat urday night show. The daytime workshops, which have also run since the fi rst event, were fairly well-attended, with small crowds dispersed among the activities. Kate Early (X ’80), a former student event coordinator, comes back every year to help run the festival. She remembers that when she was a student, the per formance used to go on until 1 a.m., and the organizers would have to kick out the audience Now, people come early and leave in time for dinner.
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 17, 2017
uchicago MANUAL OF
STYLE
by naomy grand’pierre, christian hill, & mj chen
PULE NKOPANE / SECOND-YEAR I’m an economics major from Cape Town. I’m involved with the Major Activities Board and the Admissions Office.
“The most iconic style in some way embraces irony.”
Pule is wearing a jacket by Yves Saint Laurent, a sweater by The Andover Shop, a shirt by Oliver Spencer, jeans by A.P.C., shoes by Lanvin, and a briefcase by MCM. My style pays homage to the Ivy-trad movement [Editor’s Note: a style of dress that originated on Ivy League campuses in the ’50s and was the precursor to modern prep style], but at the same time there’s a very off-kilter side to it. I try to occupy these conflicting spaces and have fun with that tension. Ivy styling is well-considered and polished: the way the garments drape, the way the proportions are considered, the cheekiness of the motifs. One of my biggest style influences at the moment is Prince George (dapper little toddler). Brands like J. Press, The Andover Shop, and Brooks Brothers resonate with me. I’m drawn to a certain nostalgic machismo—I like to complement that with grunge undertones because the vast volume and the drama the aesthetic allows for is so unique. I wouldn’t be able to put together an outfit entirely made of Brooks Brothers, or entirely out of grunge. I could be going to a board of queer community leaders from a UCIB workshop. There’s no defined style guide for that because it doesn’t come around very often, so I have to draw inspiration from a lot of sources to fill in that gap. When it comes to my personal fashion, I want to see on myself what I see so little of in the world. I’m a complete nerd when it comes to any of the clothes I wear. I research something for months before I can commit to buying it. And I don’t buy from chain stores or new—the last time I went into a brick and mortar shop was two years ago. I have a moral dilemma with fast fashion; I don’t fi nd it necessary to be complicit in that. From a sustainability and resource productivity perspective, it makes so much more sense to thrift and to use secondary markets like eBay or Grailed. Often you’re able to get so much more for a lot less than what you’d pay at Zara or Gap. I have one rule I give myself: If I’m buying something, it can’t cost more than the equivalent at Gap. And I’ve managed to stay true to that rule for some time. I’m very strict about how I shop. I think you need to be because fashion can very quickly become a more expensive habit than it has to be.
The most iconic style in some way embraces irony: It’s transgressive, it makes you hate elements together, but you’re incapable of pulling them apart. I think that’s why a lot of really taboo ideas and identities are first absorbed—or appropriated—into the commercial machinery of fashion. And subversion often trickles into the collective consciousness exclusively through fashion. On the other hand, there’s this toxic culture industry the Frankfurt School predicted where so much of whom fashion excludes are the very people it draws inspiration from. There’s promise of that changing: More now than ever, you have the possibility of finding who you are and discovering your people through fashion. Another fashion icon of mine is Gosha Rubchinskiy. What he’s doing with streetwear, which I’m normally not a fan of, feels very current and very sleek. I also admire the very obvious political motifs he uses, like splashing the Soviet flag all over his garments. He said that seeing A$AP Rocky wear the Chinese and Russian flags at the Video Music Awards was one of the proudest moments of his life. Fashion repurposing propaganda is a cool concept. There’s also [electronic music producer] SOPHIE, who has one of the most “out there” wardrobes. The way they dress up for shows is really cool: cinched waist, latex skirts, fishnet tops. I don’t think anything like it has been done in the past couple decades—and it definitely hasn’t reached the scale of their audiences. I think that fashion and the body are very political forces. When people look at me, I want them to see me as valid in a lot of spaces that I’ve been told I don’t belong in. As a minority, you often feel yourself policed, especially when it comes to how other people perceive you and how you convey yourself in response. Often you’re the only person in the room who looks like you— part of the strategy I’ve come to adopt is to use my wit, my intellect, and my wardrobe to make sure people can’t keep their eyes off me. I think my style draws from that strength—from a lot of transgressive and underground identities—to subvert bigger structures. —PULE
“I think that fashion and the body are very political forces.”
Pule is wearing a fishnet top by Yohji Yamamoto, jeans by Gant Rugger, shoes by Com mon Projects, and a belt by Brooks Brothers.
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 17, 2017
Chicago Swing Dance Society Celebrates 20 Years of Java Jives BY BROOKE NAGLER ARTS STAFF
Find Brooke Nagler’s full article online at chicagomaroon.com/arts
Top left: Two dancers do the “swingout,” the signature move the Lindy Hop. Top center: Partner’s begin a “turn.” Botom right: Dancers grooved to jazzy tunes in C-Shop on Friday night.
SPORTS Final Meet in Crown for Fourth-Years TRACK & FIELD
BY MAGGIE O’HARA SPORTS STAFF
The Maroons will host the Margaret Bradley Invitational this weekend, and it is important for the future of this Chicago squad for a number of reasons. Not only will this be the last meet in Henry Crown Field House for the year, but it will also be the last weekend of competition before conference. This weekend’s meet will not bring in as many high caliber teams as some of the last few meets have, allowing the Maroons a chance to fine-tune their craft.
The South Siders have been competing against the top teams in the area over the past month and are eager to see how their preparation all season will match up in the UAAs next weekend. Fourth-year Kareem Kebaish is looking at this weekend as a last chance to prep for the upcoming UAA meet. “This meet will be a nice way for the team to close out the regular season. It’s not going to be a huge meet, but there will still be some solid competition,” Kebaish said. “Having less pressure is nice because it will allow the trav-
el squad to do some fine-tuning in their events to prepare for conference. For the rest of the team, this will be the last indoor meet, so the focus will be geared towards chasing some final PRs.” The Maroons are rolling into the final stretch of the indoor season following some quality performances across the board in last week’s meet. As Kebaish alluded to, many athletes recorded personal records last week and will look to continue on this upward trajectory. Second-year Tali Naibryf spoke highly of the team’s suc-
cess thus far this season and is looking forward to seeing how the rest of it will unfold. “Our team is looking really good at this point in the season! We are fine-tuning and competing in our last home meet this weekend,” Naibryf said. “Next weekend we will be at the conference meet, where we look forward to great competition!” Though it will not be their last competition at the University, this will mark the last meet inside Henry Crown for the fourthyear class. “The meet will be very
meaningful to the seniors, as it will be their last time competing on the Henry Crown track,” Kebaish said. Ending the regular season in Henry Crown bodes well for the Maroons, as they have been dominating in Crown stretching back to 2013. Both the men and women have never placed below second place in each of their last 14 home meets. The Margaret Bradley Invitational will be a one-day event starting at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday in Henry Crown Field House.
Last Regular Season Swim SWIMMING & DIVING
BY SIMONE STOVER SPORTS STAFF
After hosting the UAA Conference Championships this past weekend, the Chicago team will participate in the second meet of their championship season. This upcoming Friday and Saturday, the Maroons will host the annual Midwest Invitational. During the meet, the South Siders will go up against Case Western, Grinnell College, and Wash U. Last weekend’s meet was an exciting and successful one for the Maroons. In a very close competi-
tion, the men’s team finished fourth, while the women’s squad managed to achieve a third-place finish. Over the course of the weekend, the team broke ten school records, achieved 23 All-UAA performances, and posted several personal bests. Additionally, many swimmers achieved times that are all but guaranteed to qualify for the NCAA National Championships in March. Although the Conference Championships took place here at UChicago, only a fraction of the Maroons’ team was able to compete. In order to abide by NCAA regulations, both the men’s and women’s squads—
each of which consists of over 30 swimmers and divers—had to be whittled down to only 22 participants. The upcoming Midwest Invitational will therefore function as a championship meet for those who were not able to compete. Earlier this season, many such swimmers posted times that would have been competitive at Conference. This fact, paired with the team’s success last weekend, indicates that Midwest is sure to be a meet of many fast swims and personal bests. “Everyone swimming has really been looking and feeling great leading up to Midwest,” said second-year
Dalton Mitchell. “They are ready and excited to swim fast and post personal bests, and the whole team will be there to celebrate when they do,” he concluded. First-year Michaela Mullison wholeheartedly agreed with her teammate. “Our team has been working hard all season, and I’m excited to see what we can do!” she said. “I’m most excited to just appreciate the last [home] meet with the team.” In addition to being the team’s last home meet, Midwest is also the team’s last meet before Nationals. This makes the meet an extreme-
ly important opportunity for those right on the bubble of qualifying for Nationals. Many swimmers who swam at Conference will seek to improve on the times they went last weekend, hoping to post times that will rank high enough to be invited to the meet when selections are made early next week. The Midwest Invitational will begin on Friday, February 17, and will take place at the Myers-McLoraine Pool here at the University of Chicago. The meet will start at 6 p.m. Friday night, 11 a.m. Saturday morning, and 5 p.m. Saturday night.
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 17, 2017
SPORTS Big East Coast Weekend WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
BY MICHAEL HINKLEY SPORTS STAFF
The Maroons will travel to the Northeast this weekend for their final pair of UAA games prior to their regular season finale against rival Wash U. With a conference record of 9–2, Chicago remains tied for first with the Bears for the third straight week. With an overall mark of 16–6, the team is poised to earn a bid to the NCAA tournament beginning in early March. This weekend, the Maroons will face off against NYU and Brandeis as they hope to remain in control of their own destiny. On Friday, the squad will travel to Boston to face off with the Judges of Brandeis University. The home team currently stands at 3–8 in conference play. When the teams faced each other earlier this season in Chicago, the Maroons were able to defeat Brandeis 62–55 in a gritty defensive matchup. In that game, Chicago built up an early lead thanks to strong inside play from fourth-year Britta Nordstrom and second-year Ola Obi, who each recorded double-doubles in the game. The Judges fought back in the second half and closed the deficit before ultimately falling to the Maroons by a seven-point margin. On this go-around,
the squad will hope for consistent offensive output to neutralize the scrappy Brandeis defense and continue its UAA winning streak. Fourth-year guard Stephanie Anderson seemed optimistic about the team’s chances, saying, “We are really excited because our postseason destiny is entirely in our hands. We’re taking everything one game at a time, but it’s cool that we’re getting so close to the finish.” Then, on Sunday afternoon, the Maroons will head to the Big Apple to face NYU. Despite a below-average conference record of 3–8, the Violets have been hot as of late. They go into the game having won three of their last four games, including a 15-point victory over Carnegie Mellon, who were nationally ranked in the top 25 at the time. Earlier this year, Chicago defeated New York in a 69–67 thriller, thanks to a last-second layup by first-year guard Mia Farrell. Nordstrom also posted a strong performance with 13 points, seven rebounds, and five assists. Come Sunday, the Maroons will need strong performances across the board from several players if they want to reverse the Violets’ recent success and emerge victorious. Moreover, the Maroons will be relying on their stout defense, which has been the most impressive in the UAA
University of Chicago Athletics
Second-year guard Ola Obi looks to pass the ball.
all year. Anderson went on to highlight this, saying, “We really focused this week on rebounding and staying composed under pressure, as those are both things that these two teams excel at.” This Friday, the squad takes on Brandeis
at 5 p.m. in Boston. Then on Sunday, the Maroons will head to Manhattan to play NYU at 1 p.m. The Maroons are hoping to earn a pair of victories and retain their top spot in the UAA, setting up a potential winner-takeall season finale against Wash U.
Home Stretch for Maroons MEN’S BASKETBALL
BY OLA OBI SPORTS STAFF
Last weekend, the Maroons played both the No. 4 Rochester YellowJackets and the Emory Eagles for the second time this season. Earlier this season, Chicago fell to these two teams in marginal defeats, losing to each team by eight points. Going into this weekend, the Maroons were feeling extremely confident in themselves and their abilities, and managed to garner a win during the weekend. On Friday night, the South Siders reared up to play the YellowJackets in what became an incredibly exciting match. The Maroons had gone toe-to-toe with the YellowJackets the entire game but managed to gain a 15-point lead with about five minutes left in the second half, thanks to a great offensive effort by third-
year shooting guard Jake Fenlon, who tallied a whopping 24 points off of three-pointers. In addition, there was an equally noteworthy effort by fourth-year center Blaine Crawford, who posted a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Although the Maroons lost their lead in the closing minutes of the game, they came out victorious over Rochester with a 90–87 victory. On Sunday, the Maroons were looking to prove themselves yet again to make for a perfect weekend, especially for their fourthyears, as this past Sunday was senior night. This year, the program graduates four fourthyears: Blaine Crawford, Alex Gustafson, Tyler Howard, and Waller Perez. Unfortunately, in the close game that followed, the Eagles were able to pull ahead and secure themselves an on-the-road win, as the game ended with a final score of 99–88 in Emory’s favor. There
will still be more games to come for the Chicago fourth-years, though, as there are three conference matches left in the season, all to be played on the road. This upcoming weekend, the Maroons are set to travel to Boston and New York for rematches against Brandeis and NYU. Regarding practice this week, first-year point guard Jordan Baum said, “This week has been more about us getting better at our game than focusing on the other teams. We focused a lot on defense because we know we can score, but there is definitely a lot we can improve on, especially on the defensive end.” The first match of the two will be played on Friday at Brandeis, whose team currently sits at sixth in the conference with a record of three wins and eight losses. Thereafter, the Maroons will head to the Big Apple to take on the NYU Bobcats who are tied for eighth
and last in the conference with Case Western, with a paltry record of two wins and nine losses. With three games left, it’s not too late for the South Siders to play the right cards and advance their ranking within the conference. Though they are currently sitting at fifth in the conference with a record of five and six, anything could happen for the Maroons during these next three games. Moving forward as the end of the season nears, Baum said, “The team has been practicing the same way we have been all year and are staying focused on the games we have ahead of us. The coaches are making a concerted effort to make sure everyone is getting better on both sides of the ball every day.” The Friday game will commence at 8 p.m. EST while the Sunday game begins at noon EST.
Swinging Into Indy TENNIS
BY MINNIE HORVATH SPORTS STAFF
This weekend, both the No. 5 men and No. 10 women Maroons will travel to Indianapolis, where they will take on Denison and host DePauw. The South Siders are coming off dominant performances against Hope and Lewis earlier this month on both the men’s and women’s sides. They will look to carry that momentum through this weekend in preparation for the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) DIII National Indoor Championships later this season. The women’s team is undefeated this indoor season in its three matches, dropping only one game out of 18 so far. They will face No. 22 Denison on Saturday and No. 25 DePauw on Sunday, which should give them
a good idea of how they will stack up at the ITA Indoor Championships at the beginning of March. Regarding the level of competition this weekend, second-year Adrienne Travis said, “We are really looking forward to this weekend’s matches against Denison and DePauw. These will be our first away matches of the season, so we are looking forward to really bringing it.” Denison has only played once this season, losing 2–7 to Northwestern Ohio. DePauw has not played any indoor matches yet this season, but they had a doubles team in the semi-finals and two singles players in the round of 16 in the ITA Regional Championships last fall. In the same tournament, the Maroons had runner-up finishes. First-year duo of Marjorie Antohi and Estefania Navarro took second place in the doubles tournament, and Antohi was also second in singles. “Both Denison
and DePauw are solid teams, especially with their doubles lineup, so we will have to come out fired up from the beginning which I have no doubt we will be able to accomplish,” Travis continued. The men’s tennis team is also undefeated in 2017. The men have played just three matches, but their focus has been on improving in practice. The matches against No. 33 Denison and No. 34 DePauw this weekend will be a good indication of where the team is as a whole, according to fourthyear Max Hawkins. The opportunity to play back-to-back matches will give the team the chance to improve and help direct the focus of next week’s training before the ITA Indoor Championships the following weekend. On the subject of practice, Hawkins said, “We are looking forward to finally doing what we’ve been doing in practice
in matches. We’ve played a ton of practice matches, and we’ve been able to work on what we need, so I expect us to come out with a competitive fire from start to finish since that’s what we’ve been doing since our first practice.” Both men and women will play against DePauw outdoors this weekend, despite being in the thick of the indoor season. The Maroons have been practicing both inside and outside in preparation for the weekend’s competition. Hawkins said, “We’ll have to make adjustments, but it’ll make us tougher, and that will definitely help us down the road. Our team and our coaches are locked in, and we don’t care where we play; whether it be indoors or outdoors, we’ll be ready.” Both squads begin play on Saturday at 2 p.m., while on Sunday, the women begin at 10 a.m. and the men take the court at 12:30 p.m.