MAY 23, 2017
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892
VOL. 128, ISSUE 49
Graduate Student Pre-Unionization Election Hearing Held Downtown BY TYRONE LOMAX NEWS STAFF
Last Friday, arguments from the legal representatives of the University and the Graduate Students United (GSU) affiliates were presented before a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing officer. The hearing is the result of the University filing several objections against GSU’s petition to become a recognized union last week. The hearing’s ruling will determine if those objections are conceded to, which could potentially postpone GSU’s election until next September or overrule graduate students’ ability to unionize. The election, if approved, can certify GSU’s official recognition under the NLRB should a member majority vote in favor of unionizing. The University brought two witnesses: David Nirenberg, dean of the Social Sciences Division, and Christopher Wild, deputy dean and collegiate master. During the University’s initial questioning, Nirenberg provided extensive descriptions of the academic requirements mandated by the University’s graduate and professional schools, with a focus on graduate students within the Social Sciences Division (SSD).
In order to receive a Ph.D., all graduate students who receive funding from the Graduate Aid Initiative (GAI) are required to achieve a designated amount of “points,” which are earned through teaching experiences Nirenberg stressed that the teaching graduate students do is integral for their graduate education, as a means of acquiring “practical pedagogical experience.” The University’s argument in the case depends in part on whether graduate students are workers, as opposed to purely students, under the National Labor Relations Act. Under the University’s questioning, Wild provided similar descriptions of the Humanities Division and the academic requirements for undergraduates within the College. However, Wild was unable to be cross-examined after the University’s initial questioning due to time constraints. The hearing closed at 5 p.m. as both parties agreed to an early adjournment with argumentation continuing yesterday morning. Further hearings are expected to continue throughout the week. The final ruling will determine if GSU’s election will be held and if so, the logistics of the future vote.
Estelle Higgins
PAGE 6 Summer Breeze headliner Tinashe performing in Mandel Hall.
Students Protest at “We Demand” Rally BY DEEPTI SAILAPPAN DEPUTY NEWS EDITOR
Several multicultural organizations co-hosted an inaugural rally for UChicago United, a campaign that aims to make the University campus more accessible and accommodating to minority students. The organizations leading the rally, titled “We Demand,” were the African Caribbean Students Association (ACSA), Arab Student Association, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlan
(MEChA), Organization of Black Students, Organization of Latin American Students (OLAS), and PanAsia Solidarity Coalition. Around 50 people attended the rally, which was held outside Levi Hall, the University’s main administrative building. During the rally, second-year and MEChA member Maya Ruiz described the circumstances leading to UChicago United’s formation. The campaign grew out of a letter penned by several multicultural organizations in response to a construction-themed party held
by the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity (FIJI) on Cinco de Mayo. Ruiz stressed, however, that FIJI’s party did not represent a unique incident. “What FIJI did was not an isolated misunderstanding. It was just one event in a long and continuous history of racism and exclusion that runs deep into the culture and logic of this University,” she said. Ruiz referenced e-mails exchanged by brothers of Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) that were leaked Continued on page 2
Faculty Senate to Vote on Disruptive Conduct Policy BY STEPHANIE PALAZZOLO
What Now?
ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR
The IOP Grapples With Its Role in the Trump Era BY SRISHTI KAPUR Last November, hundreds of students attended an election night watch party at the Reynolds Club hosted by the Institute of Politics (IOP). They spent the beginning of the night taking photos in front of an American fl ag made of balloons while Steve Edwards, the Executive Director of the IOP, was interviewed in a Facebook live event by T HE M A ROON. He described the watch party as “a place for students to hang with
each other and talk and process what’s going on.” Six months later, the balloon American fl ag is gone, but the processing is far from over. Now, when he is asked about the election, Edwards is more cynical. “Like the rest of the country, much of the world, and many on this campus, we, too, have been trying to process what the implications are of the Trump presidency. [The election was] a cataclysmic event for American
Editorial: South Side With You
Prize Awarded to Book Collectors
politics,” Edwards said. David Axelrod, the founder and Director of the IOP, agrees with this sentiment. “There’s a lot to understand, and there’s a lot of conversation to be had about why this came about,” Axelrod said. For some, this need for processing speaks to the necessity of the IOP. The IOP is, as per its mission statement, “a non-partisan extracurricular organizanContinued on page 3
Page 5 Page 7 “A CBA, or a legally binding agree“I just collected the music I wanted ment between community memto play because I have an—I don’t bers and developers, would be the know what the right word is—inbest step to ensure that history terest? fetish? for German music.” doesn’t repeat itself.”
Letter: Prof. Group Supports Student Unions Page 5 ‘We deplore the University’s stance and attitude towards its graduate and undergraduate student workers.”
Harvey at Court Theatre Page 7 Well-staged and well-acted, the play’s treatment of mental illness is nonetheless jarring, our reviewer writes.
UofC Resists, students, activists, and members of the Hyde Park community discussed the implications of the Picker Report in a meeting held Friday. The Picker Report is a faculty committee–written report comprised of revisions to the All-University Disciplinary System, including a new disciplinary system for disruptive conduct. The faculty senate will vote on this disciplinary system on May 23, and the University has stated that if the vote fails, it will instead implement the University’s 1974 disruptive conduct disciplinary procedures.
Several attendees expressed concern with the timing of the vote. “We believe there is no emergency or incident of disruptive conduct that has happened during this academic year that is actually a cause for the type of urgent discussion that the report suggests,” Ph.D. student Alejandra Azuero said. “On the contrary, we believe the fact that there has been so much pushback is a good enough reason to actually slow down things.” Others stated that the instances of disruptive conduct to which the Picker Report responds, such as the protest during State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s speech at the Institute of Continued on page 2
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - MAY 23, 2017
Events 5/23 — 5/30 Tuesday, May 23
Fifth Ward Alderman Retracts 71st Street Rezoning Proposal BY CAMILLE KIRSCH SENIOR NEWS REPORTER
Laura Kipnis: Unwanted Advances 57th Street Books, 6 p.m. Laura Kipnis will discuss her controversial book Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus. The Northwestern professor argues in her book that what appears as radicalism on college campuses is backlash, not progress, and the reforms and regulations sweeping academia are leaving women less empowered than ever. Wednesday, May 24 Life as a Mexican American Immigrant in America Ida Noyes Hall, 5:15 p.m. IOP fellow Alfredo Corchado, David Suro, Primitivo Rodriguez, and Kenneth I. Trujillo will discuss the question “Where do Mexican-American immigrants fit in the fabric of American life?” Harvey Court Theatre, 7 p.m. Harvey is a celebrated classic and Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy. The play is written by Mary Chase and directed by Devon de Mayo. The Court Theatre will feature Harvey until June. Thursday, May 25 IOP Fellow Steven Greenhouse “Will Unions Rise Again & If Not, Who Will Fight For American Workers?” Institute of Politics, 3 p.m. As part of IOP Resident Fellow Steven Greenhouse’s series “The Challenges Facing America’s Workers & Labor Unions: Today, Tomorrow, & in the Age of Donald Trump,” the seminar will discuss the fate of labor unions under the Trump administration. Tuesday, May 30 CPRT 2017: The Uneven G eog raphies of Housing Choice Ida Noyes Hall, 5 p.m. Join the Chicago Policy Research Team and the Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance to celebrate the launch of “’Not Welcome’: The Uneven Geographies of Housing Choice,” a policy report exploring sources of income discrimination and the experience of Housing Choice Vouchers participants in Chicago and suburban Cook County. See more at chicagomaroon.com/ events. Submit your own events through our intuitive interface. ONLINE: Seminary Co-Op Hosts Second Town Hall Meeting; 17-year-old Prodigy to Receive PhD.
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Fifth Ward alderman Leslie Hairston announced that she has temporarily pulled her proposal to rezone the South Shore neighborhood’s 71st Street business corridor as residential. Hairston’s eight proposed zoning ordinances were scheduled to be considered today by Chicago’s Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Business Standards. If passed, the ordinances would have zoned the 15-block area from South Jeffery Avenue to South Yates Avenue for single-family residential homes. “I always listen to my constituents, and that’s why I pulled the ordinance,” Alderman Hairston said. “Because I didn’t have a chance to hear from them.” The move comes after community groups raised concerns about the proposals, which Hairston said were designed to limit the spread of businesses engaged in criminal activity. “We do not support the unprecedented proposals to downzone 71st Street and give aldermen veto power over all business
licenses,” the community group Reclaiming South Shore for All wrote in an online petition. “These proposals and their consequences have not been publicly debated,” the group said. “Instead of these proposed ordinances, we request a comprehensive and collaborative planning process for South Shore.” Hairston will discuss the rezoning proposal at her monthly ward meeting on Tuesday, May 23. If her constituents are supportive of the proposal, she plans to resubmit it. Regardless, Hairston said she remains committed to working to close problematic businesses in South Shore. “These are businesses that sell drugs out of them, businesses that let gangbangers hang around outside of them, businesses that sell illegal cigarettes to minors. Businesses that pose a danger to citizens walking outside them in the street,” Hairston said. “We have been trying to find a way to approach these problem businesses for years,” she said. “I’ll keep working.”
Community Members Discuss Picker Report Continued from front
Politics (IOP), were being blown out of proportion. “[OBS] was there in solidarity with [the disruptors at the IOP], but we were giving community members an opportunity to voice the concerns that they have that are so real,” second-year Qudsiyyah Shariyf said. “But secondly, Anita ran. She could have had a conversation with the people who were there to talk to her, and she ran. And I think that the fact that this administration is trying to protect people like Richard Spencer and Anita Alvarez says so much about who they really care about.” A common concern was the report’s lack of definition for free speech and disruptive conduct. “ These new disciplinary measures are meant to enforce this campus as a certain sort of ‘free speech commons,’” philosophy professor Anton Ford said. “What that is, we don’t know. For all the changes that have been made to the Picker Report, its starting principle is that this is a ‘free speech commons’—this is a made-up term. Every Google reference that I have found to it, at least in a casual search, leads back to this place.” Ford went on to say that these ideas of free speech and disruption have “never, ever been subjected to public scrutiny.” “So what the council is being asked to vote on is the enforcement of principles we have yet to affi rm,” Ford said. “We have no business coming up with disciplinary measures for enforcing principles that we do not yet af-
firm as a community.” English professor Zachary Samalin echoed Ford’s sentiments, stating that the report “seeks especially to absolve faculty from having to think about [the definition of free speech and disruption] because it’s [the faculty’s] consent that’s being demanded with an urgency nobody can explain.” “The report is specifically designed to disburden the faculty and students of this university from the responsibility of having to think and disagree about what counts as speech and what counts as conduct and why only some speech is being disqualified from counting as disruption,” Samalin said. “We are being absolved of having to think about how the administration’s rhetoric of free speech comes into conflict with the facts of inequality and discrimination on our campus or in the city of Chicago or beyond.” Others believe that the new disciplinary procedures exist only to protect outside speakers, not students, faculty, or staff. “What are the incidents that outrage [Zimmer]?” Ford said. “They’re incidents in which Laura Bush, Henry Kissinger, Larry Summers, and Richard Spencer have their speech interrupted. Never do they go out of their way to protect the right of the students to speak or a professor to speak. In fact, if you listen to [Geoffrey] Stone’s Aims of Education address, he identifies what he calls the ‘single greatest threat to academic freedom on campuses today,’ and you know what that is? Students.”
Obama Foundation Raises Record $13.1 Million BY YAO XEN TAN NEWS STAFF
Fundraising for the Obama Foundation surged last year, totaling $13.1 million. This is the most the foundation has raised since its founding in 2014, according to government required 990 tax records for non profits released by the foundation last Monday. This fundraising total is expected to increase even more in future years, in order to cover the expected $500 million cost of the Obama Presidential Center. Barack Obama has held several fundraisers for the presidential center already. He can now operate without his self-imposed restriction on making direct appeals for donation while in office. Most of last year’s donations were collected from a small group of loyal supporters, and nine donations were worth $1 million or more. Among the biggest donors are Fay Hartog-Levin, former Obama administration ambassador to the Netherlands and a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, and Louis Susman, former ambassador to Great Britain. Both pledged $1 million with their wives. The George Lucas Family Foundation, owned by filmmaker George Lucas, contributed $1 million toward the presidential center as well. Mellody Hobson, Lucas’ wife and a Chicago native, sits on the Obama Foundation’s board. The foundation has now raised more than $20 million compared
to the $1.5 million it raised in 2015. However, the foundation’s expenses are also increasing as it takes on more staff. The 990 tax filings detail monetary compensation to employees that exceeded $100,000. Executive director for the Obama Foundation, Robbin Cohen, remains the highest paid employee at the foundation with a base salary of $490,627. The foundation is also putting a significant amount of money toward legal services, and developing the civic-minded message Obama envisions for the library. The foundation paid $838,568 for Chicago lawyer Katten Muchin Rosenman’s legal services, and $532,848 for work from Blue State Digital, the marketing and communications firm that worked on Obama’s 2012 campaign and Google’s Take Action and Impact initiatives. Regardless of all the expenses, the auditor’s report revealed the foundation was saving on a lot of expenses as well. The foundation is spending $1 to lease office space for eight years, when it would have usually cost $220,134. The foundation received $275,225 worth of trademark and information technology services for free, and saved $31,330 picking out the library site in Jackson Park. Donations, staff expenses, and legal and marketing service figures are expected to increase even more next year, as the presidential center is slated to begin construction and fundraising attempts to keep pace.
Students Publish Petition to Recognize RSOs Continued from front
in February 2016 and included several racial slurs. “Black, Palestinian, and Muslim students shouldn’t have to endure the pain of racist, xenophobic, sexist e-mails last year only to have the University step farther away from the fraternities today,” she said. Another organizer then read UChicago United’s ten core demands to the University administration, which were published as an online petition later on Friday afternoon. The first of these demands was formal recognition of all Greek organizations as registered student organizations (RSOs). As third-year and OL AS member Alyssa Rodriguez told The Maroon after the rally, recognition of fraternities as RSOs ensures that the University’s Bias Response team can set guidelines governing fraternities’ behavior and take disciplinary action if infractions do occur. Other demands included the creation of University-funded cultural houses for black, Latino, and Asian students and a pre-orientation program specifically for
minority students. A comprehensive set of demands focused on the diversification of the Core Curriculum, to be achieved through the establishment of a “Diversity and Inclusion” graduation requirement, expanded coursework in Humanities and Social Sciences, and the creation of Civilizations sequences covering the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. Two demands were met with particularly boisterous cheers: a call to the University to hire administrators specifically tasked with running the Bias Response Team, and a request that the University suspend the faculty senate vote on the Picker Report, to be held today, and retain the 1970 Disciplinary System for Disruptive Conduct. After the demands had been listed, second-year and OLAS member Ayling Dominguez read a statement issuing a deadline for the University’s response: this Friday, May 25, at 5 p.m. The rally finished with a chant, led by first-year and ACSA member Ayomikun Idowu: “The people, united, will never be divided.”
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - MAY 23, 2017
What Now?
The IOP Grapples With Its Role in the Trump Era BY SRISHTI KAPUR Continued from front -tion” that “aims to inspire and cultivate the next generation of political and public service leaders.” The IOP houses four core programs: the Speaker Series and Fellows Program bring prominent members of public life to campus for conversations about current events and public life, while the Civic Engagement and Career Development programs give students opportunities to participate in public life themselves. Most of the IOP’s events are open to all students on campus, and many are open to the general public. There is, however, a core group of students that is highly involved in the IOP, participating in all four areas of the IOP’s programming. Fourthyear Jonathan Acevedo is currently the Civic Engagement Chair on the IOP Student Advisory Board and the Civic Engagement Projects Manager. Previously, he has been an Events Ambassador, a Fellows Ambassador, and has held multiple internships funded by the IOP. “I had always been really interested in politics, but I never had very clear exposure to it. [IOP staff] are very well-connected to their students, really value them, and want to support them,” Acevedo said. However, there are also students who oppose the IOP for its connection to establishment politics. Shortly after the election, fourth-year Jake Bittle wrote a Viewpoints article in THE M AROON arguing that the IOP should be shut down. “The Trump supporters out in Hootenanny County may be racist, but they have a point: Washington is broken. It is full of people who do not care about us. We must work to dismantle this class at the local level by cutting off its personnel supply,” Bittle wrote at the time. Bittle’s argument highlights the ways in which the IOP has been especially contentious post-election. This year, the IOP held events with Press Secretary Sean Spicer and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Both events were criticized by students and faculty for providing a platform for surrogates of Donald Trump. For Axelrod, the IOP has not been substantially impacted by the Trump election. “The IOP is fundamentally a place that is committed to democracy, and this is not new to 2017,” Axelrod said. Tensions between nonpartisanship and inclusivity, free speech and bigoted rhetoric, electoral politics and direct action, are not new to 2017, but rooted in democracy itself. The 2016 election and Trump’s presidency have only pushed this friction closer to the surface. Exploring the tensions and the way the IOP responds to them not only illuminates the IOP’s role on campus, but also gives a glimpse of what democracy looks like in the Trump era. Axelrod, in his own words, “comes from a partisan place.” In founding the IOP, however, he aimed to leave his partisan
Brooke Nagler
loyalties at the door. “The goal of the IOP was not to present a point of view or become a rallying point for any particular party, but to present a range of views and experiences to give pathways to engagement for students across the campus,” Axelrod said. That goal begins with the IOP’s Board of Advisors, which meets twice a year to review the Institute’s operations and programming. Of the board’s 18 members, eight are Democrats and six are Republicans. IOP programming reflects similar ratios. Since the IOP fi rst opened in the Fall of 2013, it has brought 85 Fellows to campus. These Fellows are prominent members of public life such as former elected officials, campaign managers, and journalists who hold student-only seminars and office hours over the course of a quarter. Of the 85 Fellows and former Fellows, 44 have explicit party identifications; 27 are Democrats and 17 are Republicans. These numbers are a reflection of careful deliberation. “One of the things we try to do with each fellows class is [to] assemble the most diverse cohort of fellows in any given quarter, and that includes diversity measured by race, gender, ethnicity, ideology, party affiliation, and sector,” Edwards said. For IOP staff, presenting views from across the political spectrum is a prerequisite for inclusivity. Crystal Coates, the IOP’s Director of Civic and Campus Engagement, echoed Edwards’ comments. “What we don’t want is for any student to feel like they can’t contribute or can’t participate in a program. I think that’s a big part of why we’re nonpartisan,” Coates said. This effort has successfully attracted both liberal and conservative students to the IOP. Max Freedman is a third-year who is active with the UChicago College Republicans. “It’s a symbiotic relationship because
without the College Republicans, [the IOP] stops looking nonpartisan pretty quickly. I think the College Republicans get very good access to the IOP with regards to speakers. They’ve always leveraged the Fellows Program to get people to speak to the club,” Freedman said. The IOP has also tried to become a more inclusive place for both women and
“‘Our job is to keep you all safe from physical harm, but it’s not to keep you safe from ideas you find objectionable.’” students of color. The Women in Public Service Program (WPSP) and the Leaders of Color Initiative (LoC) were created to increase diversity at the IOP and encourage leadership on campus and in the community. However, some argue that the IOP’s commitment to nonpartisanship threatens its ability to be fully inclusive of these groups. Second-year Mary Blair, the incoming Vice Chair for LoC, said that the IOP should do more to support students of color. “I think when you’re a person of color at the IOP and you see some of the things IOP administrators chose to do, like inviting Corey Lewandowski, it’s hard not to have a tense relationship with them. The IOP can do things that make students of color feel like they’re not welcome there,” Blair said. This tension between nonpartisanship and inclusivity is further reflected in the
confusion surrounding how much autonomy WPSP and LoC have to express political views. When asked whether groups like WPSP and LoC can make public statements about political or campus events, Edwards expressed caution. “We try to draw a distinction between programs of the IOP and making collective statements on behalf of an entire membership group that not every member of that group signs on to. The statement of the leadership of a group doesn’t necessarily represent the full membership of that group, nor does it reflect the full institute,” Edwards said. However, since Trump’s election, both WPSP and LoC have engaged in actions that could be construed as partisan. In January, WPSP led a group to the Chicago Women’s March, which was a response to Trump’s election. In February, LoC endorsed an on-campus solidarity march for marginalized groups in response to Trump’s first travel ban. Some involved in the leadership of these groups believe that voicing dissent to certain stances is an essential part of engaging in politics as a woman or person of color. Katie Weibezahl, a fourth-year on WPSP’s leadership board, said that WPSP’s decision to lead a group to the Women’s March wasn’t necessarily partisan. “There are some decisions being made by our government right now that don’t have to do with conservative or liberal ideology, but undemocratic and democratic ideologies. I don’t know if it’s necessarily partisan…to be against something that… directly harms the group that you’re a part of,” Weibezahl said. “I think that in a lot of ways when you are a person of color, activism for you isn’t necessarily just a matter of politics…. It can be considered a matter of survival,” Blair explained. Weibezahl stated that the discrepancy between WPSP actions and IOP staff statements is unclear. “Maybe that is a conversation we need to have in the future, because I was under the assumption that we could have slightly more autonomy,” Weibezahl said. On the other hand, when Blair was asked about whether LoC plans to continue engaging in direct action, she expressed less caution. “Will the IOP have a problem with it? That’s the least of my concerns.” In February, Lewandowski spoke at an off-the-record IOP Fellows seminar. Before the event, members of the anti-Trump coalition UofC Resists wrote a letter to Axelrod and Robert Costa, the IOP Fellow who had invited Lewandowski. The letter was endorsed by Graduate Students United, Students Working Against Prisons, UChicago Socialists, Students for Justice in Palestine, and MEChA de UChicago. This letter called for the IOP to not only disinvite Lewandowski, but also refuse to Continued on page 4
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“The IOP is...committed to democracy, and that is not new” Continued from page 3 invite any members or surrogates of the current presidential administration. For Axelrod, refusing to invite individuals due to their ideologies amounts to censorship and threatens free speech. “The danger you get into is when you begin to censor points of view. That can flip around in very treacherous ways, given the politics of the moment or who the president is,” Axelrod said. When asked whether he would support speakers like political scientist Charles Murray or white supremacist Richard Spencer being invited to campus, Axelrod was speculative. “So, who should draw up the list of people who shouldn’t be invited? Should we draw up a panel on campus to just say ‘here are the 100 people who shouldn’t come to the IOP?’” Others involved with the IOP argued for the benefits of dialogue. “We leave here interacting with people necessarily who are different ideologically than we are and that forces us to hone our views and maybe change them. People who are involved in certain activist circles never meet or discuss politics in a real way with somebody outside their circle…and they don’t have to experience the personal development that we do,” Freedman said. “Our job is to keep you all safe from physical harm, but it’s not to keep you safe from ideas you find objectionable. We want you to be strong, not safe, from those ideas and engage in that contest of ideas,” Axelrod said. For UofC Resists, bringing certain speakers to campus is a matter of physical harm. The letter argued that bringing speakers like Spicer and Lewandowski to campus normalized Trump’s ideologies by implying such positions were not only “debatable, but legitimate and respectable.” “Since the beginning of Trump’s campaign, our own campus has been visited more than once by white supremacists… To invite a parade of Trump surrogates… sends a positive signal to white supremacists that they are welcome here. This exposes the most vulnerable members of our community to even greater risk,” they wrote. Osita Nwanevu A.B. ’15, M.P.P. ’16, an editorial assistant for Slate, points out that groups throughout history, including conservative groups, have argued that certain ideologies are not enriching to discuss. “I think it’s entirely legitimate for any political group on campus, any ideological group to make the case that any speaker is beyond the pale, for any reason. They just have to make the case, have to justify it, as any other protest tactic would be justified.” For Coates, the Lewandowski event was an educational experience for students, regardless of where they stood on the political spectrum. “I asked [a student], ‘What did you think?’ And she said, ‘You know, I don’t know how I feel about it, but I’m glad I came.’ I knew that she was fundamentally opposed to the Trump administration and many of the things Lewandowski represented, but giving her the opportunity to hear it from his mouth, and to process it, and to figure out what she feels about it, I think that’s the important thing. It’s a relevant conversation because it’s happening, and I think we’d be doing our students a disservice if we didn’t give our students the chance to be involved.” Coates noted that many students were confused after the presidential election. “The general tenor I’ve heard is a lot of students saying, ‘I want to do something, I just don’t know what or where or how.’ To
me, that’s where our programs need to react, providing them with the resources to find those answers for themselves,” Coates said. For IOP staff, allowing students to find answers for themselves means providing them with a variety of ways to learn about
civic and political engagement. “We want to encourage students interested in political careers in all sorts of ways, whether that’s running for office, policy analyst, or organizing and being an activist,” Edwards said. The IOP is known on campus for its speaker series events, fellows seminars, and funded internships at government agencies and think tanks. These are opportunities that primarily interest individuals pursuing careers in traditional
to providing public service opportunities outside of traditional electoral politics, there remain many ways in which it has not, and perhaps cannot, be supportive of alternative forms of political action. This is especially true of community organizing and direct action. Of the 85 Fellows and Former Fellows, 31 have been political operatives (advisors, campaign managers, and the like), 27 have been journalists, 20 have been elected government officials, and only 3 have been activists. The IOP’s stance on free speech and protest seems, in many ways, incompatible with the goals of direct action. “We think protest is an important part of the tradition of political participation in this country, system, and on this campus, and we support students who want to be active in public life using the forms of organizing and protest to get their point across… At the same time, we also believe that there are important spaces that should be available to students who wish to discuss, enquire, and probe deeply. That too is an important part of our political tradition in this country and tradition of rigorous inquiry on this campus,” Edwards said. This stance translates to the IOP supporting student protests as long as they do not disrupt the ability of an event to continue as planned. Coates, who oversaw Community Service RSOs at the University Community Service Center before
Brooke Nagler
Feng Ye
“‘It didn’t seem like [Axelrod] was listening to understand, he was listening to respond...he really has no interest in what students have to say.’”
An anti-Trump protester was escorted out at an event hosting Sean Spicer in December 2016 (left). Students and faculty gathered outside the Quadrangle Club to protest Corey Lewandowski in February 2017 (right). politics—elected positions in national government, campaign work, and positions at think tanks. The IOP, however, has a growing number of civic engagement programs focused on direct service. The Shriver Program for Leadership in Public Service, for example, is a cohort of students who create and implement a public service program in a South Side community. In New Americans UChicago, students tutor individuals who are preparing for the citizenship exam. TechTeam students work together on technology-based projects for nonprofits and government organizations. According to Coates, this civic engagement programming is expected to grow over the next school year. “There have been plenty of ideas, and our big challenge now is finding a venue to collect all of that information and figure out what we can actually accomplish over the next academic year.” The Civic Engagement team is also working on a new policy for the next academic year which will require all civic engagement programs at the IOP to offer some component of direct service or direct action. Despite the IOP’s stated commitment
working at the IOP, has seen many student protests on campus. In her opinion, the protest at the Lewandowski event went as well as it could possibly have gone. “There was the protest outside and protesters inside. We’d asked for them not to come inside, but as soon as they stood up and demonstrated, the Deans on Call tapped them on the shoulder and they left. The event continued and students asked a lot of sharp, smart questions of the speakers…everybody got to see different sides of the same issues and different opinions interacting, and I think that’s the goal,” Coates said. Allowing everybody to see different sides of the same issues may be the IOP’s goal, but that’s not necessarily the goal of direct action, which usually tries to get a single message across through escalation. Elizabeth Adetiba and Stephanie Greene, fourth years in the college, defended this goal in their op-ed in support of Black Lives Matter protesters who shut down an IOP event with Anita Alvarez in 2016. “Activists in the Civil Rights Movement not only utilized boycotts to get their message across but also engaged in numerous acts of civil disobedience. Shutting down a publicly elected official who attempted
to use her political power to deny justice for a victim of police brutality is akin to staging sit-ins at lunch counters to bring down oppressive Jim Crow segregation,” they wrote. For Axelrod, however, shutting down events that host controversial figures like Anita Alvarez is a form of censorship in itself. “Far better if people have strongly held views, far better to challenge the speaker on the merits of their ideas or on the essence of their views than to not let them speak.” The incompatibility of Axelrod’s view with the tactics of direct action suggests that the IOP, despite its attempts, cannot be neutral with regards to forms of political engagement. Supporting dialogue above other kinds of political discourse necessarily leaves out certain ways of engaging in civic life. This is especially relevant in 2017, when events like the Women’s March and the March for Science have introduced so many young Americans to protest as a form of politics for the first time. When the Class of 2017 graduates in June, it will be the first class to graduate with the IOP as a presence on campus for its entire undergraduate career. As classes of undergraduates enter and leave with the IOP as a campus fi xture throughout, it will be easy to forget just how new the IOP is. Steve Edwards describes the IOP as a “startup,” a place where the programming is constantly evolving in response to student feedback. “I think that everybody on the Student Advisory Board knows that the staff at the IOP has an open door and whether we want to talk about feedback, positive or negative, or ideas or suggestions, or to talk about how something was received on campus, that we can go knock on the door and just sit down and chat with them, and they’re very receptive about that,” fourthyear Conor McDonough said. Nevertheless, the description of the IOP as a “startup” can sound surprising for many students who believe the IOP is far too established and anchored in its stances. The handful of times students have criticized or protested IOP events, Axelrod and the rest of the IOP staff have consistently argued for nonpartisanship and free speech over other student concerns. Earlier this year, students from the IOP’s civic engagement programs met with Edwards, Coates, and Axelrod to discuss the IOP’s programming during the Trump era. In Blair’s opinion, Axelrod seemed argumentative. “He would interrupt students, talk over students. It didn’t seem like he was listening to understand, he was listening to respond, and that was enough for me to see that he really has no interest in what students have to say,” Blair said. The IOP may not often seem like a startup, but it has shown the capacity to evolve. For Weibezahl, the IOP has changed immensely over the past four years. “[During my] first year, I found it very difficult to find my way in and make the right connections, but when WPSP and LoC started, it created a space for a more diverse student body to get involved. My favorite moment was when we had our Winter Institute during this winter quarter. [Seeing] women spread all through the fi rst floor of the IOP just talking to each other and laughing, it was a very beautiful moment.” Blair, on the other hand, is cautiously optimistic in the IOP’s ability to change. “I know I sound very critical of the IOP considering how involved I am there, but I think because I am involved there, I will continue to be critical.”
5
THE CHICAGO MAROON - MAY 23, 2017
VIEWPOINTS South Side With You The Obama Foundation Can Prove it Cares About the South Side Through a Communtiy Benefits Agreement In four years’ time, the Obama Presidential Center will see its grand opening in Jackson Park. Over the next decade, the Presidential Center could generate $2.1 billion in revenue for the area in addition to creating an estimated 1,000 new jobs. The center is intended to rejuvenate the area and provide a community center for residents who have historically been neglected. However, given the city’s and the University’s own failed attempts at renewing the area in the past, can we really trust this project will not fail in the same way? Residents of Woodlawn and Washington Park should be provided a community benefits agreement (CBA) with the center’s developers; such a binding contract would effectively guarantee that these ambitious construction plans would improve residents’ well-being. Barack Obama has a special relationship with the area, working first as a community organizer and then as one of the South Side’s representatives in Springfield. The South Side has responded with overwhelming support for their favorite son: he received 95 percent or more of the vote from Woodlawn precincts in the 2008 presidential election. Obama’s personal work in the South Side throughout the decades likely means that the center has good intentions and may stand to help address many of the inequalities in schools, housing, and employment. The question, then, is not whether the center should be built, but how. Previous attempts by the city and even the University to foster “urban renewal” in the 1950s and ’60s led to the displacement of more than 4,000 families, the large majority of whom were poor and black. Large areas of the Hyde Park neighborhood were completely destroyed,
erasing an important part of community history. As noted in an indepth feature by The Gate, after the area was rebuilt as part of the University’s first phase of their so-called “urban renewal” plan, “46 percent of the white families and 49 percent of the white individuals uprooted by the demolitions were relocated within Hyde Park or Kenwood; only 17 percent of the black families and 14 percent of the black individuals found similar accommodations.” A CBA, or a legally binding agreement between community members and developers, would be the best step to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself. In exchange for residents’ support, the Obama Foundation would take actions to preserve or even improve the community’s well-being. Activists rightly note that benefits to the community shouldn’t simply be “declared” by those in power, but be fairly negotiated between the Obama Foundation and those living in the affected residential areas. The Obama Library South Side Community Benefits Agreement Coalition, which is composed of four different South Side organizations, hopes that developers will work with the community and prioritize “job development, protection of current residents’ ability to stay in the neighborhoods surrounding the library, partnership between the library and local schools, and environmental sustainability goals, including replacement of the 21 acres of park land that the library will eliminate.” Although the Obama Foundation says the center will improve the area, these often-toothless refrains about “community engagement” might ring hollow for those residents familiar with the effects of gentrification. A CBA would give the community the leverage they
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deserve, as they can seek legal recourse if developers fail to hold up their end of the bargain. If the Obama Center developers are serious about rejuvenating the area, then they should have no problem taking into account what South Side residents want. Otherwise, it’s possible that the Center could wreak more havoc, once again displacing families of color due to rising rent costs and gentrification. South
Side resident Claire Cardy put it best during an April 10 town hall meeting on the issue: “We get a lot of promises, and as you have seen, it doesn’t mean anything. What do we want them to do? We want them to build it with us.” Big, ambitious projects on the South Side have failed to deliver for their neighbors before, and could do so again. Signing a CBA, then, would earn the community’s trust
and further cement Obama’s plan to foster civic engagement and community-based action through the center. Instead of allowing the question of the CBA to sit unanswered, the Obama Foundation should seize it as an opportunity to be a model of how powerful institutions can address the concerns of their community. —The MAROON Editorial Board
Letter: AAUP Supports Student Unions Last fall in response to the ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that teaching and research assistants at private universities are employees under federal labor law, and thus can form and join unions, the University of Chicago’s American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Advocacy Chapter published a letter signed by over 100 faculty affirming our support for the right of graduate assistants to organize and bargain collectively. We expressed our belief that collective bargaining would enhance and in no way imperil the special relationship between faculty advisors and graduate students. We also urged our colleagues and University administrators at all levels to remain neutral while graduate students engaged in the process of determining their relationship to the University in their capacity as teaching and research assistants. Specifically, we requested: “that our fellow faculty members refrain from organizing departmental meetings aimed at graduate students on the issue of unionization. Even when such meetings are cast as informational, the inherent power differential between faculty and graduate students can easily result in a coercive and silencing atmosphere, especially when those with official positions such as department chairs and directors of graduate studies are present. If such meetings are held, however, and particularly if members of the university administration are to be present, we request, in the spirit of providing as
much information as possible to students on this issue, that departments seek to include representatives from Graduate Students United, and that these representatives be allowed an adequate opportunity to communicate their points of view.” We also asked: “that the University of Chicago administration remain neutral and not use university funds or other institutional resources to oppose the unionization effort. We ask that the University not employ any union avoidance consultants. Any communications from University personnel speaking in their administrative capacities about the unionization effort should not discourage graduate student participation in or support for the initiative. Additionally, we ask that the administration make clear to administrative personnel that a graduate student’s decision to invoke her right to organize can play no role in making decisions about that student, and that the University will tolerate neither intimidation nor retaliation against graduate students who invoke their right to organize.” While many of our colleagues have responded appropriately to our request, we have, in the main, been disappointed by the attitudes and actions taken by the University administration in response to the unionization drive. Communications from the University’s leadership have been misleading, alarmist, incomplete, and one-sided. At a moment when the University is presenting itself nationally as a standard bear-
er for freedom of expression, its posture towards collective bargaining on the part of its student employees has been obstructive rather than encouraging. Most recently the University has challenged the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 743’s filing of a petition with the NLRB seeking an election to represent approximately 225 students who have hourly jobs at the University of Chicago Library. Alleging that the proposed timing of the election between May 31 and June 2, from 12-noon to 6:00 p.m., would “compromise the democratic process,” the University is seeking to delay the vote until the fall quarter. Rather than respect the filing as the culmination of a lengthy process of debate and discussion among students, the University has instead sought to change the rules of play in the middle of the game, hoping to force union supporters to begin from scratch the process of educating and engaging with significantly altered constituency. We deplore the University’s stance and attitude towards its graduate and undergraduate student workers and we affirm the right of these students to organize and bargain collectively through whatever representative body they choose. Willemien Otten, Chapter President Ken Warren, Chapter Vice-President Denis Hirschfeldt, Chapter Vice-President Anton Ford, Chapter Secretary
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - MAY 23, 2017
ARTS Bummer Breeze: It’s (Not) Raining, We’re Snoring BY IVAN OST ARTS STAFF
Before I start: I’ve included a list of the wildest, funniest and just plain oddest moments from this year’s Summer Breeze at the end. Skip there if you want; but beware concerts are a strange, strange place. Summer Breeze, timid victim of a rainstorm that wasn’t, involved no breezes. Not that it really needed any. When no one is dancing, it doesn’t get very hot. Poor Sam Gellaitry, the waifish Scottish fi rst act of the show, barely perked up a small audience of stiff, self-consciously swaying UChicago nerdlings who had miraculously acquired one of the coveted green wristbands granting access to the “pit.” (“Pit” in quotations because Mandel Hall is as close to the kind of venue that would have a pit as Putin is to a kindly uncle. The last people to use the “pit”? University Symphony Orchestra, with a bigger crowd to boot). Much of the rest of the audience was sitting down —you’d think it was still the University Symphony Orchestra on stage! Cursed by an audience that seemed to be waiting for someone to say “Please initiate dancing,” Gellaitry could do little but pump his signature surreal assembly of percussion and wail through the heaps of speakers. He smiled nervously at the crowd precisely once every three minutes, gave a little Princess Diana wave, and then left. Well, that’s not entirely fair. He fi nished his set with “LONG DISTANCE,” and for a brief, beautiful moment as the song built and fi nally dropped, the crowd moved—but just for a moment. Then off he went, defeated by the DJ’s curse: His stuff is all pre-recorded, so MC-ing well
is hard. If he’d come onstage later in the evening, facing a sweaty crowd ready to dance, I would have been surprised if Mandel Hall were left standing. But hey, it was raining (or it was supposed to), and he wasn’t the headliner, so Gellaitry got shafted and no one danced. W hat a change of pace D.R.A.M. was—I wonder if he was tired from a reportedly rousing performance at Northwestern’s Dillo Day earlier that afternoon. Or perhaps he was just in some sort of mood, since his set was far from a conventional concert performance and closer to Marley-inspired crooning. D.R.A.M. forwent his typical half-speech and sang—actual, proper, bottom-of-the-heart singing. And then he opened water bottles and sprayed them on the crowd and walked off the stage while his keyboardist embarked on what seemed to be a...Chopin sonata? He also asked the ladies in the crowd if they “got some good pussy.” D.R . A . M. per formed his whole show in a fl oppy orange beanie, riding a smile wider than a jack-o’-lantern’s, reminding us that while he might like to sing about how cute other people are, he’s pretty damn cute himself. I lost patience when he pulled the oldest trick in the concert artist’s book and saved his big hit staged encore. But there was an emotional complexity to his show that was both confusing and exciting. He may not have wanted to fi re up the crowd, but he sure did want us to know that he’s a man who has feelings. It was an effective presentation, moving at moments, but still, it lacked the kind of pounding momentum that a festival-style show like Summer Breeze hungers for. Gellaitry could have done it.
Estelle Higgins Tinashe wins over the crowd with her pop-tinged R&B hits at Summer Breeze 2017.
D.R.A.M. had the power. And neither of them did. Tinashe got a little closer. Decked out in urban camoufl age crop top and leggings, she channeled the annals of powerful female pop stars, rocking Beyoncé’s regal haughtiness and blasting out HAIM-style power ballads. Accompanied by a small army of perfectly groomed backup dancers, Tinashe put on a show that oozed authority ( hers), dynamism (those energetic dancers) and sex (many crotches moved many ways during the performance). She had some of D.R.A.M.’s emotional depth, delivering a billowing ballad from the stagewithin-a-stage erected specially for her, but most of her fare was more familiar pop, beat-heavy fun. The crowd fi nally gained some momentum that fizzled whenever she turned the bass down or took a moment to reachout to the (overly) enthusiastic front row. For a brief 30-second period, she showed us what she was capable of, blasting some eminently danceable, bass-heavy exultation. However, it ended all too soon, killing the surge of oomph that just maybe could have been the fi nal push that we needed to really get going. She walked off the stage after playing her new song, “Flame,” and then that was that. It was over. Everyone left. Maybe it was the audience, maybe the venue (may I emphasize: rows of immobile chairs do not a good dance fl oor make), but even Tinashe’s stiff-lipped charisma couldn’t pull the show that wasn’t into the space where it should have been. And what a damn shame that was. Mandel Hall hosted a huge amount of talent on Saturday night. If only we knew how to dance, or one of the artists
Estelle Higgins Tinahse and her back-up dancers channeled Beyonce’s regal haughtiness.
had figured out that they were the ones expected to pump us up, or the rain hadn’t come, plenty more could have gone right. Until next year, Summer Breeze. Even if it wasn’t perfect, it was fun.
The Funny, the Weird, and the Downright Questionable from Sum mer Breeze 2017: 1. Front row: two halves of a (presumable?) couple both pulling their pants up from around their thighs. This was before Sam got on stage. Ya get bored, I guess. 2. Gellaitry really does look like he’s about 16 years old. He also truly cannot dance. 3. Security guard in the front ordered food from the Med about halfway through Sam. He gave me a fry. A good man. 4. Transitions in shows like this ought to be quicker. I know it’s hard to get the tech set up, but for the love of God, at least
play something that keeps the energy going in between. 5. D.R.A.M. didn’t seem to realize exactly what audience he was facing when he asked if the ladies in the crowd had “good pussy.” Cringy. 6. Tinashe was very popular with the menfolk. See: guy in the balcony, one hand around his girlfriend’s shoulders, the other fi rmly grabbing his own crotch. He didn’t seem to realize that a) he was holding his own genitals or b) that, given that he was in the very front, Tinashe could clearly see. 7. Also see: guy in pit who, upon seeing Tinashe, stopped previously enthusiastic dancing and just stood and stared, nearly slack-jawed. Love at fi rst sight, I think. Beautiful to see. 8. Finally: who threw the T-shirt at Tinashe? Who is that unknown (and kind of baffl ing) hero? What did you hope to accomplish? Did you accomplish it? I hope you did. Truly. Summer Breeze needed a win.
Estelle Higgins Shelley Marshaun Massenburg-Smith, known by his stage name D.R.A.M., performed at Mandel Hall after appearing at Northwestern’s Dillo Day.
7
THE CHICAGO MAROON - MAY 23, 2017
By the Book: Brooker Prizewinners Discuss Their Collections BY CHLOE BARDIN & IVAN OST ARTS STAFF
This year’s T. Kimball Brooker Prize, awarded annually to second- and fourth-year students possessing an outstanding themed collection of books, actually went to a fourth-year and two second-years. THE M AROON sat down with each of the three winners this week to learn a little more about their exceptional collections.
BRYAN MCGUIGGIN Second-year, Mathematics. Collection: German Piano Music. When I picked books to send in for this collection, I had to choose five that I’m not currently playing. This is a collection of music I actually play. It began by accident when I started collecting the books I was playing as a kid, and it gradually became clear that I wanted to create a library for myself. That’s how I got started collecting German piano music; I just collected the music I wanted to play because I have an—I don’t know what the right word is—interest? fetish? for German music. Though it’s actually not my favorite kind of music. I really love vocal music. But I can’t sing. So I’m forced to play the piano.
It takes years, though, to make a collection like this. I’ve owned some of these books since I was seven years old. One thing that can be hard, but that I was lucky enough to receive good advice on, is buying the right editions. Editions are really important when you’re collecting, or studying or writing or playing. It often comes down to publisher—if Henle puts out a new edition of Rachmaninoff, for example, I’ll go find that. It’s about really having a full complement of the canon of German music, from Bach through people like Prokofiev, who weren’t themselves German but who were heavily influenced by German styles. There’s plenty more I’m looking for. Henle is publishing a new edition of Bartók, for example. There’ve been some really awful editions published that I can’t stand. You can tell I’m a real nerd about this kind of stuff. About half of my music is in Massachusetts right now. I had an especially hard time choosing what to bring to Chicago. All of these books travel with me so I can have access to all the little details [notes, marginalia] that go with them. This is different than, say, a novel, where you don’t always need to reference the tiny facts about measure
Courtesy of Alan Klehr From left to right: Fourth-year Jackson Bierfeldt, second-year Billie Males, T. Kimball Brooker, and second-year Bryan McGuiggin.
length or rests. I keep buying more books, too. In every city I’ve lived, I have my favorite music store. I’m also signed up for newsletters from big publishers. I’ll also hear a piece I really like and think, ‘I’d like to have that book.’ This means I’ve probably spent thousands of dollars over the last 15 years. The Beethoven sonatas are $50—but they’re printed in Germany! On decent paper! I got those as my birthday present when I was 12.
I don’t always advertise my collection, though. My status as a musician is more well advertised than the collection itself. In a way my collection is primary, and in a way, it’s not. It’s primary in that I think really hard about what I want next and where I’ll go to get it. But it’s also not primary in that the collection is only really there to serve my practical needs: All of my teachers have had collections similar to mine, which are much larger and more impressive. My teach-
ers’ larger and more impressive collections actually inspired me to collect in the fi rst place. I think I’ve come up with something pretty good, though. I like these books—they’re pretty things. I think that I’ve invested the amount of energy and money that I have says I’m very serious about my music. My collection also says that I really, really like German piano music. To read more about the other winners, check out the full story at chicagomaroon.com
Court’s Harvey Mixes Giant Rabbits and Psychiatrists BY EMILY EHRET ASSOCIATE ARTS EDITOR
“In this world, Elwood, you must be oh-so-smart or oh-sopleasant.” That’s the advice Harvey’s protagonist, Elwood P. Dowd, recalls receiving from his late mother. Her death after 40 years of being “oh-so-smart”— and the mysterious appearance of a six-foot-tall rabbit named Harvey that only he can see— compels Elwood to shift his life from smart to pleasant and never look back. I wish I could say the same of the show itself. With one foot in genuine, pleasant observations about humanity and wonderful theatrical artistry and the other foot fumbling in 1940s “smarts” about psychiatry, the whole production nearly topples over. I’ll begin with the pleasant. Harvey, a Pulitzer Prize–winning play from 1944 that has garnered multiple screen adaptations, is an engaging piece of theater. Court Theatre captures our attention from the opening scene. Mother Veta Louise Simmons (Karen Janes Woditsch) and daughter Myrtle Mae (Sarah Price) are entertaining guests in their family home. Farcical energy arises when Elwood (Timothy Edward Kane), Veta’s brother, arrives and begins to introduce his invisible rabbit companion, Harvey, to all the guests. This is the breaking point for social climber Veta who, despite great affection for her brother, has him committed to a sanitarium to save the family’s reputation. Court’s remarkable set trans-
forms from the Simmons’ library to Dr. Chumley’s sanitarium. The fi rst scene change happens in the dark, and the reveal of the sanitarium was honestly one of my favorite moments of the show. The soaring bookshelves and draped curtains of Veta’s home become a row of clinical doors, a new portrait appears above the mantel, and the tasteful salon furniture is skillfully rearranged to communicate a psychiatric waiting room. It’s rare that I want to sit and watch an extensive scene transition, but for this show I actually stuck around during intermission to watch the choreography. Court’s creative team knows how to maximize the beauty and functionality of their sets. The sanitarium is also where Veta and Elwood shine. Veta reveals her complicated relationship with Harvey to psychiatrist Lyman Sanderson (Erik Hellman). Though she believes the rabbit figure to be a manifestation of her brother’s mental illness, she has on rare occasion seen the creature herself. Sanderson and nurse Miss Kelly (Jennifer Latimore) drastically misread the situation and commit Veta to the institution instead of Elwood. Sanderson releases ever-amiable Elwood in a scene replete with comedic misunderstandings, creating a narrative full of twists and turns aptly followed by the actors. As familial tensions rise, so do questions about Harvey’s true nature: Is the rabbit really Elwood’s psychological delusion, or is it some magical spirit that influences them all?
These questions should be enough to engage the audience through the entire play. Harvey, however, tries to get clever with its thematic elements, and that’s where I had objections. Beneath all of the (very heterosexual) couplings that form during the show is an undercurrent of sexual violence. Mrs. Chumley (Amy Carle) appears once and heavily hints at abuse by her husband, head psychiatrist Dr. Chumley (A.C. Smith), but never returns to resolve this plot point. Veta describes her near-commitment to the sanitarium as a violent, sexual ordeal, but the lines are played off for laughs (the audience knows it to have been a misunderstanding). Meanwhile, Myrtle, her own daughter, is apparently turned all the way on by her mother’s account of near rape. Actress Price jumps at the opportunity to make her otherwise flat character sexually precocious, serving only to make me squirm in my seat. Later in the play I realized that even elements of the set design invoke an obsession with brutality and violence. Both the library and sanitarium are covered with taxidermized animals: a small brown bear on Chumley’s mantel, rows of antlers on his walls, some kind of weasel on display right next to Veta’s Jane Austen novels. Without a doubt, the production maintained a consistent theme, but it was one that co-opted human cruelty for humor without properly condemning it. Elwood’s kind, gentle spirit is meant to provide contrast to the cruelty of his surroundings, and
Kane is a delight to watch. That said, the character of Elwood raises questions about the show’s treatment of mental illness. Even if we disregard the presence of Harvey, Elwood still bears many of the signs of mental illness or trauma. But the narrative portrays his many tics and almost infantile trust in others as moral perks, all while painting psychiatry as a dubious field that offers terrible solutions to cases like his. The production almost manages a satisfying, laughter-filled tale of familial love and acceptance but ultimately suffers in its outdated views on mental health.
So why choose this play? “Harvey is an American classic that is begging to be staged right now,” says Court Theatre’s Artistic Director Charles Newell. The witty script certainly allowed Court’s company to show off its comedic prowess, but if it were my choice, Harvey’s ultimate message would have stayed in the 20th century. Harvey runs at the Court Theatre through June 11. $5 student rush tickets available one hour before curtain with ID, subject to availability. See courttheatre.org for more details.
Courtesy of Michael Brosilow Elwood (Timothy Edward Kane) and nurse Miss Kelly (Jennifer Latimore).
8
THE CHICAGO MAROON - MAY 23, 2017
SPORTS Women’s Track and Field Ready for Nationals TRACK & FIELD
BY RHEA BHOJWANI AND MICAHEL PERRY SPORTS EDITORS
The finale for the Women’s track and field season rapidly approaches as the Maroon women gear up for the NCA A DIII Outdoor Championships in Geneva, OH, from Thursday to Saturday. The University of Chicago team qualified for five events at the National Championship. The UChicago women come into the event following very impressive performances from their relay teams and their long distance squad as well as impressive individual showings in the heptathlon and the high jump. Out of the competitors, the 4x100-meter and 4x400-meter relay teams placed well their events and managed to qualify for the national championship. W hile the men’s team had some
strong showings in the qualifier last week, including a second-place finish in the shot put from fourth-year Andrew Maneval, none of the competitors managed to qualify for the national championship. The individual events saw firstyear Laura Darcey and third-year Olivia Cattau finish second and seventh respectively, which was good enough to advance to nationals. Third-year Megan Verner-Crist and third-year Ade Ayoola also managed to earn trips to Geneva, with Verner-Crist coming in as the 16th seed in the 150 0 -meter event and Avoola owning the 20th seed in the high jump. The Maroons are walking into nationals with their heads held high. “ This season, we have a really strong showing for nationals on the women’s side,” said first-year Alisha Harris, a member of both of the nationally qual-
ified relay teams. “I’m really proud of us as a program and I’m so proud of each of my teammates for making it this far and achieving this much.” “Since conference champs we have dropped eight seconds and have moved from not qualifying in the top 22 to being the fofth seed in the country,” added second-year and fellow relay member Emma Koether. “I could not be more proud of this group and can’t wait to see how this weekend ends up.” However, given that last year’s relay teams didn’t make it out of qualifiers, the group isn’t going to be satisfied with just showing up. At last year’s outdoor championship, the Maroons saw fourth-year Michelle Dobbs, who is a member of this year’s 4x400 team, finish seventh in the 80 0 -meter event and third-year K hia Kurtenbach finish sixth in the 5000-meter final. Both women earned
A ll-American accolades due to their performance. The team ended the year tied for 51st. The Chicago 4x400 team will also be competing for the title of best in the UA A , as the No. 1 seed in the event is Wash U The two historic rivals have matched up in almost every sport throughout the year, so it is only fitting that they will face off in what is likely the last sporting event of the year for both schools. UChicago will be looking to repeat their successes from last year as they head to Geneva this weekend. However, with forecasts in Ohio calling for rain, the event might be in jeopardy of being delayed or even postponed. The event begins on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. EST and lasts through Saturday.
Tight but Tough Losses for Maroons TENNIS
BY SIDDHARTH KAPOOR SPORTS EDITOR
The University of Chicago women’s tennis team took part in the quarterfinal round of the NCAA DIII team national championships yesterday in Chattanooga, TN. The quarterfinal round featured some of the best tennis teams in the country playing at Champions Club Tennis Complex at Rivermont Park. However, the men’s tennis team did not travel to Chattanooga after losing to Gustavus Adolphus College in the third round of the tournament. The Maroon men are disappointed after being ranked sixth overall and boasting an 18–5 record before the postseason. The squad fell 2–1 behind after doubles play, with the duo of Ninan Kumar and Erik Kerrigan picking up the victory for the team. After that, singles were an even split, with the bottom three Maroon lineup spots all clinching victories after the top three had fallen at the hands of the Gusties. While Kumar and third-years Luke Tsai and Peter Leung won their singles, it all boiled down to the second singles, which Kerrigan lost 4–6, 7–6, 7–5. On the other hand, the No. 9 UChicago women’s tennis team did make it to Chattanooga and played No. 4 Williams Col-
lege (17–4) in the NCAA quarterfinals on Monday morning. The appearance marked the women’s tennis team’s 10th consecutive postseason appearance. The team was looking to avenge its loss to Williams last year but was unable to pull it off. They lost 5–3, going 2–3 in singles matches (with a sixth game unfinished) and dropping two of three doubles matchups as well. The result is disappointing, but it caps off a remarkable season for the team, which looks to come back at almost full strength next year with only one departing fourth-year, Tiffany Chen. One person who shares this optimism is first-year Alyssa Rudin, who commented, “It definitely sucks ending the season with a loss, but it’s hard to be any kind of disappointed because I think we’ve had an incredible season. We beat Wash U four times, which I don’t think we’ve ever done in a single season. We got third at indoor nationals and second at UAAs, where we played Emory super close. We proved that we belong with the top tier teams and that we can hang with pretty much anyone regardless of talent level.” This was also a special occasion for Rudin, as it was her last game with Chen, her doubles partner. Rudin remarked, “I was super emotional this whole weekend
University of Chicago Athletics Dept. Second-year Rachel Kim and first-year Marjorie Antohi compete in their doubles match.
just thinking about it, and I’m really sad that I couldn’t give her a win to go out on, but I’m just really honored that I got to play with her and contribute in some way to her last season.” In addition, the NCAA singles and doubles championships will run from Thursday to Saturday, May 25–27. Four South Siders earned inclusion in the 32-player singles
draws and 16-team doubles brackets. Thirdyear Ariana Iranpour will represent the women for the third consecutive year while third-year Nicholas Chua is also representing the Maroons in singles competition for the third year straight. Kerrigan will also take part in the singles tournament and will be joined by Kumar for the doubles championship.
M AROON
SCORE BOARD SPORT
W/L
Opponent
Score
Men’s Tennis
L
Gustavus
5-4
Women’s Tennis
L
Williams
5-3
Baseball
L
Wash U
8-5
Baseball
L
Wash U
14-5
Softball
L
No. 3 Luther
6-0
Softball
L
No. 25 St. Catherine
5-2