Monday, Jan. 22, 2018

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Monday, Jan. 22, 2018

IDS Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com

Marching on: Women’s March continues, page 2

Jacobs hires 22 full-time faculty By Chris Forrester chforres@umail.iu.edu @_ChrisForrester

A Higher Power The First Church of Cannabis will fight in court soon for the religious right to use marijuana By Nyssa Kruse nakruse@iu.edu | @NyssaKruse

INDIANAPOLIS — A man with wild hair swaggers between the pews of the First Church of Cannabis. Funky music fills the room as the man, Bill Levin, reaches the front of the room. “Please, all rise,” says Levin, the founder and Grand Poobah of the church. “Repeat after me.” He grips a microphone and stands before a projection of a giant cannabis leaf, facing all six congregants. “I love you!” he shouts. “I love you!” the crowd shouts back. “I love you!” Levin shouts again, and the crowd echoes his words. They go back and forth a few times, yelling the words Levin calls the most important in the world, the words he has been proselytizing since the church opened in 2015, weeks after Indiana passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. When the shouts are done, Levin lights seven candles representing the church’s focus areas for each day of the week — live, love, laugh, learn, create, grow and teach — and calls for member testimonials. Soon, Levin makes church announcements: a thank you to the man who repaired their furnace, a notification some T-shirts are for sale. Then, he pauses, looking at his notes.

“We’ve got a church court date on March 6, 7 and 8,” he says. “Hope y’all come down.” He tells them the event will be fun and educational, an exhibition of justice in action. “Looking forward to it,” he says and glances up. He raises his eyebrows, opens his eyes wide and scoffs. “Looking forward to it.” * * * In July 2015, Levin and the First Church of Cannabis sued the state of Indiana claiming it was their First Amendment religious right to smoke marijuana as Cannaterians — adherents to the faith the church says it practices. The lawsuit came a few months after the state passed RFRA, a piece of legislation that allowed individuals and companies to use their religious beliefs as a defense if sued. Levin and the state have spent the last two and a half years mired in paperwork and depositions for the case, but a judge is finally scheduled to hear arguments this March. As of now, Cannaterians don’t use marijuana in church, but if they win the case, members 21 and older plan to smoke or vape marijuana at the end of services. Others under 21 will be invited to cookies and tea in the cafe downstairs while older members partake. To win the case, Levin and his church will have to convince the court that first, their Cannaterian beliefs, particularly that marijuana is a holy sacrament, are genuine reli-

MALLORY SMITH | IDS

Bill Levin talks about how the candles represent the seven focus areas as a member of the First Church of Cannabis, Roo Gelarden, lights the candles. The candles represent the following: live, love, laugh, create, grow and teach.

gious beliefs. This might be a tough task considering the timing of the church’s creation, IU law professor Daniel Conkle said, because it was founded right as RFRA became law. This could make the church seem politically-motivated. The state has also argued that Levin’s church can hardly be considered a religion, writing in court documents the church seems “to have cobbled their ‘religion’ together from inspirational quotations (‘Live, Laugh, Love’), popular television programs (‘The Flintstones’ and ‘Seinfeld’), military slogans (‘Be All You Can Be’) and elements of bona fide religions.” However, Levin said in an interview with the Indiana Daily Student that he did not create the church for political reasons, but because he had long felt like he should create a faith that actually reflects his own beliefs. He had been an ordained minister since 2010, and he said the timing of the church’s creation was not to prove a political point. Even if the church does manage to prove the authenticity of their religious beliefs, inSEE CHURCH, PAGE 5

IU’s Jacobs School of Music is taking on a record 22 new full-time faculty members this academic year, according to a press release sent out Tuesday. “The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music continues to position itself for the future, while shaping the now,” according to the release. With these new hirings, more than 10 percent of the music school’s 180-person faculty is new. The institution is looking to expand its roster of faculty to assure its excellence for the foreseeable future, Jeremy Allen, the Jacobs Eugene O’Brien Bicentennial Executive Associate Dean, said in the press release. “We are positioning the school to continue to be a leading institution for the next 20 years by looking ahead and adding the necessary elements now,” Allen said. Allen added that the most significant focus in finding new faculty members was consistency, not change. “One of the most important parts of hiring this new class of faculty members is what’s not going to change,” Allen said. “We’ve managed to maintain a faculty of the very highest quality.” Many of the school’s new faculty members were hired in order to find successors for long-term music school faculty who are no longer with the program, according to the release. Others were brought in to offer talent in new fields of study. “We also were eager to attract faculty who can bring expertise in new areas to us,” Allen said in the release. Allen also said they heavily considered the current state of the music world when making their decisions. “We were trying to take into consideration what the current state of the music profession is, and what our students will need to have in their degree and going forward into SEE JACOBS, PAGE 5

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Morgan injured as Hoosiers lose big against Spartans By Jake Thomer

85-57

jjthomer@indiana.edu | @jakethethomer

Blowout losses are disappointing enough on their own, particularly for a team riding a three-game winning streak and starting to gather real momentum. When a team’s leading scorer gets hurt in the first half of said blowout, like junior forward Juwan Morgan did in IU’s game at Michigan State, it quite literally adds injury to insult. The Hoosiers went into East Lansing with increasing confidence on Friday night, but left with an 85-57 defeat and an injured star as the No. 9 Spartans pulled away in the first half and piled it on late. IU was already down by more than 20 points when Morgan landed awkwardly on his left ankle with less than three minutes to play in the first half. But when he limped into the locker room, the loss seemed certain. Morgan never came back out of the locker room after the injury, and after the game, IU Coach Archie Miller couldn’t do much but confirm that his third-year forward had suf-

EVAN DE STEFANO | IDS

Forward Collin Hartman attempts a layup while charging the basket during the Hoosiers’ game against the Michigan State Spartans on Friday at The Breslin Center in East Lansing, Michigan. The Hoosiers fell to the Spartans, 85-57.

fered a left ankle injury. “I was told at halftime it was an ankle and they were going to keep him in here in the locker room and evaluate him, and maybe start some

treatment on him if he couldn’t go,” Miller said on his postgame radio show. The Hoosiers, now 11-8 overall and 4-3 in the Big Ten, hung with the

Osmo Vänskä /// Music Director

TOMORROW! IUAUDITORIUM.COM JANUARY 23

Spartans in the early going. At the 16-minute mark in the first half, the Hoosiers led 10-9 and were shooting above 50 percent from the floor. But Michigan State relented with an

up-tempo offense that wore down IU early on, and an 18-0 Spartan run ensued. Michigan State built an early rebounding advantage – they would finish the game with 45 rebounds to IU’s 27 – and pushed the ball often. Miller used nine different Hoosiers to try and slow the Spartans down at times, but they struggled to keep up. “They were very, very motivated to run the floor,” Miller said. “We just couldn’t sustain it over the course of the first half in terms of getting back.” Meanwhile, IU’s offense went cold after a hot start, and the 3-point woes that have plagued the team all season returned. Senior guards Robert Johnson and Josh Newkirk made all eight of IU’s 3-pointers, but Newkirk needed 12 attempts to make just four while the rest of the Hoosiers aside from Johnson missed all SEE BASKETBALL, PAGE 5


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