The Justice, November 10, 2015

ARTS Page 18

SPORTS Men power past NYU 16

“RUINED”

FORUM Question Obama's Syria intervention 12 The Independent Student Newspaper

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B r a n d e is U n i v e r sit y S i n c e 1 9 4 9

Justice

Volume LXVIII, Number 9

www.thejustice.org

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Faculty

CONFRONTING CONCERNS

Adjunct faculty file for union ■ After beginning to

organize over the summer, over 200 faculty members signed a petition on Wednesday to form a union.

By MAX MORAN JUSTICE Editor

Over 200 adjunct and contract faculty members have signed an official petition to form a union, which was submitted to the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday. The 230 faculty members are seeking to join the Service Employees International Union Local 509 through their Faculty Forward division, which represents non-tenure track faculty at colleges and universities throughout the Boston area.

Representatives from SEIU and the University will now meet with NLRB agents to set the date, time and place for a vote that will determine whether a union is formed. All parties must also agree to clear defi-

nitions of who can and cannot be represented by the union. Brandeis Faculty Forward, a committee of professors that has led the unionization campaign on campus, hopes to create a union representing all faculty who are not currently tenured or on the tenure track. Graduate students who are hired at a flat rate to teach courses might be eligible for union membership under this definition, according to comments made by Prof. Steven Plunkett (ENG) in an Oct. 7 Teach-In event.

According to paperwork provided to the Justice by SEIU spokesperson Jason Stephany, the union hopes to hold the election at some time between Nov. 30 and Dec. 14. The union is being represented by attorney Patrick Bryant, while attorney Nicholas DiGiovanni will represent the University.

According to Stephany, “Once Brandeis faculty win their union, they will conduct surveys and

See UNION, 7 ☛

Student union

Amendment on A-Board passes ■ Students voted on

Friday to institute a new amendment that will change the A-Board composition.

By HANNAH WULKAN JUSTICE Editor

An amendment to the Student Union constitution that increases the number of people on the Allocations Board and allows a presidential veto of any budget proposed by the ABoard passed in a vote that ran from Friday to Saturday with 243 votes in favor of the amendment, or 81 percent, out of 301 total votes.

The amendment increases the number of A-Board members from seven to 11, which will be made up of the Student Union Treasurer, one Senator and nine elected members with different term lengths. Under the new amendment, four of the elected members will have one-year

terms, three will have three-semester terms and two will be Racial Minority Members elected to serve one-year terms. This new system is intended to ensure that there are always members with experience on A-Board to “pass down their knowledge and to avoid the same thing happening over and over again,” A-Board Chair Millie Wu ’18 said in an interview with the Justice. The amendment also stipulates a presidential veto, which allows the Student Union President to veto any budget. This veto, according to the amendment, can only be overturned with a two-thirds vote of A-Board members.

Wu added that having more members will allow for a faster process, as A-Board requires only four members to be present to make funding decisions. By adding more members, she said, there should be more available time slots to schedule meetings. She added that A-Board would have a

See A-BOARD, 7 ☛

MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

AIRING GRIEVANCES: Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel, Interim University President Lisa Lynch and Dean of Students Jamele Adams heard and responded to students' concerns at the Town Hall meeting on Wednesday.

Divestment to be decided by next president, says Lynch ■ Interim University

President Lisa Lynch debated with students over the issue of fossil fuel.

By max moran JUSTICE editor

Interim President Lisa Lynch announced at last Wednesday’s town hall forum that the University will not make a decision on whether to divest its endowment from the fossil fuel industry until after the next University president is selected. She also addressed rumors about the future of Usen Castle, saying that the University will most likely have to take down part of the building, as the renovations required to preserve it for the next 20 years would most likely be prohibitively expensive.

Lynch made two announcements that responded to the University’s sexual assault climate survey, the first wave of results for which was released in October. The University hopes to address the finding that only 38.2 percent of students know where to report an assault with a new flier campaign to spread awareness of the University’s sexual assault services, which is being headed by Interim Vice President for Communications Judy Glasser. Lynch stated that the graduate schools are developing new pro-

grams to train graduate students in sexual assault prevention and awareness of University resources.

In an email to the Justice, Glasser said that the University will also be bringing speakers to campus, mounting other photo campaigns to publicize resources and conducting additional trainings. Dean of the Graduate Schools of Arts and Sciences Eric Chasalow wrote in an email to the Justice that the programs being developed for graduate students are adapted from programs already offered to faculty and undergraduates. “We are working on a combination of online and live training, using the ‘train the trainer’ model as much as possible,” he added. Graduate students with teaching assignments are “the immediate priority” of the new training programs, according to Chasalow, though he noted that he wants all students to eventually go through the programs.

Sexual Assault Services and Prevention Specialist Sheila McMahon and Director of Graduate Student Affairs Jessica Basile are leading the development process, according to Chasalow.

Lynch said at the town hall that the University has “made marked improvements in our orientation so that our first-year students and sophomores in particular seem to know much more of what [sexual assault services are] available on campus, but as you get in[to] the juniors and seniors,

and certainly for graduate students, there’s not been the same intensity of training in services.” While the data from the climate survey released thus far does not break down by class year how aware students are of campus resources, it does show that on average, fewer graduate students are aware of both confidential and reporting services on campus. She added that the executive council of the faculty senate and the University advisory committee have formed a joint committee to address sexual assault on campus and that the University is part of ongoing conversations with other colleges on the issue.

Lynch then addressed fossil fuel divestment, saying that the next University president will likely be announced in December or January and that “we want to be able to have that president, with the Board of Trustees, jointly make a decision about [divestment]. It is a great way, I think, for the incoming president to engage with the campus community on issues that are near and dear to their hearts.” She then discussed the recently-formed President’s Task Force on Campus Sustainability, which was inspired by the University’s commitment in 2008 to have reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2015, although the University’s greenhouse gas emissions are now 1 percent

See TOWN HALL, 7 ☛

Rebuilding Nepal

Playoff berth

Rabin's legacy

 Brandeis alum Nathan Belofsky '81 co-founded a non-profit to help rebuild Nepal using revolutionary earthbag technology.

 The women's soccer team advanced to the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III Tournament on Monday.

 Three professors discussed slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's legacy as a peacemaker in the Middle East.

FEATURES 9

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Waltham, Mass.

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INDEX

SPORTS 16

ARTS SPORTS

17 13

EDITORIAL FEATURES

10 9

OPINION POLICE LOG

10 2

News 3

COPYRIGHT 2015 FREE AT BRANDEIS.

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TUESDAY, November 10, 2015

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THE JUSTICE

NEWS SENATE LOG Senators vote in favor of revoking charters and recognition for 21 clubs and amending A-Board bylaws The Senate convened on Sunday to charter and recognize three clubs, de-recognize clubs who failed to file anti-hazing forms and pass a bylaw amendment pertaining to the Allocations Board.

The first order of business was a motion to defund twenty-one clubs who have yet to turn in their anti-hazing forms. About the matter, David Herbstritt ’17 said, “We’ve made a lot of effort to reach out and find contact information — unfortunately, in some cases, to no avail.” Lorenzo Finamore ’18 stated that he was pleased with the relatively low number of clubs that failed to turn in the form compared to last year. The board unanimously voted to de-recognize and de-charter the 21 clubs.

Following the vote, Evan Goldstein ’16 and Sam Bernhiem ’18 sought recognition for a Brandeis chapter of the Kinetic Club. The parent chapter of the club began at Williams College two years ago.

The Senate voted unanimously to recognize the club. Coalition Against Anti-Semitism in Europe representative Misha Vilenchuk ’16 then sought recognition and charter for his club. Senators voted to recognize and charter the club. The final club proposal came from Alex Mitchell ’17 for the Neuroscience Club. The Senate voted in favor of recognizing and chartering the club.

Student Union President Nyah Macklin ’16 was present at the meeting and gave an executive officer report. Macklin discussed the mandatory meeting that happened on Monday night for all individuals seeking to run for the open A-Board seats and noted that there will be another three-semester A-Board position expiring at the end of the semester.

The Senate then moved into committee chair reports, the highlights of which included updates on the Midnight Buffett organization, the potential development of an environmental course requirement and the possible development of a mural in East Quad’s Airplane Lounge.

Additionally, the Senate voted on Senate Money Requests for gift card incentives for a preferred pronoun survey and for funding for a social justice and diversity event. The Senate voted to fund the former and voted not to fund the latter.

The senators also voted to pass an A-Board bylaws amendment, the highlights of which include rules on how A-Board members can vote, when the A-Board will have its marathon sessions and how club leaders may air grievances with allocations decisions.

POLICE LOG Medical Emergency

Nov. 2—A Community Advisor in North Quad requested the transport of a student to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for treatment. University Police transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

Nov. 2—Police received a report of a party in Sherman Dining Hall feeling ill and requesting BEMCo assistance. BEMCo staff treated the party on the scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Nov. 3—A party in the Spingold Theater reported feeling dizzy and nauseous. BEMCo staff treated the party on the scene and requested an ambulance. The party was transported to Newton-Wellelsey Hospital for further care.

Nov. 3—Police received a call concerning a party who injured their ankle. BEMCo treated the party on the scene, and University Police then transported the party to an Urgent Care facility for further care.

Nov. 3—A party walked into the Stoneman building requesting assistance for an illness.

BEMCo treated the party, and Cataldo Ambulance transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care.

Nov. 5—A caller reported an unknown medical call in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center. Police found the party to have a knee injury and transported the subject to Newton-Wellesley Hospital Emergency Room for further care.

Nov. 7—A party in Massell Quad reported suffering from an unknown pain after going on a run. BEMCo staff treated the party on the scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Nov. 7—A party came to the Stoneman building and reported that they were injured in the face practicing karate. BEMCo staff treated the party on the scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Nov. 8—Police received a report requesting BEMCo for an

intoxicated party in Massell Quad who was conscious and alert. University Police and BEMCo responded and transported the party via Cataldo Ambulance to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care.

the Usdan Student Center reported the theft of $960 dollars of United States currency from their pocketbook while using the restroom. Afterward, University Police compiled a report on the incident.

Disturbance

Other

Nov. 7—Police received a complaint of a loud group outside of Ziv Quad causing a disturbance. University Police found nothing upon their arrival at the area.

Drugs

Nov. 3—The Area Coordinator for Grad Housing requested University Police presence for possible drug activity and confiscation. Police confiscated the contraband substance with the Area Coordinator to file judicial charges. University Police compiled an incident report.

Larceny

Nov. 6—A staff member in

EXPLORING A TREND

Halloween email sparks debate on race at Yale

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

n A Features article stated that Prof. Eileen McNamara (JOUR) said “the personal records of the Archdiocese” and “because the court’s indifference to the Church.”

McNamara in fact said, “the personnel records of the Archdiocese” and “because the court’s deference to the Church.” (Nov. 3, page 9). n An Arts article incorrectly spelled Edna Sams’ name as “Edna Sans.” (Nov. 3, page 19).

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—compiled by Avi Gold.

BRIEF

—Jaime Kaiser

n A News article contained the following errors: its headline falsely implied that the Schuster Institute itself was accused of rape and was not, in fact, investigating a false conviction case; it falsely implied that the George Perrot case was the Schuster Institute’s most recent investigation when it is only the most recent to make it back to court; it falsely stated that Perrot’s trial and conviction occurred in 1985 when he was only arrested in 1985 but tried and convicted in 1987; it referred to a 1992 retrial as an “appeal”; it falsely referred to hair testing as DNA testing when hair testing is, in fact, a seperate area of forensics; it falsely stated that Angel Echavarria was exonerated on May 18 when, in fact, he was released on bail on May 18 and exonerated on June 16; it stated falsely that a “likely false confession” had been forged by the prosecutor in Perrot’s first trial, when it was, in fact, a document from the night of his arrest; it implied that the 2009 National Academy of Sciences report dealt only with practices used by the FBI, when in fact, the practices are used generally, including by the FBI; it used language implying that the Schuster Institute seeks to overturn cases directly rather than investigate cases through journalistic practices; and it stated that witnesses were “investigated” when they were “examined,” meaning that lawyers spoke to them, not that their backgrounds were examined. Due to space constraints, an earlier correction listed only the article’s errors and not the corrected facts. (Oct. 27, page 1).

Nov. 5—A caller stated a party with full military fatigues with a bright orange bag was present in the Science Lot. University Police stopped the subject and found they were visiting campus after graduating 30 years ago but had no contact person on campus.

University Police issued the party a verbal no-trespassing warning and escorted the party off campus.

Nov. 5—The office of the Dean of Students received a strange unidentified handwritten letter via United States Postal Service mail. University Police compiled a report on the incident.

MORGAN BRILL/the Justice

Prof. Bernadette Brooten (NEJS) speaks at the faculty meeting on the sexual assault climate survey, claiming that underlying racism in the classroom could add to students’ hesitation to report sexual misconduct.

In recent weeks, Yale University has been plagued by an ongoing debate over free speech and sensitivity toward different cultures and which should take precedence over the other.

In late October, Yale’s Intercultural Affairs Committee sent an email to students asking them to avoid wearing “culturally unaware and insensitive” Halloween costumes, according to a Nov. 8 New York Times article. Specifically, the article noted, administrators advised students to avoid wearing costumes that include things like blackface, Native American headdresses or turbans.

In response to the email, Erika Christakis, an associate master with Yale’s Branford College, wrote in a letter to students living in Branford — one of Yale’s 12 residential colleges — inviting students to question whether the university had the right to dictate their costumes. She also expressed what she said were concerns from many students that the university’s actions abridged the students’ freedom of expression. “American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition,” she wrote.

Christakis’s letter hit a nerve with some members of Yale’s student body, many of whom criticized her argument that free speech should be valued above sensitivity, according to the article. In an open letter signed by hundreds, students wrote that “to ask marginalized students to throw away their enjoyment of a holiday, in order to expend emotional, mental, and physical energy to explain why something is offensive, is — offensive. … To be a student of color on Yale’s campus is to exist in a space that was not created for you.”

In an email sent to the student body on Thursday, the Dean of Yale College Jonathan Holloway wrote that he supported the original email about not choosing culturally insensitive costumes, according to the New York Times article. “We need always to be dedicated to fashioning a community that is mindful of the many traditions that make us who we are,” he wrote.

—Abby Patkin

ANNOUNCEMENTS “Colored Television”

Join Marla Frederick, Professor of African and African American Studies and the Study of Religion at Harvard University, for a discussion of her research on understanding how African American and African-descended producers, distributors and consumers of religious broadcasting approach and make meaning of mediated religion.

Today from 10 to 11:20 a.m. in Mandel Center for the Humanities room G12.

“Spotlight” Revisited

In conjunction with the release of the film “Spotlight,” a fictionalized portrayal of the Boston Globe’s discovery and subsequent coverage of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, there will be a panel that revisits the challenges and implications of that coverage. The panel will be moderated

by Prof. Eileen McNamara (JOUR), former Globe columnist.

Participants will be Marty Baron, former

editor of the Boston Globe (now editor of the Washington Post); Walter Robinson, Sacha Pfeiffer and Mike Rezendes of the Globe’s “Spotlight” investigative team; Jon Albano, attorney for the Globe; and Josh Singer, screenwriter of the “Spotlight” film.

Today from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Wasserman Cinematheque.

formerly religious concepts. As yoga moves ever closer to the center of American life, he will seek to understand how this growth may influence far more than our physical or mental health, but might alter our shared political life as well.

Thursday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Shapiro Admissions Center Presentation Room.

Pepero Day

Stan Brooks ’79: From Brandeis to Hollywood

Join Brandeis’s Korean Students Association as we celebrate Pepero Day, a fun holiday that celebrates love. It is South Korea’s version of Valentine’s Day. Wednesday from 12 to 4 p.m. in the Intercultural Center Swig Lounge.

The Political Theology of Modern Yoga

In this talk, Professor Christian Lee Novetzke will discuss yoga as a political ideology and, in particular, as counterpoint to the current resurgence of debates about “political theology,” the secularization of

Brandeis alum Stan Brooks ’79 (AMST) has produced over sixty films and recently directed the indie feature “Perfect Sisters,” starring Oscar winner Mira Sorvino and nominee Abigail Breslin.

He will tell his story of creating a Film Festival in Deroy Hall his freshman year, running the Student Programming Board his senior yearand finally venturing to Tinsel Town, winning the Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries.

Monday from 5 to 6 p.m. in the Mandel Center for the Humanities room G06.

THE JUSTICE

Faculty

Lynch discusses “tradeoffs” of unionization at meeting ■ Professors spoke on

the sexual assault climate survey, specifically why students hesitate to report sexual harassment.

By Rachel moore JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Professors and administrators raised concerns with the ongoing faculty unionization movement at Friday’s faculty meeting. Other topics included the results of the sexual assault climate survey and campus sustainability initiatives.

Interim University President Lisa Lynch opened Friday’s meeting with a follow-up to the Climate Survey on Sexual Misconduct on campus, whose first wave of results were released on Oct. 8. She stated that the task force for sexual assault response services and prevention had a meeting 10 days ago, and that the University hopes to put up fliers containing locations and contact information for emergency services across campus. “To see in the survey that a quarter of our undergraduates and more than half of our graduate students had no idea of where to turn to should they have been in a situation where either they or a friend had been assaulted, that’s just horrible,” Lynch said, noting that the fliers were just the first step of many in the University’s response to the survey.

Later, Senior Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Sheryl Sousa ’90 and Associate Provost for Academic Affairs Kim Godsoe presented the survey results in a PowerPoint. Godsoe stated that she has been studying the data for months now, adding that “these numbers are hard to look at.” 34.3 percent of combined undergraduates and graduates responded to the survey. The statistics Godsoe and Sousa flagged during the presentation included the number of students who responded that they had been sexually assaulted: 21 males, 186 females and 6 “trans/other” students. Additionally, they noted that of the respondents, 6 males and 49 females reported that they had been raped. “The numbers are high,” Godsoe said, though she added that “they are consistent with other universities.” However, she continued, “Throughout the survey, we saw that trans/other students faced sexual harassment and faced sexual assault at rates far higher than any of our other populations.”

A brief discussion followed the presentation, and Prof. Bernadette Brooten (NEJS) commented that

she had received feedback from students who volunteered “what might be hindering them in coming forth [about sexual abuse or misconduct], and the very first thing they talked about was faculty comments to Asian students in class. …

Such as “I want to learn all of your names, but I’m not going to learn the Asian names because I can’t remember them, because they all look alike. … We need to be aware of what we say [to] help someone to be part of the community, feel part of the community, or not.”

Mary Fischer, manager of sustainability programs, gave a presentation on the University’s energy consumption. In 2007, she noted, Brandeis pledged “climate neutrality” — having zero net greenhouse gas emissions — by 2050. She also noted that the University spends about 10 million dollars each year on gas and electric costs, which amounts to about 25 percent more energy than other comparable universities consume.

However, Fischer said, the Sustainability Program has already found small successes on campus.

The University’s six “Turn it Off Days” over the summer and at the beginning of the year reduced energy consumption on peak energy days by 28 percent. Fischer also commented on the ongoing recycling competition between North and Massell Quads, stating that “this is the first of its kind that’s ever been done.” “[Massell and North’s] baseline recycling rates were about 12 and 14 percent, respectively, and over the last week they’re up to 34 percent,” she added. “That tells you [that if] you give a little incentive, a little gaming, … we can really make a difference.”

Upcoming sustainability projects include a transportation survey that will be given out next semester, as well as composting bins that will be installed next to each dining hall in a movement to reduce food waste. “I’m very excited to start composting at least 500 pounds a day or more,” Fischer said.

The faculty then shifted to a discussion on the unionization movement. Lynch began by summarizing that non-tenure track faculty filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to join the Service Employees International Union Local 509 on Nov. 4. According to Lynch, the non-tenure track faculty who filed the petition proposed a bargaining unit that would include primarily part-time faculty members. “We are working with the SEIU to clarify who all is being included in the bargaining unit,”

she added. “We will be presenting names of individuals that then are in that proposed bargaining unit that goes to the Board.”

Prof. Sarah Mead (MUS), speaking on the behalf of both herself and Neal Hampton, conductor of the Brandeis-Wellesley Orchestra, raised several questions during the discussion. She noted that many of her colleagues were unaware that individuals in similar positions — especially those who teach the arts — are working in a sub-full time capacity. “We have been, for many years, your equals and your colleagues in … all the major committees here in the University. We find ourselves, because we are less than full time, although we are professors of the practice … in the position of having been separated out from the rest of our colleagues in this proposed bargaining unit,” she said.

She added: “Will we find ourselves outside, shut out of faculty governance? Will we find ourselves having to go elsewhere for grievances than where the rest of our colleagues go?”

Lynch responded that there will be “different tradeoffs” in respect to the terms of the agreement, adding that the “collective bargaining agreement itself needs to be ratified by all of those who are covered by [it]. I cannot present any guarantees on that.”

One faculty member asked how the University would differentiate between “long-term, part-time faculty versus adjunct,” to which Lynch responded that the stillongoing process for University administrators is “defining which group is which.”

Prof.

Sabine von Mering (GRALL) discussed the limitations created by the bargaining unit, stating: “it is so strange that in this Capitalist country we can’t determine our own working conditions.”

Lynch clarified that any individual that would become part of the bargaining unit would be subject to its terms of working conditions, as opposed to the terms stated in the Faculty Handbook, which currently serves that purpose.

Other faculty members argued that while they supported the unionization efforts, they did not want to be “conscripted.” Another professor also noted that there is not much distinction between contract and non-contract faculty amongst the faculty itself, stating: “We respect contributions of those who want to teach but not focus on research. People don’t even know who’s contracted because there is so much acceptance.”

MORGAN BRILL/the Justice

LAYING IT OUT: Interim University President Lisa Lynch discussed the recent updates in the adjunct faculty unionization movement and told faculty members at Friday’s faculty meeting what that process will look like in the coming weeks. Brandeis Faculty Forward filed a petition on Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board to have a vote to be represented by SEIU 509.

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TUESDAY, November 10, 2015

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MEMORY OF A LEADER

MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

COMMEMORATING A COMMANDER: Profs. Uri Bialer (NEJS), Gannit Ankori (FA) and Yehudah Mirsky (NEJS) discussed Yitzhak Rabin’s legacy 20 years after his death.

Profs address Rabin’s legacy ■ Three scholars of Israeli

art and history discussed the many facets of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s peacemaking.

By Abby patkin JUSTICE editor

In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s Nov. 4 assassination, three Brandeis scholars lectured on and later discussed his legacy as a peacemaker.

Interim Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies Rabbi David Ellenson introduced Wednesday’s event, the date of which he said was significant as it had been “seared undoubtedly in our souls” twenty years earlier.

Prof. Uri Bialer (NEJS) began his lecture by stating that he was close to the assassination when it occurred, noting how eerie it was when everyone around him dove to the ground, believing the gunshots to be a terrorist attack.

Bialer spoke on Rabin’s military career from age 19 to 46, discussing how his military background led him into politics. Bialer noted that Rabin’s rise to the position of Chief of General Staff — leader of the Israel Defense Forces — took “longer than usual” for someone of his stature and achievements, adding that Rabin should have been the third or fourth in that position, not the seventh, because Rabin had to wait for more senior officials to hold the office first. Bialer went on to note that Rabin’s military career was riddled with conflicts with David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister, who was mistrustful of Rabin’s leftleaning politics during his time in the Palmach, an elite fighting force.

After touching on Rabin’s involvement in 1967’s Yom Kippur War as the leader of the IDF, Bialer went on to discuss Rabin’s legacy as both a military man and as a peacemaker.

“The military has often been associated with war-mongering. … Rabin was definitely not the case.”

Bialer then quoted from Rabin’s 1994 speech at Oslo upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. In his speech, Rabin spoke about how difficult it is, as a commander, to make decisions, especially knowing that the decision could cost some individuals their lives. “‘That is the moment you grasp that as a result of the decision just made, people will be going to their deaths. People from my nation, people from other nations. And they still don’t know it,’” Bialer read from Rabin’s speech.

Prof. Gannit Ankori (FA) then shared images produced by Israeli artists in response to the assassination. Common motifs and themes in the artwork, she noted, included bloodstains, bullet holes and an encompassing sense of both despair and hope for future peace.

One of the images that Ankori showed the audience was of the bloodstained lyrics sheet for “Shir LaShalom,” the song for peace, which Rabin had publicly read moments before his assassination. “As the blood articulates in a loud shout, he became a martyr in the war for peace,” Ankori told the audience.

She went on to note that intergenerational peacemaking was just beginning to occur at the time of the assassination, as both young and old had begun to join forces to create peace in the Middle East. She added that Rabin’s assassination certainly affected these efforts and that many artists have expressed frustration with the apparent stalling in these peace efforts.

Ankori finished her lecture “on a sad note” by briefly touching on songs and artwork that praise the assassination, including the band Dead Rabinz, a punk group whose album “Israhell” has one song on it that begins with the broadcasters’ announcement of Rabin’s death, followed by the tune of “Hava Nagila” — “Let us Rejoice.”

Prof. Yehudah Mirsky (NEJS) then took the podium to discuss how his own life and work were affected by the assassination. Mirsky stated that he was in his 30s working in the U.S. State Department’s human rights bureau as a special advisor during the Clinton administration when he heard news of the assassination. At that moment, he said, he decided to go back to school and study Judaism and the Middle East. “I realized that my home was going up in flames,” he told the audience.

He also touched upon his roots in the Zionist movement and how early Zionists may have contributed to the current tension in the Middle East through the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. “It was that community and its incendiary rhetoric in particular … that helped set the tone,” he said.

Mirsky also argued that, in not speaking to the settlers directly, “Rabin himself and the then-leadership unwittingly contributed to the supercharged atmosphere.” He added that Rabin paid for this mistake “with his life.”

“This absence of conversation resulted not only from Rabin’s own temperament … but also from the long-term cultural malaise of Israel’s founding leaders, who in distancing themselves from their own cultural resources, left themselves unable to make the case for their political views in culturally compelling terms,” Mirsky concluded. “What I’m trying to say is that the witches’ brew of Israeli politics today is the result of many people … and that there is more than enough blame to go around.”

The three speakers then took the stage for a brief question-and-answer session. The lectures and discussion were sponsored by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.

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TUESDAY, November 10, 2015

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THE JUSTICE

Campus Clubs

Student Union

Group holds talk on SU launches new public website mental health stigma in Asian communities ■ After months of

■ The South Eastern Asian

Club and the United Against Inequities in Disease chapter hosted a screening of “Can” and a discussion on mental health.

By Daisy chen JUSTICE staff writer

On Thursday, Brandeis’s South Eastern Asian Club and the United Against Inequities in Disease Chapter at Brandeis discussed how mental illness is stigmatized in Southeast Asian families, at an event that was titled “Conflicts in Southeast Asia.”

After an introduction from SEAC president Amy Trankiem ’17, event coordinator Julie Ruiz ’17 read a quick summary of the documentary “Can,” discussing the journey of its main character, Can Truong.

The documentary follows Truong, one of the millions of Vietnamese refugees who fled to the United States in 1970. Having moved to Dayton, Ohio, Truong lived up to what the documentary called the “the model minority” stereotype and aspired to become a doctor until he was diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder.”

According to the film, Truong’s mental health issues dated back to high school, or perhaps even earlier in his life.

In the film, Truong’s sister noted that her brother “would be depressed when a test [was] coming out,” and that despite his struggles with schoolwork and stress, her parents never discussed it much. A woman from Truong’s community commented in the documentary that “mental illness [in our community] is a stigma. People [here] would not like to talk about it.”

In addition to facing racist comments upon his move to the United States, Truong also dealt with a strained relationship with his father, who was strict and often told Truong, “You are never good enough.” When Truong reflected on his relationship with his father in the documentary, he talked about how violent his father would be when he lost his temper. “He punished my sister and I when he lost his temper rather than [when] we did something wrong,” Truong said. According to the documentary, Truong’s father justified his violence by saying that he never complained when he was beaten by his father.

Truong was studying at Chicago University as an undergraduate when he was diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder. Upon his diagnosis, Truong’s mother moved in to care for him, but his father adopted a harsher approach, claiming that Truong was just too weak to cope with challenges independently.

Failing to find sufficient support from his family, Truong joined peer support groups and sought support from others with similar experiences.

After traveling around the world and giving speeches on the importance of support for mental health issues, Truong read his father’s biography and said in the documentary that he was finally able to understand his father’s mentality. Before fleeing Vietnam, Truong’s father was a millionaire who owned a mall and several shops. He was arrested by the Communists and sentenced to death due to their suspicion of his cooperation with the CIA during the Vietnam War and, in order to survive, he gave up all his possessions and fled with his family via boat.

“He did not mean to hurt me. I could not change him. That was his personality,” Truong concluded in the documentary.

A brief discussion followed the screening. Elizabeth Villano ’16 said during the discussion that the film “did a really great job in emphasizing the cultural norm [of] older generations [as] the newer generation tries to assimilate into American society. … The way they portrayed his father was really powerful.”

One student spoke on how the film was good at “humanizing Can.” She added that “the film was nice not to completely victimize Can. But it also showed his family. … They criticized him but also supported him at the same time. Can had mental illness, [but] his family and friends see him more than that. [I felt like] the film treats him as a human.”

Another student argued that the film “makes clear that a lot of what makes the mental illness challenging is psychological isolation. It is clear that in his recovery he has some people who could empathize with him.”

The first student responded that following the Vietnam War, “a lot of the population had trauma [from] the genocide. … It is not that they don’t have mental illness; it is that they don’t recognize it themselves.”

The discussion then transitioned to a presentation on the stigma mental illness carries in society. Eva

Ahmed ’16, one of the co-presidents of UAID, presented statistics on the stigma of bipolar disorder. According to her research, bipolar disorder — also known as manic-depression — is still quite misunderstood in society. She also claimed that “it is very common. There are more than three million U.S. cases a year.”

In a well-known case that Ahmed quoted, The Opinion Research Corporation Poll polled 1800 Americans on behalf of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association. Scientists found that among 1800 participants, 63 percent had a general awareness of the physiological nature of mental illness, as compared to 36 percent in 1995. According to the study, nearly 30 percent of participants maintained that those with bipolar disorder are easy to identify in the workplace, and around 19 percent argued that those with bipolar are not just like everyone else, a statement that Ahmed said “created division of us and them.”

Meisui Liu ’18, one of the copresidents of UAID, then discussed how mental illness is represented across cultures. “Mental illness is compounded by immigration experiences, conditions leading to immigration, poverty, lack of health insurance, language difficulties, loss of support system, lack of access to traditional healers,” Liu went on to add.

She added that “Can talked about pressure from his parents because his parents depend on him to be successful. Many Asian Americans have pressure to do well.”

Liu revealed that “a lot of South Asian countries do not recognize mental illness. Like Can’s father, he did not think of it as illness. He thought it as weakness. It’s different across cultures.” Ahmed added that a feature of mental illness in Japan is that “they just want to attach a physical way of defining [illness]. So split-mind disorder, ‘Seishin Bunretsu Byo,’ was another way of trying to define what these people were going through.”

When touching on methods of combating the stigma, Ahmed emphasized that individuals should “watch your language first, then their illness.”

She urged the audience to “please don’t define people of mental illness by what they are going through because at first they are humans, always. So I think that’s a very important point to take away.”

redevelopment and discussion on what content should be featured, the Student Union launched its new website on Wednesday.

By Matthew Schattner JUSTICE Editorial Assistant

Brandeis’s Student Union unveiled its new website to the public on Nov. 4, updating its internet presence in content, style and substance. According to Student Union President Nyah Macklin ’16, the new webpage seeks to improve the Student Union’s transparency and act as a more comprehensive source of information for the Brandeis student community on their representative body.

“We want to be seen as role models for both our peers and for other student governments across the northeast and one day, across the nation. It’s a tall order. But this year is just the first step in the right direction,” asserted Macklin on the significance of the new website in an email to the Justice.

The new Student Union website homepage opens to a blue and white theme reminiscent of the University colors. Additionally, situated directly under the large blue words “Your Student Union” at the top of the homepage rests the question, “We are here to serve you from orientation to graduation and beyond. How?” Macklin stated that this text was chosen to headline the new website because of its significance in helping to declare a mission of open communication with the University’s student body.

“We wanted our students to know that we were here for them, not for anyone else. We need them to know we are here to support them and advocate for them,” she went on to add.

Transparency has been one of Macklin’s focuses in her tenure as Student Union President. She wrote in her email that she believes that the new website allows for greater student civic engagement with their representatives.

“We have our peers at the front of our minds with every single step we make. We will not move as a Union if it is not in the student’s best interests. Transparency is in the students’ best interests. And this development allows for transparency,” she stressed.

Macklin also noted that she has great admiration for previous iterations of the Student Union website but felt that the old version was “incomplete.”

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She asserted that “the largest difference between this and all previous editions is that this website is entirely comprehensive,” adding that on the new website, “the information is conveyed in a clear and modern manner.”

The new website, according to Macklin, demonstrates the professional nature of the Brandeis Student Union.

“We are not a high school student government. We are one of the most effective and elite collegiate student government associations in the northeast,” Macklin stated of the high expectations she holds for the Student Union.

Macklin confirmed that many people were involved in the production of the website, but she largely credits the final product to the expertise of Senior Representative to the Board of Trustees Grady Ward ’16, which is further confirmed by the text “Made by Grady Ward ’16” at the bottom of all pages of the website.

The website took more months to complete than originally planned, but Macklin stated that she and Ward decided on the three large concepts promoted on the homepage — “advocacy”, “allocations” and “community” — during the summer while in the drafting phase of development for the website. Of the decision-making process for the three major concepts, Macklin added, “We took a close look at the functions of all the branches, and we chose these three concepts to be the most important. “ Directly below these three concepts and their subsequent descriptions on the homepage are links to detailed information on the Student Union’s office hours, the constitution and bylaws, the romper room and club finances.

Under these links — listed below the title “Who are we?” — are access points to information about the four branches of the Student Union and bios for the individual members. Positioned on the very bottom of the homepage are links to web pages for union news, the meeting schedule, current initiatives and meeting minutes.

Macklin affirmed that this layout design is directly related to her mission of transparency and that the website overhaul is a part of her overall plan to improve upon the Student Union by amplifying its level of activity for the benefit of the student body.

Of this plan, she explained, “The more we are active this year, the more our students will get into the habit of expecting us to be active in years to come.”

The new Student Union website can be accessed at the URL “http:// union.brandeis.edu”.

THE JUSTICE

faculty

touched on topics such as birth control and marriage in his lecture.

By Avi gold JUSTICE editor

Rabbi David Ellenson analyzed three Jewish feminist thinkers and their understanding of Jewish Law during last Tuesday’s 52nd-annual Simon Rawidowicz Memorial Lecture.

Prof. Jonathan Decter (NEJS) began the lecture, explaining that Rawidowicz came to the University in the 1950s after fleeing from Nazi-ruled Europe and became the first department chair of the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies program. He helped create its graduate program as well.

Prof. Eugene Sheppard (NEJS) then introduced Ellenson, the acting director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and a visiting NEJS professor. Sheppard also noted his personal connection to Ellenson, who taught Sheppard while he was studying at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ellenson’s lecture, which was titled “To Reshape the World: Interpretation, Renewal and Feminist Approaches to Jewish Law,” focused on the work of three Jewish feminist thinkers — Rachel Adler, Tamar Ross and Dr. Ronit Irshai — but began by discussing Rawidowicz. Ellenson noted that Rawidowicz’s famous interpretation of the two houses of Judaism — the first, the Judaism of the Bible full of original interpretation, and the second, the Judaism of the Diaspora filled with the works of Rabbis — needs a new understanding. This new understanding of Rawidowicz is necessary, he claimed, because even in the second house, “all interpretation is, of course, creation and, inescapably, involves inventiveness and imagination. The moment we begin to conceptualize our sensory data while applying certain laws and forms to them, we are already involved in a process of what [Rawidowicz] labels interpretation.”

Ellenson then moved into a discussion of the three thinkers, noting that they all “have attempted to reshape the world of Halacha [Jewish Law] by exposing many of its assumptions and explaining its concerns. … They seek, through novel interpretations and discussions of arguments with one another, to reshape the contours and the substance of Jewish faith and practice in our time.”

Adler, Ellenson explained, provided the foundation for the other two thinkers, since she argued Judaism, specifically Orthodox Judaism, treats women more like religious objects than people. Ellenson noted Adler focused on Jewish marriage, presented as a metaphor of acquisition of the

wife by the husband, which “fails to express love [and] the feelings of reciprocity and concern that more properly characterize the bonds that obtain between two people who wish to sanctify their devotion to one another as permanent partners.”

Ellenson then moved into a discussion of Ross’s three assumptions for divine revelation with human involvement. First, she assumes that Jewish law is a series of ongoing learnings; second, she assumes God’s word is heard through the study of Rabbinical texts and history; and third, she assumes the original message of Jewish law is not replicable.

Ellenson observed the differences between Adler and Ross, remarking, “Ross’s charge is that Adler does not appreciate the divinity of what Ross still regards as a revealed tradition and that Adler does not therefore adequately situate herself on the bridge of Jewish legal tradition as Ross does.” Ellenson also discussed the backlash Ross received from Orthodox men, who accused her of being heretical, and noted that Ross paved the way with her counterarguments to those who rejected her.

Next, Ellenson focused on Irshai’s discussion of the Jewish views of birth control, which Irshai claims are more primarily centered on the woman’s role as a vehicle for giving birth rather than seeing the woman as a person. Ellenson noted that for Irshai, “the question of birth control would leave the domain of pure Halacha and become a matter of political control in which the personhood of a woman is diminished, and the power she, as opposed to male [decision-makers], can exercise is nonexistent.” Ellenson noted that rejections of Irshai’s work focused more on exceptions to the rule and “[miss] the point that Irshai and her colleagues are making. Even if the attitudes of some [decision-makers] are seemingly consistent with modern feminist statement regarding setting priorities in this highlycharged debate, [they dismiss] the overarching and powerful thrust that Irshai and her colleagues have been making over and over again about the nature of traditional Halachik discourse.”

Ellenson closed his lecture with a personal story of his connection to Adler, for whose book “Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics,” he wrote the forward, and remarked, “What these women have done is to indicate that human beings are not … even within the Orthodox world only Ha’Medabrim, men who speak … but the women who speak [as well].” The lecture and event were sponsored by the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry, the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and the Valya and Robert Shapiro Endowment.

MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

A FRESH PERSPECTIVE: Ellenson discussed how certain aspects of Jewish law might have new and unforeseen meanings when examined with a feminist lense.

TUESDAY, November 10, 2015

5

UNDERSTANDING THE ELDERLY

Ellenson lectures on feminism in Jewish law texts ■ Rabbi David Ellenson

●

ABBY GRINBERG/the Justice

AIDING THE WORKFORCE: The eight scholars and journalists at the 9th annual Ann Richards Invitational Roundtable on Gender and the Media discussed the evolving role of senior citizens in the workforce and how society might be able to aid those older workers in their jobs. Additionally, the participants touched on how aging is negatively portrayed in the media.

Roundtable discussion addresses how seniors fare in the workplace ■ At the annual Ann

Richards Roundtable, scholars and journalists from the Boston area discussed how the workforce and the media treat the elderly.

By Emma Curnin JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The University’s 9th annual Ann Richards Invitational Roundtable on Gender and the Media focused on the role older individuals play in the work force and how the concept of retirement has evolved in the last few decades. The event took place last Thursday, Nov. 5 at the Women’s Resource Center at Brandeis University.

The event is designed to bring together social scientists and journalists with the aim of improving media coverage of issues that impact the lives of both genders, according to the event description.

Discussion topics at the annual roundtable range from economic issues to social, health and family issues. Richards was the Fred and Rita Richman Distinguished Visiting Professor of Politics at Brandeis from 1997 to 1998. She served as the second female governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995 and was elected as a trustee of Brandeis in 1998, was reelected in 2004 and continued to hold the position until her death in 2006. “She was so generous with her responses to other people. If you told Ann Richards something really funny, she wouldn’t just smile or laugh, she would stop and break up completely. She taught us all so much — she was a great campfire cook. Her wit was a constant delight,” the University’s website states on a page devoted to her.

This year’s roundtable participants included Peter Glezinis, a veteran metro columnist with the

Boston Herald, who has written extensively about the city; Sally Abrahams, an award-winning journalist and nationally recognized expert on baby boomers and senior citizens; Kimberly Blanton, a former financial and economics reporter for the Boston Globe, the Economist and other publications; Caryl Rivers, the 2007 winner of the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Professional Journalists; Caitrin Lynch, Ph.D., a Professor of Anthropology at Frank W. Olin College of Engineering and a Visiting Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at Brandeis University; Margie Lachman, Ph.D., a Minnie and Harold L. Fierman Professor of Psychology Lab at Brandeis and a member of the Lifespan Initiative on Healthy Aging; Maggie Mulvehill, an award winning journalist and teacher; and Rosalind Barnett, Ph.D., a Senior Scientist at the Women’s Studies research Center at Brandeis University and is Executive Director of its Community, Families & Work Program.

The participants discussed how older individuals fare in the workplace and the certain unique challenges workers can face with age.

They also addressed what retirement is in today’s sense of the word and how its meaning has evolved over the past few decades. Glezinis strongly addressed retirement, saying “I am working because I like it, and like I said, I have a lot of independence, and I can create my own situation.”

Additionally, the participants touched upon the use of engineering and education to create tools that can be used to help older workers adapt to certain working conditions. Lynch noted that these innovations are “things that we don’t pay attention to but are the fabric of meaning [for older workers].”

Lachman mentioned how people who are more physically active are

cognitively and psychologically better off in the workplace.

Blanton then made the point that “if physical exercise is good for you, then why [are] people that have ‘physical’ jobs not better off?

Isn’t a physical job exercise?”

The participants also briefly discussed how the process of aging is presented in the media.

The participants agreed that males are often portrayed as being capable of the same things they did when they were younger, yet that standard is not the same for women.

They also mentioned that there are many advertisements that attempt to sell anti-aging cosmetics and garments to women.

Lachman mentioned how she had her students do an assignment on “anti-anti-aging.” The assignment, she said, encouraged students to come up with an ad that was against anti-aging.

Abrahams said that, looking toward the future, she hopes for more employer empathy and support for older workers.

Blanton noted that she wants to see more government support for the elderly, adding that “more government support would help pass policies that can help older employees.” Lachman emphasized the importance of “intergenerational involvement” and added that she believes that efforts made by younger generations on behalf of older generations can bring a lot of strengths to the working force.

Barnett concluded the discussion, touching on the ways the media’s representation of senior citizens differs from reality. “We see a disconnect between what scientists are learning and how the media is portraying that domain. We want to connect the two in an accurate way,” he said.

The event was sponsored by Diana Meehan and Gary David Goldberg.

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Students address mental health in Southeast Asian communities at a Thursday SEAC event.

TOWN HALL: Administrators hope to preserve the “more iconic” parts of the Castle higher than when they started, according to Lynch. The task force, cochaired by students, staff and faculty, will develop short-term, medium and long-term goals for the University to increase its sustainability and efficiency, and it will present these goals to Lynch in January.

Regarding the Castle, Lynch said that both the University’s management team and the Board of Trustees are reviewing the building to determine options for its future. The goal is, according to Lynch, “to find a way that we hopefully will be able to preserve the more iconic parts of the Castle, including where Chum’s is and the big towers in the south-facing part of the castle.” When asked about whether changes to the Castle would force students off campus while the building undergoes construction, Lynch stated that the goal is to actually increase the amount of housing on campus, while Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel clarified that spring 2017 would be the earliest that any student housing would be affected by construction. Flagel and Senior Vice President for Operations Jim Gray are manning two separate teams to review the Castle’s future options, and nothing has been decided yet, according to Flagel.

In the question-and-answer segment of the town hall, two student members of Brandeis Climate Justice, a group that advocates for fossil fuel divestment, demanded that Lynch respond to claims in April that the University would issue an opinion on fossil fuel divestment at the November Board of Trustees meeting. One of the students stated “when the [Explor-

atory] Committee [on Fossil Fuel] met and convened in April, we were told that we would get a response in the fall. So far, the Board of Trustees has not discussed it.” When asked by the Justice, Saren McCallister ’18, one of the students who spoke, pointed to an April 24 email from Lynch and thenPresident Frederick Lawrence about the results of the Exploratory Committee on Fossil Fuel Divestment’s research. That email stated that its writers would ask the Board’s investment committee to evaluate the report’s proposals and let the full Board consider them throughout the fall semester.

However, at no point did it state that the student body would receive a response in November.

Though she expressed sympathy for the students’ passion toward the issue, Lynch said that because the divestment issue is so important, it should be something the incoming president helps determine. She then said that until sustainability increases on campus, it would be difficult for advocates to show the Board that they are “walking the talk” [sic]. When the students pressed Lynch, saying that actions on campus exist “in a bubble” and that the University would still be profiting from climate change if it did not divest, Lynch cited the University’s reduction in energy usage by about one quarter this summer through its “Turn It Off” days. She said of sustainability: “I am concerned when people say 'well that’s not a meaningful thing,' because it is a very meaningful act.”

Lynch pointed out that the University does not directly invest in fossil fuel corporations but instead runs its investments through managers, so eliminating fossil fuels from the University’s portfolio would require

TUESDAY, November 10, 2015

7

UNION: Adjunct staff will form bargaining cell

SPEAKING ON STIGMA

CONTINUED FROM 1

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constantly investigating its managers on their investment choices, which change frequently. Lynch assured the students that they would be able to have a meeting with the Board of Trustees, potentially at their January meeting, but added, “You’re not going to constantly be able to go back to the Board on this. I think there’s some additional ways in which we can be doing exactly what you say. … I would do a bit more homework in terms of some of the things that you want to present. And I would encourage you to not make it a best and final offer to the Board.”

Finally Lynch noted, “Right now, the Board is a little bit occupied with the selection of the next president of the University. So that has to be resolved first because that, quite frankly, is their attention as it rightly should be right now. But when that gets done, then you open up an opportunity for discussion with the Board on this issue.”

In response to other questions, Lynch said that the University is continuing to develop a VP for Diversity position and that this is mostly being built with the Provost’s office. “The important thing is that it’s not just that position, it’s the whole reporting structure” that is changing, according to Lynch.

When asked about sustainability, Gray and Lynch expressed that decreasing the University’s carbon footprint requires both institutional changes and individual behavioral changes from students. Gray also stated that the University is working on installing gender-neutral bathrooms in the Library, though he did not respond to requests for clarification by press time.

host a series of meetings with colleagues to determine contract priorities through a democratic process. Formal bargaining sessions with the Administration will begin shortly thereafter.”

Non-tenure-track faculty members signed on to the petition by filling out union authorization cards, which are cards simply indicating that they are interested in forming a union at Brandeis. While 30 percent of those who could be represented by the union needed to fill out cards for the petition to be sent to the NLRB, a simple majority of those who vote is needed to win the election and formally establish a union. Different departments and programs in the University use different terminology to refer to their non-tenure track professors, as well as whether those professors have signed on to multi-year contracts.

The University and SEIU will need to clarify these definitions in their current negotiations. In 2014, out of 2053 petitions filed, 11,407 elections were held, and 952 were won by the union, according to data from the NLRB website.

A press release from SEIU Local 509 stated that the Brandeis faculty will join approximately 3,200 faculty in the Boston area which are represented by the union, including faculty at Bentley University, Boston University and Northeastern University.

Until now, Brandeis Faculty Forward’s work has mostly focused on spreading awareness of the unionization movement and of its members’ concerns about pay and job security. Most prominently, the group hosted a Speak Out event on Oct. 13. In a phone interview with the Justice, Prof. Christopher Abrams (FA), a member of Brandeis Faculty Forward who served as the master of ceremonies at the Speak Out, said that the coalition is now shifting its main focus to preparing for the election once its date is announced.

They will continue to spread information and answer the questions of eligible union members, according to Abrams. “I think our focus after that would be on the next step in the process — what would happen when we actually begin to sit down to form a collective bargaining unit,” said Abrams. A collective bargaining unit, in labor law, is a group of employees with clearly defined, shared interests who are represented by a union. Once a collective bargaining unit is formed, Abrams said that the faculty will

then need to develop a formal agenda and list of demands they would like to see in a union contract.

“And again, that’s something that in many ways is a whole other learning curve that needs to be undertaken there,” said Abrams, referring to the collective bargaining process. “That’s something that, not having had the experience myself, that I think we’re going to have to educate ourselves and we’re going to have to move forward to reach that point, to actually sitting down and beginning to negotiate the contract.”

Common concerns among faculty at the Speak Out and other events have included job insecurity and low pay. Adjunct faculty members are hired without guarantee of being rehired the following year or semester.

Prof. Mark Weinberg (ENG) said at the Speak Out that the starting salary of an adjunct faculty member is $5,000 per class, while students pay approximately $6,250 per class, according to an Oct. 20 Justice article.

Interim President Lisa Lynch, whose background is as a labor economist, said at a Town Hall event on Wednesday that the University respects the rights of faculty to form a union if they so desire but that she hopes for a large voter turnout and that the voting body will be well-educated on what unionization means.

In an official statement to the Justice, Executive Director of Integrated Media Bill Schaller said, “We believe in the rights of employees to decide for themselves in a secret ballot election as to whether or not they wish to be represented by a union in matters involving the terms and conditions of their employment.”

Abrams told the Justice that the Brandeis professors have received “a tremendous amount of support” from adjunct professors at Lesley College, Tufts University, BU and Northeastern, to the point that he views the faculty at these institutions as advisors.

“Given that collegial relationship we have with them, I almost feel a responsibility to pay it forward, to see that that effort is carried through in other places where people are interested in doing something similar,” Abrams said.

“We’re just ecstatic this week,” he said of Brandeis Faculty Forward.

“It’s been a big week and it feels like the payoff or the tangible result of a lot of the work we’ve done so far. It’s great to have reached this stage."

A-BOARD: Voting to occur on open A-Board positions CONTINUED FROM 1 meeting at the end of each marathon that all members would be required to attend to ensure agreement on all decisions. Wu also noted that A-Board is establishing two new clerk positions to be filled by two of the A-Board members and that those members will help to organize meetings and keep track of administrative issues. She said she hopes to improve “systematic organization, because obviously we lacked that the first semester.”

Special elections will be held in the next few weeks to fill three of the open seats for the rest of the school year, Wu wrote in an email to the Justice.

However, due to Judy Nam ’16 and Uros Randelovic ’18 stepping down from A-Board recently, these elections would bring the number of A-Board members up to eight, rather than the newly required 11 members. Wu said that the Union hopes to fill the remaining seats with another election before the spring semester. Randelovic explained in an email to the Justice that he stepped down due to not

having enough time to commit to the “heavy and dynamic A-Board work” required. He wrote that he would have happily continued until the end of the semester, “but as A-Board is expanding and exhausting voting procedure will be soon happening, I wanted to ease it out as much as possible.” Nam did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

Another focus of the A-Board reforms is transparency of the process and decisions, Macklin stressed in a press conference on Friday, Oct. 30.

As part of this initiative, Wu sent out a document to club leaders outlining the A-Board processes and requirements. The first section of the document clarified the process because, as Macklin said at the press conference, “the rules that guideline A-Board are not clear. That’s a problem — I think that’s a universal understanding.”

The overview explained that A-Board funding comes from each student’s Student Activities Fee, which is about one percent of the cost of tuition. It then explains the types of funding decisions made at each of the five types

of allocations marathons held each semester and what types of funding decisions can be made — full, partial, denied or delayed to appeals in special cases.

The document continues with an explanation of items that will not be funded by A-Board, such as personal property, fundraisers, political campaigns, E-Board-only items, alcohol and retroactive funding requests, among several other types of requests.

It also outlined items that are up to ABoard member discretion, including an alteration to a past policy prohibiting “swag” requests. A club may now request funding for giveaways at their events, but Student Activities must approve designs.

The document concluded with suggestions and requirements for club leaders for requests and the financial misconduct policy for when clubs abuse their allocated funds by spending the money on items other than what it was allocated for.

Wu explained that the document is intended to be a reference point for club leaders who are confused about

the process. “I think that was our mistake for not putting it out there in the beginning of the year, so it's good that I got it now,” she said.

Another way of addressing the issue of transparency, Wu said, is that A-Board will continue to send out spreadsheets detailing all of their decisions to all club leaders, and she also sent out the appeals marathon decisions on Monday.

The appeals marathon allows clubs that were denied funding for certain items in the regular marathon to reapply for those particular items again, often with slight adjustments to their proposals. This semester, clubs requested a total of $23,181.10 during the appeals process, and the ABoard granted $3,492.07 toward those requests, or 15.06 percent. When requests were not granted, a reason was provided on the spreadsheet, most commonly reading, “We do not have any available resources for this event.

We are sorry, but it is just impossible,” or something very similar. Alex Mitchell ’17, former A-Board chair, explained in an interview with the

Justice on Nov. 2 that the primary reason for so many clubs not getting funding in the regular marathon was that there were simply not enough funds to give out, and Wu echoed that sentiment regarding the appeals marathon.

“We ran a really, really tight budget,” she explained.

Last year, the A-Board granted a very similar amount of funding during the appeals process, but much less was requested in the regular marathon. During the fall 2014 appeals marathon, A-Board received $7,433.68 in requests and funded $3,554.63, or 47.82 percent.

Wu said that while she anticipates some similar issues in terms of lack of funding for the spring marathons, she anticipates a smoother process due to the reforms and because “we are being very stingy this semester.” She added that in the spring, there will be a much more organized process and that if a club does not receive funding for an event, A-Board plans to write a full description as to why it was not funded.

Macklin did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

8

features

TUESDAY, November 10, 2015 ● THE JUSTICE

just

VERBATIM | MARKUS HERZ Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you’ll die of a misprint.

ON THIS DAY…

FUN FACT

In 1917, 41 suffragettes were arrested for picketing outside of the White House.

A toaster uses almost half as much energy as a full-sized oven.

Playing with dialogue “The Strawberry Girl” sparks conversation about Holocaust denial

By BRIANNA MAJSIAK JUSTICE EDITOR

PHOTO DESIGN BY ANYA VEDMID / ISRAELI STAGE

BLOODY FINGERS: “The Strawberry Girl” performance features a woman who dreams of a girl who brings her strawberries as having blood on her fingers.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF SAMMI REINSTEIN

GROUP PHOTO: [left to right] Prof. Sabine von Mering (GRALL) stands with Guy BenAharon, Prof. Shulamit Reinharz (SOC) and actress Nancy E. Carroll on Thursday.

A fully packed room in Mandel 303 on Thursday evening saw a dramatic one-woman performance and a featured talk back with actress Nancy E. Carroll and Prof.

Shulamit Reinharz (SOC). Carroll read a translated adaptation of Savyon Liebrecht’s play, “The Strawberry Girl.”

The performance was adapted for the stage by Liebrecht from her short story by the same name. The play is set in Poland during World War II and is told through the narrative of a Nazi officer’s wife. The wife, who remains nameless, lives next to a concentration camp, which she calls, and believes is, a “factory.” She has a young son named Ludwig. When a young girl with frostbitten feet and hands referred to as “the strawberry girl” begins to bring her fresh strawberries as big as a man’s fist, the protagonist fails to realize that she is the victim of a concentration camp.

The play highlights the ignorance of the protagonist when she encounters the strawberry girl several times and can’t figure out why she appears emaciated, frostbitten and in torn-up clothes. Originally, the woman is disgusted by the presence of the strawberry girl. However, she often thinks and dreams of her, and eventually develops an affection towards her.

Carroll’s reading and interpretation of the play helps the audience learn that the protagonist is genuinely unaware of what her husband does and what the factory, with smoke rising, actually is.

She even remains oblivious to the reality of the Holocaust when her friend named Wolfgang, also a Nazi officer at the concentration camp, lackadaisically talks about the belongings he takes from Jews.

When it is believed that the Russians will be coming into Poland, the woman is told by her husband to take a train back to Germany with her friend Helena and their two children. It is then that Helena, who has also received strawberries from the strawberry girl, reveals to the protagonist where the strawberries come from and what “the factory” does. “She grew them in a special soil. Do you know what this was, this soil? Burnt soil … What was left after they had burnt the Jews,” Carroll read.

Helena is infuriated at the fact that she fed her daughter the strawberries from the strawberry girl and from the burnt soil of dead bodies, but the protagonist repeatedly asks Helena, “Why did they burn the Jews?”

The dramatic reading ended with Helena and the protagonist on the train to return home to Germany and with the protagonist’s

question lingering.

The event was presented by Israeli Stage as part of its All Female Playwrights 6th Season and was brought to Brandeis by the Center for German and European Studies to encourage productive JewishGerman dialogue.

Israeli Stage is an organization that began in 2010 and works to share the diversity and vitality of Israeli culture through theater.

According to its website, Israeli Stage has produced over 15 plays as staged readings by 10 playwrights.

Guy Ben-Aharon, the producing artistic director and founder of Israeli Stage, directed the performance of “The Strawberry Girl” and attended the event on Thursday.

In an email with the Justice, BenAharon credited the dialogue that follows the performance as the reason for producing “The Strawberry Girl.” In addition to dialogue, he hopes that the play will bring a perspective that has yet to be explored.

“We’ve been bringing shows to Brandeis for a few years now.

It’s been a very meaningful collaboration which has proved to be one that promotes dialogue cross-generationally, as we saw the other night. I love seeing students connect to faculty connect to the general community over discussion spurred by these plays; I think theatre is one of the only mediums that brings together such a diverse group of people,” he wrote.

Ben-Aharon worked with Prof.

Sabine von Mering (GECS) the director of the Center for German and European Studies and a professor of German, and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, to bring the event to campus. Ben-Aharon and Mering have been friends for three years now and originally met when she hosted another play that he directed called “Voltaire and Frederick: A Life in Letters.”

“When I selected “The Strawberry Girl” for Israeli Stage’s Season 6 Season Premiere, I immediately thought of my good friend, Professor Sabine von Mering. I knew her audience and Center (GRALL) would be the perfect partner for this type of event. Sabine and I were both very happy that Shula Reinharz of HBI could join the effort as well, and bring her field of expertise to the discussion,” BenAharon wrote.

Mering, a native to Germany, has been teaching at Brandeis since 1998. As the director of the Center for German and European Studies, she helps to promote productive dialogue about important issues in German and European societies. Jewish-German dialogue has been a focus of the center and it has organized events like “The Strawberry Girl” in order to further explore the long history of German-Jewish interaction.

Mering described the perfor-

mance as part of “an ongoing collaboration” with Israeli Stage.

She explained that at first when Ben-Aharon sent her the play to read, she did not like it because she thought it was too gory and “too obvious.” Ben-Aharon told Mering to see the piece performed at GoetheInstitut in Boston.

“I went and saw it there ... it sparked really interesting conversation there, and I really liked the conversation. It was really then that I realized that my reaction to the play had been intended by the author. She’s extremely smart, Savyon Liberecht, and she does these things very carefully, you know she does a lot of research for her work, and I know her personally, so I talked to her and I really like what she does, so I wanted to like it.

And when I saw it performed and I saw Nancy Carroll voicing the characters and … really giving sort of life to these voices, it really made me understand much better. That this was all symbolic and that it really wasn’t about the gore as much as about the questions that were raised,” Mering said.

The discussion that followed the reading of “The Strawberry Girl” was moderated by Carroll and Reinharz. A significant amount of the conversation focused on the naivety of the protagonist with several members of the audience asking,how she could have been so ignorant of what was going on.

In an interview with the Justice, Mering related the protagonist’s unawareness of the Holocaust to the human phenomenon of not wanting to confront something that’s right in our face and difficult to deal with.

“I do believe that the Holocaust is something that people need to confront again and again, with each generation. As Shula [Shulamit Reinharz] said yesterday, it is outrageous and completely incomprehensive what happened there — but we have to keep trying to make sense of it, and every generation has to do that anew. And so I think that’s part of what I feel is my responsibility — to really engage the campus in doing that, having that conversation and bring up the new questions, like we did at the end [of the event] — ‘Where do we look away when something happens, because we just don’t want to deal with it?’ We can’t change anything that happened in the Holocaust; that’s in the past, but there’s a lot we can do today and this play really asks that question,” she said.

The Center for German and European Studies will be co-sponsoring another event about the topic, “Combating European Anti-Semitism: Tomorrow’s Vision panel discussion ” tonight in the International Lounge with the BrandeisGenesis Institute and the Coalition Against Anti-Semitism in Europe.

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TUESDAY, November 10, 2015

EARTHBAG BUILDING: Good Earth Nepal uses revolutionary earthbag technology to build houses that are earthquake and flood resistant.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NATHAN BELOFSKY

Down to earth in Nepal

Brandeis alum Nathan Belofsky ’81 co-founded Good Earth Nepal to help rebuild after an earthquake disaster in April

By RACHEL LEDERer JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal in April of this year crushed entire villages and left hundreds of thousands homeless — but a few structures in Nepal were still standing after the natural disaster.

All of the approximately 30 Nepalese buildings constructed with Earthbag technology were unaffected by the earthquake. Nathan Belofsky ’81 co-founded the non-profit Good Earth Nepal in May along with Kateryna Zemskova and Baris Tuncer to promote and spread this technology throughout Nepal, and together they are at work rebuilding the country from the ground up — literally.

Belofsky first met Zemskova and Tuncer, a now-married couple, on a trip he took to Nepal three years ago to fulfill a dream he had of hiking in the Himalayas. Zemskova and Tuncer own a tourism agency that is operating in Nepal and were planning on building eco-friendly hotels throughout Nepal before the earthquake struck. Afterwards, they decided to instead devote their time to rebuilding the structures that had been destroyed. Belofsky had kept in touch with them over the years and they collaborated together to start the non-profit.

Belofsky currently resides in New York but is returning to Nepal in late November to attend meetings with engineers, architects and volunteers and to assist with onsite building. “Our main bases are Kathmandu [the capital of Nepal] and New York City, and we sort of shuttle between the two places,” he

PHILANTHROPIST: Nathan Belofsky ’81 was inspired during a trip to Nepal to help rebuild houses and schools after the earthquake in April. said in a phone interview with the Justice.

Earthbag technology was not invented by Belofsky or the other co-founders — Iranian-American architect Nader Khalili pioneered the method — but Good Earth Nepal is committed to building with it and advocating for its widespread use.

Earthbag structures are constructed by first laying a foundation, then laying plastic sacks that are filled with densely packed soil and gravel on top of each other, with barbed wire between the layers. The walls of the structure are then plastered and a roof is added. This building method is both inexpensive and environmentally friendly, and it produces extremely stable structures

that are resistant to earthquakes and floods and are expected to last for centuries.

The environmental and economic costs of importing many materials after they are made in distant factories are eliminated by building structures primarily with local soil.

Good Earth Nepal’s first Earthbag house cost only about $14.70 per square foot. The non-profit expects the prices of future construction to be even lower, as the first house was built during monsoon season, a particularly difficult time to build in Nepal since it brings heavy and frequent rainfalls. And as Belofsky put it, “There’s a saying that ‘the second time is always easier than the first.’ … You learn a lot from the first construction.”

Good Earth Nepal’s first project was a house for a widow named Kamala and her two children. “The first structure we built was a few months after the earthquake. We supervised the building along with our network of engineers and architects in Nepal, and it was during monsoon season. We think it’s the only Earthbag building that’s ever been built during monsoon season. Obviously, that makes it a little more difficult. It was built in a village that Kateryna had a very special attachment to. She had been there before and she met with the village elders, and together they decided that Kamala and her two children needed the house the most.

And they’re living there right now,” Belofsky said.

The non-profit is expanding from constructing houses to constructing schools, as well. It is at work on constructing one right now and hopes to complete two more by the end

HARD AT WORK: Good Earth Nepal trains Nepalis in how to use earthbag technology so that they can eventually build on their own.

of the year, in addition to several houses. They are partnering with other non-profits in Nepal as well.

In September and October, Dr. Owen Geiger, the former director of Builders Without Borders and a man who is considered the leading Earthbag expert in the world, led 45 days of workshops in Kathmandu that taught over 300 people about Earthbag building, sponsored

by Good Earth Nepal. “When the students weren’t in the classroom, they would go outside to the campus grounds, and they were building an actual Earthbag building on the campus grounds. So it’s really hands-on,” Belofsky said about the workshops.

“We’ve got volunteers streaming in actually from all over the world.

Young people, old people, tremendously talented. Some of them are good with, say, graphics and design, and drawing and construction, and others just come to fill the bags, which we have great need for. These houses are built out of bags of dirt — it takes a lot of labor just to fill the bags, and we can really use people to do that,” said Belofsky.

Volunteers also operate from locations outside Nepal in helping to fundraise for building efforts and spread awareness about the organization. Belofsky is specifically interested in Brandeis students getting involved with Good Earth Nepal. He is working on setting up an official volunteer and internship program with Brandeis, both for students who want to commit a week or two to building and for ones looking for a more long-term commitment.

Belofsky looks back fondly on his time at Brandeis for many reasons, the first and foremost being the

“wonderful people” he met here and the lifelong friendships the University gave him. He majored in political science at the University, and he said, “The liberal arts education I got at Brandeis was very helpful as an attorney … my Brandeis education really was even more helpful in my writing.” (Belofsky has had two books published: “Strange Medicine” and “The Book of Strange and Curious Legal Oddities.”) “Brandeis instilled in me a huge curiosity about the world. I have to know everything, so I’m a big reader, I keep up with everything, and I think that was nurtured at Brandeis by both the teachers and the students, and that’s really served me very well.

To a great extent, that’s how I got involved with Good Earth Nepal; I just had a broader perspective that I got from Brandeis.”

Though Belofsky has a variety of interests, he says that he and the other co-founders have put their other careers “sort of on hold because of the urgency of the situation and the promise of Earthbags.”

He calls Good Earth Nepal “the big passion in [his] life now,” and he is very optimistic about the sustainable future of Earthbag technology.

“Our biggest hope is that we build, but then the Nepalis themselves start building. Not just the Nepali engineers and architects, who we’re helping train, but the village people themselves,” he said. “We’re hoping in a year or two that the people in the villages we’re building in now, they’ll see our schools, and then say, ‘Hey, we want to build another school using Earthbag technology, and this time we don’t need Good Earth Nepal, we can do it ourselves.’

That’s our biggest hope.”

FIRST FINISHED HOUSE: The first earthbag house (above) was built for a widow named Kamala who has two children.

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10 TUESDAY, nOVEMBER 10, 2015 ● THE JUSTICE

the

Justice Established 1949

Brandeis University

Max Moran, Editor in Chief Avi Gold, Managing Editor Hannah Wulkan, Deputy Editor Morgan Brill, Production Editor Rebecca Lantner, Catherine Rosch, Jaime Kaiser and Grace Kwon, Associate Editors Abby Patkin, News Editor, Brianna Majsiak, Features Editor Jessica Goldstein, Forum Editor, Noah Hessdorf, Sports Editor Jaime Gropper, Arts Editor Michelle Banayan and Mihir Khanna, Photography Editors Emily Wishingrad, Online Editor Carmi Rothberg, Copy Editor

EDITORIALS

Maintain careful eye on A-board proceedings On Friday, students voted in favor of an amendment to the Undergraduate Student Union constitution that will expand the size and term lengths of the Allocations Board members, including adding four members to the board, granting year-long and three semester terms to board members and clarifying that the chairperson of the board will be selected to serve a maximum of one term by A-Board members.

Since student groups raised concerns over the club funding decision-making process, the Student Union has taken clear action to reform the A-Board. The constitutional amendment is an example of this, but perhaps more importantly, new ABoard Chair Millie Wu ’18 sent club leaders an email with appeals decisions on Sunday and attached a document explaining clearly how funding decisions were reached.

This board commends Wu and the rest of A-Board for taking this simple action to explain their reasoning for funding certain events and activities while denying funds for others. While the long-term effects of the constitutional amendment remain to be seen, providing information about how and why A-Board chooses to fund events directly addresses student concerns about transparency. In a previous editorial, we called on the A-Board to include thorough explanations for their methodology beyond the one-word responses in previous decisions. In this round of funding, A-Board has done precisely this. Rather than being left in the dark or concerned about cronyism, club leaders now can understand why their club may have been denied funding, as well as compare the stated reasoning against documents showing the ideal process. When A-Board has less money to give out to an increasing number of student groups, some parties will always be disappointed in funding decisions. However, the A-Board has set a new precedent for both

Applaud new transparency explaining individual funding decisions and the funding methodology at large. This newfound clarity is fundamentally democratic, and must continue into marathon decisions for upcoming semesters.

As for the new amendment, while adding more people to the A-Board may lead to lighter workloads and balance biases, it could also increase bureaucracy and make it even more difficult to schedule meetings than in the past. Some of the problems with this year’s decisions came from board members organizing and communicating primarily over Facebook rather than by means of in-person meetings, and this also caused the requisite Student Activities overseer to be left out of the process.

If A-board is to develop new rules, we also urge them to follow procedures already on the books, such as arranging meetings in person and always making sure a non-voting member of Student Activities is present.

However, the onus for holding A-Board accountable is also on the student body.

Only 301 people, roughly ten percent of the undergraduate population, voted for the constitutional amendment, even though far more students have been directly affected by the controversy with many vocally decrying A-Board’s perceived errors.

With increased transparency, the student body will now have the necessary information to know if their elected officials are doing their jobs properly, and it is now on us to make informed voting decisions moving forward. The Student Union is holding elections for the added positions to ABoard soon. It is vital that the student body actively engages in these upcoming elections to make sure that strong candidates are elected and that the Student Union is held to their responsibilities.

Celebrate Rose’s revival and recent successes Kim Conaty, the assistant curator of drawings and prints at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, was appointed curator for the Rose Art Museum on Nov. 3.

Conaty will plan exhibitions, interpret the Rose’s collection and evaluate potential exhibitions for the museum, when she joins the Rose’s staff in December.

To say that the Rose has undergone a significant revival in the last six years is an understatement, and this Board salutes the Rose for its shrewd leadership choices and continuing role in both the Brandeis community and larger art world. Conaty’s hiring joins an announced windfall of 48 new works from the collection of businessman Stephen M. Salny. Additionally, the Rose opened its first-ever satellite gallery earlier this year in the form of Rosebud, a Moody Street space for the museum’s video collection which also hopes to better integrate the Rose into the Waltham community, encouraging residents to come on-campus and enjoy the museum’s wider collection.

In the face of these successes, it is hard to remember that in just 2009, the Rose was on the brink of closing its doors forever when the Board of Trustees announced plans to sell the museum’s collection, according to a Feb. 24, 2009 Justice article. After students and faculty protested and national news outlets publicized the decision, then-University President Jehuda Reinharz backed down and eventually abandoned the plan to sell the Rose’s collection. The museum, and Henry and Lois D. Foster Director Chris Bedford, have not taken this new opportunity lightly and have made choices, particularly in recent weeks, that solidify the Rose’s position within the art world in

Welcome Kim Conaty praiseworthy ways.

First, the opening of Rosebud is a testament to both the size of the Rose’s collection and its success as a museum, such that both the Rose and the University would take the financial risk in purchasing a new location. While Rosebud is open to all, it is heartening that Bedford told the Justice in an Oct. 13 article that the Rose sees itself “in the coming years, becoming more of a civic museum for Waltham.”

Next, Conaty’s hiring showcases the Rose’s draw within the art world and is an excellent leadership decision. Pulling a curator away from one of the most celebrated museums worldwide is a testament to the Rose’s revival, one which can be seen in Conaty’s comments to BrandeisNOW that the Rose is “one of the leading university art museums in the country.” Conaty has already announced that she will work for the Rose full-time, as opposed to the current curator-at-large’s part time work, and she will complete the first thorough review of the Rose’s collection since 2008. For the Rose to best serve the community, it must obviously first be well aware of the scope and distinctions of its collection. This is work that Conaty is more than suited to, given her experience at MoMA. Finally, Salny’s donations indicate the Rose’s staying power to those with a connection to it and its position as an institute to which collectors are interested in donating. We encourage the University community to celebrate the Rose’s recent successes and remember its central place in both campus culture, and art culture at large.

MORGAN BRILL/the Justice

Views the News on

On Oct. 28, the Nepalese parliament elected its first female president, Vidya Devi Bhandari, to serve as a ceremonial head. The leading communist leader and ardent women’s rights activist rose to power after a new constitution adopted in September stipulated that Nepal name a new president. The document also requires that onethird of Parliament must be comprised of women and either the president or vice president of the country must be a woman. How do you react to Bhandari’s election, and do you believe the newly developed constitution effectively furthers women’s rights and displays good governing procedures?

Bidushi Adhikari ’17 Bhandari’s election was definitely a win for Nepal after decades of political turmoil and the recent natural disaster. Along with the new constitution, Nepal finally seems to be living up to a definition of democracy, one which attempts to address issues of gender inequality. However, like many other things, western media has definitely glamorized the Nepali election, especially given that many western countries have yet to elect a female prime minister themselves. Bhandari’s election is largely symbolic, for Nepal and for the rest of the world. This isn’t necessarily without impact, as hope and symbolic value can be strong, driving forces for citizens. Bhandari’s election is a gateway for Nepal to reevaluate its policies and established system and, using the new constitution as a base, to incorporate the same kind of equality into the social, economic and, of course, political systems. Because placing one female leader in government does not do much to that average Nepali girl who has to abandon her education and get married at 15.

Bidushi Adhikari ’17 is a Nepalese student majoring in Sociology and Economics.

Prof. Daniel Breen (LGLS) Nepal is one of the poorest countries in Asia. Throughout the world, there is strong evidence that poverty is experienced especially seriously by women.

This will be true as long as much of the work that women are expected to do is unpaid and as long as the educational and professional opportunities available to men are not equally available to women. (In Nepal, for example, the literacy rate among women is much lower than it is among men). Under these circumstances, it is sound political practice for countries like Nepal to guarantee a certain percentage of policy-making positions in government to women, at least to make sure that their essential perspectives on such issues not only get a fair hearing, but also stand the best chance of being reflected in concrete action.

Prof. Daniel Breen (LGLS) is a lecturer in the Legal Studies program. He studied abroad in Nepal.

Shane Weitzman ’16 Bhandari’s election, and Nepal’s requirement that one-third of Parliamentary positions be held by women, is wonderful news for those who affirm that the people elected to government bodies should closely approximate the demographics of that body’s population. This requirement is an excellent opportunity for other democratically-run states to learn from Nepal’s example and create institutional requirements for not just women but all gender groups that don’t hold systemic social, economic, and political power. Bhandrai’s election to a largely ceremonial position can also prompt us to reconsider the accuracy of a “symbolic”and “actual” duality. While her allegiance to Nepali nationalism somewhat obscures her commitment to women’s rights (she supported a provision that prevents Nepali single mothers and women married to non-Nepali citizens from passing citizenship on to their children), her largely woman-centered politics may serve an important role during her tenure as president. Her election reminds us that there is great power in the symbolic.

Shane Weitzman ’16 is an undergraduate departmental representative for the South Asian Studies departments.

Prof. Harleen Singh (WMGS) Of course, it’s a great event as Nepal has not only created a new egalitarian constitution but also included a role for women in the new nation by ensuring that the Nepalese Parliament have a required number of female legislators. Vidya Devi will serve largely as a ceremonial head, as the real power resides with the Prime Minister, but sometimes these symbolic moves are necessary too as they set up a precedent for the country to follow. Women’s rights will not be furthered in Nepal overnight. The new ideas espoused by its government will take time to filter down to the level of actual social practices. Yet, one has to start somewhere and the change that is taking place in Nepal is also a result of women being intimately involved in the anti-government movements of the years past. So women have been very active in Nepalese politics and life perhaps not just in the ways we can measure from a distance or an American lens.

Prof. Harleen Singh (WMGS) is an associate professor of Women’s Gender and Sexuality studies.

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2015

Questions at Republican debate lack focus on issues Dor

Cohen Elephant in the room On Oct. 28, CNBC hosted the highly controversial third Republican presidential debate.

The moderators were criticized throughout the night by the candidates for their attempts to have the candidates go on the offensive against each other, their attempt to ask questions about debunked scandals meant to make the candidates look bad instead of discussing important issues and the open contempt that the moderators exuded toward the presidential candidates.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) received the biggest applause of the night and the highest line score that pollster Frank Luntz said he ever recorded, when he called out CNBC’s moderators and the mainstream media, stating that the “questions asked in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media … Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain? Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign?

Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen? How about talking about the substantive issues — contrast with the Democratic debate, where every thought and question from the media was, which of you is more handsome and why ... the questions being asked shouldn’t be trying to get people to tear into each other.”

Cruz felt that, compared with the Democratic debate, in which candidates were asked to describe how Republicans hated each candidate more than the next and there was no scrutiny over the financing of their plans, the Republican debate contained an element of unfairness.

After the debate, the Republican presidential field and the Republican National Committee fiercely criticized CNBC for how it conducted itself. The candidates even went so far as to band together in an attempt to make future debate formats fairer while the RNC suspended its coming debate with NBC News, CNBC’s sister network.

On Nov. 2, President Obama criticized the response of the Republican candidates to the debate while speaking at a fundraiser in New York City.

At the event, Obama wondered how the GOP presidential candidates would handle foreign adversaries if they couldn’t handle CNBC debate moderators. “They say, ‘Obama’s weak.’ ... They say, ‘When I talk to Putin, he’s going to straighten out.’ And then it turns out they can’t handle a bunch of CNBC moderators. If you can’t handle those guys, then I don’t think the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about you.”

There are two significant problems with

President Obama’s statement and criticisms of the Republican response to the debate.

First, the questions asked of the candidates during the presidential debate indeed deserved to be criticized. There is nothing wrong with tough questions — personally, that is what I expect and desire from debates. Indeed, several “tough” questions were asked, including queries about H-1B visas — non-immigrant visas designed to allow U.S. employers to employ foreign professionals in specialty occupations for a certain period of time — and the candidates’ tax plans. Yet the problem with the moderators’ questions is not that they were tough but that they were intended to make the candidates attack one another and that they dripped with contempt for the candidates’ positions and general worldview.

The moderators began the debate by asking each candidate to reveal their biggest weakness, what is universally acknowledged as the worst job interview question of all time. The second question was posed to front-runner Donald Trump, asking whether he was running “a comic book version of a presidential campaign.” I’m no fan of Donald Trump, but to begin the debate with such a contemptuous question was condemnable. Debates are supposed to be about discussing the candidates’ views and policy positions, not questioning the very legitimacy of their campaigns. The moderators should have asked Trump about his positions and whether his lack of background would prevent him from successfully holding executive office, not mock his entire campaign from the outset.

Most of the questions directed toward Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) were about exaggerated supposed scandals rather than his actual policy positions, including poor management of his finances and his missing of Senate votes.

When he was finally asked about his tax plan, moderator John Harwood accused Rubio of offering a tax plan that was heavily tilted toward the rich. When Rubio corrected him and said that lower-income taxpayers receive a higher percentage of the plan’s benefits than wealthy taxpayers, Harwood stated that the Tax Foundation backed up his assertion about Rubio’s tax plan. Yet Harwood himself had previously tweeted on Oct. 14 that this was false: “CORRECTING earlier tweet: Tax Foundation says Rubio benefits lowest 10% proportionally more (55.9) than top 1% (27.9%).”

In fact, Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation, publicly corrected Harwood on Twitter during the debate, writing that “Rubio was right about his plan. Poor get larger tax benefit than the rich.”

Debates are supposed to be about the candidates and their defense of their policies, not the moderators’ views of them.

Critics of the Republican response to the debate point to the fact that Ted Cruz claimed a question asked of him about the debt limit was

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unfair. But that is not what the question actually asked of Cruz: One of the moderators, Carl Quintanilla, asked Cruz if his opposition to the recent budget deal demonstrated that he was not a “problem solver.” When Cruz went on to attack the media in his applause winning response, Quintanilla pushed back by claiming, “I asked you about the debt limit and I got no answer.” Such was not the case.

Other examples of bias abound, including when Governor Mike Huckabee was asked whether he thought Trump was someone with “the moral authority to unite the country,” but they all lead back to the main point that the moderators did not ask tough questions, but rather questions contemptuously critical of the candidates and their positions. As a Nov. 3 Federalist article read, “As the CNBC debate illustrated, apparatchiks like Harwood have no shame posing as unbiased moderators because they believe their gotcha questions are unadulterated ‘reality.’ Bernie Sanders will never be asked if he’s running a ‘Leninist version of the presidency’ and Hillary will never be asked if she’s running the ‘Nixonian version of the presidency’ because the same antipathy just isn’t there for Democrats.”

The second problem of President Obama’s critique of the Republican candidates has to do with his inference that the candidates are ill-equipped to deal with the likes of Russian president Vladimir Putin; mainly, that he is no position to criticize others when it comes to Russia.

As was written in the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 2, “the U.S. government ... was surprised

by Vladimir Putin’s takeover of Crimea, surprised by his invasion of eastern Ukraine, surprised by his plan to sell S-300 missiles to Iran, and surprised by his intervention in Syria,”

allowing him to conduct strikes to support the positions of the Assad regime. In response, on Oct. 30 President Obama announced the deployment of a whopping 50 U.S. special forces soldiers to assist Kurdish troops who are fighting Islamic State.

The United States has been outmaneuvered

by Russia at every step in Putin’s mission to re-expand Russian influence around the world.

Putin allowed for a chemical weapons disarmament plan (which ended up with dastardly results) in Syria that went against U.S. interests instead of a military strike by the United States in 2013, invaded Crimea in the face of a weak U.S. response, and has now repositioned Russia as a major player in the Middle East, due to the aforementioned examples as well as arms and other deals with Israel, Egypt, Bahrain and possibly Saudi Arabia, while the United States has simply sat back, watched and continuously asserted that it is Putin who is weak.

As such, it seems President Obama isn’t in a position to tell others whether they are competent enough to deal with Russia. Moreover, China’s actions in the South China Sea have also largely gone against U.S. wishes, although the United States’ dealings with China are not in as bad a state as the ones with Russia.

President Obama enjoyed strong showings in the presidential debates when he was elected in 2008 and 2012, so it is possible that presidential debates are not always good indicators of future foreign policy success.

In future debates, moderators should ask the GOP candidates sincere, serious questions about their foreign policy positions. Then the people can decide whether or not they’ll be able to take on the challenges this country will have to deal with in the coming years.

Repealing Houston Equal Rights Ordinance denies basic rights Catherine

Rosch cynical idealist

By most measures, 2015 has been a good year for the American LGBTQ community. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality. The Amazon series “Transparent,” which follows a family adjusting to a parent coming out as trans, dominated award shows. Gus Kenworthy, Kristen Stewart and Miley Cyrus all came out of the closet.

Two transgender women, Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox, dominated reality television and the red carpet. Utah, the most conservative state in the country, with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+22—indicating that Utah tends to lean Republican at 22 points higher than the nation as an average—passed meaningful antidiscrimination legislation that included protections for both the LGBTQ community and for religious conscience.

However, all of that progress changed on the night of Nov. 3, when the city of Houston overwhelmingly voted against the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, also known as HERO, an act passed by the Houston city council in 2014 to end certain forms of discrimination in the The Justice welcomes letters to the editor responding to published material. Please submit letters through our Web site at www.thejustice.org. Anonymous submissions cannot be accepted.

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workplace and public accommodations. The ordinance protected a variety of identities, including sexual orientation and gender identity.

Texas is one of 32 states that lacks any anti-discrimination measures to protect the LGBTQ community while Houston is one of the most liberal congressional districts in the country and is the first city to have an out lesbian as mayor, Annise Parker. So what happened?

Opponents of HERO, an ordinance that would expand basic civil rights protections to all Houstonians, ran a campaign on one claim. That claim was the bathroom myth, or the argument that by giving basic rights to the LGBTQ community, Houston was opening the door to men preying on women and young girls in changing rooms and public restrooms.

Most people who are trans prefer to use the restroom that matches the gender they identify as. This can be especially important for trans people who have dysphoria or who have transitioned and would face violence if they used the restroom that corresponded with the gender they were assigned at birth. In 2015, presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee said, “I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE,” and implied that trans people, but especially trans women, are sexual voyeurs and predators. The Family Research Council, a group that opposes marriage equality and supports so-called conversion therapy for teenagers, claimed that allowing trans The opinions stated in the editorial(s) under the masthead on the opposing page represent the opinion of a majority of the voting members of the editorial board; all other articles, columns, comics and advertisements do not necessarily. For the Brandeis Talks feature on the last page of the newspaper, staff interview four randomly selected students each week and print only those four answers.

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people to use the restroom that matches their gender identity would give male predators legitimate access to women and girls.

The evidence, however, does not line up.

Vermont has had a similar law since 2001, and the state’s human rights commission has not had any reports of trans women using restrooms to assault or spy on cis women and girls. Both the Las Vegas police department and a Minneapolis police spokesperson said that their respective states have had no problems since the anti-discrimination laws passed while Alexa Priddy, director of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said that claims that trans people are sexual predators, like the ones made by Huckabee and the FRC, are “creat[ing] fear.” At the same time, trans Americans do face violence and discrimination when they use public restrooms. A Williams Institute study cited in a Mic.com article from April 2015 found that around 70 percent of trans people have been harassed, denied entrance or physically assaulted when trying to use a public restroom. The study was based on 93 trans and gender non-conforming individuals in Washington, DC — Washington, DC has some of the most liberal public accomodations laws in the country and is small enough that it is relatively easy to contact the trans community, a community that is historically underserved and difficult to research. A trans woman told researchers that when she used the women’s bathroom with her female friends, she often would face verbal harassment from

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other women. Nine percent of survey respondents reported being physically assaulted when trying to use the bathroom that matched their gender identity. One of the trans men disclosed that he had been sexually assaulted in a men’s bathroom when an occupant realized that he was trans.

Trans people are the ones who face harassment and violence when they try to use the bathrooms that match their identity. The bathroom myth is not harmful because it is untrue.

It is harmful because it implies that trans people — and really, the rhetoric only applies to trans women in this case — are confused men who are sexual predators. This, in turn, feeds into the myth that anyone who is transgender is either just confused or is actively trying to trick people. In reality, trans people are not confused about their genders or trying to trick anyone; studies have shown that even toddlers have a sense of their own gender identity.

Earlier this year, a stocky and bearded trans man named Michael Hughes posted a bathroom selfie with the caption “Do I look like I belong in women’s facilities? Republicans are trying to get legislation passed that would put me there, based on my gender at birth. Trans people aren’t going into the bathroom to spy on you, or otherwise cause you harm, #wejustneedtopee.” This simple hashtag perhaps sums it up best. Trans people are not predators. They are not confused. They just want to be treated with respect and dignity, the same thing that all Americans expect in life.

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TUESDAY, November 10, 2015

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THE JUSTICE

FORUM

Democratic dialogue needed on Syria intervention

By BEN FESCHBACH JUSTICE Staff WRITER

On Oct. 30, President Obama announced plans to deploy around 50 Special Operations forces to Syria — a decision which, according to an Oct. 30 New York Times article, is “the first openended mission by United States ground forces in that country.” President Obama has, in the past, expressed aversion at staging military operations for their own sake — so I think it’s safe to assume that their “advisory” capacity isn’t just that. “These forces do not have a combat mission,” assured Josh Earnest, White House press secretary, but given the history of “US advisors” (see: Vietnam War), this claim strains credulity.

So are we going to war again? Quite possibly.

“Going to war” used to mean actually drafting articles of war on another state or group — a step further than simply authorizing military action — but the last time this was actually done was December 1941, following Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. Today, going to war more closely resembles “protracted military involvement.”― Certainly, how we conduct war has changed, but what has changed far more than that is what we are willing to admit is indeed war.

But the question that’s even harder to answer is who we are actually going to war against. Is it the Islamic State, the barbaric insurgency group controlling an area containing over ten million people — not to mention affiliate involvement in Gaza, Sinai and all over northern and central Africa, with a track record of infiltrating Western states and using an online presence to recruit fighters? Maybe it’s Bashar al-Assad, the embattled Syrian dictator whose administration was recently described, by the French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, as a “bureaucracy of horror.” Is it a proxy war against Russia and Iran, both of whom are actively propping up the Assad regime?

In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 28, President Obama stressed that “there is no room for accommodating an apocalyptic cult like ISIL, and the United States makes no apologies for using our military, as part of a broad coalition, to go after them.” He also said “realism also requires a managed transition away from Assad and to a new leader and an inclusive government that recognizes there must be an end to this chaos so that the Syrian people can begin to rebuild.” At this point in the conflict, it remains extremely difficult to see how the U.S. can meaningfully achieve both goals, much less how U.S. military intervention would be a productive catalyst for that.

We are inserting ourselves into a tri-polar civil war: Assad (supported by Russia and Iran), the Islamic State and more “moderate” rebel groups like the Free Syrian Army. If fifty troops are indeed just the tip of the iceberg, then what comes next? I posed this question to Prof. Steven Burg (POL), the Adlai Stevenson Professor of International Politics here at Brandeis and an internationally renowned expert on ethnic conflict and military intervention.

Burg explained, “I’m opposed to U.S. intervention in Syria. I’m sort of delighted that the Russians have chosen to get themselves involved, because I think it’s only going to turn out badly.

We have experience in Bosnia with the complexities of three-way warfare. In addition, it’s very difficult to know who to choose to support. My real concern is that the fifty troops that they sent

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is the thin edge of the wedge, and I think Americans are sort of sick of intervening in these conflicts.”

“

This is terrible for the state of our democracy, as it undermines the chance of a serious public debate.

Note that Burg frames his opposition to intervening in Syria as a matter of realism. It is undeniable that the Syrian Civil War has produced a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions; indeed, the United Nations refugee agency considers it “the world’s largest catastrophe.” But if our military cannot meaningfully improve the situation on the ground, then all we are doing is giving ourselves a false sense of solvency. And it is highly likely that we would do more net harm than good, in both the short and long term. I am not even going to address the enormous financial implications of further protracted military involvement in the Middle East; suffice to say, by his own admission, Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s figures in his 2008 book “The Three Trillion Dollar War” were conservative estimates then and far out of date today.

But when it comes to U.S. military engagement, process is just as important as the policy outcome. In 2013, when Assad used chemical weapons against his own people — thereby crossing the administration’s “red line” for U.S. involvement in the conflict — President Obama said at the time that he would defer to Congress on this, because he is “president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.” This turned out to be a fiasco on so many different levels, but it looks like the Obama Administration’s takeaway from the experience was that Congress is so impossibly hard to deal with that it’s not even worth it to consult them, even when it comes to large-scale military operations.

And so, the Obama Administration hasn’t even bothered to ask Congress for permission to do this — the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, aka AUMF — choosing instead to dubiously operate under the legal mandate of the AUMF that gave the Bush Administration permission to invade Iraq.

Besides the fact that sending even fifty troops into Syria, according to Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic, is “flagrantly unconstitutional,” as well as a violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, this is terrible for the state of our democracy, as it undermines the chance of a serious public debate.

To their credit, although the Bush Administration certainly subverted and manipulated public opinion in a number of ways, by actually asking Congress for an AUMF, they allowed for a serious debate about the (stated) merits of invading Iraq. Obviously, Congress screwed up too — by

assuming that the Bush Administration was acting in good faith and then neglecting its responsibility to more forcefully oversee its behavior.

This time around, the Obama Administration is subverting public opinion by not even asking for its opinion at all.

And although Congress most obviously believes that President Obama is always acting in bad faith, it is still neglecting its duty to the American people by not calling on the Obama Administration to deepen our involvement when and only when there is a new AUMF. The next commander-in-chief will absolutely have to deal with this conflict, which has no end in sight: so heading into the next presidential election, voters are being denied a serious, nuanced debate over the expansion of executive authority in foreign policy, the efficacy of the War Powers Resolution — a 1973 law passed in reaction to the Vietnam War, which requires in theory that presidents limit the length and scope of military operations not authorized by Congress — the capacity for our military to meaningfully ameliorate this horrible conflict and the lines in the sand we say we won’t cross but inevitably will.

Offering the Congress an AUMF gives the public, members of Congress and presidential candidates a chance to have this debate. It certainly gives us a chance to protest (right now I wouldn’t know what I would be protesting or for how long). And it also gives the Obama Administration a chance to truly make its case — which will help its credibility both at home and around the world.

Condemn African dictators for undermining democracy Jessica

Goldstein ubuntu

“Please explain this to me like I’m a five year old.” I guess this can be said about nearly every decision that I read about African politics, but this one is one of those decisions that makes vomit fill my mouth and the ground below my feet feel shaky.

This July, Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza stole a third term and changed his country’s constitution despite great opposition from his own party — claiming that his first term did not count on the grounds that he was appointed by Parliament rather than being elected by popular vote. At a hearing in D.C., I was sitting behind a panel of experts — all attempting to promote reconciliation to avoid yet another outburst of ethnic violence in the central African country. Don’t get me wrong — violence and ethnic violence aren’t always erupting in central Africa. But when certain violations of the law occur, one must recognize the potential for the renewal of violence. At least 200 people have been killed in wthe aftermath of the elections, and tens of thousands have fled to other countries, according to an Oct. 22 Guardian article. Burundians reached and met the deadline to turn in

weapons.

In this particular case, the violence in Burundi has yet to take on the ethnic elements that characterized the conflict twenty years ago. Travel just across the border to the neighboring country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where you will see an equally horrifying abuse of the system of procedural democracy.

In order to appease democracy, President Joseph Kabila is doing everything in his power to make his actions appear constitutional.

With the same logic, Kabila is doing everything in his power to remain in office as long as humanly possible.

He has served the country for nearly 15 years, with the first five years serving as a transitional term. Kabila’s term is set to expire late next year, and the leader is not giving any indication of leaving anytime soon.

In fact, Kabila is practicing what Congo intellectuals call “glissement,” a French word meaning slippage. In other words, Kabila will create the political opportunity to further postpone elections. And there is no indication to suggest he is slipping in this endeavor.

According to a Oct. 29 Reuters article, in an attempt to resolve the “political anarchy” of the state, Kabila extended his power through the country. This foul attempt was demonstrated by Kabila appointing representatives to head provincial governments in 19 different states. This would allow the central government greater control over revenue and security in the region prior to elections.

However, Kabila is not anywhere near the

worst of the worst. This specific prize is reserved for Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

The political leader rose to prominence in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and his concurrent successes as a general in the Rwandan Patriotic Front — a Tutsi army that saved Rwanda from itself and its genocide.

The military genius’s success may be tied to what General Romeo Dallaire described as Kagame “being a master of psychological warfare.” However, this mastery of psychological warfare should not extend to constitutional affairs.

“

All told, five-year-olds follow the rules with a greater frequency than these bastards.

Like other fellow central African countries, Rwanda is set for elections very soon, and its long-standing political leader’s term is coming to an end. An Oct. 29 Reuters article cited increasing support for Kagame’s bid at an extended term. In fact, on Oct. 29, the Lower Parliament voted to extend his time in office beyond two terms, perhaps even until 2034, as Kagame saved the country from the genocide.

The decision must be put before the upper house and put to a referendum vote. However, there is no evidence to suggest that either of these measures would fail.

This is further reaffirmed by the complete and total lack of lack political freedoms in Rwanda. Freedom House, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to promote freedom worldwide, ranks the country’s freedom of press as “not free.” Furthermore, in a Feb. 2 report the organization cites a more apparent trend as leaders in east Africa are decreasing political freedoms as leaders are resorting largely to political control.

If that isn’t enough, Kagame seriously needs to question whether the measures he has taken — largely to ignore the concept of democracy — are sufficient to prevent the eruption of further mass atrocities upon this contentious election period. By making it illegal to speak about ethnicity, Kagame is largely papering over the cracks of a much larger problem.

Despite all this, it wouldn’t be surprising if those in the West simply ignored the action despite its condemnations of the unconstitutional move. In a March/April 2014 magazine article, POLITICO calls Kagame “the darling tyrant.” While some know Kagame as the political leader who committed grievous atrocities, others, like Bill Clinton, call Kagame one of “the greatest leaders of our time.”

All told, five-year-olds follow the rules with a greater frequency than these bastards. You cannot cheat at the game because you only have so many lives. Even the West’s darling shouldn’t be able to get away with this.

THE JUSTICE

CONTINUED FROM 16 The Judges will kick off the playoffs against the 13-4-1 Thomas College, while Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faces off against Stevens Institute of Technology.

The matches will take place on Saturday evening at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., respectively. This marks the Judges first automatic bid into the tournament, after they went 6-1 in their conference play during the 2015 to 2016 regular season.

The Judges are hosting for their fourth consecutive year and will be making their 13th overall appearence in the tournament.

In last year's tournament, the team advanced all the way to the sectional finals, only to lose in a

MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

FULL POSSESSION: Defender Michaela Friedman ’17 (right) dribbles up the field against New York University this past Saturday.

WSOC: Judges earn spot in Division III Tournament so this week we really need to stay focused din practice, because all of our pattern plays will lead to goals," said Szafran. "We all know how to score goals, tis just whether we can formulate the right attacking mindset to finish, so we need to stay extra focused and know that we won’t win unless we score."

Brandeis set a new regular season record with its 12th shutout of the season, ending the regular season having let up just eight goals all year, including a stretch of seven straight clean score sheets in September.

After the Judges got the goal they needed from McDaniel a late push by

NYU almost tied the game. With time winding down, NYU had one final chance to send the game to overtime, but NYU freshman forward Megan Carver sent the ball high of the net in the 88th minute to seal the game.

Goalkeeper Alexis Grossman ’17 stopped the one shot she faced to secure her eighth shutout of the year and lowered her personal goalsagainst-average to 0.35 for the year, letting in just six goals in more than 1500 minutes played, en route to a 12-23 record this year.

The Judges found out on Monday that their season will continue against Western Connecticut State University in the first round of the tournament.

This will mark the first time in

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2015

13

MSOC: Squad to open NCAAs on Gordon Field

DEFENSIVE STEALTH

CONTINUED FROM 16

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school history that the team will be making consecutive appearances in the tournament.

"The key this year for a deep postseason run is just making sure that the whole team is on the same page all the time throughout the tournament," Szafran said. "We all know we have an incredibly talented team, and we each challenge each other every day in practice, so we need to keep that mentality because when we play against all tough teams, how much heart and effort is going to win the games. We all need to want it to succeed this year.

Based off the mentality going into the postseason, I think we are going to have a great run this year and I’m so excited."

blowout game against State University of New York at Oneonta.

En route to the sectional finals, the Judges shut out Husson Univesity and Bowdoin College.

Their next game proved to be a considerable challenge against Amherst College.

The Judges took home the win in a nail-biter match against Amherst in the third round, winning after penalty kicks in overtime.

The men beat Amherst six to five in penalty kicks with Jastremski knocking in the winning goal to take the Judges to the next round of the playoffs.

This year, the Judges hope to mimic last year's excitement but look to surpass their previous success as they go for the gold.

SWIMMING: Zitelny earns two important finishes at road meet CONTINUED FROM 16 the men did not see quite as much success as their counterparts.

With Diamond dominating the 1000-yard freestyle with a first place finish, the Judges seemed to have some hope.

However, that confidence soon faded as the Judges recorded only one third-place finish in the next four events.

Evan Thom ’18 broke the streak with a bronze performance in the 50-yard-freestyle race.

Three events later, Taku Harada ’18 followed the lead, grabbing third in the 200-yard backstroke race, narrowly edging out teammate Edan Zitelny ’17 by two milliseconds. Zitelny got his revenge in the 100-yard butterfly, taking home third place with a 55.09 finish.

Diamond eased past the competition to steal the silver in the last individual race of the day.

After the meet, Diamond was op-

timistic about the performace, explaining, “I am very confident that the team will put on a great show come the next few months.”

Brandeis closed out with a modest third-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle team relay led by Thom.

After being named October’s swimmers of the month by the University Athletic Association, Diamond and Herman lived up to their expectations but could not carry the team the whole way.

However, it should be duly noted that each swimmer had a seasonbest time at this past weekend's difficult meet.

The team looks to improve upon its performance in this month’s hometown meet against crosstown rival Bentley University.

It will try to best last season's result, in which the women fell to Bentley 156-74.

The men also came up short in the contest falling to the Waltham school, 139-102.

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jUDGES BY THE NUMBERS aMen’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS UAA Conf.

W L D 6 1 0 4 3 0 3 2 2 3 3 1 3 3 1 3 3 1 1 3 3 1 6 0

Tuesday, NOVEMBER 10, 2015

15

VOLLEYBALL

TEAM STATS Goals

2015-2016 Statistics

JUDGES Case Carnegie WashU Chicago Emory Rochester NYU

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Overall W L D 16 2 1 13 4 1 11 3 3 11 4 3 11 5 2 9 6 2 6 5 5 6 12 0

Pct. .842 .722 .647 .611 . 611 .529 .375 .333

Jake Picard ’16 leads the team with three goals.

Player Goals Jake Picard 3 Josh Berg 3 Chris Bradley 3 Josh Ocel 3

Assists Josh Ocel ’17 leads the team with nine assists.

Player Assists Josh Ocel 9 Joshua Handler 3 Patrick Flahive 2 Josh Berg 1

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Judges will continue their season at the NCAA Division III Tournament at home against Thomas College on Saturday.

WOMen’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS

2015-2016 Statistics

Goals

Carnegie WashU Chicago JUDGES NYU Rochester Emory Case

UAA Conf.

W L D 6 1 0 6 1 0 4 3 0 3 2 2 2 4 1 2 4 1 1 3 3 0 6 1

Overall W L D 15 1 1 16 2 0 12 6 0 14 2 3 12 5 1 8 7 2 8 6 4 7 7 4

Pct. .882 .889 .667 .737 .667 .471 .444 .389

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Judges will continue their season at the NCAA Division III Tournament on the road against Western Connecticut State University.

S

Holly Szafran ’16 leads the team with six goals.

Player Goals Holly Szafran 6 Lea McDaniel 6 Cidney Moscovitch 4 Alec Spivack 4

Assists Holly Szafran ’16 leads the team with fourth assists.

Player Assists Holly Szafran 4 Lea McDaniel 3 Samantha Schwartz 3 Haliana Burhans 3

volleyball er-Jacoby 138 UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS Kills

2014-2015 Statistics UAA Conf. Overall

W L W L Pct. WashU 6 1 32 2 .941 Emory 6 1 32 3 .914 Case 5 2 24 7 .774 Chicago 3 4 20 12 .625 Carnegie 4 3 27 7 .614 Rochester 2 5 16 17 .485 NYU 1 6 16 18 .471 JUDGES 0 7 5 27 .156

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Judges concluded their season with an eighth place finish at the UAA tournament on Saturday.

Maddie Engeler ’16 leads the team with 168 kills.

Player Kills Maddie Engeler 168 Grace Krumpack 167 Shea Decker-Jacoby 136 Zara Platt 108

Digs Yvette Cho ’19 leads the team with 463 digs.

Player Digs Yvette Cho 463 Grace Krumpack 313 Shea Decker-Jacoby 190 Leah Pearlman 180

cross cOuntry Results from the Connecticut College Invitational on Oct. 17.

TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)

TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)

8-Kilometer Run RUNNER TIME Liam Garvey 25:56.2 Mitchell Hutton 26:09.4 Quinton Hoey 26:21.2 Brian Sheppard 26:28.0

6-Kilometer Run RUNNER TIME Emily Bryson 21:50.5 Kelsey Whitaker 21:59.6 Lydia McCaleb 22:44.8 Maddie Dolins 22:55.6

UPCOMING MEET: The teams will continue their seasons at the NCAA New England Regionals at Harkness Park, Waterford, CT on Nov. 14.

DAISY CHEN/Justice File Photo

GOING FOR THE SERVE: Setter Allison Harmsworth ’17 attempts the ace during a 3-1 defeat against Vassar College on Oct. 31.

Squad ends season at UAA championships ■ Middle Hitter Summer Koop ’16 finished with a .364 hitting percentage in a 3-1 defeat to NYU on Saturday.

By max byer JUSTICE staff writer

The volleyball team’s trying 2015 campaign came to a close after a University Athletic Association tournament performance that was as dismal as the season it followed. In the quarterfinals, the Judges were swept 3-0 by top-ranked Emory University.

The Judges moved into the consolation bracket semifinals, where they were again swept, this time by #21-ranked Carnegie Mellon University. They proceeded to the seventh-place match, where they fell to New York University 3-1.

NYU 3, Judges 1 In the seventh-place match, the Judges began the first set on fire, finishing with a tournament-best .135 hitting percentage on their way to a first set win, the second time the Judges accomplished such a feat against the Violets this season. Thanks to an 8-1 advantage in blocks and a .243 team hitting percentage, the Violets

dominated the rest of the match, holding large leads throughout each set. In her final game, middle hitter Summer Koop ’16 finished with a team-leading .364 hitting percentage.

The Judges will miss Koop and her fellow seniors moving forward but are looking forward to an increased role for young players, especially libero Yvette Cho ’19, outside hitter Grace Krumpack ’19 and setter Leah Pearlman ’19. Krumpack led the team with a match-high ten kills and added 12 digs, giving her her second double-double of her young career.

Cho had three service aces along with her match-high 13 digs. Finally, Pearlman anchored the middle of the court with 16 assists and seven digs.

No. 21 Carnegie Mellon 3, Judges 0 Earlier in the weekend, the Judges were dismantled by the #21-ranked Carnegie Mellon University Tartans.

The Tartans dominated both the service line and the play at the net, delivering seven service aces and blocking ten shots, both significantly greater than the Judges’ four service aces and three blocks. Koop was not the only senior to have a strong performance this tournament, as middle hitter Maddie Engeler ’16 led all players with eight kills. The senior’s quality of performance was complemented by the strong play of the rookies. Cho

finished with 13 digs, while rookie setter Marlee Nork ’19 led the Judges with nine assists. Across the board, the Judges faltered, trailing in many crucial categories, including assists, hitting percentages, and total kills.

No. 1 Emory 3, Judges 0 In the quarterfinals, the Judges were outpaced and dismantled by the Eagles. The Judges were unable to gain any momentum, never winning more than three consecutive points.

On a positive note, even against an NCAA leader like Emory, the Judges’ youth showed nuanced talent and composure beyond their years, as Cho had eight digs and Nork had 11 assists, both of which were team highs. Outside hitter Jessie Moore ’18 led the Judges with six kills.

At the bottom of the UAA conference standings, the Judges end the year with a woeful 5-27 overall record. The Judges were winless in conference play, going 0-7.

Moving forward, the Judges, behind Head Coach Alesia Vaccari, look forward to the 2016 campaign next fall. The Judges only graduate three players, Maggie Swenson, Maddie Engeler and Koop.

The development of the team’s young core will be crucial to a stronger 2016 campaign, as over half of this year’s team consists of rookies.

FENCING Judges open up new season with strong showing at New England Fall Collegiate Championship ■ Caroline Mattos ’16 took home the gold medal to win “the Big One” for the second time in her career.

By DAN ROZEL JUSTICE staff writer

The Judges got off to a successful start this season at the New England Fall Collegiate Championship, or “the Big One,” at Smith College on Saturday. The fencers took home three medals between the men and women in their first competition of the season. On the women’s side, Caroline Mattos ’16 utterly dominated her competition. In pool play, she only surrendered two touches in six bouts, propelling her to the top seed in the direct

elimination round. In that round, she defeated her three opponents by a total combined score of 45-9.

The only test came in the finals from Sacred Heart University’s Junior CJ McCarter, but Mattos was undeterred, triumphing by a score of 12-10, and brought home the gold in women’s foil for the second time in her career at this event.

Mattos succeeded despite fighting through injuries.

She commented, “So far this season, I’ve sprained my ankle, strained my quads and have had continuous back problems. I recently got over a virus that still leaves me constantly fatigued. I hate sitting on the sidelines, so I’ve just been working through my injuries as best as I can.”

Zimeng “Boots” Xue ’18 finished

fifth in the foil event, also dominated her opponents by a score of 30-5 in pool play.

Xue eventually lost to the silver medalist McCarter in the quarterfinals, but it was an admirable finish for the sophomore nonetheless. Ashley Jean ’17 mirrored Xue’s performance in the sabre event, also finishing fifth after losing to the eventual champion in the quarterfinals. Jean defeated teammate Nina Sayles ’17 by a score of 15-10 in the round of 16 after winning her first elimination match by a score of 15-2.

Mattos was impressed with the team’s results. She remarked, “It’s always nice to win, but I think this reassures me that I am still capable of competing at a certain level.

I’m always looking to improve,

and this tournament definitely helped me gauge where I’m at and where I want to be by the end of the season. Overall, we have a strong freshmen class. I was impressed by everyone’s performance as a whole.

They all exceeded my expectations, and I’m extremely proud of them.”

On the men’s side, Kyle Berney ’18 and Elisha Litle ’18 accounted for the other two medals. Berney earned a silver medal in sabre, medaling for the second time in a row at this event. His only loss came to Benjamin Lin of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who qualified for the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament last spring.

Otherwise, no other opponent in elimination play came within five touches of him. Litle took silver in

foil, defeating Brandeis teammate Charles Wells ’19 in the round of 16.

He managed to defeat the top seed from Boston College but eventually lost to Sacred Heart in the final.

Many Judges met in the elimination rounds of the men’s epee event, but it was Philip Szeszol ’19 who had the best finish, reaching the quarterfinals.

For the goals of the season, Matos noted that “it would be an honor to represent Brandeis at NCAAs this year. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience which I would love to be part of. I see qualifying as a reward to myself after working hard for the past three years.” The Judges return to action on Nov. 21 in the Northeast Fencing Conference in their meet at Brown University in Rhode Island.

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Sports

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ON TARGET The fencing team opened its season at the New England Fall Collegiate Championships this past Saturday, p. 15.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Waltham, Mass.

WOMEN’S SOCCER

POWERFUL STRIKE

Women close out regular season with 12th shutout ■ Lea McDaniel's 36th

minute score opened the floodgates with a goal to give Brandeis the lead.

By AVI GOLD JUSTICE EDITOR

The No. 11 women’s soccer team closed out its regular season with its 12th shutout of the year, topping New York University 1-0 on Gordon Field last Saturday.

The Judges move to 14-2-3 on the year and finish the University Athletic Association campaign tied for fifth place with a 3-2-2 conference record.

The Judges earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament, beginning on Saturday afternoon.

"This week of practices is really important for this upcoming weekend," said midfielder Holly Szafran ’16. "We have to stay focused all week and train the hardest we have this year. We all know NCAAs is one-anddone, so we need to come out strong and stay strong throughout the tournament. Every team in the NCAA’s is going to be tough, so we have to treat every game like its the deciding game, because it actually is."

Judges 1, NYU 0 The hosts controlled most of the play during the first half of Satur-

day's contest, taking three of the game’s first five shots over the opening 20 minutes. Though the Judges managed to put just one of those three shots on net, they were able to earn a pair of corner kicks to keep the pressure on NYU’s defense.

In the 36th minute the Judges got the only offense they would need, as forward Lea McDaniel ’17 turned a fantastic individual effort into her team-leading sixth goal of the year.

McDaniel collected a throw-in well within the attacking third of the field and volleyed a pass to herself from the top of the 18-yard-box to the far post of the net.

The individual effort caught NYU junior goalkeeper Cassie Steinberg off guard and Steinberg was forced to pick the ball out of the back of her own net.

Following the goal, the Judges leaned on their 17th-ranked defense in Division III — which gave up an average of .427 goals per game entering the contest — to hold the Violets without a shot on net for the rest of the game.

The Judges, meanwhile, totaled eight shots in the first half and 13 overall, putting four on net and forcing Steinberg into a number of athletic saves.

"We did struggle a couple times throughout the season on finishing,

See WSOC, 13 ☛

swimming & Diving

JOYCE YU/the Justice

CHIP SHOT: Midfielder Josh Ocel ’17 lifts a pass towards the goal in a match against New York University this past Saturday.

Judges blank NYU in conference showdown ■ Midfielder Joshua

Handler ’19 assisted on the goal by Evan Jastremski ’17 in the 35th minute.

By GABRIEL GOLDSTEIN JUSTICE StAFF WRIter

The men’s soccer team ended their season with a 3-0 shutout victory over conference rival New York University on Saturday, furthering already-mounting momentum as they head into the NCAA Division III tournament this coming week.

Judges 3, NYU 0 The scoring was kicked off in the 35th minute when midfielder Joshua Handler ’19 sent a cross that found the ready foot of midfielder Evan Jastremski ’17, who fired home his second goal of the season.

After Jastremski’s goal, the scoring ceased until the 81st minute.

That was when forward Zach Viera ’17 scored off of a volley from Brandon Miskin’s ’18 deflection.

The goal was Viera’s fourth of the

regular season.

Despite riding a comfortable 2-0 lead, the Judges never took their foot off the gas, again breaking through in the 86th minute when midfielder Josh Ocel ’17 rocketed home the dagger goal, set up beautifully by midfielder Josh Burg ’17.

The Judges outshot NYU 24-6 overall with a 10-1 advantage in shots on goal.

Viera noted after the game, “It was awesome to finish the season with a 3-0 win, because we haven't won many games by more than one goal ... A 3-0 win allowed us to get some momentum for our forwards heading into the playoffs.”

The significance of such a breakout offensive game cannot be understated, as it finally seems the Judges’ scoring struggles are being worked out just in time for the all important National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III National tournament.

One can only hope that putting up three goals in the squad's final game is foreshadowing similarly dominant offensive showings in the squad’s coming win-or-go-home

tournament games.

The victory moves the Judges to 16-2-1 overall and 6-1-0 in conference play for the 2015 season. For NYU, the loss brings the team to 6-12-0 overall and 1-6-0 in conference play to end the season.

By winning the University Athletic Association conference title last weekend, the Judges clinched an automatic bid to the NCAA DIII Tournament.

Viera and the squad are ready and excited for postseason play.

He noted, “We know we're one of the best teams in the country, and all we have to do is focus on playing our game and not allowing other teams to dictate the flow of play in order to win. We have the players to make a run deep into the tournament, so all we have to do is take the confidence we've gained from winning these last four games and clinching the UAA title and apply it to the tournament games.”

The men return to the pitch as they host the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament.

See MSOC, 13 ☛

Team comes away with few victories at WPI ■ Zach Diamond ’18 took

home a gold medal and added a second and fourthplace finish for the weekend.

By JERRY MILLER JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

This weekend’s meet at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute proved to be a tough battle for the men and women’s swimming and diving team.

The men's team was blown out in their first match at WPI, losing 21677. The Judges did not fare much better in the next match against Babson College, falling 160-127.

The women's squad had similar results in their first match, surrendering 220 points and scoring a mere 73.

The women were able to make a minor comeback in the next match against Babson, accumulating 193 points against Babson's 63.

The Judges could not keep up their momentum in the third match, falling 170-121 to the host Smith College.

Overall, the Judges unfortunately came away with just two firstplace finishes combined in the WPI tournament over the weekend.

Zach Diamond ’18 took home a gold medal and added a second and fourth-place finish to top off his impressive weekend.

Kylie Herman ’19 had a big showing for the women’s squad, taking

home a plethora of medals. The rest of the Judges had a few strong performances as well, as Joanna Murphy ’17 won second in the 500 and 1000-yard freestyle events and the women’s A team took the bronze in the 400-yard medley relay.

The women’s A team started off strong, with a total time of four minutes, 24.88 seconds to snag the bronze medal.

Led by Amy Sheinhait ’18, the women seemed be gaining some momentum. Yet the momentum dissipated as they were unable to keep up the fast pace throughout the rest of the day.

After Murphy’s solid performance in the 1000-yard freestyle, Herman was able to match her feat with a second-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle.

Yet the Judges’ luck began to taper off at that point, failing to crack the top five in the next three races.

Herman again lifted the team with a narrow first-place win against Smith College’s freshman Desi Stoyanova in the 200-yard butterfly.

Amy Sheinhart ’18 followed with consecutive top three finishes in the 50 and 100-yard freestyle races.

The women looked wiped until Murphy resurfaced and made a dominant run in the 500-yard freestyle to nab the silver medal.

The women ended their day with a stellar second-place performance in the 200-yard freestyle medley.

On the other side of the spectrum,

See SWIMMING, 13 ☛

Vol. LXVIII #9

just ARTS

November 10, 2015

“tea of oblivion” »p.19

Waltham, MA.

Images: Abby Grinberg/the Justice, Creative Commons. Design: Mihir Khanna/the Justice.

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THE JUSTICE | TUESDAY, november 10, 2015

theater

“Ruined” shows sexual violence in Congo By jaime gropper justice editor

Despite multi-colored Christmas lights draped over the stage and set, “Ruined” is anything but a cheery play. The play written

by Lynn Nottage highlights the sexual violence occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the country’s civil war.

Focusing on the lives of Mama, played by Racheal Odusanya ’17 the owner of a brothel, and two of the women she buys as prostitutes, “Ruined” shows the constant fear, insecurity and lack of control experience by women in this world. The play, which won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for drama, was presented by Brandeis Players in the Shapiro Campus Center Theater this past weekend.

The show is centered in Mama’s House, a bar and “whore house” frequented by travelers, salesmen and soldiers. The play picks up as Mama barters with salesman Christian (Karekin Johnson ’19) for unknown goods amid friendly banter and jokes. The grisly tone of the show is set once it becomes clear that they are bargaining not over the prices of beer, cotton or guns, but rather over girls.

Though hesitant to take in more girls, Mama agrees, and she soon becomes angry when she discovers that one of the girls, Sophie (Kristen Taylor ’17), is “ruined” because sexual violence has mutilated her genitals. In the events that follow, both girls are forced to adjust to life at Mama’s House, which means learning to do whatever sexual and nonsexual deeds will appease drunken governmental and rebel soldiers.

The other prostitute, Salima (Bernice Appiah ’18), has to decide whether or not to face her abusive husband, who comes looking for her. The story, though slow-moving and lacking a build-up to a climactic end, presents a full-fledged vision of the world these women face. Security is a non-existent

concept — every moment is lived in uncertainty. For many women, prostitution is the only possible source of income. For others, it is also the solution to leaving behind worse situations, and yet, it still doesn’t guarantee prevention of sexual assault. “Ruined” draws on the aggravation of the unjust powerlessness of these women to alter their situations.

Although the world in the play is one dominated by men, and the cast consists mostly of men, the performances of the female characters were the most powerful. Appiah’s recounting of being traumatically raped by soldiers in her own village while her baby watched was delivered heartwrenchingly. Taylor brought an extra layer of authenticity to the show with Sophie’s live singing at Mama’s House. Sophie has to sing at the bar to entertain since she is unable to be a prostitute.

But it was Odusanya whose performance truly stood out — she brought a great spirit to Mama as a clever negotiator who manages to run her business all by herself while caring the best that she can for her girls. Although Mama is tough and has uncompassionate moments, it was evident that this was a necessary skin to have in order to survive on her own. Beyond the harshness, Odusanya gave the character a kindness and depth that made it difficult not to fully empathize with her. She also perfectly delivered the majority of the few comedic moments of the play.

Mama, Salima and Sophie, despite their hardships, show a great strength and perseverance. Director Oyemen Ehikhamhen ’17 says about the play in the Director’s Note, “It allows us to open our eyes to issues that are going on in a part of the world that there is an international responsibility for.

It showcases a war within a war; a civil war and a war on women. Amidst all of the trauma, ‘Ruined’ leaves the audience with hope.”

MAMA’S HOUSE: Salima and Sophie reflect on the circumstances that forced them into the brothel and scheme about ways to improve their lives.

TOMMY GAO/the Justice

performance

U.S. treatment of veterans explored in “War is a Racket”

By Linda maleh justice STAFF WRITER

Last Tuesday in Schwartz Auditorium, students listened to a performance on the problems in American wars and the American military.

The performance was drawn from a book written in 1935 called “War is a Racket” by General Smedley Butler, a leader in the United States Navy. The performance was not a reading of the book but rather a speech given

by General Butler, played by actor and army veteran known asNamaya, as if he had come back to life to warn us of the dangers in war facing us today. Following the performance, there was a discussion among the students in the audience about the ideas presented in the speech. Namaya answered questions from the students as himself — rather than in General Butler’s persona.

The majority of the audience was made up of students from the class “Deconstructing War, Building Peace,” taught by Prof.

Gordan Fellman (SOC), who was responsible for bringing the performance to Brandeis.

The performance was a project by the organization Veterans for Peace. Veterans for Peace often go around doing different performances on stories of veterans, like General Butler, Namaya told

the audience.

The speech was not really antiwar; it was more anti-capitalist.

“A racket is something where a few people profit and the many suffer,” Namaya as Butler told the audience. He went on to say how the people who profit from war are the ones who support America going to war, who tend to be large corporate capitalists.

He said that war is easy to stop — you just have to take the profit out of it.

He advised drafting the corporate owners for war first and at the same pay as everybody else.

The resurrected Butler also said that he was not in any way a pacifist.

Butler believes in America having a strong military, but for defense rather than for offensive wars abroad. He reminded the audience that General Washington had warned against just such types of wars; Washington had advised America to “beware foreign entanglements.”

Butler said that there are only two things America should go to war for: “to defend our homes and to defend our democracy and constitution.” He talked about how much money the government sinks into wars and the military — trillions of dollars — that could be used for education and health care.

Butler talked to the audience about the disgraceful way the U.S.

government treats its veterans.

He focused on veterans who came back from war and were denied pay, jobs, food to eat and places to live. He said of the government, “They promise you’ll be educated, taken care of when they come back. But how can you be educated when your spirit and mind are broken? How can you be educated when you’re dead?”

After the performance, students had the opportunity to ask Namaya questions.

One student asked how regular people could get involved in fixing these problems in our wars and military.

Namaya answered that they could campaign against certain wars and policies that the government has concerning war and that they could get involved in helping local veterans.

Namaya said that he does not always agree with Butler but that Butler had a lot of interesting things to say and had such an interesting life. He said that Butler, after he retired from the Navy, was a big activist for veterans’ rights and against wars that he believed America should not take part in. Butler campaigned in the latter years of his life against America’s involvement in World War II. The event was insightful into American wars and military and provoked the audience to think critically about how we approach

BRIEF Salny promises gift of 48 works to Rose Art Museum Henry and Lois Foster Director of the Rose Art Museum Christopher Bedford announced on Friday that collector, businessman and author Stephen M. Salny has promised to donate 48 works to the museum.

They are all paper works by leading contemporary artists.

Salny’s gift includes works

by Helen Frankenthaler, Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns and Robert Motherwell and will add to the museum’s existing collection of these artists’ works. The gift also includes works by new artists to the Rose, including Joseph Albers, Richard Diebenkorn, Damien Hirst, Sol Lewitt, Brice Marden and Sea Scully.

Salny, who sits on the Board of the Foundation for Art & Preservation in Embassies and on the accessions committee for contemporary art at the Baltimore Museum of Art, has several personal connections to Brandeis.

Salny’s grandfather, Samuel M. Salny, was considered a friend to Brandeis from its founding. As a child, Salny attended art programs with his mother at the Rose Art Museum that were led by Lois Foster.

Salny said in a press release from the Rose, “It is because of this seminal affiliation with Brandeis, and my appreciation for my visits to the Rose Art Museum, which started

at a young age, that inspired me to bequest my collection of contemporary prints to the Rose.”

A major highlight of the donation are eleven of Kelly’s lithographs.

The lithographs gifted by Salny along with the Rose’s previously held lithographs, will show the evolution of the artist’s work over fifty years.

Notable lithographs include “Green Curve” (1999), “Dartmouth” (2011) and “BlueGreen” (1970), as well as his breakthrough 1962 painting, “Blue White.”

Included in the gift are Frankenthaler’s “Sunshine After Rain” (1987) and “Ganymede” (1978). Other prints

by Frankenthaler were recently featured in the Rose’s show “Pretty Raw: After and Around Helen Frankenthaler.”

Joining Motherwell’s “Elegy to the Spanish Republic, No. 58” that is currently at the Rose are “Summer Trident“ (1990), “The Black Wall (1981), “Red Open with White Line” (1979) and “Djarum” (1975).

Salny’s gift also includes the first-ever piece of Hirst’s to be acquired by a museum.

Pieces from the Rose’s existing holdings by Ellsworth Kelly, along with pieces from Salny’s gift, will be on view Feb. 12 to Jun. 5.

—Jaime Gropper

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TUESDAY, november 10, 2015 | THE JUSTICE

exhibit

TEA TIME: Ceramic artist Heidi Lau and photographer Megan Ledbetter’s pieces exude earthly themes without using recognizable elements of nature in “Tea of Oblivion.”

ABBY GRIINBERG/the Justice

Rose Art Museum

Rose Art Museum appoints MoMA’s Kim Conaty as the new Curator

By Emily Wishingrad justice editor

“Tea of Oblivion” emits themes of nature through abstraction

By Lizzie grossman justice staff writer

The walls of the Kniznick Gallery of the Women’s Studies Research Center are now embellished with black-and-white photos of elements from nature and pedestals topped with earthcolored abstract sculptures.

This past Friday was the opening of “Tea of Oblivion,” an exhibition encompassing the artwork of ceramic artist Heidi Lau and photographer Megan Ledbetter.

The exhibition is based on an old Chinese folktale about Meng Po, the goddess of reincarnation. Throughout the exhibition, Lau and Ledbetter use their work to exemplify the tale and the connection to nostalgia by incorporating elements from their cultures.

According to the description of the exhibit, “Lau’s ceramic sculptures and Ledbetter’s photography are rich with details collected from various earthly sources and suggest a threshold between the physical and intangible.”

The “Tea of Oblivion” refers to a tea made from herbs collected from ponds and streams that is given to souls passing on to another life. The tea guarantees that memories and events from previous lives are forgotten.

The photos and sculptures were not explicit representations of recognizable objects from nature but rather vague collections of nature-like ele-

ments.

A group of Lau’s sculptures, for example, were green and brown in color and scaly in texture. They looked like tree stumps or dinosaur feet. None of the sculptures actually exemplified tangible objects and appeared to resemble collections of rocks, branches or moss. The only sculpture that was really distinct from the others was a ceramic tea set, representing the titular theme.

Ledbetter’s photos — all of which were black and white — contained recognizable elements from nature, but many of them displayed it in a vague or unrecognizable light.

For example, there was one photo of a jar with a very ambiguous object in it, and a few photos were of textural patterns that were taken very close-up, to the point where it was unrecognizable exactly what the pattern was of.

Some of them looked much more like paintings, to the extent where it was unclear whether or not they actually were photos. The significance of these painting-like pictures amist the photos representing vivid, tangible details from nature was very vague.

The ambiguity of the exhibit did not take away from how impressive it was — both the sculptures and pictures were very aesthetically pleasing and contained lots of rich, captivating details. Based on the description of the exhibit, it is possible that

the lack of clarity in these pieces of art is meant to represent the story of Meng Po. If, as the description says, the artworks “suggest a threshold between the physical and the intangible,” perhaps the vagueness of the art is symbolizing the point in which fantasy meets reality in the world of nature. For example, while it is unclear exactly what any of Lau’s sculptures are actually portraying, the texture and colors of the sculptures evidently represent qualities of nature.

The same can be said for the photos, where the arrangement of the elements within the pictures is unfamiliar, but they contain vivid traits that are recognizable and feel very real to the viewers. These pieces of art seem to be symbolic of the “threshold” that the description mentions — that is, the point in which tangible elements of nature and life can be present concurrently with the unknown.

This exhibit did not display a large amount of work and lacked elements that are present in many art exhibits, such as descriptions of individual pieces of art.

However, the simplicity of the exhibit really lent itself to the story that it was telling and showed that art is not always about the quality of individual pieces but about how several parts work together to form a theme, proving that art can speak in ways that words cannot.

Kim Conaty has been appointed Curator for the Rose Art Museum.

The announcement came last Tuesday in a press release, which stated that Conaty will begin her role in December.

The position of curator is new at the Rose. Exhibitions are currently overseen by a variety of players, including Curator-at-Large Katy Siegel, who works remotely from New York, where she teaches at Hunter College, CUNY. Conaty will be on the museum premises on a daily basis. Conaty mentioned education initiatives and a collection evaluation among the projects that she will be undertaking.

Conaty is coming to the University from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where she served as a curator for drawings and prints.

Before working at MoMA, Conaty served as coordinator for the 2008 Whitney Museum Biennial.

In the press release, Henry and Lois Foster Director of the Museum Chris Bedford said, “Working together as a team, we [Bedford and Conaty] will create innovative exhibitions and programs that support and expand the museum’s roles as an educational resource for the University, a center for community engagement, and a cultural hub for the city of Boston.”

One of Conaty’s major roles will be to oversee a collection evaluation, in which she will take measures to ensure that the Rose’s collections are comprehensive in their scope.

She says that this task is especially important as the museum plans on expanding in upcoming years.

In an interview with the Justice, Conaty explained the types of questions she will be asking: “If there’s an excellent collection of abstract painting from the ’60s, who are we missing? Did we miss something along the way?”

In light of the collection evaluation, Conaty hopes to publish a new collection publication, the last of which was published in 2009.

She says she understands that there are inevitable barriers to acquiring pieces, but as she assesses the collection, she hopes to put together a wish-list — something she did while at MoMA — and then assess the marketplace from there, prioritizing if necessary.

“It’s a matter of thinking about if you can’t have this, then what else would be a way to tell that same story,” she said.

Conaty, who has a background in teaching classes at MoMA, says she would also like to find more ways for the museum to work with the University and engage with students.

“I’ve always really enjoyed teaching. I’ve always really enjoyed engaging with students. So I think sort of that programming or finding other ways to make those connections to the University — I want to make that a big part of what I do as well.”

Coming from MoMA, where her department consisted of 40 staff and where she was working with 80,000 works, Conaty says that she is excited to work with a smaller team and collection at the Rose.

“At MoMA, I always felt that I worked best in smaller project teams,” she said.

Although she worked mostly with drawings and prints at MoMA, Conaty believes she is fully prepared to take on the Rose’s large and ever-expanding collection of different types of media.

The Whitney Biennial in 2008 featured a large variety of media, and Conaty says her work at MoMA included exhibitions of various media as well. “It won’t come as a surprise,” she said.

In terms of challenges, Conaty expressed a concern that she will not be situated within the New York art scene — one of the largest and most prominent in the world.

She commented on the convenience of living among New York galleries and art openings but sees promise in the Waltham art scene — she just has to get acquainted with it: “Waltham actually has a really great art community, but it’s not a community that I know yet. … I often find that some of the more innovative shows in contemporary art are happening outside of New York or outside of these various centers … because there’s a little more freedom.”

But Conaty says that will mean taking time to travel to New York to stay on top of the art scene: “I think it’s really important to stay involved, also, in the much broader international art community.

So that really necessitates hopefully travel from time to time.”

In the meantime, she is excited to begin her work at the Rose: “It’s such a strong collection to be starting with that to be able to actually think about it in a critical way will be really great.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF KIM CONATY

JOINING THE ROSE: Kim Conaty has been appointed as the Curator of the Rose Art Museum. She plans to pursue education initiatives and a collection evaluation.

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TUESDAY, november 10, 2015 | THE JUSTIce

Brandeis TALKS

INTERVIEW

If you could choose any speaker to come to Brandeis, who would it be?

Zach Marlin ’16

Marlin discusses directing “RED” JAIME GROPPER/the Justice

Jesse Ruth ’16

This week, justArts spoke with Zach Marlin ’16 who directed RED, a twoman play about artist Mark Rothko, as his senior thesis.

“I want Bill Clinton because he’s a cool dude.”

justArts: Can you give a brief overview of “RED”?

Maya Fields ’19

“I would have Morrie Schwartz considering he was a professor here, and I read ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’ and that book really resonated with me.”

Debbie-Lee Baskir ’19

“I want Jacob Zuma, who is the current president of South Africa, because I would love to hear his justification for spending South Africa’s tax money on a mansion in the third poorest area of the country.”

Juan Ramirez ’17

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg, although she’s already coming, because I like her principles and her work is super important.”

—Compiled and photographed by Michelle Banayan /the Justice.

STAFF’S Top Ten

Marvels of Outer Space By emily wishingrad justice EDITOR

Since the beginning of time, the night sky has fascinated humanity. A recent discovery by NASA suggesting that Mars contains traces of liquid water was one more clue about the ever-mysterious universe. There are still many secrets to be exposed. But in the meantime, here is a list of some known aspects of our universe that we can marvel at.

1. Moon rocks 2. Curiosity Rover 3. Black holes 4. Red Dwarfs 5. The Milky Way 6. The Big Dipper and Little Dipper 7. Saturn’s rings 8. Shooting stars 9. Voyager Golden Record 10. Dark matter

ALI SANTANA/the Justice

CROSSWORD Across: 1 – Rose locale 5 – Happy mollusk 9 – “Skyfall” singer 14 – Fencing sword 15 – “Walking Dead” character who (spoiler alert!) dies in Season 3 16 – Someone who gets a lot of coinage?

17 – Couple that’s always seen together 18 – Periods of history 19 – Is madly in love with, with “on” 20 – “In _____ We Trust” 21 – Former NBA player who now plays in China 23 – Force to work without recompense 25 – Edward G. Robinson phrase ender 26 – Trade partner 29 – Season before l’automne 30 – It plagues picnics 31 – Laudatory poem 32 – Liquid in a spittoon 35 – “____ Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” 36 – College course with the prefix macro- or micro37 – Wooden plank 38 – What can be placed between each pair of shaded clues 39 – “Bobby _____” (Frank Zappa song) 40 – Enterprise competitor 41 – Yoga necessity 42 – “______ for a Dead Princess” 43 - ____ Tuesday (Boston band) 44 – Come down with something 45 – Graphics card co. acquired by AMD in 2006 46 – There are two of them in New Zealand?

47 – Cycle starter 48 – Irked someone over the internet 52 – Wisconsin’s capital 54 – Ki-____-Mundi (Jedi Master from the prequel films) 55 – Schoolyard epithet 59 – Heavily polluted Central Asian Sea 60 – Conclusive word 61 – Practices boxing 62 – Get tuckered out 63 – “My goodness, I never thought of that!”

64 – Call off, as a fine 65 – Homie (sp.)

66 – Blood and guts Down: 1 – Drab color 2 – Sinclair who penned “The Jungle” 3 – Plant precursors

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CROSSWORD COURTESY OF EVAN MAHNKEN

4 – Haw counterpart 5 – Butcher’s knife 6 – Chuck or Peter 7 – Saudi Arabia native, for example 8 – The word “literally” sees a lot of this 9 – “______ it moves” -quote misattributed to Galileo 10 – The Way 11 – Ambulance worker T 12 – He killed Jack and was killed by Jack A 13 – Where 11-Downs can often be found M 21 – Partnered with, as an animal 22 – Musical with the song “I’ll Cover You” 24 – Looks at menacingly A 26 – Hot beverage for a cold day A 27 – System of ______ (Glendale band) S 28 – Tubular pasta 32 – Become milder, as a storm 33 – Common first date activity I 34 – Temporarily frees from jail, with “out” T 35 – Harden S 36 – LeBaron behind numerous killings 38 – Make free, as parking K 39 – Billy club E 41 – Common name for Omicron Ceti 42 – Con who got off on good behavior G 44 – In the best-case scenario 48 – Ivan and Peter 49 – “Key ______” 50 – Director Wright who is fond of Simon Pegg 51 – Part of LED 53 – Pupil 55 – Ukraine, e.g. (abbr.)

56 – Mimic 57 – Highland hat 58 – Lanka preceder 60 – Brain scan (abbr.)

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SOLUTION COURTESY OF EVAN MAHNKEN

SUDOKU INSTRUCTIONS: Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each small 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

Solution to last issue’s sudoku

Zach Marlin: RED is about Mark Rothko, who was an abstract expressionist painter in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s. The play takes place when he was painting one of his most famous commissions, which was for the Seagrams building in New York. ...

He was commissioned by one of the architects there to paint a series of murals and he painted them and they are all red — hence the title of the play — but they have lots of black and brown and different colors and shapes and lines on them. ... RED takes a fictional look at ... the persona of Mark Rothko and who he was and gives him this fictional assistant with whom he can battle back and forth about art and about philosophy. Eventually, the show is about the relationship between the two, between Rothko and his assistant Ken, and how they work with each other and how they interact with each other and when Ken starts to challenge him, what happens in the process.

Sudoku Copyright 2014 Tribune News Service, Inc.

ZM: It was on Broadway in 2010. ... I remember watching it and thinking, “What is this play?” So I read it, and the character of Ken really appealed to me , and I thought it was an interesting part in an interesting story that was told. ...

Looking at it for a directing project, I thought about doing it as a senior thesis because it’s only an hour and half long, there’s no intermission, there’s no set change; there’s two people to work with. ... I had great designers who did that, but it seemed like something that I would be interested in trying to bring to life and seeing it done at Brandeis. So that was how I got to — seeing it on the big stage, then reading it and trying to make it my own. It was really the story, the story of the teacher and the student, the way that they come to respect each and challenge each other that I thought would be really neat to do here.

JA: What was the most challenging thing about directing “RED”?

ZM: It was just getting used to being confident in my decisions. When I say something about the blocking, being confident that it’s going to work, or if it doesn’t work, then figuring out what we can do better. Working with the actors and letting them do their thing and not stepping on their toes. Being collaborative but keeping it within the vision that I saw for it.

JA: What was your favorite part of the whole process?

ZM: Seeing the show come together this weekend was really special, and to see all the hard work that everyone has put in really come to life on stage. The painting sequence in the middle of the show is really cool. They sort of paint it, prime it, and clearly they are painting with real paint. Seeing that within the run of the show and seeing it all come together, all the blocking and all the work and all the time — Seeing it as a finished product was really rewarding.

—Jaime Gropper