the
Justice www.thejustice.org
The Independent Student Newspaper Volume LXXII, Number 10
of
B r a n d e is U n i v e r sit y S i n c e 1 9 4 9
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
‘THINKING IS AN ACT OF REBELLION’
STUDENT UNION
Union looks to elect new vice president ■ There will be a special
election Thursday to replace former Union Vice President Guillermo Caballero ’20. By EMILY BLUMENTHAL JUSTICE EDITOR
Union Director of Outreach Kendal Chapman ’22 is the sole candidate running for Student Union vice president in the upcoming special election. She said in an interview with the Justice on Thursday that she hopes to change the Union’s direction by creating more lines of communication and making the responsibilities of Union officers more clear. The special election will take place Thursday, and community members can vote via a link that will be emailed to the Brandeis community that day. With an “open, honest and positive” approach to working with other Union members, Chapman will bring a “fresh take” to the position, she said.
“I decided to run because I feel like we’ve had a lot of turnover in this position, as we’ve seen, and I feel like I have the right temperament, the right experience and the right approach to this position,” Chapman said. “I’ve been involved with the Union for the past two years, and I think running for VP is that unique opportunity to be really involved with [the] Senate, really involved with [the] E-Board, and start making those positive changes and changing that culture … around the Student Union,” she said. As vice president, Chapman said she hopes to be an “open and consistent” source of communication for Union members and to “serve as that bridge of communication between the Senate and the E-Board.” Having served on both the Senate and the E-Board, Chapman said her understanding of the dynamics and procedures of both branches provides her with the experience to serve as vice president. Chapman has previously served as the Massell Quad senator and chair
See UNION, 7 ☛
CAMPUS CLUBS
Secured clubs face differences in wages ■ The Justice looked at
different methods and provisions for paying secured club members. By GILDA GEIST and JACKIE TOKAYER JUSTICE EDITOR AND JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
An amendment to the Union Constitution proposed by Charles River Senator Oliver Price ’20 would, if passed, allow certain members of secured clubs to become wage-eligible. The Constitution defines the Campus Activities Board as one such secured club. The others are WBRS 100.1 FM, BEMCo, Waltham Group, Brandeis Television, Archon Yearbook, Student Sexuality Information Service, the Justice, and the Brandeis Sustainability Fund. Of these clubs, however, only CAB’s Executive Board members are already receiving monetary compensation. In a Nov. 7 email to the Justice, CAB President Liana Porto ’20 wrote that as of the 2019-2020 school year, all members of CAB’s executive board are paid. Prior to this year, only the president and vice president were paid positions. Similar to Price’s proposed amendment, which is a work in
progress and subject to change, paid CAB members receive their wages through A-Board and are not paid for every hour of their work. Price’s proposed amendment would include language in the Bylaws that would only allow four members of a secured club to be paid, but eight CAB members are currently paid, per Porto’s email. Porto said in her email that she did not know whether or how Price’s amendment would affect CAB members’ wages. According to Porto, “our funds are currently paid out through the budget of the Department of Student Activities,” and “CAB receives its budget from the Student Union Allocations Board.” In a Nov. 9 email to the Justice, Price explained that the Department of Student Activities pays CAB. He clarified that the Allocations Board distributes money to clubs from the Student Activities Fund, a pool of money equaling $2.4 million per year coming from Brandeis students’ tuition. “My understanding is that [the Department of] Student Activities uses some of this money to pay CAB with the permission of A-Board, but that ABoard does not really oversee this money transfer,” Price wrote. Porto said that all executive board
See CLUBS, 7 ☛
Waltham, Mass.
NATALIA WIATER/the Justice
A POWERFUL STORY: At an event hosted by Brandeis Young Americans for Liberty and the Brandeis Korean Students Association, Yeonmi Park told the story of her experience fleeing North Korea. At age 26, Park is now a human rights advocate.
Human rights advocate describes her escape from North Korea ■ Yeonmi Park spoke at an
event about her experience growing up in and fleeing North Korea. By SAMANTHA GOLDMAN JUSTICE EDITOR
Brandeis Young Americans for Liberty and the Brandeis Korean Students Association hosted 26-year-old North Korean defector and human rights advocate Yeonmi Park for a talk on Wednesday about her escape from North Korea and the difficulties of fighting for freedom under the country’s dictatorship. Park was born in 1993 in North Korea and grew up with one older sister and “loving parents,” she said. She said that for many years, she did not know that she was oppressed. There has not been a revolution in North Korea because “if you do not know you are oppressed, how do you fight to be free?” she said. She added that many North Koreans do not know of the existence of a world where people are free. When Park was growing up, food was scarce, so she her diet consisted of grasshoppers and dragonflies, and she weighed between 50 and 60 pounds, Park recalled. She said that the only way for her to survive was to escape. Much of North Korea was
Zzzz...
During ‘Sleep Week,’ students were encouraged to nap — even in the library! By JOSHUA ALDWINCKLE-POVEY
without electricity, and for Park, the only hope of finding food came from “seeing the electricity at night coming from China.” Park said that she thought that “maybe if [she went] where the lights [were, she] might find something to eat.” Park’s sister escaped before her at the age of 16 with her friend, and Park said that she was supposed to escape that day as well. Instead, Park had a stomach ache one day that led to her being in the hospital. The hospital lacked proper equipment to diagnose her, and the doctors assumed that she had appendicitis. After doing the operation, they found out that what Park had was a complication from malnutrition. Park described the hospital as unsanitary, with nurses using the same needle on multiple patients and bodies piling up in the hallways with no way to remove them. She had her appendix removed without painkillers and did not contract an infection following surgery. As a result of her procedure, Park couldn’t escape with her sister, but her sister left Park a note telling her of a woman who could help her and their mother eventually escape. Park said that as she, her mother and her father attempted to escape, they encountered brokers who claimed they could help them. The Parks were so desperate to leave North Korea that they did not question the brokers, who ended up raping Park’s mother. Park was sold
into sex slavery for less than $300 and separated from her mother at age 13. The broker who bought Park told her that if she became his mistress, he would buy her mother. Park said that she “stopped being a child, and stopped feeling things” and that it was a “different kind of trickery, [that makes] you believe that's not you, you kind of see yourself in third person perspective.” Park was a sex slave for two years before she was rescued by South Korean missionaries whose goal was to get the Bible into North Korea. The missionaries told her that if she “believed in God, they would help [her].” Park said that she wondered why she had to believe in something just so that she could survive. She said that “when you’re so desperate, you don’t care, you believe anything they ask you to believe.” In North Korea, “thinking is an act of rebellion,” Park said. One of the first lessons she said she learned from her mother was that she should not whisper because “the birds and the mice could hear [her].” When Park was 15, South Korean missionaries in China let her free and allowed her to go to South Korea on her own. The missionaries gave her only a compass, and she had to walk across a desert in negative 40-degree temperatures to get to South Korea. Once Park made it to South Ko-
See NORTH KOREA, 7 ☛
‘‘Oy!’’
Profs. discuss varied approaches to climate change
Last week, the UTC presented ‘Oy!,’ a collection of 12 short comedies.
What does it really mean to be diverse?
By MAYA ZANGER-NADIS
By ABIGAIL CUMBERBATCH
NEWS 3
By LEEZA BARSTEIN
FORUM 11
Women’s soccer ends on a win NOAH ZEITLIN/the Justice
FEATURES 8 For tips or info email editor@thejustice.org
ZACH KATZ/the Justice
Make your voice heard! Submit letters to the editor to letters@thejustice.org
ARTS 19
By HANNAH O'KOON
COPYRIGHT 2019 FREE AT BRANDEIS.
SPORTS 15