The Justice, March 17, 2015

ARTS Page 23

FORUM Brandeis violates freedom of speech 11

IMPROV FEST

SPORTS Whitaker runs at NCAA Championships 16 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 LXVII, Number 22

www.thejustice.org

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

DINING Services

TAKING A STAND

Changes to meal plans for next year

In the first round of elections for the 2015-2016 Student Union on Thursday, students voted to fill 10 of the 14 available positions. All candidates were unopposed in their respective categories, with the exception of the five candidates running for the position of vice president.

Student Union president Sneha Walia ’15 announced the results early on Friday morning in a campus-wide email.

Nyah Macklin ’16 was elected president with 70% of the vote, or 619 of 890 votes cast. Macklin is currently a Class of 2016 Senator. The vice presidential election

■ Starting next semester,

the University will introduce several new meal plan options for students.

By Rachel sharer JUSTICE editor

Student Union Vice President Charlotte Franco ’15 announced in an email to the community on Sunday that the University will see the implementation of a new meal plan system at the beginning of the next academic year.

In her email, Franco wrote that the Student Union and the Senate Dining Committee have worked closely with Sodexo and the University administration to create the new meal plan structure, which will include the introduction of a more flexible “meal exchange program” that will allow students to use meal swipes at various campus locations, including the Stein, Louis’ Deli and the Hoot Market.

While many students have taken to social media to express concerns about the increased price of the new meal plans since the announcement, Franco wrote in her email that the Union’s discussions with Sodexo and the administration have “resulted in lower-cost meal options than what was origi-

MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

PUSHING FOR ACTION: Students gathered to share their beliefs about why the Al-Quds and Brandeis partnership is important.

Students request renewal of partnership at meeting ■ Members of the Al-Quds

Student Dialogue Initiative met and spoke with President Lawrence last Tuesday.

By ABBY PATKIN JUSTICE EDITOR

On Friday, students and alumni gathered outside University President Frederick Lawrence’s office to discuss the results of a recent meeting Lawrence held with students regarding the renewal of the University’s suspended partnership with AlQuds University. The demonstration was organized by the leaders of the Brandeis University—Al-Quds University Student Dialogue Initiative.

A week prior to Friday’s discussion, members of the dialogue initiative sat outside Lawrence’s office to demand a meeting to discuss the renewal of the partnership, which was suspended in 2013. According to the initiative co-founder Catie Stewart ’16, representatives from the group met with Lawrence and Provost Lisa Lynch on Tuesday to discuss why the partnership was important and

to ask Lawrence if he had any plans for its restoration.

According to Stewart, Lawrence “made clear” throughout the meeting that he had no plans for restoration, and when asked if he could support future student dialogue initiatives and help in bringing students from Al-Quds to Brandeis, Lawrence replied that he could offer no help.

Stewart also voiced her frustration that Lawrence was not in his office during this Friday’s event, despite the fact that it occurred during Lawrence’s student office hours.

“We knew it wasn’t worth our time to sit there and hear ‘no’ over and over and over again. The reality is that it’s always been a ‘no’ in his mind,” Stewart said. “The suspension is a suspension in name only, and in his mind it’s already terminated. We’re ignorable right now on some level, [but] … we’re not going to let him continue to say ‘no’ in the future.”

Eli Philip ’15, also a co-founder of the initiative, discussed with the group why the partnership is necessary for the University and why the group wants Lawrence to renew it.

nally proposed.”

In the email, Franco listed the many different meal plan options, which vary slightly for each class.

All members of the Class of 2018 who live on campus will be required to have a meal plan for next year and may choose from four different options. Students can select from the 19 meal plan, which costs $3,053 per semester, the 15 meal plan, which costs $3,016 per semester, and the 12 and 10 meal plans, which cost $2,978 and $2,750 per semester respectively. Each plan also includes a set number of dining points.

Members of the Class of 2017 who will be living on campus are also required to be on a meal plan, regardless of whether or not they live in on-campus housing that includes a kitchen. In addition to the four meal plans offered to the Class of 2018, students in the Class of 2017 are offered “block plans,” which allot a certain number of meals for the semester instead of on a weekly basis. The two block plan options that are available are the 120 meal plan, which costs $2,100 and the 80 meal plan, which costs $1,875.

The Class of 2016 has, according to the email, been “grandfathered into the previous system” of meal plans, and students will not be re-

See MEALS, 7 ☛

STUDENT UNION

Ten positions filled in student union elections

“It’s critical for Brandeis students to engage in open dialogue with students at Al-Quds University,” he said. “It was his [Lawrence’s] decision to suspend [the partnership] and it can be—and should be—his decision to restore it.”

“The power of a partnership between a Jewish-sponsored university and a Palestinian university cannot be overlooked,” active member of the Student Dialogue Initiative Naomi Hornstein ’15 added. “The partnership shows the ability of our institution to reach across barriers and create important relationships with the Palestinian faculty and students.”

Philip also told the group that the meeting with Lawrence was disappointing because they did not get to share their proposal for partnership renewal with Lawrence and Lynch.

“Our voices and ideas as students were silenced,” Philip said. “Instead, we were shown by President Lawrence that dialogue and partnership are not true values of our university.” Active member of the Student

■ Five candidates ran for the

vice presidential position, but for all other positions, candidates ran unopposed.

By Dora chi JUSTICE contributing WRITER

In the first round of elections for the 2015 to 2016 Student Union on Thursday, students voted to fill 10 of the 14 available positions.

All candidates were unopposed in their respective categories, with the exception of the five candidates running for the position of vice president.

Student Union president Sneha Walia ’15 announced the results early on Friday morning in a cam-

See AL-QUDS, 7 ☛

pus-wide email.

Nyah Macklin ’16 was elected president with 70% of the vote, or 619 of 890 votes cast. Macklin is currently a Class of 2016 Senator. The vice presidential election showed the greatest voter participation, with 908 votes cast.

Dennis Hermida-Gonzales ’16 was elected vice president, winning 36 percent of the vote over the remaining four candidates, including Daniel Koas ’16, who earned the second-most votes with 19 percent. Shuying Liu ’16 was elected secretary, having garnered a total of 64 percent of the vote.

“I'm very excited that I was elected as the secretary… and I will try my best to support and assist club

See ELECTIONS, 7 ☛

Gerstenzang Garden

Judges travel to Florida

Int'l Women's Day

 The Farmer's Club is working to grow fresh food for the community through a rooftop garden on Gerstenzang.

 The baseball team was at the UAA championships this past week.

 The University hosted speaker Hibaaq Osman to celebrate International Women's Day.

FEATURES 9

For tips or info email editor@thejustice.org

Waltham, Mass.

Let your voice be heard!

Submit letters to the editor online at www.thejustice.org

INDEX

SPORTS 16 ARTS SPORTS

17 16

EDITORIAL FEATURES

10 8

OPINION POLICE LOG

10 2

News 3

COPYRIGHT 2015 FREE AT BRANDEIS.

2

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015

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THE JUSTICE

NEWS BRIEF

POLICE LOG

Prof. Anita Hill cancels upcoming talks at the University of Illinois

Medical Emergency

On Sunday, Prof. Anita Hill (Heller) published an article in the Huffington Post stating that she will not be lecturing at the University of Illinois this semester after the escalation of an incident involving the school’s policy toward free speech.

According to the article, Hill had agreed nearly a year ago to give two talks this spring at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign—a Chancellor’s Lecture and a keynote address to the Women Faculty of Color in the Academy Conference.

However, following the present escalation of a previous incident, Hill has made the decision to cancel her lectures.

The incident involves Dr. Steven Salaita, a professor who had accepted a job offer to teach at UIUC and quit his job at Virginia Tech University to do so.

Salaita was set to begin a position as a tenured professor in the university’s American Indian studies program.

However, the offer was rescinded two weeks before the start of the academic year due to a series of tweets Salaita made in August criticizing Israel’s role in last summer’s war in Gaza and their conflict with Hamas, according to a Huffington Post article published Sept. 9.

Salaita is currently suing several top administrators and officials at UIUC, saying that the university violated his constitutional first amendment right to freedom of speech. He is also suing several unnamed donors of the university, claiming that they interfered in the incident and with his university contract by influencing the university to terminate it.

Hill wrote in her Huffington Post article that the incident has “dramatically reshaped the conversational space on [UIUC’s] campus and erodes the possibility of the open conversation I had hoped to have during my talks there.”

After Salaita’s job offer was rescinded last fall, making headlines, Hill wrote in her article that she began to craft her upcoming lectures at the school “to address the tensions between the protections of civil rights laws aimed at providing equal educational opportunity, on the one hand, and freedom of speech, on the other.”

However, Hill noted that after the filing of the lawsuit and the increase in tensions on campus regarding the issue, the “productive discussion” that she had envisioned regarding this issue could no longer occur “in the shadow of active litigation and the resulting present intense polarity.”

“The litigation completely alters the context for any talk I can give,” Hill wrote.

Hill wrote that she regrets these two “missed opportunities” to address issues of freedom of expression on campus. She wrote that she had also planned to discuss both the reform of Title IX policies and the protection of student rights, specifically against “verbal sexual harassment and physical sexual assault” during her talks. According to Hill, both of these are topics that she has discussed and lectured on at length at various colleges and universities across the country.

“Whether I am present or not, there will come a time for the UIUC community to wrestle with the ongoing question writ large of how to protect both basic civil rights and freedom of expression,” Hill wrote.

Mar. 10—University Police received a call concerning a dining services employee who fainted in the Usdan Student Center. University Police and BEMCo staff treated the party on the scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Mar. 10—University Police received a call of a party in Ziv Quad feeling ill. The call came from the mother of the party in India, who claimed the party was sick and needed medical attention.

The mother also called for a Waltham ambulance and the fire department to respond. As University Police and BEMCo arrived on the scene, Cataldo ambulance was in the process of transporting the party to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital for further care.

Mar. 10—University Police received a call of a party in the Heller School who collapsed.

University Police and BEMCo staff responded and treated

the party on the scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Mar. 10—University Police received a report of a party outside Mailman House who sprained their ankle when getting off a bus.

BEMCo staff treated the party with a signed refusal for further care.

Mar. 12—A party arrived in Stoneman to report that they were hit on the head with a squash ball. BEMCo staff treated the party with a signed refusal for further care.

Mar. 12—University Police received a call of a party in the Farber Library who injured their ankle. BEMCo treated the injured party on the scene and University Police transported the party to the hospital for further care.

Mar. 13—University Police received a report of an intoxicated party in Shapiro Quad.

Police and BEMCo responded, and BEMCo requested Cataldo ambulance to transport the

party to Newton Wellesley Hospital for further care.

Mar. 14—A party in East Quad complained about not feeling well after receiving a flu shot. BEMCo treated the party on the scene and the party signed a medical release form.

Mar. 14—Police received a call of a party in 567 South Street who was spitting up blood upon waking up. The party was treated by BEMCo with a signed refusal for further care.

Mar. 15—University Police received a report of an intoxicated party in Ridgewood Quad. Police and BEMCo responded and requested Cataldo ambulance, who transported the party to Newton Wellesley Hospital for further care.

Larceny

Mar. 10—University Police received a complaint of suspicious activity on a credit card.

University Police compiled a report on the incident, and the cardholder told police they

CUPCAKES FOR A CAUSE

n A News article misidentified Prof. Laurie NsiahJefferson (AAAS, Heller) as commenting on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela’s legacies after a lecture. These comments were made by Prof.

Faith Smith (AAAS, ENG, LALS, WGS). (Mar. 10, pg. 5) nViews on the News in the Forum section incorrectly listed David Schwartz as a member of the class of 2015, when he is actually a member of the Class of 2016.

(Mar. 10, pg. 10)

The Justice welcomes submissions for errors that warrant correction or clarification. Email editor@ thejustice.org.

Justice

the

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The Justice is the independent student newspaper of Brandeis University. The Justice is published every Tuesday of the academic year with the exception of examination and vacation periods. Editor in chief office hours are held Mondays from 2 to 3 p.m. in the Justice office.

Editor News Forum Features Sports Arts Ads Photos Managing Copy Layout

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Mar. 10—A caller from the Charles River Residence wanted to complain about a loud television. The loud television in question had been turned off prior to police arrival.

Mar. 11—University Police received a complaint of a loud television in a Charles River Residence apartment. University Police asked the occupant to turn down the television, and the party complied.

Mar. 13—University Police received a noise complaint from a Waltham resident concerning screaming and yelling near the chapels.

The event in the chapels was breaking for the night, and University Police were on standby as the area was cleared without incident.

—compiled by Avi Gold

Senate discusses meal plans

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

n An Arts photo caption incorrectly listed Nyah Macklin as a member of the class of 2015, when she is actually a member of the Class of 2016. (Mar. 10, pg. 20)

Disturbance

SENATE LOG

—Rachel Sharer

n The Forum section incorrectly labeled Mark Gimelstein’s ’17 column “Unedited Justice,” which is actually Kahlil Oppenheimer’s ’17 column.

Gimelstein’s column is “Give Me Liberty.” (Mar. 10, pg. 11)

would contact the credit card company that the card is registered with.

TOMMY GAO/the Justice

Students from the Ripple Effect hosted an event on Friday titled “Happy Body, Happy Mind” to give students a chance to de-stress from midterms. The event included cupcake decorating and a ball pit.

On Sunday, the Senate convened for their weekly meeting to discuss upcoming events and campus improvements.

The meeting began with the process of club chartering, recognition and namechanges. The Brandeis Global Medical Brigades had requested to change their name to Brandeis Global Brigades but was not present at the meeting.

Student Union President Sneha Walia ’15 spoke about the training process for new E-board members and the upcoming elections meeting on Tuesday at 6 p.m. for the second round of Student Union elections, which will be held the following Wednesday. Walia also addressed the several upcoming Union events, including ’Deis Day, a deans breakfast at Einstein Bros. Bagels and Relays for Life, which will take place in two weeks.

The Senate also discussed the upcoming Thursday event in which students will be able to discuss what qualities they want to see in the next University president, as well as a financial transparency event to be hosted by Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel and a collaboration between Provost Lisa Lynch and students on divestment and sustainability. Several discussions of Senate Money Resolutions and changes in by-laws were moved to next week.

Committee chairs gave reports on different upcoming improvements. The Services and Outreach Committee discussed the finalizations of the Midnight Buffet, including the approval of T-shirts and specifics on food and lights. The Dining Committee discussed the meal plan changes and agreed to send out an email

by Sunday evening to the community.

The Social Justice and Diversity Committee addressed their upcoming poetry slam to take place on Thursday, and the Campus Operations Working Group addressed their improvements, including the finalization of workout equipment in the Charles River apartments.

During senator reports, Class of 2016 Senator and President-elect Nyah Macklin said that the Class of 2016 ski trip had been cancelled but that the money was being saved for next year.

—Rachel Sharer

ANNOUNCEMENTS Bronstein Week: Paint Nite

Relax with friends as an instructor from Paint Nite walks you through how to recreate a surprise painting. Free hard cider for 21+ and snacks for all. Tickets are available for $10 at the Brandeis Box Office.

Today from 8 to 10 p.m. in the Sherman Function Hall.

raising money in the fight against cancer.

Tickets can be purchased ahead of time for $5 from Mr. Brandeis contestants, members of Relay for Life or Student Events staff.

Tickets may also be purchased at the door for $7. All proceeds go to Relay for Life.

Tomorrow from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in the Sherman Function Hall.

Puppies and Pizza at the Psychological Counseling Center

Lunch Seminar: The Secret History of Wonder Woman

Join us for this special event at the Psychological Counseling Center in Mailman House to spend some time with licensed therapy dogs, eat pizza and relieve stress.

All students are welcome.

Tomorrow from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Lobby and Conference Room in Mailman House.

Bronstein Week: Third Annual Mr. Brandeis Pageant Watch Brandeis’ finest men compete for the coveted title of Mr. Brandeis, all while

Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker. During this event, she will be discussing her recent book “The Secret History of Wonder Woman” and methods of gathering and organizing evidence.

Much of Lepore’s research, teaching and writing explores absences and asymmetries of evidence in the historical record. Her current work concerns the histories and technologies of evidence and of privacy. At

Harvard, she teaches history and literature classes and also at the Harvard Law School.

As an essayist, she writes about American history, law, literature and politics. Some recent essays consider grief, corruption, disruption, torture, guns and the archiving of the Internet.

Thursday from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in the Mandel Reading Room.

L’Afrique Talks

L’Afrique Talks will provide a platform for students to share their ideas and thoughts on the types of change they want to see happen in Africa as a whole, a specific African country or even a particular African city.

This TED-talk-styled event is unique because it channels the voices of the young adults interested in implementing change on the continent of Africa.

Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Intercultural Center Swig Lounge.

THE JUSTICE

Speakers look at incarceration Lubin Symposium discussed the roles of race and gender in rising incarceration rates.

By SHERRY SIMKOVIC JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Last Tuesday, the 2015 Tillie K. Lubin Symposium hosted a lecture on incarceration in the United States in the International lounge.

The lecture—“Criminal Justice?: Race, Gender and Incarceration”— featured three speakers: Bruce Western of the JFK School of Government at Harvard University, Elizabeth Hinton of Harvard University and the Rev. Vivian Nixon of the College and Community Fellowship, an organization that works to remove barriers of access to college educations for women with criminal records.

Western was the first speaker and began with a brief overview of his topic which he called “Mass Incarceration and Inequality.” He presented demographic data on mass incarceration in the United States, noting that “demography is everything when it comes to this topic because of the racial disparity.”

Western explained that incarceration rates are determined by a method called the “measured scale of the penal system,” which compares the incarcerated population of a country per 100,000 of its total population. He first displayed demographics from Western Europe and explained that Spain has the highest incarceration rate of any Western European country at 156 imprisoned persons per 100,000 of the population According to Western, the rate of incarceration in the United States is much larger, at 716 imprisoned persons per 100,000 of the population. “The United States is extremely unusual,” said Western.

“It accounts for five percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.”

Beginning in the 1970s, the national incarceration rate grew every year for the next 30 years at about five times the historical average, according to Western. He also said that between 1980 and 2008, the number of incarcerated Americans increased by 1.5 million people, adding that African Americans made up the largest contribution by any racial group.

According to Western, AfricanAmerican men are six to eight times more likely to go to prison than any other racial groups, with the rate of incarceration increasing by 343 percent over 30 years. Women’s rate of incarceration increased by 632 per-

cent over the same amount of time.

He added that high rates of imprisonment meant that there are large numbers of children with incarcerated parents. “The promotion of social and economic disadvantage is enduring and has produced a new social group that is chronically poor and faces new obstacles,” Western concluded.

Hinton was the next speaker and spoke about both the war on crime and the roots of mass incarceration.

She began by saying that the symposium’s title highlights the racial, gendered and socioeconomic characteristics of federal policy making.

Hinton noted that this March marks the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, as well as President Lyndon Johnson’s call for a war on crime. Hinton focused on the implications of the war on drugs, which she said greatly shaped the lives of African-American women. According to Hinton, the resulting policy strategies led to increases in law enforcement and the number of American citizens living below the poverty line. Hinton explained that as a result of the declining economic status of many American families, the numbers of those who received social welfare increased. Many of those citizens were single African-American mothers, who faced incarceration if they failed to meet the strict requirements imposed upon them.

“African-American families became the main casualty of mass incarceration,” said Hinton. “Within the context of the absence of change, the cycle of imprisonment is bound to repeat itself.”

Nixon discussed her personal experiences establishing herself as an African-American woman in black liberal theology and feminist theology.

She also touched on what she referred to as the psychological damage of slavery, in which patterns of oppression overtake themselves in all forms of society, which she said is pertinent to African-American family life.

“Each generation so intensely fears destruction of their children that they instill dangerous ideas in their children’s heads,” said Nixon.

Nixon described some of the time she spent in Albion Correctional Facility, where she said she . was able to find freedom within the system. She volunteered for a basic education program teaching other women to read.

“The people invested in change have to be substantially involved in change,” she said. “We need to figure out our role, and do our part but never become part of the system that keeps someone else from doing theirs.”

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015

3

EXPLORING ADVOCACY

CAMPUS SPEAKERS

■ Speakers at the Tillie K.

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ZACHARY ANZISKA/the Justice

DISSECTING STRATEGY: Hibaaq Osman talks about her experiences as CEO of Karama, a women’s rights organization.

Lecturer addresses women’s rights in the Middle East ■ Women’s rights activist

Hibaaq Osman discussed the role of women’s rights organizations and movements in the Middle East.

By MAX MORAN JUSTICE EDITOR

Last Wednesday, the Heller School for Social Policy and Management’s Graduate program in Coexistence and Conflict welcomed global political strategist and women’s rights activist Hibaaq Osman. The lecture was held to celebrate International Women’s Day, which was on Sunday Mar. 8.

Osman gave a guest lecture about her experiences as the CEO of Karama, a non-governmental organization that protects women’s rights in the Arab world. Osman, who founded Karama in 2005, spoke about her organization’s partnerships with local women’s rights organizations across the Middle East, including in Libya, Syria and Yemen. Osman highlighted Karama’s policy of working with groups already active within each country, stating that she “[has] the wisdom to know that I don’t know everything. … We are going to respect whatever their priority is.” Prof. Alain Lempereur (Heller), who is the Alan B. Slifka professor and program director of the Coexistence and Conflict Graduate program, introduced Osman, calling her “among the most influential Muslim women in

the world … and the most important in my heart, in my mind.” In an email to the Justice, Lempereur wrote that he worked alongside Osman at a meeting of the Libyan Women Platform for Peace and has worked for Karama as “a moderator in a consultant capacity” in Libya and Jordan.

Osman began by discussing Karama’s newest initiative, #JusticeforSelma, named in honor of human rights lawyer Salma Bughaighis, who was assassinated in Libya in June 2014.

According to Karama’s website, the campaign seeks “to put pressure on regional governments to hold perpetrators of violence against women in the Arab region to account.” Osman said that Bughaighis was a close friend of hers and is sorely missed.

Osman’s lecture, “Women, Peace and Security in the Arab Region,” explored Karama and its goals. Osman characterized Karama—whose name is derived from “Al-karama,” the Arabic word for “dignity”—as “a movement” aiming to end violence against women in the region by “reconciling the global with the local,” she said.

Osman emphasized Karama’s style of working “from the ground up” by coordinating with local advocates .

Osman said that she’s learned that sometimes the best way to advocate for women’s rights in areas experiencing violent conflict is to advocate for peace in the region, as local advocates have emphasized the importance of peace to her, and “women really have

a special appreciation for peace.”

She added that it is an important time for women’s rights advocates in the Middle East due to the aftermath of the Arab Spring, because “women were at the forefront of protests in the squares, standing shoulder-toshoulder with men … [but] following the uprisings, women saw unexpected [violent] backlash.” She criticized governments that do not invest in women’s education, saying that “women are [often] left behind.” She noted that achieving change within governments requires reaching out to conservatives and finding ways to increase understanding of the importance of women’s rights. During a question-and-answer segment after the lecture, Osman was asked about the connection between women’s rights violations and Islamic fundamentalism and answered that she believes Sharia law is a misinterpretation of Islam. “It’s political; never ever think it’s anything else,” she said.

She said she regretted that religion has become “politicized” in the Middle East and called on the Muslim community to “reclaim Islam.” The event was held in the Heller-Brown Building and was co-sponsored by the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life; the Graduate Program in Sustainable International Development; the Heller School’s Gender Working Group; the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and Law and the Women’s Studies Research Center.

CAMPUS CLUBS

Real estate club hosts discussion on affordable housing ■ Speakers discussed the

similarities and differences in affordable housing opportunities in Israel and the United States.

By TZLIL LEVY JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

On Wednesday, the Real Estate Club presented “Tel Aviv and Boston: Two Perspectives on Affordable Housing.” This event brought a dynamic approach in thinking of affordable housing between two cities.

Prof. Edward Chazen (IBS), the club’s faculty advising head, introduced the event. Steven Schwartz, Esq. at Goulston & Storrs, presented on how the Boston area addresses affordable housing through law and legislation. Following, Chazen discussed housing in Tel Aviv.

Chazen introduced the event by presenting aerial and close up photos of buildings in Tel Aviv.

According to Chazen, Tel Aviv is a bustling acropolis, a dynamic city in a waterfront community of the Mediterranean. He also showed deteriorated and cracked buildings, explaining how the salt water corrodes and rusts the exterior of the buildings. Due to the poor condi-

tions, the State of Israel encourages developers to renovate the buildings and add more housing to existing buildings.

Boston and Tel Aviv are cities “that have a lot of similarities in terms of demographic profile and some physical attributes,” Chazen said. He noted that both cities are waterfront communities, prioritize preserving historic buildings and are densely developed.

According to Chazen, there are over 4,000 buildings from the German Bauhaus architectural school in Tel Aviv built in the 1920s and ’30s and historic houses in the Back Bay and Beacon Hill built in the 19th century. Although the Bauhaus buildings are unique to Tel Aviv both cities have historic houses that have strict regulations under the governments.

Chazen said that in Israel there are “more engineers per capita than any country in the world. They have more patents issued per capita than any country in the world and more venture capital investment than any country in the world.”

He further noted that “Boston and Tel Aviv are more alike than unlike in many areas: in comparison to ratio of housing to income, student population, cost of living, median household income and city’s popula-

tion. The only big difference is the median housing price and construction style.”

Schwartz counsels clients on development of multifamily rental housing in Mass., and discussed the similarities and differences between housing in Boston and in Tel Aviv.

“One of the big differences in terms of housing creation between Israel and the Boston area is that most of the development of multifamily housing in Israel will be condominiums for sale units,” he said.

“Most of the multifamily development in Massachusetts is going to be rental.”

Schwartz presented housing statistics in Massachusetts in relation to the rest of the United States, which held that Massachusetts is the sixth lowest in capita in housing production, seventth least affordable state for renters, eighth in the country for income inequality, and is very high in the rate of homelessness in the state.

“Why is Massachusetts lagging so much in affordable housing and housing creation?” asked Schwartz, before answering his own question with three explanations.

The first reason he gave is that land in Massachusetts is extremely scarce, and the second reason was that construction costs are very

high. For the third reason, Schwartz explained the regulatory barriers of the creation of housing.

According to Schwartz, there are 350 cities and towns in the state and each one has control over its own zoning rules, which means that zoning laws are able to keep out multifamily housing and provide much larger lot requirements for single family homes.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Development determines affordable housing based on area median income in a given location. Greater Boston area median income for a typical household is $98,208.

In order to qualify for a home, rents would be calculated at 30% of that maximum income. A $3,500 or $4,5000 2-bedroom apartment could be rented at $1,500, which is an “extremely good value for people who qualify for these units,” Schwartz told the audience.

In 1969, the Massachusetts legislature passed Chapter 40B, which allows a developer to request one single permit from the Zoning Board of Appeal in lieu of many permits.

This incentive requires the developer to have “at least 20% of the units need to be afforded at 50% of the median or 25% of the units need to be affordable at 80% of the median” said Schwartz.

Chazen then shifted the conversation from housing in Boston to Tel Aviv.

According to Chazen, Massachusetts has more progressive policies than Israel.

“93% of all the land in Israel that is not developed is owned by the government, by the State of Israel Land Authority—that sounds like an enormous number but most of Israel is a dessert,” Chazen said. “Israel owns 49% of the land in Tel Aviv.”

Massachusetts also encourages production of housing through Chapter 40b; however, in Israel, there is no such thing.

In Israel, the demand exceeds the supply, and the country lacks in more housing developments.

The only housing program Israel has is through Tama 38, program to renovate old buildings and add two or three floors.

According to Chazen, Tama 38 works to renovate buildings and put in elevators while having the people live in the building.

Moreover, Tama 38 does not really help in solving the production problem of housing in Israel, Chazen said.

A brief question-and-answer session followed the presentation andChazen and Schwartz both fielded questions from the audience.

THE JUSTICE

Campus Speaker

Judaic scholar speaks on cultural ignorance ■ Egyptian-born Judaic

scholar and activist Hussein Aboubakr discussed his experiences with antiSemitism and oppression.

By TZLIL LEVY JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

On Thursday, Students for Accuracy about Israeli and Palestinian Affairs hosted Judaic scholar and activist Hussein Aboubakr to speak about the “Perceptions of Israel in the Arab World.”

Aboubakr spoke about being forced out of Egypt as a political refugee while studying Jewish and Middle Eastern history and Hebrew literature at the Faculty of Arts and Oriental Studies Department at Cairo University. He is a member of JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, an organization based in San Francisco.

Aboubakr, who was born in Cairo and was raised in an Arab Muslim family, said that as a young child he was taught “how Jews are descendants of apes and pigs, how [at] the end of the world there will be a battle [in] which all Muslims have to kill all the Jews and Jews will hide behind rocks and trees.”

Aboubakr told the audience how his mother disapproved of violent video games but would allow him to see news reports about Jews being killed. On Sept. 11, 2001, Aboubakr’s family was having dinner when they heard of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. “Everyone was rejoicing” said Aboubakr.

Aboubakr said learning new languages fascinated him. Aboubakr

started learning Hebrew “to be able to decipher [the Jews’] evil platform of world of destruction.” He started learning English online, as well.

Through his research, he started learning about Jewish history, Judaism, the world and other narratives.

He described contacting the Israeli Embassy at Cairo during his time in college, also discussing the first conversation he had with a Jew. “We are all humans. We are all people. And I started to relate and see the bigger picture,” Aboubakr told the audience.

Aboubakr started writing about the oppression of Christians and women and the meaning of injustice through studying anti-Semitism, he said. After leaving the Israeli Academic Center, the State Police interrogated him and were suspicious of his first time visit to the Israeli Embassy.

Aboubakr also described receiving a threatening call from the Egyptian State Security, who informed him that they were aware of his interactions with the Israeli embassy and told him they would prefer if he studied another subject.

Aboubakr described the call as “My first clash with anyone ever. I never clashed with anybody,” and noted his decision to fight back.

“I was a different person than my entire family and my society because of my studies,” he said. “This redefined me.”

Aboubakr started a blog and wrote about his experience, which later prompted an Israeli journalist to contact him and help him publish an article in Yediot Ahronot, an Israeli newspaper. After the publication came out, the State Security ar-

rested Aboubakr and took him to an interrogation center in Giza.

After a series of arrests, Aboubakr was arrested on his first day of training for Egypt’s mandatory military service.

According to Aboubakr, the officers in the military prison accused him of being an Israeli spy, a Jewish convert, cursed him and called him “Jew-lover, pig, traitor.”

On Dec. 26, 2010, after three months of torture and interrogation, Aboubakr was released from prison only to be confronted with the Arab Spring a month later.

Aboubakr described to the audience the crowds of people marching in the street against the “same government that tortured me, the same government that ruined my life. I joined them.”

“I was starting to be aware [of] the bigger political picture,” he said. “Its religious oppression, its political oppression, its economic oppression. It’s a great totalitarian ideology of dictatorships, of political refugees.”

Aboubakr was forced to depart Egypt as a political refugee and arrived in the United States in 2012.

“I was able to turn the unhealthy obsession with the Jews into something productive” by teaching Hebrew and “doing things that everyone stopped me from doing—my family, my country, my society, my government,” he said.

Aboubakr ended the event by saying “We have a problem in the world. … We have a big portion of the world, a big chunk, dominated by very bad ideas,” he said. “I ask you to be aware … and educate others because ignorance is also coming here.”

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TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015

OBITUARY 34-year veteran facilities worker Ricardo Rivera passes away at 57 Facilities worker Ricardo Rivera passed away on Tuesday, Feb. 24.

He was 57.

Community members were notified in an email sent out by the Office of Communications on March 12, which did not state the cause of death. According to the email, Rivera was a Brandeis facilities employee for 34 years prior to his passing.

According to his obituary from Brasco & Sons Memorial Chapels of Waltham, Rivera was born in Puerto Rico and joined the Univeristy’s facilities staff shortly after moving to Waltham.

“As a younger man Ricardo loved to box and was still an avid fan of boxing. In his spare time he enjoyed following the Boston Red

Sox and most of all spending time with his family. He will be remembered as a happy loving man who was fun to be around,” the obituary read.

Also according to the email sent to the University community, Rivera “relished spending time with his family and was an avid Boston Red Sox fan.” He is survived by his family, including eight grandchildren and many nieces and nephews, as well as his wife Olga; his children Reinalily Rivera, Elizabeth Rivera, Jennifer Rivera, Nelson Rivera and his fiancée Ana Celi Perez, Jason Rivera and his wife Monica and Richard Rivera; and his sisters, Minerva, Magdalis and Wanda.

—Rachel Sharer

BRIEF Chum’s closes for restructuring Following several days of closure, Cholmondeley’s Coffeehouse will be facing a restructuring, according to the University.

Executive Director of Integrated Media Bill Schaller provided the Justice with a press statement from the Office of Communications yesterday detailing the situation.

“The Department of Student Activities has been reviewing the administrative structure of Cholmondeley’s Coffeehouse the past 12 months, and decided that a reorganization is necessary to improve its operations,” the statement reads.

“All positions, including management and servers, are being reviewed and will be newly defined,” the statement reads.

“These changes will improve the quality of the Chum’s experience for the entire campus.”

According to Schaller, Chum’s will remain open for programs and events that have already been booked in the space, but until a new staff has been hired, it will not have a food or drink service as it normally does.

“We appreciate that Chum’s is pivotal to our student community,” the statement reads. “We know its historic value to our alumni, staff and faculty, and we will work to re-open to its full capacity as soon as possible.”

The Justice reached out to several student workers at Chum’s, who declined to comment at this time.

—Rachel Hughes

SPORTS PHOTOS FEATURES COPY

JOIN THE JUSTICE! FORUM NEWS LAYOUT ARTS ADS For more information, contact Rachel Hughes at editor@thejustice.org.

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The University Community welcomes Linor to campus!

This is a free but ticketed event Please contact mcronin@brandeis.edu to reserve a seat

THE JUSTICE

ELECTIONS: Second round of elections to fill more positions

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TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015

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BRONSTEIN WEEK

CONTINUED FROM 1 leaders to provide better activities on and off the campus,” Liu wrote in an email to the Justice.

The junior representative to the Board of Trustees will be Emily Conrad ’17, who won with 70 percent of the vote.

Conrad is currently one of the two Directors of Academic Affairs on the Executive board of the Union.

The new treasurer will be Nicole Lenchner ’16, a current assistant treasurer who won with 69 percent of the vote.

“Being an Economics major, I feel that I will have a lot to bring to the table for this position,” Lenchner shared in an email with the Justice. “I decided that senior year would be the most ideal time for me to take on a position so large because I will be taking fewer classes, so I will have more time to dedicate to the position.”

Macklin, Hermida-Gonzales and Conrad did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

The positions filled in this election also included four Allocation Board member positions, as well as the racial minority Aboard member position. Current A-board co-chair Judy Nam ’16 will remain on A-board for another year after winning 61 percent of the vote.

For her second term, Nam said in an interview that she looks forward to helping new club treasurers receive better training and improving organization within the board by establishing lasting infrastructure through constitutional amendments.

Massell Quad Senator and the Senate-appointed A-board member Millie Wu ’18 was also elected to this position with 54 percent of the vote. Alexander Mitchell ’17, who was an A-board member in the 2013 to 2014 Student Union, was elected with 58 percent of the vote.

Newly elected to the A-board are Uros Randelovic ’18 and Ziyang Chen ’18. Randelovic was elected with 54 percent of the vote, and Chen will be the new racial minority A-board member after winning 63 percent of the vote.

“I really appreciate the chance to work in Student Union next year. I think we could create more opportunities for connecting international students and Americans students and let them both enjoy the on-campus life,” Chen wrote in an email to the Justice. Wu, Mitchell and Randelovic did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

No candidates ran for either of the two representative positions to the Brandeis Sustainability Fund and the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee; instead, the Abstain option won for both categories, which will be up for selection again, along with Senate and Judiciary positions, during the second round of voting.

The informational meeting date for the next round of elections will be held today at 6 p.m.

AMANDA NGUYEN/the Justice

WAKE AND SHAKE: As a part of Student Events' Bronstein Week, students were provided with coffee, munchkins, shirts and other free items outside of Usdan on Monday.

AL-QUDS: Initiative members stress importance of dialogue CONTINUED FROM 1 Dialogue Initiative Leah Susman ’18 then read aloud the group’s proposal, which included requests that the Brandeis administration “make contact” with the Al-Quds administration and that Lawrence meet with students and faculty involved with the partnership to “create a timeline for its renewal” sometime later this year.

During the event, various students and alumni also read Israeli and Palestinian poetry and shared personal narratives on the importance of dialogue.

Elizabeth Villano ’16 read an email that she received from some of the Al-Quds students she met during her trip to the school. “They’re a very motivated group of students who want this as well,” she said of the Al-Quds students.

Risa Dunbar ’17 also discussed with the group the importance of adding cross-cultural dialogue to a college education.

“I am fundamentally disappointed and outraged that my university is not doing all it can to give me the modes to experience a critical kind of learning and that’s cross cultural

exchange academia,” she said. “The Al-Quds-Brandeis partnership represents one of the largest reasons I came to Brandeis, which was to recognize difference and celebrate commonality.”

Sophie Warren ’18 shared a personal narrative on her years spent with the group Seeds of Peace, which provides opportunities for cross-cultural dialogue and discussion in a summer camp setting.

“In spite of everything they [AlQuds] have gone through, they are willing to sit down and talk about it,” Warren said. “[Even] when

dialogue fails, it is still a success because people were [still] sitting down and talking.” Philip ended the event by discussing the future of the initiative, telling the group that the members will continue to strive for the partnership’s renewal despite issues communicating with the administration.“We’re not just going to stay outside this office,” Philip said. “We are coming here and making ourselves heard, and that’s amazing ... This is just the beginning. This partnership is going to grow, and we’re going to make it grow.”

MEALS: All students living on campus in future years must select meal plan CONTINUED FROM 1 quired to be on a meal plan if they live in on-campus housing with a kitchen. However, students may choose to be on any of the available meal plan options listed above and have two extra options of block meal plans. In addition to the 120 and 80 block plans, they will also have the option of a 90 meal plan and a 60 meal plan, both of which will cost under $1,000. As in previous years, students who live off campus will not be required to be on a meal plan but may elect any of the above options should they desire to do so.

Vice President of Operations James Gray wrote in an email to the Justice that the University is in the process of “phasing in increased participation” in the meal plan program through requiring all students who live on campus to buy a meal plan, a policy that was not mandatory in previous years. “Full participation from all on campus housing is a key element of creat-

ing a high quality and economically sustainable dining program at Brandeis,” Gray wrote.

Senate Dining Committee Chair Ben Margolin ’17 wrote in an email to the Justice that the University’s contract with Sodexo has stated for two years now that all students on campus will be required to join a meal plan. He also noted that this policy was “not Sodexo specific” and would have been implemented even with the contract-renewal of Aramark, the University’s previous food service.

Since the University hired Sodexo as the on-campus food service in 2013, many changes have been made to both the meal plan system and the dining services. The most recent change regarding meal plans was in January, when a new meal period schedule was implemented after student complaints about the lack of flexibility with what times they could use meal swipes. The new policy increased the number of meal periods from three per day to five per day, according to a Jan. 19

Justice article.

The meal plan options were also changed at the end of the 2014 spring semester, but students did not like the removal of the meal equivalencies and the increased price of plans. Executive Director of the Student Union David Heaton ’17 is quoted in a Sept. 29 Justice article as saying that the meal plan changes made last spring did not fit student interests in the way they wanted. Heaton said that the meal structure implemented last spring, was “not agreed upon by the student body.”

Franco wrote in an email to the Justice that the Union wanted the new meal plan changes to fully represent what students wanted. “Being a part of this process became even more important when we were informed of the new mandate that all on-campus students needed to have a meal plan,” Franco wrote.

She noted that the most positive aspect of the new meal plan policies is that “students have options” to choose from, more so than in previ-

ous years.

Regarding the increase in price, Franco noted that meal plans continually become more expensive as University tuition rises, as they increase four percent each year with tuition.

Sodexo’s General Manager Shawn Monaghan has said that he wants to continue to increase the level of communication between the Dining Services on campus and the student body. Sodexo, in coordination with the Student Union Senate Dining Committee, has held several dining forums over the past year as a way for students to address their dining concerns directly with Sodexo management. During these forums, students have repeatedly cited their concerns with both the cost of meal plans and the number of meal plan options available. Students also held a protest against Sodexo last September, during which they expressed opposition to the price of the new meals plans and their lack of flexibility, according to a Sept. 23 Justice article.

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features

TUESDAY, March 17, 2015 ● THE JUSTICE

just

VERBATIM | JIM ROHN If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

ON THIS DAY…

FUN FACT

In1762, New York City held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Arizona and Hawaii do not follow daylight savings because they have too much sunlight.

Divorce as a human right A film on the divorce process in Israel sparks conversation

By Erica SchUTZMAN JUSTICE Contributing writer

Last Tuesday night, the International Business School was bustling with students, faculty and community members from the greater Boston area who came to see the screening of Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem with a special talk by human rights attorney Susan Weiss.

The Israeli-French drama directed by Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz addresses a growing human rights issue in Israel by depicting how difficult it is for a Jewish woman to get a divorce. The film was shown at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards.

The film depicts an Israeli woman, Viviane Amsalem, who fights for five years to obtain a divorce from her husband. Her husband, Elisha, refuses to grant his wife permission to end their marriage, and the film highlights the lack of power many Jewish women have in the divorce process.

The film, which is in French and Hebrew with English subtitles, was brought to Brandeis by the Film, Television and Interactive Media Program. The Film, Television, and Interactive Media program partnered with the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies to bring the film to campus 10 days before its official release to the Boston community.

One of the Film, Television and Interactive Media Undergraduate Departmental Representatives, Ethan Stein ’15, helped bring the film to campus.

The film was selected as Israel’s entry “for the best foreign language film [at the 87th Academy Awards] because of its political acclaim for dealing with a complex and delicate topic that vexes Israeli society,” Stein explained in an email to the Justice.

Stein emphasized his hope that this film screening would help bring awareness to the complicated nature of divorce proceedings in Israel. “This event, I hope, will lead to further discussion of its troubling topic: the abuse of the gett (Jewish divorce) process,” Stein wrote.

The film defines a “gett” as a Jewish divorce document that a husband must present to his wife in order to legalize their divorce.

The film depicts this when Elisha places the gett in Viviane’s cupped hands and tells his wife, “You are hereby permitted to all men.” This finalizes the divorce process and indicates that his wife is no longer a married woman and is free to do as she wishes.

Weiss, who has worked with hundreds of women like Viviane to help find solutions for divorce issues, spoke after the film screening. Weiss has also founded two

non-governmental organizations— Yad L’Isha and the Center for Women’s Justice. She explained that “everything [depicted in the film] is unfortunately true” and that the issues raised in the film are very relevant to many Jewish women living in Israel today.

All Jews in the State of Israel who are married to each other have to go to the rabbinical court in order to get divorced, no matter how religious they are.

After the screening, Weiss explained that there is no secular or civil court that can deal with the issue of divorce in the state of Israel. Instead, the court consists of a panel of rabbis who base their decisions on the customs of Jewish law.

The film emphasizes how lengthy and tedious a divorce process in Israel can be with subtitles telling the audience, “two months later,” “three months later” and “six months later” as time is wasted when Elisha repeatedly fails to appear in court.

Husbands who fail to cooperate with the rabbinical court are sometimes jailed in Israel to encourage them to give their wives a gett.

The rabbis in the film show favoritism towards the husband by humorously threatening to take Elisha’s nonexistent drivers license away after he fails to appear in court several times. This further illuminates how helpless Viviane and other women are in the divorce process, as they are at the mercy of their husbands.

The film also portrays the stigma around divorce for women in Israel when the rabbis plead for Viviane to return home to her husband.

Many of the witnesses who testify in their divorce case describe Elisha as an upstanding citizen and hence the court finds it difficult to

understand why Viviane wants to divorce her husband.

Weiss has worked on many similar cases and she emphasized, “I don’t want to put men in jail because I don’t think that’s the way marriages should end. I think that is a human rights violation. I don’t think correcting one human rights violation with another is the way to go.”

Weiss went on to further explain, “In my opinion, we have to end this religious way of getting married as a requirement of the state. It has to be something that is voluntary. We have to have civil marriage and divorce.” She acknowledged that the situation is complicated.

When asked what advice she would give a young woman getting married in Israel today, Weiss recommended signing a halakhic, a financial prenuptial agreement in accordance with Jewish law.

Many who attended the screening agreed that the film was important to show at Brandeis because it helps start a conversation about a relevant issue in today’s world for Jewish women.

Tova Perlman ’18 called the film “excellent,” explaining that she thought “it is very relevant to living in Israel.”

Prof. Jonathan Sarna (NEJS) brought his class to the film screening because he believes that, as future Jewish leaders, this is an important topic for his students to be knowledgeable about.

A student who attended the screening, Tobey Linhart ’18, praised the film for its accuracy in depicting how difficult it is for a woman to obtain a gett in Israel.

“As an Orthodox woman approaching marriage age, this is something a lot of us are thinking about,” Linhart said.

BRIANNA MAJSIAK/the Justice

ALL THE ANSWERS: Human rights attorney Susan Weiss answered many questions after the film on her experience with the divorce process in Israel.

IMAGE COURTESY OF ALICE KELIKIAN

FILM FLYER: The Film, Television and Interactive Media Program worked with the Schusterman Center for Israel studies to screen the film before its official release.

BRIANNA MAJSIAK/the Justice

SILVER SCREEN: Weiss pictured with Ethan Stein ’15, who helped bring the film to campus as the UDR for the Film, Television and Interactive Media Department.

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015

A rooftop garden on Gerstenzang The Farmers Club is a new group on campus that is striving to improve fresh food sustainability for the community

By Mira MCMAHON justice Contributing Writer

Although Brandeis’ campus is just beginning to thaw out from the harsh winter, some students have been planning for the onset of spring for months. Members of the newly chartered Farmers Club are in the midst of preparations for a new rooftop farm and farmer’s market.

The farm will be a 1,000 to 2,000-square foot installation on the red square roof of Gerstenzang Science Library. The Farmers Club will plant and grow produce such as kale, lettuce, arugula, peppers and tomatoes in milk crates filled with organic soil and compost.

The Farmers Club was founded at the beginning of this semester. Its goal is to install and operate the rooftop farm and coordinate a farmers market on Brandeis’ campus. They hope to begin planting by the end of the spring semester.

Farmers Club co-founder An-

nie Fortnow ’17 has been involved in planning the farm from the outset.

Fortnow says that the group put careful thought into choosing the roof of Gerstenzang. “We talked to a lot of Brandeis [staff] and they recommended different locations. We thought this would be a really good location because it’s really big so we can expand and have a lot of growth.”

The Farmers Club hopes to distribute the fresh food from the rooftop farm to the upcoming Brandeis Farmer’s Market, in the Faculty Club and to local food banks in order to connect students and members of the community through the source of their food.

Farmers Club co-founder Jay Feinstein ’17 explains the club’s choice to plant in milk crates.

“The farm is going into milk crates so you could technically move the milk crates from one place to another. So if they are re-roofing ... then they can take the crates off,” Feinstein said.

Feinstein hopes that the farm will help bring students together. “This really would be a community effort, so every student can feel like they could be part of this farm, whether they’re working to pick vegetables, working to plant, or are eating from the farmer’s market or the dining halls,” he said.

In addition to the communitybuilding aspect of the project, there are also environmental benefits to installing a rooftop farm. According to the Farmers Club website, rooftop green spaces can cut down on energy costs by insulating the roof of the building and helping reduce the heat island effect, a phenomenon that occurs when urban spaces trap more heat than rural areas.

The Farmers Club is partnering with Green City Growers—a Boston-based company that specializes in creating functional urban farms—who will provide guidance for the farm’s planning and maintenance.

According to their website,

PHOTO COURTESY OF JAY FEINSTEIN

A RED ROOF: The rooftop of Gerstenzang Science Library will be the location of The Farmers club garden; a 1,000 to 2,000-square foot installation and features milk crates so that the garden can be moved during building renovations.

MIRA MCMAHON/the Justice

MERGING MARKETS: Manager of the Brandeis Farmer’s market, Gerri Cohen ’18 worked to merge the Farmer’s Market with The Farmers Club so that produce grown on campus can also be sold.

Green City Growers has assisted local communities with growing 110,000 pounds of organic produce “all in under two acres of growing space.” Farmers Club hopes to hire Green City Growers to help students maintain the farm during breaks.

The rooftop farm and farmer’s market are extensions of projects from Prof. Laura Goldin’s (ENVS) hands-on learning course, “Greening the Ivory Tower: Improving Sustainability of Brandeis and Community.”

The course aims to give students the tools to build sustainable communities. They use Brandeis as their lab, applying principles of sustainability to improve existing systems of operation. The Farmers Club emerged when Goldin’s students chose to expand upon their projects from class.

“Throughout the semester, students are learning how the campus operates now, as well as innovative alternatives and models for rethinking how we operate,” Goldin writes in an email to the Justice.

During each semester the “Greening” course is offered, students formulate initiatives that enhance the Brandeis and Waltham communities. Past projects include DeisBikes, the on-campus bicycle-sharing program, and the Patchwork Garden, which is the raised-bed organic garden.

The Farmers Club will combine two of the initiatives that emerged from the fall 2014 class—the rooftop farm and the farmer’s market.

The Brandeis Farmer’s Market will be an event where students may buy local produce and goods from vendors and—in the next school year—from the rooftop garden.

Brandeis Farmer’s Market Manager Gerri Cohen ’18 was involved in merging the two “Greening” projects.

“We created the [Farmers

Club] to join the two because it would be great if we could sell the produce that was grown on the rooftop garden at the farmer’s market, and we coined it ‘hyper-local,’” Cohen explained.

Although the rooftop garden will not be producing vegetables before the first farmer’s market, the Farmers Club hopes to begin selling their produce at the market next year when their produce is ready for harvest. Cohen hopes that this market will be a way to introduce students to local goods.

“In the fall, we are hoping to get more fresh produce so we can sell that at the market and just give students an opportunity to get fresh produce and make sustainable food an option here at Brandeis,” Cohen said.

The first Brandeis Farmer’s Market will take place on April 18 in the Gosman Athletic Center parking lot. There will be a variety of local fare from Waltham-area vendors. Marketgoers should expect to see local treats such as bread, tea, honey and gluten-free baked goods, and enjoy performances from Brandeis’ a cappella groups.

After the market this semester, which will serve as a trial run, the Farmers Club hopes to schedule multiple markets to take place throughout the following school year.

Although still in its planning stage, the Farmers Club hopes to gain funding from the Brandeis Sustainability Fund to work toward their goal of planting later this semester.

Fortnow is looking forward to seeing the project reach more students and expand over the next few years.

“I’m definitely looking forward to having the food be available to students … Seeing students enjoying those vegetables and see how great it is to have a local agriculture system near us is going to be really exciting,” Fortnow said.

MIRA MCMAHON/the Justice

VISIONARY: Jay Feinstein ’17 co-founded The Farmers Club with a mission to bring students together through a communal effort of growing fresh food to increase campus sustainability.

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10 TUESDAY, March 17, 2015 ● THE JUSTICE

the

Justice Established 1949

Brandeis University

Rachel Hughes, Editor in Chief Tate Herbert, Senior Editor Glen Chagi Chesir, Managing Editor Jessie Miller, Sam Mintz and Max Moran, Deputy Editors Avi Gold, Associate Editor Abby Patkin and Rachel Sharer, Acting News Editors Brianna Majsiak, Acting Features Editor Jessica Goldstein, Acting Forum Editor Noah Hessdorf, Sports Editor Emily Wishingrad, Arts Editor and Brooke Granovsky, Acting Arts Editor Morgan Brill and Grace Kwon, Photography Editors Brittany Joyce, Online Editor Carmi Rothberg, Copy Editor Aliza Kahn and Talia Zapinsky, Advertising Editors

EDITORIALS Scrutinize commencement invitee process As April approaches, the University community awaits the annual release of this year’s commencement speaker and honorary degree recipients. This year’s choices will likely prove significant to both the Class of 2015 and the University’s public image—student and faculty outcry alike against last year’s invitation of activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali as an honorary degree recipient led to the University’s formal disinvitation and subsequent national media scandal.

This board urges the Board of Trustees to consider the lessons of that scandal as they finalize their selections for the upcoming commencement in May, but also not to let fear of controversy guide their decision process. While University politics and public reception will undoubtedly be factored into the final decision, we ask the University community to remember the ultimate purpose of commencement: to celebrate the student body and the newest cohort of Brandeis alumni.

We feel that the most important factor in this year’s invitations is that the Board of Trustees and the Office of the President complete thorough background research on each of the potential speakers and honorary degree candidates during the vetting process. In the same statement in which the University disinvited Hirsi Ali, the University claimed “we were not aware” of her widely publicized comments on Islam, to which many in our community took offense.

That the University claimed ignorance to widely publicized and heavily criticized public statements implies an unacceptable lack of research into those receiving a significant honor.

Reevaluate honorary degrees Thorough vetting, we believe, is an absolute necessity to prevent both the Board and the Brandeis community from being taken by surprise by the work of those we invite to our commencement.

That being said, we are wary against selections made on an entirely reactionary basis: we hope that the Board will be bold in their selections and choose people who will reflect the diversity and interests of the graduating class.

The selections for honorary degrees should reflect the values of social justice; the values that University strives to impart on its students and those chosen should exemplify to those values.

Moreover, only five women and four people of color have been awarded honorary degrees in the last five years, out of 26 degrees handed out during the same time frame.

We urge the Board to strive to include a diverse group for this year, while still maintaining the thorough research necessary considering last year’s backlash.

With the scrutiny surrounding last year’s commencement activities, it would be natural for the Board to take a potentially overly conservative approach when selecting this year’s honorary degree recipients.

We urge the Board to remember the purpose of the day—the celebration of the graduating students. This year, when there will likely be a heightened focus on who is selected, we urge the Board to select a diverse group of recipients, reflective of the diverse campus on which we live.

Criticize Sodexo dining initiatives This Sunday, Student Union Vice President Charlotte Franco ’15 sent a campuswide email announcing new meal plan options for the 2015 to 2016 academic year. The new meal plans, she wrote, are the result of discussions between the Student Union, Sodexo and the University administration.

While the announcement is indeed the result of greater student input on meal plan options--something that students have sought after for years and even protested for this fall—this board finds the new meal options problematic due to their mandatory nature and surprisingly high price increases.

Shortly after the University welcomed Sodexo as its new dining provider after its contract with Aramark ended two years ago, it established a new set of dining plans for students and announced that meal plan purchases would become mandatory for the entire undergraduate student body—a decision in which students did not have a say.

This board vehemently opposes mandatory meal plan purchases. Many oncampus housing options—the Foster Mods, the Charles River Apartments and Ridgewood Quad—have fully functional kitchens. Making meal plans mandatory instead of an option for students not only puts extra financial stress on them but also is simply unnecessary.

The policy is particularly problematic

Address high price increases to students in the Charles River Apartments, who live off of the main campus and end up paying for meals they may not end up consuming. Particularly in the wake of this year’s heavy snowfall, we question how many students in this complex will be willing to walk to a campus dining location for dinner just to use their meal plan efficiently.

This board takes issue with the unusually high yearly price increases under Sodexo.

Data collected from Internet Archive shows that prices usually rose between $50 and $30 per year under Aramark’s administration in the 2011 to 2012 and 2012 to 2013 school years.

Meal plans of similar relative value to this year’s options are increasing by roughly $100 next year, which itself comes after $100 hikes from last year’s transition from Aramark to Sodexo.

This board asks the University to answer why these significant price increases are occurring, especially now that this additional cost is mandatory for all students living on campus.

While student involvement in the meal plan negotiation process is praiseworthy, we ask the University to further inform students where their money is going, especially given their recent loss of a choice about whether to purchase a meal plan if they live on campus.

MORGAN BRILL/the Justiice

Views the News on

Last Monday, Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, urged the United Nations Security Council to use all “necessary measures” to force the extradition of the Sudanese leader President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to the Hague for genocide and crimes against humanity. This statement was made despite the prosecutor previously suspending criminal investigations in Darfur, due to a lack of cooperation in Sudan and inadequate force by the Security Council. Bashir is the only sitting head of state indicted by the ICC for the crime of genocide, which, in Darfur, has resulted in the deaths of 300,000 and displaced some 3 million more, according to United to End Genocide. Bashir has evaded arrest from some of the charges for five years. He has continued to commit atrocities across Sudan.

What do you think of the effectiveness of the Court, and how do you propose the Court approach criminal proceedings against Bashir?

Dr. Daniel Terris It’s a travesty that Bashir remains free but the failure does not lie with the Security Council as an abstract entity. Responsibility for enforcement lies with the member states of the United Nations. It is up to citizens of individual countries to put pressure on their governments to make sure that each nation does its part for the cause of international justice. The International Criminal Court is a young institution with plenty of problems. It will always be dependent on the nations of the world to assist with enforcement. But let’s remember that even though Bashir remains “free,” the indictment effectively limits him to his own country and a handful of other destinations that openly flaunt the rulings of the ICC. That’s not the same thing as answering the charges in court, but it’s a message to other dictators. If they commit atrocities, the politics may enable them to elude justice but they will live without the privileges of global citizenship to which they have become accustomed.

Dr. Daniel Terris is the director for the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life.

Prof. Richard Gaskins (AMST, LGLS)

On March 9, a panel of judges informed the U.N. Security Council that Sudan has refused to cooperate with the International Criminal Court, including failing to arrest its president and send him to the Hague for pre-trial proceedings. Although Sudan is not a member of the ICC, its obligations stem from a 2005 UNSC Resolution referring the Darfur situation to the Court for investigation and requiring all signatories to the U.N. Charter to cooperate fully. This was the first such U.N. referral, which is the only way the ICC can gain jurisdiction over non-member states. Without enforcement, the earlier Resolution becomes another sign of UNSC deadlock. Meanwhile the ICC has shown its seriousness enough to restrict Sudan’s president to a cramped foreign travel itinerary. And the world can now clearly visualize the Court’s core purpose: ending impunity for leaders deemed responsible for “unimaginable atrocities that shock the conscience of humanity.”

Prof. Richard Gaskins (AMST, LGLS) is the Proskauer Chair in Law and Social Welfare. He has expertise in global justice and human rights and is the Academic Program Director of the Brandeis in The Hague.

Prof. Yehudah Mirsky (NEJS, SCIS)

It is highly unlikely that the international community will make significant efforts to have Bashir extradited anytime soon. (I would be very happy to be proved wrong.) Because Sudan didn’t sign the Rome Statute creating the Court, it’s only subject to its jurisdiction because in 2005 the U.N. Security Council extended its jurisdiction to Sudan, as it may in cases of genocide and crimes against humanity. But Security Council members have not since exercised the political will and commited the resources to bring Bashir to justice. Will the mounting disconnect between judicial rhetoric and political reality grow so large as to make a mockery of the very idea of accountability for genocide and crimes against humanity? This call does tell Sudanese activists and genocide victims that they are not forgotten. But it is only meaningful if it is being done as part of a larger political and economic effort to get him to go. This all begs the hard and necessary question of whether institutions of international justice that are so almost inevitably selective are actually better than none at all.

Prof. Yehudah Mirsky (NEJS, SCIS) served as special advisor in the US State Department’s human rights bureau in the Clinton Administration, and this semester is teaching a course, Human Rights: Law, Politics, Theology (NEJS 141b).

He’s the author of Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution.

Mangok Bol MS ’13

The International Criminal Court was founded with the goal of punishing those who have committed serious crimes against humanity. Unfortunately the Court has not executed the goals that it was founded for. Instead, those who were accused of the heinous crimes against humanity are walking free like President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has committed genocide both in South Sudan and Darfur. One of the major weaknesses of the International Criminal Court is its ineffectiveness with the deterrent method used by the member states to bring the accused to face the law. There is enough evidence to doubt the ability of the Court to enforce its mission without a robust police force. Lack of corporation among the member states has made it difficult for the court to arrest those with arrest warrants. Since his arrest warrant was issued on March 4, 2009, Bashir has visited a number of member states of the ICC with no arrest. The only way the court can enforce its mission across borders is to come up with a strong, well-funded International police force that can helps implement its mission.

Mangok Bol MS ’13 is the administrator for the Mandel Center and the program administrator for the international and global studies program.

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TUESDAY, march 17, 2015

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Brandeis’ free speech violation cannot be explained away

By Catherine Sevcenko special to the justice

At the end of its Mar. 3 editorial defending Brandeis’ record on free speech prompted by a Foundation for Individual Rights in Education article titled “Top 10 Threats to Free Speech on Campus,” the Justice invited responses. We deeply appreciate the opportunity to explain why we remain convinced that the incidents described in the editorial violate students’ rights to free speech and properly earn Brandeis a spot on our “10 Worst” list.

Universities exist to enable the free exchange of ideas—all ideas, not just conventional wisdom or ideas that everyone agrees with. Although Brandeis is not legally bound by the First Amendment because it is a private institution, it has a moral obligation to uphold the promises it makes to students regarding free expression. Just a few months ago, University President Frederick Lawrence reaffirmed that Brandeis “has an unyielding commitment to free speech and expression of ideas.” Brandeis’ motto is “Truth, Even Unto Its Innermost Parts.” Punishing people for what they say—or what they might say—is antithetical to this purpose and thus it’s fair for students to assume that they will not get in trouble with University officials merely for expressing their opinions.

It turns out, however, that disregard for free expression at Brandeis is distressingly common. FIRE has highlighted in The Wall Street Journal the harassment charge that Eli Philip ’15 filed against Daniel Mael ’15 after the two engaged in heated discussion following a public lecture over Facebook about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

By filing harassment charges, Philip did not create or participate in a “public forum,” to quote the editorial, where differing viewpoints could be aired. Instead, he forced the issue behind closed doors by setting Brandeis’ confidential disciplinary process in motion.

Protected by that secrecy, the University demanded that Mael respond to Philip’s complaint within two days, although it refused to give Mael a copy of the allegations against him.

Only when lawyers intervened on Mael’s behalf, pointing out that these unfair demands would not fare well either in a court of law or in the court of public opinion, did the University drop the charges. Given this history, it is hard to understand the editorial’s claim that Mael has not faced “any sort of repercussion or hindrance [sic] of speech.”

Based on these circumstances, it’s clear to FIRE that the object was to silence Mael, not to promote dialogue.

The editorial also argues that disinviting Ayaan Hirsi Ali as the 2014 International and Global Studies department commencement speaker was not censorship because she is welcome to come to campus to express her critical views about Islam at another time.

That offer does not alleviate the harm caused by the censorship inherent in the disinvitation.

The University made a commitment to honor Hirsi Ali for her achievements and then went back on that promise because of complaints about things she had said. No one who has received an honorary degree is perfect.

Imposing a “never offended anyone” purity test for the right to speak at commencement can only result in an empty podium.

The Editorial Board stands on firmer ground when arguing that President Lawrence properly called the views of some of the faculty posted on the “Concerned” Listserv “abhorrent.” (The editorial says Lawrence made the criticisms from his personal email account and that the University never commented publicly, although his July 28, 2014, letter with that characterization is on the Office of the President website).

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Universities exist to enable the free exchange of ideas—all ideas, not just conventional wisdom.

But whether President Lawrence was speaking personally or on behalf of the University doesn’t matter. Just as the Listserv members had the right to swap emails about Israel harvesting organs, President Lawrence has the right to call those views abhorrent.

Free speech is a two-way street. One caveat: Authority figures should be careful not to single out for disfavor a particular subordinate’s speech, because doing so can chill everyone’s willingness to take controversial stands or speak truth to power. But that’s not what happened here.

MARGOT FIELD/the Justice

In each of these cases, Brandeis administrators may have thought they were acting in the best interests of the University.

But we at FIRE believe that the University has made expedient decisions that compromise its fundamental mission, which is why it was a “foregone conclusion,” as we said in our

Worst 10 List, that Brandeis University would be on our list of the top 10 worst institutions for free expression again this year.

—Catherine Sevcenko is the Associate Director of Ligation for Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

Protect endangered gorillas in Congo’s Virunga National Park Jessica

Goldstein Ubuntu

“You, Europeans. You have eaten all your animals and now you ask us to turn our backs on our money the country desperately needs, the people desperately need, to protect animals,” expressed Joseph Pili Pili, a senior official from the Congolese Ministry of Hydrocarbons. To me, he seems like another party hack, one willing to compromise something truly beautiful in life—the humble and endangered mountain gorillas of Virunga National Park. This is in exchange for something so lucrative that has yet to make any opportunity for the Congolese people—more natural resources.

According to the United Nation Environmental Programme, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has $24 trillion of untapped mineral wealth in the ground. It seems to be the DRC’s curse. Paired with that is also the fact that the country’s gross domestic product per capita ranks the lowest in the world, according to the Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook. This presents a dismal paradox—a country with the greatest mineral wealth is, in fact, the country with the poorest people.

So when I heard about how SOCO International, a Britain-based oil and gas corporation, was examining Virunga National Park for oil wealth in eastern DRC and that the

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country is considering redrawing its borders for the corporation to excavate oil, I was certainly less than thrilled. How can more money that I only fear will fall into state coffers or the hands of greedy militias help an impoverished people develop?

The park is home to a quarter of the world’s population of the endangered mountain gorillas and is among one of the most ecologically diverse habitats in the world. Established in 1925, it was declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a World Heritage Site in 1979. However, it has been afflicted by the violence in Eastern DRC since the late 1990s. As Congolese government officials consider redrawing the lines for the park, the threat to this endangered species could become even more dire as the oil exploration areas constitute 40 percent of the park. Even though SOCO claims that, as of last year, they were done exploring in the the region, they still present a risk to the park. If the Congolese government chooses to declassify these areas of the park, it may be easier for SOCO to sell them. Additionally, it presents fear for many park rangers, who believe that they will no longer be able to protect the endangered species.

Now before you scratch your head and come up with an image of what one of these park rangers looks like, I urge you to take a step back. These aren’t your normal run-ofthe-mill park rangers. They are the real deal.

Armed with AK-47s, they serve as conservationists and defenders of the park—protecting any of the animals from becoming victims of the poachers.

Joanna Natasegara, a spokesperson for Virunga National Park, said that over 140

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park rangers have been killed by poachers in the line of duty in the last decade, and today the park only has 680 park rangers to protect it. Virunga Park is larger than the state of Israel.

Since 1996, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a group partially responsible for the genocide in neighboring Rwanda—have been living in the park.

A National Geographic photographer, Brent Stirton, expressed that the FDLR “does everything from robbing trucks that pass through to crimes against local citizens to animal poaching, to whatever they can do to make money, regardless of the rule of law.”

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A country full of such life shouldn’t be blotted out by inhumanity for resources...

If militias live regardless of the rules of law, how can we expect them to keep their hands off of oil wealth in Virunga? It is not concealed that SOCO international would have no qualms about negotiating unethically either. Rodrigue Katembo, a park ranger who acted as an undercover agent, was bribed to work against the park. He captured excellent undercover footage and was subsequently

The Staff For information on joining the Justice, write to editor@ thejustice.org.

jailed for 17 days—only to be beaten and tortured. Following his arrest, he received threats that if he were to ever oppose the exploitation of oil wealth in Virunga again, he would be killed. SOCO denies any implications of impropriety.

If the threat against the mountain gorillas isn’t enough, it is certainly important to note that the oil exploitation could risk the lives of some 30,000 who rely on the lake to survive.

The potential for an oil leak is possible, and it could very well harm these local fisherman.

Additionally, the tourism industry could be stunted by oil excavation.

All the while, the Congolese government supports the decision of excavation, insisting that it would further improve the economy.

However, the park’s Chief Warden, Emmanuel de Merode, believes “If Virunga National Park were to be declassified as a world heritage site, it would represent a huge loss to the future potential for economic development.”

Not only would this be seen in the destruction of wildlife, but also in the economic future of the park itself.

If we have learned anything about the exploitation of mineral wealth in Congo, then we certainly should know better than to allow this corporation or any other to set up camp on a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Democratic Republic of Congo is a country overflowing with mineral wealth. And once that was discovered, Congo was swallowed by the Western world. A country full of such life shouldn’t be blotted out by inhumanity for resources to fuel our world fought over by African actors and the Western World alike. If one destroys Virunga, one destroys the Congolese hope.

Editorial Assistants

Sabrina Sung

Arts: Jamie Gropper

Layout: Corey Cohen

Photography: Mihir Khanna, Michelle Banayan

Illustrations: Margot Field, Jason Lipow, Gaby Yeshua

Layout: Josh Sander Staff News: Marissa Ditkowsky, Tzilil Levy, Saadiah McIntosh, Zachary Reid, Sherry Simkovic, Arianna Unger Features: Mariya Greeley, Rose Gittell, Alec Siegel Forum: Jennie Bromberg, Abe Clark, Aaron Dvorkin, Mark Gimelstein, Kahlil Oppenheimer Sports: Elan Kane, Daniel Kanovich, Dan Rozel, Colin Warnes Arts: Nate Shaffer, Anna Stern, Vanessa Alamo Photography: Tommy Gao, Leslie Kamel, Amanda Nguyen, Jeremy Perlman, Abigail Rothstein, Heather Schiller Copy: Annie Fortnow, Mara Nussbaum, Rebecca Shi,

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TUESDAY, March 17, 2015

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THE JUSTICE

FORUM

Reevaluate ‘the Golden Rule’ in international politics

By KAT Semerau JUSTICE contributing writer

There is a dichotomy between the mentalities of children versus adults when it comes to understanding “the Golden Rule” of treating others as one would like to be treated. A tenant of almost every major religion, the rule is so deeply ingrained that it can become a lens for all human relations. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the war on terror, where America has come into the forefront of world conflicts. What is first taken as a maxim, “the Golden Rule,” or ethic of reciprocity, teaches children how to live harmoniously with one another. However, this lighthearted connotation is transformed in adults, who use it to justify their egocentrism and the use of militant force. In the arena of politics, this has had drastic effects; child’s play has turned into a war for democracy.

America has been involved in twenty conflicts abroad in the past five years, according to the U.S. Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Many of these operations have been inspired

by Western exceptionalism, the idea that democracy is the best and should dominate the Earth. Seeking more allies, the United States has either tried to establish democracy in failed states or elect officials we support in a power play.

The epitome of such missions was in 1953, when America staged a coup to install the Shah as the supreme leader of Iran. Historically this strategy has failed time and time again, leaving other nations worse off than before. Now, this approach is leading to even more destruction—drone strikes in Northwest Pakistan, War in Iraq and hunting of Somali extremists and other anti-terrorist operations.

What is clear is that forcing American values upon regions where Islam is prevalent grows resentment and hostility, not assimilation. The Golden Rule of American politics must be exposed red-handed if the mayhem of civil unrest and civilian casualties is to be stopped.

American strategy in the war for democracy involves treating civilian casuality as collateral damage. Some of the most devastating effects of U.S. military intervention can be found in Northwest Pakistan. Drone strikes have ravaged the nation, whose citizens live in perpetual fear of attack. “When we got hit, my father’s body was scattered in pieces and he died immediately, but I was unconscious for three to four days,” says Waleed Shiraz, a 22-year-old Pakistani who was pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science before the strike. “I am now disabled. I have been completely ruined.” Horrific stories like Shiraz’s are not uncommon.

Zubair, a 13-year-old Pakistani boy, presented his story before Congress in 2013, to no avail: “I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray.”

A 2011 study by Stanford Law School and New York University’s School of Law states that “the number of high-level targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low—about 2%.” This figure is so startling; over 3,000 Pakistani people have been killed by drone strikes since 2004 What is now clear in U.S.-Pakistan relations following a detestable war is that the Pakistani people are angry and afraid. Opposition to drone strikes has accompanied increasingly negative perceptions of the U.S.

BEN JARRETT/the Justice

According to the 2012 International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution, “Roughly three in four [Pakistanis] now consider the U.S. an enemy, an increase from both 2010 and 2011.” Furthermore, the same anti-democratic superstructures which existed in the country before the strikes are still present, another sign that “The Golden Rule” is not applicable in foreign affairs.

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American involvement in the Middle East and North Africa is both misguided and dangerous.

Another Middle Eastern target, Iraq, has also faced the consequences of American democracy. The eight-year war with Iraq—one waged on false information about weapons of mass destruction—saw an astounding death toll of 500,000 Iraqis according to Congressional research.

Additionally, the next generation of young Iraqis are now facing a new crisis. Toxic heavy metals such as depleted uranium were released from our bombings, which are causing rates of child cancer and birth defects to reach historically unprecedented levels in Fallujah and other Iraq cities according to The Independent, a British-based newspa-

per.

American military operations are also prevalent in Somalia, where the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab is terrorizing the country. Somalia has suffered from a twentyfour year civil war due to the proliferation of armed rebel groups such as al-Shabaab. Not until 2012 was the Somalian federal government created in an attempt to provide more stability for the ravaged country.

American intervention could not be more poorly timed. SEAL Team Six raid of the fishing village of Baraawe in 2013 failed altogether. The al-Shabaab leader, Abdikadar Mohamed Abdikadar, was not apprehended, and SEAL had to retreat after a deadly gun battle ensued.

Other, more recent strikes were inconclusive about whether or not the target was killed, according to Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby. Just last Friday, U.S drone strikes targeted Somalia Shabaab leaders believed to be responsible for the 2013 attack of Westgate mall in Kenya. The reason these strikes have increased in a starving, warring country like Somalia is because when one terrorist is killed, there is another waiting to take his place. American efforts in Somalia are not inspired by justice. If anything, our involvement in the region is part of a larger anti-terrorist movement. America has identified Islamist extremism as the enemy to democracy.

Following the adversarial paradigm, American politicians will do anything in their power to eradicate it while overlooking deeper, underlying problems which put the country at high risk.

In 2011, for instance, the plight of the Somali people was exacerbated by the worst drought in six decades, which killed a quarter million—many of whom were children—and caused tens of thousands to flee to Kenya and Ethiopia in search of food.

In this same year, the U.S spent $61 million in humanitarian aid to Somalia while over $16 billion funded counterterrorism efforts.

From this perspective, it is clear that American interests lie more in establishing stable governments to ally with than, saving civilian lives.

As American focus on military operations abroad increases, the Golden Rule of war— fight until other countries have democracy like we have—becomes more appallingly apparent. Such ignorance of others’ cultures, values and political systems is reminiscent of Cold War era politics, wherein the U.S. was hysterical about the eradication of communism. Today, such vitriolic ideology still exists, only the reds have been replaced by Islamist extremists. In this context, American involvement in the Middle East and North Africa is both misguided and dangerous. The devastating effects in countries we have invaded may mark the beginning of even more serious war, savagery and ignorant militarization.

In the words of George Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright and co-founder of the London School of Politics and Economics, “The golden rule is that there are no Golden Rules.”

This is especially true when it comes to negotiating agreements between different countries with different ideas about “good” treatment.

Include prenatal care in Affordable Care Act coverage

By JENNIE BROMBERG JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Last Thursday, more than 50 House Democrats and more than 30 national advocacy groups like Planned Parenthood sent letters to the Department of Health and Human Services, urging the Obama administration to classify pregnancy as a “qualifying life event” under the Affordable Care Act. A qualifying life event is when something major happens in one’s life, like a change in family size, such as giving birth or getting married, that allows an enrollment period to open up to sign up for health care. Currently, if a woman is pregnant and uninsured, critical prenatal care is not covered in any way by the government. This is a major issue because prenatal care is vital for the healthy birth of a healthy child. This care includes making sure the woman knows about essential nutrition information, like getting enough folic acid, and getting images of the fetus to make sure it is developing on track. The way the system works is that there can be qualifying life events that can open up an enrollment period for people to sign up for health care from HealthCare.gov.

According to the Wall Street Journal, people who oppose creating a special enrollment peri-

od for when women become pregnant say that this will encourage young women not to get health care until they become pregnant. Basically, women would be incentivized to only seek care when they need it and won’t pay into the system of health care until they are too expensive to take care of. Many young people opt out of buying insurance because young adults are generally healthy and can forgo going to the doctor while maintaining a healthy status.

But even if this were the case, it would still cost a ton of money to force so many women to forgo prenatal care if they can’t afford it because doing so leads to worse birth outcomes, including low birth weight and premature babies, caesarian sections that may have been prevented and some birth defects that could have been lessened by the correct prenatal care.

This is so important in the United States because the infant mortality rate here is high compared to other developed countries with the lowest infant mortality rates.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2010 the infant mortality rate in the United States was 6.10 per 1,000 births compared to 2.3 in Finland and Japan, 2.5 in Portugal and Sweden and 2.7 in the Czech Republic.

Prenatal care is covered in many of these countries, and there is also better established overall health care.

Additionally, infant mortality rates only declined from 6.91 in 2000 to 6.05 in 2011, according to the CDC. So why is the infant mortality rate so high in the United States?

There are many factors that contribute to increased infant mortality rates, such as socioeconomic status, marital status, age of the woman at time of birth, giving birth to multiples and, most important to this article, prenatal care. However, when people are prevented from receiving this care, they are more likely to have worse birth outcomes. When you look at the differences in infant mortality rate by race, you can see a huge gap in the United States.

According to the CDC, in 2011, the infant mortality rate of the non-Hispanic black population was 13.31, compared to a 5.63 infant mortality rate in the non-Hispanic white population. There are also socioeconomic connections to the racial disparity seen in the infant mortality rate. Allowing pregnant women to enroll in health care coverage for prenatal care would hopefully lead to not just overall lower infant mortality rates but also a smaller gap between infant mortality rates divided by

race.

Although covering prenatal care could be expensive, it would save a lot of money in the long term and would also lead to healthier and happier babies. For example, at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, it costs $4,370.50 to $6,012.50 for one day in the neonatal intensive care unit. That is a ton of money when you consider that most babies in the NICU spend more than one day there, but it depends on the baby.

Usually an insurance company or Medicaid will cover all or part of this bill, but sometimes the financial burden ends up falling on the parents. Preventing visits to the NICU is just one way that expanding access to prenatal care would help lower overall costs to mothers and both private and public insurance systems.

Withholding access to prenatal care is not fair to expecting mothers. It creates more complications and higher health costs to them in the long run. Additionally, it is putting unborn babies at risk of unnecessary complications and even death.

The Obama Administration should include being pregnant as a qualifying life event and should open an enrollment period for uninsured pregnant women to access health care during this critical time of fetal development.

THE JUSTICE

CONTINUED FROM 16 error, and though NYU added two more runs in the top of the ninth, it was not enough, as relief pitcher Justin Freeman ’17 picked up the save to secure the victory.

MORGAN BRILL/Justice File Photo

EYES ON THE BALL: Infielder Liana Moss ’17 makes contact in the Judges’ 8-6 victory against Emerson College last May.

SOFTBALL: Judges face UAA opponents during week-long tournament of the fourth, the Judges were finally able to put a run on the board when Coleman hit a solo shot.

First baseman Jordan Buscetto ’16 added to the cause in the sixth with an RBI single that scored pinch runner Natasha Quiroz ’15.

Coleman, who finished the day going 3-4, would continue her excellent hitting in the seventh when she doubled in two runners, Gagnon and shortstop Anya Kamber ’15. Coleman is second on the team in RBIs with eight, behind only Gagnon’s nine.

The catcher had three of the

team’s overall four hits in the game, with the last coming from Buscetto.

Wroblewski picked up the win for the Judges, going the distance yet again while only allowing two earned runs in the contest.

She allowed six hits and two walks, while striking out one batter. Coleman remarked that the tournament was an important trip for the team.

“We now know that we can beat some of the best teams in the country. While some of the games did not end the way we wanted, we were able to compete against all of the teams we saw.”

After the tournament, Coleman leads the team in batting average

march 17, 2015

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BASEBALL: Men finish conference play with 2-6 record against UAA competition

FULL SWING

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with .436. She is closely followed by outfielder Amanda Genovese ’15, who is hitting at an average of .423. Coleman and infielder Madison Sullivan ’16 are tied for the team lead with 10 runs scored. The speedy Genovese and Sullivan lead the team with three steals apiece.

Coleman and the team have high aspirations for the future.

“Our goal is still to make NCAAs. If we play as well as we all know we can, then this goal is definitely possible. We are excited to see where this season takes us.”

The Judges will be back in action on Saturday with a doubleheader on the road at Clark University, with games at noon and 2 p.m.

JUDGES 0, ROCHESTER 3 In Friday’s loss against Rochester, Brenner—the starting pitcher— threw a complete game in 123 pitches, allowing 11 hits and three earned runs to go along with his four strikeouts.

It was Brenner’s 16th career complete game and his second in the week.

Despite falling to 0-3 on the season with the loss, Brenner said he felt good. “[Catcher] Connor [Doyle] ’16 called a great game, and defense played a consistent game. [Rochester] had a couple bloop hits and their pitcher just kept us off balance all day,” Brenner said.

Both teams remained failed to score until the top of the fourth inning, when Rochester freshman third baseman Owen Gabbey hit a sacrifice fly ball that scored junior designated hitter Lance Hamilton.

The Yellowjackets added two more runs in the top of the seventh inning to increase their lead to three.

Brandeis had an opportunity to respond in the bottom of the seventh inning after Doyle led off the inning with a double. Left fielder Ryan Tettemer ’17 followed with a bloop single.

Though Tettemer reached second on the hit, Doyle had to stop at third base after waiting to see if the ball would land.

Rochester junior starting pitcher Dan Warren was able to pitch out of the inning without giving up a run as the Judges stranded two base runners.

Tettemer went 3-for-4 at the plate, hitting three doubles in his three hits, but the Judges could not drive him in for a run any time.

Moving forward, Brenner said he thinks the team needs to put together a complete game each time they play.

“We need to minimize the big innings and play a full nine innings offensively,” he said. “If we stay clean on defense, we can compete with any team on our schedule.”

The Judges continue their season on Friday in their home opener against Worcester Polytechnic Institute at 3:30 p.m.

After that, it will be at home again against Salem State University on Monday afternoon.

BRIEF Cooper takes home another individual honor for Judges Forward Jordan Cooper ’18 was named the D3hoops.com All-Northeast Rookie of the Year yesterday, two weeks after being named University Athletic Association Co-Rookie of the Year.

The D3hoops.com All-Region teams are named from 711 nominated players nationwide, according to the website, made up of the nominations of various sports information directors across the country.

Cooper started in 21 of the Judges’ 25 games this season and made appearances in the other four. Cooper was the squad's leading scorer, averaging 12.4 points per game for a 33.7 shooting percentage.

The forward registered a season-high 27 points during an 8381 loss to Case Western Reserve University on Jan. 18, going 8-of15 from the field and 8-of-10 from the charity stripe.

Cooper also added a trio of

threes during the home contest and was second on the team during the entire season with 30 three-pointers.

Cooper registered double-digit scoring in 13 of his 21 starts and another three times in appearances off the bench and averaged 22.9 minutes per game, just fourth overall on the squad.

Cooper also managed to pull down just over three rebounds per game and notched a seasonhigh eight rebounds in the loss to Case.

Cooper was the backbone of a Judges’ offense that averaged 62.5 points per game during the past season.

He was the first Judge to win the award since Florian Rexhepi ’08 won it back in 2005.

This season marks the 14th year D3hoops.com has named All-Region teams.

—Avi Gold

BASEBALLSOFTBALL TENNIS TRACK

WRITE FOR SPORTS Contact Noah Hessdorf at sports@thejustice.org

BASEBALLSOFTBALL TENNIS TRACK

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THE JUSTICE

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Tuesday, March 17, 2015

15

TENNIS

jUDGES BY THE NUMBERS baseball TEAM STATS

UAA STANDINGS

Runs Batted In

Not including Monday’s games.

UAA Conference Overall

W L W L Pct. Emory 6 2 12 5 .706 WashU 6 2 7 3 .700 Case 4 4 4 4 .500 Rochester 2 6 4 4 .500 JUDGES 2 6 4 10 .286 NYU 2 6 3 8 .273

UPCOMING GAMES: Friday vs. WPI Sunday vs. Suffolk Monday vs. Salem St.

Ryan Pocock ’18 leads the team with 14 RBIs. Player RBI Ryan Pocock 14 Connor Doyle 6 Nick Falkson 5 Liam O’Connor 5

Strikeouts Kyle Brenner ’15 leads all pitchers with 19 strikeouts.

Player Ks Kyle Brenner 19 Sean O’Neill 13 Sam Miller 9 Ryan Pocock 9

SOFTBALL UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS

Not including Monday’s games.

Runs Batted In

UAA Conference

W L Emory 8 2 WashU 8 2 Rochester 6 4 Case 5 5 JUDGES 3 7 NYU 0 10

W 18 16 8 10 6 0

Overall L Pct. 2 .900 4 .800 5 .615 5 .667 7 .462 14 .000

Madison Gagnon ’16 leads the squad with 9 RBIs. Player RBI Madison Gagnon 9 Cori Coleman 8 Madison Hunter 7 Anya Kamber 7

Strikeouts Samantha Wroblewski ’17 leads all pitchers with 26 strikeouts.

UPCOMING GAMES: Saturday at Clark (DH) Sunday vs. Bates (DH) Friday, Mar. 27 vs. Salve Regina (DH)

Player Ks Samantha Wroblewski 26 Sadie-Rose Apfel 9 Melissa Soleimani 6

FENCING Overall results from the fencing squads this season.

TOP PERFORMERS (Men’s)

TOP PERFORMERS (Women’s)

SABER Adam Mandel

RECORD 62-11

SABER Ashley Jean

RECORD 50-17

ÈPÈE Tom Hearne

RECORD 41-26

ÈPÈE Liz Feller

RECORD 71-31

FOIL Noah Berman

RECORD 44-19

FOIL Caroline Mattos

RECORD 80-20

TENNIS Updated season results.

TOP PERFORMERS (Men’s)

TOP PERFORMERS (Women’s)

MEN’S SINGLES Michael Arguello

RECORD 5-4

WOMEN’S SINGLES Haley Cohen

RECORD 4-1

MEN’S DOUBLES Arguello/Cherkin

RECORD 7-3

WOMEN’S DOUBLES Cohen/Cooke

RECORD 4-1

UPCOMING MEET: The men and women’s tennis teams will travel to Wesleyan University on Friday for matches at 1 and 4 pm.

MORGAN BRILL/Justice File Photo

CROSSCOURT SHOT: Michael Arguello ’17 serves in the Judges’ home defeat to Bowdoin College last March 29.

Squads compete against nationally ranked teams ■ Michael Arguello ’17 won a singles victory on the No. 2 court against Stevens Institute of Technology 6-2,6-2.

By avi gold Justice EDITOR

The men and women’s tennis team returned to New England last weekend with four games against regional opponents, though neither squad was able to pick up a victory. The women’s squad, ranked 26th nationally, dropped a pair of 9-0 decisions to the No. 16 Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Friday and No. 10 Middlebury College on Sunday. The men, 33rd in the country, fell 7-2 to No. 3 Middlebury on Saturday and 5-3 to No. 29 Stevens Institute of Technology on Sunday.

The men took two of three doubles matches against Stevens on Sunday but were unable to carry that momentum into the singles play, dropping four of five completed matches en route to the 5-3 defeat. The duo of Eric Miller ’16 and Brian Granoff ’17 began the day with an 8-4 victory over counterparts from Stevens, followed by a matching 8-4 victory by Michael Arguello ’17 and Jeff Cherkin ’17.

In singles play, Granoff fell in straight sets to Stevens junior Matthew Heinrich on the No. 1 court.

Heinrich, who earned All-America nHonors last year, took the match 7-6, 7-6. The squad got its only singles victory on the No. 2 court, where Arguello earned a straight-set victory over Stevens junior Ben Foran, 6-2, 6-2.

Granoff recognized the hard competition that he was up against. “Going up against big hitters at 1, I have to do a better job of absorbing pace and not just being pushed around the court. The fact that Heinrich was an All-American didn’t change that.”

The Judges picked up their only points against Middlebury on Saturday courtesy of victories by Arguello and Alec Siegel ’15.

Arguello needed a tie-breaker in the first set to claim victory, 7-6 (8), 6-4. Siegel, playing on the No. 4 court, was taken to a third set after claiming the opening set but walked away with a 6-2, 2-6, 10-8 victory. Though the women’s squad dropped identical 9-0 decisions over the weekend, they were up against a number of All-Americans on the singles courts.

Carley Cooke ’15 dropped a battle of All-Americans on the No. 1 court with Middlebury junior Ria Genger on Sunday, falling in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2. On the No. 2 court, Simone

Vandroff ’15 was faced with a matchup against Middlebury sophomore Alexandra Fields. Vandroff was able to steal a pair of points from the AllAmerican but fell in straight sets, 6-2, 6-0. On Friday, Cooke was matched with MIT sophomore Elysa Khors on the No. 1 court and could not defeat the All-American, falling in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2. Maya Vasser ’16 went on a run on the No. 4 court,but fell in straight sets to MIT freshman Dora Tzeng, 6-1, 6-3.

In doubles play, Cooke and Haley Cohen ’18 battled MIT, but fell in a tiebreaker, dropping the match 9-8 (0). The Judges sent two of the three doubles matches to tiebreakers, as the duo of Charlotte Aaron ’18 and Sarita Biswas ’16 fell 9-8 (1).

Granoff and the team are looking forward to the rest of the season.

“Mentally, we just all—as a team —need to regroup and refocus. We have our home opener against Coast Guard and then a great opportunity against another ranked team in Wesleyan.” Both squads will return to action this weekend, traveling to Wesleyan College (Conn.) on Friday, where the women begin at 1 p.m and men square off at 4 p.m.

—Editor’s note: Alec Siegel ‘15 is a staff member for the Justice Features Section.

pro sports BRIEF Everton FC wins key matchup at home as it struggles to keep up in Premier League standings This weekend, Premier League team Everton F.C. hosted Newcastle F.C. for a very important game for both teams. Everton is suffering from a recent slump, with no wins in their last five games. Though the team is showing good form in Europe, manager Robert Martinez is under pressure to lift the team to safety and towards a more favorable position in the table, as they are currently sitting seven points above the relegation zone. Newcastle is coming off some erratic play, with many of the fans unhappy with the way the team is approaching their games and their league standing.

The game at Goodison Park started off with both sides putting up a even fight. Everton had changed its line-up a lot from the previous week, with Leon Osman and Aroune Kone

coming in to replace Gareth Barry and Steven Naismith. Newcastle lost Papiss Cisse to a seven-game ban because of a spitting incident.

However, after 20 minutes, Everton began to show their dominance.

Romelu Lukaku took down the ball from the air before laying it off to James McCarthy, who took two touches and placed it in the bottom right corner with the keeper already committed to going the other way.

After that goal, Everton seemed to gain of confidence and pushed forward. With Everton in firm control, it was only a matter of time before the second goal. The Newcastle team managed to hold on until halftime with the teams going in with a score of 1–0 to Everton. After the teams came out of the break, Newcastle was once again on the back

foot. Everton finally got their second goal through some wonderful pressure from Aaron Lennon, dispossessing Yoan Gouffran and then being fouled by him in the box. Lukaku then took his second penalty of the week, placing this one into the bottom right corner.

The game was not looking promising for the Newcastle side, and they began to show their frustration. The climax of this irritation came from Newcastle captain Fabricio Coloccini. Coloccini made an attempt to dispossess Aaron Lennon with a two-footed challenge, and, with none of the ball being touched, it was an easy decision for the referee to pull out a red card.

After that very clumsy move by the Newcastle captain, Everton looked more comfortable than ever,

passing the ball around the Newcastle midfield with ease.

The away team managed to only threaten the goal once, producing the only real save from goalie Tim Howard. In the 92nd minute, the Newcastle team had a chance to get a goal back to make the score-line more favorable. However, because of their commitment they were left prone to a counterattack. After clearing the Newcastle chance, the ball fell to Everton player Christian Atsu. Atsu used his pace to run at the defense and produce a perfect through-ball for Ross Barkley to take around the keeper and slot into the empty net.

Martinez was very happy with the performance, commenting on the team’s domination. “The mindset today wasn’t of a team who had fear

of losing at home. Some of the play was outstanding, but when we had to defend and work hard for each other, we did that with total composure.”

This weekend produced many other important results as well.

Manchester City lost 1-0 to Burnley through a well-taken George Boyd goal. This loss set them further back from league leaders Chelsea, who tied Southampton 1-1, with goals from Diego Costa for the Blues and a penalty from Dusan Tadic for the Saints. Manchester United produced a very impressive win over their rivals from Europe, Tottenham. Wayne Rooney, Maroune Fellaini and Michael Carrick contributed to the impressive 3-0 score-line.

—Colin Warnes

just

Sports

Page 16

GOING FOR THE ACE The men and women’s tennis teams opened regional play for the spring season, p. 15.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Waltham, Mass.

softball

FROM THE WINDUP

Squad wins three games on roadtrip ■ Catcher Cori Coleman ’16

went 3-4 at the plate in the Judges’ victory against Case Western Reserve University.

By NOAH HESSDORF JUSTICE editor

The women’s softball team traveled to Florida last week for the University Athletic Association conference tournament, where the squad picked up three wins, pushing their record to 6-7 overall and 3-7 in UAA games.

In the 10 games that the Judges played in, they lost 9-3 and 9-1 to Rochester University; 9-7 to Case Western Reserve University; 10-5 and 5-4 to Emory University and 6-0 and 5-2 to Washington University in St. Louis.

The team’s three wins came against New York University, by a score of 9-3 and 12-4, and against Case Western, 5-2.

MORGAN BRILL/Justice File Photo

THE STRETCH: Pitcher Ryan Healy ’16 throws a pitch in the Judges’ 6-5 victory in 11 innings over Curry College last April 22.

Judges play in eightgame UAA Tournament ■ Pitcher Kyle Brenner ’16 threw 123 pitches in his 16th career complete game in a loss to Rochester University on Friday.

By elan kane JUSTICE staff writer

The baseball team went 2-6 last week as they traveled to Sanford, Fla. to compete against University Athletic Association opponents.

The Judges finished their trip defeating Case Western Reserve University 12-8 on Sunday and New York University 8-6 on Saturday.

The team lost to Rochester University 3-0 on Friday, to Washington University in St. Louis 6-3 on Thursday and to Emory University 12-10 on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Monday and Sunday, Brandeis fell to Case Western, NYU and Rochester by scores of 9-2, 2-1 and 6-2, respectively.

Following the win Sunday, the Judges improved their record to 4-10 overall and 2-6 in UAA play.

Captain and pitcher Kyle Brenner ’15 said he thought the team performed better each game.

“I think we played much better as the week progressed,” he said. “We had opportunities in other games that we did not capitalize on. With that being said, we beat a very good team today [Case Western] and cre-

ated a lot of positive momentum for our New England schedule to begin,” Brenner continued.

With the Judges playing eight games in as many days, Brenner acknowledged the toll that it took on the team mentally, noting, “It was hard to keep focus every game, as each team was just as good as the other. For the mo st part, everyone was in every game, and, fortunately our pitchers kept us in every single game we played in.”

JUDGES 12, CASE 8 In Sunday’s game versus Case Western, Brandeis got on the scoreboard first as designated hitter Ryan Pocock ’18 and first baseman Tom McCarthy ’15 scored unearned runs to take a 2-0 lead in the top of the second inning. After Case Western added a run of their own in the bottom of the second, the Judges broke the game open with six runs in the third and then three runs in the fourth.

Case Western added two runs in the fourth inning and one run in the bottom of the fifth and sixth innings, but the Judges scored an insurance run in the top of the ninth off a sacrifice fly hit by center fielder Liam O’Connor ’16.

Case Western scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth, but the Brandeis lead proved too large to overcome. McCarthy went 2-for-4 at the plate, scoring three runs and driving in one run as well.

Starting pitcher Sam Miller ’16 improved to 2-1 on the year with the win.

JUDGES 8, NYU 6 On Saturday, starting pitcher Sean O’Neill ’18 picked up the win as Brandeis won its first UAA game of the season over NYU. O’Neill allowed four earned runs and struck out six players in eight innings of work to improve to 2-1.

The Judges got on the board early on in the game when right fielder Ryan Healy’s ’16 sharp single drove in O’Connor in the bottom of the first inning.

Brandeis added another run in the inning to increase their lead to two runs.

NYU responded quickly in the top of the second inning, however, scoring three runs on four hits to take a 3-2 lead.

After a scoreless third inning by both teams, Brandeis scored two more runs in the bottom of the fourth on a two-out single hit by Pocock. NYU tied the game in the next half inning on a Brandeis error, but the Judges scored three more runs in the bottom half of the inning to take a 6-4 lead. O’Connor’s RBI triple highlighted the four-hit inning for Brandeis.

The Judges went on to score again in the eighth inning when Healy came home on an NYU throwing

See BASEBALL, 13 ☛

WASHU 5, JUDGES 2 The squad closed the tournament on Sunday with a 5-2 loss to No.23 WashU. Pitcher Samantha Wroblewski ’17 picked up the loss for the team, pitching all six innings while giving up five earned runs. Wroblewski allowed 12 hits and one walk, striking out one and walking only one batter.

With the loss, Wroblewski moves to 3-6 on the year, including five complete games. Wroblewski finishes the week with a season ERA of 4.55, while averaging 3.48 strikeouts per game.

Wroblewski has tossed 52.1 innings so far this year with a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 1.74.

Both of the Judges’ runs in the contest came from solo home run shots from outfielders. The first came in the top of the third from outfielder Amanda Shore ’18, her first home run of her first season.

This was followed in the ensuing inning by outfielder Madison Hunter’s ’17 blast that marked her second of the year. WashU’s pitching staff held the Judges to only five hits on the day, while striking out 10. When the team did manage

to put people on base, they failed to capitalize, leaving six runners on base throughout the game.

EMORY 5, JUDGES 4 The Judges were able to take the No. 8 Emory to extra innings before falling just short of an upset victory on Saturday afternoon.

The game began poorly for the team as Emory junior second baseman Hannah Sendel hit her tournament-record seventh home run of the week. Pitcher Melissa Soleimani got the start for the Judges and threw four complete innings while allowing four runs. The team was down 4-0 going into the sixth inning when its comeback began.

Catcher Cori Coleman ’15 started off the hit parade with a single to the outfield. Coleman was followed by a Hunter home run that put the Judges on the scoreboard.

Later in the inning, with runners on first and third, the team performed an impressive double steal, allowing Shore to steal home.

In the same at-bat, second baseman Madison Gagnon ’16 singled to left field and tied up the score at four runs apiece. The score remained tied for the rest of the inning and the seventh. The game then went into extra innings as the Judges looked to pull of the upset.

The team went down without noise in the top of the eighth inning, while the Eagles were able to score the game-winning run in the bottom of the inning with a walkoff double off Wroblewski.

Coleman was optimistic about the team’s chances for the week.

“For this trip we were really focused on playing every game the best we could and hopefully coming out of the week with a UAA championship. We had worked really hard this past offseason and all preseason, and we wanted to prove ourselves this trip.”

JUDGES 5, CASE 2 Earlier in the day on Saturday, the Judges notched their third tournament win over the Spartans.

Case scored both of their runs in the bottom of the second inning off of a home run. Down 2-0 in the top

See SOFTBALL, 13 ☛

Whitaker competes at NCAA Track and Field Championships Kelsey Whitaker ’16 finished 17th in the mile run at the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships on Friday, held at the JDL Fast Track in WinstonSalem, N.C. Whitaker’s last-place finish in the second heat was a bit of a disappointment, as she came into the event ranked ninth out of the 17 competitors and managed to finish 13th in last year’s one-mile run championship event.

Whitaker’s time of five minutes, 36.86 seconds was more than 20 seconds off the pace of the next-slowest time in the event and a substantial dropoff from Whitaker’s own season-best time of 5:00.90, which she ran less than a month ago at the New England Division III Championships.

That time netted her an impressive fourth-place finish in the event. This was Whitaker’s second-straight year in

which she earned a bid to the Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships, in addition to competing in the past two NCAA Division III CrossCountry Championships.

Whitaker was the only Brandeis representative to run at the event, after Mohamed Sidique ’15 nearly missed a bid for the triple jump.

Sidique’s jump of 14.27 meters was two-and-threequarters of an inch short of qualifying for the NCAA Championships with a top-15 spot in the field.

It would have been Sidique’s first trip to the tournament.

The outdoor track and field season for both the men and the women begins on March 21st at the Bridgewater State Invitational before taking on regional competition at the Tufts Snowflake Classic on March 28.

—Daniel Kanovich

JustArts Volume LXVII, Number 22

Your weekly guide to arts, movies, music and everything cultural at Brandeis and beyond

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Waltham, Mass.

‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged’ >> 20

Art talk—Curatorial interns Sofia Retta ’15 and Sarah McCarty ’15 discuss organizing Disrupted Spaces » 19

INSIDE

Disrupted Spaces The photography exhibit in the Farber Mezzanine sheds light on how art interacts with memory and history » 19

The Way of Water The BTC’s latest production examines the human consequences of the 2010 BP oil spill » 21

Improv Festival The three-day festival, running from March 27 to 29, will feature improvisation across musical fields » 23

18

justARTS

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015 | THE JUSTICE

CALENDAR

INTERVIEW

$

What’s happening in Arts on and off campus this week

ON-CAMPUS EVENTS Bakhtin and the Actor lecture

Russian literary critic, linguist and philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin was known as both a lyricophobe and a theatrophobe. A professor of slavic panguages and Literatures at Princeton University, Caryl Emerson will host a seminar arguing that despite Bakhtin’s reputation, he had a powerful theatrical imagination.

Light refreshments will be served.

Wednesday from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Rabb School of Continuing Studies in room 119. This event is free and open to the public.

Bronstein Week: Third Annual Mr. Brandeis Pageant

Brandeis’ finest men will compete for the title of Mr. Brandeis in an effort to raise money for cancer research.

Wednesday from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in Sherman Function Hall. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased ahead of time from any of the Mr. Brandeis contestants. Tickets can be purchased for $7 at the door.

Sofia Retta ’15 and Sarah McCarty ’15

Students curate exhibit in Farber Mezzanine EMILY WISHINGRAD/the Justice

This week, justArts spoke with Sarah McCarty ’15 and Sofia Retta ’15, Rose Art Museum interns and the curators of Disrupted Spaces in the Farber Mezzanine.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

justArts: Can you tell us a little about the curation process of the exhibit in Farber?

The musical follows a group of six mid-pubescents as they compete in a spelling championship while candidly disclosing stories from their home life. The show emphasizes audience participation and even calls audience members onstage to participate in the bee.

Sarah McCarty: We started our internship at the beginning of the academic year, and we were given this collection to work with in October. We started working with it—it’s about 15 works donated by the alum Carrie Schwartz [’87], it’s an ongoing donation, so its growing over time, but right now we were working with about 15 pieces of all different media.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at various times at the Shapiro Campus Center Theater. Student tickets are $3 and are available at the Brandeis Tickets booth. The performances are sponsored by Tympanium Euphorium.

There was video, sculpture, painting and photography.

And we decided to focus on photographs and chose these five works, and then, from there, started collaborating with the library staff, meeting extensively with facilities, the rest of the Rose professional staff, faculty, student employees of the Rose that are involved with programming.

Intercollegiate Improv Night

Local improv group TBA Improv and Sketch Comedy will perform with

JA: Can you discuss how you decided to arrange the exhibit?

SM: I think, we started with logistics, to be honest.

There’s not a ton of spaces in the library that would offer that amount of wall space … They had designed Farber Mez with this intention of potentially collaborating with Fine Arts and the Rose to have shows in that space.

Sofia Retta: There’s a lot of works of art hanging in the library and in other administrative buildings around campus that actually belong to the Rose, part of a big loan collection.

But the library really wanted something that was an intentionally curated, organized exhibition, every ... and in that space there isn’t a lot of work hanging up there as opposed to other spaces in the library, and there’s kind of more wall space and a lot of natural light and things like that, so the library had that had that Farber Mezzanine in mind already.

JA: What is one thing that you would want a viewer to take away?

SR: I think one kind of general thing, and this isn’t really specific to our exhibit but just to the idea of having an exhibit in the library. I hope that people who wouldn’t necessarily come to the Rose or aren’t necessarily as familiar with going to art exhibitions can really enjoy looking at it … The fact that it is quite small scale, we had to make all of our accompanying text in this very accessible language.

I’m hoping that people who wouldn’t necessarily go and look at an exhibit, if they go and stumble into it in the library, they’ll be like, Oh, maybe I should spend a few minutes looking at this. I hope it will draw in a broader audience, especially since its such an active student space up there, right above Starbucks, and it’s a very social student study area; people study up there, but they also just hang out. I think, just in general, I would hope that an art exhibit up there would kind of capture peoples’ attention who might not necessarily be as motivated to actually come to the Rose.

SM: I think we’re hoping, too, that it recontextualizes what contemporary art can be and how people can interact with it, because it is such a social space. I think we’re hoping, and I think Carrie Schwartz’s hope in donating these works specifically with the intention to be shown in student spaces, not the museum, is what it is to live with contemporary art, to causally encounter it and not have these rules of how you are supposed to act in a museum and just kind of see it, and maybe it sparks a conversation with your friends while you’re studying.

We’re hoping that it can spark a conversation with people who haven’t necessarily spent as much time with contemporary art or haven’t had a chance to come to the Rose. Then maybe that conversation will continue—there’s more collaboration with the Rose and other student spaces or the library in the future.

—Emily Wishingrad and Jaime Gropper

other improv groups from around the Boston area.

Saturday at 9 p.m. at Cholmondeley’s Coffee House.

Father Tongue

The exhibition will feature multidisciplinary works relating to Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Artistin-Residence Milcah Bassel’s bodyspace gender theory research and her work with the institute. Bassel’s exhibit will host large-scale wall drawings based on 5 letters of the Hebrew alphabet; the letters will seek to explore space through the altering of language.

Moreover, Father Tongue will address the patriarchal roots of this ancient square alphabet through a personal, feminist and abstract lens.

Exhibit attendees are encouraged to interact with the artist to learn more about her process and methods.

On view through April 10 at the Women’s Studies Research Center in the Kniznick Gallery.

Where The Children Play submission deadline and open mic night

The editors of Brandeis’ only arts and literature magazine, Where The Children Play, will host an open mic night at Cholmondeley’s Coffeehouse.

The night will mark the deadline for students to submit works to the magazine to be published in its spring 2015 issue, which welcomes original works of writing and visual art, like photography, drawing, painting and mixed media works, from undergraduates for publication.

Everyone is invited to come read original works of poetry, fiction, prose, slam poetry, spoken word pieces, music and other creative works.

Next Wednesday from 9 to 11 p.m. at Cholmondeley’s Coffee House. This event is free and open to the public, and snacks will be provided. To submit works for publication, send them to wtcpbrandeis@gmail.com by midnight on Wednesday, Mar 25. Full

submission guidelines are available at facebook.com/wtcpbrandeis.

OFF-CAMPUS EVENTS MFA: ‘Herb Ritts’

Herb Ritts was an American fashion photographer in the 1980s and 1990s. Ritts gained notoriety for his bold and sensual black-and-white images of supermodels such as Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell. The photographs celebrate the human body and embrace California’s characteristic carefree lifestyle.

On view through Nov. 8 at the Museum of Fine Arts’s Herb Ritts Gallery in Boston. Admission is free with a student ID.

‘Shades of Sound’

The Boston Ballet’s Shades of Sound will feature three modern and contemporary ballet pieces. George Balanchine’s ‘Episodes,’ created for the New York City Ballet, will be a company premiere.

Wayne McGregor’s ‘Chroma’ will examine organic movement and the human body’s physical limits. Hans van Manen’s comedic ‘Black Cake’ is the most story-based of the three pieces and will describe a scene at a resturant involving a waiter and six tipsy high society couples.

‘Black Cake’ will also be a company premiere.

Performances start Thursday and run at various times until Mar 29.

Tickets start at $39 and are available at bostonballet.org.

Boston Pops: Underscore

The Boston Symphony Orchestra, under conductor Christoph von Dohnányi, will perform the final three symphonies of Mozart in a single programme. The works are known for defining their genre.

Thurday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Boston Symphony Hall.

Ticket prices starts at $37 and are available at bso.org.

POP CULTURE n !

ww Recently, many television shows have come to an end, and this Friday night marks the end of another pop culture phenomenon: Glee is ending its run after six seasons.

Glee is iconic as it re-taught the world how to sing.

As soon as Glee premiered, glee clubs sprang up at schools everywhere (including at my own school co-started by yours truly) and made appearances in pop culture (Google Jimmy Fallon Emmys 2010). Tweens and teens now loved the songs that their parents had loved from 80s classic rock.

The premise of Glee is that teacher Will Schuster attempts to revive his high school’s glee club. He recruits a group of misfits who learn about themselves through song.

One of those students, Rachel Berry, is a bullied star on the rise and knows that her talents are more important than what others think of her. As she tells Will, “Being a part of something special makes you special.” From the start, Rachel Berry caught my attention. Her magnificent rendition of “On My Own” from “the seminal Broadway classic Les Mis” showed so much beneath the surface of its obvious beauty.

Glee’s pilot is one of my favorite episodes of television, because the dialogue is fantastic and funny and the characters are memorable: Sue Sylvester, for example, the multifaceted but mostly evil cheerleading coach has one of the most complex story arcs in recent television memory.

I love this pilot because it shows the vulnerability of the most popular of teenagers and the strength and tenacity of those who are less favorable in the eyes of their peers.

Popular quarterback Finn is dragged into the glee club so he wouldn’t get in trouble for alleged drug possession.

Upon hearing this news, Finn says, “Every day of my life, I expect more out of myself. See, I might

By Anna Stern

BRIAN VAN DER BRUG/TNS

ALL SMILES: The Glee cast celebrates their 2011 Golden Globe win for Best TV Comedy. look confident and everything, but I struggle with the same things other kids do: peer pressure, back-ne.” That line is the thesis of the entire show.

Glee has dealt with themes that many teens struggle with, including death, pregnancy, abusive relationships and sexuality. The one consistent facet of Glee was the power of the music.

My favorite musical moment was at the beginning of the fifth season’s third episode when the show mourned the loss of actor Cory Monteith, who died of a drug overdose, and the loss of his character Finn.

The episode “The Quarterback” opened with the song “Seasons of Love” from Rent.

Various new cast members started

the song and as it built up, the original cast members who returned to film this episode appeared to sing the rest.

All the characters sang from their hearts as they mourned the loss of not only a character but a real person.

At the end of the song, they turned around and looked at a picture of Finn in his football uniform.

Thank you Glee for your incredible stories, characters and songs.

Even though you weren’t the best toward the end, you taught a generation of teenagers that, though life doesn’t always provide the best situations, friendship and music can bring out that true person beneath the surface and guide him or her in a “new direction.”

ARTS COVER IMAGES: JEREMY PERLMAN/the Justice. DESIGN: MIHIR KHANNA and MICHELLE BANAYAN/the Justice.

ON CAMPUS

THE JUSTICE | TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015

19

EXHIBIT

Exhibit brings art to Farber Mezzanine

MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

ABOUT FACE: A student looks on at photographs of two women’s faces. The series implies a narrative between the two black and white photos.

By BROOKE GRANOVSKY JUSTICE EDITOR

Students studying in the Farber Library Mezzanine might notice that as of Thursday some of the walls near the mezzanine’s entrance have drastically changed color.

The space near Farber’s entrance now encapsulates floating heads, tidal waves and graffiti art between frames and glass panes hanging on the navy walls.

Farber’s newly navy walls and framed photographs are part of Disrupted Spaces, a photography exhibit highlighting five artists’ renditions of culturally, historically and personally significant spaces.

Organized by Rose curatorial interns Sofia Retta ’15 and Sarah McCarty ’15, the exhibit showcases pieces from the Carey Schwartz ’87 Collection of the Rose Art Museum.

The collection was intended for display outside of the museum with the aim of exposing students to art on their own time and in new

settings. Part of the mezzanine’s renovation plans was to host collaborations with the museum, and Disrupted Spaces is one of the first of such collaborations between the Rose, the Fine Arts department and the library.

The exhibit’s five photographs hang on the walls bordering the mezzanine’s entrance. The exhibit, spanning the length of the room, faces outward toward the study spaces. The wall closest to the Starbucks holds a blurb that briefly details the theme and purpose of Disrupted Spaces. Aside from the change in wall colors and the added spotlights, the mezzanine’s appearance is unchanged and the exhibit is seemlessly integrated into the space.

On the rightmost side of the exhibit is a two-photograph black and white series. Each side holds artist Lorraine Grady’s photographing of a face—one face depicts the artist’s late family member and the other, Ancient Egyptian Queen

Nefertiti. “Miscegenated Family Album (Progress of Queens), L: Devonia, age 36; R: Nefertiti, age 36” (1980/1994) draws a connection between the two women.

Miscegenation refers to mixing of different racial groups with the work’s accompanying plaque explaining that O’Grady “uses the term to emphasize notions of hybridity in both the form and content of her series.” Grady uses the series to insert her family into a larger narrative, combining the personal and the historical and playing off of her own African, Caribbean and Irish background.

On the far left of the exhibit near the Makerlab is an all-blue photograph of ambiguous scenery, including tiles, a sea and a light blue sky.

The shades of blue in Orit Raff’s 2007 work “Untitled (Horizon)” are so similar that it is challenging to discern which shape belongs to which object. The piece’s accompanying label notes this tension and notes that “[by] merging the sky and wa-

ter with the foreground, Raff makes us question what we are seeing, prompting us to carefully consider the construction of the photographic images.” Whether coincidental or intentional, the painting interacts in a unique way with the viewer. A person of average height standing a foot or two away from the painting might notice their head’s reflection in the glass, hovering just above (or for shorter attendees, just below) the water.

The photographs in the middle of the exhibit are “Trace IV” from the series Liquidation (2005) by Ori Gersht, “Defense Wall, Gilo Neighbourhood, Jerusalem” from the series Infected Landscape (2004) by Shai Kremer and “The Jewish Ghetto— Ancient Rome from Carrie Mae Weems’ series Roaming (2006).

Gersht’s photograph’s painterly abstraction of muted primary colors and grey tones creates an offputting mood. The photograph’s accompanying plaque explains that it was produced in Ukraine during

the Holocaust, as Gersht was photographing from a moving train.

Kremer’s work depicts a street, bordered by a sidewalk and a wall with a colorful landscape painted on it. The wall obstructs the city in the background and two figures hover by the wall. The plaque states that Kremer’s Infected Landscape series highlights “contested territories and the traces of war in Israel.”

Weems’ black and white photo focuses on a woman dressed in all black who seems to be walking toward a gated, familiar white building. The photo’s label explains that by confronting these famous sites even as they towered over her, “[Weems challenged] notions of authority and belonging.”

The exhibition brings an interesting mix of artistic abstraction, personal and national histories and culture to the Farber Mezzanine.

The striking stories behind these images should prompt viewers to consider how photography can represent our histories and memories.

ART TALK

Students explain creative choices in art exhibit

By BROOKE GRANOVSKY JUSTICE EDITOR

MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

A NEW SETTING: Curatorial Interns Sofia Retta ’15 (left) and Sarah McCarty ’15 discussed how Disrupted Spaces will affect Farber Mezzanine’s study space.

Rose Art Museum curatorial interns Sofia Retta ’15 and Sarah McCarty ’15 stated that they made sure to play to their strengths in organizing Disrupted Spaces, a photography exhibit focusing on memory and cultural history.

The pair spoke at an art talk on Thursday and described the choices they made during the curation process. A reception preceded the talk, which was help in the Farber Library Mezzanine. A group of 30 students, Brandeis staff and arts patrons gathered to celebrate the exhibit’s opening and listen to Retta and McCarty talk about their experience presenting the work.

Retta started the talk by explaining that the photographs belong to the Carey Schwartz ’87 Collection.

As part of this collection, Schwartz stipulated that the works had to be displayed outside of the Rose Art Museum. The goal of this condition, Retta elaborated, is to expose students to artwork in everyday settings. Retta said that it was exciting to curate an exhibit outside the confines of the Rose’s walls.

McCarty stressed how nice it will be for students to be able to experience art outside of the Rose’s more restrictive hours.

In an Oct. 13, 2013 blog post titled “Farber Mezzanine (Upper Green) Renovated” by the Library and Technology Services blog, LTS mentioned that the goal of the Farber Mezzanine space was for “Brandeis students to have a social study space.”

The blog went on to say that the

space was meant “to function as the student living room for campus—a place students feel is their own, and which reflects their interests and activities.” During the talk, McCarty reiterated this plan and mentioned that the exhibit’s conversation with the setting hopes to affect this type of relaxed atmosphere.

After the art talk, the interns opened up the floor to questions.

When asked how they picked the works, Retta and McCarty stressed the differences between curating an exhibit inside versus outside of the Rose Art Museum.

McCarty noted that she and Retta picked a photography exhibit because they were interested in curating mediums that the Rose does not typically showcase. She said that professional photographs are vehicles rarely seen in student spaces, and this gave the project an exciting air of novelty.

In explaining how they chose the works, Retta mentioned that the small collection made her choices easier. She felt like the exhibit’s pieces were in dialogue naturally and did not need a unifying theme.

In response to a question about the exhibit’s title, the pair highlighted the title’s duality as the reason behind its applicability.

Disrupted Spaces focuses on a variety of spaces—each photograph has a clear setting and an obvious historical, political or familial resonance for both the photographer and the viewer. While some pictures focused on regions in conflict, others highlighted the artists’ hometowns or places relevant to the artists’ backgrounds. McCarty said that Disrupted Spaces refers to

the different ways all five of the artists represent and deal with these unique spaces.

She also noted the title’s irony; with its loud messages, the exhibit itself could be said to be disrupting the library’s traditionally quiet study space. Building on the theme of disruption, Retta emphasized how the artists disrupted the viewer’s expectations. Retta elaborated and said that while photos are usually seen as truthful, the exhibit complicates this assumption. With the photographs’ variety of settings, the photos can be said to represent spaces from a specific and even biased point of view.

The pair agreed that the most challenging part of working together was trying to jointly articulate the labels for the pieces. McCarty mentioned that they were more in contention with the label machine than with each other, but that making the labels did require a lot of dedication and editing.

Retta said that their goal in making the labels was to push the exhibit’s attendees to view the photos through a certain lens. This push has to be subtle, as Retta also mentioned that she wanted to leave viewers with the option to form their own opinions about the works and their meanings.

At the end of their talk, Retta said that she hopes that the social nature of the mezzanine space will prompt students to look at the exhibit. Both interns mentioned that they are excited to hear feedback and that a book will be left in the mezzanine for students so that students can record any comments they have about the photos.

20

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015 | THE JUSTICE

THEATER

Cast tackles all of Shakespeare’s works

By LINDA MALEH

JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The opening night of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), performed by Hold Thy Peace on Thursday, had audiences rolling in their seats with laughter throughout the entire play.

Squeezing every single one of Shakespeare’s 37 plays into an hour-and-a-half, the production included a great deal of audience interaction, the modern mixed with the period, many double entendres and some phallic jokes.

The witty banter flew fast and furious, but, while much of it was funny, some of it was hard to catch.

When the director, Sarian Holt ’15, was asked how she would describe Shakespeare (Abridged), she responded in an interview with the Justice, “I kind of like to describe it as a fifth grader’s book report on Shakespeare. …

It highlights the tropes, the important bits, [and] why Shakespeare’s still relevant and sort of is just like an everyman’s explanation of Shakespeare.”

Each scene featured three members of the 11-person cast.

The show started with actress Missy Kintish ’17 introducing the play, telling the audience what they were about to see in the most comedic way possible.

The first of Shakespeare’s plays parodied was Romeo and Juliet; the play had the second largest amount of stage time.

The three actors ran around playing about five different roles, jumping in and out of character.

Riely Allen ’18 played Juliet while wearing an awful wig.

The actors would stop in the middle of a scene to ask questions about it, make jokes and interact with the audience. This proved to be the theme for the rest of the play.

The play mixed the modern with the Shakespearean at every turn. The costumes, according to ensemble member Sara Kenney ’18, followed the original costumes used in Reduced Shakespeare’s (the company with the rights to the play) version of the play.

The actors wore period shirts and trousers with fun colored

tights, tube socks and Converse sneakers.

Titus Andronicus was performed as a cooking show, Othello was a rap, and Shakespeare’s histories were all covered in the form of a football game. The actors also used phones as props throughout the performance, and Disneyland was mentioned at least twice.

The whole second half of the play featured Hamlet. When Hamlet, played by Raphael Stigliano ’18, got to the “To be or not to be” speech, all the actors on stage paused to discuss why Hamlet and the other characters feel and act the way they do and then turned to the audience for an interactive segment.

Two members of the audience were brought up onto the stage and told to do certain tasks, and the rest of the audience was instructed to yell out certain phrases when prompted.

The audience seemed to be having a blast, and volunteers could hardly say the phrases they were supposed to through their laughter. Then the cast got back to performing Hamlet, eventually us-

ing brightly colored foam swords for the duel scene.

When asked in an interview with the Justice why she wanted to produce Shakespeare (Abridged), Holt said, “I thought it would be a good way for [Hold Thy Peace] to branch out.”

She continued on and said, “We’ve sort of been trying to figure out a way to get more people to come see the shows, because Shakespeare tends to have that stigma of being boring or, like, too high-brow for people to relax and enjoy.”

Holt continued and said, “I figured this would be a good way to show the campus that Shakespeare could be cool.”

When asked if there was any improvisation in the production process or in the performances, ensemble member Andrew Agress ’17 commented, “We want you to think that there is.”

They did a good job with this, because an unknowing audience member might actually have walked in and thought this was an improv play, when, in fact, it was all choreographed.

The show was fun, relaxing and

hysterical, though it may have been difficult for people who weren’t well versed in Shakespeare to follow along at points.

Audience member Miriam Sokolow ’15 said in an interview with the Justice, “This is a play where you kind of had to be in the know.”

On most of the jokes and references in the play, audience member Dina Kritz ’16 said in an interview with the Justice, “I could catch most of them, but I think someone who didn’t know Shakespeare that well would’ve had trouble.”

Nonetheless, there were numerous points anyone would understand and find funny. Sokolow said, “They were really good at the physical humor.”

Ensemble member Ellie McKnight ’18 said, “Comedies are harder, because you don’t know what people will laugh at.” Holt said about her actors, “I let them bring out their own craziness when rehearsing.”

The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) was fun, loose, crazy and a great way to relax after a full day of classes.

JEREMY PERLMAN/the Justice

WELCOME TO SHAKESPEARE’S KITCHEN: YaAaron Fischer ’15 (center), Barbara Spidle ’16 (left) and Samantha Levangie ’15 acted out Shakespeare’s tragic play Titus Andronicus as if the ordeal took place on a network cooking show.

WHAT AN AIRHEAD: Yongwoon Kim ’17 holds up the “head” of King Macbeth, who lost his head over the course of the players’ reenactment of Macbeth.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE: Hamlet (Raphael Stigliano ’18, center) delivers his famous speech while the scene’s supporting cast members (Ellie McKnight ’18, right, and Sara Kenney ’18) question their judgement, motives and feelings.

LUSCIOUS LOCKS: Juliet, played by Riely Allen ’18 (top) sits on Missy Kintish ’17. Allen’s discheveled wig added more comedy to the scene.

THE JUSTICE | TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015

THEATER PHOTOS COURTESY OF MIKE LOVETT

DAY TO DAY: Jimmy (Meir Alelov ’15, left) and Neva

(Jacquelyn Drozdow ’15, right) talk about their daily lives in the deep south after the BP oil spill of 2010.

‘Way of Water’ shows life after oil spill

By JAIME GROPPER JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

and his wife Neva (Jacquelyn Drozdow ’15) became eager to participate in the protests, Jimmy remained doubtful that

How has the 2010 BP oil spill affected

the world would listen.

the lives of those living near it? While

Jimmy was a obstinate man who be-

the media no longer gives attention to

came more infuriating in his stubborn-

the spill, the effects of the disaster are

ness as the show went on. However,

still being felt by the environment and

Jimmy’s attitude was understandable.

the people that it touched. The Way of

He refused to see a doctor for severe

Water, produced by the Brandeis The-

symptoms possibly caused by the spill

ater Company, tells the story of two

because of the expense and because he

couples whose lives are irrevocably in-

didn’t trust the health care system.

tertwined as a result of the tragedy.

He refused to change his way of life

Off-Broadway Theater Award win-

because it was all he knew and it was

ning playwright Caridad Svich visited

the way that his ancestors had lived

Brandeis for the run of her show and

their lives. Still, in several moments, I

gave a talkback moderated by director

wanted to scream at Jimmy, “Listen to

Robert Walsh after the Saturday night

your wife!” Jimmy’s wife Rosalie (Ja-

performance. Svich spoke of the writing

mie Semel ’17) played the voice of rea-

process, her personal ties to the story

son. Semel did a convincing job of por-

and the driving inspiration that led her

traying a woman trying to do her best

to create this play. “This is the largest

under bad circumstances.

environmental disaster in our history,

Jimmy

and

Rosalie

were

barely

and it surprised me that it seemed like

scraping by, as seen by several strained

our stages weren’t telling this story.

conversations about money, work, their

They certainly weren’t telling the story

mortgage and off-brand soda.

of the poor people who were living off

By the end of the play, their economic

the land and living off the water,” she

situation worsened due to the spill’s ef-

explained.

fects on their livelihood. These effects

The production brought the heat and

were so severe that, with only five dol-

humidity of the deep South to Laurie

lars to their name, the couple lost their

Theater in Spingold Theater Center.

house with only plans to live in a car.

The show opened on the two men of

The sparse space, filled with empty

the show, Jimmy (Meir Alelov ’15) and

milk-crates comprised the backyard of

Yuki (Siddharth Mehra ’17), wearing

Jimmy and Rosalie’s house as the other

the characteristic wardrobe of fisher-

main setting of the story.

men, including raggedy t-shirts, cutoff

The set adeptly managed to combine

jeans and rubber boots, and fishing on a

two very different locations into one—

dock. Jimmy and Yuki bantered about

the fishing dock sprouted out from the

life, with Yuki’s lines serving as the

front of the backyard. Other technical

more comedic moments of the show.

aspects of the performance were also

As they looked past their fishing rods

done skillfully. The sound effects were

and out into the open water facing the

understated so that every sound includ-

audience, there was an immediate sense

ed had a purpose. For example, when

of weariness and sheer desperation.

Jimmy went into one of his shaking fits,

Jimmy and Yuki represented the thousands of people for whom the im-

TIGHT ON MONEY: Fishermen’s wives Neva (Jacquelyn Drozdow ’15) and Rosalie (Jamie Semel ’17) discuss their methods of making do with limited finances.

DEEP THOUGHTS: Jimmy (center) looks into the distance, contemplating the tough situation that the BP oil spill has left them with, while his friends look on.

an electronic twanging sound let the audience know something was off.

pact of the spill on their lives was un-

In many of the scenes, the dialogue

publicized. The oil spill was devastating

flowed so easily that it felt like listening

not only for marine life but also for the

to a spontaneous conversation rather

fishing industry.

than something rehearsed.

Sitting on the dock, Jimmy and Yuki

Although some of the scenes were

were irritated and anxious because

lengthy, especially those with only two

they depended on fishing for their live-

characters, the dynamic among the ac-

lihood. Even more, they were angry be-

tors held the audience’s attention. The

cause they felt as if the world had for-

four actors’ Southern accents sound-

gotten them. They felt that since they

ed natural rather than strained and

were poor, nobody cared about their

forced, a factor that made everything

wellbeing, and there was nothing they

seem more realistic.

could do about it. Jimmy and Yuki dis-

Everything about the show felt very

cussed ongoing protests related to the

real, from the accents, costumes and

spill, such as one for a teenager who

props to the characters’ relationships.

died from swimming in water with a

The performance evoked a sense of sym-

chemical that had been added to help

pathy for these people whose lives were

clean the oil contamination. While Yuki

strongly affected by the disaster.

ON THE DOCK: Yuki (Siddharth Mehra ’17, left) thoughtully prepares his fishing rod while Rosalie (right) makes paper flowers for sale to supplement their income.

21

A S E I K H A T M N A U O TH Y N D CA ER A NE? O T T E B

O Y A

L N I

O J

!

T U T A S

E G H R G HU E.O

C L I E T H S C U A J

R HE T C @T A T N R

CO ITO D

E

Want to become red carpet famous?

Write for Arts Contact Emily Wishingrad and Brooke Granovsky at arts@thejustice.org IMAGE COURTESY OF CREATIVE COMMONS

23

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015 | THE JUSTICE

FESTIVAL

Improv Festival will come to campus, organized by music professor Tom Hall

By EMILY WISHINGRAD JUSTICE EDITOR

Campus will see its very first Improvisation Festival in just a couple of weeks—from March 27 through 29. The festival—sponsored by the Brandeis Arts Council and coordinated by Prof. Tom Hall (MUS) who is serving as the festival’s artistic director—will bring artists from both inside and outside the University.

During its three days, the festival will feature 20 different events, demonstrating an array of improvisation across artistic fields. Many of the improvisation performances are music-related—artistic director Hall is a musician and music instructor himself—but, in an interview with the Justice, Hall said that he strove to incorporate other fields into the festival, such as painting and theater.

Hall also spoke about the origins of the festival in the interview. In spring 2013, Hall was engaged in talks with chair of the Music department Prof. Yu-Hui Chang (MUS) and Senior Academic Administrator Mark Kagan about coordinating an improvisation festival.

Hall has a deep background in improvisation—he has led the Brandeis Improv Collective for almost 20 years and, in 2012, he created a video series (ImprovLive 365) in which he made a video every day for a year highlighting different aspects of improvisation and engaging in dialogues with improvisational artists. In the spring of 2014, he pitched the idea for an improvisation festival to the Brandeis Arts Council, a group under the Office of the Arts that allocates funds to arts programming on campus. They awarded him the grant.

“Something that I’ve always wanted to do is bring a lot of improvisatory actors like this to Brandeis and also, then, sort of connect all the different people at Brandeis who do improvisation,” said Hall.

So he reached out to his network of art colleagues and started petitioning them to join the festival. Most of

the guest artists are local, although there is one out-of-towner—percussionist Milford Graves.

Graves will be giving the keynote address, will perform for the festival’s inaugural concert and will be giving a solo percussion performance.

Slosberg Music Center will be the hub of most of the events, but there are two events elsewhere on campus—one in the Shapiro Campus Center and one at the Rose Art Museum. Prof. Peter Kalb (FA) will be leading a discussion at the Rose on improvisational painting.

“I really wanted to include visual arts. And it’s an interesting thing because people don’t think of painting or visual arts as being particularly improvisational, but a lot of artists will tell you that they are.

And artists have different processes, and some work very improvisationally, and some work not-thatimprovisationally,” said Hall.

The Shapiro Campus Center will hold Sound Line, an event that will feature artist Lennie Peterson as he improvises to music, creating large-scale pen and ink portraits of famous musicians based on the music. Hall will be improvising on the saxophone, and bassist Marty Ballou will accompany him.

One of the less traditional improvisation presentations will be a dance party. There will be video games in the lobby of Slosberg for attendees to play. “I think the idea of people dancing to music is absolutely an improvisation. And that whole thing of people getting together and having fun is one of the most wonderful improvisations,” said Hall.

Hall also says that he believes that digital technology is a form of improvisation—that is, we improvise on the Internet as well as when we play video games.

Hall spoke about what he was looking for in the festival’s guests.

“All people I know are really good at what they do. They are all really passionate about what they do. And they’re all really open to exploring improvisation and creativity.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF APRIL HALL

SAXOPHONE SOUNDS: Prof. Tom Hall (MUS), the artistic director of the Improv Festival, has a deep background in improvisation.

He has instructed the Brandeis Improv Collective and created a video series about improvisation in 2012 called ImprovLive 365.

DOWN AT THE CLUB: Music group Club d’ELF will perform twice on the Friday of the festival—once in a solo performance and once at the dance party. Prof. Tom Hall (MUS) plays the saxophone with the group and will be performing with them.

BRIEF

BTC releases productions for Fall 2015

This past week, the Brandeis Department of Theater Arts announced their Fall 2015 shows—Songs for a New World and Macbeth. The plays will be directed by rising seniors Rachel Liff ’16 and Zoe Golub-Sass ’16, respectively. Songs for a New World

will run from Oct. 15-18, while Macbeth will be presented Dec. 3-6.

Songs for a New World, written

by Jason Robert Brown, is a contemporary song cycle that explores timelessness and “life, love and the choices we make,” according to the department’s announcement. Liff was asked to direct the musical by Bob Walsh, the artistic director of the Theater department, who she has worked with previously on multiple productions. The show will be performed on the Mainstage in Spingold Theater Center, which presents its

own challenges, Liff explained in an interview with the Justice: “It’s a four-person show typically, so fitting it to the bigger theater and making it work is a challenge. Because the play is so abstract, there isn’t a single plotline to visually work with designers and make that come to life and make sense.”

Although Liff has not yet met with a set designer, she already has something of a vision for Songs for a New World, based on its abstract web of characters, themes and plots.

“I’m really excited to figure out the

MAKING BEATS: Percussionist Milford Graves will perform in the Brandeis Improv Festival Inagural Concert, give the Keynote and do a solo performance.

overarching themes and what goes into it, but each character [creates] a new character in a new world for every song,” she explained. By discovering these intricacies of the plot and world of the play, Liff hopes that people will connect with the play on different levels.

Golub-Sass explained in an interview with the Justice that she has studied Shakespeare’s works since she was ten years old and has been interested in Macbeth for years. “I feel like it’s a very fast-paced, compelling play. It’s very gritty, but I

also feel like it has that poetry and [is] also very accessible. It’s a lot of fun to play around with.” Golub-Sass will adapt the classic to a modern interpretation while maintaining the original themes of the play.

In preparing for the production, Golub-Sass explained that she is “interested in looking at what we think of as a crime drama mixed with what Shakespeare gives us—how the genre forms the content.”

—Jessie Miller; Emily Wishingrad contributed reporting

24

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015 | THE JUSTICE

TOPof the

PHOTOS CORNER

Brandeis TALKS

CHARTS for the week ending Mar. 15

Quote of the week “The power of a partnership between a Jewish-sponsored university and a Palestinian university cannot be overlooked.

The [Brandeis Univeristy - AlQuds University] partnership shows the ability of our institution to reach across barriers and create important relationships with the Palestinian faculty and students.”

BOX OFFICE

1. Cinderella 2. Run All Night 3. Kingsman: The Secret Service 4. Focus 5. Chappie 6. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 7. The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water 8. McFarland, USA 9. American Sniper 10. The Duff

—Active member of the Student Dialogue Initiative Naomi Hornstein ’15.

NYT BESTSELLERS

What are you going to do once the snow melts?

AMANDA NGUYEN/Justice File Photo

SILLY GOOSE: Justice photographer Amanda Nguyen ’18 took this photo walking back from a women’s basketball game. She noticed the geese’s footprints in the snow and decided to photograph them.

FEATURING CREATIVE PHOTOS FROM OUR STAFF This new feature will showcase our photographer’s work capturing small moments across campus Caleb Dafilou ’18 “I want to roll around in the grass.”

Edan Chen-Zion ’16 “Oh God! Walk in the middle of Chapel’s Field and be able to stand there without being in snow.”

Eric Danowski ’18 “Catch one of those damn rabbits and kiss it on the forehead.”

Jake Altholz ’15

“Slip and slide!”

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Crawled, perhaps 5 Broadway show whose title woman can “coax the blues right out of the horn” 9 Renege, with “out” 12 Andalusian appetizer 13 Accord competitor 15 Hole starter 16 Postal service 18 __-pitch 19 Kanakaredes of “CSI: NY” 20 Plastered 22 Curled-lip look 23 Brigades, e.g.

25 The tar, in Spanish 27 Anonymous John 28 “The Black Cat” author 31 __ moss 32 Mountains dividing Europe and Asia 35 With 37-Across, sentence openings, and what the ends of 16-, 23-, 47-, and 57-Across can be when rearranged 37 See 35-Across 40 Hop follower 41 Modest dress 42 NASCAR __ 43 Lion or tiger 45 Exercises begun in a supine position 47 “You made your point” 50 “... if you want to __ man’s character, give him power”: Lincoln 54 Part of 56-Across 55 Eats pretzels, say 56 Google hit 57 Form small teams at school 26 Arthur who won a 60 What “I” may indicate Tony for 5-Across 61 Common soccer score 28 IBM 5150s, e.g.

62 Only 29 Furniture wood 63 June honorees 30 Inner circles, in astronomy models 64 Blind component 33 Coach Parseghian 6 Source of 20s, 65 Breyers competitor briefly 34 ’60s hallucinogen DOWN 36 Old Bristol-Myers toothpaste 1 Restrains 37 Beer choice 2 Like Madame Tussauds figures 38 College email ending 3 Traditional temptation 4 “Manhattan” Oscar nominee Hemingway 39 Extreme summit 41 Former space station 5 Galaxy gp.

44 “Solve __ decimal places” 6 Source of 20s, briefly 45 Reddish-brown horse think 7 Harmful gas 46 Bagel choice 8 One of the Brontës 47 Eat loudly 9 Dishonorably dismissed 48 Main artery 10 Bird that’s probably not wise and 49 Mars pair certainly not old 51 Drew back 11 Trudges 52 NFL analyst Bradshaw 13 Fit __ fiddle 53 Beasts of burden 14 One way to think 55 St. Louis-to- Chicago dir.

17 Mesmerized Solution to last issue’s crossword 58 Place to see RVs 21 Porcine sniffer 59 NFL mistake 23 Kazakhstan border sea Crossword Copyright 2014 Tribune News Service, 24 Collecting Soc. Sec.

iTUNES

1. Mark Ronson—“Uptown Funk (feat. Bruno Mars)” 2. Ed Sheeran—“Thinking Out Loud” 3. Ellie Goulding—“Love Me Like You Do” 4. Rihanna and Kanye West— “FourFiveSeconds” 5. The Weeknd—“Earned It”

BILLBOARD

1. Kelly Clarkson—Piece By Piece 2. Soundtrack—50 Shades of Grey 3. Tayor Swift—1989 4. Drake—If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late 5. Ed Sheeran—X 6. Big Sean—Dark Sky Paradise 7. Maroon 5—V 8. Sam Smith—In The Lonely Hour 9. Brandi Carlile—The Firewatcher’s Daughter 10. Meghan Trainor—Title Top of the Charts information provided by Fandango, the New York Times, Billboard. com and Apple.com.

STAFF’S Top Ten

FOOD INSTAGRAMS

By MICHELLE BANAYAN JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Inc.

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.

Pavla Berghen-Wolf ’18 “I want to go for a long walk.”

—Compiled and photographed

by Michelle Banayan and Mihir Khanna/the Justice.

Solution to last issue’s sudoku

Fiction 1. The Girl on the Train—Paula Hawkins 2. All the Light We Cannot See— Anthony Doerr 3. The Buried Giant—Kazuo Ishiguro 4. A Spool of Blue Thread—Anne Tyler 5. The Assassin—Clive Cussler and Justin Scott Nonfiction 1. Being Mortal—Atul Gawande 2. Girl in a Band—Kim Gordon 3. Killing Patton—Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard 4. Yes Please—Amy Poehler 5. H is for Hawk—Helen Macdonald

Sudoku Copyright 2014 Tribune News Service, Inc.

Stick me in a hip and earthy vegan café in Cambridge, and you’ll find me standing on top of a chair, taking an aerial photo of my meal. Some call it extreme—almost ridiculous.

But I, along with many professional food-stagrammers (Food + Instagrammers), call it a work of art. Below is a list of my top ten favorite foodstagrammers (in no particular order) who inspire me in all my food photography endeavors.

1. @sonyayu 2. @julieskitchen 3. @compartes 4. @rcorrera 5. @iamafoodblog 6. @sprinklesforbreakfast 7. @tattebakery 8. @spoonforkbacon 9. @tastingtable 10. @drizzleanddip