The Justice, March 22, 2022

ATHLETICS

Brandeis skaters make strides towards Olympics

■ Sami Winawer '23 and Evan Israel '24 attempt to make synchronized skating history on first U.S. team of a new division.

By LEAH BREAKSTONE JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

While many students can be found sleeping in on a Friday morning, Evan Israel ’24 and Sami Winawer ’23 are on their way to the Skating Club of Boston. The two Brandeis students are on the Hayden Select Synchronized Skating team. The team is part of a brand new division called the “Elite 12,” which was created with the hopes of bringing synchronized skating to the Olympics.

Synchronized skating teams generally have 20 people on the team with 16 on the ice at a time, but in the Elite 12 division, 16 people are on the team with 12 on the ice at a time. In a March 18 interview with the Justice, Israel cited two major reasons why synchronized skating has not been in the Olympics until this point: fnancial concerns, as well as not having enough room to

BRIEF

house the very large teams in the Olympic Village.

Winawer and Israel have both been skating for about as long as they can remember. Winawer’s mother, who also skated growing up, signed Winawer up for skate classes when she was three and has not looked back since. “It's been just about 17 years I've been on the ice, which is crazy,” she said. She began synchronized skating when she was 10 and started competing internationally during her senior year of high school.

Similarly, Israel started skating at the age of four. “I just randomly asked for a pair of ice skates for my birthday. I couldn't tell you why, no one in my family skates. I had no connection to it, but it just kind of stuck,” she said. Israel joined a synchronized team when she was seven and stayed with that same team for 11 years.

When looking at colleges, Winawer and Israel knew they were not done skating yet and prioritized going to a school in the Boston area because of the Hayden Select teams. They were both on different

See SKATING, 5 ☛

Univ. changes COVID-19 policies due to rise in cases

On March 16, Andrea Dine, assistant vice president of student affairs, sent out an email to the Brandeis community with a subject line of “Important update: Increase in Testing Frequency for Students.”

The email announced that as of March 17, the required testing frequency was once again every 96 hours. Students must submit on-campus PCR tests roughly twice a week, a quick turnaround from the previously announced relaxation of requirements that reduced testing to once a week. The email specifed that the update in the testing policy was due to an increase in positivity and quarantine rates on campus. It also stated that as of that Thursday, they expected the University to “have the highest number of students in isolation or quarantine since the pandemic began.”

Students are likely contracting the virus from “large social gatherings off campus,” as indicated by the University’s contact tracing program.

There has not been a noticeable increase in transmission on campus, including in classes, labs, and other areas, but because the cases have increased, the University stressed that it was important to adjust their policies accordingly. The email

also urged students to continue masking when gathering off campus, particularly when indoors.

This email was sent after a March 3 email which relaxed certain COVID-19 policies on campus. In the March 3 email, the University had specifed that as of March 7, vaccinated students only need to test once a week, as opposed to the previous requirement of every 96 hours. While vaccinated staff, faculty, and affliates are not required to get tested, the University recommended that they test twice a week. The requirements for unvaccinated individuals, however, did not change, and they are still required to test twice a week. Testing remains available for “any asymptomatic community member” who wants to test. Because the required testing frequency was reduced, the University announced that they were closing the testing center in the Mandel Center for the Humanities, and all testing was consolidated at the Shapiro Science Center as of March 7. Testing at the Mandel Center ended on March 4.

— Isabel Roseth

Disability activism on campus

Students from the Disabled Students Network speak about the club and their recent discussion panel

By MADDY DULONG

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

PURIM CELEBRATIONS

Chabad House, Hillel resume in-person

Purim events after a two year hiatus

■ The Brandeis Jewish community celebrated Purim from March 16-17.

By ARIELLA WEISS JUSTICE EDITOR

This past Wednesday and Thursday were flled with celebratory traditions across Brandeis’ campus, such as costumes, music, dancing, and feasts, in honor of the Jewish holiday of Purim. Together, the Brandeis Hillel and the Chabad House sought to celebrate and engage the Brandeis community with the holiday, which took place this year on March 16-17. Each organization held various events, services, and parties for students to participate in over the two-day holiday.

According to Peretz Chein, Rabbi and co-founder of the Chabad House at Brandeis with his wife Chanie, the Jewish holiday of Purim is “perhaps the easiest and most accessible [Jewish] holiday to celebrate, celebrating our pride in being Jewish and our identity.”

Rabbi Chein explained that Purim is a celebration of “a miraculous turn of events” when the Jewish community in the ancient Persian empire, targeted for annihilation, was able to safely practice their Judaism again. Dressing up in costume, hearing the megillah (the traditional oral story of Purim), and

giving gifts to family and charity are all traditional Purim customs.

For 15 years, the Chabad House at Brandeis has hosted a party the night Purim begins. “We’ve created a space where, if people are of legal age and want to, they can have a drink to celebrate the holiday,” Rabbi Chein said. He continued that drinking is by no means a requirement and that the party is to celebrate the Jewish identity, frst and foremost. Justin Sohn ’22, who served as president of the Chabad Club in 2020 and remained an active member, echoed Chein’s sentiments. The Purim party at the Chabad House is unique. Still, this year’s energy was especially positive, he said, because “it wasn’t a party where you just came to party — we’re celebrating the fact that we can celebrate again” for the frst time since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Outside of the Chabad House’s party on March 16, there were a variety of ways to engage in the holiday traditions and atmosphere around campus. On Thursday, March 17, the Chabad club and the Cheins gathered on the Rabb steps, handing out mishloach manot, or food baskets, to all those trekking up the steps to their classes in the Humanities quad. “The Rabb steps give [Chabad] the ability to further engage with those people [who attended the party] again,” Sohn said. In past years, Rabbi Chein explained that on the day after the

JSA: "Convenience Store Night" Japanese Student Association hosts "Convenience Store Night" featuring food and activities

By MEGAN LIAO, SMILEY HUYNH

party (the second day of the twoday holiday),“We [Chabad] come to you. We’re deliberately creating opportunities for students to connect in different ways.” Sohn added, “The vibe was so cool. No one ever wanted to go up the Rabb steps — until Purim.”

Aside from the Chabad House’s Purim programming, Brandeis Hillel hosted multiple Purim events across the two days of the Purim holiday. Samantha Brody ’24, the current president of Brandeis Hillel, said, “The biggest celebration is the Brandeis Breakfast Club, which we host the morning of Purim: [threre's] a delicious festive meal of breakfast burritos, waffes, and smoothies; making gifts of food for friends; giving charity to the poor.”

When asked how many people were in attendance, Brody said, “Hundreds of people attended. This was the frst year we were able to host Brandeis Breakfast Club in full.”

The frst Brandeis Breakfast Club happened in spring 2020, and “we had to adjust for COVID. We’re excited for this to be an annual campus tradition.”

Like Chabad’s Purim programming, Hillel’s Breakfast Club was open to the entire Brandeis student body. Thus, Hillel “had signs and explanations around the room for anyone who came in to know what each activity meant and why we celebrate Purim.” Like Chein and Sohn, Brody echoed that Purim is

Contextualizing the Ukraine conflict

By JEN CRYSTAL

An

BOARD

Image Courtesy of ZOE PRINGLE

BREAKFAST CLUB: Students gather in Levin Ballroom on March 17 to celebrate Purim at the Hillel Breakfast Club.

SENATE LOG

Student Union Senate discusses chartering two new clubs

The Student Union Senate discussed chartering the Brandeis Curling Club and the Brandeis Entrepreneurial and Tech Association at its March 20 meeting. The Pokémon club was supposed to present, but did not attend the meeting.

Curling Club President Alexandra Pickett ’24 said that the club would start meeting during the fall 2022 semester at a curling club about 16 minutes from campus. The club, she said, would give students an opportunity to learn about and practice the sport of curling.

After a discussion over whether there was enough interest in the club in order to charter it, the Senate voted by roll call against chartering, but told Pickett that she would have another opportunity to present in the future.

Eyal Cohen ’24, “CEO” of BETA, described to the Senate what he saw as a lack of “startup culture” on Brandeis’ campus. Cohen said that the purpose of BETA is to

POLICE LOG

MEDICAL EMERGENCY

Mar. 13—There was a medical emergency at the Charles River Apartments. The party was treated by BEMCo staff and refused further care.

Mar. 14—There was a medical emergency at the Charles River Apartments. The party was treated by BEMCo staff and refused further care.

Mar. 14—There was a medical emergency at the Charles River Apartments. The party was treat-

give students with an interest in starting a business –– whatever that may be –– a place to learn from experts and each other on how to do so.

Cohen said that there is a brief application as well as an optional interview, which Sen. Joseph Coles ’22 said could be restrictive in that it creates a possibility that a club member may not be accepted.

Both Cohen and Lorena Castaño ’23, the BETA offcer who conducts interviews, said that they had not denied any student entry to the club based on the interview, and that there are current members of BETA that did not take an interview.

The Senate voted to charter the club by roll call, with only two abstentions and two votes against. The Senate recommended that Cohen and Castaño remove the interview process.

ed by BEMCo staff and transported to a local hospital via ambulance.

Mar. 15—There was a medical emergency at North Quad. The party was treated by BEMCo staff and refused further care.

Mar. 15—There was a medical emergency at Rosenthal Quad. The party was treated by BEMCo staff and transported to a local hospital via ambulance.

Mar. 16—There was a medical emergency at the Usdan Student

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

The Justice welcomes submissions for errors that warrant correction or clarification. Send an email to editor@ thejustice.org.

www.thejustice.org Justicethe

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.

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Center. The party was treated by BEMCo staff and refused further care.

Mar. 17—There was a medical emergency at Ridgewood Quad. The party was treated by BEMCo staff and refused further care.

Mar. 17—There was a medical emergency at Ridgewood Quad. The party was treated by BEMCo staff and transported to a local hospital via ambulance.

TRAFFIC INCIDENT

Mar. 15—There was a fender bender in the Theater Lot. An offcer assisted in the exchange of paperwork, and a report of the incident was composed.

Mar. 17—There was a minor motor vehicle crash in the Science Lot. A report of the incident was composed.

Mar. 19—A community member reported a past hit-and-run motor vehicle accident in the South Residence Lot. A report of the incident was composed.

MISCELLANEOUS

Mar. 15—There was a report of graffti on the wall of the Spingold Theater Center. Photographs were taken and a formal report of the incident was composed.

— Compiled by Noah Zeitlin

Graphic by NOAH ZEITLIN/the Justice Follow theJustice! @theJusticeNewspaper Image Courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS Do you have a nose for news? Contact Hannah Taylor and Jacklyn Goloborodsky at news@thejustice.org Want the scoop? Image Courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS K-NITE 2022 SMILEY HUYNH/the Justice The

Brandeis Korean Student Association organized K-NITE: Sunset at Han River on

English professor develops virtual Open Corpus Project

■ Prof. Dorothy Kim (ENG) presented her progress on developing the Open Corpus Project to the Brandeis community.

By HANNAH TAYLOR JUSTICE EDITOR

Prof. Dorothy Kim (ENG) is currently working to develop a virtual corpus, or collection of written texts, of Early Middle English language. This would give researchers the opportunity to search across multiple archives and databases of manuscripts. The current status of the Open Corpus Project, as the site is titled, was unveiled at a Faculty Lunch Symposium on Thursday, March 17.

Kim presented her project in three sections: “the larger state of corpus projects,” “digital editing and property entity,” and an “environmental scan” of the pros and cons of existing corpus projects. She began by explaining how online corpora shift away from the “print imaginary” and “print culture” into a digital realm of accessible and researchable media. The Open Corpus Project will be a centralized platform designed with this idea in mind, allowing for the ability to layer and flter searches, and explore linked resources, manuscript information, and annotations, Kim said. Most importantly, however, the project will have a set of editorial standards that each manuscript submission must adhere to.

There are many existing corpora for Early Middle English and other languages, but each one has a different set of pros and cons, Kim explained. First, she analyzed the TEAMS: Middle English Texts Series designed through the University of Rochester. This HTML platform lacks searchability, linked data, and an editorial standard, Kim said, which makes the database diffcult to navigate and to analyze manuscripts. “It is terrible for corpus linguists,” she added.

Second, Kim discussed the Piers Plowman Electronic Archive, which she said is “stuck in the print imaginary.” Also lacking key elements, Kim described the PPEA

Experts discuss history and implications of Ukraine crisis

■ The panel covered Ukraine’s role in geopolitics, oil relations, and a potential no-fly zone.

as being “literally the most infuriating, unimaginative digital visual project ever.” She said that regulating editorial standards is defnitely the biggest issue with this platform –– individual editors can edit manuscripts in any way they choose, and they only edit the portion of the manuscripts published on PPEA instead of the entirety of the document.

Third, Digital Mappa is a platform that is designed with the intention of editors being able to use a virtual workspace to develop their own corpora and other publications. However, Kim explained that Digital Mappa is “not scalable.” While one may be able to produce a short book using this software, she said that an entire corpus would be impossible since editors are limited to using 100 images.

Fourth, Parker Library on the Web, designed through Stanford University, is both “stuck in the print imaginary and the physical library imaginary,” Kim said. Although researchers can view many manuscripts within this corpus, searchability remains diffcult. Kim explained that the site is organized like a library catalogue database.

This means that users can browse documents and retrieve bibliographical information on them, but in order to do more indepth research, one would already need to have very specifc knowledge of the manuscripts they are interested in locating.

Moreover, once viewing a manuscript, Parker Library on the web still does not have linked data to other virtual archives, Kim added. She did say, however, that while this platform has its issues, it is “a best practices example of a digitized manuscript archive” in comparison to the rest of the corpora she has analyzed.

Kim continued on to further discuss her ideas for the Open Corpus Project and how it would be a better platform for manuscript editors, researchers, linguists, and students alike. She explained that the design for the Open Corpus Project will be mainly based on a digital platform called Open Context, which is an open access archeological database. She said that Open Context has a landing

page with a map, clickable links, and search flters; searches are presented in an organized list so that documents are easy to view and further searches can be done from the results. In order to develop the Open Corpus Project in a similar manner, Kim is partnering with Geocene, an engineering consultancy.

The goal for the Open Corpus Project is to develop a corpus platform that publishes manuscripts of Early Middle English language that are edited by a set of specifc standards, presented in an accessible manner, and are linked to multiple other virtual corpora and archives for in-depth research, Kim explained. Similarly to Open Context, she described how she would like the site to have a landing page with refned search abilities and a structured list of available manuscripts, as well as the ability to download data.

Moreover, the Open Corpus Project would have built-in analytical tools. Kim said her hope is that each manuscript will be edited to have three different viewing options in order to make research more accessible to all types of users: a document edition, a critical edition, and a student reading edition. She explained that the document edition would be a manuscript that remains close to the original text, the critical edition would contain commentary and annotations of the text, and the student reading edition would be written with normalized spelling so that it is simpler for the general public to understand. The website would also be developed so that users can simply change the interface to display their desired edition, Kim added.

Kim also emphasized how the key element of the Open Corpus Project will be a regulated set of editorial standards. However, she said that developing these guidelines will take time as there is much to consider, particularly in terms of standardizing the vocabulary between texts.

Kim said that the second phase for the Open Corpus Project, once developed for Early Middle English, will be to add manuscripts of other early languages, and the third phase will be to add images, charts, and music.

UNDERSTANDING GAS IMPORTS

By JEN CRYSTAL JUSTICE ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Prof. Sabine von Mering (GECS) exclaimed that when the Center for German and European Studies frst began planning the “Contextualizing the Ukraine Crisis” webinar set to take place on March 22, they were not expecting the countries to be at war. Following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, however, von Mering continued “we now fnd ourselves in the fourth week of war, with thousands dead, millions feeing, and numerous hard economic losses.” In order to fully understand this crisis, it is important to look at it from a political and economic context and evaluate Germany’s crucial role in all of this.

The event featured three speakers — Prof. Steven Wilson (POL), Simon Pirani (University of Durham) and Marcel Roethig (Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Kyiv, Ukraine) — who dissected “the broader context of the Ukraine Crisis,” per the event description.

Ukraine serves as a “West-East junction point,” Wilson explained. It is a critical place that “straddles” the boundary between Europe and Asia, which invites the dichotomy of the East versus the West and who should have control over this territory. More recently, Ukraine has been subject to a lot of Western and Russian imperial aggression. However, the territory has remained relatively split on ethnic and linguistic maps as well as politics, Wilson said.

This, Wilson said, is often used as an excuse for Russian acts of imperialism, especially in the context of the current invasion “where there is this notion of Russia as defender of the Slavs [who protects] the ethnic Russians who are being abused by foreign powers.” President of Russia Vladimir Putin certainly subscribes to this line of logic, Wilson explained.

“I think it’s critical to understand that Putin’s perspective here isn’t irrational; you might not agree with it, it might be evil, but it’s not irrational. It’s not the actions of a madman,” Wilson continued. Throughout his presidency, Putin has strongly advocated for the resurgence of Russia as a major power, so this ideology is not “out of the blue. It is a combination of 20 years of foreign policy,” Wilson said.

Thinking about how the confict can end is where things get dicey and the situation gets “scary.” Putin is “insisting that it is existential for Russia to control its buffer states” and is acting in service of the long-term legacy he hopes to create, Wilson said. This means there aren’t any “off ramp” or otherwise diplomatic options. The options for Putin are winning or losing, neither of which are good in terms of minimizing casualties or ending human suffering.

Another key component to understanding the Ukrainian crisis is understanding the underlying economic infuences. These motivations do impact Russia’s actions, but “Putinism,” as termed by Pirani, has “shown a great skill for compensating for Russia’s economic weakness with military strength.” Pirani explained how the gas trade is crucial to RussiaEurope and Germany relations, but the “last 30 years have been a story of decline of that relationship,” Pirani said.

Russian gas revenue is achieved either through imports to Ukraine or to other European countries, which travel through pipelines in Ukraine. As tensions have grown between Russia and Ukraine politically, the gas imports from Russia to Ukraine have reduced, Pirani continued. There were low levels during the Crimean crisis in 2014 which resulted in the overthrow of former president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, and imports stopped completely in 2016.

However, Russia still transports gas through pipelines passing through Ukraine. In trying to fnd a way to transport gas from Russia to Germany without passing through Ukraine, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was proposed. “Had it been completed, it would not have increased the amount of Russian gas that Europe would have used,” Pirani explained. “It would have [transported] gas [to] Europe [via passageway of] the Baltic sea.”

From here, there are two routes to take, Pirani continued. Countries can either get their energy somewhere else — in the form of renewable energy, etc. — or they can take actions to lower the demand rates for energy. These demand measures are very good for climate policy. Beyond just that, though, it is important to think about how countries are spending money on energy. This, von Mering said, is a form of income worth “billions of dollars a day” that is kept out of sanctions and is therefore helping to fund Putin’s war.

Roethig joined the conversation from Germany as he had fed Ukraine and was no longer at his Kyiv offce. Most of his 20-some colleagues, Roethig explained, are still trapped in Ukraine under fre, in shelters, as refugees, and/or without water.

Roethig explained that when the Minsk Agreement was created in September 2014, it marked an end to the war in the Donbas region of Ukraine. Germany, Roethig said, saw itself as a “mediator” in this agreement. The Germans, he continued, wanted to help Ukraine modernize its economy and supported Ukraine in everything except for arms deliveries. After the end of the Cold War, “we believed our armed forces were really only there for peacekeeping issues,” Roethig said. “We saw our mission in international peacekeeping rather than defending our land.” This poses a large problem now as Ukrainian forces were not prepared militarily for a large-scale invasion and have struggled to defend themselves. Germany is now delivering arms to Ukraine, but some people question if this is enough.

Finally, the speakers turned to the issue of a no-fy zone. Although a nofy zone would be cause for a potential World War III, some have advocated for this option, von Mering said. She then turned the question to Roethig. He explained that his colleagues sometimes ask why a no-fy zone has not been implemented. Roethig attributes this desire for a no-fy zone to their stressful situation since a no-fy zone would not be the most rational decision. Practically speaking, although Roethig did explain that the practical point of view can sometimes have little meaning when you are in the middle of a large-scale confict, a nofy zone would not help much because there have been fewer planes and more missiles recently, per Roethig. Instead he advocates for anti-aircraft systems, which are currently being delivered. This war, he explained, is far from simple. Although a no-fy zone “could end this war in several hours, none of us would be there tomorrow to speak about it.”

UKRAINE CRISIS WEBINAR

SKATING: Students part of first US Elite 12 team

CONTINUED FROM 1 teams within this same organization prior to joining Hayden Select this year.

With skating, both Israel and Winawer have had to face the challenge of balancing skating and school. Their practice schedule is Tuesday nights, Wednesday mornings, Friday mornings, and Saturday afternoons, which sometimes limits which classes they can register for. Additionally, they occasionally have to miss classes for multiple days at a time when traveling for competitions. Luckily, since they both have been skating at a competitive level for many years, they have experience juggling school and skating.

They both agreed that time management has been a skill they acquired while being a skater and student. “I'm big on procrastination, so especially when we have competitions and stuff, you really have to be on top of your work,” Israel said. Additionally, being able to communicate about scheduling and being proactive about missing class are other important skills they had to learn. “Knowing how to communicate with people who are in positions of power over you, and professors especially — that layer of professionalism I think will [stay] with me through my career,” Winawer said.

Being on the team is a signifcant time commitment, especially since it is an off campus activity. While the coaches are understanding since everyone on the team is in college, missing practice is not much of an option, according to Israel. “Imagine you have a cheerleading pyramid and you take one person out of the bottom — it's not going to work. That's essentially the same with Synchro. You can't

just take one person out of a formation; you have to be there and committed to the team at all times,” she said.

Recently, their team traveled to France for the French Cup and to Colorado for the U.S. Synchronized Skating National Championship. They went to France in early February and competed against two other countries who have teams in the Elite 12 division. This was the frst competition for this new division. Hayden Select won, and Israel said regarding the victory, “We were the frst ever Elite 12 champions which was super cool.”

Hayden Select is the only Elite 12 team in the country, so while in Colorado, rather than competing against other teams, “we went to do an exhibition to kind of show the judges and the audience hopefully where the future of the sport is going,” Winawer said. They achieved their goal of receiving their highest score of the season. They also had a rose ceremony, as they did not get medals. “It was really nice to feel like they [U.S. fgure skating] were fnally recognizing us and it felt like maybe this could go somewhere and our efforts to create this new division were not for nothing,” Israel added.

Both Israel and Winawer have competed by themselves, but they agree that they prefer the team aspect of synchronized skating. “It's a completely different feeling taking the ice by yourself versus taking the ice with your 15 or your 11 or however many best friends … we're all supporting each other along the way and that's the main reason why I've been able to stick with it for so long,” Israel said. She also added that they are all friends outside of skating, which strengthens their bonds and support for each other on the ice.

PURIM: Chabad hosts celebration

CONTINUED FROM 1

Furthermore, synchronized skating has been able to be more inclusive than other disciplines, Winawer noted. “The fact that it's a team sport allows for more gender identities to compete. In other forms of fgure skating it's separated into men and women … it's very hard to be a more inclusive space,” she said. Synchronized skating “opens up room for so many more people to participate,” she continued.

As for the future of their skating careers, Winawer will be retiring within the next few years in preparation for law school. Before then, she hopes to make a Worlds Team: “Two teams are selected every year in the senior level to go represent the United States at Worlds. Next year, they're in the U.S. — they're in Lake Placid — so it would be a real honor to get to go compete at a home Worlds,” she said.

Israel will be taking the year off from synchronized skating as she intends to study abroad, so she will be focusing on single skating for the time being. She hopes to rejoin the synchronized skating world when she returns, but until then, she hopes to stay involved in other ways. “I'm currently working at ‘Get it Called,’ which is a skating publication. They post articles and stuff about synchro competitions and synchro related events,” Israel said.

They both have the same ultimate goal for the sport: to see it get to the Olympics. Additionally, Winawer hopes to see synchronized skating “grow to include more people from more races, gender identities, and socioeconomic backgrounds.” In general, she hopes skating will become a more inclusive and accepting sport, “and also hopefully get to the Olympics,” Winawer concluded.

BRANDEIS SKATERS

an easy Jewish holiday to engage in because “Purim is also just super goofy! I mean, who doesn’t love fun costumes, lots of food, and giving gifts to friends?”

In addition to the Brandeis Breakfast club on Thursday morning, Brody explained that Hillel also hosted a meal to break the traditional fast before Purim-eve, called Taanit Esther. She added, “We also had eight readings of the Megillah, the Purim story” across various Jewish denominational groups under the Brandeis Hillel umbrella.

On Wednesday, the eve of Purim, there were two readings led by the Brandeis Orthodox Organization, and Masorti and Baruch, the Conservative/Egalitarian and Reform Jewish clubs on campus, each had their own. The Brandeis Orthodox Organization and Masorti held additional services on Thursday, the second day of Purim celebrations.

The Cheins added, “When we arrived at Brandeis … we didn’t want to replicate existing activities” that Hillel and the Jewish religious clubs under it put on. Instead, Rabbi Chein explained that Chabad reached out to students’ fraternities and sororities to host a Purim party at the Chabad House. “Greek life was our biggest partner … Purim was an event welcoming to Jew-

ish students who weren’t active in the Jewish community. Talking to Greek life brought people in.” Over the years, he continued, Chabad has worked with fraternities and sororities less because people wanted to join the party regardless of it being thrown by Greek life, and, “we wanted to make the party open to everyone.”

With the rise of COVID-19 cases, though, the party was capped at a certain capacity and the Chabad House required people to test negative for COVID-19 the day prior. Chabad tried to balance this concern with the concern for students’ mental health in the social time that is students’ college years. Sohn, whose frst Purim at Brandeis coincided with the beginning of the pandemic, agreed. The quintessential Purim experience he was looking for was “exciting and out there,” whether that meant dressing up for the Cheins’ party on a Wednesday, or “even having a smoothie at Hillel on Purim morning.”

Rabbi Chein concluded that Purim’s value of joy is something that can beneft the entire Brandeis community. “Not often do you fnd people dancing in the middle of campus,” Chein mused. “Imagine what campus would be like if we had more of that. For Chabad, we use Purim to bring that value of joy … beyond just the Jewish community.”

CHABAD FAMILY

Photo courtesy of SAMI WINAWER

Photo courtesy of CHANIE CHEIN

SYNCRHO : In early February, Sami Winawer and Evan Israel traveled to France to compete at the French Cup.

CHABAD: The Chein family holds their annual Purim party after a two year break.

justfeatures

No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.

ON THIS DAY…

In 1972, the U.S. Senate approved the Equal Rights Amendment, which bans laws that discriminate on the basis of sex, but it was not ratifed by enough states to become part of the Constitution.

The Disabled Students’ Network: Creating a community for all

Last spring, Zoe Pringle ’22 and Luca Swinford ’22 created the Disabled Students’ Network — which recently hosted a panel discussion about disability in public health — in response to the lack of community spaces for disabled students at Brandeis. The Justice spoke to the students about disability justice and their goals for the club.

By MADDY DULONG JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The Disabled Students’ Network, run by Luca Swinford ’22 and Zoe Pringle ’22, got its start in April 2021, a year after Swinford and Pringle met in the course “Disability Policy” taught by Prof. Monika Mitra (Heller) in spring 2020. It was during this class that they discovered that there wasn’t a space for the disabled community at Brandeis, and this inspired them to create one themselves. Unfortunately, these plans were put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, it was during this time that Swinford and Pringle realized there needed to be a community more than ever. According to Swinford, “It was because of the conditions of COVID, how isolating it was, that we sort of realized, like, there’s no better time than to start this club right now. And so, in one way [the pandemic] delayed it, but it also kind of reinvigorated the idea for us to start a club like this.” Thus, the Disabled Students’ Network was created in April 2021 and offcially chartered in December of 2021.

This club has two main goals: the frst is to build a community for those with disabilities here on campus. “Our goal is to be a robust support system for disabled students, where we can really build that community that we might not have otherwise,” Swinford said. “We just really felt like there wasn’t any way for students to connect with each other or even fnd each other,” Pringle added, explaining, “[DSN] is just kind of like a chill space where you don’t have to necessarily come in and be super informed about anything political or social.” The biggest part of creating a community is ensuring that it is open for everyone: those of all races, ethnicities, sexualities, genders, and disabilities.

Pringle said that when developing DSN, she and Swinford emphasized incorporating the “10 Principles of Disability Justice,” which is a framework created by members of the disability-justice performance group Sins Invalid. She explained that the creators of the framework identify with a variety of intersectional and marginalized identities, along with being part of the disability community, and spoke about why these individuals decided to develop this framework: “It was them feeling excluded from a lot of general advocacy spaces and activist spaces, but also disability rights and movement spaces [which are] very predominantly white and physically-disabled dominated,” she said, and added, “[DSN] really tried to incorporate these values with the sense of community.”

Pringle mentioned that one of the biggest misconceptions about the disabled community is the idea that it isn’t diverse. “We have people with all sorts of disabilities; some people prefer to disclose their disability and are very open and others aren’t.” Both Swinford and Pringle stressed the importance of including those of all backgrounds and disabilities, because ableism affects everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or disability.

Spreading activism and disability movements on campus

FUN FACT

The hummingbird lays the smallest egg of any bird, about the size of a pea. The ostrich egg is the largest, at approximately the size of a cantaloupe.

is the other goal of the DSN. As Swinford said, “We hope that the existence of our club will push people to examine [ableism] in their own lives because ableism impacts everyone’s life, regardless of disability status.” He explained that the club has two different visions: one for people who are disabled and one for people who are not. “Even abled people would beneft from less ableism, and disability justice movements are so tied to racial justice and anti-capitalist movements, and everything is just so interconnected,” said Pringle, explaining that the DSN hopes that their impact will reach beyond those who are already thinking about and involved with disability justice or who identify as disabled. Her hope is that this will lead able-bodied people to understand their role in fghting against ableism and for disability justice: “We need both disabled and non-disabled people to be involved for a better future. It’s not just one side or one facet of a community. We really need to include everybody.”

Pringle describes how other movements centered around marginalized identities almost always include those with disabilities, and yet it is common to see disability movements be overlooked or not taken as seriously. As she put it, “Hearing all these different things be mentioned and accounted for and looking for ways to support marginalized communities and never hearing disability mentioned, it’s kind of mind blowing, given that the disability community is one of the largest marginalized populations in the world.”

A common thread in the disabled community at Brandeis, and in general, is the frustration at the lack of accessibility and understanding from others. Pringle spoke about how many students have voiced their frustrations over diffculties dealing with Student Accessibility Services. Getting accommodations in classes, or even acknowledgement for accommodations, is something that she says is “always a hassle” and getting accommodations off-campus is an even bigger challenge. “One general thread I’ve noticed is that a lot of professors just never mention disability. It’s relevant in every single class,” Swinford said, adding that he has taken it upon himself to bring up disability in his classes. “I think a lot of professors don’t think about it … And so we really hope that that’s something that the Brandeis community takes note of and then adapts.”

The DSN’s message to the greater Brandeis community is one of a desire for acceptance and unity. “Our message is this: that disability is worth space at Brandeis. Disability is worth recognition. And it’s something to be proud of. And so for disabled students, for people who are unsure, we want them to know that there’s a space for you here. And there’s people that really care about you and are rooting for you,” Swinford said, continuing, “For non-disabled people the hope is really, you know, maybe get involved in some advocacy. Maybe learn a little bit about what ableism might be.” He explained that DSN seeks to show that the disability community is one that should be paid attention to and talked about, not only in discussions of accessibility but also in academic spaces and general university discussions as well.

Disability discussion

This past Friday, March 18, the DSN held a panel discussion titled, “A Critical Discussion of Disability in Public Health,” featuring panelists Mitra, associate professor of disability policy and director of the Lurie Institute at the Heller School, and Prof. Stephen Gulley (HSSP), a health and disability researcher and lecturer at Brandeis. The panel discussed the relationship between disability and public health and where things are headed as far as including those with disabilities in public health discussions.

“We are noticing the lack of disability in conversations in public health. And so this is really an extension of conversations in the disability community about being ignored in the COVID-19 pandemic response … This is refecting an attitude towards disability that’s been prevalent in public health for a long time.”

Speaking to the Justice ahead of the event, Swinford talked about how disability impacts every facet of people’s lives, even for those who are not disabled. Of the event, he said, “This is a great chance to learn, one: about a community that you might not know much about, and two: how to talk about some possible solutions and where we go from here.”

During the panel, Mitra and Gulley felded questions about how public health initiatives can be more inclusive of disabled people and what steps the Brandeis community should take to incorporate disability justice and awareness into its public health policies, with a focus on the changes being made as COVID-19 precaution guidelines continue to be loosened on campus and elsewhere. Mitra and Gulley shared their insights, with Mitra citing her experiences working in the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in her answers, and Gulley emphasizing the importance of inclusion in public health spaces, especially for those with invisible disabilities.

When answering a question on the connection and history between public health and disability, Mitra responded, “Nothing is going to happen if the decisions are made by able-bodied people who have no understanding of disability. Hiring, retention, training, inclusion of the folks that are in decision making throughout the pipeline, throughout different sectors is absolutely critical … Investments in research, policy, and practice that need to go into programs that are disability-centric are really, really important.”

Gulley also brought up the topic of inclusivity while discussing a hopeful future for healthcare and disability, saying, “Instead of going off of some white privileged benchmark, we need a notion of health. We need to understand disability. We need to understand well-being, not on the basis of some nebulous majority group.” He stressed the importance of advocating for “Much more fully individualized, culturally-aware, person-centered, and culturally responsive health and healthcare.”

Swinford described his hopes for the Brandeis community’s takeaways from this event via email, stating, “Dr. Mitra and Dr. Gulley’s insights were invaluable and provided a perspective on public health that is needed and critical, especially at this moment where COVID-19 restrictions are being dropped. I hope that the Brandeis community can take the insights they shared on Friday and refect on the ways that we can learn from the past and the relationship between disability and public health to push public health in a more equitable direction.”

For students interested in learning more about the disabled community, disability policy, or advocacy, Swinford and Pringle’s advice is to look into classes on disability policy. Two of their suggestions are “Sociology of Disability” with Gulley and “ Disability Policy” with Mitra.

If you want to get more involved with the Disabled Students’ Network, this panel is just one of many events and meetings the DSN has held. Community meetings happen weekly from 8 to 9 p.m. on Wednesdays. These meetings are hybrid, so if you are interested you can either attend via Zoom or show up in person in Heller G55. Advocacy meetings occur every other week from 6:30 to 7 p.m. on Zoom. Feel free to follow their Instagram @dsnbrandeis or fnd them on their Facebook page, “Disabled Students’ Network Brandeis,” for more up-to-date information and to be updated on future events and meetings.

Design: Natalie Kahn/the Justice

Photo Courtesy of ZOE PRINGLE CLUB MEETING: The Disabled Students’ Network meets in person and on Zoom for weekly community meetings and biweekly advocacy meetings.

Photo Courtesy of ZOE PRINGLE CLUB FAIR: Luca Swindon ’22 and Zoe Pringle ’22 promoted the Disabled Students’ Network at the club fair in February.

Justice Justice Justice Justice

By DRAKEN GARFINKEL JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Standing atop Fellows Garden with the sun to his back, a bronze Justice Louis D. Brandeis watches over the campus bearing his name. It is a heroic statue, triumphant even. The Justice withstands an adverse wind, his gaze fxed on the heavens like the statues of classical antiquity. It also resembles the numerous statues of the American South which depict Confederate icons in similarly honorifc poses. Like them, Justice Brandeis helped advance caustic ideology tied to many of the 20th-century’s tragedies.

Before joining the Supreme Court, Brandeis served as legal counsel for a think tank responsible for numerous Progressive-Era economic reforms. This group, however, was riddled with disciples of an ideology which seemingly had no place in Progressive-Era thought. This group was so infuential that not even the Presidency, nor modern economics as we know it, escaped its clutches. History has all but forgotten them; their Wikipedia page is less than fve hundred words long. They were the American Association of Labor Legislation, and they were eugenicists.

Eugenics, characterized as a secular religion by its late 19th century founder Francis Galton, is the pseudoscientifc belief that human races exist in a hierarchy, the “higher races” genetically predisposed to morality and intelligence, the “lower, undesirable races” crime and stupidity. Eugenicists, furthermore, believe that any interbreeding between races always creates a child of the “lesser race.”

Eugenicists therefore wish to “improve” the human species by promoting policies that increase birth rates for “desirables” and decrease birth rates for “non-desirables.” Throughout the 20th century, eugenics was used in the U.S. to justify segregation and forced sterilization, such as that of numerous Black women in North Carolina from the 1930s through the 1960s. Ideologically, it has historically guided attempts to outright exterminate groups deemed inferior, including that of Hitler and the Nazi party. Eugenics nevertheless gained such wide support in America and abroad that by 1933, 150 million Americans lived in jurisdictions affected by forced sterilization laws. Numerous American presidents were also eugenicists. Eugenics has no basis in scientifc fact: Fundamentally, it is little more than the application of racist dogmas. Even so, eugenics’ interventionism appealed to early 20th-century Progressivists, namely those of the American Association for Labor Legislation. “It is undeniable that many in the Progressive movement of the early 20th century did think of eugenics laws — as cruel as they were — as ways to ‘perfect’ society,” Prof. Daniel Breen (LGLS) explained to the Justice during a March 8 interview. Breen currently teaches a course about Justice Brandeis called “Louis Brandeis: Law, Business and Politics.”

The AALL’s sixth president, eugenicist and economist Irving Fisher, devised the Immigration Act of 1924, a bill imposing race-based quotas on Southern and Eastern European immigrants. “America must remain American,” President Coolidge said when signing the bill into law. 15 years later, this bill would close America to countless Jews feeing the Nazis.

Fisher also founded the American Eugenics and Econo-

Justice Justice Justice Justice

metrics Societies, becoming the latter’s frst president. Econometrics as a feld uses statistics to suggest causal relationships between datasets, oftentimes demographic groups and social outcomes. Today, econometric applications (e.g., FBI crime statistics) are used to perpetuate racist beliefs in the United States. Fisher’s personal ideology suggests that this isn’t a bug, but a feature.

Besides Brandeis himself, who served as the AALL’s legal counsel before his appointment to the Supreme Court in 1916, other notable members include Frank Taussig and Sidney Webb. Taussig, founder of trade theory (an economic feld explaining trade patterns between countries), believed that the feebleminded, drunkards, congenitally ill, and habitual criminals “should simply be stamped out.” How? “Chloroform.” Webb co-founded the London School of Economics and coined the term “adverse selection” to describe “race suicide,” a eugenicist term for how “non-desirables” would outbreed “desirables” without eugenicist intervention.

While not members per se, other infuential eugenicists were Francis Amasa Walker and Margaret Sanger. Walker, president of MIT from 1881 to 1897 and director of the U.S. Census before that, referred to immigrants as “beaten men from beaten races; representing the worst failures in the struggle for existence.” Sanger, intending to quell the birthrates of “undesirables” opened the United States’ frst birth control clinic.

Other Progressive initiatives, including child labor laws, compulsory education, and minimum wage, were also based in eugenics. “A crude eugenic sorting of groups into deserving and undeserving classes crucially informed the labor and immigration reform that is the hallmark of the Progressive Era,” Thomas C. Leonard wrote in a 2005 article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Promoters of these Progressive reforms argued that preventing children from working through labor laws would make socalled “low-wage races” have fewer children, since they “would be unable to put their children to work.”

Prof. George Hall (ECON) spoke to the Justice on March 8 about the links between eugenics and the 20th-century Progressive movement. “[These economic reforms] can stand on their own,” Hall insists, “so why did the people at the time need eugenics to argue for them?”

Louis Brandeis re-enters this picture through the AALL’s most famous member: Woodrow Wilson. While both AALL members, Wilson and Brandeis only met in 1912, by which time Brandeis had already been the AALL’s legal counsel for years. They developed a friendship and in 1916, Wilson — the same president who screened the racist flm “Birth of a Nation” in the White House — appointed Brandeis to the Supreme Court, extolling his virtues as “a friend of all just men.”

It wouldn’t be Brandeis’ frst encounter with the highest court in the land. In 1908 he brought the case Muller v. Oregon before the Court, writing that “the overwork of future mothers directly attacks the welfare of a nation.”

Brandeis argued that women’s work hours should be better regulated because, as the providers of the next generation, they amounted to collective property which the state had to protect. Breen suggested a possible vindication of Brandeis’ actions: “Many Progressives wanted to limit working hours for everyone … reformers like Florence Kelly thought that if you started with … women, you could

eventually get states to pass maximum hours laws across the board.” Less defensible, however, is what Brandeis did next.

In the 1927 case Buck v. Bell, the now-Supreme Court Justice Brandeis sided with the majority in the Court’s 8-1 decision that forcibly sterilizing people for “feeble-mindedness” didn’t violate the Constitution’s Due Process or Equal Protection Clauses. “Three generations of imbeciles is enough” reads the majority opinion handed down by the Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. According to Thomas C. Leonard’s 2016 book “Illiberal Reformers : Race, Eugenics & American Economics in the Progressive Era,” Brandeis endorsed this statement.

By not dissenting against the forced sterilization of “undesirables,” Brandeis tacitly endorsed eugenics and enabled its policies at the nation’s highest legal authority. Whether he truly was a eugenicist is not known. If he was, it seems he would have made it more obvious, based on how he demonstrated his support for other Progressive initiatives. “If he had thought such [eugenicist] laws were good ideas,” Breen commented, “he would very likely have found ways to let other people know he felt that way, just as he did with issues like public utility regulation and banking reform.”

Breen nevertheless called Brandeis’ failure to dissent in Buck v. Bell “deeply disappointing.” “A judge or a politician,” Breen continued, “should always evaluate laws from the standpoint of empathy … I think Brandeis should have found a way to do so in this case, even if that would have meant adjusting the usual 1920s standard of review in 14th Amendment cases.”

Even so, many modern-day Progressives would say that Brandeis — through his advocacy for jurisprudence, personal privacy, and corporate regulation — made the United States a safer, more just society.

What to do with this knowledge of Justice Louis Brandeis’ problematic history is a matter of debate. Like many cities with Confederate statues, Brandeis’ statue could be taken down and the University renamed. Another option is recognizing that the University’s values predate its supposed attribution to Justice Brandeis. Be “Brandeis University, not Brandeis’ University,” in a sense. “You can have great respect and admiration for people while recognizing they have faws,” said Hall. “I don’t know who you name a school after who doesn’t have something in their past that could be problematic.”

When asked for her opinion on whether Brandeis University should be renamed in light of its namesake’s involvement with 20th-century eugenics, Deb Haimowitz ’23 stated, “I don’t think it would be wise to rename it. I do think it should be treated the same way Planned Parenthood treated Margaret Sanger. The school owes it to its students to publicly address it and apologize for it. One of the main ideologies of Brandeis is major social justice progress and a great way to be reminded of that is to be reminded of how things were. We’re better than that.”

Hall feels similarly: “A reassessment of people and history, we should always be doing that … one thing you learn is that all your heroes are fawed.” Brandeis was not a Confederate general, nor a conquistador. His questionable legacy is, however, something that must be reckoned with, even unto its innermost parts.

Known for his role in the early 20th-century Progressive movement, Brandeis University namesake Justice Louis D. Brandeis’ entanglement with eugenics raises concerns. Profs. George Hall (ECON) and Daniel Breen (LGLS) weigh in.

JACK YUANWEI CHENG/the Justice

BRANDEIS: A statue of Justice Louis D. Brandeis sits atop a hill in the center of the campus bearing his name.

Sofia Gonzalez Rodriguez, Editor in Chief

Cameron Cushing, Managing Editor

Gilda Geist, Senior Editor

River Hayes, Deputy Editor

Leeza Barstein, Jen Crystal, Jane Flautt, Gabriel Frank, Megan Geller, Hannah O’Koon, Noah Zeitlin, Associate Editors

Jacklyn Golobordsky, Hannah Taylor, News Editors

Natalie Kahn, Features Editor Lauryn Williams, Forum Editor

Taku Hagiwara, Sports Editor

Megan liao, Acting Arts & Culture Editor

Jack Yuanwei Cheng, Photography Editor

Ariella Weiss, Lynn Han, Copy Editors

Samantha Goldman, Online Editor

EDITORIALS

As students enter the 10th week of the semester, many are just coming out of the long and arduous midterm season. This board requests that the Brandeis administration require a wellness day in March and incorporate it within the academic calendar moving forward.

While the midterm season is not a specifically defined time frame like finals, it often takes place during the period between the February and April breaks. Although most midterms tend to be less weighted and contain less material than finals, unlike midterm exams, finals are preceded by study days where there are no classes in session. Students are thrust into midterms during a period where they are occupied with classes as well as extracurricular commitments.

Understandably, many students are feeling the pressure and stress that comes with midterms with many expressing feelings of being burnt out and lacking motivation. While having a spread out midterm period may seem like a good idea because it gives students time between big tests and assignments, having several weeks of midterms each semester is exhausting for students. Just as one finishes a midterm, another midterm rolls around and by the time the last midterm is finished, finals are already fast approaching.

The unrelenting nature of midterm season has severe consequences on student wellbeing by increasing anxiety, stress, and contributing to burnout. Even when caught up with all of their tasks and obligations,

there is always an impending feeling of needing to start on work ahead of time which prevents students from being able to decompress. While stress is not necessarily a negative thing on its own, constant weeks upon weeks of stress will undoubtedly lead to negative mental and physical effects.

In light of these factors, this board advocates that the administration seriously consider a wellness day sometime before April break as was implemented in spring 2021.

The board also suggests that the school consider the day that this wellness day is on. We are aware that the administration has emailed faculty asking them to cancel classes this coming Friday to give students a break as a part of a “Wellness Day” spearheaded by the Division of Student Affairs, the Student Union, and other student organizations. Several activities and resources, including free boba tea and ice cream and carnival games with dogs, will be featured. However, having a wellness day on Friday, when many students don’t have class anyway, will not have the desired effect that this board advocates for. Instead, a wellness day could be best used on a Monday or a Wednesday.

In addition, professors are not required to cancel classes this Friday, which leaves many students out of luck. The alleviation of stress that a wellness day would bring to students would also be of benefit to faculty, who would be able to take a break from their hectic workload.

University must be pro-active

its testing and contact tracing protocols

In a reversal of policy that was surprising to almost no one, on March 16 the University restored the 96hour testing window requirement that has been in place for much of the pandemic. This change came less than a week after a sternly worded email from the administration regarding a rise in positive cases and close contacts, and only 11 days after the testing window was reduced to 168 hours. This board had previously questioned the sensibility of reducing testing frequency at the same time as lifting the campus-wide mask mandate. While we appreciate that community members have been able to continue to test at any chosen frequency, we believe that this campus-wide requirement is best-suited to keep everyone safe.

Given the return to twice-a-week testing, this board calls for the reopening of a secondary testing site at the Mandel Center for the Humanities or elsewhere. While consolida -

tion to a single, centrally-located testing site made a degree of sense alongside more infrequent testing, long lines are sure to await the community in the Shapiro Science Center given the return to twice-a-week testing. A secondary testing site also creates more opportunities for student employment, which was reduced with the closure of the Mandel Center testing site on March 4.

Testing changes aside, this board continues to take issue with the Brandeis Community Tracing Program, particularly as the number of students being identified as close contacts has increased in recent weeks. While it is a responsibility that we must all be willing to bear, quarantining is undoubtedly a burden.Consistency, clear communication, and easy access to informed staff would all be features of a successful program, but time-after-time, community members have had lessthan-satisfactory experiences.

or example, in a March 17 email to the Justice, leadership of Banshee — the Women’s Ultimate Frisbee team — explained that the entire team was contacted via email by the contact tracing team and told to enter close-contact quarantine.

The initial email from the BCTP made no reference to the team and was received by both students abroad and those who had not attended a Banshee event since the beginning of the semester. Banshee leadership explained that “BCTP seems to have gotten access to the email list via Presence,” the campus involvement management system used by the University, on which all students are required to register for the individual club sports that they participate in.

Students who received the email in error were instructed to contact the team’s coach who would provide clarification to the BCTP, but leadership pointed out that the students who had left the club were “least likely to know how to reach coaches.”

After much back and forth — including leadership sending the BCTP attendance records of multiple recent events — another email was sent to the entire

email list clarifying the specific event that necessitated quarantining and restoring the green campus passports of those not in attendance at that event. Meanwhile, this board is and has been aware of several students who satisfy the BCTP’s definition of a close contact who have not yet been contact traced.

While we understand the necessity of acting quickly to move students into quarantine to slow spread, this board criticizes the carelessness of the BCTP in this situation.

Rather than blanketly placing an email list into quarantine, they should have reached out to either the leadership email or the team’s coach to obtain attendance records for the event in question and proceeded from there.

Given the difficulty in reaching the contact tracing team — they have no publicly listed phone number — students contacted both the Health Center and Dean of Students office, which each had only limited information.

Considering the importance of the BCTP’s work, we call for improvements to their processes to reduce confusion and anxiety among the student body and increase efficiency in fighting COVID-19.

ViewsonNews the

Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., has stated his intention to sign the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, which has been named by those in opposition as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill because it seeks to ban instruction of gender and sexuality issues in the classroom. How does this bill negatively impact those who are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community? To what extent does banning or mitigating conversation surrounding gender and sexuality harm students? What can student organizers do to promote more inclusive legislation in conservative states to promote inclusivity?

Prof. Levenson (ED)

Because so many LGBTQIA students continue to be bullied and harassed, it has been very important for schools to acknowledge and discuss gender and sexuality as part of normal development. The recent legislative bills (such as the one in Florida) [that] criminalizes such instruction are part of Republican initiatives to prevent discussions about sexuality and/or race. Such punitive legislation has made teachers very anxious about such instruction. What can students do? They can speak out respectfully against such ill advised legislation or policies. Students can also move instruction and discussions about gender and/or race to social media or community forums which are accessible to students —they also need to make sure that this info is correct!— Sometimes outlawing information is a great way to make it more interesting.

There’s nothing new about political groups trying to control curricula and educational material. In the last year we’ve seen political groups targeting “critical race theory” and banning various books from school libraries. This bill, titled “Parental Rights in Education,” states that lessons about sexual orientation are banned outright in kindergarten through third grade. It also prohibits lessons in other grades unless they are “age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate.” Besides harming students, families, and communities, this bill once again casts teachers in a sinister light, suggesting that they need to be censored because their speech can’t be trusted. This bill undermines human dignity, learning, and — our favorite punching bag — teachers.

The importance of a wellness day for students and faculty after midterms

Marya R. Levenson is a retired Univ. emerita professor in the Education Department

Dr. Ziva Hassenfeld is a Jack, Joseph and Morton and Mandel assistant professor of Jewish education.

Prof. Hassenfeld (ED)

in

Photo: Prof. Levenson

Photo: Prof. Hassenfeld

By LAURYN WILLIAMS JUSTICE EDITOR

Violence has been on-going for over five years due to infighting among Anglophone separatist in Cameroon. This conflict all started in 2016, with peaceful protests initiated by lawyers and teachers demanding linguistic reform, which rapidly escalated into a war of secession. Protesters were assaulted, attacked with tear gas, imprisoned, and killed causing widespread destruction of homes and villages. This civil war is particularly calamitous, as the native-born citizens are often caught in the middle and experience the brunt of the violence. As a result of this political upheaval and humanitarian crises, over 1.8 million have been internally displaced, with many seeking refuge in other countries, including the United States, to avoid intercommunal violence.

Although witness testimonies and satellite images validate the widespread devastation of this civil war, the catastrophic crisis continues to unfold. As Cameroonians flee their country and seek asylum in the U.S., their applications are denied. If they are fortunate to make it into the U.S. while seeking asylum, they are summarily deported back to their country to face persecution, torture, and other serious harm. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Immigration and Customs Enforcement choked, threatened, pepper-sprayed, and forced Cameroonian detainees to sign their deportation papers.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Lauren Seibert, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch shared that under the Trump administration, ICE deported more than 90 Cameroonians on two de -

portation flights, failing to provide Cameroonians with due process. Experts say that this unsettling and outrageous management of immigration policies resulted in a fragmented and broken system. Seibert also indicated that the “U.S. government utterly failed Cameroonians with credible asylum claims by sending them back to harm in the country they fled, as well as mistreating already traumatized people before and during deportation.”

The dysfunction of the immigration system is illustrated by the plummet in the number of Cameroonians seeking asylum and the number of overall asylum applications from fiscal year 2020 to 2021, a decrease by nearly 80% and 60% respectively. As a result, it is predicted that the decrease in asylum requests to the United States is likely to continue.

The inept immigration and asylum process did not only occur under the Trump administration. It was drastically flawed when President Bill Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

This bill limited “cancellation of removal” to immigrants who had been in the United States for at least 10 years. The Clinton administration also set the stage for the criminalization of immigrants by imposing the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

This law shifted the rhetoric that conflated improper entry with unauthorized presence while targeting and criminalizing immigrants.

For decades, countless studies have disproven former President Clinton’s and other policymakers’ unsupported claims that undocumented immigrants are somehow criminals. These studies have validated that immigrants—undocumented as well— were less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than U.S.-

born citizens. According to scholars who have followed the U.S.’s immigration policies for decades, like Prof. Alexandra PinerosShields (Heller), the system is alarmingly flawed. “At the end of the day this is about U.S, foreign interest. The immigration courts are in the executive branch, they are not guaranteed any of the Miranda Rights U.S. citizens have. There is no other example in this country where you go to jail for an administrative offense. Foreigners are seen as a vehicle of profit,” she said. The result of an administrative violation is a fine, not a detention center, so its a relatively new way of profiting.

But myths about immigrants are nothing new, and years of research and debate have debunked that immigrants are a major source of crime. Pinero-Shields ended our interview by stating: “Crossing the border makes them vulnerable to rape, sexual assault, and torture. They do it because it is the only option, the last resort.”

Yet, despite the findings of these innumerable studies, opportunistic politicians and media figures continue to create false narratives that immigrants are a threat to personal and national security.

False narratives about legal and unauthorized immigrants exploit the public’s anxieties and garner support for the drafting of policies that criminalize immigrants.

The breakdown in immigration policies may be fueled by profit. For-profit companies like CoreCivic and Geo Group, two of the largest private prison companies in the United States, make billions in revenue from the incarceration of undocumented immigrants.

As the immigrant-detention industry grows, these private prison companies

work actively to shape the federal and state laws governing corrections and law enforcement by making sizable campaign contributions to politicians, and lobby Congress and state legislatures on bills that affect their interests.

The American Legislative Exchange Council played a major role in drafting the legislation that would become Arizona’s infamous anti-immigrant law, SB 1070 whereby Arizona could make immigrants who cross over the borders criminals.

This scenario represented a conflict of interest in which a company that has a vested financial interest in the incarceration of as many people as possible influences legislation that would increase the flow of prisoners into that company’s prisons. According to the U.S. Congressman Paul Gosar from Arizona, ICE in 2016 was required by law “to maintain an average daily population of 34,000 detainees.”

The cruel effects of the United States’ flawed immigration system have massive implications on Cameroonians who are essential members of communities across the United States and those who have demonstrated remarkable resilience in pursuit of safety.

In light of the ongoing humanitarian crisis and armed conflicts in Cameroon, it is direly important that President Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas designate Cameroonians Temporary Protected Status.

TPS will ensure safety, security and that Cameroonian families are able to stay together and that those who seek asylum are able to do so without being further subjected to cruelty or harm from deportation forces such as ICE.

The Kiwibots on campus: friend or foe?

By TASHA EPSTEIN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

You’ve probably had an encounter with some of our new campus-mates by now. They’re hard to miss with their boxy shape, gentle rumbling wheels, and little waving flags. They’re … the Kiwibots.

They’ve been rolled out recently as a way for students to order food from on-campus restaurants to be delivered directly to the entrance of their dorm. The fleet seems to be growing, as I can’t seem to walk anywhere on campus without passing one of the little buggers. In theory, they seem like a great way for students to get food delivered, but in practice, a vocal portion of the student body has decided the Kiwibots are not welcome. Students have put forth various rationales for their hatred of the Kiwibots, but the fact that they navigate via multiple cameras with human operators seems to have been an issue for many, and reasonably so.

When asked about his dislike of our new campus companions, Harrison Madnick ’25, said, “They potentially could pose a risk on the data aspect of things … I’d also appreciate open source info on data collecting to be aware of what they do with the information gathered.”

Even Grace Larence ’25, who explicitly specified that she likes the Kiwibots, said, “I do think that it’s a security risk to some extent, because the camera feeds on the bots will be actively monitored by a person and in residential areas that makes me feel a bit ehhh.”

In today’s technology obsessed society, worrying how one’s images and data will be used seems like a valid concern. Being

on camera, often without their knowledge, is perhaps something students aren’t especially eager to consent to. However, in many respects, we’ve already handed in our privacy in that regard with things like security cameras and the ever present social media trends catching people in candid shots. On the other hand, those who enjoy the glitz and glam of new technology view the Kiwibots as a simple and fun addition to the campus atmosphere.

Preston Merrill ’25 said, “If I were to tell my friends who are at different colleges that we have robot servants rolling around our college, they’d think we’d be living at the height of luxury.” I personally will admit that there’s something cool and futuristic about having little robots trundle by me as I stroll to class.

Granted, they’re only so mod and fascinating when they actually work. Some student complaints I’ve heard include the order process being down constantly, the lack of a queue when all the Kiwibots are in use, and even one report that a student saw a Kiwibot nearly get hit by a car while it was attempting to cross the road. Evidently, even if they’re here to stay, the Kiwibots need some basic maintenance here and there to help avoid incidents of vehicular botslaughter.

On their general appearance, students seem rather split. Some claim they find their light-up facial displays creepy and unsettling, while others find them cute and charming. The few eye expressions they can display seem to include angry eyebrows, heart eyes, plain, side glances, and a cheerful closed-eye look.

Students seem to be most perturbed by the Kiwibots angry face and their heart eye look, which, to be fair, are the same

expressions we react to most in other people. Yet something in their cutesy appearance seems to upset some students. While we’re certainly not asking that they appear threatening or mean, maybe the Kiwibots could get a makeover so they don’t seem so … infantile.

You’d think their adorable appearance would have the opposite effect, but their small and anthropomorphized features seem to only encourage acts of hatred towards them.

I recently witnessed a Kiwibot switch to its heart-eye mode as a peer walked past it, only for said peer to briefly glance down at it and say, “Screw you, Kiwibot.” Let’s hope the same kind of response doesn’t hold true for students’ interactions with each other.

Also, their headlights can be quite an annoyance, speaking from experience. I occasionally like to take a late evening walk to clear my head, or simply because I’m feeling restless.

There’s no feeling quite like the bright light of a Kiwibot coming around the corner accompanied by its dogged trundling to take me out of a peaceful state. Overall, a quick poll of my friends revealed that while most of us don’t like them and find them fairly annoying, we struggled to find a solid reason for this dislike besides the technological privacy aspect.

We do agree that the Kiwibots could be really helpful for students, and are likely a good addition to campus.

JACK YUANWEI CHENG/the Justice

CONTINUED FROM 12

left the track, Sainz and Hamilton were able to easily overcome the Dutch driver. At that moment, it was clear that Verstappen was crawling back to the pits due to engine failure. After Verstappen's retirement, only Perez remained as he fought to maintain third position. The Mexican driver also began experiencing engine issues, which quickly caused him to spin out and retire as his engine locked up. The previous favorites going into this race were now retreating to the garage with no points earned.

On a happier note, Ferrari was able to secure the win they had hoped for as they won for the first time since 2019. After almost 50

races and two years of hard work, Ferrari got another 1-2 finish, just as they did in their last win in the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix. Leclerc was able to secure first place, win a point for fastest lap, and become driver of the day, an exciting and well earned prize for the young driver. Hamilton, who drives for Mercedes, was able to slip into third place earning himself a spot on the podium. This change in luck shows that the Mercedes team is not completely out of contention for the World Championship. With such turns in team performances seen from Mclaren to Haas, this season is anticipated to be a very exciting one. Round two will be the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix on March 27.

BASEBALL

leads the team with 15 runs batted in.

SOFTBALL

with 14.2 innings pitched.

TRACK AND FIELD

■ The Badminton World Tour reached its most anticipated stop European leg — the All England 2022.

By MEGAN LIAO JUSTICE EDITOR

The Yonex All England Open is the ffth tournament in the 2022 Badminton World Federation World Tour and the oldest badminton tournament. The champions of the tournament will earn 12,000 points counted towards World Rankings, as well as gain eligibility for the World Championship and the Paris Summer Olympics 2024.

TENNIS

TOP PERFORMERS (MEN’S)

TOP PERFORMERS (WOMEN’S)

As the badminton world bounces back from massive cancellations of tournaments due to COVID-19, the 2022 All England Open is the frst tournament that saw a full-roster draw in all events. In the men’s singles, current number two Kento Momota from Japan was placed in the bottom half with number three Anders Antonsen — Denmark — and number seven Lee Zii Jia— Malaysia. In the top half of the draw, number one Viktor Axelsen — Denmark — faces number 4 Chou Tien Chen — Chinese Taipei — and Indonesian player number nine Jonatan Christie.

Day one and day two of the tournament went without much surprise. That being said, the young players, facing the top ten world-ranked players in the preliminary rounds, put up a fght with threatening defense. On day two, Canadian 20-year-old Brian Yang, ranked 33 against Lee, and in particular stunned spectators with a frst set going into deuces, 26-24. While Lee ultimately took the set and eventually the game, it’s worth noting how Yang pushed back the

Malaysian player’s delayed smashes and kept up with Lee’s sophisticated game plans. After consecutive straight-set defeats by Heo Kwang Hee in the preliminaries of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics — where Momota was expected to claim the title — and quarterfnals of Thomas Cup 2021, the Japanese player fnally took down Heo 21-16, 21-12, avenging his losses from their past two encounters. The frst set was a tight head-tohead combat. Heo took the lead with his evidently faster recoveries, countering the alternating attacks of Momota’s well-known, hair-pin shots and clear cross-court shots; at 1110, however, Momota persisted and surpassed Heo, quickly widening the score gap.

Day three featured quarterfnals played between the top ten players, Momota — Lee; Axelsen — Anthony Sinisuka Ginting, and Chou — Christie, due to the forfeit of Chinese player Lu Guang Zu that allowed the walk-over of 20-year-old Indian player Lakshya Sen. Losing the frst set 7-21, Momota fnally found his ground and began to push back at 13-13 in the second set. In the game, Lee upset Momota by picking up speed, clearing the game with a fnal score of 21-11. Axelsen quickly shook off Ginting in two straight sets, 214, 21-9, adding the record of a ffth win out of their seven encounters. Having enjoyed a much easier frst set, Chou entered the second set struggling to widen the gap. It wasn’t until 11-11 when Chou switched to a more aggressive, smash-oriented attack that he fnally gained a solid advantage, taking the game 21-10, 2115.

Semi-fnals on day four featured the matches Sen – Lee and Axelsen – Chou. Before entering the “Big League” and claiming his frst BWF tour title, Sen was the number one ranked youth player in the world.

The more experienced player, Lee, found his footing in the second set, but Sen’s threatening cross-court net shots trapped Lee from quickly recovering shots at the backcourt. Sen took the win 21-13, 12-21, 21-19. In the beginning of their second set, Axelsen trailed behind Chou 11-6, but he turned the match around playing miraculous defense and speeding up the game pace, eventually taking the win 21-13, 21-15.

In the championship game, however, Sen seemed to have lost his aggressive playing style from the previous day, which allowed Axelsen to advance to a six-love lead in the frst set. Having trained at Axelsen’s Dubai training camp after the Tokyo Olympics, Sen is familiar with Axelsen’s playing style, evident from his quick responses to Axelsen’s delayed shots. However, Axelsen’s intentional long rallies tired Sen, ending the game 21-10, 2115 in 53 minutes. This is Axelsen’s second All England title, and, while the 20-year-old Indian player had lost the game, this weekend showed him as a competent player that can be compared to the big names like Axelsen and Lee.

Regardless of the results of All England, both BWF World and World Tour Rankings will not change by much. Sen remains at number one after his championship title at the India Open- (Super 500)- and the German Open -(Super 300)- in the Race to Guangzhou BWF World Championship 2022. Both ranked at 26th place last week, Axelsen’s points will now surpass that of Lee after winning 12,000 points from the All England Open. While impossible to be challenged in the World Ranking, top ten players as Axelsen, Chou, Lee, and Momota need to play in more tournaments to qualify for the World Tour championship as the season progresses.

Photo Courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS

OLYMPIC CHAMP : Defending Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen won the British Open over the weekend.

Sports just

Inside Brandeis table tennis

■ The Justice interviewed Table Tennis Club and learned about their community.

By MEGAN GELLER JUSTICE EDITOR

In 1988, table tennis, also known as Ping-Pong, became an Olympic sport, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. This sport is played on a fat table with two halves divided by a net in the middle. The objective is to hit the ball over the net so that it bounces off the opponent's side of the table in a way that cannot be returned.

Brandeis Table Tennis is one of the various club sports at the university With about six consistent members and 29 members registered, the team is always open to new members with any experience level. In a March 14 interview with the Justice, club president Max Cui-Stein ’22 explained that “New players who have little to no experience should not be afraid to come! Seasoned players don't fnd it boring to show people the ropes, and we have a coach who comes each week as well.” For instance, when asked about his journey to table tennis at Brandeis, Cui-Stein explained, “I found table tennis by chance. I ended up joining due to the very kind president at the time,

Johnson Agyapong '20. I showed up having never truly played before and was extremely intimidated when I saw the members playing. Johnson noticed me sort of timidly standing on the side, and he offered to show me how to play properly. His help was encouraging, and I quickly became obsessed. He was nice enough to give me his old "pro" paddle which is now an object of great sentimental value to me.”

The Brandeis team practices about fve days a week, and different levels of competition attend on different days. Some days are mixed between casual and competitive members, allowing those who play casually to become inspired by seeing what they can achieve. “It's a perfect combination of being able to play high level players while also being able to help out newer players. Having that balance is both enjoyable and gratifying,” Cui-Stein explained. The table tennis team also competes under the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association. The Brandeis team often competes against various other Massachusetts schools like Boston University and Tufts University. In regards to competitions, Cui-Stein explained,that the top two of the tournament division move on to a regional tournament hosted at the Westchester tournament in New York. Winning this tournament secures a spot at Nationals in Las Vegas or Texas.

Charles Leclerc wins the Bahrain Grand Prix

■ The 2022 season of Formula One begins with Charles Leclerc winning and teammate Carlos Sainz securing second.

By LIZ PAL JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The 2022 season of Formula One has started with a bang. The 10 teams had gathered at the Bahrain International Circuit during the weekend of March 18–20 to start the face-off towards the World Championship.

On Saturday, March 19, Charles Leclerc took pole position for Ferrari. The Monegasque driver was joined on the front row by defending World Champion Max Verstappen racing for Red Bull. The second row was occupied by Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz along with Sergio Perez, the other Red Bull driver, who sat in fourth. Shockingly, Mercedes led the rest of the pack and found themselves in fifth for Lewis Hamilton and ninth for newcomer George Russell. Valtteri Bottas, who had recently departed from Mercedes, sat next to his former teammate Hamilton in sixth with Alfa Romeo. McLaren, a team that used to be upper middle of the pack, was dragging along in the back with some of the lowest grid positions seen from them in years.

After a shocking and exciting Saturday qualifier, the lights went out at Bahrain Grand Prix. With a spectacular start, Leclerc immediately pulled away from his rival Verstappen. Within the first 15 laps, Verstappen attempted to steal the lead, but Leclerc defended aggressively and was able to maintain first place. Perez, who started in fourth, had a slow start.

AXELSEN WINS ALL ENGLAND

The 2020 Olympic mens singles champion won his second AllEngland title over the weekend, p. 11.

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

The NBA landscape approaching the playoffs

■ With the NBA regular season progressing rapidly, the Western and Eastern Conferences are starting to produce frontrunners.

By AIDEN GUTHRO JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

As the NBA playoff picture becomes clear, some teams have hit their stride at the perfect time while others are starting to fall off the radar. The Western Conference has produced some of the most dominant teams throughout the NBA, but the Eastern Conference is shaping up to have a more competitive fnish to the season.

The Phoenix Suns have been a wrecking ball all season; with a wellrounded veteran like Chris Paul and an exciting young core out of Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton, the Suns are real title contenders. They currently bolster the best record in the NBA at 57–14 and show no signs of slowing down. With the help of their coach Monty Williams, the Suns were able to piece together a fnals run last season, but fell short to the Milwaukee Bucks. This year looks different for Phoenix, though;.They are playing with the confdence of a championship team and have a commanding nine-game advantage over the second western conference team, the Memphis Grizzlies.

career, the shift from the regular season to the postseason could prove to be a tough adjustment for him. On top of that, the Grizzlies have the second youngest team in the NBA, with an average age of 24. The question remains, does this team need the experience in order to win in the postseason?

Rounding out the Western Conference contenders are the Golden State Warriors led by one of the sharpest shooters in NBA history, Steph Curry. The Warriors are back, and they look hungrier than ever – it almost feels like the NBA has been transported back a couple of years. After a few disappointing seasons, the Warriors are starting to fnd their rhythm again. Adding Klay Thompson back to the line-up gave Curry his splash brother back and reestablished the classic big three in the Bay: Draymond Green, Curry, and Thompson. Unfortunately, in last Wednesday’s game against the Boston Celtics, Curry sustained a sprained left foot ligament. He will be re-evaluated in two weeks, and hopes to make a return for the playoffs.

Waltham, Mass.

of the media about the 76ers was focused on the fallout between the organization and Ben Simmons. Simmons, a part of the Harden trade, is still looking to make his debut with the Brooklyn Nets, who currently sit at number eight in the Eastern Conference. The Sixers have looked comfortable with this trade, as the Harden-Embiid duo is one of the scariest in the league.

This allowed Hamilton to move into fourth and Kevin Magnussen, a recent replacement for Nikita Mazepin on the Haas team, to move up to fifth. Perez was able to fight back to his fourth place spot by first taking advantage of Magnussen's lock-up and then by chasing down Hamilton. McLaren continued to struggle in the back of the pack, not being able to break into the top ten at any point. Williams and the Alpine team also struggled to make any progress under the Bahrain lights.

As the race progressed, both of the top teams, Red Bull and Ferrari, continued to fight for the podium positions. Each team pitted both drivers three times even though the forecast had originally only called for two stops. Alternating from soft to medium and back to soft tires seemed to be the best plan for success. When Verstappen pitted for the third time, Ferrari was able to pit Leclerc. The decision was made easier when Pierre Gasly’s car caught on fire and brought out a safety car. During Lap 46, the Alpha Tauri driver suddenly pulled off the track and came to a standstill. Within seconds, the engine erupted in flames due to an overworked gearbox with lack of time to cool. The following safety car allowed the lapped cars to unlap themselves and many chose to pit at this time, including the race leader Leclerc.

Gasly’s sudden explosion was an omen of the disappointment that was to come. Verstappen had started complaining about lack of control and steering issues during the middle of the race. The defending World Champion was still in second after the restart of the race, but Sainz was right on his tail. After the safety car had

Memphis has defnitely exceeded some expectations, and with Ja Morant playing like the superstar the organization believed he was when they selected him second overall in the 2019 draft, they could cause some havoc in postseason play. This would be the frst playoffs that Morant has ever played in, and since he is still young for his NBA

Looking towards the Eastern Conference, the picture is a lot less defned than their Western counterparts. While the Miami Heat are currently leading the conference, last year's champions are on their heels. Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks won the NBA Finals last year, and fnally brought the Larry O’Brien trophy back to Milwaukee after 50 long years. They kept a good amount of their core from last season, and will look to repeat the success they found last season. Although Antetokounmpo has remained his dominant self, it’ll be interesting to see the different game plans teams use to lessen his blow.

Following the pack is the Philadelphia 76ers, who have now added former MVP James Harden to an already solid line-up. Much

The Boston Celtics recently passed the Chicago Bulls to claim the four seed in the East due to 12–3 winning rampage over the last 15 games. The Celtics have been one of the hottest teams in the entire NBA, ranking number one in the East for point differential at +5.5. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have experienced the playoffs before, even making it to the Eastern Conference Championship in 2018 and 2020 but losing both. Will their new coach, Ime Udoka, fnally be able to take them over the hump? While the Eastern Conference title contenders are still under great discussion, the Western Conference has started to produce a clearer picture. The Suns, Grizzlies, and Warriors are looking incredibly strong and starting to pull in the title conversation. Both LA teams have struggled, although seemingly having some of the strongest rosters in the NBA. With some of the usual contenders having a rough year, the Western Conference has opened up, and these three teams are enjoying the limelight.

A lot of questions are yet to be answered surrounding the top teams in the east. Are the Nets gonna come alive when postseason hits? Was the Cleveland Cavaliers success a fever dream? Are the Heat getting the respect they deserve? Can the Bulls contend with the bigger named teams? These questions could be argued for hours with no solution in site, but the postseason is a tell-all. No matter who makes the playoff or at what seed, this postseason is set to be a thrilling one.

Photo: Creative Commons. Design: Jack Yuanwei Cheng/the Justice.

Waltham, Mass.

JSA’S ‘KONBINI’

By MEGAN LIAO AND SMILEY HUYNH JUSTICE EDITOR AND STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

On March 17, the Japanese Student Association held their “Convenience Store Night” in Skyline Residence Hall along with the Korean Student Association and Taiwanese Student Association. The word “Konbini” is the abbreviation of the Japanese word for the convenience store, “konbiniensu sutoru.” In several East Asian countries, convenience stores are open 24/7.

Design: Megan Liao/the Justice

SMILEY HUYNH/the Justice

MASHISSUH: The Korean Student Association prepared tuna, bulgogi, and veggie Kimbaps.

IRRASSHAIMASE: Midterm-stressed Brandeis students cleared the food only 30 minutes after the event started.

PLUSHIES: Students visiting the event had the chance to win prizes playing games hosted by JSA members.

OISHII: JSA’s Karaage (Fried Chicken) and Curry Tonkatsu (Fried Pork) were absolute unmissable dishes at the event.

TSA: The Taiwanese Student Association group served braised, pork rice, and milk tea from Taiwanese eatery Dolphin Bay.

Photo Courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS

KONBINI: Seven Elevens and Family Mart are common convenience stores in Japan. Besides food, it is also possble to have your package delivered to convenience stores.

By JASON FRANK JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Charli XCX’s new album

“Crash” came out this week on March 18. It’s an electro-pop confection that is designed to bridge the gap between Charli’s experimental side and the music that might actually be played on the radio. In that regard, it’s probably a failure.

Charli had a few brushes with mainstream success early in her career: she scored a feature on Iggy Azalea’s number one hit “Fancy,” had her song “Boom Clap” featured in “The Fault in Our Stars,” and sang lead on Icona Pop’s “I Love It.” But in 2015 she swerved away from the pop mainstream by releasing “Vroom Vroom,” an “avant pop” record produced by experimental electronic music producer SOPHIE.

Instead of a B-List celebrity pop star, Charli transitioned into a role as an A-List indie pop star and has released a slew of experimental EPs and albums since. A common joke is that her music now sounds like pots and pans clanging together, but while pots and pans won’t make it on the radio, she’s certainly had a niche.

Then, last year, she released “Good Ones.” “Good Ones,” a pop

HOROSCOPES

Aries

By MADDY DULONG JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

This week sees the very beginnings of Aries season and the astrological New Year! This brings more energetic, can-do vibes, a perfect match for the warmer weather approaching. This week also brings Mercury falling into Aries this Sunday, the 27. This could lead to very short attention spans on everyone’s part. Use this to your advantage — keep things short and sweet and it might make more of an impact than a long, drawn out explanation. Keep an eye out for new passions that may arise this week, whether it be a new fing, new friendships or new opportunities. This new passion may fzzle out just as fast as it appeared. Allow things to take time to settle down, and plant roots before going headfrst.

Taurus Happy astrological New Year, Taurus! Use this extra Aries energy to spark new fames in your life! However, don’t get too caught up in the fast-paced Aries season: make sure not to put too much on your plate. This Sunday, Mercury leaves your 11th house and enters Aries in your 12th house of spirituality and karma. As Mercury is the communication planet, you may be feeling some “divine intervention” or spiritual inspiration. Allow inspiration to come from unexpected sources, and really just roll with the punches the next few weeks, Taurus. Mercury in Aries is a great opportunity to take hold of any anxiety or nerves that may be plaguing you and make breakthroughs by communicating with others and through various types of therapy.

Gemini Aries season is upon us, Gemini, as is the start of the astrological New Year! Some tips for this Aries season: listen to your emotions, especially your anger. Aries is a fre sign, and the frst sign of the zodiac, often nicknamed the baby of the zodiac, so you may fnd yourself feeling more passionate or impulsive about even the smallest issues. Find some

single about being bad at dating, was the most typical song she’d released in years. With it came the tweet “rip hyperpop,” hailing the end of the experimental genre she’d previously been lumped into, and, in many ways, been the biggest star of.

Now, four attempts at “mainstream” pop singles later, comes “Crash.” The album rollout and simultaneous transition into more typical pop have not been without hiccups. At one point, after a tepid fan response to her single “beg for you,” she released a statement asking people to stream it anyway so she could write more avant-garde pop later. She also called a fan a “c*nt” for fnding the singles mediocre. The album is here, but it wasn’t an easy journey.

Yet for all the histrionics accompanying the album’s release, it’s a very good electro-pop album that, surprisingly (given Charli’s shouting about creating something mainstream), doesn’t sound like the current mainstream at all.

The biggest stars in pop music of the past few years have been Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, The Weeknd, Dua Lipa, Lil Nas X, and Ariana Grande. Charli sounds like none of these people. Of the

mainstream sound, the closest she gets is via the ever-popular ’80s inspiration which is also present on The Weeknd and Dua Lipa’s recent albums. But, while they err on the side of Michael Jackson and Madonna musically, Charli sounds like Stacey Q, Rick James, and Janet Jackson. It’s easier to listen to than her “potsand-pans” content, but sanding off the edges of her sound hasn’t made Charli more current.

But while she’s still unlikely to get a real radio hit out of the album, that hasn’t proved detrimental to the music. The title track begins the album and is the most reminiscent of her hyper-pop past in its use of vocal splices, but now they’re melded with a new jack swing infuence that’s indicative of Charli’s larger approach to reference. New jack swing was a trend beginning in the late ’80s, combining R&B with rap and dance music for a peppy, excited, manic music style. Despite our cultural music obsession with the ’80s, new jack swing hasn’t really made a revival in the 2010-20s. Yet Charli, ever the pop music intellectual, can take the manic quality of new jack swing and combine it with the similarly manic nature of her electronic

pop. It works well, allowing current Charli to combine her predisposition for energetic, dizzying music with a previously mainstream music tradition.

The strongest song on the album is its eighth track, “Lightning.” Charli has long shown a facility with toneshifting pop centerpieces (“Track 10,” anyone?), but here she refrains from the attentiongrabbing clanging that defned her previous entries in this category. Instead, “Lightning” grabs attention through its sheer number of hooks and constant left turns. Its slow start belies a bright yet morose electronic love song that seems to be more regretful of love than anything.

“Lightning” works partly because it contrasts the album’s largest faw: the songs are simply too short and it’s the fault of her mainstream pop ambitions.

“Lightning” is the only song over three and a half minutes, and thank God for that because the tonal shifts the song makes require a longer time. For some reason, the mainstream trend of short songs is the sole one that Charli has actually followed through. Spotify’s economic strategy has rendered short songs more proftable as it means

‘Crash’: another failed mainstream attempt Weekly horoscopes

outlet for your anger in a healthy way this Aries season! Also keep in mind, Mercury enters Aries this Sunday, landing in your 11th house of community. You may fnd yourself at the height of popularity at this time! Take advantage of it. Spend quality time with friends and prioritize your free time for what you want to do!

Cancer Love yourself a little extra this Aries season, Cancer! Aries is the ruler of self-love, and it is important to embrace that this season! Think a little extra about the people in your life and what they contribute. Prioritize those who serve you well, and think a little extra about those who may not have the best intentions. Mercury lands in Aries this Sunday, and right into your 10th house of long-term goals and your career. You may see a boost in your charisma and communication skills. Reach out to some connections this month, or even schedule an interview during this time. Keep in mind how important networking is, and communication being boosted in that area during this time allows you to make the most of what you have!

Leo Listen to your heart this Aries season, Leo. You might feel an extra boost of energy thanks to the sun currently being in your fellow fre sign Aries right now, but don’t let that get the best of you. Take the time this season to ask yourself what is worth your energy. Putting too much on your plate at once can overwhelm you and potentially cause burnout.

As Mercury enters Aries this Sunday, it will land in your ninth house of adventure and travel.

Widen your horizons during this time! Perhaps attend an event or panel about another culture, or join a cultural club on campus, or even just get out into Waltham and fnd new local places to eat or shop!

Virgo

Keep an eye on your stress lev-

els this Aries season, Virgo! As your sign is stereotyped as being somewhat of a “control-freak,” this chaotic and passionate Ar-

ies season may leave you more stressed than carefree. Take control of the potential bursts of inspiration and energy you may get this season by writing down your ideas and scheduling plans ahead of time. Even with this pre-planning, some chaos can be expected during this season. Learn to open up to what you can’t control, and allow things to go in the direction they are headed. Mercury lands in Aries and your eighth house of intimacy and fnances this Sunday. Be open to talking about your wants and needs with those around you. And be on the lookout for passionate emotions occurring during this time as well. Don’t blow up on someone who may not deserve it!

more of them can be played, and it’s led to situations like Ariana Grande’s “Positions” having no songs longer than four minutes.

It’s unfortunate that Charli has followed suit. Many of her songs here could use a little breathing room — they’re all so jammed with songwriting “moments” that it can be hard to catch your breath, and it hurts the album as a whole. Listening to “Crash” straight through means that a strong song is likely to be missed because these short, intense bursts of energy blend together.

“Move Me” and “Every Rule” in particular are lost in the shuffe of the album’s near-constant push forward. The short-song issue is particularly diffcult to grapple with because of its purely commercial nature. Charli knows better than this. For all her intelligence as a writer, she is seemingly incapable of identifying her audience. None of her singles off this album have charted in the United States, but she’s creating music as if she expects to go to the top 10. The strongest parts of the album are the moments when she lets the mainstream go. Hyper pop may be dead, but Charli XCX, pop auteur, needs to live.

Libra Relationships take priority this next week, Libra! With the Sun currently in Aries and Mercury joining in your seventh house of relationships and partnerships this Sunday, relationships rise in priorities for you! Mercury leaving your productive sixth house could lead to a drop in productivity or motivation, so keep an eye out for that! However, embrace that your personal relationships may be a higher priority these next few weeks! Plan some dates with your signifcant other or even a friend date, and spend some quality time with the people who matter to you the most! If you are currently single, now may be the time to put yourself out there and try a new dating site or give someone your number! The law of

attraction works, you just need to put in the effort!

Scorpio Start spring cleaning, Scorpio!

Mercury lands in Aries in your sixth house of organization and order this upcoming Sunday!

With the Sun in this placement as well, spring cleaning may be at the forefront of your mind the next few weeks. Whether it’s cleaning your room or clearing out your email inbox, take some extra time to prioritize your mental and physical wellbeing and clear out anything that may be causing stress. Don’t try to do too much at once, though. It is never a bad thing to ask for help, especially when cleaning a shared space. Use this Aries season’s “gogetter” attitude to motivate your roommates to help make your space neat and tidy! The sixth house also rules physical health, perhaps use the nice weather this week as an excuse to get outside and get moving!

Sagittarius Romance is on the rise for you this week, Sagittarius! As the astrological New Year begins in Aries, Mercury is also moving into Aries this Sunday, landing in your ffth house of romance and creativity. This double Aries energy combined with Mercury, the communication planet, might lead you to have a major boost in creativity, fun opportunities, and general good vibes. Make plans with friends, a signifcant other, or anyone who wants to have a good time these next few weeks. You deserve it! Be adventurous; plan a fun, unexpected night out with friends. Maybe even go on some dates and open yourself up to new romantic opportunities. Go into this new year with an open mind and a good attitude and really start the astrological year off right!

Capricorn Aries season and the start of the astrological New Year brings new life and energy to you, Capricorn! Mercury falls into Aries and your fourth house of domesticity this Sunday! With spring cleaning underway, your place of residence may become a hive for

activity. Especially with Mercury being the communication planet, this is the perfect time to plan a fun night in with your friends or signifcant other. Have a karaoke night, TV marathon, or even a long-awaited gossip sesh! Some solitary self-care activities are always appreciated during this time as well, especially when Aries rules self-love! Splurge on yourself, Capricorn: prepare for the upcoming nice weather by treating yourself to a pedicure or a new summer wardrobe!

Aquarius

Communication is on the rise for you this Aries season! As energy and new beginnings are on the rise with the start of the astrological year, Mercury swings into Aries in your third house of communication this Sunday! If you have been meaning to do anything involving writing, speaking, etc. now is the time to get started on that! Even just making an outline for a new project could inspire you more than you think! You may also feel incredibly social in the next few weeks, Aquarius! Any social events will fll that desire for chatting and catching up with friends, even just meeting for dinner or attending game nights. Focus on your communication and harness the power it gives you, as it will become your superpower in the next few weeks!

Pisces

Finances rise in your priorities this week, Pisces! With Aries season and the astrological year just getting started, you may be feeling slightly more energetic and inspired than you were previously! Mercury sails into Aries this upcoming Sunday and right into your second house of fnances and work! Use this extra energy and clarity about your money to your advantage! Perhaps rework your budget, or start saving up for an upcoming trip! If you are already feeling pretty confdent as far as fnances go, perhaps use this energy to focus on some other second house rulers, such as your priorities or habits. Cut any habits that may not be serving you and focus your priorities for this new year!

Design: Megan Liao/the Justice

Photo Courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS ARIES: Aries season started March 21.

STAFF’S Top Ten

JACK YUANWEI CHENG/the Justice

Top 10 albums and EPs released in 2022 (so far)

By JANE FLAUTT JUSTICE ASSOCIATE EDITOR

The indie music gods have blessed us this year, and it’s only March. In my very biased opinion, here are the top 10 albums/EPs released in 2022 so far.

SUDOKU

“Both illustrations were inspired by the impact of climate change on the Earth and the idea that humans are primarily the cause of the Earth’s dismay. Initially, both were in response to an art scholarship that challenged me to create art that represents the phrase ‘Conserve Life.’ One is a watercolor piece and the other is mixed media — ink overlaying a photograph. I wanted to use the image of the bottle to allow us to see how one simple object can cause so much pain — within one you see wildlife and the other the ocean. Both symbolize our mistakes and attempt to illuminate how we can fx them.” — Mina

Rowland

1. From 2 to 3 - Peach Pit

2. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You - Big Thief

3. The Jacket - Widowspeak

4. Shoals - Palace

5. Laurel Hell - Mitski

6. Texas Moon - Khruangbin and Leon Bridges

7. BRIGHTSIDE - The Lumineers

8. Once Twice Melody - Beach House

9. Rose Pink Cadillac - DOPE LEMON

10. Lore - Vundabar

MINA ROWLAND/the Justice